Reading Miss Fisher

I'm interested in this topic because I'm part of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland, but also because I've lived in the Finnish speaking parts of Finland (Jyväskylä) and in Sweden (Malmö), so I've had a front-line seat to people from all of these communities making assumptions about each other and misunderstanding each other. 

Here are the three geopolitical aspects of the KAJ-phenomenon that I find particularly noteworthy and heartwarming:

1) Sweden is celebrating Finnish culture and it's changing the narrative in both countries 

The fact that a Finnish band is topping charts in Sweden with a song about an aspect of Finnish culture is a bigger deal than you might think, because Finnish culture has not traditionally been held in high esteem in Sweden.

There are some ancient reasons for this, related to the fact that Finland was under Swedish rule from the 13th century all the way up to 1809 with the power dynamics that this implies, but I think the most important reason is probably the wealth gap during much of the 20th century.

In the 1950-70s many Finns emigrated to Sweden for work. They were mostly known to be reliable hard workers, but new immigrants are never highly regarded and on top of that this was the same generation that was on the front lines during the war, with lots of trauma that nobody knew how to treat or diagnose at the time, leading to self-medication with alcohol, emotional detachment, violence and social problems. Being Finnish became associated with a number of negative stereotypes in Sweden (alcoholism, violence, social exclusion, poverty), to the point where children in many Sweden-Finnish families were bullied for being Finnish and people were encouraged to distance themselves from their Finnish heritage.

This is why the hype in Sweden around Bara Bada Bastu - a silly feelgood song about unconditionally loving a part of Finnish culture - is getting so much attention in Finland. Finnish people aren't used to Sweden being this enthusiastic about anything related to their country. Some people in Finland still expect Swedes to look down on them for being Finnish. "The happiest country in the world" should of course have sorted out their self-esteem issues by now (most people have), but sometimes these things can be slow to evolve. 

Finnish culture has actually been getting a lot of positive attention in Sweden for some time now. The love for KAJ is part of a cultural shift that has been going on for years. Some notable music examples are Käärijä doing well on Swedish charts, Swedish artist Markus Krunegård releasing an album in Finnish in 2023 (Nokia & Ericsson) and Swedish artist Miriam Bryant releasing several singles in Finnish in 2024 (Mustelmilla, Otan kii), as well as wildly popular Hooja throwing in some Finnish words in their Swedish lyrics. 

The fact that Melodifestivalen producer Karin Gunnarsson invited KAJ to the competition in the first place probably wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for this phenomenon already being a thing.

2) Finland is showing Sweden some love in return

There is a saying in Finland that goes "it doesn't matter who wins as long as Sweden loses" and yet here we are: Finnish people are singing along to a song in Swedish and many are actively rooting for Sweden to win Eurovision.

The fact that a song in Swedish is topping charts in Finland is very unusual. 

Finland is a bilingual country, with Finnish and Swedish both being official languages, so you might expect the music scene and the general population to be bilingual as well, but they are not. The percentages are 95% Finnish speakers and 5% Swedish speakers, meaning public life is basically 100% Finnish speaking. Swedish speakers have their own schools and radio channels and so on, but if they want to talk with the rest of the country they need to do so in Finnish.  

The same thing is true for the music scene. If you choose to sing in Swedish you have a potential audience of less than 300 000, if you switch to Finnish you have a potential audience of 5,5 million. There are several Fennoswedish artists who are very successful in Finland at the moment, the big names being Mirella and Averagekidluke, but they all sing in Finnish. You would have to be a specific kind of lovable goofball to choose your local Swedish dialect instead.

The Swedish language is also viewed negatively by many in Finland. This is an unfortunate consequence of mandatory Swedish lessons in schools, often nicknamed "pakkoruotsi" ("involuntary Swedish" or "forced Swedish"). The idea to teach everyone the basics of both national languages doesn't sound particularly far-fetched, but many people, especially in the East and North where there are no native Swedish speakers, dislike this requirement to the point where it might do more harm than good.

As for Sweden, the country is seen as a close and reliable friend, but the friendship is somewhat more complicated than it might seem on the surface. The Finnish banter with Sweden is friendly 99,9% of the time but the remaining 0,1% can be surprisingly dark, because it's rooted in feelings of humiliation and injustice that go quite deep.

This is why it made sense for KAJ to do Melfest instead of UMK, beyond the fact that Melfest reached out to them. Gaining a Swedish audience when singing in Swedish is a realistic goal. Gaining a Finnish-speaking audience when singing in Swedish is... not realistic - or so everyone assumed.

In other words: seeing Swedish people sing "yksi, kaksi, kolme, sauna!" in Finnish is surprising, but seeing Finnish-speakers go "bara bada bastu, bastu!" in Swedish is just as unexpected and somehow even more heartwarming, for me as a Fennoswede at least.

As far as I know it's the first time in history a Fennoswedish artist gets nationwide recognition with a song in Swedish. There is more warmth towards Sweden in Finland right now and more curiosity about the Swedish speaking minority than I think I've ever seen.

3) People are suddenly learning about the Swedish speaking minority in Finland 

KAJ getting all this attention is making a real difference in fighting ignorance (mostly in Sweden) and prejudice (mostly in Finland) about the Swedish speaking minority.

Some Swedish people still don't know we exist, which can be a little disheartening to Swedish speaking Finns who follow media in both countries and know everything about Sweden. Fennoswedes trade anecdotes about how Swedish people compliment them on their "really good Swedish" when they speak their native language or how well-meaning Swedes switch to English because they can't tell the difference between a dialect and a foreign accent. The most extreme anecdotes are about Swedish people saying "I had no idea Finnish was so easy to understand" when you talk to them in Swedish.  

In Finland people know we exist, but sometimes mistake us for a small and homogenous group of upper-class snobs - which is fine really, compared to what almost any other minority anywhere has to put up with, but it's also quite far from the truth, so getting some nuance added to the mix wouldn't hurt. Most Fennoswedes are just ordinary people and do not have mansions and old money (unfortunately for us!). Those old money families do exist, but they are not that many. 

The Fennoswedes you see in Finnish media tend to live in the Helsinki area and be perfectly bilingual, which isn't the case for all of us. KAJ is such a refreshing addition to the media landscape because they aren't part of this group: they are from the countryside, their Finnish is a little wonky, and you couldn't possibly accuse them of being upper class snobs.