Finnish Society Lecture Journals

Hey guys!

As I did in the months following my time in Russia, now that my grades have all been finalized and transferred successfully, I'd like to share some of my assignments from courses I was taking in Finland which contained important or relevant reflections on different aspects of experiences and learning.

Today I'll start by sharing a couple of my favorite lecture journals I wrote for my Finnish Society: Culture and Institutions course. Hope you guys enjoy!

20 March 2018: The Finnish Welfare State and Socioeconomic Inheritance:

The Nordic states are well renowned across the world for their distinctive welfare systems and the socio-economic protection that they allow Nordic citizens to benefit from. States vary widely in their provision of redistribution, public services, and social security or insurance. Nordic states tend to have quite strong welfare states, with emphasis placed on employment, progressive taxation, and universal social traits irrespective of inherent traits and identities (resulting in low poverty and high gender equality). Finnish citizens therefore can count on their government quite reliably for the provision of such privileges as housing, unemployment, sickness, and disability benefits, pensions, public health care, free education, and student stipends.

Due to the ample support from the state, poverty in Finland is astronomically less severe relative to poverty in many other countries. Also, crucially, the financial and logistical safety net provided guarantees a high amount of social mobility. Generally in Finland, even if a person is born in a family of fairly limited resources, it will be much easier for them to attain a higher social standing irrespective of their socioeconomic inheritance, as free education minimizes barriers to gaining necessary credentials for higher-paying jobs compared to countries where higher education is very expensive, and the state can offer help in times of dire financial or logistical need.

By comparison, the United States is considered to have quite a “liberal” welfare state compared to the social-democratic Nordic welfare states. Indeed, it is often strongly debated whether the United States can call itself a welfare state at all. Some benefits of social services (i.e. food stamps for those living below the poverty line) and unemployment benefits, for instance, are guaranteed by the state. But health care is typically run by private institutions and can be extremely expensive, leaving people vulnerable if they fall severely ill or are badly injured, especially without sufficient financial means to support themselves. Higher education in the United States is infamously expensive, and even highly performing students who are able to secure hefty scholarship deals often remain in debt for decades following their graduation.

As a result, social mobility in the United States tends to be much more static, due to the fact that educational credentials critical in obtaining higher paying jobs are far beyond many people’s means, and it is consequently much harder to break the cycle of poverty. For all the cultural glorification of “the American dream” and “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” being enough to achieve anything with sufficient hard work and dedication, in reality it is incredibly difficult for people born into families or neighborhoods of little means to be socially mobile.

A particularly interesting element in this issue is the role that public transportation plays in influencing someone’s chances of being socially mobile. Due to the United States’ immense size, city planning that typically separates residential and commercial quarters quite rigidly (resulting in great distances between them), and traditional importance of automobiles in American economy and culture, American public transportation systems are highly underfunded, low-quality, and nearly non-existent outside of major urban areas. They are thus greatly inferior to the public transportation systems present in much of Europe and Asia. It has been statistically proven that people born into difficult financial situations in the United States are more likely to be socially mobile if they live near a public transportation stop, as it enables them to reach potential workplaces and not be geographically bound to their socioeconomic inheritance. It would be interesting to know whether the logistical interconnectedness of city’s through efficient and well-functioning public transportation system has helped improve social mobility in the same way in a Finnish context, and how geographical features affect logistics.

27 March 2018: Multiculturalism in Finland:

The idea that Finland did not suddenly “become” multicultural throughout the 90s is important in defining Finnishness and its intersections with other national and ethnic identities in a contemporary context. Though communities of color in particular were not present in great numbers prior to the migration of the 90s, the presence of such groups as Swedish-speaking Finns, Saami, Jews, Tatars, Russians, Romani, and others attests to the fact that other group identities formed around distinctive cultures, and their intersections with Finnishness, have long formed a part of the country’s demographic landscape.

The policies used to account for minority identities, such as minority language education, exemption for religious holidays, and so on result in it being highly politicized at times. An example could be the right of return for Ingrian Finns. This law allowed people from the Russian region of Ingria with certain amounts of Finnish ancestry or quantities of close Finnish-speaking relatives to gain residency and citizenship in Finland with greater ease. This was largely based on a perceived kinship with this minority on the Russian side of the border, even though many who applied based on this policy were not native Finnish speakers themselves, and may have culturally identified more with their Russian upbringing and education for decades, struggling to integrate following their arrival.

The existence of such as group as the “City Saami” in Helsinki is also quite fascinating. This group represents not only a union and intersection between Finnishness and Saaminess, but also between an urbanized modernity and an identity based on highly traditional philosophies and ways of life. This fusion is shared with urbanized populations of indigenous origin the world over. In the United States for example, many Native Americans that do not live in their traditional reservations or territories have moved to larger towns and cities, adopt an Americanized urban style of living that incorporates varying degrees of their respective languages, faith, ceremonies, and overall culture with which they grew up, in much the same way as the City Saami.

One group which I was somewhat surprised to hear about was the Jews in Finland. Prior to this lecture, I was aware of little more than their objective existence, and was rather surprised to hear of their historical presence even in Turku, with a prominent synagogue located on Brahenkatu. Being interested in Jewish history and intersections of Jewishness with various national identities (and with construction of Israeli identity as well), I am interested to research the historic presence and migrations of Jews in Finland, and their presence in the society. It would also be interesting to know whether or not the Jews present in Finland are primarily Ashkenazi and historically Yiddish-speaking, which would seem logical given the geographical closeness of pre-World War II Ashkenazi strongholds such as current-day Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus, and Yiddish’s contemporary status as an officially recognized minority language used by the Jewish community in neighboring Sweden.

Finally, the fact that census information, and in many ways identity as well, is largely built off of native language rather than ethnic affinity is crucial. Prior to coming to Finland, I wrote three papers about Swedish-speaking Finns in a political science class called “nationalism and ethnic conflict,” and was curious to see how their community tends to characterize and define itself; whether they might affiliate themselves more with Sweden, or be desirous of greater administrative autonomy. Coming to Finland, after conducting independent research and asking various Finnish acquaintances I feel inclined to conclude that Swedish-speaking Finns, generally speaking, do not feel any greater affinity to Sweden over Finland, and see themselves as proud Finns who just happen to, for familial and heritage reasons, speak Swedish as a native language. It was mentioned that some Finnish-born ethnic Kurds, physically unlikely to pass as Finns due to national stereotypes and profiling, look to their proficiency in the local Turku dialect as a marker of hometown pride and the validity of their local affiliation. This idea reminds me of my mother’s hometown in northern Italy, where the local Lombard dialect has been appropriated in reverse. It has become diluted through the generations due to the rise of standard Italian as the language of education and media. Older folk, who grew up speaking it as their mother tongue far more than Italian, have clung to it even harder as immigrant communities have established themselves in recent decades, overzealously guarding it as a marker of what they see as true local identity to exclude the newcomers.

In a course titled “Variations of the Finnish Language” earlier in the semester, I studied the development of written and spoken Finnish and other Finno-Ugric languages, as well as the contemporary state of Finnish dialects, in great detail. Mention was made of the distinctive accents and regional languages of formally Finnish regions now across the border in Russia, such as Petsamo and much of Karelia, and how much of the ethnically Finnish population from these regions chose to emigrate, bringing a distinctive and at times unfamiliar linguistic register to the various regions of Finland in which they were resettled. A close Finnish friend and University of Turku classmate of mine, a granddaughter of Karelian immigrants who grew up in Kuopio, has mentioned on multiple occasions the fact her accent is easily recognizable in Turku due to the strong east-west dichotomy present in contemporary Finnish dialects. I wonder to what extent this linguistic differentiation, and the differing cultural backgrounds of ethnic Finns such as Karelians and Ingrian Finns who were raised elsewhere, may influence interpersonal relations or contribute to unfamiliarity or even tensions among Finnish citizens in spite of shared ethnicity.

10 April 2018: Finnish Political Culture:

The structure and nature of a political culture in any given context is hugely important in influencing societal participation and order. Autonomy and participative rights of the populace in the affairs of their country, or lack thereof, greatly affect perception of a particular state by external international actors as well. Changing social movements play a key role in shaping political cultures. Such social movements are defined as being “forms of collective action that politicize issues, turn personal troubles into public issues, and seek to promote or hinder social change.” These typically have “common goals, create social conflicts in society, have a shared understanding of how these goals should be pursued, create a sense of solidarity, and have an organized form that gives them temporal continuity.”

In Finland, the political system is arranged as a multiparty parliamentary democracy with a president as the head of state. The unicameral Eduskunta consists of 200 MPs elected every four years, and the state has upheld universal suffrage since 1906. Finnish political culture has been defined by a very high rate of involvement in voluntary associations (around ¾ of the entire population, though there have been higher rates of recent decline) that have traditionally be seen as mediators between citizens and the state. At a rate of nearly 29%, volunteering is also widespread. In general there is minimal societal tendency towards violence or civil disobedience directed at property or people, due to close relationships and interplay between civil society and state institutions.

Overall, from impressions garnered in this course and others I have taken this semester (particularly Nordic Gendered Norms and Practices), I have been exposed to the marked differences among the political systems in Finland and my home country of the United States. Though structural organization and specific legal matters vary from state to state, the overall nature of the American political system can be characterized as significantly more decentralized and less involved compared to Finland and other Nordic states. The lack of a comparably comprehensive and generous welfare state is due to a greater historical importance on privacy and independence on a popular level. The political system in the United States is staunchly two-party, with the Democratic and Republican Parties representing center left and right interests and issues respectively, and largely dominating congressional positions and presidential elections. Other parties certainly exist, such as the Green Party, Communist Party, and so on, and there does tend to be at least a minimal independent (non-party affiliated) presence in many presidential elections and government bodies. But by and large, governmental power is highly concentrated in the structural dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans, which leads to a great lack of political representation for those espousing political beliefs outside of the party platforms compared to many other countries with multiparty political systems.

This division has become particularly pronounced during the last two or three years in the face of the debates and official candidacies for the 2016 presidential elections, and the destructive wake left by the erratic, illogical, and misinformed actions of the current presidential administration. Increased societal polarization has contributed to greater distance between people and geographical areas of differing political orientation. But on the other hand, outrage at the more pronounced state of disorganization, corruption, and oppression of marginalized people has led to greater cohesion around certain issues, creating mobilized social movements that canvas and fight for social change, both at official and grassroots levels. An excellent example from the current year would be the March for Our Lives, a movement started by survivors of a recent shooting at Parkland High School in Florida, which has brought an unprecedented level of continued attention and debate to the issue of finally bringing the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to a state of contemporary relevance in regulating gun control in the interest of civilian safety. Another which has gained prevalence due to the politics and expression of the current administration is the Women’s March, which was organized shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration to protest his blatant misogyny and political issues affecting women and the advancement of gender equality in the United States. It was held in January 2018 on the anniversary of the inauguration for a second year in a row, garnering even further support across various political and identity spectrums.

24 April 2018: Ethnic Differences and Inequalities:

Finland’s traditional minorities typically fall into three distinct categories of classification. The first is by far the most numerous, a linguistic minority, that being the finlandssvenskar, or Swedish-speaking Finns. Then there is a prevalent indigenous minority in the form of several Saami groups found in the far northern province of Finnish Lapland. Finally, small communities of immigrant descent prior to the waves of immigration in the 1980s and 1990s, consisting of Roma, Tatar, Jewish, and Russian communities. For much of the 18th and 20th centuries, Finland was a country of emigration, experiencing waves of significant immigration quite a bit later than most other European states. Many of these newcomers originally hail from neighboring countries, such as Russia, Estonia, and other former Soviet republics, or have come to Finland as refugees from places such as Vietnam, Somalia, or the Kurdish-majority regions of the Middle East.

Organization of census data in Finland is distinct from that in many other states in that it quantifies the population by native language rather than ethnicity. Even if raised in bilingual or multilingual households, census data requires citizens to pick a single mother tongue when completing the paperwork. The proportions of the Swedish-speaking minority in particular have remained quite constant over the course of the last century in terms of numbers, shrinking as the Finnish-speaking population has grown, both due to natural population growth and native Swedish speakers adopting Finnish as a primary language to make a statement of national belonging and membership in Fennoman associations.

Certain aspects of structural bias can be noted in the system, with greater proportions and percentages of unemployment among speakers of immigrant languages compared to speakers of recognized national languages, and even a bias towards hiring of individuals who submit applications with Finnish-sounding names compared to those with, for example, Russian-sounding names. Significant differences can be noted among first and second generations of immigrant communities (meaning relatively recently arrived adults versus their children born and raised in the host country, or having arrived at a very young age before starting school) in terms of human capital. This is particularly manifested in terms of greater language skills, host country-specific educational or work experience, and possession of citizenship.

In the United States, most census data and other criteria for measuring proportions of different groups within the overall population are based on racial categories. Though these have diverged and evolved somewhat over time, they can still be overly simplistic and force certain people into leaving out specific information on their heritage, or to list themselves as groups which they do not consider themselves a part of and with which they may not share various privileges. A good example would be Middle Easterners, particularly Arabs, being forced to classify themselves as either “white” or “other” for a long time in spite of obvious differences and lack of privileges compared to such categories. Another would be Latino or Hispanic categories, which are rather nebulous cultural and linguistic labels respectively, designating individuals with Latin American and/or Spanish speaking origins, which encompass huge numbers of people across all sorts of racial, ethnic, religious, and national boundaries and intersections.

I wonder whether the distinction between linguistic, rather than racial or ethnic self-identification in census data, may contribute to greater linguistic preservation across generations in Finland versus the United States. My home country is sometimes referred to as “the graveyard of languages” in reference to how quickly populations of immigrant origin tend to be assimilated across generational lines - usually, by the second or third generation born on American soil, the original language will be lost. By comparison, it seems that immigrant communities in many European countries, including Finland, retain their mother tongues across generational lines much more effectively. In a specifically Finnish context, this may certainly be due at least in part to the laws requiring official instruction if there are certain amounts of pupils in a school who share a mother tongue. But in general, I theorize that the general structure of such provisions and bureaucratic categorizations being based around language rather than race or ethnicity may contribute to a stronger sense of community or identity through language itself, and thus enable immigrant communities to keep their languages in active use longer and more easily.