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The
underground part of the Helsinki railway station has
become a refuge for new Finns – their own piece of
Finland where they can show their true colours
without fear. The teenagers who hang out in the
station tunnel were born in Vietnam, Russia,
Somalia, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, Estonia...
Tonight, just like every night, there is a "huge
gang of refugees" around.
By Riikka Venäläinen
A regular weekday evening in November, at five p.m.
We are in the so-called station tunnel, the
underground shopping area below the central railway
station.
Scores of people are moving up and down on the
escalators, with tight expressions that reveal
haste.
Except for those teens up there: standing by the
railing in front of the upstairs McDonald’s, a group
of idle beanie-headed boys break out in laughter,
which is followed by an argument – in Arabic. A
couple of metres away, two teenage girls lean
against the railing, watching to see what the
group’s third member digs out of her purse. As they
look at photographs together, the girls giggle in
Russian.
Inside the glass windows of the hamburger
restaurant, two tables of Somali boys are sipping
their afternoon coffee. A group of young men from
someplace else in Africa, could it be Nigeria, are
chatting by the doors, and the teens at the corner
table are speaking... Turkish?
Three Asian-looking boys order hamburgers and joke
among themselves, in Finnish. They introduce
themselves: Thien Luong, 14, says he is Vietnamese,
Kari Zheng, 15, is Chinese, and Jari Perho, 14, is
half Thai.
All were born in Finland, and although Perho’s
father is Finnish, at the station the boy prefers to
be Thai. "Your mom and dad may have come over on a
rubber boat, but I’m Chinese", Zheng makes fun of
Thien. "Damn slant-eye", he retorts.
”We come here after school whenever we can", Thien
explains amicably, and straightens his cap.
When the native Helsinki-ites who speak Finnish as
their mother tongue rush through the station tunnel
as fast as possible with briefcases flapping, these
youngsters come here purposefully – and seem to
enjoy themselves.
Teenagers have always hung out at the railway
station, but it has turned into a home base for
immigrants only during the past ten years. In 1991,
there were only slightly more than 5,000 foreigners
living in Helsinki. At the beginning of this year,
there were nearly 30,000 foreigners in the capital
city, or 5.3 percent of the city’s population.
A couple of years ago, the city’s youth service
workers calculated how many nationalities could be
found among the teens at the railway station. The
result was staggering: 32. A large part of them do
not show up in statistics as foreigners, as they are
often Finnish citizens nevertheless.
"Now there would probably be even more nationalities
at the station", estimates Somali-born Hussein Omer,
23, who will soon graduate to be a youth tutor.
The station tunnel is considered to be a scary and
dangerous place. So what on Earth are all these kids
doing there – and why?
"There are plenty of other people with foreign
backgrounds at the station, people they know. They
look for security and strength, the feeling that you
are something when you are among your own", Omer
ponders.
A former station regular and current youth work
student, 23-year-old Ahmed-Nour Abdelkader Isse,
reasons that the station is popular because there
teens can stand out. “Among Finns you are often just
a part of the masses, a black guy, some immigrant.”
On the next evening, the temperature has dropped
further below zero outside, and it is only around
ten degrees inside the tunnel. There are plenty of
teens around nevertheless.
14-year-old cousins Ellu and Suski Pavlis have come
to meet friends. Ellu’s parents are Greek, Suski is
Greek-German, but she was born in Israel.
"There is nothing dangerous here. Someone you know
can always help out. The only thing that scares me
is Finnish junkies who come over to ask if we have
any dope. The immigrants are usually sober", Ellu
explains.
Suski giggles and points to a black boy on the
subway escalator. “Muffe is over there!” The girls
rush off to catch up.
There is plenty of action at a McDonald's table
when Ali Reza Mahmoodi, 17, makes a crowd of
girls laugh. Mahmoodi is an Iranian Kurd who came to
Finland five years ago.
"We are here every day. There are lots of other
foreigners here and it is cool otherwise too. It is
always fun, but the guards are a bit racist", says
Russian-born Alina Hakana, 14.
The fact is that it does not cost anything to hang
out at the station, it is easy to go there – and
there are often plenty of younger siblings at home
that can get on one’s nerves.
A typical middle-aged Finn is frightened to walk
through the tunnel during evenings. "They are afraid
because there are so many of us here. I mean
foreigners. I guess we look so scary", Turk Baris
Aktulum, 17, remarks.
Although the station has become a refuge for teenage
immigrants, the statistics reveal it to be far from
a peaceful part of town. If one were to draw a
circle with a diameter of two hundred metres around
the railway station, nearly half of Helsinki’s crime
would take place within the circle.
"Hanging out here is OK and belongs to a certain
phase of your life, but some people can get stuck.
If school seems hard, you fight with your parents,
it is hard to get a job, and money is running out,
there is the temptation to start doing stupid
things", Isse says.
"These kids definitely need a living room of their
own, one where you could just walk in and hang out
freely like at the station. The only difference
would be that it would be warm and truly safe to be
there."
Isse knows what he is talking about, because he has
roamed the station himself when he was younger. He
believes that many who arrive in Finland as
pre-teens do not even recognise the difference
between right and wrong. When the language is not
yet fluent, it is easy to miss things at school.
Parents are also often so occupied learning how to
deal with their new life that they do not know how
to guide their children. Plus, it is customary to do
foolish things as a teenager, whether you are an
immigrant or not.
Nearly half of the thefts in downtown Helsinki are
perpetrated by foreigners, but the majority of the
crimes are committed by a small group that is
familiar to the police. According to the police, the
statistics are also blurred by the fact that
foreigners are caught more often than natives: they
are more easily noticed.
Omer and Isse praise the Helsinki police for
learning to understand that immigrants are
individuals. In the 1990s, large groups of black
youths were arrested only because a security camera
revealed that someone black committed a crime.
Now the police cooperate actively: those who are
drifting onto the wrong tracks are helped out of the
vicious circle and back into society before it is
too late.
Midway into the week, the going picks up in the
station tunnel. Iranian-born Jalal Izadfar, 21, is a
long-time regular. He has hung out at the station
since age sixteen.
"We are kebabs, all the Arabs, the Iranians, Turks,
and others from around there. The Chinese are chinks
or rice. Africans are called chocolate. And then
there is the N-word, but that is bad, you can’t use
that", Izadfar explains.
"My gang is international, we don’t fight even
though we’re from different countries."
His friends fill in. Finns are called potatoes,
reindeer, or milk.
All teens at the station, with few exceptions, speak
good Finnish. The language switches from the mother
tongue to Finnish as soon as someone of another
nationality joins the group. They shake hands, hug
sometimes – that is a good habit, Ahmed-Nour Isse
remarks.
Ali Reza Mahmoodi is here again. He has begun to
grow annoyed with the term immigrant – even though
he does not quite understand why. "I prefer to be a
Kurd. Or a refugee, that is a nice word, because
that is what I really am. On the other hand I am
completely Finnish. Why do you need to emphasise the
immigration part, since it was so long ago", he
muses.
Isse reports that in the mid-1990s, various ethnic
groups fought each other at the station, sometimes
quite violently. The Chinese, Russians, Finns, and
Somalis fought one another. The gangs had baseball
bats, pocket knives – "anything you could get your
hands on".
Nowadays there are hardly any ethnic battles at the
station, and the gangs have become multi-ethnic.
The boss of the beanie-boy group glances at his
watch. "Hey refugees, let’s get the hell out of
here!"
Not all of them are real refugees: the word is used
lightly, as a sign of togetherness.
Some of the station kids have parents who can offer
their offspring jobs in their own restaurants.
Finding employment is not as simple for everyone,
however.
First-generation immigrants often do the jobs that
the native population rejects, and suffer their fate
quietly. The teens at the station are more commonly
from the second generation, meaning that they came
to Finland as babies or where born here: they speak
the language, and soon they will have degrees from
schools – and high expectations.
"I want to live here, study and work. I am
interested in information technology and business",
Ali Mahmoodi envisions.
The higher the hopes, the greater the disappointment
and often even anger if the employers’ doors do not
open. According to studies, those second-generation
immigrants who are visibly foreigners are as a rule
in a weaker position than natives in the labour
market. You need plenty of persistence to find work.
The immigrants from "generation one and a half" are
in an even more difficult situation. They have
arrived in the country as teenagers, and they were
supposed to finish school in a few years’ time, with
scarcely any language skills. Sometimes employment
offices discover that people who have finished their
compulsory nine years of school are in fact
illiterate.
Another new night, and the familiar beanie gang is
around. In the centre of the group, a tall boy
gently hugs a small-sized girl. Lebanese Ali, 15,
and Finnish Minka, also 15, have known each other
for years, but their love is new: they have dated
for one month.
Ali is just a nickname, because the official name of
Minka’s boyfriend is Ahmed Jabbar. He moved to
Finland from Lebanon at age two.
Jabbar has a necklace around his neck with a map of
Lebanon on it. He bought it during his holiday in
Lebanon last summer – so that he could show where he
is really from.
The same chain holds a silver, curved sword with
Arabic inscriptions. "It is the symbol of my
religion, Islam. Oh, what does it say? I can’t read
that language properly."
Although Jabbar has an Islamic symbol hanging around
his neck, he does not consider himself to be very
religious. "It annoys me when they ask about Islam
so often. I don’t know so much about it, I don’t
even take religion classes at school."
Jana Habbal, 17, a member of the group of
Palestinians, wants to continue about religious
issues. "Sometimes it’s hard for Finns to understand
that religion is usually more important for us than
it is for them. That’s why it’s maybe easier for
foreigners to understand each other, no matter what
their religion."
Then there is the other side to it: fathers. "They
don’t understand, because they think religion isn’t
important enough for us. They’re afraid for no
reason, thinking that we don’t respect religion when
we’re here doing the same things that the Finns do."
Tunisian-French Mike Tajini, 18, is a part of the
same group of friends as Habbal. "I lived with my
dad, but we had a falling out. Dad’s a strict
Muslim, and he doesn’t like it when I come here and
hang out with Christians", Tajini explains.
Tajini’s case is not so rare around here. "Parents
often live tied up with their own culture. Then the
kids want to live like their other friends, party
and be free. For Muslim parents it can be an even
worse catastrophe than for Finns to have their child
seen downtown with a bottle of beer in their hand",
Ahmed-Nour Isse says.
Habbal has an older brother, but he no longer lives
with the rest of the family.
"He moved someplace with a Finnish woman. My dad has
said that if we marry a Finn, we’re goners. He told
my brother that he shouldn’t have a child with her.
Love with a Finn is OK, but marriage isn’t. Or if
she was rich, maybe dad would approve", Jana Habbal
jokes.
Jabbar’s girlfriend Minka interrupts: "My mom said
that it’s OK if Ali comes over on Christmas Day,
when all our relatives are visiting too."
Ali kisses Minka and adds: "I don’t care either what
nationality or religion the person who I’m with is,
and my mom doesn’t care either. Love conquers all."
Many immigrant families are particularly concerned
about the reputation of daughters. That is why there
are fewer girls than boys at the station.
"My mom doesn’t necessarily like me being here,
either. She’s afraid that I’ll get a bad reputation,
and that it’s dangerous here", Alina Hakana says.
There are more security guards among the teens over
the weekend.
Kosovar Teuta Kastrati, 15, came to Finland when she
was two years old. She comes by the station after
her hiphop dance lessons to check if her friends are
there. She is facing an exciting time in her life, a
year in Kosovo. She leaves on December 26th.
Many of the teens who hang out at the station have
visited their native countries on several occasions,
and many keep in close contact with their relatives.
However, few seriously dream of returning.
In Kosovo, Kastrati will live with relatives and go
to school for a year in a school where her
grandfather is principal. She was six when she last
visited the country.
Kastrati says that she knows already at this time
that her stay in Kosovo will only last for the one
year. "This is where I want to live. I’m going to be
a women’s football coach one day."
We bump into a good friend of Omer and Isse,
twentysomething Somali Faisal (name changed). The
men hug warmly.
Faisal came to Finland at age eight in 1992. His
mother and father had died in the war, and he fled
Somalia with his uncle.
"When I came here, I suddenly became a black person.
I was just a Somali everywhere, people did not seem
to be able to distinguish me from the rest. On the
other hand, I had trouble telling whites apart at
first too."
He learned the language quite soon, he liked school,
and did well in class.
"After ninth grade I just didn’t know what I should
start to do. They weren’t really able to give me
advice at school. And my uncle couldn’t help,
because he wasn’t familiar with the system. I had no
role models."
Faisal began to spend his time at the station, and
picked up unemployment benefits.
"Sometimes I didn’t go home for a month. I stayed
with friends and their older brothers. My uncle
couldn’t understand at all why I did something like
that. He had a wife and small children of his own at
home. At one point we weren’t talking at all."
There were run-ins with the police, fights, partying
at night clubs. "At times I thought that as a Somali
here in Finland I’m just in the way, and everyone
hates me anyway, so nothing matters."
Eventually, Faisal had so much to clear up with the
police that he received a notice of threat of
expulsion through the mail.
"I didn’t realise what was going on. It was a
terrible moment, I didn’t know where they were
taking me and if I would be killed there instantly."
As all mistakes had been made while Faisal was
underage, the expulsion was never carried out.
Faisal finally took control of his life.
"The guys who helped me made a huge difference. When
I saw that they were immigrants too and had got on
in life, I realised that I can do something
important too."
Now Faisal has a job, and he plans to study youth
social work in order to help others like him. He has
a home with his girlfriend, and everything is in
order.
"When I was younger, I hated Independence Day.
People came to the station to yell at us to get the
hell out of here, that this is our country. Nowadays
even I celebrate it. Maybe I’ll watch the reception
at the Presidential Palace on television."
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