Espoo for all: Present-day Finnish identity

2021-05-12 The chair of the Espoo Equality Committee

Mall of Tripla. Drive in COVID-19 testing. Life Science Center Keilaniemi. Over the last decades, quite a few anglicism, words derived from the English language, have made their way into our daily vocabulary. Internationality has strongly increased and continues to grow. This can be considered as one reason for the increase of anglicisms, and loanwords have certainly entered the Finnish language in the past as well, but they used to be adopted from native speakers of the language living in Finland. For example, Finnish colloquial words ‘sontikka’ and ‘mesta’ are loanwords from Russian, ‘spåra’ and ‘satsaus’ from Swedish.

There is no question that internationality is desirable. It ensures that we are aware of what they can do abroad and what we cannot do here in Finland. We maintain our competitive edge by collecting from abroad the things we Finns cannot, will not or are not able to do. In the corporate world, they talk of benchmarking – another anglicism. The risk associated with internationalisation is that instead of developing, the Finnish language and culture starts to wither away. However, I personally view this risk to be minute at the moment.

The arrival of people from other cultures will diversify Finland while also challenging us to engage in dialogue. How can we preserve and cherish our own culture, promote it and, at the same time, respect the cultures of others? I would say that the key is thorough knowledge of one’s own culture and heritage and understanding that other people also have their own cultural heritage to represent. The City of Espoo supports social cohesion by inviting residents to participate in professionally organised dialogues: my first impression of them is nothing but positive.



Many of us get to know people from other cultures through our work. That was the case for me, too. My employer is strongly invested in diversity and inclusion policy. By the way, diversity and inclusion are yet another examples of anglicisms. In this sense, the Finnish working life calendar is absurd; it dictates that a Muslim celebrates Christmas and a Jew Ascension Day. Perhaps we should rather have a certain number of public holidays and employees could decide for themselves when they want to spend them – there is a tough nut for all you decision-makers to crack.

My Spanish colleague displays the Finnish flag on his balcony. I asked him why. He replied that when he moved to Finland, he wanted to become a part of Finland and the Finnish culture, and also show it to others. He does not want to be a Spaniard in Finland, but to become Finnish and a part of the Finnish society. When talking more about the essence of Finnish identity, foreigners often say that Finns do not easily open their lives to foreigners and that young Finns hardly even greet anymore: when coming across a neighbour in the corridor, they may pass without saying hello or even turn their head away.

I once mentioned to my Hungarian colleague that there is a Hungarian Cultural and Science Centre in Helsinki, and that it was established already in 1980. She replied that she is really not that interested; she has come to Finland and her plan is to integrate into the Finnish society and not emphasise her Hungarian identity. Of course, the matter might also be influenced by the fact that in 1980, Hungary was under a regime of terror influenced by the Soviet Union. Cultural centres established abroad acted as soft tools of influence for such tyrannies.



“Swedes we are not. Russians we do not want to become. Let us therefore be Finns.” –J.V. Snellman.

I wish you all happy Finnish Identity Day!

The author is the chair of the Espoo Equality Committee.

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