Foreigners living in Finland are a disparate bunch, many of whom get by in English. They are here for a variety of reasons, frequently because they’ve ended-up marrying a Finn. It can be very difficult being a foreigner in Finland especially as, if many of it’s tiny number of English language news sites and magazines are to be believed, Finns really don’t want foreigners in their country at all.

A June 2006 and article in an Oulu (Northern Finland) English-language web-newspaper 65 Degrees North, exemplifies the way that articles in some of Finland’s English-language media seem to portray Finns. Nigel Watson’s article on why he left Oulu - ‘Good Bye Oulu’ - painted Oulu (and by implication the whole country) as a collection of unfriendly, intolerant racists.

Mr. Watson’s main reason for leaving Oulu is that he felt ‘not accepted, let alone welcome’ and that there is a general Finnish attitude that you should adopt a Finnish way of life or leave. In my experience, the people of Oulu bend over backwards to accommodate me as an Englishman. ‘Oululaiset’ are more than happy to speak in English, which is hardly a sign of not welcoming foreigners. In fact, younger Oululaiset tend to be so enthusiastic about speaking in English that I’ve basically stopped trying to practice my Finnish.

When I have had to use it, with elderly Finns, they have been perfectly amiable and have slowed right down. My elderly Finnish neighbour always chats to me. I’ve no idea what he’s saying half the time but if he is saying, ‘Go back to your own country! You people make me sick!’ he’s saying it in an extraordinarily friendly way, frequently with offers of coffee. I was once told (in English by a young man) to ‘Go home! This is not your country!’ This was in a branch of Alko in Kokkola (a tiny country town) while a friend and I were speaking in English. Every Finn to whom I have relayed this incident has been amazed and slightly angered that a fellow Finn would behave in such a way.

Of course, like Mr Watson, I am English. I do not stand out as a foreigner and perhaps my experience of Oulu would be less pleasant if I did. But even so, I think that the city has to be given a chance. Until about fifteen years ago, almost everyone that lived in Oulu was Finnish. This, together with unemployment amongst Oulu people, is bound to lead to resentment towards those who are conspicuously foreign. But to be fair to Oulu residents, they are not rioting or electing large numbers of openly anti-immigrant politicians onto Oulu City Council. This is precisely what happened in cities in Britain and France a similar period after immigration began there.

The real intolerance in Finland is not racism. Even academic experts on Finland’s ‘far right’ such as Prof Kyösti Pekonen admit that racist violence, for example, is exaggerated by the media and is, in fact, pretty rare in Finland by European standards. The real intolerance in Finland is found amongst those who hold a particular ideology – that a multicultural society with lots of people from all around the world is a wonderful thing – but who think that anyone who does not agree with them is evil . . . or, in their language, a ‘Nazi’ a ‘Fascist’ or a ‘Racist.’

These terms relate to such strong taboos that they basically mean ‘evil’ or ‘heretic.’ Nigel Watson heavily implies in his 65 Degrees North article that the idea that foreigners should integrate into Finnish society is racist. Oulu City Council should hire people not on merit but because they are foreign and if they do not then I guess that they are probably racist as well.

Similar articles to Mr Watson’s are published in SixDegrees, which claims to be ‘Finland’s only English Language Magazine,’ except here they are far more common. If you are a foreigner in Finland it is difficult not to have come across SixDegrees. It is highly political, packed with articles which imply that Finns are ‘racist’ because they are not sufficiently enthusiastic about a multicultural Finland.

To provide just a few examples, the April 2005 issue carried an article entitled ‘Racism in Layers,’ which pontificated about Finnish racism, especially in schools. The November 2005 issue carried an article entitled ‘Racist Pack Design,’ criticising apparently racist packaging of chocolate in Finland. The essence of the article was: the packets are racist and should be banned. If you don’t care, you’re probably a little bit racist. In other words, you are with us, or against us. Multiculturalist or Racist.

Good or Evil. The only intolerance I have ever experienced in Finland is when I wrote an objective article about what random Oulu people thought of the Prophet Mohammed cartoon furore for 65 Degrees North. I was accused, by one Oulu reader, of being ‘racist’ and ‘Nazi’ just for pointing out that some people – not even necessarily myself! – disagreed with his or her views. That is intolerance, fanatical intolerance, which is far more worrying than some idiot telling me to ‘Go home!’

Indeed, SixDegrees has been heavily criticised amongst Finnish nationalists. One discussion forum contributor claimed that: "SixDegrees has a constant theme that it’s always hammering home: Finns are ignorant, stupid, ugly, evil and racist, and the only way they can ever be accepted by the rest of the world is to open the borders for everyone to come here (although, of course, Finland is such an awful country and the Finns are such racist bigots that no-one would want to come here anyway, which is why we must welcome the thousands or hundreds of thousands clamouring to come here)." (Stormfront, a White nationalist discussion forum).

Other Finns on the forum chorused agreement. And it is this kind of attention that is worrying. The problem with many of the articles in SixDegrees and Nigel Watson’s article in 65 Degrees North is not just that they reflect what is basically an extremely intolerant form of an ideology. They distort the way that Finns see foreigners and foreigners see Finns. For a foreigner reading SixDegrees, Finns are racists (albeit not too openly) and they don’t really want you in Finland.

For the Finn reading the same newspaper, foreigners are basically extremely ungrateful and are laughing at them because many of the contributors or interviewees are foreign. They have come to Finland and are now complaining that the Finns aren’t nice enough to them. In reality, neither is generally the case. So the magazine’s slant is bad for race relations. It helps to separate the foreigner from the Finn. It is THIS intolerance, and not racism itself, that may indirectly lead to racial problems in Finland in future.

Finland, in my experience, is basically a welcoming and friendly country. There is probably some racism, but far less than in some countries in Europe. The creeping intolerance in Finland is not racism. It is the view that if you don’t rigorously promote a certain ideology then you need to be publicly attacked and ostracised or even worse. It is the same intolerance that led, for example, to Prof. Tatu Vanhanen (the Finnish Prime Minister’s father) being ‘investigated’ (basically intimidated into shutting up, because he was never prosecuted) for publishing an academic book on IQ and race and reporting his findings to the Finnish newspapers.

It is the same intolerance that led to the Finnish website Suomen Sisu being ‘investigated’ (and again not prosecuted) for publishing the Mohammed cartoons. Like any ideology taken to extremes, the multiculturalism of SixDegrees reflects intolerance of dissenting opinion....intolerance that could have some very nasty consequences in Finland in the future.