Lähetä vetoomus ulkomaisille lehdille. Pyydä heitä kirjoittamaan Suomen kielipoliittisesta tilanteesta. Halutessasi voit vapaasti käytää oheista tekstiä sellaisenaan tai muokata sitä.
I'm contacting You on behalf of a great majority of Finnish people and asking for journalistic support in an issue continuously silenced in the Finnish media.
There is a parliament election coming, but there seems to be no hope
this time either to publicly discuss our undemocratic language policy that
costs us at least hundreds of millions of euros each year. The
goverment - and whatever is behind its decisions - is more willing to
cut public costs in Finnish speaking school childrens basic needs or e.g. healthcare system than giving up the undemocratic, expensive and failed language policy. The policy insists that every Finnish citizen must be taught Swedish and that
every sigle employee in the public sector - or private sector selling
services to public sector - must pass a language test in Swedish. This
is already a bottle neck in e.g. dentists' and police's services. The
size of the Swedish speaking minority is around 5% - most of which are
in fact completely bilingual speaking fluent Finnish. The amount of
truly Swedish speaking population is estimated around 1%!! Swedish is
however the language of the former power elite and our language battle
history has had (and still has) some racist nuances against the Finnish
speaking majority. Due to the situation qualified Finnish speaking
employee candidates are often put second after people who have been
registered as Swedish speaking. Finnish speaking student candidates are also discriminated in the admission process of Finnish Universities. There are also fewer and fewer speakers
of great European languages like German and French, which is already considered a problem, and is to a great degree due to the heavy language programme in our schools..
Finnish speaking citizens have also been discriminated in Åland, in Finnish Ahvenanmaa (the autonomous Swedish speaking island in the Finnish archipelago with ca 26 000 inhabitants). Discrimination of Finnish speakers is also encouraged as long as it happens "in a friedly manner". This means e.g. that speaking of Finnish either among the staff or patients is practically prohibited in hospitals in Åland. The situation reflects well the mindset of the Swedish speaking minority of the main land as well. In autonomous Åland it's just possible to take the discrimination further.
Finland has to do something about its racist language system.
"The new anti-racism directive EC (2000/43)
may put an end to the practice to force Finns to possess attributes of
an ethnic group. 'In very limited circumstances, a difference of
treatment may be justified where a characteristic related to racial or
ethnic origin constitutes a genuine and determining occupational
requirement, when the objective is legitimate and the requirement is
proportionate. Such circumstances should be included in the information
provided by the Member States to the Commission.' Thus the present
Finnish way to demand almost perfect Swedish skills from all educated
people and public servants is against the directive." (Quotation from http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_history/Pakkoruotsi)
There has been opened an independent site
(www.pakkoruotsi.net *) for information concerning Finland's language policy,
but at least for now, it hasn't been translated into English.
It's comprehensive and professional in style, but the question is, how
could it reach the public discussion in our silenced media.
Please help us break the wall and write about our undemocratic and discriminating language policy.
Please pass this
message on to your collegues in Your country and abroad. Thank You.
For further information you can turn by mail e.g. to kielipoli@hotmail.com or info@pakkoruotsi.net.
*) pakkoruotsi = compulsory Swedish Yours sincerely,(lähettäjän nimi)
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Ulkomaisen median yhteystietoja löydät mm. alla olevien linkkien kautta
http://www.jyu.fi/viesti/verkkotuotanto/kp/uu/
http://www.pakkoruotsi.net/linkit.shtml#Media
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