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Presidential Election 2012
The Ombudsman for Minorities Eva Biaudet has been unveiled as the Swedish People’s Party’s candidate in next January’s presidential elections. Biaudet must receive the endorsement of the party’s conference meeting in October, but this is thought to be a mere formality. She announced her candidacy yesterday at a press conference alongside former SFP presidential candidate Elisabeth Rehn, who made it through to the second round against eventual victor Martti Ahtisaari in the 1994 presidential race. SFP’s previous leaders and other prominent figures from the party were also alongside Biaudet, showing that she has widespread support at least amongst the party’s top. She had been widely tipped as being SFP’s candidate for some time in the media.
Before being minorities ombudsman, Biaudet worked at the OSCE in Vienna on issues surrounding human trafficking. She has previously been a government minister and parliament member in Finland.
Biaudet could prove to reach out across the language divide and pick up Finnish-speaking votes. Whilst I can’t see her repeating the success of Rehn in 1994, she is a liberal figure that may prove popular amongst those disappointed with the current harder debate climate on matters such as immigration bought about largely because of the recent rise of the True Finns party in national politics. She is also looking likely to be the only woman amongst a field of otherwise ageing men in grey suits. She is also untainted by recent national political involvement which could prove to be an advantage, she also has international experience. I personally think that Biaudet is a great candidate in this election. Someone who would provide Finland with a respectable figurehead internationally at this time when our reputation has become somewhat tainted by the populist wave experienced during our parliamentary elections. It is also important that SFP has a candidate in the election. Even if there is little chance of an SFP candidate getting to the second round or elected, the election provides many forums to debate political issues, even those not directly related to the president’s limited powers. SFP needs to be there debating these issues otherwise it risks becoming invisible to the electorate. With a candidate in the election, SFP can now be sure to be able to take part in the coming debates in the run up to the January election.
And let’s not forget, a lot can happen during this autumn and winter. No one would have predicted that Elisabeth Rehn would have made the second round in 1994 at this stage of the campaign. So, let’s not rule anything out just yet.
Pictured: Eva Biaudet (left) and Elisabeth Rehn (right)
The Swedish People’s Party (SFP) is to stand candidates in April’s parliamentary election in the Lappland electoral district for the first time. Usually, SFP only offers candidates in the electoral districts of Helsingfors (Helsinki), Nyland (Uusimaa, southern Finland), Egentliga Finland (Finland Proper, i.e. Åboland) and Österbotten, i.e. where the vast bulk of Swedish-speaking Finns live. This year the party is also going to the polls in Uleåborg (Oulu) and for the first time in Lappland. Uleåborg is home to a small ‘language island’ of Swedish-speakers.
In Lappland, SFP’s 5-candidate list will feature Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi (pictured), the present chairman of the Sami Parliament - the assembly representing the indigenous population of Lappland. Näkkäläjärvi told Finnish radio that he wanted to stand for parliament to further the status of the Sami language and Sami culture. According to a press release from SFP, Näkkäläjärvi understands the the need to maintain the ability to access services in one’s mother tongue and the needs of minority cultures.
This news reminds me of the time some years ago that then SFP parliament member Eva Biaudet rose the issue of Sami rights during a debate in the Finnish parliament. A parliamentarian from one of the Finnish-speaking parties (Centre if I remember correctly) asked her afterwards why she was bothering to ask such questions on such matters when SFP was never going to win any votes from the Sami population. She said then that as a member of a minority group she sympathised and understood their plight.
Svenskfinland in English has been taking a little (okay, long) break of late. I have simply had too much to do with work and, if I am honest, I lost the urge to blog. But had I been blogging away as usual during the last six months or so, I fear that this blog would not have made happy reading.
The language climate in Finland is becoming ever less tolerant and the position of Swedish risks being so seriously maligned that a future in which it is possible to access public services in one’s mother tongue seems ever more bleak.
Amongst things that have happened in the last few months include the ongoing saga of the orientation of the city of Karleby (Kokkola) in Österbotten. Despite various bodies stating that for linguistic reasons it should be included in the Österbotten region with its state services located in Vasa, the Centre party (led by very vocal support from new Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi) continues to call for its incorporation into the district led by the unilingual Finnish-speaking city of Oulu/Uleåborg. The question seems to have become a matter of stubbornness amongst Centre party members who do not want to back-down even in the face of the Constitution which would seem to make any northern orientation illegal because of the linguistic consequences.
Maternity services at Ekenäs hospital in Western Nyland have closed down despite massive protests by local inhabitants and many, mainly Swedish-speaking, politicians. The municipality of Raseborg, where the hospital is located, has a majority of Swedish-speaking Finns and the hospital was the last in a Swedish-speaking majority area in southern Finland to offer maternity services. Residents of Raseborg will now be forced to travel to hospital in Lojo or Esbo to give birth, where Swedish-speaking service is often hard to obtain. Ludicrously, some Finnish-speaking members of the hospital board covering much of southern Finland suggested that Raseborg residents could travel to Borgå hospital if they wanted to be sure of Swedish service when they give birth – a journey of 153 km taking around 2 hours by car – hardly feasible for a mother entering labour!
The debate surrounding Swedish-language instruction in Finnish-speaking schools heated up during the last six months with debate on its future even making the main headlines in the Finnish-language media. The debate – even in the mainstream media outlets such as Yleisradio and Helsingin Sanomat - continues to use the pejorative term pakkoruotsi to describe the teaching of Swedish, meaning roughly ‘forced/compulsory Swedish’ – strangely one never hears of ‘forced mathematics’ or ‘forced biology’ classes. The debate gained prominence largely because the National Coalition Kokoomus party’s congress voted against the party leadership’s direction on a measure calling for the abandonment of Swedish as a compulsory school subject for Finnish-speakers. The Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK) also called for its abolishment. According to EK, schools ought to offer a broader range of languages instead of compulsory Swedish. This seems to suggest that the teaching of Swedish is an impediment to the learning of other languages, which is of course very strange logic indeed. Learning Swedish is naturally of no hindrance to also learning Russian, German, French, Chinese or any other language. Finland’s bilingualism ought to be a plus for Finnish industry’s competitiveness, especially when Finland is a Nordic country. EK’s reasoning was dealt a further blow when a survey showed that 80% of companies in the finance sector regarded the knowledge of Swedish as a decisive factor when choosing how to employ.
In a move that has the potential to cause the loss of life, reports of a 112 emergency call centre failing to be able to speak Swedish to a unilingual Swedish-speaking caller from Sibbo have again been in the media in recent weeks. Fortunately, the call was not concerning a life-threatening medical condition and the caller was eventually able to pass her phone to a neighbour who spoke good Finnish – but the example shows that authorities are not living up to their legal obligations in even the most serious areas of service-provision. What would have happened if it was a serious condition and an ambulance was not dispatched in time to save a life? Emergency messages to the public that are broadcast on television screens as text have also failed to appear in Swedish in two incidents recently, once concerning a severe fire in the largely Swedish-speaking town of Hangö.
In film-related news, Swedish subtitles have also been missing from many cinema film showings of late with cinema films blaming it on digitalisation. Apparently modern technology means that it’s not possible to do what was quite achievable before – namely to show subtitles in two languages at the same time. A debate has also blown up in the Swedish-speaking press surrounding the new Moomintroll film. The film will premier in Finnish and English with the Swedish-language version to follow only a few weeks later. Given that the Moomintrolls are probably the most famous Swedish-speaking Finns, concern has been raised that this is a sign of ever increasing Finnish-language cultural imperialism in Finland. An attempt to deny that the Swedish language is part of Finland’s culture – even with the now world-famous Moomintrolls, a Swedish-speaking creation.
It is not all bad news, the increasing indifference and lack of understanding for Swedish has raised concern even amongst prominent Finnish-speaking politicians. Elder statesmen Martti Ahtisaari (former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner) and Paavo Lipponen (former Prime Minister) have spoken in favour of Swedish. President Tarja Halonen has also expressed her concern for recent developments.
Pictured: Protesters against the closure of the maternity ward in Ekenäs on the steps of Parliament in Helsingfors/Helsinki.
Reactions to Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat editorial
The Social Democrat parliament member Jacob Söderman has said that yesterday’s Helsingin Sanomat (HS) editorial is a warning that things are going very wrong for Swedish-speakers’ rights.
HS wrote yesterday that Swedish-speaking Finns’ concerns over their diminishing rights were justified. See previous blog entry for more details.
Söderman named the Centre party as the biggest villain behind recent decisions that have effectively reduced the ability to receive services in Swedish. Municipalities / Local Government Minister Mari Kiviniemi (Centre) received particular criticism for her attempt to ignore the concerns of both Parliament’s Consitutional Committee and the Chancellor of Justice with regard to assigning bilingual Karleby (Kokkola) to the unilingual Oulu state administrative district instead of the strongly bilingual Vasa. Both the Constitutional Committee and Chancellor of Justice has ordered that Kiviniemi arrange a report that compares the two options with regard to the linguistic consequences of such a move. Kiviniemi has tried to instead order a report that would only investigate the linguistic provisions that Oulu would be capable of providing.
The Swedish People’s Party (SFP) parliament member Ulla-Maj Wideroos has claimed in the light of HS’ editorial that “it is obvious that there is a hidden agenda concerning the Swedish language. The Centre party’s next step will be to adjust the parliamentary electoral districts to ensure that the influence of Swedish-speaking Finns is reduced.”
Wideroos also claims that the National Coaltion party (Kokoomus) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) bear some of the responsibility for the current language climate, “Centre receives the power that the other two main parties give them”.
Söderman (SDP) states that in his judgement the Centre party has closed its ears to the requirements of Swedish-speakers.
The chair of of the Swedish assembly of Finland, Folktinget, Anna-Maja Henriksson (SFP) also points to Centre, but also others, “Centre has displayed a spectacularly nonchalant attitude for Swedish in the matter of Karleby, but Kokoomus have also helped them. With regard to the police district reform, the minister responsible was from Kokoomus.”
Wideroos (SFP) regrets the fact that there are today so few, if any, strong advocates of bilingualism amongst Finnish-speaking politician. She mentions former prime minister Esko Aho (Centre), former prime minister and parliament speaker Paavo Lipponen (SDP), former president and Nobel peace prize winner Martti Ahtisaari (SDP) and former minister Olli-Pekka Heinonen (Kokoomus) as politicians previously active who understood the importance of bilingualism and acted to further it.
Wideroos welcomed the fact that HS has now acted in defence of bilingualism. “This is exactly what we need. Finally, the country’s largest newspaper has said precisely what we have thought for a long time. This is of great importance, this will certainly be read by prime minister Vanhanen (Centre), opposition leader Urpilainen (SDP) and finance minister and party leader Katainen (Kokoomus).
UPDATE 27/10
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) has denied that there is any reason for concern over Swedish-speakers’ rights. He told reporters from the Finnish News Agency FNB/STT that he had not had time to acquaint himself with the Helsingin Sanomat’s editorial but that “we are one people with two languages and both languages ought to be equal.”
“Ought” to be, Matti? Actually, I think you will find it is “must be”. Time to take out the law books and read the constitution.
For more on our prime minister’s difficulties in understanding reality, read this entry on the Jees Helsinki Jees blog: Vanhanen to Swedish-speaking minority: “Your grievance against the Finnish mainstream isn’t justified” « Jees Helsinki Jees
Finland’s highest circulation newspaper, the Finnish-language Helsingin Sanomat (HS), has published an editorial in which it states that the concerns of Swedish-speaking Finns over their rights are justified.
HS states in its leader that the last few years have seen an increasingly tougher climate for Swedish in Finland, primarily as a result of three reasons; an increase in hateful views on Swedish-speakers and Swedish in Finland on a number of internet-based discussion sites, a new generation of politicians who often no longer speak Swedish fluently and a view amongst many politicians that larger institutional units are as effective as small ones. The paper names Helsinki’s recent forced annexation of a significant part of western Sibbo (Sipoo), the decision to close down the maternity ward at Ekenäs hospital, the reform of court districts, the reform of the police’s administrative districts, the attempt to get bilingual Karleby (Kokkola) to join the unilingual Oulu state administrative district against its city council’s will, and the recent proposal for bilingual schools in Esbo (Espoo) as examples of recent policy decisions that cause harm to Swedish-speakers’ rights. The newspaper states that these decisions show that the right to receive services in one’s mother tongue has been relegated to secondary issue when decisions are made.
HS’ editorial states that Swedish-speaking Finns can be a part of the reason behind the change in attitude towards Swedish in FInland. The leader column states that “Swedish-speaking Finns have had a defensive attitude towards their linguistic rights. This has strengthened an understanding amongst Finnish-speakers that Swedish-speakers want to isolate themselves and are inflexible.”
However, HS goes on to state that is is hard for persons belonging to a linguistic majority (i.e. Finnish-speakers) to understand how things seem for a minority group that are constantly concerned about their cultural identity and rights.
Helsingin Sanomat states that is is time for decision-makers to take the rights of Swedish-speaking Finns seriously. The paper underlines that Swedish-speaking Finns are as Finnish as Finnish-speaking Finns and notes that the cultural roots of Swedish-speakers in Finland go back as far as the start of Finnish history.
Helsingin Sanomat’s leader is a welcome contribution and hopefully will provide a welcome call to Finnish-speaking decision makers and civil society who may not even have noticed how recent actions have effected the Swedish-speaking population. For Finland’s bilingualism to work, it needs champions in Finnish-speaking society and amongst Finnish-speaking politicians. We Swedish-speakers can not make it work on our own.
At the same time, the fact that the issue has become so clearly visible even on the radar of the leader pages of Finland’s most influential newspaper reveals just how serious the language climate is right now. We must hope that there are Finnish-speaking politicians, including those in the government, who have read this article today and have realised that constitutional rights must be upheld in order to ensure our law-based society continues to develop hand in hand with the values of fairness.
The youth organisation of the right-wing nationalist True Finns party held its autumn conference in Vasa over this weekend. One of the resolutions that conference delegates agreed upon was a demand that Swedish be abandoned as an official language of the country. According to the True Finns’ youth wing, a disproportionately high amount of taxation revenue is used to offer services in Swedish in comparison with how small an area Swedish is spoken in.
This intolerant attitude is perhaps to be expected from the True Finns and thus comes as no great surprise. It would be too much to expect them to ask, if Swedish is so awful, why so many Finnish-speaking Finns have moved to Swedish-speaking areas in the last half a century? However, the True Finn’s historical revisionist attitude (Swedish has been an established language in the parts of Finland that it is found for at least as long, and sometimes longer, than Finnish) prompts an interesting point – what would Finland be like if there had never been any Swedish-speaking Finns?
Well, Finland’s cultural scene would look very different. Some of the most famous and internationally renowned artists would never have existed. There would be no Moomintrolls, no Topelius and no Sibelius – and so, ironically, no Finlandia – which some anti-Swedish language activists periodically demand to be instated as the national anthem in place of the Runeberg’s Vårt land/Maamme Suomi. Indeed, the national poet Runeberg, who wrote in Swedish, would never have written his epic poem, Fänrik Ståls sänger, which has been heavily used to rouse national sentiment on many an occasion, for instance during the Winter War (it is from this work that the lyrics for the national anthem were taken).
Would Finland still be Finland now? Or would it have become Russified after a massive defeat in a Winter War without the leadership of Mannerheim? Indeed, would we have even gone so long as that before becoming a part of the Soviet Union. Who knows, without Mannerheim commanding the whites, maybe the reds already succeeded in fostering a socialist revolution as they won the civil war in 1918?
The Finnish economy would certainly look very different if Finland had never had any Swedish-speaking Finns. They’d likely be no Fazer, no Stockmann, no Ahlström, no Fiskars, no Abloy (today Assa Abloy), no Viking Line, no Kone. You’d probably not be able to get hold of a Nokia mobile phone, Nokia’s electronics department was set up by a Swedish-speaking Finn, Björn Westerlund.
Of course, if I wanted to really court controversy, I could argue that there would be no written Finnish language. The first work in written Finnish was Mikael Agricola’s translation of the Bible. Agricola was a Swedish-speaking priest from Pernå. Agricola is often hailed as the father of the Finnish language. Its mainstream breakthrough as a language of culture came at the hands of the (Swedish-speaking) romantic nationalist Elias Lönnrot. It was Lönnrot who compiled the Kalevala, the Finnish language’s national epic, a work quite fundamental in shaping many of the beliefs of what it means to be Finnish and that spurred the national awakening. Would no Lönnrot have meant no independence from Russia?
In short, without the Swedish-speaking Finns, Finland would not be the Finland we know it today.
And in post script, I should make it clear that without the Finnish-speaking Finns it would likewise not be the country it is today. Both language groups have helped build this country into what it is. Both fought for this country as Finnish patriots. Finland is the native home of all Finnish people, regardless of whether they speak Swedish or Finnish as their mother tongue. We should not forget our common past nor abandon our common destiny.
This is the conclusion of sociologist Thomas Rosenberg from Lovisa on why some of the Finnish-speaking population are irritated by their Swedish-speaking compatriots.
His remarks come in the wake of the story of an 18-year old Swedish-speaking woman being assaulted at a restaurant in Åbo/Turku by a Finnish-speaking man because she was speaking Swedish.
According to Rosenberg, such a case is nothing new. “I don’t even know how many times I myself have been forced to flee from a pub because I was speaking Swedish – but it’s many”, he told the new Swedish-speaking youth website Peppar.fi. “During the 1970s and 1980s, the aggression against us Swedish-speaking Finns was strong, perhaps stronger even than today.”
Few researchers are prepared to – or dare to – comment on the subject of aggression towards Swedish-speakers by Finnish-speakers, reports Peppar.fi.
Thomas Rosenberg suggests that the reasons behind the increase in anti-Swedish feelings amongst Finnish-speakers may be down to the fact that there has been an increase in Finnish chauvinism in recent times at the same time as populism has grown. According to Rosenberg, this is partly because Europe has become more international and all the more immigrants have arrived. This has caused a kickback reaction. Rosenberg says that we know from the past that negative attitudes towards other cultures have always been strong in Finland, “we are a young nation. What we see now is a strong will to defend Finnishness. It is somewhat comic that this aggression is often directed towards us Swedish-speakers instead of towards immigrants”.
On being asked what Swedish-speakers can do to counteract this aggression, Rosenberg replied that “it is hard because the Finnish-speakers have a picture of us as being happy, positive and pleasant people. This image that they have created of us creates envy. We are not really freed from the stamp of being “bättre talande folket”* just because we are so damned happy and integrated and social competent and cocktail-knowledgeable and succeed so well. We appear to seem as governors of the poor Finnish-speakers in their image. That can be irritating for them. The stamp of us being the elite remains.”
Rosenberg suggests that Swedish-speakers lower their demands in order to improve relations. He suggests that a regional dimension is bought to the fore and suggests that we should abandon the concept of “forcing” people to learn Swedish throughout the entire country.
“I belong to the those that spoke in favour of abandoning compulsory Swedish language lessons in Finnish-speaking schools. We paid a high price for ‘compulsory Swedish’ because it was so unpopular. In the coastal areas [where the majority of Swedish-speakers live], people absolutely ought to study the minority’s language, but I think it is politically unwise to do this in the whole country. We should think in regional terms and restrict Swedish in Finland to the coastal areas – but there we ought to get stronger rights”
On being asked whether he was speaking about a ‘reserve’, Rosenberg answered yes. “Svenskfinland [Swedish-speaking Finland] is already a reserve to a great extent. We ought to reach a historic compromise and wind down the demand for a bilingual Finland and give up ‘compulsory Swedish’, just so long as we do not need to beg an apology for speaking Swedish in Svenskfinland.
Rosenberg hopes that reaching such a compromise would be possible. “Swedish is currently continually being undermined as an official language. There is just an long series of loses, and it is certainly the fault of politicians. We have too long lived with the belief that we have a good language law – but it reflects an early twentieth century reality that we no longer live in. I do believe that in the long run, the historically dependant prejudice based on us being ‘occupants’ will disappear. But we’re not there yet”.
* Svenskatalande bättre folk – “Swedish-speaking better people”. A common stereotype held of the Swedish-speaking Finns, usually with a derogatory meaning. Based on an untrue image that the Swedish-speakers are all rich and perhaps snobbishly assume that they are a ‘better people’ than the Finnish-speakers.
This article is based heavily on Peppar.fi’s article, which can be found here [SV]. Thus, any errors and the woodenness of the translation are entirely my fault!
An 18-year-old woman was assaulted on Wednesday evening by a pair of Finnish-speakers because she was speaking Swedish. The incident happened in at restaurant Amarillo in Åbo-Turku.
According to news reports, the Finnish-speaking pair of a man and a woman first asked the 18-year-old woman to leave the restaurant. When she refused to leave, they pulled her by her hair.
The man escaped, however the woman was taken in for questioning by the police. The 18-year-old victim has repoted the incident as a crime to the police.
According to the police, such incidents are very unusual and this is an individual occurance. However, the chairman of the student union at Åbo Akademi, Finland’s largest Swedish-speaking university which is based in the city, said that he is aware of violence occuring against people just because they speak Swedish. He told the internet newspaper Peppar.fi, “If one is in town or in a pub in the evening, one often makes sure to speak Swedish quietly. It’s simply a matter of one’s own self preservation instict”.
SFP Party Conference 2009 in Helsingfors
The Swedish People’s Party (SFP) held its party conference at Arcada in Helsingfors this weekend.
The issues that have been most picked up in the media can all be said to be encompassed as equality related:
- Leader Stefan Wallin condemned the True Finns fishing for votes in the undercurrent of racist attitudes its campaign for the EU parliamentary elections in June. SFP can be said to have one of the least hostile policies on immigration of the Finnish political parties.
- SFP voted to propose that women also be included in military service, to a far greater degree than today.
- Most controversially, SFP voted to support adoption rights for same-sex couples (of any children put up for adoption, not just the children on one of the partners as Finnish law has just been changed to allow). The party voted 108-83 in favour of this motion.
Whilst SFP’s position on all of these issues can be said to be steps in the right direction for equality and liberal thought, the pragmatist can put them into question by wondering to what degree they go along with what should be the party’s key aim: the winning of votes. After all, if SFP does not ensure support at elections, it won’t be in a position to speak out for liberal values to any extent at all. SFP must be careful not to forget its principal raison d’etre: the defence and safeguarding of the position of the Swedish-language in Finnish society. To be able to do this, it needs to unite the Swedish speaking electorate. They also form the party’s core voting bloc; risking alienating or splitting them is dangerous for the party’s future. Yet, some of these decisions, perhaps especially that on same-sex adoption risk just that. There is a serious risk that this decision will alienate a not insignificant core of conservative SFP supporters, particularly in Österbotten, an area where so-called ‘traditional’ religious values are still strong. Whilst I, and many in the liberal wing may support these recent policy decisions, they may run the risk of undermining the more important task of the party, safeguarding Swedish. Certainly, SFP may pick up extra votes from the other language group, for instance from Finnish-speakers appalled at the racism of the True Finns and seeing SFP as the only party to truly condemn them. But will these be enough to replace those votes lost from the party’s key electorate? I doubt it. And even if they are, they are unlikely to come from people who give as much importance to the protection of Swedish.
Time will tell. But I fear that in the current political climate, where Swedish is under threat more than at any point in the last twenty years, SFP can not afford to alienate its core supporters. It is time for the party to unite and concentrate on its key mission. I hope that’s the conclusion that this autumn’s special extraordinary conference will come to. It was announced this weekend as being a chance for SFP’s grassroots to involve themselves to an unprecedented degree in the party’s policy-making. A chance to shape the direction of the party for the next few years.
It would be fair to assume that the answer to this question is yes. At least if you base your conclusion on product packaging and many signs in Finland. All the more often, the Swedish version of text on product wrappers and on signs is less visible and often even less comprehensive than that of the Finnish version. More rarely, it’s simply badly or wrongly translated. So, it’s an often heard joke amongst Swedish speakers that a person has to have good eyesight to be Swedish-speaking.
The capital of our country, Helsingfors as we call it in Swedish, Helsinki in Finnish, is in fact Finland’s largest Swedish-speaking municipality if one goes by the raw number of Swedish-speaking Finns living there. There are roughly 30 000 Swedish-speakers in our capital, although it’s overall large population means that today these account for only slightly over 6% of the entire residents. But from its foundation by King Gustav Vasa in 1550 all the way until around the turn of the twentieth century, Swedish-speakers were in the majority. During the twentieth century, virtually the whole of Nyland (Uusimaa), but especially the capital, saw massive internal migration as thousands of Finnish-speakers from the interior of the country flocked to the more affluent south. Whilst they undoubtedly gave much to our nation’s economic progress, they had the side effect of irrevocably changing the language situation in many historically Swedish environs – a process that continues even today.
In today’s Helsinki, few Swedish-speaking Helsinki residents (at least those below around 60) bother to start conversations in Swedish in shops, businesses and often even with the authorities (who are legally obliged to offer services in both national languages). The frustration with being met by someone who does not understand or does not want to understand is just all too common. Yet, even in an ever more monolingual capital, there are still spaces that are exceptions to this rule. Places such as in branches of Aktia (a bank), certain known Swedish-speaking cafeteria hangouts and other traditionally Swedish-speaking-owned businesses and of course Stockmann are still thought, by many, to be places where one can naturally speak Swedish without causing oneself too many problems.
It has therefore caused a minor controversy – at least within the pages of Hufvudstadsbladet (slang: Husis) – that Stockmann (slang: Stokis) has, for the first time that at least anyone can remember, placed advertising signs outside its main central Helsinki department store in which the Swedish-text is not afforded equal coverage with the Finnish version. That the adverts also use the Finnish slang word ‘Stocka’ instead of the Swedish slang ‘Stokis’ even in the Swedish text just adds insult to injury. Stockmann’s marketing director brushes off criticism of both these matters saying that they had to make the Swedish text smaller as otherwise the advert’s picture would not have fit on the banner.
The title picture is taken a while back inside the then-newly opened extension of S-market in Borgå. The Finnish text directs the shopper towards the sugar (‘sokerit’). The Swedish shopper is sent to buy socks (‘sockor’, Swedish for sugar is ‘socker’). Source: Borgåbladet
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