Talk:Mandatory Swedish

A title reflecting this article's limited scope?

Should we maybe move this article to a page titled something like:

• Mandatory Swedish tuition in Finnish schools
• Tuition in Finland's two domestic languages

or?

/Tuomas 10:43, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Under any circumstances, the neutrality of this article must be considered as disputed. This should be properly indicated, as is done in the article about, say, Yasser Arafat.

The function of the whole article seems to be taking what is essentially a minor internal dispute on an international arena in an improper way. The question of "pakkoruotsi", which is in itself a polemical word coined by an organisation aimed against the minority, should rather be handled as an annex to the situation of the Swedish minority in Finland. (A passer-by, 12 November 2004)

the map

isn't a little strange to put a map in an encylopedia article, along with a whole paragraph explaining why the map is incorrect/biased, followed by a link to an apparently less biased map (which seems to be on the author's personal homepage... wouldn't there be a more official source for it??). if the linked map is indeed less biased, let's just but that on the page instead and get rid of the biased one.

User:84.248.81.201 20:32, 19 Apr 2005 

Wikipedia's copyright policies is one hinderness. But, in fact, although I think none of the alternative maps are to prefer, also the current map is somewhat questionable in the context of Wikipedia:Image use policy. Feel free to improve the article, for instance by a map made by yourself!

:-)

/Tuomas 13:30, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An outsiders questions

I think the article is close to achieving NPOV but there are some things I don't understand that might help me better judge.

1. Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?
2. Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?
3. What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?
4. Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?
5. Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?

Other comments:

I think in the begining of the article it needs to be said that this policy applies to all of Finland exept the Åland islands because of such reasons after the Åland crisis. The article really needs that link in my opinion. And then count the percentage of Finnish speakers vs Swedish speakers affected by this policy.

Read Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia a supurbly NPOV article that deals with similar minority rights/goverment policy issues. --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 15:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Birgitte, thanks for taking part in our discussion here. I'll try to and clear up your questions as neutrally as possible

"Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?"

The reasons are mostly historical and therefore also cultural, i think the historical background could be better explained. Well the main argument/reason is that swedish-language always has been a part of the finnish culture in the same way finnish-language has been. finland was a part of sweden between the 12th and 19th century (some argue finland was not officially a part of sweden before the late 14th century), it is noteworthy that before this time no sovereign Finland existed. The history as part of sweden has formed the finnish culture in a way that it is quite hard to get a grip of it without understanding the swedish-speaking aspect, for instance one example could be Finland's national anthem that was originally written in Swedish. So the swedish-speakers are not merely a linguistic minority due to immigration/emigration as sometimes is thought.

"Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?"

Well, i think there is no one answer to this, but dedicated grassroot organisations, such as "suomalaisuuden liitto" (the league of finnishness) does have the aim of reducing Swedish to the level of the sami languages in finland (not official languge, but listed as "one of finland's languages"). But i guess the broader base of the opposition for mandatory swedish aren't really after changing finland's bi-linguality in the constituition which requires the test for people in civil service. But of course it could become quite hard to require this in civil service if no mandatory education was held. Some argue here that interpreters could be used in order to keep up the services in swedish.

"What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?"

The Finnish government runns many of the civil services, at least in comparisonto the united states. But it is noteworthy that the requirements of swedish for civil services are _very_ basic.

"Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?"

Mandatory second domestic language teaching is usually more dissliked during school years (i was not a big fan of it either! ;)). And i guess the possible views against it are more moderate amongst the adult population. The views of it also differ quite a bit around finland since the swedish-speaking minority is not evenly spread over the country and many finns have very little natural contact with swedish-speakers.

"Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?"

I think the main argument in opposing mandatory second language teaching is that it supposedly takes up resources from teaching other subjects. But I haven't heard of any unison plan about what exactly should be taught instead of swedish for finnish-speakers/finnish for swedish speakers.

Thank's for your other suggestions too. It could also be noted that Åland in fact is autonomous, and has the right to govern itself on educational issues. Also it is notable that Many students on Åland take the finnish matriculation examination from HS, which is governed under "the finnish rules".

Gillis 18:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

"requirements of swedish for civil services are _very_ basic". All you need to know is "jag vet inte" :) --HJV 11:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

---

As I believe Gillis here gave a rather POV response to the questions, which of course do reflect well the official party lines -- it's the "official explanation" -- it serves rather badly to understand the position of those who oppose our language policies. So let me respond in kind, but from my own POV to the most important points raised... I will give more exposition than just answering to the bullet points, bear with me.

The constitution was written the way it is because in early times Swedish still was more dominant as a language than what it is today, and more people spoke it. The proportion of Swedish-speakers was somewhere around 15% (correct if wrong) -- now it's around 6% -- and because of our history, they indeed were a more powerful block than their numbers. Also, during the early time of independence, there was some need of goodwill from Sweden, and a need to quickly shut up the svecomans who still pretty much wanted to join Sweden, so in that sense it was a question of national unity as well. The language part of the constitution was actually rather controversial; finally the Finnish-only side gave in.

Then there was also the issue of the national romantic period of 1800s, which was a weird mixture of mostly Swedish-speaking academics being drawn into romantic Karelianism and the Nordism of Runeberg, who wrote poetry about pining back to Sweden after Sweden lost Finland to Russia in the beginning of the century. His attempts at glorifying the struggle of the losers and the rationalization of the new situation of the country, his POV firmly in the Swedish-speaking high society (not that it was particularly high, but anyway), earned him the title of national poet. I guess he deserves it for commemorating the historical event -- although from a strange perspective -- that probably saved the Finnish-speaking Finns from complete assimilation into Sweden.

The retort that "you guys even sing your national anthem in translation" has always felt like a particularly cruel political weapon to be used among people of supposedly the same nationality, as it totally ignores the fact that the reason why Fenno-Swedes are so heavily over-represented in our "official" national culture of the 1800s -- the classic romantic period -- is simply because you had to be Swedish-speaking to begin with to gain entry into the rather monopolized cultural and societal circles where this stuff was being done! It's not as if it is my fault as a modern Finnish-speaker that this was the case! I am not saying that there weren't some important people there, it's just that some historical context should be acknowledged before getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia. Who knows what might have happened, if Finnish-speakers had not been kept out of university, say. To claim this was not due to societal structure is, mind you, somewhat racist -- I have a hard time believing that Finnish-speakers just simply naturally suck and need some heavy civilizing through Swedish, as was claimed by Freudenthal and pals.

When it comes to the non-high-culture, I would claim that throughout most of history, Finnish-speakers have lived perfectly happily speaking Finnish and having Swedish as a foreign language -- that they didn't know, as they were too busy making a small living off the land and fighting for the king in Stockholm. You should note that not even during the Swedish reign were Finnish-speakers _made to_ learn Swedish, although it of course was of fundamental importance if you wanted to advance in society. When Russia conquered Finland, we started getting more rights in education and finally even official status for Finnish. The university of Helsinki didn't allow studies in Finnish fully until the 1920-30s, after lots of strife (fist-fights amongst different-language students etc). After that, you started seeing Finnish-speakers in their rightful positions in society in greater numbers. So... frankly, all this talk about the wonderful influence Swedish has had in this country boils down to the idea that I should feel some sort of gratitude. I certainly recognize history for what it is, but don't ask me to admire it. It took an edict from the Czar in 1863 to get that official position for Finnish, for chrissakes.

Ok, so that much for history. I don't really believe all that much in drawing conclusions from what has been to what should be. If that were the case, some countries would still have slavery. Knowing history is different from perpetuating it. In modern days, Finland is just as much a Western European country as any of them, and not particularly "Swedish" at that. Actually I would say that we have definitely differing characteristics from the rest of the Nordic countries, which are immortalized in our national stereotypes...

Now, the big question in Finland is what does it MEAN for the individual citizen that the constitution states "Finland's national languages are Finnish and Swedish"? Originally, the idea was that Finnish-speakers get to be Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers get to be Swedish-speakers, and the government will serve both in their own language and provide for things like education in the respective tongues. Alongside with this kind of thinking, over the 1900s, the Fenno-Swedes created all sorts of parallel, auxiliary institutions to support a kind of parallel but separate existence. One should remember that in the late 1800s and all the way to WW2 a lot of the Fenno-Swedish academics were quite busy with the idea of proving that Fenno-Swedes form a separate people in Finland that is related to Swedes. Actually, while I don't want to particularly "isolate" myself from Fenno-Swedes, I kind of like this interpretation -- it respects everyone's right to be who they are.

During the Cold War and beginning in the 1970s-80s, someone realized, that this wasn't going to look good for the Fenno-Swedes in the long term. They were being assimilated into the mainstream population, and Swedish was facing the threat of becoming a sort of high-priest language used in official speeches but not much elsewhere. So the "separate people" argument took a complete U-turn: now the constitution was to be interpreted so as to apply the two language principle to each citizen on a personal level. The SFP (Fenno-Swedish party) started demanding that in order to maintain a "living" Swedish language in Finland, the language needs to be extended to everyone, regardless of where they live in the country (Swedish is concentrated along coastlines, and the inner parts of the country are pretty much completely unilingually Finnish). Because Finland was pretty desperate to prove that it is "Nordic" instead of semi-Soviet during the Cold War, the modern language policy was formulated.

The policy has two prongs: the mandatory Swedish in schools -- and starting in 1979 even in university, even if you're in a completely irrelevant field like yours truly, computer science -- and language requirements in the civil service. The civil service requirements tend to get tighter every time the relevant language laws are revised, mostly because the relevant civil servants don't really bother to abide by them or don't really know enough Swedish (because they don't ever use it). The rules about where services need to be provided in which language are very lax to include as much of the country as possible as bilingual and also seem to be changed every time a major Finnish city would otherwise fall unilingual due to dwindling Swedish-speaking population -- they have been changed multiple times for Turku, for instance. This creates situations where ALL civil servants are required Swedish skills as a matter of principle, regardless of actual need. The university Swedish exam is the "civil servant exam" as well -- I can't for the life of me imagine how I am going to be a software-developing civil servant who "serves Swedish-speakers in their own language"! The exam itself is for the time being easy as is mentioned, but the problem is that the legal framework is there. During the latest revisioning of the language law there was even talk of "sanctions" towards people/towns who don't cut it... this, in my view, starts to resemble discrimination against Finnish-speakers, as requirements for a job need to, according to law, be reasonably grounded in actual need and relevance.

To complete the circular reasoning, the mandatory Swedish in schools is partially being grounded in the logic of "but you can't get a public sector job if you don't speak Swedish!" Certainly, if you removed the most draconian requirements, you would lose a great deal of the motivation for the teaching of the language too. Its usefulness is of course otherwise rather limited; Finns would be better off equipped with more diverse language skills. Sorry Gillis, but you are guilty of unfortunately typical tunnel vision when you claim there are no reasonable alternatives... hell, German, French and Russian would all be perfectly good ones. I would speak fluent German and French at the moment in addition to my English if I had spent my Swedish lessons on them instead. At the moment I have no time anymore to just study them on my free time, as my field of expertise is more on the sciences side of things. Languages are good, but damage happens on when you insist on monopolizing everyone's language studies when it comes to one language just to satisfy your own political goals.

Usefulness argumentation aside, the one issue that tends to inflame emotions is that of identity. People get justifiedly pissed off when someone comes to educate them on their own identity. Forcing yourself on someone and then claiming they are intolerant if they don't like it is a nasty tactic. If you listen to most propaganda on "Swedishness days" from SFP and even like-minded other politicians, the whole excercise seems to aim at making people "think right" about language issues in the country. In the same breath, they are able to lament and worry about the "alienation" Finns feel about the part of their identity they are supposed to embrace and then demand more legislation to make it happen -- either more teaching or more demands that help them "make use" of their language skills to make it feel worthwhile. The latest idea is to "language-bathe" kids early on so they wouldn't grow up to be dissidents like me. The sad part is that it will probably work in a generation or two; a lot of my peers are already parroting easy to counter SF-lines in the spirit of "mathematics is mandatory too!" and "bilinguality is enriching!" -- I really cry at the lameness of our political discourse in this matter.

It should give everyone pause that this supposed happy-happy bilingual family requires such a government mechanism to uphold -- the very same SFP politicians are very clear in stating that it is at risk if government doesn't methodically pursue these policies. I would suggest that instead of more government action, the more reasonable conclusion is the homogenized bilingual Finland doesn't exist and shouldn't be created, if people obviously aren't voluntarily engaging in its construction. If they are correct about your assumptions regarding Finnish ideals and identity, they should not have anything to fear from freedom, right? Letting kids drop Swedish from their high school finals has caused 15% to actually excercise the option. These are the ones who would fail because of Swedish if they couldn't do this, no matter how good they may be at other subjects.

A disclaimer: I have nothing against Fenno-Swedes as a minority group, so don't try to pull any intolerance arguments on me. It is all too typical to just shut all reasonable critics of a political position out of the discussion because "OMG they are against teh minority". I do hold the rights of Finnish-speakers close to heart as they were difficult to win during history, and we may just as well not have survived. Tolerance means allowing others to be who they are. I do not believe our current language policy is tolerant, as it seeks to shape people into something.. politically acceptable, as some people have problems with the idea of Finland having folks who do not share in to the wonderful Swedish language. It is unacceptable to me that Finnish-speakers are specifically denied the same language identity protection that is granted to for example the people in Åland -- which protects its "special Swedish-speaking character" up to the point of open racism, for example denying the right to set up private Finnish-speaking schools for children of people staying in Åland for work. The theory that all mainland Finns "are" Swedish-speakers but don't know it yet is suspect, and the laws that permit double standards are wrong.

My own policy would call for preservation of the constitution in its current form, but relaxation of the language laws in order to respect the identity related to a person's mother tongue more, and to eliminate the politically motivated language-requirement "filters" that are nowadays in place to stop those people from advancing in life who don't toe the line or just can't get their minds around the language. Just because someone is Fenno-Swedish and would like the rest of the country to be in his own image, doesn't mean the Finnish-speakers must bend over backwards to accommodate that wish. One SHOULD remember that in the past 10-15 years, some 50-70% of people have systematically responded in various polls that Swedish should be voluntary. It's just such a touchy issue that nobody wants to get the Nazi accusations for being the first to mention it openly...

Sorry this got long-winded, I really believe that foreign readers need the background from another perspective too, the SFP-line is a bit suffocating to genuine discussion and readers REALLY need to be shown that there are some real issues here, not just the petulance of some insignificant fanatic minority as it seems to me is being argued... and I also hope this elucidation responded to Birgitte's question on whether this is all just schoolboy rebellion... I have actually been told it is, and that my subsequent frustration at such an idiotic response is just proof thereof... HuckFinn 00:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Your rant is really such a long, and mostly based on your personal expiriences and feelings, one that i can't really give it "one answer" it would be better to keep to specific points per post relating to changes to be done or discussed for the article. We are writing an encyclopedic article, not discussing oppinions on a web forum. Please be more specific in your opinons for the article and i assure you discussing them will be more efficient. turning up this debate would become a personal debate, escalating into personal attacks, as you already seem to address me with parts of this text, which is a bit odd. Gillis 21:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I felt compelled to give a concise yet comprehensive primer on this matter to outsiders, who will otherwise be befuddled by the simple specific points and never see the big picture. Responding in bits and pieces to Birgitte will not suffice. I am genuinely worried about these comments that give the impression that this is a completely insignificant matter that all "civilized" people are willing to just ignore. If Fenno-Swedes find the status of their language such a nationalistically important matter, then I believe it is only fair to be able to uphold the opposite point of view as well. I do not understand how exactly my statements are "personal opinions" -- it's pretty much objective history without the by-default Swedophile interpretation; in particular the policy shift of around 1980s that SFP pulled off is significant -- our current idea of a 100% bilingual, homogenous "nation" is a political creation of the past few decades. Up to that point everyone had been happily themselves, and SFP liked it too. HuckFinn 15:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Some answers to Birgitte:

   1. Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?

To avoid an other civil war/strife. After the Finnish Civil war the were bigger thing going on. In other circumstances things might have gone differently (all surrounding countries are uni-lingual, but have much larger minorities).

   2. Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?

Some do, some don't. Some just want to end pakkoruotsi on elementary school (like it used to be until 70's).

  3. What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?

Running the goverment. Railroads are run by a private company, but the new language law requires them to serve in Swedish also (this isn't related to pakkoruotsi nor is it required by the Constitution).

And because all private providers to government must also be able to provide in Swedish, such as state railways, and because our public sector is rather broad, this actually turns out to be a substantial requirement! This will only get worse as our public services are going to be externalized more and more to such private providers: as a lot of them will be competing over government deals, they will ALL require Swedish, which means you all of a sudden get this extended to most walks of life. You can hardly respond merely by stating that "it's just running the government"; you're cleverly side-stepping a big part of the issue. HuckFinn 15:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

  4. Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?

Are you serious? Or really an outsider? That question has such a strong POV and is a classic "answer" to any critisism of pakkoruotsi.

  5. Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?

Students in general already study two foreign languages (choises are plentiful, but usually eng+ger/fr; languages of Russia, Estonia and Norway are rarely taught fo some reason..)+ mandatory Swedish/Finnish and their mother tongue. I have_never_heard anybody demand that Swedish shouldn't be taught in schools to all and any that wish to learn it. Its only the mandatory, pakko part that people are against, not Swedish/ruotsi213.243.181.212 12:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I am another outsider. I noticed this statement near the beginning of this article: "Military service is not required in the autonomous region of Åland." and wondered how it related to the subject of the article. Maybe it was meant to say "this policy applies to all of Finland except the Åland islands" as stated by Birgitte above. FrankSier (talk) 20:28, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Article needs to be remade from scratch

There are plenty of sentences and words making this article extremely biased and skewed. Here are som examples: "However, the requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish", or "enforced Swedish". " No, pakkoruotsi can not be translated as "mandatory Swedish". That would be "pakollinen ruotsi" .

"The employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be able to serve citizens in Swedish." No, they are not, but the institution need to make sure they as an institution can provide service in both Swedish and Finnish. Single civil servants are not required to speak Swedish/Finnish, but they need to fetch someone who speaks the language they don't have proficiency in, should the need arise.

"Currently, it is possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves at any time, and as many times as desired, by submitting a form to the Population Register Center. " How is this relevant?

" Military service is not required in the autonomous region of Åland." How is this relevant?

This is just from the first two paragraphs, and I suspect it won't be any better further on in this lengthy article. Romuruotsalainen (talk) 10:07, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Splitting the article for broader coverage of mandatory finnish for native Swedish speakers

Although this article already covers the opposite for Swedish speaking Finns, I believe that it's not broad enough. Therefore I propose that this article be split into two, mandatory Swedish and mandatory Finnish. The opposite needs broader coverage. Metric Supporter 89 (talk) 02:18, 23 September 2020 (UTC)