Month: February 2012

Another scandal is brewing thanks to the Perussuomalaiset

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Another scandal involving the Perussuomalaisete (PS) party is brewing  after what happened to councilman Tommi Rautio and MP Teuvo Hakkarainen. At the eye of the latest scandal is Jani Viinikainen, a PS Pirkanmaa region board member, who founded an anti-Roma Facebook page called, Mannat kuriin (Let’s put Gypsies in line)! 

On the list of “like” supporters you’ll  find convicted far-right blogger Seppo Lehto, a few members of the  Finnish Defense League, PS members and the usual crowd of  interculturally challenged Finns.

The recent scandals that have hit the PS fan happen less than a week before the party’s national executive board meet on Saturday, March 4.

Is this what PS chairman Timo Soini meant when he stated in October that the party does hate anyone?

Last year Viinikainen founded a homophobic Facebook forum.   The PS Prikanmaa regional board was planning to sack him but decided the contrary in December. Viinikainen got off the hook with a warning.

While some Finns and PS members may consider these types of Facebook pages “funny,” they show a more sinister side of the the party we have all learned to know:  Immigrants and Muslims are not the only political scapegoats of the party.

It has been less than a year since the PS won their historical election victory in April.

Every month the PS produces a scandal. What will be March’s?

PS red faces (again) after MP Hakkarainen's latest scandal

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The latest scandal caused by none other than Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Teuvo Hakkarainen has caused agan a number of red faces in Timo Soini’s party. Hakkarainen was in such a drunken state, according to Nelonen, that he ended up at the premises of the Bandidos Motorbike Club and gave a prostitute 100 euros out of pity.  

The woman whom Hakkarainen had offered money has a different account of what happened, according to tabloid Iltalehti. She claimed that the PS MP wanted to have sex with her and another woman.

“I don’t know how I ended up there,” he was quoted as saying. “We were at a bar [didn’t remember the name of the establishment] and a bit too drunk and then there were these  people with whom I went with. And I went there and then I noticed and asked [myself] who were these people wearing [motorbike gang leather] vests. I stayed there a little while and left.”

The Helsinki Distric Court sentenced in 2005 two Bandidos MC members for taking part in a shooting, Helsingin Sanomat reported. The Bandidos Motorbike Club is an organized crime syndicate with membership worldwide.

Hakkarainen flatly denied that he is a member of the motorbike club.

He said that the latest scandal would not hurt him politically.

When PS parliamentary leader Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner was asked to comment on what happened, she gave to the media the party’s standard response. According to her, she had not heard about the incident until Helsingin Sanomat approached her. Ruohonen-Lerner did not want to comment and said Hakkarainen could explain what happened.

The PS appears to have given up patching up Hakkarinen’s scandals as we have seen on other occasions.

Is the PS the party that aims to lead us out of the euro morass and into the twenty-first century? Imagine the suffering and ignorance we’d see thrown at Finland’s   and  immigrants’ faces if Soini ever became prime minister.

That would be a very unfortunate day for Finland.

The Finnish media and Länsiväylä should follow Migrant Tales

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales was way ahead of the Finnish media when it was the first to reveal the ethnic backgrounds of the violent killing that occurred on Friday February 17 after a naturalized Finn who was born in Somalia went to a high school prom. Länsiväylä claims incorrectly that the police have now confirmed the ethnic backgrounds of the victim  and the suspect, who is a white Finn.   

The police confirmed to Migrant Tales the ethnic background of the victim three days later after the killing.

Migrant Tales was first before the Finnish the media in another tragic death that took place earlier involving a Somali in Oulu.

What was tragic about both deaths was the reaction of some bloggers. Some of these were wild fabrications with one matter in mind: To erase shame by pinning the crime on a suspect, whom some claimed was Somali.  D4R and Migrant Tales were right on the ball all along. We knew the real facts behind the killing.

Our motto is a very simple one:  “To be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.”

Wikileaks document warns of neo-Nazi (far-right) anti-immigration groups in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A Wikileaks document reveals a disturbing perception that Migrant Tales has expressed concern in the past: the threat of  far-right anti-immigration groups in Finland like the Finnish Defence League, Suomen Kansalinen Vastarina (SKV) or the Suomen Sisu faction of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. In the presidential election, all of the candidates except for PS’ Timo Soini, Sauli Niinstö of Kokoomus and Christian Democrat (KD) hopeful Sari Essayah, stated in an MTV3 poll that the far right does not pose a threat to Finland.

Even if there isn’t a clear distinction made by the authorities on what is far right, neo-Nazi or a Nazi-spirited association, such groups have one matter in common: their loathing for certain immigrant groups like the Muslims. A key term like “mutual acceptance” would be like consuming political cyanide for them.

One of the questions we must ask when speaking of anti-immigration and extremist groups in countries like Finland is who considers them a threat? A white Finn may see them less of a danger than an immigrant, who may be a visible minority.

This compromise made by some Finns, whether a far-right or right-wing populist group is a threat, is the political slippery slope that Finland was on and which permitted the PS to score a historic election victory in April. The reasoning must be something like the following: I can accept, even support a nationalist party like the PS as long as they are hostile to immigrants and minorities but don’t mess with me.

Those who may have played down the PS and especially its Nazi-spirited members  have now seen the consequences of their compromise:  polarization of society, crimes against immigrants and a threat to those very values we consider sacred in our society like social equality for all.

The most recent scandal caused by PS councilman Tommi Rautio is the latest proof of the face of the PS and its far-right faction despite assurances of the contrary by the party.

What we are seeing as well within the PS is an ideological battle for power: On the one side we have the far-right Suomen Sisu faction led by MP Jussi  Halla-aho and others and on the other the Soini populists.

Fortunately Finns do not buy as much as before the anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim message of the PS as we saw in the presidential election. Even so, the PS is still a major party in Finland despite a sharp fall in popularity.

But bare no mistake: The PS would not only spell disaster for Finland if it ever became the biggest party in the country but would punish harshly  immigrants, their children, Finns with international backgrounds, minorities and sensible Finns.

Timo Soini's little PS fish and big PS fishes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The PS councilman Tommi Rautio scandal, where he stated on Facebook that he’d decorate the Finn who killed a Moroccan native in cold blood at a pizzeria Oulu, is turning into a messy Breivik-type watershed for the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The concern raised by PS chairman Timo Soini, and how the Rautio scandal has already impacted the party’s popularity internally and externally, is clear in its new non-convincing  get-tough stance on racism. 

Eyeing with concern the party’s delayed response to the Rautio scandal, the The PS of Köliö suspended on Sunday the councilman about a week before the party meets next weekend. Soini said almost two days after the scandal broke out that Rautio would be formally sacked from the party when the PS’ national executive board meet on March 4.

Should we believe the latest assurances that the PS is getting serous about racism? Certainly not. Rautio is a small fish compared with big PS fishes like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others.

Why isn’t the PS equally concerned about their big fish like PS MP James Hirvisaari, who got fined for hate speech in December, as was PS MP Jussi Halla-aho in 2009 by a court for defaming religion? Remember PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen?

Soini has repeatedly played down the problem of racism in his party. In December he said that there were only “one, two or three” such cases. Shortly after the April election, he said there were no racists running for office.

The Rautio case proves that small fish in the PS are expendable whereas big ones are not.

The "us"-and-"them" smoking-gun statement that once justified mass murder in Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that surprises me about some politicians in Europe and Finland continue to flirt with ideologies that led Europe down a path of near-total destruction in the 1940s. The younger they are, and the further their time perspective of those times, the more they appear to flirt and idolize with fascism. To them I would like to give them a quote by Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commandant of the Aushcwitz concentration camp during 1940-43. 

When we speak of fascism we should put it in a 2010s context. It has different enemies but is the same political beast.

In order to understand the horrors of World War 2 and especially those of the Nazi régime, a very good starting point to understand those harrowing times is reading up on the Nuremberg Trials.

Hoess was not tried at Nuremberg but in Poland, where he was tried by a Polish military tribunal and hanged at Auschwitz on April 7, 1947.

One of the matters that strikes you when you read about Hoess, and all those that were tried for genocide and war crimes after the war, is how they played down their roles.

There is one quote by Hoess that, in my opinion, gives us the smoking gun to the madness, racism, hatred and mass murder that roamed Europe freely at the time.

This is how Hoess justified what he did that caused the death of about 2.5 million Jews at Auschwitz.*

Hoess: “I had my personal orders from [Heinrich] Himmler [to exterminate Jews].”

Question: “Did you ever protest?”

Hoess: “I couldn’t do that. The reasons Himmler gave me I had to accept.”

Question: “In other words, you think it was justified to kill 2.5 million men, women, and children?”

Hoess: “Not justified – but Himmler told me that if the Jews were not exterminated at that time, then the German people would be exterminated for all time by the Jews.”

The last quote by Hoess is chilling and reveals the smoking gun that justified mass murder by the Nazi régime. What is even scarier today is that it is still used by people to justify their racism and declarations of wars against other groups. Some of these are groups, politicians and individuals who claim that Muslims will take over Europe. They make up their stories with the help of high birth rates and a pocket calculator.

If predicting the future were so easy, then we have invented a time machine to the future (sic!).

* Leo Goldensohn: Nuremberg Interviews. Vintage Books. New York 2004. p. 296.

Migrant Tales blog: Trolls can distort your view of other groups

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales has seen a lot of traffic as of late. Every day we see as well more trolls knocking at our door and some of them do get through. 

If, however, you did make it past the moderators and act like a troll on our blog you will be treated accordingly. You will be seen as a pack of cigarettes with the famous warning: Trolls are hazardous to your mental health and may seriously distort your view of other groups.

If, however, you want to learn and debate in earnest about immigration, immigrants and Finnish identity in this century, you are most welcome to do so.

What is wrong with some people in this society? Some trolls house so much hatred and ignorance together  with low self-esteem that they write like ticking time bombs ready to implode.

Here is an idiotic thread that failed to make it past the moderators. He calls himself Tired Johnny: “When this country is disgusting for you, please -and you are free- “get-out”. Nothing is holding you here. Bye, bye!!”

Here is another one by none other than True Finn: “The foreigners who comment on this thread are so aggressive and anti-Finn that they give a really bad image of foreigners living in Finland.”

Bad image?! Excuse me. Ever heard of Tommi Rautio?

True Finn goes as far as to call me a “Nazi.” LOL!

Here is another one who must see Muslims in his sleep. He calls himself anonyymi: “Islamilaisesta näkökulmasta katsottuna Suomi kuuluu Dar al-Harb alueeseen eli sodan maahan (From the point of view of Islam Finland belongs to the Dar al-Harb region war zone).”

What is wrong with this person? Can you ever have a civil debate with him? I seriously doubt it.

Here is another one who calls himself truesoldier: “…your racist racist that occurs here frequently is a sign that things are not well with you.”

This is a typical comment by a “racist” troll who switches the tables and accuses us of being racist. It is as ludicrous as accusing the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany of being a member of the SS. We have seen a lot of this before on many occasions.

Here is another very weird one  by crusader: “Only Aryan Jesus can save Finland from the non-white non-Christian subhuman seedline of Satan. All you Finns out there need to fight in the name of Aryan Jesus for your nations purity. Hail Christian Europe, but most of all Hail Aryan Jesus!”

We at Migrant Tales not only owe our eve-growing popularity to what we write and believe, but to our trolls who spread our name on the net.

To them we offer our eternal gratitude!

Thank you Oulu for demonstrating and standing up for your rights!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales would like to thank all those people who marched in Oulu and Helsinki on Friday against the violence that gripped Oulu last weekend and give simultaneously the thumbs down to the chicanery of others, like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP from Oulu Olli Immonen, who has warned us about a “culture war” between white Europe and Islam. Is this the first chapter of that “war” that  Immonen suggests? 

The march in Oulu was organized by the Islamic Society of Northern Finland, surprisingly YLE in English forgot to mention the organizers. The Helsinki march was organized by William Bol and Kadar Kelle.

Here is a video clip on Ilta-Sanomat  about the March in Oulu.

YLE in English writes: “Demonstrators called on Oulu decision makers and police to promote tolerance in the community. They also want officials to step up efforts to make the city more secure for immigrants as well as the native Finnish population. This latest racially-flavoured incident has been a pause for reflection for inhabitants, as it was preceded by two other violent acts involving foreigners.”

Even if too many Finnish politicians still prefer to cringe in the face of racism or deny its existence completely like the PS, immigrants, Finns and visible minorities in Finland have no choice but to demand their right to live without fear and harassment.

A new view of our diversity as a society is needed by the Finnish police

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The violence we have witnessed recently against immigrants in cities like Oulu and Espoo Leppävaara put into question the claim that hate crimes fell by 15%  in 2010, according to the Police College of Finland. Apart from raising worrisome questions about the present direction of our society it looks at the role of the police in answering this threat.

Reporting a hate crime to the authorities can be easier said than done, according to a Migrant Tales blog entry.  The low hate-crime figure in 2010 could reveal a worrisome reality:  Mistrust of the police by some immigrants.

It is nothing new that Finland’s society is becoming more culturally and ethnically diverse. The rise of some parties like the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS), and the ongoing heated debate on some anti-immigration forums, reveal that some Finns, and even immigrants, are either in denial or ignorant about such an ever-growing group.

This reality can be seen in our police force, where you’ll find dear little representation of that ever-growing “Other” Finland.

Migrant Tales got in touch with the police and asked how many non-white police there were in Finland. According to the present law, the police are not required to reveal the ethnic identity of its employees. While steps are being taken to diversify Finland’s police force and change the law in order to recruit more non-white Finns to the force, it is still unclear when this will happen, according to the police.

While I am certain that there are many service-community minded policemen and policewomen in Finland, there appears to be at present a lack of political will to do so.

The apparent lack of will to change matters on this front could explain why the immigrant community has mixed feeling about the police.  Some claim that the police do a fine job while others express mistrust and accuse them of racial profiling.

One good way to undermine mistrust and bolster credibility of the police force is by diversifying it and ensuring immigrants and visible minorities in the process that they are equally protected, not persecuted.  Being colorblind, or arguing that ethnicity has no bearing on a crime, does more harm to the integrity of the police force and its assurances that it serves each member of the community equally.

Changing Finland’s police force to represent “Other” Finns and immigrants may be easier said than done.  As with the rest of society, many still find it difficult to accept immigrants and Finns who are visible minorities as equals. The recent warning by the police about hate speech and racism on the Internet reinforce the latter perception and should concern us all.


Soini and the PS to ban "racists" from running for office

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

In light of the recent scandal that has rocked the Perussuomalaiset (PS), party chairman Timo Soini now promises to banish “racist” candidates from taking part in the municipal election of October 28, according to Helsingin Sanomat, citing Swedish-language daily HBL. Can we and should we believe Soini’s latest promise?

The answer to that question is on a TV news interview on Nelonen right after the April election and what he said during a presidential debate in December, according to MTV3. On Nelonen Soini assures us that there “isn’t one racist” in the PS but then on MTV3 he admits that there are at the most “one, two or three” cases.

Racism poses the biggest threat to Soini’s plans to build a credible party. But renouncing racism is easier said than done. It is like like asking the Communist Party to renounce Karl Marx and substitute him for Adam Smith.

How do Soini and the PS define “racist?” This is unclear even if much of their energy in the past months has gone into denying racism as a wider problem in the PS and Finland.

When trying to make sense of what a right-wing populist party like the PS is really saying, you have to venture behind the meaning of the soundbites. What does Soini mean when he announces plans to ban racists from running in the municipal election of October?

He is telling us that the PS is worried about how racism is deflating credibility from the party. This is a good piece of news because, if you recall, racism, anti-immigration and anti-Islam were factors that helped the PS from becoming Finland’s third-largest party in April.

Do I believe Soini is serious about tackling a social ill like racism in the PS and Finland?

Do you believe in political fairy tales?  No I don’t.

His party is a part of the problem.