Image: YLE / Karoliina Kemppainen

Integration is the holy grail of immigration policy, accepted and promoted by all major political parties. A recent poll showed a majority of Finns agree with the statement that foreigners “should become as Finnish as possible” if they are to remain in Finland. Foreigners reading the survey found it difficult to interpret what might be required.

“I think for someone to even ask that question is really ridiculous,” says Maryan Abdulkarim, a Somali-born Finn in Helsinki. “But then I think it is even more ridiculous for someone to answer that ’well I think immigrants can come to this country, but then they have to become like us’.”

Enrique Tessieri, editor of the Migrant Tales blog, believes the survey shows that many Finns “are against cultural diversity”. His blog started in 2007 as a means to counter what he saw as a biased media discussion of the immigration issue. He sees the debate on cultural difference as a work in progress.

“I think it’s changed quite radically,” says Tessieri. “I think the growth of the blog is an example that these questions are not being answered. Our only aim is to be a voice for those who don’t have a voice, who are not being heard by the politicians and the media in general.”

Debate lacks nuance

Abdulkarim, who works as a research assistant at Helsinki University, sees the whole concept of Finnishness as problematic. She says rural Finns are different to urban Finns, and any attempt to claim ownership of the term is bound to cause difficulties.

“They are more maybe conservative, they have different values, so are those people less Finnish or are they more Finnish? So it just becomes really bizarre, the whole question.”

She says the Finnish discourse on migration lacks nuance. There are relatively few migrants in Finland, and many of them do not fit a stereotypical category.

“For some reason it seems that most Finnish people think that when you talk about immigrants it only refers to Somali people, or people with a Somali background, or people who are from Africa,” says Abdulkarim. “And they neglect the fact that the majority of immigrants in this country come from other EU countries.”

Tessieri's argument revolves around liberal, global markets and Finland’s chances of success in a competitive world economy.

“For better or worse I think we have to accept globalisation,” says Tessieri. “We need skilled workers, we need foreign investment, we need new ideas, we need foreign markets for our exports and so on. If we fail in this, and by failing I mean if we become xenophobic, that we fear the outside world, we restrict the movement of people to this country, we make it difficult for foreign investment to come here, then we are in trouble.”

A television report on this story is available here.