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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.

Svenskfinland in English is on a bit of a summer pause right now. Not much is going on anyway to write about - at least in current affairs.

Some good news today. It has been announced that our cathedral in the city of Borgå (Porvoo) will reopen to the public again already next week. So reports Radio Östnyland.

The cathedral, which is the seat to the Swedish-speaking diocese of the Finnish Church, was set on fire on a Sunday night in late May 2006 by young vandals from Askola. One of these (an 18 year old) was later sentenced by Borgå court to 3 years and 2 months in prison for sabotage. Two others who were accussed of assiting him escaped penalty. The fire destroyed the roof of the historic mediaeval church building but luckily the interior escaped largely undamaged. The sight of the church without its roof shocked many Borgå residents used to it dominating the skyline of their hometown. For those of us who live in this district, it was quite a horrific crime.

The renovation work has now, however, been completed - long ahead of schedule. The new fire prevention and sprinkler system has been tested too. Despite the reopening, there will however not be any church services in the cathedral until the officially scheduled reinaugration ceremony on the 1st day of advent.

2009 will be a significant year for the building and for the city of Borgå. 29 May 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the Borgå lantdag, Diet of Borgå. It was at this meeting that Russian tsar Alexander I proclaimed to the assembled Finnish dignitaries that he would maintain the laws, relgion and language from Swedish rule and that Finland would have autonomy as a grand duchy within the Russian empire.

Borgå cathedral, and the skyline of the old town of Borgå, can be seen as the title photograph of this blog.

Picture in this blog entry, Borgå cathedral in the aftermath of May 2006’s fire. Photo source: Svenska Yle. Logo for the anniversary 200th year since the Borgå lantdag. Image source: Borgå stad.

Almost certainly the biggest celebration of the year in Finland is midsummer. Or rather midsummer eve, which is when the partying is done - although it naturally stretches into midsummer day’s earlier hours in the light night at the height of the summer time. Midsummer’s day is always the Saturday nearest to the longest day. That makes tomorrow’s midsummer eve.

It’s traditional on midsummer to do as on most other Finnish holidays - drink! Happily, midsummer is more than just this. Midsummer is celebrated slightly differently in Swedish-speaking areas than by the Finnish-speaking Finns. The main, most noticeable, difference will be the probable presence of the midsummer pole. This is a tradition that is shared with Sweden. The Finnish speakers light bonfires to celebrate. In some Swedish speaking areas (at least here in the south), there is sometimes a bonfire lit too. Swedish speaking Finns like to dance traditional midsummer dances around the midsummer pole, whilst Finnish speaking tradition is to do so around the fire. It’s probably fair to say that music and especially singing play a greater role in the Swedish-speaking celebrations - and of course, it’s a day where the snaps songs come out in force! The midsummer pole is essentially, just that, a pole of wood. It’s generally said to represent fertility. The design can differ according to where in the country you are. Sometimes it is a representation of a sailing ship’s mast (Swedish-speaking communities often have a close relationship with the water, given their locations). Various things are hang from them depending on the local tradition and they are generally topped by a flag (usually here in Nyland/Uusimaa the blue, white and yellow pendant of Swedish-speaking Nyland). Åland is famous for having the most elaborate poles - often so elaborate that the use of a winch is required to raise them! Fish, especially the pickled herring, is a strong point of the traditional food. Fresh new potatoes (absolutely preferably Finnish if they have arrived) are also a must.

Midsummer’s Day is also the official day of the Finnish flag. One should raise the flag on midsummer eve and not lower it until the following night. It’s the only time when the flag is allowed to fly overnight.

Unfortunately the weather forecast is a bit questionable just now. Let’s hope for a shower free evening tomorrow.

Trevlig midsommar!

Picture: Midsummer celebrations by Raseborg castle. Raseborg castle (near Ekenäs) is a good place to visit in the summer months. You can find information on visiting the castle and events taking place there at www.raseborg.org (although I’m sorry there is not much information in English).

Finland has a way to go yet until we can truly make a claim to being a multi-cultural society. Compared to the vast majority of western European countries, we have had fair less immigration. A contrast that is notable should you travel to our western neighbour Sweden, where more than one in ten persons where born outside of Sweden.

However, the government is now trying to encourage immigration. Just as in other European countries, this is made all the more necessary to fill jobs that Finnish people do not wish to perform. Finnish migration law and services are gradually being improved and reformed largely due to the efforts and leadership of Astrid Thors (sfp), Finland’s minister of migration.

One of the areas of our country that has shown the greatest success and most welcoming attitude towards immigrants is, interestingly, coastal Österbotten. Particularly the rural monolingual Swedish speaking municipality of Närpes has been recognised as the model to follow for integration. Immigrants have been welcomed into the community in a much more genuine and unanimous way than in many other areas of the country. Some have theorised that Swedish-speaking areas have been more accepting of immigrants because Swedish-speakers understand how it is to be in the position of a minority and are thus more accepting. The Swedish Peoples Party SFP is also very favourable in its views on immigration. There was even a line “Too few immigrants” in the last parliamentary election campaign song.

Now the main Swedish language newspapers in Österbotten (Vasabladet, Österbottens Tidning and Syd-Österbotten) have started publishing a regular update of translated news articles of interest to immigrants under the name GIIÖB. The languages are English, Serbian-Croat, Vietnamese and Russian.

You can read the first edition on Vasabladets website as a PDF.

Picture of Astrid Thors: Statsrådet, The Finnish government - Lehtikuva Oy/Ab. Second picture: Map of municipalities of Swedish-speaking Österbotten. The area on the western coast from Kristinestad in the south to Karleby (Kokkola) in the north.

The Swedish Peoples’ Party (SFP) wrapped up its annual conference today in Åbo (Turku).

One of the main issues debated during the weekend was the issue of nuclear power. SFP has previously had an officially negative attitude on the use of nuclear energy. However, with climate change in mind and the need to find solutions to providing electricity without the use of expensive and dirty fossil fuels, the party has adopted a marginally more positive attitude towards the technology.  Delegates voted to describe SFP as “not an active instigator of nuclear power expansion”. Not exactly a glowing endorsement, but the motion supporting this policy line was clearly supported, defeating the alternative proposal that would have described the party as “opposed to an expansion of nuclear energy”. The motion continues to allow SFP’s parliament members to vote according to their own conviction in matters of nuclear energy - clearly allowing critiques of nuclear energy (Ulla-Maj Wideroos being probably the most obvious here) to vote against any future parliamentary measures supporting nuclear energy.

The party conference elected 28-year old Anna Bertils as a new vice party chairman. She replaces Monica Sirén-Aura who stood down. Bertils is from Vörå in Österbotten and was chairman of Svensk Ungdom (Swedish Youth - the party’s youth organisation) between 2005 and 2007. The two other vice chairmen, Sibbo municipal government chair Christel Liljeström and left-winger Nils Torvalds from Helsinki were reelected. German immigrant Gerd-Peter Löcke (who is known for campaigning for more support for immigrants who have integrated as Swedish-speakers) also stood for a vice chairmanship position, but was not successful.  Stefan Wallin, who is the minister of culture and sport in the government, was reelected unopposed as party chair/leader.

Image source: Svenska folkpartiet. You can find more photos from this year’s party conference on their website.

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’.

So was the title of Björn Månsson’s interesting leader article in this morning’s Hufvudstadsbladet.

Revisiting the issue of a separate European parliament seat to represent Åland (as Åland politicians are demanding) or for the wider group of all Swedish-speaking Finns (as Henrik Lax and some others have raised), the leader article unveils some interesting facts which make the demand not so unreasonable as it might have previously seemed.

Månsson draws the reader to the attention of the case of the German-speaking minority in Belgium. Like Åland, they have their own parliament and effective autonomy in their own region. The German minority in Belgium are around 73 000 people - rather more than Åland (around 27 000) but small compared to the total number of around 300 000 Swedish-speaking Finns. Yet, the German-speaking Belgians are guaranteed their own place in the European parliament. And that’s despite their proportion of the entire Belgian population being only 0,7 %. Swedish-speaking Finns make up around 6 % of Finland’s population; Ålanders account for about 0,5 %. Looking at those statistics, it’s harder to argue against a specific Swedish-speaking mandate.

Månsson goes on to highlight the case of the German-speaking minority in Italy, the residents of South Tirol. They also have, practically, a safe seat in the European parliament. What’s especially interesting here is that this German minority is around 290 000 in number - i.e. more or less exactly the same in number as the Swedish-speaking Finns. Yet, looking at them as a proportion of Italy’s entire population, they comprise just 0,5 % - a percentage that is equivalent to Åland’s share of Finland’s people. Surely then, Åland’s demands for its own seat in the EU parliament are entirely reasonable.

Perhaps it’s not as easy as that. Månsson points out that it’s much easier for Italy to give away one seat to a minority as due to Italy’s large overall population it gets an entire 78 places in the EU parliament. But for Finland, with only 13 European parliament mandates, giving one mandate away to a district of just 0,5% of the people would seem highly inequitable.

So, perhaps Finland should ask the EU for an extra seat to be given to Åland. According to Hufvudstadsbladet, that seems an unlikely option. The EU has thrown that option out of the window for fear of opening a Pandora’s box where all of Europe’s autonomous areas demand their own individual seat. So, perhaps the second option is to give a mandate to the entire Swedish-speaking population. According to Månsson, that could be secured by introducing a requirement for one of Finland’s MEPs to have Swedish as their mother tongue.

For me, a Swedish speaking mandate sounds impracticable. If we were to use the suggestion in this Hbl leader, how would we make sure that the electorate vote in one MEP with Swedish as their mother tongue? If the first 13 people elected all have Finnish as their mother tongue, do you deprive number 13 of his or her seat and install the most popular Swedish-speaker even if they got a lot less votes than any in the top 13? Surely that would cause an outcry - not least in some quarters of the Finnish language press. It would also be impossible to create a geographic voting district - Finnish and Swedish speakers live side by side. Svenskfinland is not a clear cut geographic entity.

In any case, even if there were to be a Swedish-speaking seat created, would the people of Åland be satisfied? As Månsson writes, probably not. There are many people on Åland who don’t even consider themselves Swedish-speaking Finns (finlandssvenskar). For them, they are Ålanders (ålänningar) - and that is a status apart. For them, it’s only direct representation for Åland - and Åland alone - that will do.

This year’s Stafettkarneval has began at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki. The athletics competition is contested by teams representing Swedish-speaking schools across Finland. It is organised by Svenska Finlands Skolidrottsförbund -School Athletics Association of Swedish Finland (SFSI).

The event was first held in 1961, being the idea of Carl-Olof Holmén who had taken part as part of the University of Deleware’s team in the 1960 Penn Relay in USA. This event was to inspire Holmén who was enthused by this experience and thus established a similar event for Swedish speaking Finland once he became the chairman of SFSI later in that same year.

In the first competition in 1961 at Djurgården’s sportfield, 601 runners took part. Already that made it the largest ever school sports competition in Swedish speaking Finland. By the following year, there were already over 1000 competitions. By its third, the competitor count passed 1 500. The event had grown so much, that by only its fourth year it moved venues to the Olympic Stadium. This has been the home of Stafettkarnevalen ever since - with the exception of during four years where the event took place in Vasa or Karleby due to renovation work at the Olympic Stadium.

The number of competitors has continued to rise. In recent years, Stafettkarnevalen has become the biggest annual school athletics competition in the whole of Europe, with more than 10 000 entrants.

The 100 000 euro costs of staging the competition are met by sponsors. All officials and management teams are unpaid.

2008’s event sees a record number of starters - 10 228. The President of the Republic, Tarja Halonen, will attend day 2 of the event tomorrow.

You can follow the competition live via Radio X3M and a television highlights programme will be transmitted on FST5 on Tuesday at 21.00. All the results are also available via the competition’s official website: www.stafettkarnevalen.fi/resultat

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.

Thursday’s editions of Jakobstads Tidning and Österbottningen will be the last ever issues of each daily newspaper. Jakobstads Tidning has been published from Jakobstad (Pietarsaari) for the last 110 years. Österbottningen, Karleby’s (Kokkola) newspaper, has 125 years of history behind it. From Friday, the new merged newspaper Österbottens Tidning will come out for the first time as a replacement.

Staff of the two newspapers’ production team spent today putting together the last editions of their independent newspapers. Jakobstads Tidning will print a special 52 page edition tomorrow; its last edition coincides with its 110th anniversary edition.

Staff of both newspapers gathered outside their offices in Jakobstad and Karleby at the end of their working day and symbolically lowered the flags bearing their newspaper’s logo. They then raised the new flag of Österbottens Tidning, the first edition of which they will be working on from tomorrow. They then celebrated with champagne.

So, Svenskfinland and specifically northern Österbotten loses two of its daily newspapers from the end of tomorrow. But gains a new voice on Friday.

In other media news, the European Union’s competition directorate yesterday gave its approval for Finland’s subsidies to minority language newspapers. The Finnish state gives grants of support to fund  Swedish language news agency services and newspapers with small circulations. Money is also given to activities in the Sami language. Folktinget (The Swedish assembly of Finland) and the Sami Assembly are the bodies that propose to the Communications Ministry which publications should receive state subsidies.

The image is copyright Jakobstads Tidning. It shows JT staff witnessing chief editor Henrik Othman lower Jakobstads Tidning’s flag for the last time.

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.

The soon to be established town of Raseborg unveiled the design of its new municipal shield today. The design is comprised of a green shield with eight white wood anemone flowers upon it. The shield is crowned by a castle-like crown with five towers, a reference to Raseborg castle.

Raseborg will be formed on 1 January 2009 as a merger of the existing municipalities of Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo (Pohja). The eight flowers on the shield symbolise the previous eight original districts in the previous county of Raseborg. The new town will have a population of 28 000 citizens, of which Swedish-speakers will comprise approximately 67%. The town of Hangö and municipality of Ingå opted to remain as independent entities but where involved in the initial discussions.

The building of the new town has not been without some wrangling. Politicians from Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo have had to decide where the new administrative units will be placed and whom will get the top jobs. As a consequence of the merger, street signs in Pojo will be renewed to place the Swedish text above the Finnish. Independent Pojo has a Finnish speaking majority (59,5%). The citizens of Ekenäs, Karis and Pojo will vote together in municipal elections for the first time already this autumn.

Svenska kulturfonden, the Swedish cultural fund, celebrated its 100th anniversary yesterday with a large party and celebration at the Finlandia house in Helsinki. 1 000 guests joined the celebration with dancers, choirs, circus artists, rock bands, musicians and many more from around Swedish-speaking Finland providing the entertainment alongside traditional staples such as the singing of Modersmålets sång (Song of the Mother Tongue) and Vårt land (Our Land, Finland’s national anthem - The Swedish language lyrics from a poem by J L Runeberg are in fact the original).

In connection with the event, Kulturfonden awarded a record sum in prizes, grants and scholarships. A total of 15 million euros were given out during the festivities. The stand-up comic André Wickström (who is also well known in Sweden) and the ceramic artist Karin Widnäs were amongst the bigger prize winners, winning 20 000 € each.

After the party, Kulturfonden provided a dinner for 500 invited guests.

Kulturfonden works to support and strengthen the Swedish language in Finland, to develop skills, competence, creativity and solidarity amongst Swedish-speaking Finns. Today, Kulturfonden has financial reserves about double the size of Sweden’s Nobel Foundation and around the same size as the Finnish language equivalent Suomen kulttuurirahasto.

The Swedish Peoples’ Party (Sfp) has set a goal of increasing its number of votes by at least one thousand in the autumn’s municipal elections (when compared to those of 4 years ago).

Sfp is hoping it can offer 1 500 candidates of which half should be women and with an increased number of young people and recent immigrants to Finland than in its previous election campaigns.

According to party chairman Stefan Wallin, this year’s election will be particularly challenging for Sfp as many municipalities are merging creating an unpredictable and new dynamic in many localities.

Some municipalities that are merging with Finnish language dominated neighbours will present a particular challenge for Sfp with the number of Swedish speakers decreasing as a proportion. It will be vital for Sfp to mobilise its electorate to enable Swedish speakers to maintain their representation in municipal councils and governments at the same level.

Sfp has announced that its election theme will be fairness and equality. According to Sfp, individuals must have the right to be treated equally and fairly by all authorities regardless of their background or linguistic group. Municipalities should also be treated fairly by the state, which appears to be a clear reference to the Sibbo drama where the views of Sibbo’s inhabitants were overridden by Helsinki and the central government.

UPDATE Wednesday 16.27

It seems the association for Fair Trade which also uses the term Fairness in its campaigning is unhappy with Sfp’s usage of the same term.

Sfp has designed a campaign logo, a Fairness label/stamp design. Party secretary Ulla Achrén said that Sfp would be a party of fairness, with candidates standing for fairness and for policies of fairness.

Janne Sivonen who is the communications director at Association of the Advancement of Fair Trade in Finland was disappointed at this news, he told Svensk presstjänst: “This is certainly to mislead consumers. The ‘Fair Trade mark’ is a registered trademark in Europe and a guarantee that a product meets international fair trade criteria. Sfp has not asked us for permission to use the slogan. We will be discussing this matter with them.”

The First of May is a public holiday in Finland, traditionally a day of political activities (marches by political groups and speeches by various politicians from all parties - notably in Sweden and many other countries, it’s exclusively the left of centre that does this, in Finland it’s become a more general day for politics). The day before (30th April) is called, in Swedish, Valborgsmässoafton or more commonly Valborg - or here in Finland, often in Finland-Swedish Vappen (Vappu in Finnish). This is most especially a day for the university students, but often all of us who graduated from school wear our white student caps at some point. Everyone can join in the parties and general fun of the day, which is traditionally seen as the marker of the start of spring.

So, perhaps you’re a foreigner in Finland, and aren’t quite sure what to do on Valborg. Here’s a beginner’s guide.

Picnic. It’s not really the done thing to eat inside on Valborg. After all, spring is here. So, grab some sausages and get the grill out. It’s sausages/hotdogs that rule the day of Valborg cuisine.

Feel cold. Unfortunately, the Finnish weather is often not as aware that it’s the beginning of spring as we perhaps would like it to be. On Valborg, one generally feels cold at some point because we’ve managed to convince ourselves in advance that it’s practically the beginning of summer. Either that or you’re too drunk to realise that a t-shirt and shorts doesn’t work in a sleet storm.

Summer house party. Well, as it’s practically summer, often the partying takes place in the summer house - for perhaps the first time of the year. A restaurant or bar would just be too “indoors”, and if it really is too cold then the summer house is still a respectable component of the out of doors summer lifestyle.

Beer. Booze. Well, probably you’ve realised that drinking is a major part of most Finnish holidays. This one is no exception and perhaps only second to midsummer in terms of drunkeness. And you can’t beat a good cold beer on the warm spring day of Valborg… hmm. (If you in a city, it’s a good idea to watch where you’re walking the next morning - the pavements often show evidence of the “aftermath”).

Speech. If your (un)lucky, especially in some Swedish-speaking areas, somebody prominent in the local community (usually some old guy, who has already had a little too much to drink by this time) will make a speech to welcome the spring. If there’s a cold wind, rain, sleet or even snow, this will generally increase in strength at this point.

So, enjoy the festivities. And remember to stock up on headache pill in advance! Glada vappen!

I will be back with more regular blogging soon. Right now, it’s holiday time. And aside from that, I’ve been very busy with some work projects of late.

There’s been a couple of wrangles over what things should be called in Swedish-speaking Finland in the last few weeks.

Firstly the south-western municipalities of Pargas, Houtskär, Iniö, Korpo and Nagu which are merging to form one district at the beginning of 2009 are having difficulty in coming to any kind of agreement as to what to call their new municipality. There have been numerous proposals. The joint committee of decision makers from the five municipalities originally intended their new municipal name to be Väståboland (West Åboland). However, the quasi-government langauge body ‘The research institute for the languages of Finland” recommended that the new entity call itself Gullkrona. Other candidates were Berghamn, Erstan, Östad, Skärgårdsstad and simply Pargas after the largest existing town. The name Pargas was predictably popular with the Pargas town councillors. However, the others can’t seem to form any agreement. The latest suggestion is Havskrona.

The Finance Ministry has clearly got fed up with waiting to hear what the new archipelago municipality will be called. This week it announced that the district has a maximum of 2 more months (until mid-June) to settle the issue otherwise it will impose a decision upon the new municipality. If this should happen, it would be the first time that a municipality has failed to be able to agree on what it should call itself.

The other name debate that has been raging has been in northern Österbotten. There, the daily newspapers Jakobstads Tidning and Österbottningen are merging to form a single paper from 23 May this year. The papers are centred in the two towns of Jakobstad and Karleby (Kokkola), who are traditionally local rivals. Last month the newspapers’ board announced that the new merged newspaper would be called “Norra Tidningen” (”The northern newspaper”). This was met with uproar by the readers of both newspapers, who wrote into the paper’s letters section wondering if they were now living in Lapland. Additionally, the proposed abbreviation “Norran” does not come off the tongue well in the dialects of Österbotten - plus it’s already in use by the Swedish newspaper Norra Västerbotten. So, after continued pressure from the readers (and even a few politicians), the newspapers’ board relented and gave their readership the option to vote between three options; ‘Norra Tidningen’, ‘Nya Österbotten’ (“New Österbotten”) and ‘Österbottens Tidning” (“Österbotten’s Newspaper”). It was announced this week that Österbottens Tidning had won the day convincingly. Something that even the residents of Jakobstad and Karleby could agree on.

Newspaper image copyright Jakobstads tidning/HSS Media ab.

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.

Borgå (Porvoo) and Lojo (Lohja) are sending a joint letter to the Helsingfors (Helsinki) regional cooperation meeting requesting admission as members into the group, according to YLE Radio Östnyland.

The two towns are of the opinion that they already are, according to many criteria, a part of the metropolitan area. Borgå points to its weight in co-planning of the enhancements of the E18-road between Helsingfors and St Petersburg and the planning of the so-called HELI railway from Helsingfors to Luumäki via Borgå and Lovisa.

The capitals fangs grow yet nearer still…

The Swedish people’s party’s  (Sfp) current member of the European parliament Henrik Lax has said that he will not be standing for reelection in next year’s European parliamentary election. Lax, who is 63-years old, justifies his decision to leave the European parliament after one period by saying that he wants more time to relax and take it easy after having spent 40 years in political life, according to the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet.

Lax was elected to the European parliament in 2004 after Astrid Thors (who nowadays is the minister of migration in the national government and Sfp’s Helsinki MP in the Finnish parliament).  He was elected in 14th place out of Finland’s 14 MEP seats. From next year’s election, Finland will lose a place and only have 13 seats available making it all the more difficult for Sfp to be able to obtain elected representation at the EU level.

Lax hopes that there will be a place created for Swedish-speakers in future representation to the European parliament.  Åland’s government is already loudly calling for its own separate MEP constituency and Åland’s parliament could vote down the Lisbon treaty if concessions are not made by Helsinki. Lax suggests that one seat reserved for Swedish-speakers could be an alternative saying that there ought to be representation for the language minority.

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.

Svenska kulturfonden (The Swedish Cultural Fund) will likely make grants worth a record-breaking 38 million euros this year. That’s over 50% more than last year. This is according to a report by Yle.

After the economic depression at the start of the 1990s, the Cultural fund has grown fast. Returns have grown by between 5% and 50% per year since 1995, a year in which the fund gave 2 million euros to support causes.

The Swedish Cultural Fund works to support and strengthen the Swedish language in Finland, to develop skills, competence and creativity amongst Swedish-speaking Finns, and to support solidarity amongst and the identity of the Swedish-speaking Finns.

On an everyday level, it’s probably most well-known for granting scholarships to university students via its participation in the Swedish Study Fund.

Svenska kulturfonden is celebrating its 100th anniversary during 2008.

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.