tule terveh

i used to struggle with this feeling in the beginning of my reconnecting journey, sometimes i still get bouts of doubt & denial (but, personally, i simply dont have the strongest sense of self/identity in general due to my mental illnesses so i occasionally get those bouts about everything about me, for example about my sexuality even tho ive identified as bisexual since i was 12-ish years old, so ive just accepted that its something i sometimes have to deal with). feeling this way is normal to a certain degree, but it is something you should eventually process and think through. i want to share my thoughts on this topic & some things that have helped me to deal with it and move on from it.

the biggest thing that helped me with it was, well, reconnecting: learning about karelians and our history, culture, traditions, worldview, language etc & incorporating those into my daily life, for example by changing my worldview, cooking traditional food, doing traditional crafts, using the language daily (even if its just saying a few sentences to my cats or making a grocery list in karelian) etc as well as building better relationships to my karelian family members. over time as i consistently did those things my identity as a karelian grew and continues to grow stronger, because thats what being karelian is about: having a connection to and being a part of the karelian community and living the culture. it cant really be measured how ”much” of the culture you have to live to be karelian, but its possible that if you often feel like you arent ”karelian enough” you genuinely might not be reconnecting & living the culture enough, but thats something youll have to think for yourself. its also possible that you have too high expectations/standards for what karelians & their lives are like, and thats also something youll have to think about.

there are some common ideas you might need to unlearn, the first one being blood quantum. i might later make a longer post about blood quantum but in short, blood quantum, the idea that people are more or less karelian or indigenous based on their dna, is a tool of genocide. karelians have never defined themselves by that. adopted karelians who dont have any ”karelian dna” are just as karelians as karelians who do have ”karelian dna”. having ”karelian dna” doesnt automatically make you karelian, if you dont identify as one or live the culture, as being a part of the karelian community and living the karelian culture is what makes you karelian. not dna. something that i personally didnt really struggle with (bc i learnt about it early in my journey), but some people might, is the idea that youre more or less karelian based on what part of karelia your family is from. it is true that for example karelians from ladoga karelia have some different traditions & experiences than karelians from north karelia or viena karelia. those differences shouldnt be ignored, but none of these traditions, experiences & areas are more or less karelian than others. theyre all equally karelian. something that i personally had to realize to feel more secure in my identity was that while growing up surrounded by the culture (and possibly/likely facing racism, exclusion, harassment etc for it) & not growing up in the culture but learning it later in life (and having to go through the reconnecting and grieving process) are different kinds of experiences, yes, theyre also both equally karelian experiences. one doesnt make you less or more karelian than the other. i also realized that while i judged myself & my own identity, i dont & wouldnt judge/rank other karelians by how karelian they are or if they are/arent karelian enough etc based on things like the ones i listed, or if/how well they speak the karelian language, or by their religion, or literally anything else either. if someone says they are karelian i simply accept & believe it, so i dont have to judge my own identity like that either. if youre afraid of other people judging you like that: well, yea, its possible that someone might do it, and it might hurt, but at the end of the day your identity isnt up to them, its yours so its up to you. what others think about you doesnt define you. (especially if it is, for example, a finnish person judging your identity. if they arent karelian, they dont have a say in who is & isnt karelian and what makes someone karelian etc. however if another karelian person, especially a karelian elder/someone who otherwise holds more knowledge & understanding about the karelian culture than you do, has some genuine critisism to say about your behaviour, you probably should listen to them. making mistakes in your reconnecting journey is normal, it doesnt make you a bad person or less karelian etc. it simply means you made a mistake. youll just have to own up to it & change your behaviour/thinking.)

you also should ask yourself some more difficult questions, since reconnecting requires also unlearning all the racist, colonialist stuff youve been taught to think about karelians (and other indigenous peoples) and your insecurity might also be rooted in those (often subconscious) views. itll be uncomfortable, the answers might be ugly, but sooner or later you have to face them, so you can change your way of thinking not only about yourself but about other karelians as well. if you dont, you might end up perpetuating those harmful ideas. this post lists a few questions you can start with. other questions you might have to ask yourself are for example "am i reconnecting because i want to be indigenous (and have flawed views of indigenous peoples such as seeing them as excotic, more mystical, etc) or do i perhaps want to use my identity as indigenous to take from other indigenous cultures?" ”would i be interested in reconnecting if karelians were not considered indigenous?” i also made a longer list list of other misconceptions about karelians as well as listed some systemic issues we face in finland. the issues we face cant be separated from our lives, so its important to be educated of them. you can find some free pdfs about racism and decolonialism on this page. i also recommend following karelian activists, communities, hastags etc online (a list of ppl to follow), as they often talk about issues that karelians face. these are important things to do especially if you previously identified or still identify as white. understanding the way racism and colonialism work and letting go of the white way of looking at karelians & other indigenous peoples & the world in general requires a lot of uncomfortable & hard work, but its ultimately freeing and can absolutely help you with building a secure identity for yourself. the alternative to this is not doing the work and continuing to think, do and say racist things, and i really hope you wont choose that, especially if youre reconnecting or thinking about starting that journey.

1) This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here. 

2) What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. 

3) The danger is in a particular location… it increases towards a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us. 

4) The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. 

5) The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

6) The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

Baby if i had a Time machine