Pandora's box

I remember some horror scenario discussions in secondary school. One was that a Russian politician, who believed Finland should still be part of Great Russia, would come to power and... The other was that a ultra right wing man called Heikinheimo would become influential in Finnish domestic politics. Well Russian threat seems quite remote at this point (never knows, might change...) but the internal Finnish politics is what worries me. The name Heikinheimo has been replaced with the name Soini but the effect is the same.

There is a clear, open, negative atomsphere towards the Swedish speaking minority. I have now listened to interviews of the election winners "Authentical Finns" for two days and what I hear makes me very very sad. I was born in this country, my parents happened to speek Swedish and we happened to live in a neighbourhood with mostly Swedish speaking kids. I learnt Finnish (pakkosuomi) by memorizing the 15 causes and later by emigrating to Jyväskylä as babysitter for a summer. Still, I have never EVER considered myself anything else than Finnish. Finland is my country, I have no other home country than this, my both grandfathers fought for Finnish independence at the Russian border and December 6th has always been a solemn day for me. I just happened to speak Swedish. I would not even say that I am part of what some call (especially my husband likes to use this to annoy everyone around him) the small clic of "Swedish better people" (coming from the past when the Noble of this part of Sweden spoke Swedish). My background is just as plain and simple as of any average Finnish person.

Comments such as "everyone living in this country must speak Finnish", "not everyone in this country need to speak Swedish" has a true saddening effect on me and my identity. Although I speak seven languages, some better, other less fluently, I always feel that my Finnish will never be good enough, not to myself and not to these nationalist fanatics... Still, I do not understand these arguments. If you live in a small fishing village out in the arhipelago of Ostrobotnia, where no one speaks Finnish - do you really need to be fluent in the language of the majority? If you want to continue living there the rest of your life? Shouldn't the argument go both ways? If Finnish speakers do not need to speak Swedish, why on earth do Swedish speakers need to speak Finnish?

I am not an historian, but what I learnt in school is that it cannot be determined who was on this soil first. Swedish speakers might have been populating the west coast long before it was incorporated under Swedish rule. Language was really not an issue back in those days, it became as issue as Finland was to fight for its independence, against Russia. Or do you really think that every common boy could go the only (Swedish) university just because his language was Swedish? In those days it was only the upper class that went to school, whether Swedish speaking poor or Finnish speaking poor, you had no business in school nor university.

This arrogant attitude from the election winners is now spreading to others, who now think it is legitimate to say their REAL opinion out loud or picking a fight with Swedish speaking teenager after a night out on town (happen to friends of mine back in the 90s, seems to be happening still today). I just want to say; whatever feelings you personally have based on personal experience of encounters with Swedish speakers (I can admit that there are annoying ones, just as there are annoying people of all kind of nationalities...); please remember these attitudes are NOT NICE for those of us who have no other home than this and who wants to live in peace with our countrymen. We are all Finnish for god's sake, can't we all get along?

And yes, I'll confess, I am in favor of PAKKOruotsi (obligatory Swedish), just as I am in favor of PAKKOsuomi (obligatory Finnish), PAKKOenglanti (English), PAKKOmatikka (maths), PAKKOhistoria (history). I think we are lazy by nature and will not learn anything if we do not have to. And we do have to learn. Or esle what will become of this society if we do not even know the basics of how to get along? That is something we learn from school, from PAKKOkoulu!