Category Archive

I recently discovered an interesting blog called ‘Migrant Tales‘. The author of which is clearly concerned with immigration matters and writes a lot on Finland’s migration politics. Often, in debates on how immigrants should be integrated into Finnish society, one hears the argument “When in Rome, do as the Romans”; in other words, that integration should mean that migrants to Finland so quickly as possibly forget their own background and take on entirely a Finnish lifestyle - essentially abandoning or replacing their own cultural values and taking on ours completely. This argument comes up in comments to Migrant Tales and in many other online and offline debates on immigration and integration policy.

This “When in Rome, do as the Romans attitude” got me thinking today when I heard a story on Yle Radio Västnyland (I’m on holiday at the moment in my wife’s home area near Ekenäs) this morning about the increase in people moving from the capital region to the rural municipality of Ingå. The report was about this high level of Finnish-speakers moving into Ingå causing the municipality’s sole Finnish-language school becoming overcrowded and featured a Kokoomus (National Coalition party) Finnish-speaking member of the Ingå council suggesting that Ingå ought to urgently look to constructing a new, second Finnish-language school in the municipaltiy as many Finnish-speaking families were “making do” with putting their children in Swedish-language Ingå schools to save them from travelling longer distances to the municipality’s one Finnish school.

Now, I wonder what the “When in Rome, do as the Romans” attitude holders would make of this. Surely if Rome were Ingå, and one was to do as the local ‘Romans’, one should be adopting the Swedish-language rather than insisting on Finnish language services.  Today’s Ingå is a bilingual municipality with Swedish as the majority language (according to the municipal website, around 57% of the 5 458 residents speak Swedish - 40% have Finnish as their mother tongue.)  If one went back to 1950, before any widescale immigration to the municipality had got underway, you would have found that 89,5% of Ingå’s residents spoke Swedish as their mother tongue (according to Folktinget’s statistics). Before the wars of the 40s, you would have found that the municipality was unilingually Swedish-speaking. So, presumably if you held the “When in Rome” attitude, you would be condemning those unthoughtful Finnish-speaking immigrants of today and the latter half of the 20th century for not integrating and insisting on the superceding of their own culture on to the Finland-Swedish.  You would be accusing them of failing to act as one should in Rome.

Incidentally, this argument could be applied to many, many more districts - including municipalities that no Finnish speaker would think of as a traditionally Swedish-speaking area today; for instance, the capital region’s Esbo (Espoo) which is today’s second largest city in Finland with around 235 000 residents (mainly due to immigrants from the rest of the country moving to the capital region) was 43% Swedish-speaking still in 1950. Today it is 8,9%. Before the wars and in the first half of the 20th century it was still a very rural, sparsely populated unilingual Swedish municipality. Is this another example where the “When in Rome” attitude holders would see a failure?

Now, I’m not arguing for the application of the “When in Rome, do as the Romans” (i.e. integrate completely or stay away) attitude in official policy. Hopefully my thoughts here help expose such thinking as unrealistic at the very least. I would love to hear from some “When in Rome, do as the Romans” attitude holders as to whether their beliefs also cover their own Finnish-speaking compatriots when they have chosen to move to Swedish-speaking areas and often cause them to dramatically change in cultural and linguistic character.

Swedish-speaking Finns are becoming all the more bilingual. That’s according to the latest trend from the Finland-Swedish Barometer survey.

According to researcher Kjell Herberts at the Institute for Finland-Swedish Future Research, one can read this trend by comparing the latest barometer results with surveys done in the past. In 1950, 46% of Swedish-speaking Finns asked said that they had a strong command of both national languages. According to the most recent research, 82% of Swedish-speaking Finns are of the opinion that they have a strong command of Finnish as well as Swedish. (Although it is apparently hard to make a totally accurate comparison, as the questions were asked differently in 1950 as to more recent surveys, and the question does not necessarily imply that one should be fluent in Finnish to give a positive response).

According to Herberts, the situation for Swedish in Finland is made more difficult by those Swedish-speaking Finns who so easily and willingly switch to using Finnish when accessing services. According to Herberts, it is also the case that the more bilingual one becomes, the easier it is to abandon one’s own language. Herberts, however, does not believe that the existence of Swedish in Finland is threatened in at least the short term.

The latest barometer survey also shows that Swedish-speaking young people are significantly less interested in politics than their Finnish-speaking counterparts. 77% of Swedish-speaking youths said that they were either not at all interested or not especially interested in politics.

The Swedish-language department of Finland’s public service broadcaster, Yle, is again being forced to make cut backs to its offering.

Currently the main editions of the news bulletin programme ‘TV-nytt’ are broadcast at 18.15 and 20.00 (with a shorter 5 minute summary later in the evening on weekdays). The 15 minute long 18.15 broadcast has been established in that time slot since 1996. The 20 minute main 20.00 edition has existed since FST (Finland’s Swedish Television) received its own channel when digital tv started (previously FST existed as slots on Yle’s TV1 and TV2).

The latest cost cutting exercise means that the separate main 18.15 and 20.00 will be scrapped in favour of only one programme to be broadcast at 19.30. It will last 25 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of sport news. This is the same time as Channel 4 (Nelonen, a commercial channel) transmits its main evening news. There will also be a 5 minute bulletin at the crazy time of 17.25 which coincides with the Swedish language flagship hour long 17.00 radio news edition of Aktuellt on Radio Vega. The late evening edition of Tv-nytt will be extended to 10 minutes.

There is also talk of the Swedish language news department having to share the Finnish language news studio. This would be possible with these new proposed times (during which Yle doesn’t have any scheduled Finnish language news transmissions.) If this should go ahead, one must wonder what would happen in the instance of a crisis where TV-Nytt needs to stay on the air to cover a major event. Plus, it will inevitably lead to a watering down of the Swedish language news’ own identity on screen. The Finnish language news department is not going to tailor its studio to meet any specific needs of TV-Nytt. TV-nytt only just got a new studio, about 6 months ago.

The twice weekly in-depth current affairs analysis programme ‘Obs’ is also threatened by these cut backs; there is talk it will either lose one edition per week or disappear entirely. Apparently Yle’s excuse is that with a 25 minute long main edition of TV-nytt, there will be plenty of time for analysis already during that programme. This seems to be rather naive - not everyone wants to sit through indepth analysis during the main news. And with a loss of two bulletins which did have a slightly different feel (the 18.15 concentrates a little more on local events around Swedish speaking Finland), how will they fit it all in to the 19.30 if they are going to have to stuff in the in-depth stuff there too.

It seems the staff of TV-Nytt and Yle’s Swedish department are less than happy with the changes. According to Vasabladet, TV-Nytt’s news director Gunilla Löfstedt-Söderholm said she was concerned that the programme would lose viewers because of this as it’s not the same people who watch the 18.15 and 20.00 bulletins. “This is a sad decision. TV-Nytt has been transmitted around 18.00 since the 1960s. Establishing new habits amongst viewers takes many years”.

The savings also threaten Swedish Yle’s international correspondents. Although according to the director of the whole of Swedish Yle, Annika Nyberg-Frankenhaeuser, they will be retained. Personnel cutbacks are likely to hit part time employees.

All of this is very sad news. Especially coming so soon after Radio X3M (Yle’s Swedish language pop music/youth radio station) was saved from threatened closure after large scale public protests. Also, digitalisation promised us more domestically produced programming in Swedish with the greater amount of time available to broadcast through FST having its own channel. Now it seems that this promise is to be broken.

Pictures: Copyright Rundradion Ab. First:TV-Nytt studio with Gunilla Löfstedt-Söderström at the desk. From Svenska Yle’s webpages. Second: from programme ‘Obs’.

The Swedish Assembly of Finland, Folktinget, has officially reported the Finance Ministry to the Parliament’s Justice ombudsman. The reason for this is that the Finance Ministry requested the official opinion only in Finnish of 11 municipalities who have Swedish as their majority language. The opinions were requested regarding the proposal to close the Magistrate districts of Raseborg and Åboland.

Despite enquiries by the municipalities concerned, the ministry failed to send the documents in Swedish.

Folktinget considers that the Finance Ministry has broken the Language Act. According to the law, state authorities should communicate to a municipality using the municipality’s majority language.

The chair of Folktinget, Ulla-Maj Wideroos said “The Finance Ministry has broken the Language Act and furthermore done so in a matter that has great significance for the Swedish-speaking population. We can not accept such infringements of the law. It can not be accepted that authorities ignore the Language Act.”

The Finance Ministry’s documents were requesting official opinions of municipalities on the ministry’s proposal to close Raseborg magistrate and Åboland magistrate, both of which have Swedish as their majority language. According to the ministry’s proposal, the magistrate activities of these areas would be incorporated into respectively Esbo (Espoo) magistrate and Åbo (Turku) city and district magistrates - both of which would have Finnish as the majority language.

The planned court reform which threatens the independence of small courts worries both their personnel and municipalities, according to a report from Radio Vega’s local channel in Åboland. At the forefront of concerns, is the risk of poorer services and the inability to speak one’s mother tongue.

The Swedish-speaking staff at the court district of Pargas which serves Åboland are concerned that the working language, which is largely Swedish currently, will be Finnish after the reform. According to them, this is something that would complicate their daily lives. In the case that Finnish becomes the working language, the step to the client being unable to receive services in Swedish to the degree they can today is not long.

According to chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo (Turku) court district (to which Pargas will be merged according to the reform plans), there is no reason for concern.  He considers it pleasant that the Swedish speakers speak their mother tongue and believes that they can do this also in the future. He also believes that the fact Swedish will be heard in the corridors will be of benefit to those staff that have Finnish as their mother tongue.

According to Radio Åboland, it’s not just the court staff that are concerned over the reform - municipalities are also. With them, it is also the position of the Swedish language that causes concern. According to Pargas’ municipal director Folke Öhman, it is vital that municipalities guarantee that Swedish services continue at the current good level in the future. According to Öhman, it seems that these days everything is decided in advance and that reform has become an end in itself.

Chief judge Erkki Hämäläinen at Åbo court regards the criticisms as unjustifiable and does not believe in the municipalities’ concerns that the status of Swedish will worsen with the planned reform.

New mothers in Finland are given the option of receiving a ‘maternity box’ by the National Insurance Fund (FPA, Kela) containing various items of use when caring for a new baby. The contents is updated regularly and a few weeks ago, the 2008 ‘version’ was released.

The release of the new box has provoked some unexpectedly strong reactions amongst a small minority of Finnish speakers. According to an editorial article printed on Wednesday 14.5. in the Finnish-language newspaper Keskipohjanmaa (published in Kokkola/Karleby) the new box contains pro-Sfp (Swedish peoples’ party) propaganda.

Presumably this wild and bizarre (and false) accusation by the article’s writer, a Jouni Nikula, comes from the fact that the latest maternity box includes, amongst its various leaflets, a bilingual brochure called Ge ditt barn en gåva - Anna lapsellesi lahja (’Give your child a gift’). The leaflet, which is actually produced by Folktinget - The Swedish Assembly of Finland, and not Sfp or any other political party, is about bilingualism. It offers advice and support for parents who wish to bring up their child to speak both Finnish and Swedish.

How on earth anyone could find the inclusion of this leaflet a threat or dangerous is beyond me. Surely everyone should appreciate the benefits of being able to speak more than one language. Anyone that is offended by a leaflet in more than one language (and I suspect this particular offence was caused by the other language being Swedish) must surely be suffering from at least some form of mild xenophobia. Or are there really some Finnish-speakers in roles of newspaper editorial writers (in bilingual towns!) who, in 2008, find the existence of Swedish-speaking Finns or even bilingual Finns something not to be desired?

The picture is from the website of the National Insurance Fund. It shows the contents of the 2008 maternity box. For those that are interested, you can find pictures (and description) of the entire contents on the website of the National Insurance Fund: http://www.fpa.fi/in/internet/svenska.nsf/NET/010403100821MP [SV]

The Nordic Youth Council (UNR), the youth political organisation of the Nordic Council, has decided that it will allow the English language to be used when necessary in meetings. This goes against the official Nordic language policy which stipulates that the working languages are Swedish/Norwegian/Danish (which are mutually intelligible).

According to UNR, Nordic cooperation should be open to all individuals in the Nordic countries and not be an exclusive club for those that can speak a Scandinavian tongue.

UNRs president Lisbeth Sejer Götzsche said that she had come to the conclusion that speaking English on occasion would not make her any less Danish or Nordic.  However, she pointed out it would be easier for UNR to operate in solely the Scandinavian languages if it received more support for interpretation.

It’s hard to understand why this decision is necessary. Finnish-speaking Finns, Icelanders, Greenlanders and the Faeroese all must study one of the mainland Scandinavian languages (in practice Swedish for Finnish-speaking Finns and Danish for the others) in school. UNR seems to be sending out a signal that says the education systems are failing to perform their roles.  It also seems to be conceding and even collaborating with the English take-over of various domains which is damaging for the vitality of the Scandinavian languages. Of course, English is a global language and it’s convenient that we have such a tongue - afterall, this blog is written in it to reach out. But the Nordic Council and its youth wing are meant to be forums for the Nordic countries - it’s not an entity that encompasses the wider globe. English or any other non-Nordic language simply shouldn’t be necessary.

Picture is of the Nordic Youth Council’s members. Source: Nordbild/norden.org

Nearly 4 out of 10 Swedish-speaking Finns believe that an organised resistance exists towards Swedish-speaking Finns and Swedish-speaking culture in Finland.

This is revealed in a opinion survey that the Swedish department of Finland’s public service broadcaster Yle ordered from the Institute for Finland-Swedish Societal Research (IFS) at the university Åbo akademi.

38% of Swedish-speaking Finns believe there is an organised opposition to all things Finland-Swedish, 35% don not share this view and 27% chose not to answer this question.

According to Yle, IFS researcher Kjell Herberts thinks the trend is clear - Swedish-speaking Finns feel concerned and anxious and see that understanding for the Swedish-speaking element in Finland can no longer be taken for granted. Herberts believes that, for example, the handling of the restructuring of the municipalities and basic services can have contributed to this viewpoint. In the view of Herberts, things felt much more secure in the past. Now Swedish-speaking Finns often see that it’s just talk, not action, when decision makers promise to safe-guard Swedish-language services.

Low marks for almost all decision makers

As part of the survey, respondents were asked to rate various institutions and the parliamentary political parties, using a school-style grade (from 4-10), for how good they are in handling Swedish-speaking issues. Few got good grades.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s (centre) coalition government received a low 5,9.

The Swedish Peoples’ Party (SFP) received the best grade, 8. This is quite a surprise as SFP has been criticised in recent times for not managing to succeed in defending Swedish-speaking interests well enough - it has sat in coalition governments that have removed Swedish as a compulsory element of the school graduation exam for Finnish-speaking students and that have reformed institutions in ways seen as marginalising the Swedish-speaking influence.

The other political parties received even worse grades. The Social Democrats (SDP) received 6,3. The Christian democrats got 6 and the Green party 5,9. The Left Alliance received 5,6. The two biggest parties in the current parliament, National Coalition (Kokoomus) and Centre received 5,5 and 5,4 respectively. The lowest grade was given to the True Finns party, who received 4,4.

85% think Swedish should be part of the school graduation exam

If it were up to Swedish-speaking Finns, Swedish would again be introduced as a compulsory element of the school graduation exam for Finnish-speaking students.

53% of respondents would make the other domestic language (i.e. Swedish for Finnish-speakers and Finnish for Swedish-speakers) obligatory in the test. 32% support making it compulsory but don’t believe it’s a realistic proposition. 15% thought it should not be compulsory.

The first of a planned series of four books on Finland’s history during the Swedish times has come out.

The first volume is written by the former national archivist Kari Tarkiainen and is called Sveriges Österland (roughly “Sweden’s Eastern Province”). The three later parts are written by Nils Erik Villstrand, Max Engman and Henrik Meinander.

Tarkiainen’s book chronicles Finland from pre-history until Gustav Vasa (who was elected king of Sweden on 6/6 1523) and includes the period before Erik the Holy’s mission to Christianise Finland up to the time of the first king to use the word fatherland.

The timing of the book series’ release is to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Finnish war (between Sweden, of which Finland was then part, and Russia) which ended Finland’s time as part of the Swedish realm.

Tarkiainen’s book includes an insight into how the relationship between the Swedish and Finnish languages was during the early period of Swedish rule. Apparently it was relatively good; Finnish snapped up over a thousand loan words from Swedish, even some that Finnish already had its own word for. For example, the word leikkiä (from Swedish leka) replaced the word kisata (all meaning “to play”, as in how children do). At the same time, many Finnish place names were incorporated into Swedish. The Swedish language gained prestige as it was spoken by the nobility, civil servants and priests. The Finnish speakers were more typically found amongst the lesser bourgeoisie and the peasantry.
“The peasantry often couldn’t speak a single word of Swedish but there was no prejudice against Finnish. However, social mobility required a change of language” Tukiainen told Hufvudstadsbladet in an interview to mark the release of his book.

However, many ordinary Swedish countryfolk also migrated to the eastern part of the realm as many countryside districts in the area occupied by today’s Sweden were overpopulated. That many of the Swedes that came to Finland to settle were countryfolk is one of the reasons that the Swedish-speaking Finns today are found throughout the social scale. Many Finns also moved to Stockholm, this was not a move to Sweden but rather simply to the capital city.

The priests had to be able to speak the local language, not just Latin, and the demand for Finnish become gradually a way to bar Swedish-speakers from the priesthood. At very least, it lead to the priests becoming bilingual in Finnish and Swedish.
“Mikael Agricola [credited as the creator of written Finnish] was bilingual. He spoke both languages to a high-level. If that was because of his homelife or if he taught himself during his carrier is something people disagree on” says Tarkiainen.

Tarkiainen explains that “if the colonisation had come from the area of the Baltic countries or Novgorod, Finland would have been completely different. It was fortunate that the colonisers came from Sweden; freedom of the peasantary and the inheritance of a state with the rule of law were good for society. In fact, it’s not really right to talk about colonialism because the Finns had exactly the same rights and duties and from 1362 received the right also take part in the election of the king.”

Sveriges Österland is published by Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (The Swedish Literature Society in Finland) with ISBN number 9789515831552. If you speak Swedish, the society has a video interview with the author Kari Tarkiainen on its website.

The map shows the core of the Swedish realm at around the year 1700, i.e. later than this post covers. At different times, the actual areas controlled by Sweden were smaller/larger, this map is therefore just as a guide.

The controversial outspoken Swedish-speaking Centre party district chairman Peter Albäck has declared (via his blog) that the Swedish Peoples’ Party (Sfp) threatened to quit the government coalition if no proposal for a Swedish-speaking district was included in the court district reform plan (announced about a week ago).

Albäck makes the claim amongst many of his regular denunciations of Sfp (indeed, even to the impartial political observer, his blog seems much more concentrated on forwarding a personal vendetta against Sfp than presenting Centre’s views or policies). Senior Sfp members (including Ulla-Maj Wideroos) have denied that his accusation is true and again expressed dismay that Albäck is threatening the good cooperation between Centre and Sfp at government level.

It is indeed hard not to doubt the trustworthyness of Albäck’s statement, especially given the way he decries any one who does not hold his opinions on his blog (for instance regularly calling people who sympathise with Sfp politics as “taliban”.) If Sfp had threatened to quit, surely they wouldn’t want to keep it secret. For many of their electorate, it would be seen as a good thing; cast-iron proof that Sfp is standing-up for Swedish-speaking Finns. One has to wonder if Albäck’s latest attempted smear on Sfp actually does it more favours than harm.

Image source: Peter Albäck, Centre party’s online image bank. Copyright Suomen keskusta.

The Gymnasium Student’s Association of Finland (SLL) wants an increase in the number of Finnish-speaking students taking Swedish as part of their school-leaving exam. In order to do this, the association is suggesting that the value of the Swedish test is raised to a similar prestige as the civil service language test, or at least for the written part.

The association also suggests that the student exam test in Swedish receives a speaking part.

According to the association, the problem of fewer Finnish-speaking students taking Swedish in their student exam should be solved by measures increasing the motivation to learn languages.

The Minister of Justice, Tuija Brax (a member of the Green party), announced her proposal for the reform of Finland’s court districts. Their number is to be reduced by nearly half meaning a geographical redrawing of the map. Many had feared that this would be very bad for the status of Swedish in the court system, with most rumours suggesting that the proposal wouldn’t make any proposal for any Swedish-language majority court districts in the whole mainland. (Today there are three).

However, Minister Brax has proposed that the district for Österbotten with its administration in Vaasa/Vasa maintains a Swedish-speaking majority, encompassing the whole territory of the Österbotten region. Even Kristinestad and Jakobstad will maintain a courthouse, although their local court administration offices will close. The city of Kokkola (Karleby) with a Swedish-speaking minority was feared to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the high court in Rovaniemi, but will stay under Vaasa with new provisions to guarentee Swedish service.

The Pargas court district in Åboland and Raseborg court district will become parts of Finnish majority districts. However, new legal provisions will be put in place to ensure their is a separate unit to offer service in Swedish in the office in Turku/Åbo which will in future also be responsible for the Pargas area. Raseborg will also have its administration in the strong Swedish-speaking majority town of Ekenäs rather than the largely Finnish-speaking Lohja as was originally planned.

Minister Brax’s proposal has come to the relief of many who feared it would go much worse. Clearly, lobbying by Folktinget and Sfp has helped. Also, I don’t think we should forget to thank Brax herself. She has spoken very elegantly on the radio and television about the needs of Swedish-speakers, especially in judicial matters, to be able to access services in their mother tongue. Clearly she understands the needs of the minority far, far better than our Interior Minister Anne Holmlund (a member of the conservative Kokoomus party). Holmlund could learn a lot from minister Brax!

(Picture source: Lehtikuva Oy/Statsrådets kansli)

Finland has two official languages; Finnish and Swedish. It is compulsory for all school students to study the other domestic language; Finnish in Swedish-speaking schools, Swedish for the Finnish-speakers. However, since 2005 it has been possible not to chose to take the other domestic language as part of the end of high school examination.

This year, around 13 600 Finnish speaking students have decided they will take Swedish as part of their school graduation exam. That’s a massive decline of nearly 15 % compared with last year. Since the 2005 reform, around a third of all Finnish-speaking school graduation exam takers have chosen not to take Swedish.

This is a worrying trend. In order to be able to offer services to Swedish speakers, the government and authorities need speakers of Swedish. It may be easy to choose not to take it at the time; but what happens later in life when you decide you want to work for the state administration, the police etc?

There are reports that show that the quality of Swedish teaching in many Finnish speaking schools is poor and uninspiring. Swedish needs to be made more interesting and attractive to Finnish speaking students - from an early age - so that the enjoy learning the language. Right now, many may well choose not to take it because of the poor teaching and thought that it might be easier for them to get a better grade in something else. The government needs to take measures to give more funding to Swedish as a school subject and improve the teaching quality. Perhaps a more intensive programme of cooperation could be opened up between Finnish and Swedish speaking schools in this country - and perhaps also Sweden.