Month: March 2012

Who is allowed to debate a social ill like racism and exclusion in Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

After being the editor of Migrant Tales for about five years, I get the message: Finns with international backgrounds, immigrants never mind Muslims are not allowed to take part in the ongoing debate on Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity.We are not allowed to raise a finger nor an objection.  The reason that we are doing exactly that on Migrant Tales explains why we are no longer such a faint voice.

Even if our growth has been quite breathtaking and spectacular especially in the past year, we are still a hand-on-heart operation run on our pure passion for social justice and against  racism.  We believe that everyone who lives in this country should be treated with respect and have equal opportunities.

Contrary to what our critics claim, and there are many of them, Finland is our home-sweet-home. Our aim on Migrant Tales is to defend our Constitution and the values that make us  a successful Nordic welfare state. Values like social equality (tasa-arvo) and mutual acceptance are defended tooth and nail.

If there are threats to our society, they do not come from abroad but are found within our borders. Some of these groups even in parliament want to turn the hands of time back to the 1930s but in a 2010s context. Apart from a few changes, like substituting Muslims for Jews as the greatest menace to our society, it is the same beast in different clothing.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja was quoted as saying on HBL that nearly half of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MPs belong to the far right.

Who is allowed to debate social ills like racism in Finland?

Everyone. And we encourage more immigrants, Finns with international backgrounds, visible minorities and Finns to take part in the debate.

Nothing can nor will intimidate us from raising our voices.

Hijacking my picture and defaming me and Migrant Tales on the Internet (Part 3)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

It has been a very busy weekend for Migrant Tales: defamation, insults and even a death threat from a forum called Ylilauta. The administrator, Tuomas Siitonen, visited our blog yesterday and  said he is not responsible for what has happened. Even if a typical Ylilauta blogger is eighteen years old and still living with his parents letting out steam on the Internet anonymously, there is a deeper issue at stake here.

Siitonen argues that since threads on Ylilauta disappear in a few hours or in days, the administrator isn’t responsible for what is written because it is a so-called megaboard.

I apologize for the racist content of the cartoon. An Argentinean Ylilauta blogger tells a Finnish one: You have my sword. Kill him. That “him” is me.  

Moreover, Siitonen stated on a thread Sunday:  “But why do we allow people insulting others and won’t censor it? Because we don’t believe that internet is serious business.”

One of the major problems I see with Siitonen’s argument is that nobody is responsible for what he or she says, especially Ylilauta that encourages unruly social media mobs to attack people anonymously. In the freedom of expression argument, he forgets the person who is being victimized and intimidated in the vilest manner.

As far as I see it, Ylilauta has declared war on  Migrant Tales and especially against me for expressing my opinions on the net.

Did we get attacked because of what we write and stand for on Migrant Tales (immigration, minority rights, integration, anti-racism, Finnish identity in the new century and other topics)? You make the conclusion.

By attacking and insulting us, Ylilauta destroys its whole defense in a second. What it does is reveal, however, is what it is: A place where anti-social behavior and racism thrive anonymously.

Certainly I have a pretty good idea what censorship is. As a journalist who has worked in a number of countries during the past 25 years, I have defended that right whenever it has come under threat. Self-censorship, which is possible through intimidation, is another threat that has popped up in front of me on many occasions.

One matter that I have learned as well is that when censorship comes knocking at your door you have no choice but to defend that very important right.

If I did nothing in the face of what happened to Migrant Tales and me, I would be responsible for encouraging this type of slander and anti-social behavior to continue. I would be like the majority turning a blind eye to a serious and ever-growing social problem inflicting Finnish society.

Hijacking my picture and defaming me and Migrant Tales on the Internet (Part 2)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Since Wednesday Migrant Tales and I personally have been harassed by persons from a website called Ylilauta that made it a point to defame and insult me publicly.  When I got in touch with the administrator, Tuomas Siitonen, and told him that I was being attacked again, he pleaded the First Amendment (freedom of speech).

“You wouldn’t want to interfere with free speech, would you?” he said.

It is odd and a pretty weak argument to claim that defaming a person on the Internet protected under free speech.

What about my free speech? What about my right to express myself on Migrant Tales without being intimidated and attacked by publishing where I work?

Siitonen says in an email : “Naturally, if they are spreading personal information such as phone numbers and private addresses, we can interfere with it because, well, we’ve got moral standards too. Internet isn’t serious business and shouldn’t interfere one’s personal life physically.”

Is it a coincidence that on Friday I gave a talk to a group of high school students in Vantaa about the role of the media in guaranteeing freedom of expression.

I pointed out to them that even if in the United States we take the First Amendment very seriously, there are some limitations. Some of these are defamation, causing panic, incitement to crime as well as other exceptions.

Having lived in Argentina during the so-called dirty war, when the country was ruled by a ruthless military regime during 1976-83, there were very clear limitations on freedom of expression imposed by the de facto government.

What is the difference between a military dictatorship that censors the media and one where social media lynch mobs roam the Internet anonymously in Klu Klux Klan robes? Not much except that in the former you could be thrown in jail, tortured and killed.

Apart from the latter example, the intimidation by these social media mobs is no different from a ruthless military dictatorship since the aim is the same: instill fear, hopelessness and self-censorship. They are, as well, a wake up call about the social illness that has inflicted our society.

Granted, Ylilauta may be ” one of the internet’s dirty toilets filled with shit and puke” as BlandaUpp pointed out. Even so, it is the same ogre in different form that roams our society hindering us from effectively drawing the line between what is acceptable and not acceptable in our society concerning racism.

Every thing that is written on Migrant Tales is done to help future generations so they may live in a society that is more acceptant and where racism and far-right ideology are clearly on the defensive.

After enduring these attacks to my person for what I write on this blog, I reported the matter to the police on Saturday.

There is more at stake now than just a free-for-all against me, but the right of every person (especially visible minorities)  in this country to feel secure and express himself or herself freely.

Hijacking my picture and defaming me and Migrant Tales on the Internet

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I was pretty surprised Thursday that a blogger from a forum called Ylilauta had hijacked my Facebook picture and started defaming me and our blog, Migrant Tales. I got in touch with the administrator of the site, who took the offensive content off the site the following day. Fortunately I took a snapshot of what was written. 

One of the matters that surprised me when my picture was hijacked from Facebook and when offensive comments were made about my person and Migrant Tales, there was no apology from Ylilauta.

What happened is a case in point on how racism spreads, planted and buds on the Internet.

Writes Jonne: “Migrant Tales is a blog by an immigrant douche living in Finland. It concentrates on bashing the True Finns party and blaming most Finns to be racist and xenophobic. My eyes are bleeding.”

What our mission statement says: Migrant Tales is a blog that debates some of the salient issues facing the immigrant and minority community in Finland. 

The most offensive part of the thread was the following: “I just can’t read that shit. “Some immigrant mudface preaching on how Finland must be multicultural and immigrants are enrichment. Just fuck off.”

Wow! A mudface?! I haven’t heard that term for decades. It was commonly used in the 1980s, which suggests that the writer may be in his 40s or 50s.

Jonne uses terms like “enrichment” and “cultural Marxist,” which reveal that he hangs around far-right websites like the Gates of Vienna. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer, used “cultural Marxists” on his deranged manifesto.

If there is defamation and racism on the Internet, it is our responsibility to expose it especially if we are the target.

The damage has already occurred but possibly we can discourage it from happening again.

Finnish human rights activist and writer reports threats by two PS members to the police

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Every month the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party offers us a scandal. Well, here is the one for the month of March: two PS members, Klaus Eovaara and Jani Viinikainen, have threatened on Facebook writer and human rights activist Jussi K. Niemelä, who has reported the matter to the police.

Niemelä is the editor of the Vallan-vahtikoira blog, which has criticized the PS for its racism and ties with Suomen Sisu and other far-right groups.

Elovaara and Viinikianen received warnings at the party’s national convention meeting earlier in March. Viinikianen founded a anti-gay and anti-Roma Facebook page last year.

Eloraara, who was a PS candidate for parliament in 2007, is a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu assocation like PS MPs Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others.

Suomen Sisu offers web links to sites that openly question the “Jewish conspiracy” and that praise Adolf Hitler as a military “genius.”

One of the matters noted by some concerning the scandal is the police’s reaction and how it has played down the affair.

According to Ana María Gutiérrez Sorainan citing Satakunta Radio, the police said “that there are two sides to the story and that the collision is due to ideological differences.”

 

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from October 5, 1992

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales will begin to publish Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.

Sounding as if we lived in some social war zone, the billboard below lures readers with the following headline: “Armed refugee hater chased blacks.”

Refugees that came to Finland in the early 1990s, when the country was suffering from one of its worst recessions in a century, were assaulted in public. One of our bloggers told me that he remembers being attacked by total strangers in the street when he went with his mother to the market.

Shameful behavior that has no place in our society.

*Migration Institute archive. 

Adolescent to receive Red Cross Award against racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Rebecka Holm, 14, will get the Red Cross Award on the UN Day Against Racism on March 21 for her noteworthy example in denouncing racial harassment against her friends and herself, according to Swedish-language daily HBL.

The adolescent from Helsinki wrote a letter to the editor of HBL in January speaking out against racial harassment of her friends and herself. Her story received wide national attention.

“If Finland is now the most secure and stable country [in the world], why do people of [different] ethnic backgrounds get attacked every day?” she asked.

Holm said that  she sees such attacks publicly take place several times a week. ” I am subjected to [those types of] attacks maybe once a week,” she wrote to HBL.

Holm is a  good example of how the ever-worsening negative climate for immigrants and visible minorities in Finland has brought out the best in some members of our community.

Migrant Tales personally congratulates this brave adolescent for her very important example, which we hope will catch on.

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from September 21, 1992

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales will begin to publish Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.

Some of their stories, like the one below, showed Finland’s reaction to refugees to be even life-threatening on occasions.

The billboard below states that a refugee family was saved from a petrol bomb attack.

The poor atmosphere for refugees and immigrants was exacerbated by Finland’s worst recession in a century, when unemployment levels came close to 20%.

*Migration Institute archive. 

Soviet refugees in Finland: No escape to freedom

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I met Aleksandr Shatravka in 2009 thanks to Migrant Tales after searching for over twenty years for such a person. He was one of twelve former Soviet citizens documented by Amnesty International who was forcibly returned in 1974 to the USSR after being caught by Finnish Border Patrol authorities. 

Shatravka sent me by email a video clip documenting that ordeal with his brother Mikhail and two friends, Boris Sivkov and Anatoly Romanchuk.

After they were caught by Finnish Border Guard Antti Leivo they were soon sent back to the Soviet Union, where they ended up at a special psychiatric hospital.

While Shatravka holds no grudges against the Finnish authorities for sending him back, Finland was not during the cold war a place to seek political asylum especially if you were from the Soviet Union.

Aleksander and Irina in Mikkeli in October 2011.

I wrote in February 2010 a feature in Apu magazine about Shatravka. I met him and his second wife, Irina, for the first time in Finland last year.

Finland’s darkest period: 2011-15

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In the future, when Finnish historians of different ethnic backgrounds look at the present parliamentary term 2011-15,  they will most likely conclude that it was the darkest period for Finland and immigrants in the new century.  A prelude to this sombre period were  the municipal election of 2008 and how it reflected a shift in the national mood. 

It would be naive, even an exercise in self-deceit, to claim that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party isn’t one  obvious culprit. The municipal elections of 2008 and 2003, when PS MP Tony Halme was elected to parliament,  speak volumes about how racism and xenophobia started to lift their heads in this country.

Despite being one of the worst periods in our recent history, where some groups and politicians aim to make racism and xenophobia as normal and acceptable as karjalanpiirakka, it has brought out the best in some of us. For some, like Migrant Tales, it has been a clarion call.

If this period has brought out the best in some of us, it has brought out the worst as well.

Some regretful examples come form of silence and lack of leadership by the Finnish media and some politicians. The success of the PS in the April elections is proof of the inarticulateness, complacency and even the flirting of these two groups with anti-immigration parties and groups.

The PS has provided us with monthly scandals beginning with MP Teuvo Hakkarainen’s first day in parliament to the recent suggestion by councilman Tommi Rautio’s  to give a medal to a cold-blooded killer.

A word of advice to anti-immigration extremists: Everything you write will come under scrutiny by future generations. Those future generations, which will be made up of Finnish researchers from different ethnic backgrounds, will highlight the racism and xenophobia that inflicted part of our society today.

When they give their lectures at our universities on ethnic studies or history, they will show to their students the shameful evidence left in the writings of numerous anti-immigration politicians like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and his Suomen Sisu crowd, for example.

Time will increase the shamefulness of these racist writings. What is written today by some of these racists will look eerily similar to what some groups wrote about blacks during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Recognizing this will be the first important step in liberating our society from the illness that has inflicted it.