Month: May 2011

Iltalehti: Hakkarainen ei pyytele anteeksi rajuja puheitaan

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Perussuomaliset MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who created quite a stir with his racist statements against immigrants and Muslims during his first day in parliament, now says he will not apologize for what he said. He told Iltalehti that he had no reason to apologize since he “was protecting Finns (from immigrants and refugees).”

“I don’t approve that foreign men come here in groups just to use our social welfare,” he said.

Hakkarainen has tried playing the innocent country boy who still calls blacks the n-word. Center Party secretary, Timo Laaninen, asked in Jyväskylä-based daily Keskisuomalainen how Hakkarainen could pin his racist statements to people living in the rural countryside? Some consider this explanation a slap in the face to all country people living in Finland.

“It would be pretty hard to think of a worse insult to people who were born in the country,” said Laaninen.

The PS MP is trying to play dumb but there aren’t many that are buying his story, especially immigrants, minorities and the ombudsman for minorities.

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Tuore kansanedustaja Teuvo Hakkarainen (PS) jatkaa maahanmuuttajien ja homojen möyhentämistä puheenjohtaja Timo Soinin puhutteluista huolimatta.

Read whole story.

BBC: Eastern European migrants ‘add £5bn’ to Britain’s GDP

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:   Immigrants from eastern Europe that moved to the UK have given an injection of £5bn (5.64 billion euros) to the economy during 2004-09, according to the BBC citing a report by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The NIESR report states that countries that imposed restrictions on eastern workers saw economic growth reduced.

The BBC writes:”During the same period Britain’s GDP grew by £98bn, or 7.7%, and the NIESR study says that a 5% share of the £98bn can be put down to the migrants. The NIESR says the UK probably benefited from the restrictions imposed by other member states. It says Germany will suffer a “permanent scar” on its level of output, with its GDP reduced by between 0.1 and 0.5%.”

Migration Watch UK, an anti-immigration lobby group, said bringing in so many labor migrants was a “poor deal” for the UK.

Why do you think Finland has attracted so few skilled workers to the country?

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Immigrants from eastern Europe have added almost £5bn (5.64 billion euros) to Britain’s economy since 2004, according to a report.

Read whole story.

El País: El ocaso de la tolerancia nórdica

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Here is story published Sunday by El País of Madrid on how the Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden and Finland have given ground to “far-right and populist” parties. The article, authored by Ana Carbajosa and Adrián Soto, who has lived in Finland for over thirty-five years, shows special concern over the last election in Finland.

Writes El País: “The last big (election) victory and which was probably more surprising was that of the Perussuomalaiset (the article translates the Finnish name of the party to Auténticos Finlandeses, or authentic Finns) who got two weeks ago 19% of the votes, or seven times more than in the last election (of 2007). Some analysts attribute the victory to the charismatic leader of the party, EuroMP Timo Soini.”

Could parties like the Perussuomalaiset, Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats mentioned in the El País story be knee-jerk reactions by some sectors of society to the rapid changes taking place in these countries due to globalization?

What is lamentable about these parties is that their responses are angry reactions with the usual round of anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam sentiment. Their hostility and nationalism only aggravates the problem.

Do you agree?

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Adrián Soto y Ana Carbajosa

La victoria electoral de los Auténticos Finlandeses ha supuesto una pequeña revolución en el país nórdico, pero sobre todo ha hecho saltar todas las alarmas en una región en la que hasta hace bien poco era casi impensable escuchar argumentos tan extremistas como los que ahora circulan por los Parlamentos nacionales de la zona. Los partidos de extrema derecha y populistas nórdicos ya no pueden ser ignorados porque les respalda una parte del electorado nada despreciable. En Finlandia y en Dinamarca han sido la tercera fuerza más votada. En Suecia han aflorado de la semioscuridad y han entrado en la cámara parlamentaria.

Pinche aquí para seguir leyendo.

Thank you PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen of Finland for exposing yourself!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

If we had to draw the face of racism that has lurked in Finnish society for decades, I would start by drawing Perussuomalaiset MP Teuvo Hakkarainen’s face.  He may look like a nice country boy from Viitasaari in Central Finland, but if you scratch the surface you will find the racism and ignorance that lives in some Finns. If you think that Hakkarainen is the only PS MP who has strong opinions on immigrants and refugees, you better think twice.

Racism and xenophobia come in different flavors in the PS.

It appears that we have for now four types in this dubious league: the Hakkarainens, serious Halla-ahos, serious little gray matter Halla-ahos and the ones that can hide it craftly. In order to be fair, I am certain that some of the 39 PS MPs that were elected are not challenged on this front. Isn’t it high time that they should come out and condemn racism to save theirs and the PS’ face?

Justice Demon sent us a few video clips of the first group, the Hakkarainens. The first one is the original interview by Helsingin Sanomat of MP Hakkarainen with English subtitles. The second and third are parodies of the original interview without English subtitles.

Taking into account Hakkarainen’s whirlwind start in parliament, his official web page leaves us even more perplexed. Apart from promising to “build together a better Finland,” Hakkarainen wrties that he has done consulting work in North and Central America as well as in Israel.

Haka-Wood is a sawmill company owned by Hakkarainen’s family. The company gets half a million euros in subsidies from the EU even though MP Hakkarainen is anti-EU.

Meanwhile, I asked a while back if anyone knew who was the elected MP for the PS that the Financial Times referred to as the  “ice cream salesman.”

His name is Kaj Turunen and he’s from the same electoral district as I (Etelä-Savo)! There is nothing wrong with selling ice cream in summer or being a businessman. The question goes deeper:  How qualified must you be to represent voters in a serious place like parliament?

Turunen writes in his blog that it is only a question of time when Finland leaves the EU.

I wonder what is going to happen to all those juicy farm subsidies and how much it will affect Turunen’s ice cream sales in the Savonlinna market place.