What My African Friends Want to Know About Finland 🇰🇪 🇳🇬 🇿🇦 🇨🇩 🇲🇼

[@ainoluo]

I just wanted to add that I haven’t lived in Finland for 2 years and I’ve recently had discussions with foreigners of many descents living there and they are experiencing stricter policies and increased acceptance of racist speech in Finland. ☹️ It looks like both me (as a partner, friend and colleague to many foreigners in my time in Finland) and Chico as an immigrant were able to find those spaces in the society where racism was not flourishing, and I think we need to speak about and normalise those spaces so that everyone can feel safe and accepted.

[@christopherongele1379]

Good work Aina Luo. 👏 Finland looks very interesting. God willing i will visit the country.

[@walterchin8832]

Now I know a little more about Finland. Thanks Aino!

[@ainoluo]

Welcome and thank YOU for watching! 🌞

[@sampohonkala4195]

At 16:49 Pea soup on Thursdays is a tradition that has its origins in the Swedish army and also hospitals where food had to be served for big groups of people. As the pea soup has also bacon in it, it was eaten on Thursdays during the strict catholic times (before early 1500's) as Fridays you were not allowed to eat any meat. In the Swedish army the tradition of pea soup on Thursdays is known at least in the late 1700's and copied to the Finnish army from there.

[@ainoluo]

I figured it had to have something to do with the military! Thanks, such an interesting trivia fact! :)

[@isaacksituma]

Mind blown by the depth of information you've shared on Finland. Amazing!👏

[@ainoluo]

I had to cut out so much random trivia so that the video wouldn’t be 38 minutes long 😂😭

[@yvesderival634]

I most watched all her videos .I think this one is the best .Her intellectual approach is blowing my mind.Greetings from Jamaica .

[@yvesderival634]

​@@ainoluoI like the way you integrate into Kenyan society .I cannot wait to meet you and your partner in November this year .Special greetings from Caribbean.

[@ainoluo]

@@yvesderival634 Thanks so much! 🙏🏻

[@joshuadanceteacher]

You've really elaborated well, thank you so much,,but I still have more questions

[@ainoluo]

Thank you! Feel free to drop questions in the comments, I’m not gonna stop making videos any time soon ☺️

[@hk254lyt8]

Finland food looks interesting. I would love to try

[@ainoluo]

It is quite a special place!

[@hildeeliseeikenes]

I really love your movies…… ❤️ It was intresting to listen to you talk about Finland since I am from Norway and we have many similar things

[@ainoluo]

Tusen takk! ☺️

[@Kenyanyoutuber1]

I LOVE YOUR CONTENT.

[@ainoluo]

Thank you so much! Happy to have you watching!

[@gravikeonlinestorevike7195]

Proud to be Kenyan

[@timreza2889]

Nice

[@Flaytt744]

i know very little..a shot of Finlandia..and some of the food.For me the Jury is still out. All Finns i have met here in Hamburg are fine individuals..They have a different character than Danes or Swedish.

[@ainoluo]

I definitely had too many shots of Finlandia in my student years

[@Flaytt744]

@@ainoluo ha ha ha ha ha..i first discovered it in nairobi.

[@ainoluo]

@@Flaytt744 curious to hear your observations of the differences in character as compared to other Nordic people you’ve met!

[@Flaytt744]

@@ainoluo my first time in Denmark(it is a long story)....but to keep it short, they were more welcoming than people in Hamburg, who are considered SNOBS in Germany,

[@Flaytt744]

i hope we can meet to chit chat..i will be in nairobi , soon

[@mwendapoleee]

In Germany Ppl also go naked completely and it’s public and a friend invited me but didn’t tell me about the nakedness by the time I was leaving it felt natural.

[@ainoluo]

Haha they should have told you though! But happy you had a good experience.

[@rang3688]

Sorry for long post!! I reside in Scandinavia, specifically Norway. I engage with Kenyan and African individuals who either live in Finland or have relocated to Norway for opportunities. Racism towards Black individuals in Finland, akin to many countries, exists and manifests in various forms, including discrimination in employment, housing, education, and social interactions. For instance, a UN report sheds light on racism towards Blacks in Norway. While Finland and other Nordic countries are recognized for their relatively homogenous population, there exist Black communities facing prejudice and stereotyping. Efforts to combat racism in Finland involve advocacy, education, and legal measures aimed at promoting equality and combating discrimination. Conversely, racism against white individuals in Kenya exists, albeit less frequently than in nations with a history of colonialism or racial segregation. Kenya boasts a diverse population with various ethnic groups, and although racial tensions may surface in certain contexts, they are not as widespread as in other regions. Instances of discrimination against white individuals in Kenya may occur, especially in specific social or economic spheres, but they are not systematically or institutionally entrenched to the same extent as historical racism against Black individuals in many other countries. It is crucial to address and challenge all forms of discrimination wherever they arise.

[@ainoluo]

Thanks for your comment, no need for sorry! I think what you wrote is pretty much the essence of my interaction with that Kenyan man in Finland - it was hard for him to get to Finland, easy for me to get to Kenya. We both struggled finding employment. He feels unbothered in his day to day life, whereas for me grabbing, swearing and shouting - most of the time my colour is mentioned in these interactions - is a weekly experience on the streets.

[@yvesderival634]

Racism and discrimination is a part integral in all societies. Some countries like the USA and Great Britain are taking them to the next level .I don't think Finland and Norway reach that level of ignorance. I may be wrong .Nevertheless ,we need to treat her with respect and dignity regardless where She came from period .

[@rang3688]

@@yvesderival634 you can read the latest UN report about racism towards black individuals in Norway. You can find it via a Google search. Additionally, there's a DW report on racism in the health sector in Germany. It's important to remember that it's only been 60 years since we dismantled segregation. While we've made progress, there's still much more to do. We're not there yet.

[@user_4046]

There's no racism in Kenya against White people my friend. I've never seen a White person get discriminated in Kenya like what Whites do to continental Africans in Europe and America. Where were you when Goerge Floyd was murdered? Have you ever seen a continental African, or even Kenyan, brutalise a White person like that? 🤔

[@keepingupwithharshtina9522]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@ainoluo]

🙏🏻💕🌞

[@gravikeonlinestorevike7195]

Nice video,Aino am learning Finnish language can I please send you my cover letter you help me translate to finish language

[@sampohonkala4195]

There has never been such thing as Swedish colonialism in Finland. Finland was simply the Estern half of Sweden. The Finns were Swedish citizens with exactly the same rights and duties as the rest of Swedish citizens. Moreover, in 1527 Gustav Vasa adopted Lutheranism and made it the national religion in Sweden, which eventually lead to the need of creating the written Finnish language, translating the Bible into Finnish and making it compulsory for every Finn to be able to read Finnish. Finnish, not Swedish.

[@ainoluo]

Yep, this was way too quick of a video to cover everything, appreciate you bringing more context. From what I’ve read, there are historians who argue otherwise, bringing also the point of spreading Christianity among Finns. Just to be clear, I don’t have a stance on either direction, and any historical event would require a lot of context and perspectives (also those that were not traditionally heard or documented).

[@sampohonkala4195]

@@ainoluo The myth of colonisation of Finland was created during national romanticism in the 1800's and the idea lived strong during the heated language debate until the early 1900's. Of course it is a fact that there were Swedish colonies as people moved from Sweden to the coastal regions of Finland, but that was considered moving within the Swedish kingdom. Likewise Finns moved to central Sweden and formed the colonies of 'forest Finns' or metsäsuomalaiset. But calling this activity colonialism really gives wrong ideas of what took place.

[@ainoluo]

@@sampohonkala4195 Makes a lot of sense!

[@ainoluo]

@@Bactrian, look. First of all, it’s interesting you joined with an account 1 hour ago to immediately comment under this video. I feel like I might be wasting my efforts here but let me reply. I have listened to the people commenting on this video. I specifically added the flags to the title even though that means I may have missed a flag of a commenter. I have even asked more questions from a certain commenter in order to understand better, getting no answer. I talked about the feedback with each of my friends in this video (who are as much representative of different African countries as anyone) and they all told me not to care as they see zero issues with this video and do not agree with the comments. The Internet is full of self-proclaimed teachers but you have to pick yours and I trust my friends more than strangers who refuse to give any solutions. If any of my friends would have agreed with any of the comments, they would have first of all told me prior to making this video and if for some reason not, I would have totally made suggested changes - so far I have gotten none despite asking in the comments. This video also has more than 99 % like ratio so it doesn’t look like the community watching is generally having issues, something I would also react to. I already told this before but I’ll say again - for both of the videos (Finnish friends ask about Kenya, and this one) anyone was welcome to send me questions. I am not going to tell my non-Kenyan friends that their questions about Finland are not welcome. The commenter above is specifically from my country and I know what part of history he is referring to (instead of opinions), hence I got his point right away. The reason why I have been commenting more under other criticism is because it will take me more questions to understand - someone criticised me for not trying to learn, now you criticise me for not “backing down” when all I’ve done is to correct untrue statements and ask questions. So far not even my friends in this video have understood what these other commenters are trying to say, despite being from the same continent and some from the same country.

[@ainoluo]

@@Bactrian Okay 👍🏻

[@user_4046]

Um...small correction! ☝🏾 There's a huge difference between KENYAN 🇰🇪 and African. We don't know this guy at 07:58 and we have nothing to do with his experience, whatever he went through. I feel sorry for him though, but a distinction must be drawn between a country and a continent. Have a nice day.

[@ainoluo]

I’m not sure if I understand you correctly but this video has never claimed to include just Kenyans but people from many African countries. A couple of the people in the video are Kenyans, yeah, but this is not a video about Kenyans or Kenya at all. If you’re referring to Chico Muya, he clearly mentions growing up in South Africa, so I don’t see why anyone would think he speaks of Kenya.

[@user_4046]

​@@ainoluoMy point is you needed to be particular, either make it about Kenyans 🇰🇪 or South Africans 🇿🇦 without putting all of us in one big basket as "Africans." This Chico Muya guy ruined it, that's not the kind of energy we Kenyans emit, however flawed we are. The people on this continent in general don't like it when a non-African lumps us together in a group or when s/he gets mixed up between Africa and a specific country in Africa. For example, your video starts with "Finnish experience in Kenya," which sets Kenya as the location of origin of the questions but the title reads "Africans." We don't like it that way because it's just negative most of the time. We prefer it when you're specific, say, Nigerian 🇳🇬, South African 🇿🇦, Kenyan 🇰🇪, Ghanaian 🇬🇭 but not African/Africans. Sorry if it comes across as petty but we love it when nationalities are mentioned specifically.

[@ainoluo]

@@user_4046 Thanks for taking time to explain what you meant! I think you might be generalising a bit though saying that people on this continent don’t like x and y, since after another person commented something similar, I individually checked with each person in this video if they had an issue with it - receiving an answer that they do not even know what they could have an issue with since they identify as Africans and have no problem being called such - and they are very much from this continent. They also knew exactly what the video idea was and agreed to be in it not seeing any reason to have their nationalities mentioned - hence many of them didn’t mention in the audios / videos they themselves chose to send to me. Not sure why anyone else, Kenyan, African, Finnish or European, should be offended for something that the people in this video see as a non-issue. What I can say is that at least one person in this video is, on the other hand, not pleased that other Africans in the comment section are generalising what s/he as an African believes, likes or dislikes. I would never call anyone with a name they are not comfortable being called with - had I made a video with you, for example, I would have crafted it differently. The origin of the questions was, as clearly stated, from my friends from different African countries. The specific question about Finnish experience in Kenya (which I chose to narrow down to at the end of the video this being my channel and my experience in a specific country) was - I can only assume - from a Kenyan person, many other questions were not. I did originally consider adding flags to the title and thumbnail but ended up not doing that because I was not sure of all my commenters’ nationalities (I know I have viewers from e.g. Uganda) and did not want to leave any flags out. What you could maybe help me with is - do you think the title looks better now with the flags with the risk that I am missing some? Hope that clarifies where me as well as everyone in this video is coming from.

[@user_4046]

@@ainoluo The irony of accusing me of generalising Africans when I'm actually asking you to stop generalising Africans 😅 Listen, you didn't get my point at all. I didn't say we don't want to be referred to as Africans. I said you needed to be PARTICULAR when talking about Africans. No offense but please look up the meaning of that word in caps. Here is why you needed to be SPECIFIC: When you made a video about what your Finnish friends know about Kenya, did you include a bunch of other Europeans in that video? Clearly you didn't. You were specific to only ask the Finns 🇫🇮 , not a bunch of people across Europe. It's because you know Europeans are not Finns even though Finns are Europeans. You should have kept the same differential in this video: KENYANS 🇰🇪 trying to know more about Finland. You instead added a bunch of other Africans from Malawi and South Africa, one of whom had a really bad experience. Chico Muya, for example, who is from South Africa, is so bitter and made it look like Kenyans were sort of a factor in his tribulations in South Africa. The rest of the video is just negative because of his rants 😏. He's the reason you shouldn't geberalize Africans in one video just as I wouldn't generalize Europeans. Have a generalising-free day, won't you?

[@ainoluo]

@@user_4046 These two videos are individual and separate. I had only Finnish friends and no other European friends sending me questions for the other one, therefore it’s gonna be a video about Finnish friends. I would absolutely generalise it as Europeans if I had my Lithuanian, Austrian and Croatian friends send me questions. I understand your point but maybe where I misunderstood is that I thought for you it’s using the term “African” that is the reflection of this lumping together that you say - in general - people on this continent don’t like, which is what I mean when I say generalising, as none of my friends in this video agrees with that. I asked for questions both on Instagram and KZbin from my community, and everyone was welcome to send them and mention their country if they wanted to. Are you suggesting me to tell my Malawian, South African and Nigerian friends to sod off with their questions since a Kenyan viewer wants the video to include only Kenyans? I valued inclusivity over specificity - you may have different value sets and that’s okay. What confuses me about these types of comments is that whenever I ask for solutions that can be done at the moment rather than going back with a time machine - and in this case I specifically asked for your feedback about the flags, it’s 🦗 🦗 🦗 I thought you may have had good views on that based on your willingness to explain in the beginning, which I appreciated. Maybe decide whether you want solutions or discussions, because right now neither seems to do. Also, please - I am not accusing you of anything, you yourself acknowledged that your comment about people on this continent was “in general” and I’m just passing on the message some of my friends in this video feel about that comment. You are also making a whole lot of unfair assumptions about me and my video making process (such as who I have asked - trust me, majority of the people I ever ask to contribute are not comfortable appearing on KZbin which sometimes disrupts my original ideas) that are simply not true. Just because me and my friend group view some things differently from you does not mean we are uneducated or ignorant or discriminatory. I emphasise again - the people from different African countries (Africans) in this video do not agree with what you are trying to say here. Someone else would because we view the world differently and associate different meanings with things. Do not ignore that I took your feedback and added flags for more specificity possibly sacrificing inclusivity cause I think it balances out - hope it shows to you that nobody here is trying to insult anyone.

[@thomasschwinn]

in terms of a country letting women vote, as you live in Kenya, do you still think you can say something like Finnland was the first country in the world that let women vote? is that not maybe a very very western point of view to the world? do you have a bit of an idea how societies were structured in the area that is now called Kenya before the british colonized it? my wife always tells me, not all women in the world have gone through the same pain European women did, but it's hard for them to accept that

[@ainoluo]

Hey, not entirely sure if I understand your comment. There’s been many different ways to govern in different parts of the world throughout history - a very good point I think you raise! Finland was not the first country to let women vote but the first to let women also run in elections - and that is of course in the context of the types of governance systems we talk about in modern global (or western?) history. Happy to learn more about different types of governance models where women have had a bigger role. :)

[@thomasschwinn]

@@ainoluo thank you for responding, for all I know Bantu societies were and are (where christianity has not full taken over) matriachal. For nilotic communities it's usually said that they are patriachal, but our neighbours are Samburus. Our western interpretaion patriarchal societies is automatically that we think, oh these poor women. But I see these women everyday when I'm in Kenya, they built our house. The only one who can supress these woman is the government. You can see clearly who is running the biz at their homes as it is with the kikuyu and kamba homes that I know. Syokimau was a kamba prophetess who saw the europeans coming. These powerful women were in Europe as well, but they were murdered in the name of christianity. So I think other people around the world that did not have to go through an Abrahamic religion, did maybe not have the need to give women some rights at some point, because they were never removed. Thanks for sharing this video, I didn't know that the swedish were involved in colonizing another country.

[@ainoluo]

@@thomasschwinn Whether one can call the Swedish rule colonisation is debatable, and there are many differences to what we normally call colonisation - but an interesting comparison for sure. Perhaps imperialism is a better word? And thanks for sharing what you know about the societies in this part of the world! The governments tend to be pretty patriarchal for sure.

[@tuomascolliander5350]

Miksi sanot souna? Se on suomalainen sana ja lausutaan niinkuin suomessa sanat lausutaan.

[@tuomascolliander5350]

Oh. Se oli vain alussa. Anteeksi.

[@rang3688]

This was lovely, but I have a problem with the title "African" when you are actually interacting only with your “Kenyan” friends. I am sure you are already aware that Africa is a continent comprising 54 countries, each with its own unique characteristics. While there may be some commonalities among African nations, they are also incredibly diverse. Using a blanket term like "Africa" can lead to misconceptions about the continent's diversity. Perhaps a more accurate title would be "Kenya" or "Interacting with Kenyan Friends" to reflect the specific focus of your interactions.

[@ainoluo]

One of the people in the videos was Nigerian and the one who sent a voice note was from Malawi.

[@rang3688]

@@ainoluo ok! At least that makes some senses. Though still term “African” is way too broad🙏🏿

[@ainoluo]

@@rang3688 Well, I’m not gonna title my video “what my Kenyan, Malawian, and Nigerian friends and possibly commenters from other African countries - pretty sure someone was Ugandan - want to know about Finland” 😂

[@rang3688]

@@ainoluo I still get your point, nevertheless, African is too broad 😂.

[@afrodea_ke3881]

Hey, stop being a person who likes to argue and don't make sense, am so much disappointed with this point of 'Africa being too broad' Am an African and yes we all Know is too broad but your point is too shallow. She's allowed to use the word African as long as we all in Africa. I still don't get it, did you want her to use the word African after all 54 countries commented? Go back to school