This paper is based on a case study made in a suburb of the Helsinki capital area in the middle of the 1990s. Explicit intolerant behaviour towards immigrants, and groups that publicly speak for intolerance, were fairly infrequent in Finland in the early 1990s. This is not very surprising because immigration to Finland has been much less than in many other European and Scandinavian countries. Only in the 1990s immigration to Finland began to increase rapidly, and immigrants seem to be concentrating on the suburbs of big cities and in the Helsinki area in particular.2 The case study told, however, about the increase of intolerant attitudes against immigrants among local inhabitants and also about slowly increasing explicit intolerant behaviour. In the following I try to describe the background of these changes.

The lesson of the Finnish case seems to be that even if international examples and “international learning” are important in the case of intolerance too, they need, in order to be carried out in a new setting, locally favourable preconditions and a concrete local impulse. What this local stimulus will be, it is almost impossible to anticipate because concrete reasons can be so manifold. Anyway, the general logic seems to be a fusion of international3 and local4: a fusion in which local seems to be a necessary condition. That is why I try to describe general trends via a local case study.

Intolerant behaviour and political violence can be found in two places in particular: in “no-man’s land” in city centres and locally in decaying urban settings in which support for extreme right parties, if such happen to exist, can also be found. In our case study we were especially interested in the first local manifestations of intolerance. Therefore, the idea of the case study was to construct a typical case of a suburban local area which was characterised by low incomes, living in rented flats, small housing units, a low level of education, suffering from problems of unemployment, and a higher proportion of people of foreign extraction than on average in Helsinki area.

It has been proved in statistical analyses that the metropolitan area of Helsinki was becoming differentiated socially in the middle of the 1990s. However, local actions had so far prevented the formation of areas where the underprivileged were concentrated, and the underprivileged had remained scattered in their distribution in the way that it was possible to identify only local “pockets of poverty” rather than any widespread trend towards polarisation. On the other hand, when income, education, and unemployment were considered, the underprivileged seemed to be becoming more spatially concentrated than before. Even though relative differences in income had not increased on average in the middle of the 1990s, the differences between the quarters of the town had grown in Helsinki area.

Since the early and middle of the 1990s changes in differences in income between areas have, however, been more rapid. The latest statistics prove that between the years 1993–1998 the gross income of families rose about 20 % on average in Helsinki. However, in the lowest income areas, in our typical suburb, average incomes increased only from 5 to 10 %, which means that in many areas, when inflation is taken into account, real incomes in fact declined. In the highest income areas incomes increased at the same time from 32 to 45 % on average.

It seems evident that increasing social differentiation between urban areas, especially if it will lead to social segregation, poses a threat of prejudices against immigrants turning into intolerance and a real challenge for curbing spreading intolerance. Our interviews in the case study strongly confirmed this presumption.

Thinking about the problem of intolerance discontent and urban decay has been proved in many studies to be important factors.

The basic reason for xenophobic fears and racism is usually, for one reason or another, accumulated frustration, resentment and anger among the local people. This dissatisfaction may be directed against foreigners and refugees, who may symbolise and represent alien elements in an unsatisfactory everyday life. Therefore, it is essential to determine the necessary conditions under which attitudinal social and political dissatisfaction will turn into intolerance and protest behaviour.

It has been emphasised in many European studies on right-wing extremism and populism that these phenomena are typically based on a conglomeration of anti-attitudes. The ideologies of these movements and their supporters are anti-democratic, anti-pluralist, anti-parliamentary, antiegalitarian, and anti-partyist. The people who vote for radical right-wing movements often say that by voting for these groups they want to protest against the established political parties.

Consequently, it appears to be proved that the chances of new right-wing populist and extremist movements consist of mobilising political dissatisfaction.
On the other hand, it is clear that this kind of mobilisation happens by no means automatically. Some catalyses– like special issues or tensions in the political culture or special local circumstances – are needed to activate the feelings of political alienation into action. International experience has shown that questions related to immigration, and respectively to nationalism, as well as to different phenomena of urban decay including new poverty and increasing crime can play a significant part in this process.
It has been widely demonstrated that actual loss of status, unemployment, and so on is less relevant than the subjective dimension, that is the perception of threat to one’s status. It is reasonable to conclude that more often than not it is fear of unemployment and social dislocation rather than actual experience that nourishes prejudices and motivates support for neo-populist parties. Since Finland has during the 1990s faced economic recession and mass unemployment with their negative social consequences affecting large numbers of citizens, the need to study the problem of intolerance and the existence of potential support for radical right-wing movements has become more timely and important. The signs of political alienation in the form of non-voting and heavy criticism of politics that have been strengthening during the last decade especially justify a more vigorous research interest. Here we must keep in mind that it is too simple to suppose economic recession and mass unemployment necessarily or immediately increasing support for the New Radical Right movements. Most important is after all how people perceive the situation and what they expect from the future.

Political dissatisfaction and apathy have been characteristic of working class and lower salaried staff residential suburban areas, in particular. However, these suburban areas in Finland are still in quite good condition. They have not been reduced to a “slum”, even if the first signs of the people’s fears that some suburban areas are falling into decay can already be found. The other reason, which impedes dissatisfaction and apathy turning into explicit public manifestations of intolerance and populist reaction against the established political actors, has been the welfare state. It has, at least so far, functioned well enough that it has been able to ‘buy’ political tranquillity.

We must really speak about “slums” using parenthesis because in the absolute physical sense there are no slums in Finland, and after the economic recession of the early 1990s economic situation in all suburban areas in Helsinki capital area is improving along recovering employment. However, differences in income between suburbs have been growing. Because some local suburban areas, “poverty pockets” in particular, are more and more lagging relatively behind from overall development this may strengthen fears that the general image of these areas is worsening with respect to the development in other suburbs. Accordingly, we can speak about fears that certain “poverty pockets” will “be relatively reduced to a slum”. In our interviews in the suburb of the case study we found this kind of fears when many informants hinted at the first signs of the spiral of being reduced to a “slum”. Interviewed informants emphasised the following signs, for instance: new poverty in the form of mass employment characterised conspicuously everyday life in the suburb, the other conspicuous sign was immigrants, the increase of unrest and insecurity in the milieu, the physical and social exterior of the area was getting worse, many facilities in the area were slowly dying down, children’s school attendance were also getting worse when local sixth form college was closed, and, as an outcome of these changes, the prices of privately owned flats in the suburb were lagging behind from average rate development in Helsinki area. Described features in the suburb may create “intolerance of problems” and “racism of problems”. Even if local inhabitants might have subjectively tolerant attitudes their “instinct of self-preservation” may cause them, when social problems are concentrated in an alarming way in the same local area, to act “objectively” in an “intolerant way”, i.e., to “follow”, to “obey”, and to “carry out” the logic of the spiral of being reduced to a “slum” by for example moving away to a “better” suburb.

According to our case study of the suburb in the Helsinki capital area, the economic recession and broad rhetorically expressed political dissatisfaction were not, until the middle of the 1990s, turned into subjective crises experienced by a great number of individuals. The recession and political dissatisfaction had remained mainly on the level of general social problems without being transformed into either subjectively experienced crises of the self or political crisis. Social problems had not yet turned into subjective crises and, accordingly, political crisis because the welfare state had been so strong that it had been able to ‘buy tranquillity’ by paying ‘enough’ public subsidies to families and individuals in troubles. Therefore, the real problems of the economic and political system had not featured as a real crisis; dissatisfaction and discontent had resulted in apathy and indifference rather than in the “politics of resentment”.

The issue of racism is often related to the so-called urban crisis and the suburban problem. Christopher T. Husbands writes in an article that “the persistent definitional feature of the British extreme right has been crude urban racism, concentrated in specific localities and derived from parochial inter-ethnic competition about materialist or consumption issues or from local cultural clashes”. According to our case study, one could not speak about urban racism in Finland in the strict sense of the concept in the middle of the 1990s. Growing suspicions towards immigrants had not brought forth new extreme right movements, racist organisations or any massive violence against non-white immigrants, although intolerance in general, single violent acts, especially by skinhead-groups and, at random, also by drunken young men, had become more numerous.

Michel Wieviorka differentiates between two main levels of racism: the infrapolitical level and the political level. Usually contemporary racism appears first on the infrapolitical level and then ascends to the political level, with variations from one country to another. There are also big differences between local communities. On the infrapolitical level, racism is neither a central issue, and it is limited both quantitatively and qualitatively, nor does it give the image of a unified and integrated phenomenon. In political racism political and intellectual debates and real political forces bring a dual principle of unity to the phenomenon. On one hand, they give it an ideological structure, so that all its expressions seem to converge and define a unique set of problems; on the other hand, they offer it practical forms of organisation. Following Wieviorka’s definitions, we argued in our case study that racist violence in Finland in the middle of the 1990s was on the infrapolitical level and that the characteristics of political racism and racist organisations were missing so far. Traditionalism racism did not belong to people’s everyday life in the suburb except for a small skinhead-group. Instead, the “intolerance of problems”, prejudices towards “aliens” rising from the problems of everyday life, was already a topical challenge in the suburb.

Michael Minkenberg speaks about the “normal pathology of Western industrial societies”. According to him, in the periods of rapid modernisation certain individuals and groups develop rigid orientations in such a way that they can be mobilised by parties or movements who promise the return of old values and an old order. Neo-nationalism, anti-system thinking, intolerance and xenophobia have been characteristic to this kind of period. Thinking about the Finnish case, parties and groups, who try to transform this kind of atmosphere and fears into a real hatred against “strangers”, have not however had success, at least so far. Rather, when these kinds of sentiments exist, people have reacted by abstaining parliamentary politics. In our case study of a suburb in the Helsinki area passivity and apathy were the main outcome of discontent and distrust.

Taking into account how local “poverty pockets” with their many intertwined social problems really are, it seems reasonable to suppose that if there will be explicit public manifestations of intolerance these manifestations will be, at least at first, very local. In fact, symptoms of intolerance have so far been in Finland very local. Problems are in many cases concentrated in given blocks rather than in broader areas.

Excluding a small skinhead-group there was no other public political advocate of intolerance in the suburb of our case study in the middle of the 1990s. It was also interesting to note that most extremist groups were in Finland at that time relatively non-violent compared to the Swedish situation, for instance. However, the situation seems to be changing. I take up two recent examples.

In the same kind suburban setting of Turku, a third largest town in Finland, as in our case study, a group called The National Front got 4.4 % of the votes and three town councillors in local elections in 2000. The leader of the group got nearly 2000 votes, which was the second best result in the elections in Turku. In some suburban voting districts he got 13 per cent of the votes. The main theme of the National Front in elections was “we must stop the Islamic invasion of Finland”. The National Front has also organised petitions against asylum seekers, against the building of mosque in Turku, and against homosexuals.

The other example comes from Hakunila, a suburb in the Helsinki metropolitan area, where fights between the Finnish and Somali youth gangs in September 2000 created a tense atmosphere in which Somali families decided not send their children to school before their safety were better guaranteed. Tabloids spoke about “race war”.

It is interesting to note that the National Front in Turku got its biggest victories in suburbs in which the town had invested urban development money for the renovation of the areas. Extra money is really needed, but, at least in this case, money as such does not seem to help: either there was too little money, money came too late, effects of the renovation cannot yet be seen, or money in itself without other measures does not help at all or helps only very little.

The same kinds of renovation programs in suburbs with social problems have been carried out in many Finnish towns, and the effects of programs have been evaluated lately. Renovation programs have produced many improvements, but there have also been many shortcomings. The major shortcoming has been: The common starting point of the projects has been broad mutual understanding that main problems are social problems in particular. However, money is usually used to and most activities and energy are aimed at physical improvements. No one denies the importance of these improvements, but they are not enough: they do not have long lasting influences on the causes of social problems and physical improvements seem to have an inclination to be onetime renovations. Thinking about the future, the real danger is to build too one-sided suburbs: onesided in the sense that they are mainly composed of municipal and other rental houses which again may contribute to social segregation between suburbs. In the quarter of the town, of which our case study suburb is a part, can already be seen the first germs of social segregation. The quarter of the town is segregated in three respects in particular: The part of the town is lagging behind from many other quarters of the town in incomes. One cannot say that the suburb in question is reducing to a slum because it is not dropping totally out: average incomes are increasing there too but it is only lagging behind in the sense that differences between different parts of the town are becoming wider.

This means also that suburbs become more and more differentiated in respect to social structure. Ethnic differentiation is also part of the picture. In 1987 about 14 per cent of immigrants coming from non-EU countries to Helsinki lived in this quarter of the town. In 1997 the percentage was already about 34. In given single blocks of flats and staircases in the suburb the proportion of immigrants was about the third of all inhabitants. Mistakes common to many countries seem to be made in Finland, too.

In conclusion, thinking about strengthening intolerance and intolerance becoming political, the political opportunity structure seems to be of vital importance.
The starting point for intolerance is usually increasing social discontent. When discontent, from some reason, is gathering it usually is looking for means of expression. Here we can speak about social opportunity structure. Immigrants have in many cases been made scapegoats of dissatisfaction. The logic here is that there already exists to degree dissatisfaction in society and in certain local settings in particular, and the question seems to be how easy or difficult it is that discontent is levelled to immigrants and prejudices converted into intolerance. Anyway, international empirical examples and debates on racism in the mass media have, via “international learning process”, resulted to that that the word racism, for instance, has become a kind of a catchword in many respects in Finland, too. The word has functioned for some Finns as a catchword in learning discriminating behaviour: ‘if this kind of behaviour is so common in neighbouring countries why not do the same here’. Sometimes the word racism has also been useful to some immigrants in blaming the Finnish society for how they are treated in their everyday life. This seems to be the way in which racism is landing in certain relatively decaying urban areas in Finland. It is landing by the fusion of the international and local resulting in “new racism of problems”.

Social dissatisfaction in the form of social opportunity structure may give a fresh impetus to finding discontent political motivation and via this political advocate. Intolerance becomes definitely political when intolerance finds its public and open advocate.
How successful political advocates of intolerance will be depends very much on the established parties. If some people already are discontent it is a political challenge for the established parties to handle this dissatisfaction. If fears, frustration and discontent is created with respect to such new issues as immigration, insecurity, crime, law and order, comprehensive misappropriations of the welfare state and its services, decaying of certain urban areas, and widening social differences and increasing inequality in society which are not judged to be fair, then the question is about how these fears and frustrations are reacted to and how they are “defused”. Distrust on the will and abilities of politicians, local civil servants and the police to handle the situation in a local community usually make it easier for those trying to politicise subjective dissatisfaction into explicit intolerance. If political decision-makers and authorities fail and discontent gathers it is reasonable to suppose that dissatisfaction is looking for such outlets as new radical right or populist parties, movements, and groups or the “violence of the streets”. It seems also reasonable to suppose that ignoring or “repressing” discontent probably makes the manifestations even more radical.

 

1 Please note, language is not checked.
2 In 1999 foreigners consisted 1.7 % of the whole population in Finland. About 44 % of people of foreign extraction were living in the Helsinki capital area. In Helsinki the percentage of foreigners was 4.7.
3 An illuminating example of international challenges is the fact Western Europe and Finland too need badly new labour
from non-European countries in coming years. This need means unavoidably new migration. Even today, the proportion of foreign labour in internationally successful Finnish companies like Kone and Nokia is over 80 per cent.
4 When Finland needs badly foreign labour in Finland and in the Helsinki area in particular, this labour is not, however,
spreading evenly in the Helsinki area. Experts of new information technology of foreign extraction work and live mainly
in Western parts of Helsinki and asylum seekers and less educated immigrants, on the contrary, in Eastern parts of Helsinki.