Insulting, stereotypes and prejudice

Insulting, stereotypes and prejudice in Finland

Insulting, name-calling, and malicious stereotypes are quite interesting to analyse, because they reveal a lot about the relationships of people. This is intended to be an analysis of cultural antropology, not a list of insults. I understand that the topic is emotive, but that's kind of the point. I don't want another "How to insult" node. I am not pulling this out of my ass.

I focus on Finland, other people can focus to countries they know better than I do. Generally, Finns can have very extreme opinions, but when really confronted, they aren't so extreme. Very Finnish behaviour, this keeping the consensus up. There is a lot of prejudice, but it rarely takes a violent form of expression. The general public thinks that they'd be racist skinheads, which are not supported widely. There is a large population of Christian zealots, but they aren't so verbal as for example American televangelists. See Riku Rinne. It carries its own message that the current President, Tarja Halonen, has been the chairman of SETA, which is an organisation promoting e.g. gay rights.

In short, Finland is the ultimate nation of "I'm no racist, but..."

Physical characteristics

Black people

• The scientific name is negrid.
• Sometimes all of them are called Somali in Finland. Before 1990's, the head of the Immigration Bureau, Eila Kännö, let hardly anyone in. When some refugees were let in after she had retired, they were Somali. The Somali got a bad name because of the incidents where some Somalis thought they could live as lawlessly in Finland as they lived in Somalia. Somalia was, after all, a chaotic country then and still is. The political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen was harsh on them. His cartoons were published on the second page of Helsingin Sanomat, which is the most widely distributed newspaper in Finland.
• African-American is the "politically correct" name, but this is an Americanism that few people know. Consequently, "afrikan-amerikkalainen" is never used. "Dark-skinned" (tummaihoinen) is used instead, but then again, there are very many dark-skinned people that don't belong to the negrides.
• The Romance language word "negro" is "neekeri" in Finnish. It was used for American slaves, so it is now considered racist by many politically correct. However, it never had the connotations of "nigger", and was the accepted term before the 1990's. A genuine Veikkaus ad from the 1930's: "Ainoastaan Afrikan neekeri ei veikkaa!" ("Only the genuine African negro doesn't gamble!") Similarly, the newspaper Ilkka, distributed in southern Pohjanmaa, carried a story titled "Neekeri nähty Seinäjoella" (A negro seen in Seinäjoki) in the 1950's.
• "Mutiainen", from "musta" (black) and/or muta (dirt). This expression is a racist insult.

Southern Caucasian & Middle Eastern

"There's nothing wrong with racism." - UN trooper, pathologist Valtteri Suomalainen in his UN memoirs

• "Sählämi" and "ählämi" are Finnish words for Arabs that are like "neekeri" (negro) for a black man. They are derived from the Arabian greeting "salem", which sounds like "shählääm" in Finnish. The word "sählään" means "I confuse/mix up". See handyman.
• Gratituously generalizing everyone from the region as an Arab, Muslim, Islamic fundamentalist and consequently terrorist. Not all Middle Eastern are Arabs, because some are Aryan (Iranian). E.g. Iran < Har'ian < Aryan. (Note: "Aryan" does not mean Germanic, but a cultural group that is Vedic and Indo-European. Hitler actually killed a lot of Romanies, who speak an Aryan language.) See Religions: Islam.

Nationalities & Ethnicities

Finns

• Rude, cold and emotionless. The most important part of Finnish culture is "Don't exaggerate". Many other cultures are more verbal and have small talk, which Finns are not interested in, which is then interpreted as being rude. The normal intonation and phrasing of the Finnish language is sad or rude in many other languages. The French say that Finns sound like they swear all the time.
• Norwegians have Finnish jokes, where the protagonist is always called Pekka. Pekka is a common Finnish name, but means "penis" in Norwegian. The other guy in the joke is usually Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, the former president.
• The impression that Mikael Niemi gives in the book Populärmusik från Vittula is that Finnish women have big asses. I would not say that there'd be big differences in body shape, but I lack a good standard reference.

Swedes

• Finns call Swedes "homo". One explanation is that the native intonation of Swedish sounds gay to the ear of Finn. (soft gay s, intonation varies) This applies to both Swedish and Finnish citizens, who use the Swedish type of intonation. (The intonation of the Finnish type is more like in Finnish, and sounds "normal".)
• Another explanation for the name "homo" is, that, well, they are. =P The public of Sweden in more liberal in these matters than Finns, and homosexuality tends to be more accepted. This is "too liberal" for a Christian God-fearing Finn, including especially the Finland Swedes. The members of the Swedish People's Party are mostly right-wing Christians.
• The Swedish seamen are said to be even more gay, because they live months and months with only other men.
• "Hurri" can mean either a Swedish-speaking Finn or a Swede, and is considered offensive like "nigger". In regions where there are a lot of Swedish speakers, like in Helsinki and Vaasa, this hostility (hurriviha) is more pronounced than in purely Finnish areas. However, the hostility is not active nor violent. It's not really serious.

The Romany

• Gypsy, like many other words, used to be more accepted. In Finnish "mustalainen", from "musta" (black). The Finnish Gypsies themselves identify as Gypsies - they don't want fake political correctness. (Rock singer Andy McCoy, for example, has written the song "Gypsy boots", where he says he has "lived like a gypsy all his life".)
• The generation of my grandmother used to threaten misbehaving children like this: "If you don't behave, we'll give you to the gypsies!" My friend, for example, likes to tease the neighbor's kid by saying that "the gypsies come to your house and get you". This implies that the Romany are to be afraid of, violent and unlawful. At my grandmother's time, media reported crime by the Romany more eagerly and visibly than the crimes of the ordinary population.
• The wanderer's lifestyle was interpreted as lazyness. There have been - and still is - a lot of problems in employing the Romany.

The Russians

• Like "neekeri" and "hurri", the Russians are called "ryssä". Before the independence, that was the official name, but somehow it's offensive now. The name "Ryssänmaa" (for Russia) was used in the Czar's orders. In WW2, "ryssä" became the name used for the enemy, like "Japs". See Ryssän Kauhu.
• Other names for the enemy from the Winter War and the Continuation War were "vanja", "iivana", etc. These names are relatively inoffensive and derive from common Russian names (e.g. Ivan).
• President Mauno Koivisto let a lot of Russian citizens into Finland. The Inkerians is a Finnish people that lives in Karelia. Many of them were forced to live under the Soviet rule, even though they were Finnish citizens before the Second World War. Koivisto wanted let them and their descendants into Finland, and so a lot of Russian citizens immigrated. Many of them were really Russians, who had one Finnish grandparent (real or faked) or something analogous. The Russians living in Finland got a bad name because of the criminals who immigrated as "Inkerians". I'm one-fourth an Inkerian, so I can sympathise for the real Inkerians. My grandmother was called "ryssä" by the Finns and "tshuhna" (a Finn/a fart) by the Russians!
• The criminals are frequently car thieves. E.g. the joke: "What do you get when you cross a Russian and a Frenchman? - A car thief who cannot drive."

The United States of North America

• So-called Americans are thought to be stupid and imbecile simply because of their education. Americans are not taught that there is a world outside their borders, so a foreigner gets a bad impression of their intelligence. See they're foreign not deaf. As many of the noders may agree, their primary education isn't of a high quality.
• It was reported by an exchange student that Americans think that the rest of the world is only less developed countries. This gives an impression of arrogance, which - just like the rest of the world - the Finns get. George W. Bush and his republican party isn't particularly helping it. However, as Finland is a small country, Finns understand that this is a consequence of their superpower status, not because of simple idiocy.
• Americans are called fat. On TV you can see the shows of Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, and such. Many of the guests are overweight, and Finns know the statistics that overweight is a problem in the USA. Mega-sized portions of food and drink don't help. Alas, overweight is also a big problem in Finland, too.
• "Shallow" and "superficial" are other stereotypes cast on them. Americans tend to get many acquaintances, and everyone is everyone's friend. This is completely normal to them. In cultures with a strict stranger/friend distinction, like in Finland, this is projected as trying to be a friend, but being too superficial and stupid for it. This is a case of misunderstanding of another culture. For example, there's this satirical quote: "Hi, nice to meet you, how are you, I love you!" (Once upon a time I was biking, and an American stopped me and asked for directions. She was smiling, talking a lot in a friendly way and in the end, she touched me! Helllp! I knew that the Americans were friendly to everyone, but that was a kind of a shock.)

Religions

Catholics

• Especially the priests are called gay, because they have the celibacy, but spend a lot of time with other priests. There is some circumstantial evidence for this: in USA, HIV is four times more common in Catholic priests than in the general population. Some of the elderly think AIDS is exclusively a "homo disease", and that attitude is absorbed, but not accepted as-is by the younger population. HIV does spread more probably in gay sex than in hetero sex, because the vaginal mucus is more protective than the anal mucus. (Reference to a Catholic site: http://www.libchrist.com/other/homosexual/catholicpriestsAIDS.html)
• Some priests were recently sentenced to prison for pedophilia. Hence all Catholics are pedophiles! That's the mode of thinking, anyway. Finns know very little about Catholics, and the news stories is what form the opinion.

Muslims

"... 28% (of Finns) think that Islam threatens the Finnish culture and practioning Islam should not be allowed in Finland."

"... 28 prosenttia on sitä mieltä, että islam uhkaa suomalaista kulttuuria eikä islamin harjoittamista tulisi sallia Suomessa." - Kouvolan Sanomat 2001

• A survey revealed that 28% of Finns want to ban Islam. Not a surprise, though - 93% of Finns are Christians, some of them really closed-minded. This is caused by media bias. The news we receive is like this: "An Islamist killed 25 people in Israel".
• Terrorists. 'Nuff said. The Binladin family and Saudi Arabia blamed Osama bin Laden for disgracing Islam, and that is what he effectively did. The history of large-scale Islamic terrorism is quite short, because the Islamic world has been too secular and prosperous to breed terrorism for a long time.
• Stoners of women, esp. pregnant women, from the punishment of adultery in Islam. The thinking goes to so that because this is still enforced in e.g. Nigeria, all Muslims must be stoners of women. Again, this has been seen even in the Letters to the Editor section of respectable newspapers like Helsingin Sanomat.

Politics

Extreme right & left

• Nazi and fascist are used as a general insult for someone who is limiting and exercises power too arrogantly. The Nazi have become an archetype of totalitatian control and racial hatred. This is a powerful insult, because in Western post-World War value system, genocide is the most horrible crime imaginable. This does not insult many Arab extremists, though, because the Nazis killed Jews, who they're are equally hostile at.
• Hitler, a Nazi leader, has become an archetype of an aggressive and disturbed dictator, who arbitrarily seizes power. These people have been called Hitlers: Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Zhirinovski, Ariel Sharon, and the famed Mr. Et Cetera.
• "Pikku-Hitler", "the little Hitler" can be used for kids that are bullies and arrogant to adults.
• Communist, less common Stalin, of people supporting too Socialist ideas in the speaker's opinion.

Other politics

• The members of the Centre Party, formerly the Agrarian Party are country bumpkins or hicks (lande(paukku), juntti).
• Finland has conscription for military service, so most of the men are trained as soldiers. According to many of them, a man is not a man without being a soldier. Anyone who is pacifist and/or does civilian service instead is gay, long-haired hippie, lazy, unpatriotic etc.

Other

"Sosiaali" or "sosis" is quite distinctive Vaasa slang. It is shortening of "sosiaalipummi", or a "Social Security bum". A sosiaali is a leech of the society: he cannot live without Social Security, and when he gets the money, he usually drinks it all. This can also be applied to the children who are criminals, have problems in school, etc.

Note that the term "sosiaali" is used when describing public services and institutions, where everyone (or just the "less fortunate") has to go. The primary school is a "sosiaali" school, the army and the Social Insurance Institution are "sosiaali" institutions, etc. Here it means that there's no "quality requirement".

As an example, by the decision of the city council, everyone who wishes can get into Vaasan Yhteislukio. Those who can't get to Vaasan Lyseon lukio or to the vocational school (ammattikoulu) are dumped into Yhteislukio, which is just a kindergarten to them. (See lukio.)

Not insulted yet? /msg me. Please send formatted node content, if you have something to add. I can put it here directly to eliminate the possibility of misinterpretation. Thanks for mentoring to: Cletus the Foetus, mkb, amnesiac, hoyake.

Further reading on the web:

• Evangelist Riku Rinne. http://www.rikurinne.com/
• Pakanasivut: Muslimit Suomessa. http://jumalasuomi.tripod.com/muslimit.htm
• Kouvolan Sanomat 2001: Valtaosa Suomeen muuttaneista ulkomaalaisista on kokenut rasistista häirintää. http://www.kouvolansanomat.fi/arkisto/vanhat/2001/03/22/uutiset/juttu2/sivu.html
• Daily Christian News. (Horrible zealotry.) http://wwnet.fi/users/veijone/

This is analysis, or social anthropology, not my own opinions. (If you find any, please point them out for removal.) Insults are not MEANT TO BE politically correct or nice, are they?