Month: September 2012

“After the immigrants, you’re next”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

This chilling phrase that was written on flyers in a gay clubbing district of Athens, Greece, is only the tip of the iceberg concerning the ever-growing violence and intolerance spreading throughout Europe.

Writes the Trumpet.com: “Masked men on motorbikes patrol the streets of Greece’s streets, attacking immigrants and driving off. Mobs armed with improvised weapons beat them in public squares. Neo-Nazis have been elected to Greece’s parliament, with slogans like “Foreigners out!” and “The garbage should leave the country!”

Would you call it far-right ideology? Fascism? Populist radical right thinking? Counterjihadist-spirited? Intolerance? Ignorance?

Since some politicians have no problems about lying to your face, use the following test to peel off their masks of deceit. Do a simple test: Take their denials and turn them into affirmations.

A racist will usually state, ”I’m not a racist,” and a populist radical right politician will claim that he’s not a radical.  Sensible people know that the opposite is the truth.

A good column on the Independent of the U.K. by Laurie Penny states that there isn’t anything wrong to draw parallels with what is going on in Europe today and Nazism of the 1930s.

Writes Penny: “Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities, and world governments appear frighteningly relaxed about it as long as the Greek people continue to pay off the debts of the European elite.”

In the Nordic region we have a few parties that would be more than happy to put in cold storage our civil liberties. Some of these are the Progress Party of Norway, Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland.

One of the most surreal matters about the Nuremberg trials of Germany were the denials of the Nazi regime’s leaders. If they were to be believed, they had nothing to do with the estimated 60 million who perished in World War 2.

Let’s nip intolerance in the bud and save ourselves a lot of hardship in the future.

Is this bus going to Africa?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Roble Bashir

Immigrant bus drivers sometimes feel unsafe during their work in Finland. They face many challenges especially when they work at night.

Some white Finnish passengers try to take advantage of bus drivers with immigrant backgrounds. They may, for example, show an expired ticket and argue with the driver that it is valid. Others may show a ticket bought with their cell phone that is not valid on most buses. They may get into an argument with the driver and claim that he doesn’t know the rules or his job properly even if he has over fifteen years experience on the job.

On other occasions, a passenger may start to drink on the bus. Some passengers may even disobey the driver’s request for them to stop drinking alcohol inside the bus. If the driver insists, some passengers may start to hurl  abusive insults at him like the n-word. Sometimes bus drivers can even be assaulted while at work.

One such driver that was assaulted was from Somalia. He asked a group of passengers to stop smoking and drinking inside the bus. Instead of cooperating, they grabbed a fire extinguisher and used it to spray the driver.

Some white Finns often ask the driver if the bus is going to Africa. Not only are these passengers disrespectful, but they show their arrogance and racism.

It’s easy to understand why some bus drivers feel apprehensive about their jobs.

Racism Review: Racism in the Digital Era

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: A new term I learned from the video below was cloaked site. 

The video says at the end that “we have to get smarter about how racism works in the digital age.”

————-

By Jessie

This is a short video (5:27) I created, explaining how racism operates in the digital era.  The danger may not be what you think it is.

To see video click here.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

PS Counterjihadists: Live and die politically by the sword

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is at a crucial juncture concerning its strange-bedfellow relationship with Counterjihadist and populist radical right members. What kind of links do some members of the PS have with far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League (FDL)?

The FDL is nothing more than a mouthpiece of the English Defense League, a violent street protest movement that opposes the spread of Islam in Europe.

What would happen if a whistle-blower in a group like the FDL  revealed the strong links between the far-right group and certain prominent members of the PS?

Certainly all hell would break loose.

Politicians like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and especially James Hirvisaari have a lot to worry about these days since they are the Counterjihadists and populist radical right members of the PS.

You get a lot of interesting mail in Mikkeli like a recent copy of the Perussuomalainen. Note the highlighed words in yellow asking  “immigrants” and “everyone” to become PS candidates in the October municipal elections. The PS would be the last party I’d join for obvious reasons.

Things have changed a lot since the April 2011 elections, which gave the PS its historic victory. Since then, different ideological power struggles have become more pronounced within the party. The rude appearance of Norwegian Counterjihadist mass killer Anders Breivik in July 2011 has divided the PS ideologically.

This week we saw PS MP Juha Väätänen being ousted as chairman of the party’s Helsinki branch. This is expected to turn into a messy power battle as the municipal elections near in October.

In Mikkeli, we saw the PS implode when two of its four city councillors ditched the party to join the Christian Democrats and Center Party.

Figuring out what kinds of undercurrents are threatening the PS’ unity is not easy because the party is a tinderbox with the following warning: Do not move – highly explosive.  Approach at your own risk.

In the meantime, take a seat and fasten your seat belts in a new act unfolding of the tragic-comic political play called the PS.

What makes one language better than the other?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Roble Bashir 

Two official languages are spoken in Finland: Finnish and Swedish. This means, at least theoretically, that immigrants can choose between two languages and which is best-suited for them.  

An ever-growing number of immigrants want to study the Swedish language. One important reason is that Swedish is easier for some to learn than Finnish.

What makes one language better than the other?

Government organisations that provide integration and language courses to immigrants, offer too few Swedish-language courses.

Since there are more Finnish-language courses offered to immigrants than Swedish, the situation leaves the newcomer in between a rock and a hard place. In the worst of cases, it may mean that the immigrant has to pay for private lessons if he wants to learn Swedish.

More Swedish-language courses should be offered in Finland today. The low number of such courses not only undermines the role of Swedish in Finland, but robs the immigrant of an opportunity to learn a language and integrate rapidly.

Norwegian armed forces show cultural sensitivity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Since July 1, the Norweaign armed forces have relaxed rules for religious headgear, writes the Local, quoting daily Stavanger Afterbladed. It is now possible for Sikh soldiers to use turbans as well as for Jews to use skull-caps while serving in the Norwegian armed forces. Muslim women are permitted to wear a hijab with their uniform. 

Objection to the new military dress code has been voiced by Jan-Arlid Ellingsen of the populist anti-immigration Progress Party.

”The armed forces should be kept independent of ethnic and religious affiliations,” he was quoted as saying on Norwegian news agency NTB. ”It’s fine having symbols to denote affiliation, but it’s entirely unnecessary to show them.”

Ellingsen forgets an important point: The uniform that the Norwegian armed forces uses shows cultural and national affiliation. There is no such thing as “culturally neutral” clothing.

YLE poll: The PS is expected to make the biggest gains in the October municipal elections

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A poll commissioned and published by YLE on Sunday reveals that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party will make the biggest gains in the October 28 municipal elections. If the PS gets 15.8% of the votes as the poll suggests, it will be a big leap from 5.4% that the party got in the 2008 municipal elections. 

The poll sees that the National Coalition Party getting in October 22.7% compared with 23.5% in 2008. That would be followed by the Social Democrats with 18.7% (21.2%), and the Center Party with 16.6% (20.1%).

Even if the PS are seen making significant gains in the municipal elections, it is a sharp fall from what polls showed the PS getting in summer 2011. Back then, the PS was the biggest party in Finland with 23%, followed by the National Coalition Party (21.6%), Social Democrats (18.1%) and Center Party (13.8%).

If the PS do well in the municipal elections of October, it reveals that some Finnish voters’ confidence in traditional parties has recovered somewhat but not enough to relegate Timo Soini’s party to the minor political leagues.

Some analysts believe the euro crisis and the government’s mixed messages concerning the latter have helped the PS.

 

Du Bois and Finland: “Your country”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I read an interesting blog entry on Racism Review about what W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), sociologist, historian and civil rights activist, wrote* about blacks in the United States. His words still ring out today in light of the hostility we see today towards immigrants and visible minorities in many parts of Europe and the United States.

Even if the number of immigrants and visible minorities has been small in countries like Finland, these people form today an integral part of our society and history.

That history is being made right now and at this moment. Every day that passes we shed more roots in this country. Our home in Finland begins to sound like Woody Guthrie’s famous song, This land is your land.

Take a look at what Du Bois wrote over a century ago and try to picture Finland and our every-growing cultural diversity. Board a time machine and travel 30 years in the future and imagine Du Bois’ words in a Finnish context today:

Your country? How came its yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit.

Around us the history of the land has centered for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right.

Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving?

Would America have been America without her Negro people? Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my fathers well sung. If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, than anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free. Free, free as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder fresh young voices welling up to me from the caverns of brick and mortar below—swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine, and thus they sing: Let us cheer the weary traveller, Cheer the weary traveller, Let us cheer the weary traveller Along the heavenly way. And the traveler girds himself, and sets his face toward the Morning, and goes his way.

*Reference: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (pp. 125-126). Public Domain Books. Kindle. (Free version here)