“Welcome” to Finland all of you!

Let me straight here; I’m not rasist. But I wouldn’t say that I am the opposite of rasist either. The reason for this is as follows. When I was about 14 I met this guy that had come from a country here as a refugee. He proudly said that he was getting 3000€ in support from the government and then he was working for another 3000 (illegaly ofcourse), which sums up to 6000 euros a month! Thats way more than an average office-rat would ever earn. 6000 euros is the same as a average manager gets. Even though he probably was exaggerating it has always amazed me how these immigrants can afford such nice cars and nice clothes. I’m not saying they shouldn’t afford it, I think its great that they are offered a good life and a good possibility to start a new life here. What I am saying is is that the government thinking is twisted. Somehow the finnish governement seem to think that its better to pay the people that come to Finland, and then get them out of their way. On some markets there is a huge demand for workforce, and yet doctors and surgeons coming in  and highly qualified construction engineers from other countries are cleaners, guards or just unemployed. Apparently their qualification isn’t good enough here, and the governemtn doesn’t even try to find ways to let these people prove their worth.

Now that the country is in economical crisis jobs aren’t to be found anywhere, and the whole fact that Finnish is something like the second hardest language in the world doesn’t make it easier for the immigrants to integrate into our society. Another reason that makes it hard for everyone wishing that Finland would take thewm in with open arms is that Finnish people are a very careful bunch. Careful in the sense that they are suspicious against other nationalities and people. The reason for this is that we are a fairly new independent country(100 years or so), and before that we were part of Russia that kept us under an all seeing eye and before that we were part of Sweden for about 200 years, so we don’t like people coming into our country, period. We don’t come out as very talkative either, nor friendly towards strangers

Our schools are free of charge. Read it again.  Our schools are absolutely free of charge, all of them (apart from a handful of private schools). You can educate yourself as high as to university without paying anything but studymaterials and maybe some books, but the schools themselves are free. They are also very cheap for students coming to do the masters programme in for example economics. Somehow the government thinks that these people actually want to stay here and make great business, integrate. B*llshit. Every single one I’ve talked to are going back home, why would they stay here? They don’t speak the language, no one has ever been very friendly to them and it might be a wee bit to hard to be able to do business with super anxious Finns that trust noone.

What I think is wrong with this system is that people from Finland, with Finnish nationality have it worse than immigrants. No wonder people are rasist. I would also like a newly buildt apartment in a nice area, a nice car etc, thank you very much. Students can get student funding in Finland, but its not that simple. Lets say you’re from a millionaires’ family, your parents pay huge amounts in tax. Then you get nothing. Lets say you’re not on speaking terms with your parents and they’ve disinherited you- you still get nothing. You might have to get a job (which is hard as it is). But in order to get any student funding/loan you can earn only up to 600 euros a month. You wont live very far on that here… Lets say you buy an apartment with lended money. Then the government thinks that you must have some money so they wont give you any support. Gee thanx.. So the bottomline is; you need a job to pay for your studies but you cannot work as much as you want if you want the support from the government. If you don’t take the government support you have to work more which will affect your studies.

This summer I have lived on very little money as I am doing an internship for half the salary people would usually get for this job. Which is good, some internships don’t pay anything at all. Still, I have been working hard to save some money so that I can pay a monthly gym that I love to go to. Its my small luxury of the day and it costs a fortune, but its the only thing I can let my self enjoy right now with my salary. And then yesterday these two women walk in who clearly were not from Finland and were completely oblivious of the fact that this gym is a very very high class gym and that they were getting it, yes you guessed it, for free! For fuck sake, I’m trying to become something, I work hard and study hard and sometimes it just doesn’t feel like the government and Finland is supporting that. I can become unemployed, (then you get all kinds of support, poor you *pet*pet*) and then I’ll start getting all kinds of neat support and just lay around all day, but I don’t!

This one day at my work I gave out balloons to kids. This huge group of immigrant kids came up to me and started screaming for balloons. They were so rude, asking for more than one balloon per person and saying stuff like “I have a big family at home, you must give me balloons” (these kids were like 8, I doubt they have kids, but they’ve learnt to say this), they tugged and ripped and worst, they didn’t say thank you! I was so angry because who the fuck doesn’t teach these kids manors? No wonder they can’t get a job when they don’t know how to behave or talk to people. But the absolute worst thing with this situation is that they were standing there with this sincere looks on their faces, like “I am entitled to a free balloon because I’m an immigrant”. The government with their policies has made them think like this, keep up the good work!

So I’m not a rasist, but I do not think this wellfare state is working as it should be. I cannot think of how it exactly should be, but the bottom line is I don’t think, regardless if your Finnish or an immigrant that you should be paid to do nothing. (Okay fine, in an economical crisis when your sacked from your job, yes then I think you should) But otherwise the government should urge these people to find jobs, or if there aren’t jobs to get, create jobs, a New Deal kind of thing. Or re-educate them(or test their skills to know if they are qualified or offer them more studies within their subjects), offer them proper (not the hi my name is bullshit) finnish language education and give these immigrants a chance to integrate. In Finland we say “maassa maan tavalla” or in swedish “ta seden dit man kommer” which means that when you come to a country, become part of it, try to learn the ways and traditions and blend in. Thats exactly what the government doesn’t let these people do, instead they sweep them under some rug by paying them to shut up and not do anything, while the Finnish students and people who earn very little struggle…

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