Finland needs racism like a hole in the head

Even though EU countries such as Finland will experience an economic downturn this year, it will not erase one of the country’s major challenges in the new century: How to rejuvenate Finland’s aging labor force.

We all know about those official forecasts on how many foreign laborers Finland should have and they vary from ministry to ministry. One of the latest one speaks of 100,000 immigrants, while previous ones by the Ministry of Finance estimate a high 140,000/year, or 1.8 million laborers by 2020.

Whether the country needs 100,000 or a 100,000/year is not the point. The issue is that Finland not only needs foreign laborers but must prepare itself psychologically for such an eventuality. Since we need foreign workers in order to maintain our high standard of living and welfare system, Finland needs racism like a hole in the head.

If we look at the election calendar, Finland will hold EU parliamentary elections this year.  Without a doubt, the most immigrant-friendly parties are the Swedish People’s Party (RKP), The Green League, and Left Alliance.

The conservative National Coalition Party is on the right path but, in my opinion, it still allows nationalism to get in its way of a comprehensive immigration policy. It is the same story with the Social Democratic Party, which takes a very nationalistic view through its labor unions. The worse of the worse is none other than the PS. The Centre Party does not score a lot of points either.

Having observed the immigration debate in Finland for over three decades, there is one important distinction to make: action versus talk.

In Finland, there has been too much talk but there is more action than before.

Even so, the political parties and Finns are still divided on how to move ahead with a comprehensive immigration plan. Worse, some parties such as the PS may use the xenophobia card to lure voters.

Are Barack Obama and Mikhail Gorbachev the same?

Ever since US President Barack Obama was elected in November as the first black president of the United States, a question has lingered: Is there any relationship between Barack Obama and Mikhail Gorbachev?

The first superpower to fall from grace in the early 1990s was the Soviet Union. Even though we can speak endlessly about why communism did not work, one of the main factors that caused its demise was a lack of effective checks and balances. The USSR got into serious economic trouble when it attempted keep up with the United States in the costly armament race.

The last bull run we saw emerge from the 1990s that fueled unprecedented growth reached a crude end last September. The US and global financial system suffered a knock-out blow: The capitalist system of growth and its financing had reached the end of the road. They were unsustainable.

I do not believe that the present global crisis will usher in a new era of “hope and understanding.” On the contrary – if we were not able to build a better world during one of the best economic growth period in history, how are we going to do so when everyone is scrambling to defend what little they have?

When Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the Berlin Wall to fall in 1989, he never imagined that it would mean the eventual fall of the Soviet empire. In the same light, when President George W. Bush’s administration allowed Lehman Brothers to collapse in mid-September, few understood its far-reaching impact on global markets and to the capitalist system.

Even though some believe that China will emerge the winner of the present crisis at the cost of the United States, the big question is what shape will our global markets be five years from today.

Will it mean the end to globalization?

Definitely yes in its former form. Some have called this “tornado capitalism.”

Will it mean protectionism?

Definitely yes although we want see the same thing as in the 1930s.

What will our world look like five years from now? The answer is eerily in history books with a new menacing factor: global warming and environmental destruction caused by our present economic model.

Teaching multiculturalism to Finns

It is a noble matter that Finns are interested in multiculturalism.

For some, the term awakens mixed emotions: some embrace it while others equate it with the destruction of Finnish culture.

Before even debating multiculturalism, we should define what it means. As everyone knows, multiculturalism is a policy started up in Canada about 20 years ago to fuel greater respect between cultures and permit minorities  opportunities to take part in society. Multiculturalism can also mean a society where “many cultures” coexist.

What does this great interest in Finland on multiculturalism reveal? It shows how much in diapers we still are about the whole concept. Think about it: We have to learn about cultural diversity because it is foreign to us.

The Finns are not the only ones in Europe grappling with multiculturalism. In Spain, some will blame the problems that immigrants “cause” is due to their lack of familiarity with people from other countries. “It has been such a short time since we have had so many immigrants,” some responded. Surprisingly, I have heard this same argument in countries such as Switzerland. “It has been a relatively short time since foreigners moved to this country,” a Swiss said.

There are some good and bad points about Finland being a young nation. The good news is that it has successfully forged a national identity and enjoyed the hard-won fruits of nationhood. The bad news  is that it has had so many outside real and imagined enemies that some fear that the country and culture must still be in a state of high alert against foreign threats.

It would be naive to claim that planting the seeds of multiculturalism in a country such as Finland will not pose any challenges. One of the greatest of these, in my opinion, will be how Finns will forge their new national identity in this century.

Finns can learn a lot by studying multiculturalism in classes but the real test will come when we switch from the  “lectures” to the  “lab.”

I once mentioned that a friend told me that as an immigrant you learn things about yourself you never knew. In the same fashion, countries learn a lot about what they are when their immigrant population grow.

What are the good and bad things that multiculturalism will bring out among the Finns? Even though the answer to that question is still hidden by the future, one matter is for certain: We will see what the Finns and Finland are made of.

Will cultural diversity bring out the best or worst qualities of  our society?

Raising retirement ages – the first setback in Finland’s immigration policy

The government of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and the Finns suffered their first major setback in February when minimum retirement ages would be raised from 63 to 65 years in order to keep the number of Finns employed in the labor market from not dropping to 66% by 2013 from 70% now.

Apart from raising eyebrows among Finland’s labor unions and getting the thumbs down from the population in general as a YLE poll shows, the real culprit has been hidden from public view by the ruling parties, even by the mainstream media. Raising the retirement age is nothing more than the failure of present and former governments to tackle effectively the decline of the country’s economically active population with the help of foreign workers.

The issue appears to be such a hot potato for the government and the media that they have preferred opportunistically to vacillate on the issue.

According to some not-so-public official estimates, Finland needs about 100,000 foreign laborers every year in order to keep the age pyramid from mushrooming upwards.

Even so, the million-euro question is where will Finland get new workers and from where? Another factor that has retarded debate and fueled past and the present government inaction on this front is a total lack of leadership. This is understandable, however. Politicians too are intimidated by the backlash they would suffer if they openly promoted foreign labor to the country. Their  job has been made even harder taking into account that Finland’s economy is cooling and unemployment is rising.

This is unfortunate taking into account that reticent attitudes towards employing non-Finnish nationals is already hurting our economy. The next jab we will feel is to our standard of living if we do not address this challenge promptly.

The jury is still out whether Finland can or has the political will to plug this ever-growing labor problem.

The greatest threat to Finland are the Finns – not immigrants

Here is an interesting letter to the Helsingin Sanomat editor in Finnish that summarizes the problem and challenges Finland face in accepting diversity.

Some of the comments in this blog have shown me that many are still very much in the dark about what cultural diversity means. What is even most ludicrous, they attempt to turn the argument around accusing those that question discrimination of racism, or being “anti-Finns.” Many of them sound like a white Southerner in the United States who claims that racism did not exist in Alabama until the blacks moved there.

The ultra-nationalist or nationalist attitudes of some of these posts shows how dangerous these people are to Finland. The silence of the general public, lack of leadership of the politicians and keeping things as they are pose the greatest threat to our society.

If nationalism and xenophobia get the best of us in Finland, it will mean economic, political and social ruin for this country.

Are Finns and immigrants in the same boat?

Those who are familiar with Magdalena Jaakkola’s studies, remember that Finns’ attitudes towards immigrants reached their lowest point during the recession of the early 1990s. Some consider that recession to be the worst-ever suffered by Finland in a century.

As Finland’s economy is officially in recession after its third and fourth quarter suffered negative growth, will Finnish attitudes towards foreigners now become more negative? Will foreigners become the scapegoats for the country’s economic problems? Will politicians start to spew populist rhetoric against immigrants in order to gain more votes?

Debate is always a positive way to learn about each other’s points of views. If it turns into an ugly bashing match against groups of people that do not have the resources nor the means to defend themselves publicly, such a type of debate serves no one.

Contrary to the early 1990s, Finland has a much larger immigrant community than before. One of the interesting matters to watch as the country’s economy continues to cools and as unemployment rises its ugly head, is how much attitudes will actually change. The good news, I believe, is that they may change less than before since immigrants are today a more common sight than over 15 years ago.

One matter is for certain as economic growth slows — immigrants and Finns are in the same boat. Separating them and turning immigrants into scapegoats is a mistake we should avoid at all costs.  Finland only stands to lose since it will awaken the hatred, undercurrents and strife that characterized our society during the first decades after independence.

Bashing immigrants shows that we have not learned anything from those times.