C(h)ristian’s Blog

On the Evil Other and National (Im)Purity: Shkupolli, Finland and All Questions In Between

2009 ended tragically in Finland: six people were killed in the Sello shopping mall shooting in Espoo/Esbo: one woman and three men were shot to death in the mall, another woman was discovered gruesomely killed in her home; the last victim was the gunman himself.  At the time when the police was still searching for the suspect, and the media hardly had managed to publish information about him, comments flooded pointing out at his not being a Finn and being a convicted criminal as the main explanation of the shooting. By the time he was found dead in his apartment in Espoo/Esbo, it was public knowledge that his name was Ibrahim Shkupolli, a 43-year-old Kosovo Albanian that came to Finland at the beginning of the 1990s.

In the aftermath of the shootings it was heatedly argued that Shkupolli should have been deported to Kosovo, and that Finland has too loose a law on deportation of foreign convicts. In a later series of articles ran by Helsingin Sanomat (HS), it was revealed that annually there are deported approximately 70 from among the almost 140,000 people of foreign origin living presently in Finland; moreover, Shkupolli had his Finnish citizenship application rejected, as a result of his “numerous” offenses (in English, here). His criminal offenses, according to the same HS (in English, here) were a conviction of assault (2001), and two firearms offenses (in 2004 and 2007). His former partner, one of the women victims, had a restraining order against him because of his violent behavior and continuous harassing.

In a self-secure tone, Timo Soini leader of the RRP True Finns (PS/Perussuomalaiset), commented that both Finnish PM, Matti Vanhanen from the Center Party (Kesk/Keskusta/Centerpartiet), and the Minister of the Interior, Anne Holmlund from the National Coalition Party (Kok/Kansallinen Kokoomus/Samlingspartiet) are moving ever closer to PS’ line on the question of granting residence permits to foreigners with a criminal background, in the sense of making the legislation even more restrictive (in Swedish, här).

Acting as a leading opinion maker in Finland, HS addressed the heated debate about Shkupolli not being Finnish but also went further and asked what can be defined as “racist” and inquired openly if his background  had an impact in the unfolding of the tragic event (in English, here). One of the main arguments put forward was that the Kosovo Albanians have suffered a severe collective trauma, as evidenced by research of psychiatrists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden). One of the main findings was that the Kosovo Albanians forced to seek refuge across Europe have an increased sense of marginalization and alienation than other migrant groups. This unfortunately silenced the issue of integration in the Finnish society, since Shkupolli lived almost 20 years in Finland before the tragic event. Despite being convicted for the aforementioned crimes, he lived and worked in Finland, and it is rather difficult to portray him as a blood-thirsty foreigner living at the fringes of Finnish society. Even the Finnish Immigration Services had to admit that his criminal record was not enough to support a potential deportation, and that his later actions could not have been foreseen just from that.

However, another HS article acknowledged the strong resemblance between the domestic violence degenerated into the killings of whole families perpetrated by native Finns, and Shkupolli’s actions. The case of former sportsman Matti Nykänen, who allegedly injured his wife on Christmas Day 2009 with a knife and attempted to strangle her (in Finnish, tässä; in English, here), made headlines not only in Finland but also abroad and was a sad reminder of domestic violence in Finland.

Interviewed by Hufvudstadsbladet (Hbl), the Minister of Migration and European Affairs, Astrid Thors from the Swedish People’s Party (SFP/Ruotsalainen kansanpuolue/Svenska folkpartiet) was one of the few dissenting voices who reacted strongly on the matter and warned that the debate around the Sello killings should not focus on the ethnic background of the perpetrator, but consider the combined impact of high incidence of gun ownership, and domestic violence in Finland (in Swedish, här).

Addressing the issue of family violence, which in Finnish media usually receives a gender-neutral connotation, Pia Puu Oksanen argued in an interview in the same Hbl for the strengthening of policies on the matter, despite the present economic hardships (in Swedish, här). She underlined that in almost 20% of homicides in Finland a man kills his wife, girlfriend or co-inhabiting partner; the most critical moment is when women attempt to put an end to their relationships. Unfortunately, the ideals of Finnish masculinity appear to be constructed around the conviction of ownership of women. In other words, a woman breaking away from a toxic relationship with an abusive man, looses somehow her most basic human rights (the right to live being of utmost importance), and she is to be punished by the man who has a right of life and death over her.

Indeed, it is estimated that approximately 20-30 women die each year in Finland as a consequence of domestic violence. At European level, Finland is only surpassed by such countries as the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania and Romania in terms of a higher rate of women killed in a relationship. In this context the question that comes forward concerns the Finnish obsession with keeping the country for Finns, when the very Finnish women are refused their most humane rights: who gains from hurrying into making rankings of violence, labeling violence perpetrated by foreigners as “bad”, while not addressing the very issue of violence and its poisonous symbiosis with the ideals of Finnish masculinity? Is not violence, at the end of the day, intrinsically bad, why is there a need to add shades to it, and attempt to find futile justifications for the violence in the Finnish homes? Can the tragic event in Sello mark a more serious questioning of the overall heteropatriarchal relationship between guns, violence against women, and ideas of masculinity?

Tags: asylum, domestic violence, Esbo, Espoo, Finland, Finnish masculinity, Hbl, heteropatriarchy, HS, immigration, Kosovo Albanian, Sello, Shkupolli, shootings

Finnish Masculinity and Its (In)securities: Another Tragic Shooting in Finland

It appears that the first decade of the third millennium, now nearing its end, was not under the most positive auspices for Finland. Especially with regard to public violence perpetrated by men in Finland, be them Finnish natives or “new” Finns, on other innocent citizens. To mention just those events that received a lot of media attention:

- Myyrmanni bombing in October 2002 in a shopping center located in Vantaa/Vanda, neighboring commune to the capital Helsinki/Helsingfors. The bomb killed 7 people and injured a total of 166.

- The school shootings in Jokela in November 2007, 9 were killed and 12 were injured. Less than a year later  another school shooting shook Finland. In Kauhajoki in September 2008, 11 people were shot to death and 3 more were severely injured*.

- Today, 31 December 2009, just a few hours before the end of the year, a man shot and killed 5 innocent people. The gruesome event occurred in in Sello, one of the largest shopping malls in Finland, located in Espoo/Esbo, a commune neighboring the Finnish capital to the west. 4 people were executed at Prisma shop in Sello, while the other victim was shot in her home. From early police reports released by Finnish Public Broadcaster  YLE (tässä/här/here), it seems that the gunman is of Kosovo Albanian origin and have resided in Finland for a long time.

A first thought that comes to mind is that the Finnish ideal of masculinity is undergoing a very unsettling stage. The constant pressure to comply with and fulfill the ideals of a heroic heteropatriachal masculinity, coupled by a tradition of gun ownership- not seriously kept in check by a rather lax gun law- intrinsically connect violence and Finnish masculinity in a deadly symbiosis.

A second comment pertains to the symbolical nature of these events that resemble strongly public executions. Innocent people, oftentimes mainly women, are targeted in cold blood, in what can be regarded as a public reassertion of the perpetrator’s masculinity. In other words, this very extreme manifestation of Finnish masculinity requires to be enacted, performed in front of terrified others and demands the irrational sacrifice of innocent bystanders. In this vein, the perpetrators’ last act is their own suicide, performed less publicly and more hurriedly, and thus ensuring they do have the last word.

A third, and necessary reflection comes up somewhat later. It was recently revealed that the author of the shooting in Sello is of a foreign background, namely of Kosovo Albanian origin (identified as Ibrahim Shkupolli). Will this be turned into a renewed interrogation of “irrational” Balcanic masculinity, and avoid the pressing need for reassessing the hegemonic Finnish masculinity? In the case of Myyrmanni, the perpetrator was an “unbalanced man”, in the case of Jokela, and especially Kauhajoki, the gunmen were labeled unstable mentally and “misfits” of the masculine norm. It seems that time and again, series of explanations and othered scapegoats are found and the main question is yet to be posed: What is the dominating ideal of Finnish masculinity and why is it umbilically connected to violence?

To conclude in a more interrogative tone, perhaps the decade to be inaugurated soon should be one to critically assess how traditional ideals of Finnish masculinity can enter a new phase, in which manly ideals are not underpinned by implicit reference to violence. Is Finland still haunted by its horrific experience of the WWII, or is this just an expedient explanation for much deeper and more serious traumas that are manifest in the Finnish culture in general?

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* The issue of school shootings in Finland has received increased scholar attention. Among others, I have presented a paper titled “Violent masculinities and school shootings in Finland” (written together with Prof. Johanna Kantola and Ph.D. Student Jemima Repo) – presented at Foranderlige Mænd og Maskuliniteter i Ligestillede Samfund/ Changing Men and Masculinities in Gender Equal Societies conference, within Theme H: Uddannelse og opdragelse af drenge og piger: normalisering og formning af genus/ The education and upbringing of boys and the formation of masculinities (28.01-30.01.2009), Roskilde University, Denmark.

Tags: Esbo, Espoo, Finland, Finnish culture, Finnish masculinity, firearms, gun law, heteropatriarchy, Myyrmanni, Other, Sello, Shkupolli, shooting, shopping center