I also tried debating the refugee crisis on the side and that did obviously not go well and I will readily admit I don’t have the slightest clue what should be done about it. I also expressed my strong opposition toward multiculturalism – now I don’t particularly care. So I’m going back on my words there as well. All of this is way bigger than me and I bit off more than I could chew.

Yup. I’ve decided that I will try and make an appointment with the psychologist services provided by student health care. The queue times can be long and I’m certainly past the worst of this, but talking with a professional can’t hurt.

Thanks for all the support.

About separating good beliefs from bad ones. When I made that first post, I remember saying something along the lines of “this country is entirely self built and I am going to do what it takes to protect it from threats, be they from the inside or outside.” That is a very powerful statement and something I’d like to say I still stand behind. I’m from Finland and I don’t know if you’re familiar with our history but there’s quite a bit of stuff there to be proud of. I wouldn’t necessarily desribe myself as being much more nationalistic than my average countryman and nationalism is certainly something that can be abused to divide people, but I had come to agree with some nationalist European parties. I also expressed my concern for preserving our culture, although that was closer to something I came up with on the spot, rather than a deep-rooted belief. The guy I first tried debating this stuff with was a communist so we were on a completely different page from the start and he instantly resorted to personal insults. It annoys me I still remember those. I did say later that I am all for positive cultural exhange, despite opposing multiculturalism, which I had come to view as being divisive and all around unnatural. For example, our food culture is quite bland and has most certainly benefited from globalization, but I couldn’t agree with others proposing areas disproportionaly inhabited by a single ethnicity as a positive. To me, that just sounds like segregation,no matter how many pretty words you cover it with. I also expressed strong pro-Europe views with my second post, which I’d like to say I still stand behind. However, I was definitely operating under a mindset back then where I had come to view many things as a threat, and you could argue that is not a healthy mindset to have. I suppose I enjoyed it to a degree, before it resulted in massive amounts of headache. I suppose I had also come to support assimilation over integration which doesn’t sit well with some people who view it as a method of suppressing minorities and denying them the right to keep their own culture. I find this really depends on the country – I very much support a ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’ approach. Meanwhile, other countries are built on immigration and thus the merging of many different cultures. There’s really no ‘one size fits all’ solution here. Add to that the fact that people can’t even agree over what multiculturalism actually means and debating this stuff on an international forum is bound to be difficult.
Really, there was a lot of stuff there I still agree with – but I’d just like to be able to think of anything else after all this time.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Mete.

I think your stance is very reasonable and I’m sure many ordinary people would agree.

I’m an international student too, which makes this whole episode all the more absurd. I just spent all fall afraid of basically everyone who wasn’t white, feeling like I needed to apologize for existing, going, ‘why have I been reduced to this?’. These are the people I’ve been working with for years now, how did it come to this? I haven’t had too many classes where I worked with other people either, which probably would’ve helped with reconnecting with people.

There is another thing. Are you familiar with the concept of ‘white privilege’? If you’re not, you’ll probably be able to deduct what it means. It essentially refers to how in some countries, white people could be perceived as having an advantage over others by virtue of being white. It is most commonly used in the context of black-white relations in the US. Whites aren’t the only ones – Asians are usually the second in line. I don’t think there are too many people who would outright claim that there is no condition in the US where a white person might be advantaged over a black person, but this is a whole another can of worms that is quite honestly out of my comfort zone. The term is most commonly employed by left-wing/progressive people engaged in identity politics – I don’t think you’re very likely to find a Republican talking about it. Regardless, with my first post, I outright denied having any such privilege, and still do – anyone looking to extend it to applying it to Finns would have to display such grave lack of historical knowledge it is not even funny. When some whites were practicing slavery, we were poor peasants under Swedish or Russian rule. Many ethnic groups in Europe could be described as having been under similar conditions, but that doesn’t stop some people from trying to extend the concept of white privilege to apply to all white people everywhere, and sure enough, that communist fellow did insist it applies to me as well. He was particularly rude and condescending about it, too. Why this matters is that I still find myself obsessing over it after all this time, his insults etched into my brain. It did not bother me too greatly immediately after, but that second post caused it to eventually pop right into my consciousness, mocking me for days on end. I can only wonder what part of the brain caused that to happen, but I do not like it one bit. I have done my best to forgive him, but all of this is still a very sore spot.