A demonstration against obligatory teaching of Swedish in Finnish-language medium schools took place today outside Parliament in the capital.
According to the organisers, the protest was to alert the electorate in April’s parliamentary election to the issue of language. The demonstration was arranged by the nationalistic organisation Suomalaisuuden liitto, the ”Finnishness Association”. The organisation has in the past called for the eradication of Swedish at all levels in Finnish society, including on the unilingual Åland islands. The organisers have arranged free bus transport to Helsinki for protesters.
Counter-demonstrators in favour of diversity and the Swedish language are also attended. Päivi Storgård, a parliamentary candidate for the Swedish People’s Party in Helsinki, called the counter-demonstration. The association of Swedish-speaking history students at the University of Helsinki is also participated with the aim, according to Hufvudstadsbladet, of ensuring that there were also ”living Swedish-speaking Finns there, not just language radicals and politicians”.
The clearly intolerant and discriminative nature of the demonstration was confirmed when shouts of “Finland for the Finns” were heard from the anti-Swedish protesters, one can only assume that they don’t believe Swedish-speaking Finns belong in Finland.
This must be the first time in history that a demonstration has taken place against education and knowledge.
Video source: Hufvudstadsbladet, hbl.fi
17 comments
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Thursday 31.3.11 at 12:43
Timothy Bryan
Wow, that is rather amazing. The Finnishness association could also be called the bigot’s association. Do they think Finland Swedes are even Finns?
Thursday 31.3.11 at 14:25
Jonas
It is rather astounding, I must agree. It is sad that the organisation has been hijacked by such extremists, although a little comforting to know that their membership is apparently barely more than one thousand.
What is a scandal is that they are still responsible for the raising of the flag on Independence Day. A flag that is supposed to represent all Finns regardless of language. I wrote about this a while back, http://svenskfinland.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/finnish-flag-90-years-old-today/.
Thursday 31.3.11 at 22:13
jokuvaan
“Wow, that is rather amazing”
Yes it must be if you believe everything that Jonas tells while stream of news from Finland just wont make common sense when you add up things.
Saying that organisation has been derailed can be put in the “two reality worlds” category.
When they for example before WW2 urged people to change their surnames to Finnish ones, were they on track or derailed then? It’s a amusing claim that they became pro-Finnish only in the late 80′s(and never before) when it has been whole founding idea.
“What is a scandal is that they are still responsible for the raising of the flag”
I think you are over-dramatizing that one, and flag raising is not your problem, its the fact that majority of people in Finland dont see Swedish language as part of their identity like you personally do. For the fun here’s one flag that might interest certain readers and old stamp too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Swedish-speaking_Finns
What comes to demonstration I must give my thumbs up for young Frederika Åkerö from SFP who came there to keep speech dispate her limited Finnish skills. Unfortunately there were 1-2 hot heads who kept quite a noise during many invitation speeches.
Btw. election tools show that majority of parlament candidates want to remove forced Swedish that was installed during cold war days. There are some other interesting things too but I leave them on later time.
Thursday 31.3.11 at 22:45
Jonas
Of course they are a pro-Finnish language organisation, and always have been. As you rightly say, that is their founding idea and their mission. A certain clue in their name. I don’t have any problem with organisations in favour of the Finnish language and I think they have done some good things in e.g. the post-war era (after the post-independence language strife). . But since the 1980s, they have indeed been hijacked by extremists which prompted a mass exodus of reasonably minded members. You don’t have to be vehemently against any other group to forward cultural and educational projects in Finnish. For instance, Svenska kulturfonden is naturally an organisation principally concerned with furthering causes in the Swedish language, but it also regularly donates to national cultural projects that encompass both language groups as well (a recent example would be its funding to the new Music House being built opposite the site of today’s protests).
Jokuvaan, How is the flag-raising not my problem? Are you trying to suggest that the Finnish flag is not my flag and by association that I am not Finnish?
Thursday 31.3.11 at 23:02
jokuvaan
“Are you trying to suggest”
I’m telling what is the source of the problem and the main issue. Your self-identity is different than the majority and you either cant accept it or refuse to accept it. Most likely you were rather old when you stumbled into this and certain things were already firmly locked in the brains.
Thursday 31.3.11 at 23:15
Jonas
I am afraid I don’t understand your reply. How do you know what my self-identity is? I find it hard to believe that anyone has one single identity. I, like probably the vast majority of people on this earth, have multiple identities. But in any case, being Finnish is a very major part of my identity. A certain white flag with a blue cross is the one raised outside my house on Independence Day, and other flag days, and on days in which we celebrate a birthday or family party, (and hopefully on the day that Finland wins the ice hockey world championship also!).
Thursday 31.3.11 at 23:23
jokuvaan
“How do you know what my self-identity is?”
It’s bilingual Finland in the meaning that everyone can/should handle Swedish, idea that is not shared by the majority.
Thursday 31.3.11 at 23:38
Jonas
So only people who think as the majority (and the majority as defined by you) are entitled to feel Finnish and fly the Finnish flag as theirs? I am afraid I continue to not understand the relevance of your reply. I ask you directly once more, are you trying to suggest that the Finnish flag is not my flag and by association that I am not Finnish?
For your information, my identity – which I don’t understand how you can assign anyway – is not bilingual, at least not in the way that I understand it. I do speak Finnish to what is essentially mother-tongue level, it is not however my joint mother-tongue. I first came into contact with it in a major way in school.
Friday 1.4.11 at 0:25
jokuvaan
“I ask you directly once more, are you trying to suggest that the Finnish flag is not my flag and by association that I am not Finnish?”
Not in any way.
Friday 1.4.11 at 2:13
Timothy Bryan
Jokuvaan,
I can’t really see where you are coming from. Are you suggesting Swedish-speaking Finns can’t see themselves in that way to be Finnish? That is bizarre.
I suspect the mandatory Swedish will go away, but it is the Finnish nation that will be made less for it. Learning Swedish would be a good thing for more Finns do to–in my opinion.
Friday 1.4.11 at 11:32
Antero
Timothy,
of course it is a good thing for Finns to learn Swedish. As is learning Russian, Norwegian, Estonian, English… But do you think all Finns should have the responsibility to learn Swedish? That is the question many people are asking when they are being critical towards obligatory Swedish.
My answer is no. Swedish is a part of the Finnish national heritage – in some parts of the country. In the east or in the north, very few people ever speaks or spoke Swedish in their daily lives and they were indeed more proficient in Russian or sometimes even in Sami. We make a disservice to reality if we say that the fluency in Swedish that is well and good for the people in the bilingual areas on the coast should act as a model for what is needed in all parts of the country.
Everyone who is interested in learning Swedish should absolutely be able to learn it in school, but those who would like to learn an another language altogether should also be able do as they want. This naturally applies to native Swedish-speakers in Finland: they shouldn’t be forced to learn Finnish either.
Friday 1.4.11 at 11:57
Jonas
Hello Antero, and welcome to this blog! Thank you for making your case in a reasoned way.
It should, of course, be noted that there is nothing stopping students from learning other languages now. I studied English and German at school in addition to the other national language (Finnish for me, of course). I also took a little French. The problem, as Jyrki Katainen also mentioned in an election interview I heard the other day, is that schools have moved away from offering as many languages as they used to as available options. Swedish-speaking students actually, on average, study more languages than their Finnish-speaking compatriots despite having far, far more hours devoted to classes in the other national language. So, Finnish schools in fact have a lot more time to play with – there is no reason why schools in eastern Finland shouldn’t use this to teach Russian.
It is a false argument to position Swedish against Russian. Everyone in this country should have a knowledge of the national languages, otherwise they could be disadvantaged later in life in their career choices. Naturally, a person from Imatra or Nykarleby may very rarely meet with real-life situation in the other national language in their hometown, but one day they may wish to work in a job elsewhere that requires it. Let’s not create second-class citizens. I thus reject making teaching of the other national language optional.
Friday 1.4.11 at 12:44
Antero
Jonas,
Thank you for the welcome and your comments. I understand you have taken this issue at heart, and I can respect that.
There is nothing stopping students learning other languages, certainly. But learning four languages is harder than learning three, especially if you aim for fluency. The added problem with Swedish is that in the predominately monolingual parts of the country people have low possibilities to keep up their skills in everyday life and thus it takes more conscious effort to learn the language in Lappeenranta/Villmanstrand than in Nykarleby/Uusikaarlepyy. And if the situation leads to frustration, the obligatory language might act as a roadblock between learning additional languages: language learning, in itself, might seem dull and “not worth it” due to the motivational problems with Swedish.
The situation is different in Sweden, for example, where people don’t have the responsibility of learning a minority “legacy” language like Finnish, even though there are (in absolute numbers) more native Finnish speakers in Sweden than Swedish speakers in Finland. Thus, with the same amount of funding and effort, the Swedish school system can educate the students in a wider variety of foreign languages. Do you think this works into the advantage of the Swedish people and economy, in general, or should Sweden rather adopt the same policy with their Finnish-speakers as we currently have with our Swedish-speaking minority, in the interest of national unity?
I am conceptually against the idea that a Finnish person not able to speak Swedish would become a second-class citizen. This was certainly the situation before 1809 and even before 1917, but it should not be that in modern Finland. In most jobs in most parts of the country, Swedish skills are not really required in everyday work, and that indeed is one of the reasons why people find it so hard to maintain a working, active skill in the language. It is a paradox, really: if Swedish truly was so intrinsic to Finnishness as our current legislation and the Swedish People’s Party say it is, we wouldn’t need any laws and obligations to keep up the Swedish skills of the majority of the population. People could maintain fluency through a natural, everyday exchange of words and ideas.
That is, alas, not the situation in reality. The importance of Swedish in binding Finns together, even the well-educated people, has been diminishing all through the last century. Now we are arriving to a time, where the excellent constitutional status negotiated by the Swedish-speakers (from a position of strenght) in the early years of independence is no longer firmly rooted in everyday reality. If it ever was after 1809. I see the current resurgence of anti-Swedish attitudes and groups as symptoms of this situation: how things are and how they are explained to be are becoming detached from each other ever more clearly, and people are noticing this- and some are using the situation to political advantage. The True Finns in particular come to mind.
It is kind of sad, really, but I fear that if the liberalisation of language policies is not made possible by peaceful parliamentary means, we will see more extreme groups using the idea of “freedom of language” for the Finnish-speakers as a hobby horse in the future, leading to much bigger problems than this small demonstration yesterday.
Saturday 2.4.11 at 10:54
Timothy Bryan
Hello Antero,
Good posts, and well thought out, but I am a bit confused about where you are going with it. It is obvious to me that many of the people that oppose Swedish are not as well balanced as yourself, and in fact want Swedish gone from the Finnish psyche, not just removed as a compulsory language. I believe Jonas is feeling a siege mentality because of this, as I certainly would when there is constantly talk amongst many Finns that one has to speak Finnish first in order to be considered Finnish. His blog is not the only place I have seen that sort of belief amongst some Finns.
I might also add that there probably exists amongst Finland Swedes a desire for their culture to prosper as well, and not just keep dropping to a smaller percentage of the national population. Perhaps they would like their language to have a chance to grow as well? It is difficult to see how that could happen when people such as in the video above express their rather short-sighted views (I am not referring to you).
As to the situation of Finns in Sweden, it is my understanding that they enjoy excellent language protections for their numbers. For proof of this I am attaching a link that evidences the attempt by the Swedish authorities to encourage Finns to raise their children to speak Finnish in as many places as possible. I assume you can speak/read Swedish, so forgive me if that presumption is incorrect.
http://www.sverigefinne.nu/Sprakegendom.pdf
Saturday 2.4.11 at 10:56
Timothy Bryan
Jonas,
I hope it is OK to post that link; it is a good article and I think you will like it as well.
Wednesday 6.4.11 at 11:59
Jonas
Hello,
Extremely busy at the moment with work and such, so my reply has taken a while and is being written rather quickly. My apologies. I will try to address the issues raised
I would not necessarily agree that learning four languages is harder than three. Languages often support each other. Studies have shown that bilingual people often find it easier to learn other languages as well. It is of course harder for a Finnish-speaker to learn Swedish in Lappeenranta than in Nykarleby, but a Swedish-speaker finds themselves with the same greater challenge to learn Finnish in Nykarleby than in Espoo. Frustration is certainly an issue with teaching in the other national language amongst many students in both language groups – quite simply, the teaching of the Finnish and Swedish needs to be improved. It is also no wonder that Finnish-speaking students in particular are de-motivated when they start studying Swedish so late in their school careers and for so few hours. It must seem as if they are not given enough time to truly flourish.
Regarding second-class citizens, I was not specifically referring to Finnish-speakers. If I had never learnt Finnish, I’d certainly be in a much poorer position in the job market.
I do not see it as relevant to couple the situation in Sweden to that in Finland. Sweden is a foreign country. They have their own history and way of doing things. It can be said that they have had a historically lamentably poor way of dealing with linguistic matters. But, I don’t see that because one country does one thing or the other, that gives Finland an excuse to do something else. The matters are unrelated. It is a popular in True Finns and other nationalistic rhetoric to try and somehow hold Swedish-speaking Finns responsible for the treatment of Finnish-speakers in Sweden. I find that highly bizarre. And of course, one probably should note that the vast majority of Finnish-speakers in modern Sweden are recent immigrants (from after the introduction of the common Nordic labour market). It is interesting to see that the Swedish authorities are using material from a guide from Folktinget (one of my blog entries touched on it a couple of years ago: http://svenskfinland.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/beware-of-the-maternity-box-a-weapon-of-language-propaganda/)
Thursday 7.4.11 at 22:28
Enrique
I am really happy to see you active again Jonas. As you know, all this talk about mandatory Swedish is shameful and a byproduct of the times. Fortunately Finns are a smart bunch and won’t fall for the type of xenophobia being pushed by parties like the True Finns.