Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Multikulti. Monikulttuurisuuden käsikirja
[Multiculti. A handbook of multiculturalism]
Helsinki: Siltala, 2012. 229 p.
ISBN 978-952-234-064-1
€ 24.90, paperback

Umayya Abu-Hanna is a Palestinian-born journalist and writer who lived in Finland for a long time and is now resident in Amsterdam. She has received awards for her work as an expert on multiculturalism. Finland’s migrant population is constantly growing, and Multikulti is aimed particularly at workers in Finland’s cultural sector; it may also be useful to others as a polemical handbook. Written in fluent, if flawed, Finnish, it contains practical instructions, tasks, and themes for discussion for those who deal with migrants. On the basis of her own experience and that of others Abu-Hanna shows clearly how migrants from outside Europe, especially Africans and Muslims, but also those who come to Finland from closer to home, encounter prejudice, racism, an involuntary lack of understanding and a lack of ‘cultural literacy’. Faults are evident at all levels of society, including the state’s cultural administration.
Translated by David McDuff