A conversation about racism in Finland: Fath E Mubeen interviewed by Finnish news broadcaster Yle

3.5.2021

Nick Haswell

Our Finnish team researcher Fath E Mubeen was recently interviewed by the national Finnish news network Yle about her experiences with racism in Finland. Mubeen spoke about how, after arriving in Finland several years ago as an asylum seeker, she has seen first-hand how racism and discrimination emerge in subtle ways within Finnish society. Mubeen also spoke about how the Black Lives Matter movement, formed in 2013 in the United States to protest police brutality towards Black communities, gained international attention after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and has since reshaped discussion about racism in Finnish society. Mubeen said she was not surprised to hear of Floyd’s death because it was a case of “history repeating itself”, but she sees the worldwide protests it triggered creating an important space for people to speak out for human rights. For Mubeen, the most important aspect of movements such as BLM is that they highlight and call into question often invisible structures of inequality that exist in societies such as Finland. Despite the progress that has been made, however, Mubeen feels that real change will take time.

The article (in Finnish language) can be accessed here: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11908156