Month: March 2012

Finland’s PS executive board sacks one member from the party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

After the decision by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) executive board on Saturday to sacrifice Tommi Rautio, it is pretty clear that Timo Soini’s party has lowered the bar even lower. It is perfectly fine today to be a PS member as long as you don’t condone violence publicly.

You can, however, be a PS member and belong to a neo-Nazi association and even be fined for hate speech and defaming a religion never mind making the usual populist statements. You can be openly homophobic and spread urban tales about the Romany minority on Facebook and still be a PS member.

The violence and hostility that we commonly see coming from the PS is as sinister as the far-right thread on Facebook that condoned a cold-blooded killing. It is upholding a culture of hatred, mistrust and constant war against immigrants, Finns with international backgrounds, minorities, even women.

Let’s admit it, if Soini and the PS national board think that only one person should be sacked from the party after offering us scandal after scandal splashed on Finnish tabloids every month, it proves what we have been saying on Migrant Tales all along: Cut off racism and far-right nationalism from the PS and the party will deflate into insignificance.

In Magrant Tales’ opinion, Soini is no different from the party’s far-right wing led by PS MP Jussi Halla-aho.

The PS leader knows how to sugar-coat  the same anti-immigrant and anti-immigration message.

There is a very good analysis on Savon Sanomat today (in Finnish) that explains why the PS’ popularity has suffered a significant fall in the polls.

Finland's PS executive board sacks one member from the party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

After the decision by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) executive board on Saturday to sacrifice Tommi Rautio, it is pretty clear that Timo Soini’s party has lowered the bar even lower. It is perfectly fine today to be a PS member as long as you don’t condone violence publicly.

You can, however, be a PS member and belong to a neo-Nazi association and even be fined for hate speech and defaming a religion never mind making the usual populist statements. You can be openly homophobic and spread urban tales about the Romany minority on Facebook and still be a PS member.

The violence and hostility that we commonly see coming from the PS is as sinister as the far-right thread on Facebook that condoned a cold-blooded killing. It is upholding a culture of hatred, mistrust and constant war against immigrants, Finns with international backgrounds, minorities, even women.

Let’s admit it, if Soini and the PS national board think that only one person should be sacked from the party after offering us scandal after scandal splashed on Finnish tabloids every month, it proves what we have been saying on Migrant Tales all along: Cut off racism and far-right nationalism from the PS and the party will deflate into insignificance.

In Magrant Tales’ opinion, Soini is no different from the party’s far-right wing led by PS MP Jussi Halla-aho.

The PS leader knows how to sugar-coat  the same anti-immigrant and anti-immigration message.

There is a very good analysis on Savon Sanomat today (in Finnish) that explains why the PS’ popularity has suffered a significant fall in the polls.

I

Soini: PS to sack two members today

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini was quoted as saying today on Nelonen television that “at least two” members will get sacked today at the party’s national executive board meeting. One of these is PS councilman Tommi Rautio, who suggested giving a medal to the Finn that killed in cold blood a Moroccan pizzeria employee.

The other person expected to get the boot is Jani Viinikainen, a member of the PS’  Pirkanmaa region board. Viinikainen founded last year an anti-gay Facebook page and another one recently against the Roma.

Viinikainen was quoted as saying on Facebook that he expected to get sacked by the party. PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was fined for hate speech in December by a Kouvola court, told Viinikianen that he was concerned about free speech in Finland, according to the PS board member.

Two sackings in a party that has offered the tabloids a scandal each month seems insignificant.

The interesting question to ask is if these sackings will change the party. Some are rightfully skeptical.

The big picture of Finnish society in the twenty-first century

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the biggest unanswered questions when debating our ever-culturally diverse society in Finland during this century is trying to make out what the big picture is. Do we have to search faraway to forge that big picture or are the answers right under our noses?  

If you ask anti-immigration groups what that big picture is they will quickly cite one-way integration, or assimilation (check the Perussuomalaiset party’s Nuiva Manifesto). On the opposite side of the debate you will hear a completely different answer promoting “tolerance,” or suvaitsevaisuus.

One of the pitfalls of both positions is that they lack a comprehensive view of the big picture. Even if anti-immigration groups are fighting tooth and nail to keep Finnish society “white,” they don’t offer any solutions on how to include those that are visible immigrants and minorities. Tolerance is a very general term and could not stand alone as an effective integration model.

Another key stumbling block in the search for a model is that we haven’t asked the opinion of immigrants and Finns with international backgrounds how they envision our society in this century.

When looking at different integration models we should find one that works best for us.

It is a good matter that Finland looks at Canada as one successful integration model for immigrants. It should be noted, however, that the Canadian model of multiculturalism is totally different from what some anti-immigration groups define it to be.

In Canada it is a model that promotes inclusion of immigrants whereas for anti-immigration groups in Europe it is an immigration policy that permits Muslims and Africans from moving to the region.

If you ever get into a debate with a member of the PS who belongs to the Suomen Sisu association, you should ask that person to define multiculturalism. Is he or she talking about the Canadian social policy that came about in the 1970s or is it an immigration policy that allows Muslims and non-EU nationals from moving to our country?

The first big mistake that anti-immigration groups in Finland and elsewhere make is claiming that we are a multicultural nation. Nowhere in our most important laws like the Constitution is that adjective “multicultural” mentioned. It does not even appear in the Non-Discrimination Act (Yhteenvertaisuuslaki).

What kind of a society are we then? We use a lot the term “multiculturalism” but what does it actually mean? Does it mean cultural diverse society?

If a term like multiculturalism can mean so many things to different groups, this explains in part why we are still in the dark about that big picture of what kind of society we want to build in this century.

The formula and building tools for our society are not in Canada per se but right under our noses. We could have never built such a well-functioning society that is at peace with itself after a very rocky first quarter of a century of our independence without key values such as social equality, or tasa-arvo.

To that key value, we should add other ones like mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.

If we keep to these values, or those that we use to include all members of our society and apply it to others as well, we will be on the right path.

Thus the big picture of our society in this century should be inclusion through mutual acceptance and respect.

Speigel Online International: Study (on Muslims in Germany) Hints that Mutual Suspicion Is Slowing Integration

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Here is an interesting story on Speigel Online International that highlights the problem between white Germans and Muslims and one that we should try to avoid in Finland. When looking at immigrants in Germany, we should point out that that country never had the intention of keeping the millions of Turkish workers that migrated there in greater numbers from the 1960s. The expectation was that they’d work for a few years and return back with their children to their home country.

It is pretty clear that with such a widespread attitude very little can happen on the integration front. Chancellor Angela Merkel highlighted the problem by placing the blame squarely on immigrants by stating that Germany’s multicultural society has “utterly failed.” 

A new study by the interior ministry appears to reinforce what Merkel said in October. One of the result of the survey shows that 20% of Muslims in the country are skeptical when it comes to integration.

Fine. But the question should be what has Germany done to make Muslims feel a part of German society. Even the interior ministry survey is one-sided and places blame on Muslims for not wanting to integrate, it fails to look at the host society. 

While Hans-Peter Uhl, the parliamentary spokesman on domestic policy for Mekel’s conservatives, called the study “horrifying,” others take a different view. “I find it surprising that the interior ministry has once again used taxpayer money to finance a study that creates headlines but no insights,” said Serkan Tören, an integration expert for the business-friendly Free Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition partner.

Volker Beck of the Green Party went further. She said that those that see Muslims solely as a threat should stop telling them that they aren’t a part of our society. “They shouldn’t be surprised when that leads to defensiveness,” she said. 

____________

By Charles Hawley

A new integration study released on Thursday has triggered yet another debate about the role of Islam in Germany. The report found that a surprising number of non-German Muslims are skeptical about integrating into society. But the country’s own doubts about immigration may have muddied the data.

Read whole story.

Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity is an opportunity to overcome past fears

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the matters that Finnish academics, politicians, policy makers never mind the general public missed out completely about our ever-growing cultural diversity is that our history and myths are hindering us to see the big picture.  The official and unofficial response to our culturally diverse society appears to be a subtle “no.”

As there are Finns who don’t get it there are others who do. Those that do  build bridges and pathways to our society with mutual acceptance between ourselves and our newest members of our society.

The debate in Finland concerning the big picture about cultural diversity is muddled by our impaired view from inside those trenches that we have dug. Our violent history and the cold war, which kept us geopolitically near-isolated from the rest of the world during 1945-91, are some shovels we have used to dig ourselves in that hole.

We should make an effort to get out of there because the task will take generations.

Debate about our cultural diversity and that big picture of Finnish society in this century should begin first and foremost among ourselves. In that debate, we must make an effort to banish our historical grudges and, most importantly, our fears as a nation of Russia and the outside world.

Any integration program that does not tackle these issue is doomed to failure. Xenophobia and racism will be the most effective weapon of choice used by Finns to keep that “Other” world in its place.

This route is not only a reckless one but very expensive to tax payers. Politicians should be told that integration, inclusion and opportunities will save Finnish tax payers a lot of money as opposed to jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon and spreading urban tales.

As long as some of us continue to live inside those deep trenches, our society will always be threatened by populists and the far right as we saw in the April election, which reinforced institutional and colorblind racism in Finland.

Matters are in a very critical state at present. So much so in fact, that some Finns don’t even believe that racism and populism aren’t a threat to our society.

Past wars have traumatized our country but isn’t time ripe to attempt to heal those wounds?

Like it or not, our ever-growing culturally diverse society is offering us that opportunity.

Finland's ever-growing cultural diversity is an opportunity to overcome past fears

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the matters that Finnish academics, politicians, policy makers never mind the general public missed out completely about our ever-growing cultural diversity is that our history and myths are hindering us to see the big picture.  The official and unofficial response to our culturally diverse society appears to be a subtle “no.”

As there are Finns who don’t get it there are others who do. Those that do  build bridges and pathways to our society with mutual acceptance between ourselves and our newest members of our society.

The debate in Finland concerning the big picture about cultural diversity is muddled by our impaired view from inside those trenches that we have dug. Our violent history and the cold war, which kept us geopolitically near-isolated from the rest of the world during 1945-91, are some shovels we have used to dig ourselves in that hole.

We should make an effort to get out of there because the task will take generations.

Debate about our cultural diversity and that big picture of Finnish society in this century should begin first and foremost among ourselves. In that debate, we must make an effort to banish our historical grudges and, most importantly, our fears as a nation of Russia and the outside world.

Any integration program that does not tackle these issue is doomed to failure. Xenophobia and racism will be the most effective weapon of choice used by Finns to keep that “Other” world in its place.

This route is not only a reckless one but very expensive to tax payers. Politicians should be told that integration, inclusion and opportunities will save Finnish tax payers a lot of money as opposed to jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon and spreading urban tales.

As long as some of us continue to live inside those deep trenches, our society will always be threatened by populists and the far right as we saw in the April election, which reinforced institutional and colorblind racism in Finland.

Matters are in a very critical state at present. So much so in fact, that some Finns don’t even believe that racism and populism aren’t a threat to our society.

Past wars have traumatized our country but isn’t time ripe to attempt to heal those wounds?

Like it or not, our ever-growing culturally diverse society is offering us that opportunity.

Multiculturalism is dead – long live multiculturalism

Posted on by Mark
Warning: this article quotes racist profanity by way of illustration. Apologies in advance if you find it offensive.

The King is dead – long live the King! So runs the traditional proclamation when the monarch dies, only to be reborn magically through the next heir. The irony of listening to politicians line up to proclaim that ‘multiculturalism is dead’ is that even after a million such proclamations, Europe moves forward in the very next moment being just as much multicultural and multiethnic as it was before. Not one whit has changed. Except that somebody has clearly been trying to ascend to the throne….

The thing that disappoints me most about politicians that say things like ‘there isn’t a racism problem in Finland’, or ‘multiculturalism is dead’ is that as leaders, they give permission to other people to say and believe the same, even when it clearly isn’t true.

When they say racism isn’t a problem, what they mean is that it isn’t perceived as a big enough problem among the electorate for them to start getting caught up in the emotive and moral minefield that is trying to explain and tackle racism.

When they say that ‘multiculturalism is dead’, what they mean is that populist arguments that immigration is bad have started to convince enough of the electorate that if they were to come out and argue against racism, it is going to lose them votes, crucially amongst their own support.

It has in recent decades become the case that if you start to seriously lose ground on an ideological point in politics, you simply abandon the stance temporarily or permanently or suffer the risk of never getting into power – i.e. leave the job of trying to win the argument to idealists and sociologists. Politicians are pragmatic, at the best of times.

The problem is though that it’s not just political ground they give up, it’s moral ground. The chances are that the silent suffering of immigrants subject to daily, weekly or monthly racist abuse goes on, and even increases. Meanwhile, racists take their propaganda to new levels, with a blatant denial of ALL racism, because if you deny that something is racist, then you cannot be accused of racism when you do it.

To give you some idea of how far this rationale can be stretched, I want to share a discussion I had recently with someone who said one footballer calling another footballer a black c*nt was not racist, because, ‘well, he’s black isn’t he?’ They think that because they find a ‘fact’ to hide behind, they are stating something that is merely true, and so how can it possibly be racist? This same kind of vacuous argument and hiding behind ‘facts’ is put forth again and again by those defending their prejudices on Migrant Tales.

For example, if it’s something that insults and denigrates an entire immigrant group, it’s not racism if they can claim it is as fact, regardless of how shaky or questionable that fact is, or whether it’s absolutely clear that the trait in question can NEVER be a group trait, but only an individual trait. At times, they deny there is even a racial element even when one is blatantly obvious (ergo: “black – but he is black, it’s a fact, it’s not being ‘racial’ to recognise it as a fact,” and said with no hint of intellectual uncertainty). By hiding behind these ‘facts’ and only accepting the validity of race when it suits to denigrate ethnic groups, they can tell us, with a completely straight face – “there is no racism in Finland!”

Of course, there are many nuances to the denial of racism, and these are just a few.

There is one word that springs to my mind when it comes to some politicians and their attitudes to racism – spineless! It’s easy to play the denial game if you know that half the population is also playing it, and most of the other half cannot be bothered to argue about it, even if they know it for what it is. That’s my cynical streak talking.

At the end of the day, the argument about what multiculturalism actually is will rumble on. I would urge you not to buy into the idea that politicians are the best custodians of our culture, simply because they are too concerned with whether it will have any vote value. Alternatively, I urge you to recognise that multicultural is the acceptance that there are many different ways to do culture in legitimate and peaceful ways. In protecting the freedom of those that are different to us, we are protecting our own freedom to be different.

My grateful thanks to Enrique and Migrant Tales for the opportunity to contribute on a regular basis.

Have a nice weekend.

Mark

Three anti-immigration PS MPs will pay Hirvisaari’s fine for hate speech

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Three far-right anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs, Juho Eerola, Jussi Halla-aho and Olli Immonen, announced today  in a statement that they will pay PS MP James Hirvisaari’s 1,424-euro fine slapped  for hate speech by a Kouvola court in December. The statement, which was signed the three PS MPs, states that the fine was politically motivated. 

Instead of arguing the absurd defense line of the three PS MPs, let’s see who these three far-right anti-immigration politicians are. Starting with Jussi Halla-aho, he was fined for defaming a religion in 2009. Halla-aho is a Counter-Jihadist who has written on blogs like the Gates of Vienna, warning us about how Muslims are taking over Europe.

Juho Eerola is another anti-immigration politician who praises fascism and Mussolini’s corporatist economic system because it had no unemployment. Certainly he expresses such opinions carefully and in a hush-hush fashion. When his aide, Ulla Pyysalo’s name came up on a neo-Nazi membership list of the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, Eerola did not consider this enough grounds to sack her.

Olli Immonen has warned on a number of occasions about an ensuing war between Christian white Europe and Islam. Immonen has been remarkably quiet after the cold-blooded killings in Oulu that saw a naturalized Finn of Moroccan background gunned down by a white Finn.

The three, including Hirvisaari, are members of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association, which strongly discourages white Finns marrying non-Finns.

Of all the three, the eeriest has got to be former Finnish Railways (VR) employee MP Hirvisaari. After the tragedy that struck Norway on July 22 when Anders Breivik went on the rampage, Hirvisaari blamed the “100% rapes” committed by immigrants on Norwegians and that country’s loose immigration policy for the killings.

Three anti-immigration PS MPs will pay Hirvisaari's fine for hate speech

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Three far-right anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs, Juho Eerola, Jussi Halla-aho and Olli Immonen, announced today  in a statement that they will pay PS MP James Hirvisaari’s 1,424-euro fine slapped  for hate speech by a Kouvola court in December. The statement, which was signed the three PS MPs, states that the fine was politically motivated. 

Instead of arguing the absurd defense line of the three PS MPs, let’s see who these three far-right anti-immigration politicians are. Starting with Jussi Halla-aho, he was fined for defaming a religion in 2009. Halla-aho is a Counter-Jihadist who has written on blogs like the Gates of Vienna, warning us about how Muslims are taking over Europe.

Juho Eerola is another anti-immigration politician who praises fascism and Mussolini’s corporatist economic system because it had no unemployment. Certainly he expresses such opinions carefully and in a hush-hush fashion. When his aide, Ulla Pyysalo’s name came up on a neo-Nazi membership list of the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, Eerola did not consider this enough grounds to sack her.

Olli Immonen has warned on a number of occasions about an ensuing war between Christian white Europe and Islam. Immonen has been remarkably quiet after the cold-blooded killings in Oulu that saw a naturalized Finn of Moroccan background gunned down by a white Finn.

The three, including Hirvisaari, are members of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association, which strongly discourages white Finns marrying non-Finns.

Of all the three, the eeriest has got to be former Finnish Railways (VR) employee MP Hirvisaari. After the tragedy that struck Norway on July 22 when Anders Breivik went on the rampage, Hirvisaari blamed the “100% rapes” committed by immigrants on Norwegians and that country’s loose immigration policy for the killings.