In Europe

Verdi's ‘Slave Chorus’. The third one seems to be a Finnish variation of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. And the next seven numbers are highly reminiscent of the old hymns of the Dutch Reformed Church.
    During the interval, I exchange a few words with Colonel Milos Syltamaa (b.1921). The oldest member of the chorus is ninety-two, the average age is seventy-nine. ‘Every year our chorus shrinks a little, that's the way it goes. That's right, we all fought hard. Against the Germans, too, you bet. We did quite well. Our forests aren't at all like the parks they have down there!’
    Our conversation is interrupted by a committee member in a sash. They are taking up the collection. And then comes a new song.
    I want to hear an outsider's opinion, so I arrange to talk to the Palestinian Amayya Abu-Hanna. ‘Let's meet under the clock at Stockmann's,’ she said on the phone. ‘You'll recognise me right away. I'll be the only person who isn't blonde.’ Stockmann's department store is a household name here. It is more than just the Harrods of Helsinki. Stockmann's is a miniature Finland, and Finland is the 1950s, 1960s and 1990s in one.
    At the moment, Stockmann's is changing fast, Amayya assures me. ‘There's a café in the basement now; ten years ago that would have been unthinkable. Back then, there were only a couple of grindingly boringclubs in the whole city.’ She takes me to the magazine section, which is largely reserved for publications about cooking and interior decorating. ‘That's become all the rage. Finnish chairs used to come in only one or two colours, and the only thing the Finns ate were potatoes and sausage. Now we even have a Thai restaurant. Everyone talks about “the city”. Young people are forever boasting about being true “Hessalinen”, and not farmers from the countryside’. The lingerie department on another floor has quadrupled in size in the last year. ‘Even sex is now seen as a source of pleasure, not just a way to make little Finns.’
    Amayya Abu-Hanna is little and slender, she has short black hair and dark, lively eyes. She has lived in Finland for almost twenty years, and until recently she was one of the best known Finnish TV anchorwomen. It took her – ‘Yes, of course, I fell in love with a Finn’ – quite a while to acclimatise. ‘It can be awfully grey and overcast here for months on end, with lots of rain and wet snow. You know the story of Jonah and the whale? Well, that's how I felt during those first winters. I even had to learn how to walk all over again, in the snow, bowlegged, bent over. What's more, everything I'd been taught at home about right and wrong turned out to be precisely the opposite here. Here, for example, “peace” means silence, quiet, no other people, deep in the woods. To me, peace is something that is actually all about other people, it's something social, the opposite of war. Curiosity and ambition were always seen at home as something good, but not for the Finns. In my view, a concept like “equality” had to do with honesty. But for them it's “not standing out”. They even have a negative term for “colourful”, something like “eye-bashing”.’
    She reads to me from Stockmann's spring catalogue. ‘“Dress like the rest; after all, don't you have better things to do?” Where else could you sell clothes with a slogan like that?’ Amayya was in politics for a while as well. ‘That's when I discovered the good sides of this country. People mean what they say, for example. That was refreshing to me. I expected a great deal of corruption. Not a bit of it. Everything was squeaky clean.’
    For the moment, Amayya is unemployed. ‘It all became too much. I had no problem working as a journalist, but as soon as my face appeared on TV, all hell broke loose. Threats, a letter bomb, I even had to move out of my house. No blacks, no Russians – in other words, no whores– in our living rooms! I was replaced by a real blonde Finnish woman. And then everyone pretended as though it had never happened.’
    Friday evenings are an ordeal for her. This highly disciplined country has one escape valve: alcohol. Screaming, urinating in the street: if a person is drunk, they can get away with all of that. ‘When Friday evening comes they scream at everyone with dark skin, every drunk who comes along grabs at my hair and shouts: “What are you doing here, you're black!” Or: “Hey,
babushka
!” Or: “Hey, are you