The Dutch have a saying, that translates to something like; it was the Finns again. Well, the “immigration critical” Dutch do. What they mean, is that as news of disturbance, or crime rarely tells us the ethnicity of purpetrators, they think it is a good guess they were not of “white” European descendant and Finns have been selected to be the model of these sort of unharmfull foreigners, as opposed to foreigners who one can recognize from among ethnic locals in the Netherlands as per the perplexion. This is an attempt to be sarcastic, but it fails totally, because they assume – as is typical for racists – that the Finns, based on their skin colour, are strangers to crime and disturbance.
The reason why Swedish “immigration criticals” have not adopted this Dutch catch phrace is, that it is not very good sarcasm at all, because it was actually used in Sweden in racistc context just few decades ago on the headlines of newspapers. “En Finne Igen!” Or “A Finn Once Again!” It messes up the narrative of one being able to recognize evildoers by the colour of their skin. Wich is about the most stupid – altough freightfully common – assumption.
The Finns were cheap labour immigrants for decades in the late 20th century Sweden. Many were lonely young men, who carried knives, as a continuation of the range roaming culture of their home and as protection from the locals angry at them for taking their jobs, women, benefits, or simply being an outsider and seemingly vulnerable (as there are always people who get satisfaction from attacking easy targets). The Finns often had limited language skills and a culture of heavy drinking (inherited from their fathers who had no other means of medicating their generational war traumas). These men did not move to Sweden because they really wanted, but because farming all the smallest farmsteads in Finland was slowly becoming economically impossible and because of both the post war baby boom and increased healthcare created far too many candidates to inherit the farms. In addition Finland had lost a major part of arable land in the war, so even as it is a scarcely populated country, there was over population, while Sweden had survived WWII virtually untouched. On the contrary, they had profited by selling steel to the Nazi warmachine. They had no idea what was wrong with the Finns and simply thought it was the fact that they are Finns and then expanded from a few misdeeds, that all Finns are dangerous knife weilding drunkards. It seemed like an obvious conclusion, because at point there were more Finns in Swedish prisons, than there were Swedes. This sort of storytelling appeals to people because it satisfies all fears and prejudices of strangers and offers a sensation of safety in a method of recognizing threats. It also paints a picture of the target group to be morally inferior, wich not only makes some people feel better about themselves, but excuses any exploitation towards the other group of people in the labour markets. The blame of increased crime can also be assigned to the origin of the newcomers instead of recognizing the real reasons, like increased economical division and outright poverty within society, or segragation of the immigrants to make them feel as outsiders for even generations to come.
Finns have been racially judged before. The USA had immigration policy, that was meant to favour “white” protestants. These were seen as better people, than anybody from the rest of the world. Finns, of course fit both of these definitions perfectly. However, they had many faulties in the eyes of the people, who had made up these preferances. Many Finnish immigrants to North-America were, once again the sort of lonely men as described abowe. When not, they were eager to organize workers unions. Wich was nothing short of Communism for their employers, wich after the Finnish civil war lost by Communists in 1918 was also true, as many on the losing side immigrated all over the world. So, to get rid of these troublesome people a reason was needed and of course it had to be their origin, thus they were deemed not “white”. It seems ridiculous, as Finns in general are tall blonds with blue eyes, but they were defined as mongols. The “evidence” for this racialition was found among things, like Finnish craniums being generally wider than those of the Germanic languages speaking nations. Not unlike the Nazies found Communism to be Jewish, when they needed to tell each other what was wrong with one or the other Communists had the fault of being Jews and Jews had the fault of being Communists, never mind the reality. The mind of the racist is increadibly flexible to fit the reality to that one fantasy they have.
Even in Canada there were signs outside bars, that banned entry from “Indians and Finns”. Initially the Nazies defined Finns among the indiginous or “Turan” peoples of Europe, that meant they were not “Aryan” conquerors, but “untermench”, subhuman. When the Finns fought hard in the Winter War against the Soviets and the Nazies needed allies on their “Manifest Destiny” of the conquest of Soviet Union, suddenly their view on Finns changed to fit that ridiculous aim. Now the Finns were seen as a mixed race of both Germanic and Turanian origin, but being led by Germanic Swedish speaking Finns. The Finns played along. Beaty contests were held and athletes sent to international sports events to prove that the Finns were, if not exactly Aryan, at least worthy of them. But they could not get rid of the too high cheek bones and wide craniums.
As the WWII drew to an end Finns could not stand the pressure of the Red Army and the German “superhuman” military was all but spent, the Finns turned coats and backstabbed their erstwhile helpers. After the war it became open for all to see what the logical consequences of racism are, as the concentration camps were revealed in the Nazi occupied territories. Further more, the lie about the Germanic super-race was inflated. The Colonial powers and their racist systems of exploitation became under suspect, as they could not be defended by other arguments, as those the Germans had used to justify their conquest of other countries. But even if civil liberties movement won great victories in the USA and the Colonial Empires crumbled, racism did not die out…
Even today it raises it’s ugly head, as it appeals to the stupid and morally challenged. It promises these, who have nothing to show for themselves, but who have grown up in a competetive culture, how they are supposedly more deserving, than some others, conviniently by fiat of being born to some particular group of people. As this is appealing to the downtrotten nitwit and to the priviledged nincompoop alike, it is an opportunity too good not to be exploited by the populist politician. Who then either flirts with it, or goes head on with it and in both cases moves the goal posts of the society just a little bit further towards Fascism. In reality this benefits nobody. Because, even if the populist politician gains power and their followers feel their prejudices becoming somehow more justified, what they have created is a less egalitarian and by far less safe society and they have released a value base in wich anyone may become the subject of racist violence. Just as the Finns could be defined lesser and not “white” enough, so could you.
December 12, 2023 at 8:57 am
Such an odd concept to believe your greatest achievement in life was being born white.
December 12, 2023 at 9:29 am
Most people feel this way, unfortunately
December 12, 2023 at 12:50 pm
If they feel it is, it may very well be the most significant thing in their life defining their identity. Most likely though, it is just a thing among other equally arbitrary and meaningless things, that they themselves and others like them want to value.
December 12, 2023 at 1:13 pm
You will most likely find they identify with nationalistic parties.
December 13, 2023 at 4:55 pm
No-one is actually ‘white’; we’ve just been blanched through lack of exposure to the sun. Differences in skin tone would be so much less obvious if we all had time to get out and enjoy the sunshine!;¬]
December 15, 2023 at 4:01 am
It is a perfect example of a cultural construct built to exploit people, abusing the fact, that people do have a variety of perplexions. The rich “white” people granted the poor “white” people this imaginary second tier in society, in exchange for the chance to rob anybody not deemed “white”, and after the rich had taken the property of these outsiders to “whiteness”, the poor “whites” stood as bulwark to defend the wealth of the rich, for the priviledge of being considered “white”. It still goes on.
We now have a minister here in Finland, who dared to express her concern, that “if we are too blue eyed about immigration, we will no longer have blue eyes in the future”. The irony in her wordplay being, that in Finnish (where the majority of us actually have blue eyes) being “blue eyed” about something means being naive. Does she even get the real joke behind the stupidity of her words? I doubt it. She may be clever enough to use the stupidity of others in this issue, but to me it appears she is stupid enough to believe her own pitch.
December 12, 2023 at 4:40 pm
I think culture also plays a big role in that people often side with the opinions and the influence of personal friends rather than forming their own perspectives.
December 13, 2023 at 4:56 am
Yes, a lot of people appear as if on autopilot. They live as they had been programmed to want the things they are expected to by their parents and peers, the advitasers, fashion and marketmen. Is it a habit learned as a child, or in that awkward stage of teenage, when most seem to want to hide in the crowd in fear of standing out as different? They seem to have a keen nose for smelling out what is conformative at any given time and a fast judgement of what is not “normal”. I guess, this is one of the reasons why conservatively minded folks are in pains, that being normative is central to their sense of security, and as that issue is in turmoil, in how many minorities and other “different” people (like atheists, among others) have risen from the invisible marginal they were pushed into before, the people clinging on tradition and norms telling them what is moral, feel desperate. Since their morality is not based on cause, effect and consequence, or the wellbeing of others, their pushback against new and confusing norms is towards Fascism (and racism), because it is a desperate measure to defend their identity.
December 13, 2023 at 3:46 pm
I think you have hit a nail on its head with this: this is one of the reasons why conservatively minded folks are in pains, that being normative is central to their sense of security — and being “normative” for them very definitely means clinging to tradition. “New stuff” frightens them and they immediately put up defenses.
December 15, 2023 at 3:27 am
Yes, it is odd, how the Conservatives are ready to adopt the most drastic changes to their society, to stop some other changes from happening. Often the changes they are opposing would be for the better and the changes they accept are the worst kind. Look at Russia. What they adopted from the fallen Soviet Union was militarism, corruption, autocracy, police state and bureaucracy (exactly the same crap they adopted from the Imperial Russia). What they ditched was the ideal of equality, free education, free healthcare, job security and a system where they did not have to pay taxes. How could they get to be so screwed a second time within a century? Same thing as with the Germans. The Nazies gained power by opposing all sorts of left-wing liberal ideals of equality and tolerance and re-enacted all the worst qualities of the Imperial Germany going even further into inequality of humans by reaching some sort of record in both evil and stupid. Now their despicable ideals are once again gaining political ground in Germany and all over the Europe. Here too. Not by that name, because Nazism has become a byword for evil, but by selling exactly the same values, just with a minor detail changes, like instead of talking about the Jews as the problem, changing the focus on immigrants.