Different ID cards for foreigners

According to Helsingin Sanomat, the new Finnish ID card project is getting some bad feedback from European anti-racism coalition ENAR. The new system will feature blue ID cards for Finnish citizens and brown ones for foreigners. Sweden's Nöjesguiden agreed and thought the project was amusing because of Finland's relatively low foreigner population. Finland's Hufvudstadsbladet also questioned the move.

Finnish nationalism being what it is, the social networks are awash with outrage. How dare they criticize us! The sad thing is that attitudes in this country have become so polarized that if someone even implies the word racism, people have a knee-jerk reaction to it and don't even bother to look at the issue. Why on earth should a foreign national living in Finland be forced to broadcast the fact that he's a foreign national? Just a few weeks ago, when Finland won the ice hockey world championship, foreigners and Swedish-speakers were attacked and threatened on the street for, well, being foreign.

"How can anyone possibly be opposed to something like this?" they ask on the social networks, as if they can't understand how it might be discriminating to make a certain part of the population carry distinguishing IDs. A few years ago, the same conversation was had when the Finnish police announced they would be stopping and searching "foreign-looking" people in Helsinki to ensure they were in the country legally. When it's foreigners who are involved, even people who are highly critical of the Finnish government and police will immediately leap to their motherland's defense, especially if it's criticized by foreigners like Swedes.

The real point is that in this atmosphere, it's a little odd to find Finnish officialdom making a move like this. There's no pressing need to introduce this scheme right now, in the middle of a very acrimonious social divide on immigration and racism. It makes you wonder if they're taking sides. And what's worse is the fact that it's almost certainly impossible to have an actual discussion about this, because a certain, very vocal, class of people in this country immediately fly off the handle at the least implication that something racist might happen in Finland.

There's a good Finnish proverb involving sticks and dogs that would work well here.