The Multicultural Society’s Integration Debate

There was a good turnout for the multicultural society’s election debate on integration on Åland yesterday evening. It took place in Mariehamn’s library. All the parties were represented in the panel and I was there for the Social Democrats along with Siv Hallbäck and Mats Granesäter, both of whom put in excellent performances. Though it was only one of the four questions that we were asked to discuss, almost the entire debate which followed the initial presentation of the parties’ positions by their panelists was given over to discussion of “hemspråksundervisning”.

All the panelists were strongly against with the excpetion of the Social Democrats. Pleasantly, there was much more support from the audience. An audience which, perhaps unsurprisingly given the location and the topic of discussion, seemed to have a high proportion of Liberal and Social Democrat supporters.

Agruments raised against were:

1. that it will cost too much to offer it to every possible language group

FS. Many, many, many times, despite repeated attempts to explain that we’d said where there are sufficient students to warrant it.

2. that it is discriminatory against those language groups we can’t offer it to because there aren’t enough chlidren who speak the language

Olof Erland, Liberal. It’s a misuse of the word discriminatory. Every group is treated the same, what counts is if there are enough children who speak the language. I understand, for example, that there is some variation in which languages are taught at Lusse depending on how much interest there is from the students in learning them, but we don’t say those students who want to learn a language where there isn’t sufficient interest are discriminated against. In the case of hemspråksundervisning, it’s an attempt to prevent an improvement in the situation for many children by arguing that it does not improve it for all of them.

3. that it is discriminatory because we only proposed introducing it in Mariehamn

Centre. She didn’t want it outside Mariehamn either, but objected to it being offered in Mariehamn on the grounds it wasn’t going to be offered outside Mariehamn! It was therefore discriminatory against chlidren in Geta. There was me thinking Centre were all for the municipalities making decisions for themselves. Mariehamn appears to be an exception.

4. that we are trying to create an elite who are bilingual English/Swedish or Finnish/Swedish

Åland’s Future. No, we aren’t. But at least this argument implicitly accepts that hemspråksundervisning is a good thing for the children. There are also other languages, such as persian, where there could be sufficient pupils to merit hemspråksundervisning. What’s notable about English and Finnish is that they are already taught in schools here, but that very little account is taken of the fact that there are children for whom they are not foreign languages.

5. that it is bad for the children

Ben Haidari, Liberal. No, it isn’t. There is a general consensus in the field that it doesn’t have negative consequences for how well they learn the dominant language in their society. There is also research which shows the opposite to be true (see, for example, Professor Kenneth Hyltenstam’s work in the area). At the same time it’s extremely important not to neglect Swedish. We are not suggesting all teaching should be in the children’s home language. Just that they should get an extra couple of hours a week of support-teaching in the language they speak at home. There is no inherent clash between doing that and providing top quality teaching of Swedish.

Multicultural Society’s Language Debate

I was at the multicultural society’s language debate yesterday evening. Given that the football was on at the same time, the turnout was quite respectable. The exception was among young men, I’d say myself, Martin Nilsson and Niklas Lampi (in the panel) were the only ones there that that could be described in that way. I think there were quite a lot of Finnish speakers among the audience too.

If I could offer one criticism it would be that there was nobody there to defend the kind of anti-Finnish Åland-nationalism that the Independents and Åland’s Future represent. The panelists, two of whom were Finnish speakers, were broadly in agreement. Peter Lindbäck (Finland’s top representative on Åland) expressed the opinion, with which I agree, that Ålanders had to adapt to the reality around them (a large Finnish-speaking mainland with which many of our companies want to do business), rather than expect that reality to adapt to them.

There was general agreement among Finnish speakers in the audience and on the panel that “hemspråksundervisning” (special classes in their own tongues for those who don’t have Swedish as a first language) is an important issue. This got me to thinking about how it will be for my daughters learning English here. Will they be expected to sit through classes where they learn how to say what there name is in English? Will they be able to get seperate tuition?

Some of the audience brought up the issue of reactions to them speaking Finnish in public places. One case was mentioned where a Finnish speaker had been warned not to use their own language when talking to a another Finnish speaker in their workplace: it would damage the reputation of the company!!! The editor of Ålandstidningen, Niklas Lampi, pointed out that with 450 unfilled jobs and a population of only 27,000, Åland can’t afford to have anything other than a tolerant attitude for those with different mother tongues.

All in all, it was an interesting and enjoyable evening! And, given that we lost the football, I’m glad I made the choice I did.

Spring Fair

This weekend sees the arrival of the spring fair in Eckerö. The Social Democrats will be there (my eldest daughter is a bit sick, so I’m not sure I will be), as will the Centre Party and the Independent Party Group. There will be the usual balloons and sweets on offer, but we are also doing a questionaire about what the most important questions are before the autumn elections, and we are going to be giving out copies of our language policy platform. Eckerö is a pretty strong region for the nationalistic parties on Åland, so it will be interesting to see how well we are received there.

Doublespeak

This interesting piece of doublespeak appeared in Gunilla Sander’s piece in Ålandstidningen today.

“Personalrekryterare säger också att av två personer med likvärdiga meriter tar man den som kan finska.”

Roughly translated it says “Personnel recruiters say that of two people who are equally well-qualified they’ll take the one who knows Finnish.” Or, more plainly, if two people are equally well-qualified, except for the fact one has a skill the other doesn’t have, recruiters will take the person who has the extra skill!!! If Finnish is useful for the job, and one of the candidates speaks Finnish and the other doesn’t, then clearly the two candidates are not equally well-qualified.

I Wish I Could Speak Finnish!

I listened to the debate in the Lagting while I was at work today, and one of the most striking things, though not surprising after over 4 years on Åland, was the attitude that knowing Finnish is a bad thing. I understand that Åland is officially a monolingual swedish-speaking region, and thank God for that: it must be difficult moving into a bilingual region where you don’t speak either language, but how can knowing another language possibly be a bad thing?

For my part, I’m very happy that my mother-in-law speaks Finnish with Ylva. I don’t know what she’s saying to her, but Ylva does, and she’s even starting to attempt the odd reply in Finnish. Great. I want my daughter(s) to have the advantage of English, Swedish and Finnish. The better she speaks English and Finnish, the happier I’ll be because it can only be useful.

Loss of Confidence?

The story currently waiting to break here on Åland concerns the result of a no-confidence vote in the province’s Education and Culture Minister, Camilla Gunell, which I read is going to be tabelled on Monday. As so often on Åland, it all boils down to different attitudes to Finnish. Camilla has come under pressure because she’s been critical of a committee charged with producing a rapport on which the provincial government could base its language policy programme. Unfortunately, the Provincial Prime Minister, Roger Nordlund, was the chairmen of the committee, and he and Camilla had an, apparently, heated exchange over it in the Lagting.

The Independent group (conservative åland-nationalists) have seen a chance to bring the whole provincial government crashing down. They hope, no doubt, that a beautiful, new provincial government will be reborn. They also hope, of course, that some of them will be in it, and, almost as importantly, that there won’t been any social democrats in it. I think it’s unlikely (but hey, I’ve been wrong before) because there is an agreed policy, which Camilla and Roger have both backed. Some of the opposition, the Liberals, agree with Camilla too, so you’d think it would be tough for them to vote against her. That means you’d need a whole scale desertion by one or both of the parties in the coalition government for the vote to be lost. I really can’t see how they could justify it.

Festive Vulgarity

Swearing is one of the most difficult things to do convincingly in another language; it always seems to come off as a little put on. It’s also pretty difficult to judge how strong swearwords are – what is strong in one language can be quite mild or completely inoffensive in another -and they really don’t have the same impact on the foreign ear. I don’t think I’m terribly illiberal on the question of swearing, but I remember being quite shocked to hear kids singing vulgar gangsta-rap lyrics on a Swedish kids program. They were singing in English, so I figured that was why nobody seemed to raise as much as an eyebrow about it.

These days pretty much anything goes on English TV if it’s after a certain time at night. I don’t have a problem with that. There are some places where it’s not appropriate to swear, such as kids TV, and others where it’s just fine, such as gritty dramas about serial killers.

And now I come to what set me off on this topic- I was watching Lasse-Majas Detektivbyrå (a pre-recorded, Christmas special kids’ program) yesterday with Ylva my older (3 ½) daughter. One of the characters spilled some coffee on herself and let out a cry of “satan”. Now, in English that isn’t in the slightest offensive, but I was shocked because in Swedish I understand it to be somewhere on a par with “fuck”. This was a program aimed at kids for God’s sake. I can just imagine the uproar if a Blue Peter presenter let out a cry of “fuck” whilst showing the kiddies how to make a pair of binoculars out of old toilet rolls.

Fair enough, our kids are going to learn to swear at some point. But is it too much to ask for them not to learn how on children’s television? I can’t think of anywhere less appropriate. If it goes there, then surely it goes anywhere.

Language Development

There was an article today in Ålandstidningen about a girl who came to Åland 3 1/2 years ago from Rumania not knowing Swedish. She now speaks fluent Swedish and has just passed the equivalent of her A-levels at a sixth form college here in Mariehamn. I have to say that I’m both impressed and a little jealous.

When I first came to Åland, I took an intensive Swedish course at the citizenship institute and learned an awful lot very quickly. The teacher, Mats Backman, was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. However, since the end of the course, I’ve not been able to study the language and my Swedish has progressed rather slowly. There are a few one-night-a-week courses at the citizenship institute, but that just isn’t enough. I want and need to work, but Swedish language learning on Åland is directed almost exclusively towards those who can study full-time – the young and the unemployed. I think there is a market here that isn’t being met by the state or the private sector. So come on guys, give us some options!