A clear majority of people in Finland consider it important that racism is not allowed in the country. However, there are differences in perceptions of what racism is, according to survey published by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (Eva) on Saturday.
Nine out of ten respondents consider it at least fairly important that racism is not allowed in Finland.
At the same time, more than half of Finns think that racism is a relatively minor or non-existent problem in Finnish society. Four out of ten, on the other hand, see it as a fairly or very big problem.
In comparison, a 2018 EU study found that Finland had the highest level of racism in 12 western European countries.
There are major variations in how supporters of various political parties see the issue. The vast majority of backers of the opposition Left Alliance (87%), Greens (81%) and SDP (73%) consider racism to be a major problem.
Meanwhile only five percent of the supporters of Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s Finns Party and less than a quarter of supporters of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s National Coalition Party think so.
Around 40 percent of supporters of the opposition Centre Party and the Christian Democrats consider racism to be a major problem, compared to just over half of Swedish People’s Party supporters.
The latter two parties are junior members of the current right-wing governing coalition, which took office last summer amid a series of racism-related scandals.
What is racist?
People in Finland tend to hold broadly similar views on which phenomena they see as racist.
These include discrimination due to ethnic background, being skipped over in a job search due to a name that suggests a minority ethnicity, and the use of derogatory language about ethnic groups and their members.
On the other hand, only a minority of respondents said that it is racist to vote for a nationalist party, to take a critical view of multiculturalism or to depict minority characters in humour and entertainment.
Eva, which describes itself as a pro-market think tank, has tracked Finns' attitudes towards racism since 1990.
The survey was conducted in autumn 2023, but according to Eva research manager Ilkka Haavisto, racism is a theme where people’s views do not typically change every week.
The pollster says the results are based on responses from just over 2,000 people representing Finland’s entire population, with a margin of error of 2–3 percentage points.
The non-profit Eva was founded 50 years ago by an array of employers’ groups including the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK). Its chair is former Swedish People’s Party leader and cabinet minister Carl Haglund.
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