|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
   |
FINLAND IS NO UTOPIA (int'l edition)Beneath the glossy surface of the world of designer Alvar Aalto, the situation in Finland is catastrophic (''He left us living in a museum,'' Letter from Finland, May 11). For instance, the real unemployment figures are the highest in Europe, and every effort is made to gloss them over. Finland is not a state where social security exists, as the rich and powerful carve up the country among themselves and many others have to flee to other pastures. With cutbacks, even nurses are fleeing to jobs in Norway and Britain. Finland pumps out more economic refugees per capita than any other country, and then strictly limits to a couple of hundred per annum the inflow of helpless political refugees from the world over. They then treat the refugees like dirt. Racism is rampant, as witnessed when two young Swedish tourists were abused by the border security guard last week for trying to come into Finland without passports. (No passport is required for citizens to travel among the Nordic countries.) The difference was that these Swedes were black. There was a hue and cry in the U.S. media about the black American beaten up in Moscow. But such incidents are part of daily living for foreigners of color in Finland--a black American basketball player, a Kenyan athlete, an Ethiopian student. The catalog of cases is unending and no one cares: They are quickly glossed over in the self-censored Finnish media. The division between rich and poor has grown so large that the special Finnish home defense force is now being mobilized to thwart any rebellious movement by the luckless people of this country. Finland is probably the only country where perestroika and glasnost have yet to reach the people.
|
Updated May 21, 1998 by bwwebmaster
Copyright 1998, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use