June 2013 - Migrant tales

New PS party secretary Riikka Slunga Poutsalo “demands” tighter immigration policy

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Migrant Tales

As Migrant Tales correctly pointed out, it didn’t take long for the new party secretary of the Perussuomalaiset (PS), Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, to show her far right anti-immigration credentials. Interviewed by YLE’s 8:30 pm news, Slunga-Poutsalo “demands” Finland should tighten immigration policy further.

Migrant Tales wrote Saturday that one of the aims of the PS annual congress in Joensuu was to make the party the biggest in Finland by 2015 with the help of an anti-EU and anti-immigration campaign. Finland will hold parliamentary elections two years from now.

“We shouldn’t commit the same mistakes [in immigration] than Europe but learn from them before it’s too late and when we’ll be in the same boat as them,” she said.

PS chairman Timo Soini played down as usual the role of intolerance and anti-immigration sentiment in his party.

“This is a myth that the media cranks out [constantly],” he said. “Crank it out [all you want] so the Perussuomalaiset will get more publicity.”

He denied that the anti-immigration wing of the party led by PS MP Jussi Halla-aho had got an important foothold in the party leadership thanks to Slunga-Poutsalo and Juho Eerola, who was elected third vice president.

In one of her first major policy statements as party secretary, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo “demanded” that Finnish immigration policy should be tightened further.

The 8:30 pm news reported – as did Migrant Tales – that Slunga-Poutsalo is an anti-immigration hardliner who not only signed the Nuiva Manifesto but has taken part in anti-immigration chat forums like Hommaforum.

The new party secretary finds herself in good anti-immigration company with Eerola, who likes Mussolini-style fascism, Halla-aho and James Hirvisaari, both of which who have been sentenced for hate speech.

Slunga-Poutsalo was one of the signatories of the Nuiva Manifesto. She is on the top row right.

The PS’ new Cadillac model of racism

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Migrant Tales

How does intolerance and racism work in Finnish politics? How does it manifest itself today in anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)? A quote by U.S. civil rights leader Malcolm X (1925-65) provides us with a partial clue to these questions: “Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.”

Is it a surprise that one of the first persons to congratulate Riikka Slung-Putsalo was PS MP Jussi Halla-aho? Both were responsible for drafting the anti-immigration Nuiva Manifesto.

If we took Finland’s most intolerant party in parliament, how do intolerance and racism manifest themselves at the PS’ annual congress (June 29-30) in Joensuu? What Cadillac model has the PS introduced?

The answer to that simple question is a complex one since the driver, party chairman Timo Soini, denies that he’s driving a Cadillac. While the PS may want to hide the new Cadillac model, there’s a lot of incriminating evidence that suggests the contrary.

How do we know? Easy.

Take a look at the new PS leadership for 2013-15. Four of its party leaders, which include Soini, are strongly in the anti-immigration camp. Be it the elimination of mandatory Swedish at schools (Jussi Niinistö, vice president), to liking Mussolini-style fascism (Juho Eerola, third vice president), to denying cultural diversity (Hanna Mäntylä, second vice president), it’s the same anti-immigration PS Cadillac.

Let’s not forget Riikka Slunga-Putsalo, probably the worst anti-immigration pundit together with Eerola, who was elected party secretary Saturday.

One of the eeriest aspects of the PS is its ability to hide its racism model.What you see is not necessarily what you get. The culture of anti-immigration rhetoric is stuffed today with doubletalk and decipherable only by code.

Has anyone thought what kind of a country Finland would be if we’d allow the PS to draft laws that would strike the term multiculturalism from its youth law or prohibit the use of the burqa and nijab? What about if we banned male circumcision or decided that we wouldn’t accept Muslim refugees and immigrants to our country?

All these measures, which are wholeheartedly supported by the PS, would end up destroying Finland and its Nordic social welfare state democracy. It would be like leaving our future and democracy to chance.

Immigrants and visible minorities don’t need the acceptance or 5.4 million Finns never mind that of the PS to feel at home in this country. All of us who have moved to Finland know at least one person who has shown immense hospitality and given us hope that building a home in this country is possible.

The PS is not only a threat to Finland, but especially to immigrants and minorities.

Immigrants and minorities would be the biggest losers if the PS ever became the biggest party in the country. We’d be persecuted and our rights downgraded even further by making discrimination and prejudice “normal” and “patriotic.”

Annual congress: The PS aims to become the biggest party in Finland with anti-EU and anti-immigration platform

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The first day of Perussuomalaiset (PS) annual congress in Joensuu (July 29-30) did not produce any surprises but reinforced the party’s anti-immigration, and especially its anti-Islam and anti-cultural diversity stand. The party leadership, starting from Timo Soini to its new secretary, Riikka Slunga-Putsalo, confirm this.

Soini, who was reelected chairman of the party by a landslide, announced that he would not run for EuroMP in 2014.

“There are two reasons for this: I can’t afford to and I do not want to,” Soini was quoted as saying on YLE in English.

See original story here.

The new vice president of the PS is Jussi Niinistö, a member of the far right Suomalaisuuden liitto that campaigns against mandatory Swedish at school. Hanna Mäntylä and Juho Eerola were elected second and third vice president, respectively.

Niinstö’s political colors became evident in September 2011, when he stated in parliament Nazi playwright Hans Johst’s Schlageter, “Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning” (“Whenever I hear of culture… I release the safety-catch of my Browning”).

Niinistö replaced the word culture with parliamentarism when he mentioned Schlageter’s quote.

Eerola, who got elected to parliament thanks to his anti-immigration views and ties to far right associations like Suomen Sisu, which is no longer a member, doesn’t have the stomach to accept cultural diversity. One of his most infamous quotes is: “I am attracted to fascism and especially the economic policies of Benito Mussolini.”

Eerola was party second vice president in 2012-13.

Mäntylä is no friend of immigrants and visible minorities. She has supported a number of PS draft laws that see “multiculturalism” as a threat or that would ban the burqa and nijab in Finland.

Slunga-Putsalo was one of the 12 members that drafted and signed the anti-immigration Nuiva Manifesto, which aims to undermine immigrant and visible minority rights in Finland.

The type of immigration policy supported by Slunga-Putsalo would limit social aid for a year to all new immigrants that move to the country.

Another aim of the Nuiva Manifesto is to halt immigrants that would have a “negative” impact on society. It supports, however, immigrants whose impact would be “neutral or positive.”

While Slunga-Putsalo and Eerola, who signed the Nuiva Manifesto as well, won’t tell you what groups would be “negative” to Finland, it’s easy to understand that they mean Muslims, Africans and other visible immigrants from outside the EU.

Another example of the PS’ democratic credentials was inviting EuroMP Morten Messerschmidt of the far right Danish People’s Party to Joensuu to greet the PS delegates.

In 2007, he was charged with singing Nazi marching songs and giving the Hitler salute in a bar in Tivoli, the major tourist attraction in central Copenhagen.

Messerschmidt was cleared of such charges in 2009 by a court, which forced the daily BT to compensate him for libel. Together with two other DPP members in 2001, however, Messerschmidt was sentenced for 14 days for ethnic agitation. A DPP ad in Studiomagazinet claimed that Denmark would face mass rapes, violence, insecurity, forced marriages, women would be oppressed, and gang crime if the country became a multiethnic society.

Sikh busman confident that employer will lift turban ban

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Busman Gill Sukhdarshan Singh is confident that his employer, Veolia Transport of Vantaa, will honor a Southern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency ruling that imposing a turban ban by the employer was discriminatory.

Source: Gill Sukhdarshan Singh.

”I have no doubt that that in two months, when I will get written permission from the employer, I will start wearing a turban at work,” Sukhdarshan Singh told Migrant Tales.

The Southern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency gave the Veolia Transport of Vantaa until the end of Septempter how the company plans to redress the problem.

Sukhdarshan Singh said that what he did was for all Sikhs living in Finland and “to further multiculturalism.”

”Multiculturalism means that my children can appreciate both cultures,” he said.

Two of his children study at university and one at high school.

Let’s challenge Finland’s disgraceful family reunification obstacles

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Migrants’ Rights Network (MRN) of Britain shows how organizations can do valuable work in lobbying for change against unfair family reunification laws (see Migrant Tales 28.6.13). Politicians, who have tightened such laws, are short-sighted and have created a tragedy for those who live separated from their loved ones.

The same suffering that separated families suffer in Finland are similar to the tragedy they are going through in other European countries like Britain.

“During the year since the Government announced its changes to the family migration rules, MRN has heard from hundreds of families who have been kept apart from one another – couples split across continents, young children separated from parents, elderly relatives kept apart from relatives who wish to care for them in the UK,” writes MRN.

Tighter family reunification requirements came in force in 2011. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of the main factors behind these changes was the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s growing popularity in the polls and its historic election victory in April 2011.

New rules that came in force in two years ago have made family reunification ever-complicated and costly. One big change in the rules is that family members must now apply in their home country or at the nearest Finnish embassy. As a general rule, the minimum that a three-member family must make monthly to bring their loved ones is 2,880 euros, according to the Refugee Advice Center.

Family reunification applications have plummeted as a result of tightened rules. In 2012, there were just over 500 applications compared with 1,900 in the previous year and 3,900 in 2010. All in all, there were 8,600 application in 2012. Finnish Immigration Service (FIS) reported earlier that at the end of 2011 there were a total of 6,100 family reunification application by Somalis alone. According to the Refugee Advice Center, only 329 family reunifications took place on average annually between 1999 and 2010.

How do the new rules make life ever-difficult for refugees and immigrants and how are they kept in limbo? The answer to that question is simple: How would it feel to live separated from your loved ones for years and with little hope that your family will ever be reunited in Finland?

Some of the problems of righter rules are highlighted on Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter: “Tightening the rules for family reunification would put the protection of the right to family life under severe risk. In response to the current political climate as it relates to refugees, the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre, the principal non-governmental organisation offering legal aid for refugees, has issued a statement on the risks of tightening the policy on family reunification in Finland. Rules are already very strict, constituting an obstacle to refugee integration for those already settled in Finland, who continue to live in uncertainly regarding their families.”

While FIS claims lack of and to handle the backlog of thousands of applications, the real reasons are anti-immigration Christian Democrat Interior Minister PäiviRäsänen and unofficial efforts to stop as many Somalis as possible from moving to Finland.

Under Räsänen, Finland continues, despite obligations under international laws, to detain as a first resort children seeking asylum for long periods of time. The interior minister, whose tough stance on immigration and refugees is liked by the PS, has said publicly that homosexuality is a sin.

Even if it may be in vogue in some circles to be against immigrants and cultural diversity in Finland, politicians, the media and public must look further ahead in the future. Do we want to assist in destroying and fragmenting the lives of thousands of people who are already traumatized by war and displacement?

That is exactly what we are doing as long as we continue on the present path.

A good start would, however, be to challenge the unfair family reunification rules.

The example of the fine work by the Migrants’ Rights Network would help us draft a plan in Finland.

Migrant Rights’ Network: Campaign for the Right to Family life – next steps

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Migrant Tales

By Ruth Grove-White

Those affected and campaigning against the new rules on family migration will know that we are fast-approaching their 1-year anniversary on 9 July. Over the next couple of months there is plenty that you will be able to do to raise awareness and ask the Government to think again.

See original story here.

During the year since the Government announced its changes to the family migration rules, MRN has heard from hundreds of families who have been kept apart from one another – couples split across continents, young children separated from parents, elderly relatives kept apart from relatives who wish to care for them in the UK.

There has been plenty of coverage of the heartache caused by these changes in the media, highlighted in papers including the Evening Standard (here and here), the Telegraph, and Independent.

So what can be done now?

Here’s a heads-up on some of the opportunities over the coming months to make your voices heard:

Launch of the APPG Family Migration inquiry report on 10th June – the final report of the APPG family migration inquiry will be available for download from the APPG website from 10 June. As an informal inquiry this report will not carry the weight of a Select Committee report. However it will provide an important evidence base to build further scrutiny of the rules.
Parliamentary debates on family migration, June/July – as a result of widespread concerns among parliamentarians about these rules, there are now plans to debate the rules on the floor of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the next two months. As soon as we know the dates for those debates, we will let groups and affected families know how to feed in.
Divided Families Day on 9th July – the most important way of supporting parliamentarians who want to debate these rules is to show that there is a groundswell of concern from many corners. MRN, JCWI, BritCits, the Family Immigration Alliance and many others will be working together over the coming weeks to organise a series of activities around Parliament from 4pm on 9th July. All details will be circulated nearer the time, but the date should be put in your diary now! Activities will include:
- Demonstration outside the Home Office – 4pm
- Meet your MP session
- Public parliamentary meeting with high profile speakers – 6pm

Keep a close eye on the MRN website, as well as those of other groups involved in campaigning on this issue, for further information on how you can get involved and show Government that it needs to think again.

EXPLORE MORE

FAMILY MIGRATION

Read original story here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Landmark decision in Finland: Sikh busman can wear a turban at work

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The Southern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency announced that banning a Sikh busman from using a turban at work was discriminatory, reports YLE in English. The decision is an important watershed and a victory for other minorities living in Finland.

The busman, Gill Sukhdarshan Singh of Vantaa, was prohibited from using a turban at work and decided in May to challenge the decision.

The agency said that Singh’s employer, Veolia Transport Vantaa, was guilty of indirect discrimination and ordered the firm to report by the end of September how it plans to redress the problem.

The decision in favor of Singh should be seen as a watershed since it will propel greater cultural diversity and tolerance at the workplace.

Eva Biaudet, Finland’s ombudsman for minorities, applauded the decision. She said it was a significant step forward in making cultural diversity more acceptable at the workplace.

Sing’s victory over his employer is a good example of how far Finland lags behind other European countries concerning cultural diversity. Sikh bus drivers in England won such rights over forty years ago in 1969.

Do we have the resources to keep a check on cyberhate thanks to Prism and Tempora?

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Intelligence whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have not only shown the extent of global surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ, but how much governments like the United States flirt with totalitarianism and invest billions of dollars in trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Writes the Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in 1913 to address anti-Semitism and all forms of racism: ”With an estimated 2.4 billion people online around the world and at least 50 billion Web pages, it’s impossible for companies to police cyberspace by themselves. That’s why each of us has to take responsibility for reporting cyberhate when we see it.”

Go here to read the ADL Cyber-Safety Action Guide.

Looking at global surveillance tools like Prism and Tempora, which were recently revealed by Snowden, don’t we now have the resources to report and locate cyberhate?

Something to think about.

Reija Härkönen: Kansanedustajan natsijatsit

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Reija Härkönen*

Ensi kuussa on taas Asikkalassa hyvin naamioitu vaalitilaisuus. Vääksyn kanavalla soi jazz. Ihan ilmaiseksi. Kemut järjestää kansanedustaja James Hirvisaari. Hirvisaaren vanhat jatsi- ja gospelkaverit ovat jo vuosia saapuneet tähän aikaan vuodesta juhlistamaan Jameksen syntymäpäiviä. Alkuun yksityisesti, mutta politiikkaan lähdettyään Hirvisaari sai mainion idean pitää juhlat kanavalla, kutsua kyläläiset synttärikansan sekaan ja näin saada juhlille julkista tukea. Kansanedustajan arvovallan myötä tuki kasvaa ja pidot paranevat. Tänä vuonna eliitti purjehtii paikalle yksityisellä siipirataslaivaristeilyllä.

Tässä on linkki.

Päätukijoita ovat vuodesta toiseen olleet Asikkalan kunnan lisäksi pankki, ruokamarketit ja hotelli. Tänä vuonna tukijoihin on liittynyt jo yli kymmenen paikallista yritystä.

Tämähän voisi vielä näyttää ihan lutuselta: kansanedustaja käyttää arvovaltaansa ja järjestää vanhoille kamuille töitä. Samalla saadaan Vääksyn kanavalle leppoisa konsertti ja joku paikallinen yrittäjä pääsee myymään makkaraa ja kanawokkia. Ja kansanedustajan profiili kirkastuu paikallisena hyväntekijänä.

Mutta millaisen kansanedustajan? James Hirvisaari on vuosittain Facebookin kautta kutsunut tilaisuuteen luottoystävänsä. Ilmoittautuneet pyörivät karusellissa Internetissä: kaikkienhan tulee tietää, kuka saapuu kiillottamaan kansanedustajan julkisuuskuvaa. Sulassa sovussa sukulaisten ja paikallisten musiikinystävien joukossa pyörivät myös Hirvisaaren poliittiset kannattajat. Tämä on uusi tapa levittää poliittista agendaa. Samaan aikaan ilmestyvät Hirvisaaren uudet henkilökohtaiset mainokset kaikkien niiden Facebookin käyttäjien sivuille, jotka ovat jollakin lailla olleet tekemisissä hänen kannattajiensa tai sukulaistensa kanssa. Rasistinen sanoma leviää.

Hirvisaaren kutsumista kannattajista useat ilmoittautuvat Hirvisaaren ja perussuomalaisten lisäksi myös Ruotsidemokraattien tai Nationaldemokraterna-puolueen kannattajiksi. Jostain syystä he tahtovat esitellä puolueohjelmaa saksan kielellä:

Begrenzung der Einwanderung;
Bewahrung traditioneller schwedischer Kultur, unter anderem auch durch Verbote von Moscheen;
Kein Verkauf von Medien an ausländische Investoren;
Verteidigung eines konservativen Familienideals und Ablehnung von „pervertierten“ Lebensformen wie z. B. homosexueller Lebensgemeinschaften.

Lienevätkö ottaneet oppia kansanedustaja Hirvisaarelta, joka kannattajille suunnatussa Waffen SS –videon esittelyssä julistaa: ”Deutschland und Finnland sind uber alles. Deutschland hat Finnland frei gemacht. Vielen Dank!” Saksan kieli näyttäisi näille aktiiveille olevan se oikea kieli, kun puhutaan vähemmistöjen syrjinnästä.

Useat jatsivieraat, jotka tukevat Hirvisaarta, suosivat seuraavia Facebook-yhteisöjä:

En ole rasisti vain roturealisti.

Auttakaamme-Maahanmuuttaja-Rikolliset-Takaisin-Kotiin. Sivuston logona on apina, joka ohjaa pientä lentokonetta. Aikaisempi versio, jossa Hirvisaarikin oli jäsenenä, poistettiin rasistisena, nykyinen on jostain syystä vielä olemassa.

Perussuomalaisten Sinivalkoinen Suomi

Sivuston aiheita ovat ulkomaalaisten tekemät raiskaukset, rasistiset vitsit, Jussi Halla-aho ja Olavi Mäenpään blogit. Mäenpää ja Halla-aho on Hirvisaaren tavoin tuomittu rasistisesta kiihottamisesta kansanryhmää vastaan. Sivustolla käytetään kuvia, joiden teksteissä on vaikkapa: ”Neekeri mene pois, olemme kyllästyneet elättämään sinua. Suomi on suomalaisten, ei mutiaisten” ja kuvasarja, jossa verrataan mustaihoisten ihmisten kasvoja nimellä ”Tikkurilan värikartta”.

Suomen Sisu, Suomalaisuuden liitto, Nuiva vaalimanifesti, Finnish Defence League,

”Vaaditaan uutta lakiehdoitusta!
Maahanmuuttajien tuet samaksi kun suomalaisilla,

This-was-Germany. Memories of the Good Old Days. Natsi-Saksan muisteloita.

Eräs Hirvisaaren kannattaja suosittelee kymmeniä islamofobisia Facebook-yhteisöjä. Ne jakelevat kuvaa muslimiäidistä, joka uhkaa verta vuotavaa, pää valkoisessa kääreessä makaavaa vauvaansa suurella verisellä veitsellä. Lapsi sanoo: ”Mommy, I don’t wanna play Islam anymore.” Yhteisöjen kuvottavaa sanomaa vahvistetaan ammattimaisella tavalla toimivien vihasivustojen lavastetuilla kuvilla, jotka ovat hyvin väkivaltaisia ja rasistisia ja aiheuttavat pahoinvointia kenessä tahansa normaalissa ihmisessä.

Hirvisaaren vihanlietsonta ja maaninen muslimeita parjaavien videoiden ja tekstien levittäminen on purrut hyvin ja samanhenkiset ihmiset ovat löytäneet hänessä idolinsa.

Onko Asikkala sitten Suomen rasistisin kunta, kun suuri joukko yrityksiä on yhdessä äänestäjien ja kannattajien kanssa tukemassa rasistikansanedustajan vaalityötä ja imagonkiillotusta ja yhdessä kutsumassa Asikkalaan tällaisen aatesuunnan kannattajia? Vai onko niin, että osa näistä yrityksistä on vain huijattu joukkoon samalla tavalla kuin sukulaiset ja ystävät, jotka pyörivät ilmoittautuneiden ketjussa yhdessä Hirvisaaren ja muiden rasistien, natsimielisten, Ruotsidemokraattien tukijoiden, Finnish Defence Leaguen johtohahmojen ja apinoiden Afrikkaan palauttajien kanssa?

Tässä on kuitenkin kaikille muillekin kansanedustajille malliksi mainio tapa tehdä vaalityötä. Ei muuta kuin kemut pystyyn, paikallisesta musiikkiopistosta raikkaita nuoria muusikoita soittamaan ja omaa agendaa edistämään, jollekulle eläkeläissoittokunnalle voi samalla tarjota keikkaa, tai, kuten Asikkalassa, voi gospelyhtye levittää kansalaisille evankeliumin sanomaa. Sitten vain hakemaan apurahaa säätiöiltä (ainakin Suomen Kulttuurirahasto on sellaisen Hirvisaarelle myöntänyt) ja paikallinen pankki ja kunta maksamaan loput viulut. Kukapa voisi kieltäytyä kansanedustajan pyynnöstä edistää kylän kulttuuritoimintaa.

Koska perussuomalaiset eivät hyvävelitoimintaa harrasta, Hirvisaaren aktiviteetit lienevät tarkkaan harkittuja ja kaikki lait ja asetukset täyttäviä.

Tänä vuonna Hirvisaaren vaalitilaisuudessa on aivan erityinen juhlavuus, sillä nyt jatsiväki pääsee myös juhlimaan Hirvisaarten avioliiton kymmenettä juhlavuotta. Aivan ilmaiseksi. ”Avoin tilaisuus, vapaa pääsy, tule kanssamme tanssimaan”, kajahtaa Hirvisaarten julkinen hääpäiväkutsu.

Tule kansanedustajan kanssa tanssimaan. Natsijatsia.

Alkuperäisen blogikirjoituksen julkaistettiin Uudessa Suomessa.

Uusi Suomi poisti sen jostain syystä välittömästi ilmestymisen jälkeen, vaikka juttu on tehty huolellisesti ja perusteellisen totuudenmukaisesti.

*Härkönen ei tiedä miksi Uusi Suomi poisti hänen kirjoitus. “Jostain syystä välittömästi ilmestymisen jälkeen [juttu poistettiin], vaikka se on tehty huolellisesti ja perusteellisen totuudenmukaisesti,” hän kirjoitti Migrant Talesille.

Soaring unemployment in Finland hits immigrants and visible minorities especially hard

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Migrant Tales

It was shocking to read how Finland’s jobless rate shot up in May to 10.8% from 9.5% a year ago. Since immigrant unemployment is about three times higher than the national average, it means in theory that the unemployed rate for immigrants is at least 30%.

Matters are expected to get worse before they improve.

The Bank of Finland sees Finland’s economy shrinking this year by 0.8% and growing in 2014 by 0.7%, which will cause unemployment to rise to 8.6% next year. The Bank of Finland doesn’t see unemployment retreating significantly in 2015.

Read full story here.

Immigrants, who are usually the last to be hired and the first to get laid-off in a recession, are in an especially vulnerable position. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of political support and prejudice.

Since no media or politician will stand up for the immigrants and young immigrants, Migrant Tales will do so proudly.

If you want to get a depressing view of the situation, take a look at unemployment among young people (15-24 years), which rose by 4.5 percentage points to 35.2% during the month under review. What does it say about the jobless rate of second-generation Finns?

It was twenty years ago when Finland suffered its worst-ever recession in a century in the early 1990s, which caused unemployment to soar to about 20%. People who had expensive mortgages to pay were especially hard-hit.

Those who lived and survived that period, remember the cutthroat atmosphere that existed at the time. Immigrants and non-white Finns were especially vulnerable. If you had a score to settle with an employee or a coworker at work, the recession helped you to stab a knife in his or her back.

That recession of the early 1990s showed how vital it is for immigrants, and workers in general, of having a political voice in the country.

If we don’t have a voice, we are easy pickings and subject to gross abuse.

That’s why fighting racism is so essential.