August 2013 - Page 3 of 4

Dana: Forbidden questions

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Migrant Tales

By Dana

Questions need answers, silence is not an answer, silence has no wave, without a wave you can’t move, without a wave u cant build, without a wave you go and give up, without a wave u can’t wake up.

1. Is Sauli Niinisto your favor president? Why, if yes? Why not? Can you answer this question or are you afraid of something or someone? Why? Whom?

Why can’t you answer?

What’s so positive about his character? What’s so negative about it?
What would you ask him if you could hit him with a question?

I would ask him what he thinks about my rights and who takes responsibility for all the crimes against me and my life in this country.

2.Do you think there is freedom in Finland? What does freedom mean to you?

3.Have you ever been harassed or attacked in a racist manner? Physically? Mentally? How? Was it with words? Who attacked you? Could you share this with us?

4.Do you know who your ministers are? What are they really doing in parliament? Do you trust them or care at all about them? Why?
Aren’t the ministers those who influence your daily life and destiny? U should know what they’re talking about and what important things they do… but what are they? Do you know how much their salary is?

5. What are the major problems you have in this country?

6. What kinds of humans do you think and are your friends? Why?

Do you see yourself as a racist? Have you ever been a racist? Can you admit it? Not to me but yourself? Are you honest enough with yourself?

What language are you supposed to use with the doctor if you don’t speak Finnish or Swedish?

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Migrant Tales

What happens if you don’t speak Finnish or Swedish and need to take your one-year-old baby to the doctor’s? What about if the doctor isn’t a Finn? Migrant Tales got the following email from one of our readers:

Hi, I’ve lived in Helsinki for 3 years and would like to share a story that happened to me, my European husband and baby. I’m sharing this story with you because it was the most racist treatment my family had ever received in Finland.

On February 2013, I went to the children’s clinic because my baby was suffering from high fever. Arriving at the clinic in the morning, I was told that no doctor was available to treat my baby girl. The nurse was, however, very helpful. She took us to a room and gave medicine. The nurse recommended that we visit our local health center in [in the eastern Helsinki neighborhood of] Kontula, which she called on our behalf but there were no doctors available on that day. We were then sent to the Myllypuro health center, where we had an appointment with a doctor at 1:30pm.

We arrived to the Myllypuro health center at 1:25pm. Since it was the first time we’d been there, we didn’t know where to go. We asked a clerk at the information desk, who told us that we were in the right place. While this was happening, I heard from afar my name but wasn’t totally sure. We took a seat and waited for our name to be called by a doctor.

At 1:40pm the doctor called my name. In a very rude manner and speaking only Finnish, which we had difficulty understanding since we don’t speak Finnish well, the doctor said he wouldn’t treat us in English. He said in English that the health center doesn’t accept patients who don’t speak Finnish.

I asked, even insisted, why he couldn’t speak English since he spoke the language fluently. He answered back in a rude manner and we continued to argue. I told him that I wouldn’t leave until he treated my baby. The doctor then threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave. He said that we were in the wrong place since we should have gone to the Kontula health center in the first place. He also said that he couldn’t treat my baby because he didn’t have the right medial instruments. I told him that we were sent to the Myllypuro health center by a nurse and that she had made the appointment on our behalf.

I asked him why he treated another couple’s baby and not mine while we waited 20 minutes for the nurse at the Myllypuro health center to make an appointment with a doctor at the Kontula health center. I don’t understand why the doctor who wouldn’t speak English to us or treat our baby wasn’t attending any patients. Couldn’t he have checked my baby at that time?

We got an appointment with a Russian doctor at 3pm. The appointment given to us was that of an African couple, which had to wait before we were treated by the doctor. This was not fair to the African couple, I thought.

We spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon before our baby was finally treated by a doctor. Why didn’t the doctor in Myllypuro help? No compassion exists in this country!

I made a complaint to the Ombudsman explaining exactly what had happened to us.

I got a letter from them stating that I had nothing to complain about since my baby got treated. I’m not happy with the response from the Ombudsman. I may have been slightly late to the health center because I didn’t hear my name called but the treatment I got from the foreign doctor, and that he wouldn’t speak English to us, is is pure racism and discriminatory.

Please tell me what I must do. I feel voiceless in this country, where most Finns want cover up racism at all costs.

Lives are put on hold at the Karhula, Finland, refugee center

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Have you ever visited a refugee center in Finland? I did on Sunday in Karhula, located 130km east of Helsinki. The refugee center, which comprises of two four-story blocks, revealed some of its inhabitants when you reached a small court in its middle hidden from the outside world.

The court, which had bed sheets and clothes drying on each of the buildings’ floors in the damp and rainy afternoon day, surprised and shocked me. Do people live here? It must be depressing, I thought.

The feeling is something like being at a railway station or airport transit lounge, where there is a sense of hope even if you are in a no-man’s or woman’s land. The refugee center is different from the optimistic anticipation you may feel at a railway station or airport. The only thing missing is that don’t know where the next station will be.

Two asylum-seekers from Africa started speaking to me from the second floor while four children, aged about seven, who asked me to take a picture of them. All four spoke fluent Finnish, which suggested that their parents had lived at the refugee center for quite some time.

“How long have you lived here,” I asked.

Nobody knew or answered back.

One of the children appeared disturbed and hyperactive. The only girl in the group told me proudly about a spare bike tire, which is used as a swing. She asked me to take a picture of her next to the so-called swing.

A former asylum-seeker with whom I visited the refugee center told me that some people wait 2-4 years for a positive decision, even longer, to remain in Finland.

“You live in constant fear in a refugee center because you never know when you’ll be deported,” he said. “Your life is on hold. Apart from fear, you are mocked by a near-constant sense of pessimism.”

If there is a picture that says it all about the refugee centers, its this one. Everything is broken.

The Karhula refugee center is a depressing place.

As if hidden from the outside world, a small court instantly appears. It shocks you.

National Coalition Party of Finland to spearhead ban on begging

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Matters are getting tougher in Finland if you are a minority belongs to an affluent group like the Swedish-speaking Finns or a poor one like the Romany minority. What do both initiatives, to demote Swedish to elective status at schools and ban begging, tell about Finland today?

One way to answer the latter question is to look at who is behind these two initiatives. With respect to the one that aims to demote the role of Swedish at schools, all four associations behind the direct initiative have strong anti-immigration stands never their views of cultural diversity.

While the Swedish-speaking minority has the resources to defend themselves from attacks by populist politicians hellbent on destroying their rights and gained privileges, it’s a totally different story when looking at the bill to ban begging, which would target the Romany minority.

Why are conservative politicians like MP Arto Satonen of the National Coalition Party so keen on banning begging? Is it because of the party’s poor showing in the polls?

A good editorial by Lahti-based daily Etelä-Suomen Sanomat claims that while conservative politicians are stirring up debate once again over a begging ban, it is the wrong way of addressing the issue.

“A strict begging ban seems like a simple solution. However the core of the problem can’t be solved by simple means. If Finland were to follow Denmark’s example it would send out a message that it’s no longer worth coming here to beg. Our streets would be more orderly, because the beggars and their sinister ringleaders would move off somewhere else.”

The daily says that “huge efforts” are needed to challenge poverty and promote human rights everywhere in the EU.

Finnish primary school books still depict foreigners stereotypically

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Migrant Tales

It is quite incredible that one of the best school systems in the world still portrays people from different cultures in a stereotypic manner. Eeva Rinna, a doctoral researcher from Tampere University, claims that textbooks in primary school still depict Africans as bongo players, Cubans as happy and sociable and Germans as hard-working, reports YLE in English.

”In Africa people are playing bongo drums and maybe wearing loincloths. Finland is embodied by Christmas elves. This is interesting… this Australian. He has a loincloth and traditional instruments, but he’s western-looking,” said Rinna.

Considering that Finland has done a lot to bridge the gender gap between men and women, it’s odd that we’re still seeing in primary school books stereotypical descriptions of other cultures that only serve to fuel prejudice.

One of the matters that Rinne noted in such textbooks was that Russia is often portrayed as a threat to Finland.

“In geography books Russia is almost invisible in terms of Finland. Russia is not necessarily mentioned at all as Finland’s neighboring country,” she said.

It pretty easy to find the source of our present-day prejudices.

Read full story here.

Formerly Finnish children were taught the n-word at school.

This picture was used in elementary school books up to the 1970s. It says that the n-word’s face doesn’t whiten no matter how much it is washed.

Direct initiative to demote Swedish language at schools stands slim chance of approval

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Migrant Tales

What are we to think about a direct initiative that got over 50,000 signatures today to demote Finland’s second official language to elective status at schools? While this initiative stands a slim chance of passing in parliament, it shows how intolerance has raised its head in Finland recently.

Even if those that are lobbying against Finland’s 290,977-strong Swedish-language minority claim that by eliminating mandatory Swedish will help people learn more “useful” languages like Russian, the whole campaign is nothing more than a red herring.

Finland has lots of polyglots despite the fact that Swedish is mandatory at schools.

Swedish as a mother tongue is spoken by 5.36% of the population, according to the Population Register Center.

Vapaa kielivalinta, which has spearheaded the initiative together with Suomalaisuuden liitto, the youth associations of the Perussuomalaiset and National Coalition Party, claims the goal of the anti-Swedish-langauge initiative is:

freedom of choice of languages in schools
reduction of unnecessary language demands in public service
national action for these issues.

Even if those that are endorsing this effort claim with a poker face that it will further tolerance, it will actually do the opposite. At least three of the associations promoting the initiative have very strong anti-cultural diversity stands.

Suomalsiuuden liitto, for example, has played a key role in undermining cultural diversity in Finland from the onset of independence. The chairman of Vapaa kielivalinta, Ilmari Rostila, is a Tampere city councilman for the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset party.

If the initiative passed in parliament, we may well ask what is the next matter that we’ll try to dismantle of our cultural diversity, which has been on the defensive for quite some time.

If Swedish is the second official language of this country, why is it being treated with such contempt?

Because there are groups that are bent on destroying as much of our cultural diversity as a nation as possible.

Migrant Tales Literary: Sharp-eyed bird and Yellow Crocodile Kingdom (Part II)

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Migrant Tales

By Dana

Have you heard about the crocodile

That has a kingdom of hate and lies?

Have you heard about its angry eye

That can only see in black and white?

Have you been in the land of darkness

Where soldiers spray sadness and weakness?

Have you met a bird with big light wings

Who lives under terror and painful things?

Have you been told where u r living

Are u aware, safe or sleeping?

Have you spoken with freedom of choice

Can you accept a bird with a loud voice?Have you heard a song teaching good law

Or did they wash your brain, made u a cow?Have you ever, talked to eagles

Or have you fought, with hungry big bears?Have you read, about human rights

Can you feel the immorality between walls

Have you seen scorpions in parliament

Have you been told it is full of guns?

Have you told yourself hi and good night

Have U wished for a party, with GOD and light?

Have you felt handcuffs, right on your wrists

Have you gone to court without lawyers?

Have u heeeard about the crocodile

Who eats birds, and is a shy killer?

Migrant Tales Literary: Unleashed hope (Part II)

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Migrant Tales

By Anonymous

hope is near when we hope!

hope is dear where there is hope!

hope helps us bear and makes us not lose hope!

hope helps us not fear atrocities for we hope!

hopes creates a new layer on the skin torn by rope!

of adversity and hardships that we bear for we hope!

that hopes is so near we should not loose hope!

for it strengthens our resolve with its rope!

makes us run like a deer in pursuit for hope!

for even if far it will be near like the ear-lobe!

and help us breath its fresh air and like others hope!

in our hearts keep it alive in the course to find hope !

for we ourselves are hope!

we are hope!…if we hope!

and continue to hope!

if only, we don’t loose hope!

for it our cries hear and hopes that we can still hope!

even where there is no hope… still continue to hope!

and keep alive that precious hope!

Yesterday… today…. and tomorrow – hear us hope!

For you have special ears for the voiceless without hope!

seek you day and night – for you are our only hope!

we need you hope to give us hope!

we need you hope to give us the rope!

that holds the loops of hope !

feed our bodies with antibiotics of hope!

to protect us against those who want to kill our hopes!

for we need you hope!

fill our minds with a doze of hope!

to enable us face the inevitable with equanimity and hope!

For we need you hope!

to promise us today will be better than yesterday if we hope!

and even tomorrow better than today if we still hope!

for our everyday life shakes without you hope!

drain our heart and souls with an IV drip of hope!

to gives us non-stop-courage and endurance and hope!

for we need you badly hope!

For without you…hope! we are nope!

become traumatized and drop like a rope!

and lose our identities and became nope!

with self-proclaimed pathologies that becomes our robe!

and diagnosis which weakens our hope!

as we become nope!

for shrinks do not believe in hope!

but medications that may stop our hope!

we need you hope!

to enable us hop-step and jump to catch the hope!

Lets keep alive hope to give us the unleashed hope!

Lets keep alive the hope that gives us unleashed hope!

For with hope-we have hope!

And we are hope!

for it gives us unleashed hope!

Migrant Tales…………….Migrant Tales………… Migrant Tales!

keep our hopes alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..Keep our hopes alive!

Our unleashed hope!

Switzerland restricts the movement of asylum seekers in the town of Bremgarten

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The Swiss town of Bremgarten, located about 16km from Zurich, has banned asylum seekers from swimming pools, sports facilities and other sites, according to Spiegel Online International. The agreement, which has been criticized by human rights groups, was made by the Swiss Office of Migration (BfM) and the town.

Read original story here.

It’s not the first time that Switzerland, which has tightened its asylum laws, has restricted the free movement of asylum seekers.

Towns like Eigenthal in Lucerne banned access by asylum seekers to school yards in 2012. Other towns include Nottwil and Alpnach, which have enforced similar measures.

Swiss towns cannot prohibit asylum seekers to live in their towns but they can dictate the conditions. The agreement between BfM and Bremgarten listed 32 so-called sensitive zones, which included the public swimming pool, daycare centers, church squares, community hall, casino and retirement home.

According to BfM head Mario Gattiker, the aim of the ban is to prevent ”50 asylum seekers visiting a football pitch or a swimming pool all at once.” He believes that so many asylum seekers would lead to “friction and resentment.”

He added that the restrictions are aimed “to accommodate public concern.”

It is ironic that US talk show host Oprah Winfrey was a victim of racism during a recent visit to the country.

According to he US talk show host, who is one of the richest women in the world, a shop employee approached her and told her that one of the bags, which cost $35,000, was “too expensive” for her.

Winfrey’s claims are a public relations disaster for Switzerland, according to the BBC.

Internal investigation reveals Helsinki Court of Appeal judges use racist and sexist language

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Migrant Tales

What are we to make of a classified internal investigation into the behavior of the Helsinki Court of Appeals, which revealed some judges sexually harassed women at parties, used racist and sexist language during recesses and in meetings outside of the courtroom? If this occurs in our judicial system, how common is it among the police, army, civil servants and teachers?

Minister of Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson spoke out against the conduct of the Helsinki Court of Appeals judges as an ”extremely serious matter.”

“Everyone understands that victims are in a very vulnerable position,” she was quoted as saying on YLE in English. “This type of behavior is unacceptable and does not create confidence in the judicial system. This kind of language will not be tolerated, even behind closed doors.”

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

The internal report, which was obtained by MTV 3, shows that Helsinki Court of Appeal judges used derogatory labels for blacks (n-word), Russians, Jews and gays as well as sexually harassed women at parties.

Even if the internal classified report on the unacceptable behavior of some judges is a step in the right directions, there’s been a lot of denial by other institutions in Finland when dealing with a serious problem like intolerance.

If you disagree, ask Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen, who flatly denies that the police ethnically profiles anyone.

Such an absolute denial by her is the best evidence we have yet that it does occur in Finland. It reveals as well that the authorities are doing little to nothing to tackle social ills like intolerance.

The Council of Europe expressed concern last month in a report over ethnic profiling by the Finnish police.

Apart from denial, our society goes to great lengths to avoid the issue of intolerance altogether.

Why does the Finnish media ask immigrants on a program if ethnic profiling happens in Finland? Why doesn’t it ask the Roma, who have lived in Finland for five centuries? Certainly they should know how they are treated by the police.

It will be interesting to see how the authorities deal with the racist and sexist behavior of some judges of the Helsinki Court of Appeal and how many heads will roll as a result, if any.