Month: August 2011

The Perussuomalaiset adopt “The Finns” as their official English name

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party are now officially called in English “The Finns,” reports Helsingin Sanomat citing Finnish News Agency (STT).  The motion to adopt “The Finns” as the official English name of the party was made by PS head Timo Soini.

Soini was quoted as saying to STT that the reason why the name was changed to “The Finns” was because he did not like the party to be called “Ordinary Finns,” “Basic Finnn;” even “True Finn wasn’t a good name because it suggested it was a far-right party.

Let’s admit it folks, the name “True Finns” is really bad because it suggests that Soini’s followers are the only true Finns of this country. The rest are phony Finns.

Migrant Tales wrote about the party’s English name, True Finns, in a blog entry in April and resolved the matter by calling the party by its Finnish name.

The Finns probably reflects Soini’s wish for the party to remain one of the biggest in Finland. I think a very suitable name for them would be the “Fundamental Finns” because of their fundamentalist ideas.

Another act in the tragic-comic play by the PS has taken place. Migrant Tales will continue to call the party Perussuomalaiset due to the poor and unfair translation.

 

The far right and the PS should know there is no such thing as selective hatred

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Even if some anti-immigration groups try to make their message more digestible to voters, it should be clear after the tragic events in Norway that hate speech affects everyone. Selective hatred is a myth.  If you loathe one group that poison spills over on other ones and eventually to  all of society.

Hate speech and racism are extremely dangerous for any society because their aim is to undermine and destroy our Western democratic liberal way of life and values.

It is sad, even unfortunate, that Finland has only awoken now to the menace of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s artillery of populism, ignorance, anti-EU and anti-immigration rhetoric.

PS head Timo Soini resembles the “good cop” and others like MP Jussi Halla-aho and his band of Suomen Sisu followers the “bad cops.” Whether there is a good and bad cop in the PS is not the point. The safe haven that these bad cops have found under Soini stick out like an ever-growing sore thumb. The good and bad cops of the PS resemble a police force that is more interested in defending its shoddy record than correcting it.

As far as for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants, Multicultural Finns and minorities living in Finland are concerned,the PS is a visible threat to them.

While the PS may be an expression of social discontent in this country, its racism and xenophobia of too many of its MPs place a big question mark over the party’s credibility.

How can a party that places so much political capital on demonizing other groups ever aspire to lead Finland?

BBC: Ed Miliband condemns David Starkey’s race comments

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: The reason why racism has flourished recently in Finland through parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is because it hasn’t been condemned strongly enough.

Sensible politicians and common citizens in Finland who know better, should look at how racism is condemned in countries like Britain.

Why is this important? Because there is no such thing as selective racism in a society. Racism affects everyone and those who encourage undermine our values and our way of life. 

What kind of response should parties like Kokoomus, Social Democrats and the PS to racist comments?

Thank you @Mastersson for bringing this story to Migrant Tales’ attention.

_____________

Labour leader Ed Miliband has described historian David Starkey’s comments on race as “disgusting and outrageous”.  Mr Starkey told BBC Two’s Newsnight “whites have become black” after four days of rioting across England.

Read whole story.

Exposing the language of anti-immigration groups in Finland and Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the most surprising factors behind the hate speech of anti-immigration groups is that it is never portrayed as hatred. Racists never admit in public they are racists nor do far-right groups claim that they are extremists.

Deciphering the language of groups like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party may be difficult for some. The language they use to label immigrants and minorities has nothing to do with fairness nor our values found in the spirit of our laws.

Take for instance the far-right Suomen Sisu association wing of the PS led by MP Jussi Halla-aho and their loathing of the term “multiculturalism.”

Migrant Tales bloggers know that multiculturalism is a Canadian social policy used to integrate immigrants and promote cultural diversity. There are only three multicultural (social policy) countries in the world: Canada, Australia and Britain.

In Finland, multiculturalism is used to mean ethnic and cultural diversity with some sprinkles of Canada’s multicultural social policy.

If we look at the PS and other populist and far-right parties in Europe, multiculturalism means a totally different thing. For these groups, multiculturalism is a shady concept or policy that permits Muslims and Africans from moving to Europe and Finland. When these groups commonly speak of “uncontrolled immigration” they mean that too many or no Muslims and Africans should be allowed to move to Europe.

In the same way they have definied mulituclturalism to fit their political agenda, they have soiled the good name of immigrants and refugees.

Certainly the usual language of racism will be used to justify their loathing of these groups. One of their favorite arguments is that these people “are so barbaric that they can never adapt to our society.” Thus their racism and hatred is justified because a certain group is so different from us.

But the big hole in their argument of groups like the Counter-Jihadists is that they don’t have any solutions on how to make diversity work. Their solution is a constant whining about “ghettos” and “maladapted” immigrants when in fact the grand majority of these people have jobs, pay taxes and lead normal lives.

Moreover, if European society is already culturally diverse how do they plan to make it less diverse? What do they plan to do with the millions of Muslims and other minorities living in Europe?

The fact is that anti-immigration groups don’t have any answers. The only answers they will give you in public is blatant bigotry that flirts with your stereotypes and racism.

If you ever meet up with a representative or a person who loathes immigrants and other minorities in Europe, why not ask him or her what they plan to do with these people.

The answer they may give may shock you.

Far-right thinking and the cold war in Finland and the PS

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The rise of far-right thinking and nationalism in Finland seen through the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is nothing new in the face of Finland’s long cold war isolation. Finnish-Soviet relations were not the only one that were under close scrutiny by the state, but how we interpreted our history and ourselves as a nation. That is now changing thanks to the reemergence of our ever-growing diversity as a nation.

The rise of the PS could be seen as a counterforce to that diversity and openness we are seeing in Finland today after living under the shadow of the former Soviet Union for over four decades.

Any serious student of Finnish society can tell you that we have always been a culturally diverse society: we were under Swedish and Russian rule for about 700 years and Finland produced 1.2 million immigrants between 1880-1999.

Here is an interesting analysis (in Finnish) of cultural diversity in Monday’s Helsingin Sanomat and the myth that we are somehow a homogenous nation.  An important matter to keep in mind is that the anti-immigration far right in the PS  have noidea what multiculturalism is and only see it as a policy that permits Muslims and Africans from moving to Finland.

In 1920, for example, we had 3.5 times more foreigners living in the country than in 1970, when there were about 7,000. The biggest group of foreign nationals that lived in Finland at the time were Finns who had become naturalized Swedes.

Finland was geopolitically near-isolated as well from Western Europe. Due to our special relationship with Moscow, we could never join the EU never mind the Council of Europe because it was too outspoken on human rights violations in the USSR.

In all respects the cold war era changed the mindset of Finland radically. By almost killing our diversity we ushered in a very exclusive, nationalistic and even racist way of seeing ourselves. We started to look and think so much alike that we actually believed we lived in a perfect society reinforced by our myths, stereotypes and lack of critique.

Since diversity almost became extinct in these parts in the cold war, people who came to Finland had funny names. In the 1980s, for example, foreigners were called aliens not immigrants. Refugees from the Soviet Union were never called that. They were known as people who “skipped the country (loikkari).”

It shouldn’t come to any surprise that living in a country that has done so much to destroy its diversity willingly or unwillingly never had the basic tools to seriously debate what happened during the cold war after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Because this did not happen in earnest, it is now taking place through the rise of parties like the PS, who are attempting to awaken — or keep asleep — cold war Finland with the full arsenal of anti-EU and anti-immigration rhetoric.

Unfortunately for the PS and fortunately for Finland, diversity is here to stay.

Accepting and encouraging it will be the best guarantee of developing a healthy and strong Finland in the future.

Are immigrants and Multicultural Finns becoming a social movement in Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I rebel, then I exist. Albert Camus (1913-60)

By Enrique Tessieri

The news coming out of our television sets in recent months show protests in the Arab world, Greece and recently in London. Similar demonstrations have sparked in Chile and Israel. Despite differences between these protests, the message is the same: We don’t trust our traditional rulers any longer.

In which form these mass protests appear differ from country to country. On April 17 we saw such a protest in Finland, when the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party won 39 seats from 5 in the last election in 2007.

The PS victory has the same message as other ones globally: It is a big thumbs down to the country’s traditional parties and rulers.

Migrant Tales has said on many occasions that there is nothing wrong with protesting and fighting for the rights of others. However, if you link racism and xenophobia to “your struggle” you water down the noble message of your movement.

It would be naïve and short-sighted to think that just because the PS won a big victory in April, they will continue to collect  the fruits of discord. Since immigrant groups and parties like the Greens and others now see a clear adversary, the PS, it means that they are growing in strength as well.

French sociologist Alain Trouaine has studied social movements for a very long time, ranging from the May Movement of Paris in 1968 to the Solidarity movement of Poland in the 1980s.

Social movement, according to him, “are central and burn at the heart of society.”  In other words, social movements permit society to renew itself. This happens constantly.

One social movement in the making made up of immigrants and Finns could be Minun Suomeni on kansainvälinen – My Finland is International on Facebook.

What is remarkable about this Facebook page is that it already has the ability to mobilize demonstrations thanks to its over 45,000 “friends.”

Those who ask why immigrants and Multicultural Finns are hardly acknowledged, have no history or exist for the majority of Finns ask key questions about how larger groups exclude smaller ones.

If immigrants and Multicultural Finns don’t have a history or a nascent one at the best in Finland, how can they ever aspire to demand more rights never mind control and shape historicity? Since a group doesn’t have any history or very little of it recognized by the majority it means that it does not effectively exist. It is a bit like the debate on whether there is racism in Finland. By denying that there is racism are we affirming that we are not a culturally diverse society?

That is why I believe that one of the consequences of the rise of the PS will be more vocal social movements led by immigrants and Finns that will struggle and fight for greater recognition and acceptance by society.

Migrant Tales Arts: Toiveeni – niin kaukana, niin lähellä 23.8-3.9 (Malmitalo, Helsinki)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri

Toiveeni – niin kaukana, niin lähellä

Valokuvanäyttely kertoo Suomessa asuvien maahanmuuttajien unelmista ja toiveista uudessa kotimaassaan.

Avoinna arkisin ma–pe 9–20, la 9–16.

Enrique Tessieri’s photography exhibition of some of the dreams and hopes that immigrants may have in their new homeland.

Open Mon–Fri from 9 am to 8 pm, Sat from 9 am to 4 pm.

Fotografiutställning av Enrique Tessieri om några invandrares drömmar och önskemål beträffande sitt nya hemland.

Öppet vardagar må-fr 9–20, lö 9–16.

PS stands for perkele saatanas – damn everything!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The biggest shock on April 17  was that Finns woke up to the reality that a large minority (19.1%) had radical views on issues like the EU, immigration and nationalism. A poll published on Friday showed that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party continues to be the biggest in Finland. What does it say about the present state of Finland? 

The PS, or that closed and angry group of people clenching their fists and yelling damn the devil/everything (!), or perkele saatanas (PS), are a belated fruition of  decades of living under the shadow of the Soviet Union during the cold war. That period fuelled if anything our sense of isolation and mistrust of the outside world.

The PS are as well a reminder to us of  the deep state of denial Finns have lived in when looking at our history. By erasing our cultural and ideological diversity we ended up creating a very narrow and deaf view of ourselves.  Even if the Winter and Continuation War ended in 1940 and 1944, respectively, we are still fighting in those trenches with our nationalism and suspicion of the outside world.

In light of this, it should not come to any surprise that the PS’ reaction to the economic crisis in Europe is fear. The prescription is simple: blame the “elitist” EU,  immigrants, in particular Muslims, for our problems and bring back the good old times of black-and-white television sets and when analyzing the world was a simple mathematical formula: 1 + 1 = 2.

The fear-mongering spread by the PS appears to have no limits.  Just like some people thought back in the fifteenth century that the world was flat, too many have the same perception of society and other groups today.  Even if the Internet opened up the world to us, it has done little to question our prejudices but found a large audience and a home for them.

One of the most “society-is-flat” statements I heard was last month by a prominent PS politician of Mikkeli, who claimed on a letter to the editor to Länsi-Savo that if the EU ever became a federation, the Finns, Finnish culture and langauge would disappear from the face of the map.

“The (implementation) and the development of the EU into a federation will in time mean the death of the Finnish people (as a group), language and culture in the same way that happened to other Finnish-speaking groups (in Russia) like the Mari, Vatjas and Veps,” the PS politician writes. “I value my fatherland and my culture so much that I don’t want the same to happen (to us).”

What is incredible about this affirmation is that it was not only published by the local paper after what happened in Norway, but that the writer compares small Fenno-Ugric groups in Russia and Latvia with the over five-million Finns that live in Finland. In a later letter to the editor, the PS politician bestows  more of his “foresight” on us by claiming that higher birth rates among Muslims are a threat because they will force white Europeans to become a minority in their continent.

The apocolyptic-like prediction of a “Muslim takeover” is very similar to what far-right groups in the US have been predicting a long time.  The American Nazi Party, for example, sees an all-out “race war” taking place because whites are becoming a minority in their own country.

Finland and the rest of Europe are embarking on a perilous path if  they allows fear to get the best of them. Parties like the PS show sadly that that is the path Finland and Europe should take.

The big test for Europe will, however, come in the years ahead. It will hinge on how we react to the financial crisis and who we blame for our problems.

The New York Review of Books: Toleration and the Future of Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:  Anders Behring Brevik imagined the defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 as an important date to mark the war that Europe will wage in the twenty-first century against the Muslim takeover.

Writes the New York Review of Books:   “It is unsurprising that what Breivik has to say about European history is trivial. The plagiarism of his manifesto recalls Hannah Arendt’s point that those who do great evil may themselves be incapable of cultural creation. The superficiality of his worldview recalls her notion that the greatest of evils has no roots, and therefore has no bounds.”

There is no such thing as selective hatred or xenophobia. That is only a pipe dream. If you are on the war path against one group, everyone is involved. One of the big issues and challenges in Europe as it races into the depths of the new century is accepting and learning to live with its cultural diversity.

“One twentieth-century solution, exemplified by Nazi Germany, was to attempt to build state power by eliminating the diversity,” writes The New York Review of Books “. This involved racist mass murder, and it also brought failure; failure that Breivik’s mass murder recalls both in its barbarity and in its self-destructiveness.”

If denial of who we are gets the best of us, what will it imply for Europe? Economic decline? Ever-growing social problems? The rise of the far right? Loss of civil rights? War?

_____________

Timothy Snyder

In Anders Breivik’s manifesto, the ostensibly Christian defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 is the central historical event. He imagines a European rebirth in 2083, four hundred years later, and names the Polish king Jan Sobieski, whose troops were crucial to raising the Ottoman siege, as one of his heroes: “John III Sobieski and the Holy League successfully defended Europe against an army of more than 150,000 Muslims.” Breivik thinks Europe today is again under siege from Muslims, and that Europeans must resort to “atrocious, but necessary” violence to defend it. 

Read whole story.

A model for cultural diversity in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

While the term multiculturalism means many things to many people and groups, Finland is not officially a multicultural country. Nowhere in our laws will you find that magic adjective, multicultural. But taking that big leap from the perception of being a monolithic ethnic society from one that is multicultural like Canada is a tall order for any country. Even so, Finland needs today best practice models and values that promote and encourage inclusion and acceptance of our ever-growing cultural diversity.

For far-right Couner-Jihadists like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho and his followers, multiculturalism is a left-wing policy that facilitates the entry of Muslims and non-European immigrants like Africans to this continent. For Migrant Tales, multiculturalism is a Canadian social policy to integrate immigrants.

There are only three countries in the world that are officially multicultural, according to Peter Kivisto. These are: Canada, Australia and Britain.

A good synonym for multiculturalism is cultural diversity.

When looking at Finland in the twenty-first century, one of the biggest challenges facing us now is how to make cultural diversity work and how to raise that magic word, acceptance, to the same level of importance as equality (tasa-arvo).

While there are a lot of good intentions and real efforts in Finland to foster greater acceptance of our growing cultural diversity, many are still much in the fog about the big picture. The PS, which uses the Nuiva manifesto as its benchmark for immigration policy, is in my opinion the furthest from a successful integration policy because it is based on assimilation.

Defined in the simplest way possible, assimilation is one-way integration. Another reason why the Nuiva manifesto would be a failure if ever implemented is that it only expresses the subjective views of  a small group of people, who are anti-immigration to start with, on how they’d want immigrants to adapt to Finland.

Since the world has changed radically from 1917, when Finland became an independent nation, langauge, surname as well as physiological features played key roles in forging the Finnish prototype.

No matter what your background was after independence, everyone was essentially accepted as a Finn as long as that person was white, practiced an accepted religion like the Lutheran faith, spoke one or two of the official languages and had a Finnish, Swedish or Germanic surname. Acceptance happened by erasing one’s foreigness.

Historical circumstances, however, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II and the Cold War discouraged newcomers from moving to Finland. This forced the foreign population to drop to 7,000 by around 1970.

Can the same model that was used in the 1920s and 1930s to mold Finns work in the 2010s? I don’t think so and if ever applied it would have a limited impact.

One good model that could work would be based on three premises: mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.

Acceptance means accepting a group’s or individual’s right to lead the lifestyle he or she prefers. One of the greatest matters about our society, and which we have fought for so long, are civil liberties and equality.

Chapter 2 Section 6 of the Constitution sums it up well: No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.  Children shall be treated equally and as individuals and they shall be allowed to influence matters pertaining to themselves to a degree corresponding to their level of development.

In many respects, and in line with the spirit of our laws, society should be like a clothing store. Instead of purchasing clothes we can try out and use different lifestyles that suit us the best at that moment in life.

Mutual acceptance is a key factor for that clothing store to succeed and respect further icing on the cake of acceptance. For the latter to occur we must have equal opportunities to access employment and education in order to make our dreams/lifestyles possible.

If we want in Finland to get a view of the big picture of immigration, it must look way past petty debates like if immigration is good or bad.  We have to implement models that foster “us” as opposed to “them.”

The society that will do that successfully is based on mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.