While Finland has achieved a lot of progress in creating a Nordic welfare state based on social equality (Letters, 16 February), we have to ask which groups are entitled to such values. With the Sami, Roma, migrants and other minorities, this is, unfortunately, not the case. As the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä scales back funds to the education system and social welfare state, we see a problem arising that has not been readily acknowledged by white Finland: social inequality, racism and discrimination. The mass deportation of Iraqis and Afghans, who came to Finland from 2015, is a sad case in point.

It wasn’t too long ago when foreigners – never mind minorities like the Sami – didn’t have equal civil rights never mind the right to speak their language at schools. It was only after EU membership in 1995 that Finland started, at least in the law, to be more open to difference and to the outside world. The parliamentary election victory of the populist anti-immigrant True Finns party in 2011 was a stark reminder that many want to turn back the clock to more harrowing times for minorities and migrants.

Enrique Tessieri

Mikkeli, Finland

• Finland has an unknown very kind side. Both Finland and Estonia have reached 100 years since independence from the Russian empire (into which both were incorporated against their will). What never gets talked about is the winter war of 1939, which the Finns won against the Russians. How could they ally with them the following year? Neutrality meant nothing. Both Estonia and Finland, republics, were neutral at the outbreak of the second world war. During the war, Finnish pilots saved medieval Tallinn from being bombed flat by the allies (the Russians). When Estonia declared independence again, in 1991, huge material and moral help and ideas came from Finland. Now, together, they lead European great education. Thank you lovely Finland, keep going.

Elo Allik-Schünemann

London

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