HS Home 15.1.2002 - New Minority Ombudsman says flexibility required for greater tolerance

By Susanna Reinboth

Finland’s first Minority Ombudsman Mikko Puumalainen, 40, believes that tolerance is on the increase in Finnish society. However, he sees the only guarantee of a better future as lying in greater flexibility from both sides - from minorities and from representatives of the majority population alike.

Wonders can be achieved with just a little effort, argues Puumalainen. “It’s often the little things that lead to unnecessary collisions and conflicts, if they go unheeded or if people take the view that they aren’t worth bothering about”.

Puumalainen has only been in his office for a fortnight, following the establishment last September of an Office for the Ombudsman of Minorities under the Ministry of Labour. The idea is that the Ombudsman should act as an independent body and be responsible for preventing ethnic discrimination, promoting good ethnic relations, and overseeing that the principles of non-discrimination on ethnic grounds are carried out in practice. The new man is just starting a five-year term in the job.

The current Minority Ombudsman’s ambit

is rather larger than that of his de facto predecessor Antti Seppälä, who retired recently as the “Ombudsman for Aliens”.

In addition to foreigners’ affairs, the new man is supposed to keep an eye on the rights of Finland’s old minorities – for example the Sámis of Lapland and the Roma, or gypsy population, which numbers around 10,000 in Finland, with a further 3,000 living in Sweden.

He can also be of help to those foreigners who have taken Finnish citizenship through residence here, but who may be facing difficulties because of their non-Finnish background.

Puumalainen stresses that those

who belong to minorities are in no different a position from others in having to take responsibility for their own lives. Minorities should not isolate themselves behind a self-imposed cultural wall.

“They should seek to use the opportunities that they have. This means that they should apply for training programmes, for instance, that they should make use of the support systems provided by the society, they should organise themselves, and that they should actually make a move to contact the authorities.”

In Puumalainen’s view

, the deep-rooted and inherently fine principle of formal equality that runs through Finnish society can lead to problems if it is interpreted too narrowly.

He cites a case in which a company had arranged that all employees would be entitled to a half-hour lunch break and two breaks for coffee during the day.

The Muslim members of the staff also took short breaks for prayers during the working day, and this caused a bit of disgruntlement amongst certain other employees. It turned out, however, that anyone on the payroll was entitled - provided that it did not directly interrupt the work they were doing - to take cigarette breaks at will, in addition to the other stoppages.

“I mean, is there really any difference in the fact that someone steps outside for five minutes for a cigarette or they stop for a prayer?” asks Puumalainen.

Headgear has been another bone of contention

. One Finnish employer refused to hire a Muslim woman to work in his travel agency because she wanted to wear a scarf on her head at work. The employer took the view that the scarf did not suit the image of the company.

After a civil court case in Sweden, it was determined that a Sikh bus-driver could wear a turban in addition to his normal uniform. On the other hand, a British court ruled that Sikhs were not allowed to wear turbans in place of hard hats on building sites.

Puumalainen regards both the Swedish and British decisions as successful ones. “The idea of a uniform is realised simply enough in that jacket he puts on, but on a building site a turban isn’t going to do you much good if a brick falls on your head, is it?”

Muslim women who wear the veil

have been a bit of a problem, for example on the buses run by the Helsinki City Transport. Some of them refuse to show their faces to the driver, even though they are travelling using a personal season ticket with an ID photo.

The Ombudsman sees the bus-drivers’ point, and agrees that the HCT can demand that a passenger using such a ticket should show their face. It is after all an agreement between two parties, one fundamental element of which is that the one should be able to recognise the other. If the passenger does not keep her side of the bargain, then it is hardly possible to claim that the other side should.

“If a member of a minority finds it completely impossible to show their face, then perhaps it would be best to buy a ten-trip ticket instead.”

On the other hand

, Puumalainen sees no problems in the fact that some Muslim girls come to school with a scarf on their heads. “I’ve seen pictures of school classrooms, and there are kids sitting there with woollen caps on their head! Back in the 1970s you’d never have got away with that.”

Many children from immigrant families get into difficult situations from the fact that they are living between two cultures. Puumalainen emphasises the need for give and take in this department.

“Certainly the society should not create any other barriers to alienate and separate people, since the process of assimilation into a new society is difficult enough as it is.”

He sees one example of this in Muslim girls and physical education at school. Not all parents have been willing to let their daughters take part, or at least not in all the exercises and sports. It’s cause for pondering just who ultimately has the responsibility for raising the child.

“I’d personally place quite a lot of weight on what the parents say. It may well mean a great deal to them that their own culture is transmitted to their children”, says Puumalainen.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 12.1.2002