June 2014 - Page 3 of 4 - Migrant tales

Anonymous: Against all odds human spirt cannot be crushed

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: Anonymous is one of the many readers that not only visit our blogs but contribute their stories and poems. I’m not at liberty to disclose her identity but can vouch for her story. We have been in touch countless of times on the phone and she has told me her six-year ordeal in Finland many, many times.

Anonymous has been put in an institution since they claim she suffers from paranoia. She disagrees with this diagnosis. Talking with her one matter shines: Anonymous is disappointed with herself for failing to integrate into Finnish society. By integration we mean getting a profession, job and learning how to stand on your feet economically and socially. Even so, she claims that she lived without any money from the social welfare office for 15 months and without any aid from Kela for 20 months.

Sometimes as a journalist and writer there are life stories that are painful to write possibly because the pain and suffering is still too restless and too obvious. That is the case of Anonymous.

I’m honored that Migrant Tales is your anchor of hope in a world that appears hopeless. If writing can move mountains, I hope it can help heal your pain and frustration.

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By Anonymous

The story that is so difficult to believe yet so disturbingly real. When a migrant woman’a pathway towards integration turns to one of disintegration, where she is caught in a twisted hair battle across the welfare spectrum after turning down two job proposals due to studies overwhelming workload, her four-and-half-year ordeal is still tragically going on today.

Unfortunately it deliberately cultivated hate for a lengthy period. Given the fact that, in such an economic climate where the unemployment rate is high, acquiring any form of employment is usually a golden opportunity or a dream come true. On the other hand, I would have been willing to avail my services to these institutions were it not, for the nature of my studies being quite demanding, required at least 110 percent of my energy. Paradoxically, I was thinking in terms of education as an investment and having a stable future career that would offer job security. In my opinion, being a translator is usually a temporary job and is based on a need-by-need basis.

Eventually, this news wasn’t received well by the social workers. It created a stalemate and invited hostilities across the welfare peripherals. My housing assistance was subsequently cut a month after arrival in the city which I call home and reimbursement of all outstanding payments were delayed and put on hold for the sole purpose of causing hardship and a cycle of deprivation.

While my own social worker says “they can’t help you,” the utterance becomes a common rhetoric across welfare sectors from migrant office to labour office. With only unemployment benefit at that time of only 414 euros a month and having other huge expenses, I had to stretch my budget to the limits and make a lot of sacrifices. I ended up living under less than 3 euros per day for almost four months. Three years later, after being asked if I am still studying social work, of which they are aware, because they usually ask me to submit my performance certificate, I am taking a risk with the officials at the labour office when I fill out the form. I’m told that if I fill it, I will only get assistance for one month and then after that they’ll decide whether to extend it or not. The official adds: “We cannot help you” or “can Kela help you,” which is a familiar phrase across the welfare establishment.

Paradoxically, my attempt to seek further assistance for a period of 40 days failed and I had to live without any formal assistance. I couldn’t pay the rent, the electricity was cut off as well.

I then later received a negative response for unemployment benefits from the labour office and a negative response for labour market subsidy from Kela. These continuous discouraging decisions gave me the impetus not to enroll as a jobseeker anymore. So from November 2012 until now whilst from December 2012, due to misinformation from the welfare office to get me back again into the system which by then was the only remaining source of benefits at the time for me, I had to indicate that I’m a full time student entitled to study-assistance, state-guaranteed loan and should therefore seek assistance from Kela.

Having gotten used to the mind-cheese-games and the manipulative tactics of the social workers, I didn’t apply for the above, since they were well aware that I wasn’t again eligible for such benefits. This strategic play continued for a period of consecutively three months hung a warning: If I didn’t apply for these subsidies I may end-up with a rejected income-assistance decision. The bottom line was that if I didn’t have any income I wouldn’t be able to pursue my studies and get a career.

Institutional racism at fore

Survival a struggle at the core

career battle like a septic sore

considered an enemy-adore

assistance slash at the pore

every day life becomes a chore

aspirations will wore

pathological interest the roots of truth tore

and render her homeless furthermore

nothing left, asks what else in store?

Aware of these repercussions, I had to forgo living under uncertainties, being a welfare slave and thus, had to prepare myself for the inevitable with equanimity come what may! Consequently I ended up being considered an adored enemy spreads through all welfare sectors and its arrays of influence to the extent that, even due to misinformation and disinformation being ignorant with good grades, I was asked to redo some courses and as a result ended up losing a precious year.

Then again, with excellent grades, I was once again denied a place at the same nearby higher institution of learning. Thus the race to accomplish it ran into serious speed bump. Have all gone well, it would have been an accomplishment. I would have earned a master’s degree in social work at the end of this year after only being in Finland for six years. However, I encountered considerable resistance (gone far …too fast… needed to be pushed back). Worst and above all, being ambitious yet still attracted hostility, my sheer hard work and dogged perseverance becomes my handicap creating atrocious situations for me. Due to the battle to preserve a career I am unable to accomplish an equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Evidently, I am seen as a rival across the welfare peripherals and told, I’m taking a risk to pursue a career of my choice.

Her choice has no voice,

her choice is not like Sanna’s or Joice

for her aspirations she can’t rejoice

it extremely creates a loud noise.

Jussi Halla-aho: France the football giant

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: We get a lot of email and tip-offs from our readers. The latest one we got is of three blog entry translations in English of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation. This second one, France the football giant, was published in Scripta on July 2, 2006.

Apart from understanding how racism in Finland thrives and which arguments are used to spread hatred of other groups, one matter is clear from all three writings: They are repulsive and we apologize if anyone is offended by them. The writings have nothing to do with a PhD’s critical thinking; they are simply urban tales and prejudices that have been piled high and deep.

Another important aspect that we must acknowledge about these writings is that they are hostile towards migrants and intended for gullible Finns. They are hateful writings that fuel prejudice, which in turn fuels social exclusion.

Acceptance of these two anti-immigration parties this week in the ECR with “MEPs with criminal records,” proves that shoplifting is a worse offense for a politician today than being sentenced for ethnic agitation. It sadly exposes as well why racism has grown in Europe and why mainstream politicians and the media have helped fuel such intolerance.

Our only motive for publishing these blog entries is so that other Europeans who don’t speak Finnish can read what kind of politician Halla-aho is.

For more insight into the PS, take a look Far-right and anti-immigration quotes in English by the PS.

Migrant Tales will publish Monday the last of the three blog entries, Do not tolerate the intolerant one (2007).

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

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The headline includes an obvious allusion to my earlier article Bahrain the Sports Giant, and those who know me already sense what is eating me this time…

…and those who are ignorant of soccer, let me introduce the French team, victorious at least as yet, those dashing descendants of Asterix, Charlemagne, Louis the 14^th, Montesquieu, de Gaulle, and Sartre:

Fabien Barthes

Jean-Alain Boumsong

Eric Abidal

Patrick Vieira

William Gallas

Claude Makelele

Florent Malouda

Vikash Dhorasoo

Sidney Govou

Zinedine Zidane

Sylvain Wiltord

Thierry Henry

Mikael Silvestre

Louis Saha

Lilian Thuram

Gael Givet

Alou Diarra

Willy Sagnol

David Trezeguet

Pascal Chimbonda

Frank Ribery

That’s fine, as far as it’s about sports, it’s probably all the same who is kicking the ball, as far as he is kicking it with skill and emotion. However, the fact that it’s the team representing France, of all countries, raises questions about comparability, representativity and role casting.

What does it mean for a team to be the national team? When the line-up listed above wins a tournament, does it mean that France is the winner? Does this team represent France in the way, say, the Spanish team represents Spain? In one word, are the Spanish and French national teams national in the same sense, and are their exploits comparable in the sense of national team sports? (I am thinking of the philosophical side, not of juridical technicalities.)

Somebody could say that this team obviously represents French and Frenchmen, because Frenchness isn’t what it was half a century ago. Still, there are problems here.

The first problem: The fact that there are black players in the United States national soccer team feels, still philosophically speaking, natural, as their presence in North America is as old as the United States as a country. Black people are thus an integral part of the American nation just like White people, whatever our idea of their contribution to the success of the nation. French, on the other side, has existed in a Celto-Romano-Germanic continuum as a state and a nation for more than one thousand years. Blacks and Arabs have abruptly entered the country after World War II. The players of the national team are either first-generation or second-generation immigrants, and in my opinion it is justified to ask whether they represent France at all, except in the sense of the above-mentioned juridical technicalities.

The second problem: Even if we forget about historical continuities, it is questionable, whether the above- mentioned line-up even represents today’s happily multicultural Frenchness. Even at the present stage about 80 per cent of the inhabitants of France are Frenchmen according to my own narrow definition. A little more than 10 per cent are Muslims, and less than 5 per cent are Blacks.

Of course it is impossible to introduce ethnical quotas for national teams, but in my opinion a team of 21 players, where 13 players are Black, two are Arabs, one is from the Indian subcontinent and one is some strange kind of Tahitian is essentially a different lot than the nation it is supposed to represent. I might have not remembered or noted to emphasize this in my article about Bahrain, but the point is that I am not disturbed by the presence of Blacks in the French team. Some French (in today’s sense of the word) are Blacks after all.

What does disturb me is that France, predominantly White, has a national team where 60 per cent of the players are Black. In my opinion it would be just fine if Finland was represented by a Romani or a Sami, because Romanis and Samis are historically part of Finnishness. On the other side I’d find it peculiar if the national team of Finland (in any sports event) would suddenly be manned exclusively by Nepalis living in Finland.

…as a matter of principle, this ethnical disproportion between representative and represented makes me think that the Western hidalgo, in all his multicultural tolerance, has outsourced physical stress and endurance to the Negro. Why dontcha go runnin’ after that ball for massa, boooy… [English in the original.] (Let me add here that the multiculturally tolerant lot is also enthusiastically outsourcing the wiping of their arses and the mopping of their floors to the Negro. “Who will work our menial jobs if we don’t increase immigration?”) Even in athletics, France has had a pitch-black national team for years. When white French and English spectators are sitting and watching TV, supporting their own Africans, I can’t help thinking of Roman gladiator school owners threatening each other that “my Nubian Negro is going to kick your Nubian Negro’s ass”.

[Followup discussion in Halla-aho’s blog]

Name: Kumma

What I am doing: Starting a discussion

Message: How come a Negro couldn’t be French? There have always been people coming to France from God knows where. Now that better traffic connections and tolerance have brought Negros there, hey presto! – the new arrivals shouldn’t be French any more!

July 2, 2006

Answer: I understand that there are lots of people who don’t want to read my stuff, but I do find it difficult to grasp why anyone not reading it still should comment upon it. In my opinion the problem is one of representativity. Whether we accept the Negro as a Frenchman or not, the team does not represent France as she is today.

Moreover, I find it justified to ask whether the Negro is French in the sense Jean-Pierre is, if the Negro has entered the country just thirty years ago, and if his only real role in society (in addition to ghetto rioting) is doing sports for France.

How long will the Finnish police resist ethnic and cultural diversity?

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Much of Finland is still living in a world where nothing is supposed to change as our society becomes ever-culturally and ethnically diverse. We read about the Sikh busman Gill Sukhdarshan Singh, who had to wait for a year to get the right to wear a turban at work, a Muslim woman who was fired the first day at work for wearing a headscarf, and yet another case of a Muslim woman who was not admitted to the police training school because she wouldn’t take off her headscarf during working hours.

While some companies are allowing their workers to use headscarves, institutions like the police service appear to be resisting tooth and nail our cultural and ethnic diversity.

Migrant Tales wrote in April about a Muslim woman who could not enter the police training school because she wore a headscarf. Read full story here.

Peter Holley, a PhD candidate, highlighted on his Facebook page the official reasons why the National Police Board of Finland prohibits religious headwear:

Scarves and turbans could cause health and safety risk to the wearer or his colleague (strangulation or other injury);
Headgear could cause aggression or a negative attitude in people the police come in contact with;
Allowing headgear could lead to other requests for religion-related rights, for example the right to break for prayer;
Use of headgear could risk the police reputation for impartiality and trustworthiness.

Holley responds to each of the arguments put by the National Police Board of Finland:

If other countries (such as the UK and Sweden) have managed to include religious headwear in their uniforms without endangering officers’ safety, why is the Finnish Police Force unable to do so?
This justification could be used for prohibiting women and ethnic minorities from serving in the police force. Is this perhaps why we see so few women and ethnic minorities in Poliisi uniforms?
Does allowing such headwear really open the floodgates for such claims? This seems highly suspect to me.
Is the Poliisi uniform responsible for the its reputation as impartial and trustworthy? Or to put this question another way, is the reputation the police as an institution dependent to a large extent upon the uniform its officers wear? I’m of the opinion that the reputation of the police as impartial and trustworthy would be strengthened by the accommodation of religious headwear and the inclusion of ethnic minorities. Can one remain impartial and trustworthy if others remain unrepresented?

Migrant Tales got in touch with Dr. Jonathan Hadley, a consultant and senior fellow at UNICRI – United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice research Institute.

His approach to the decision by the National Police Board of Finland not to allow headscarves is highlighted in a long paper, Policing and Integration in Britain: A Question of Social Change,* which we’ll publish a part of the introduction below. In a nuthsel, the matter hinges a lot on inclusion of multicultural individuals and acknowledging that that shouldn’t be a disadvantage.

One of the questions I asked Dr. Hadley is what we observe too many time in Finland: integration is the rule in theory but what happens too often is assimilation.

He writes in an email:

…Based on work by David Theo Goldberg in the 1990s that seems even more relevant today than then, it basically rejects models of ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’ as flawed by the same premise of the host’s power relationship over the ‘immigrant’. Instead, it advocates an ‘incorporative’ model as a more ‘authentic multiculturalism’ premised on the equalization of power relations through the transformational impact of cultural hybridity.

Below are a quote and two paragraphs of Policing and Integration in Britain; A Question of Social Change that synthesize the issue in Finland.

A truly multicultural society is one which is composed of multicultural individuals; people who are able to synthesize different worlds in one body and live comfortably with these different worlds. In order for a society to tolerate such individuals the society must by definition be open, fluid and confident. In other words, the society must be everything that Britain was not when the first Caribbean migrants stepped off the ships in the 1940s and 1950s.”[1]

(Caryl Phillips 2002. The Pioneers)

Introduction

Born in postcolonial St Kitts, Caryl Phillips reflects deeply upon what it means to be both of and not of Britain as the country of his parent’s migration in the late fifties. His argument, in a collection of essays that acknowledge the continued legacy of racism in Britain, is that there is ‘a new world order’ of cultural plurality emerging – one that is being promoted by the increasingly central role of the migrant and the refugee in the modern world[2]. This may be a challenge for policing: for where the police role is to maintain the status quo, at a societal and symbolic level that can also include conservative ideas of national identity and related values. Thus policing may find itself in conflict with a culturally diverse society and contemporary ideas of multiculturalism.

In an anthology of positive police roles for immigrant integration in Finland, the contribution of this chapter is to reflect upon the long and deeply troubled experience of policing and immigrant integration in modern Britain. It is told primarily, but not exclusively, through the post-war experience of West Indian/African-Caribbean migration to Britain. The central argument, however, is that contemporary policing – in Britain, Finland or elsewhere – needs to see itself as presiding over a period of significant social change characterized by the cultural plurality brought on by today’s global migration flows. This is not confined to countries with colonial histories. Countries with strong national histories may also feel their sense of identity challenged by European integration on the one hand and immigration from around the world on the other. To be sure, eastern European immigration is fast becoming a populist scapegoat for the present array of perennial social ills.

[1](Phillips 2002) page 279

[2](Phillips 2002)

* Policing and Integration in Britain’. This was translated into Finnish and published as a chapter entitled ‘Poliisitoiminta ja kotouttaminen Britanniassa: sosiaalisen muutoksen merkitys.’ in a 2008 Police College of Finland Publication: Poliisi ja Maahanmuuttajat (Edited by Arno Tanner), Polamk Report 67/2008.

Remiel: Is Finland suffering from an identity crisis?

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Migrant Tales

By Remiel*

Since social media is out there today and everybody is connecting with everybody all over the world, is Finland afraid of losing its identity to other cultures? Is this why there is so much hatred and prejudice towards immigrants in this country?

Remiel asks if Finland is suffering from an identity crisis. Is this the reason why there is so much racism in Finland?

I remember when I lived in a neighborhood of Helsinki. My immigrant friends’ apartment kept getting harassed by thugs, who sprayed on the door swastikas and the n-word. They even yelled at him when he was going back home from school.

I have to say there’s no future in a welfare country where the government is giving its inhabitants cash that people don’t appreciate. The whole situation feeds low self-esteem. If you have a child you’re not going to give him or her candy everyday, right?

Finland is suffering from a new economic crisis in 2014 and we’re going to be 90 billion euros in debt. This is easy money, it’s lent money. When I was younger, I was taught that I had to earn money if I wanted to have it. In my opinion this is still true. Finland needs change but who’s going to save you from yourself?

Nokia went down and Finland needs urgently an atmosphere and culture that supports entrepreneurs. The “candy” money and good education we get for free, and which pampered my generation, isn’t going to do it.

Back in the days when I grew up in the 1990s, people in Finland had principles back then. Our youth doesn’t have any or the courage. This country needs actions not words if it wants save itself from its economic crisis and ever-growing debt. People need to start to change.

We Finnish citizens need to change as well. As citizens we need to be united and we can start from our apartment building where we live. In Finland, there is a culture of code of silence and too much reminiscing of the past. We don’t talk openly many times about the underlying issues.

Finland as a beautiful nation, which rose up from practically nothing after World War 2 and still managed to pay their debt to the United States before that, didn’t lose back then its independence even if we lent money from abroad.

We shouldn’t forget this important lesson and where you came from. You people begin to appreciate your past and your marvelous unique history for what is and what made you who you are today.

As a nation, we need to stop dwelling on those past scars and show the world what we’re made of. Rising from the poorest countries in Europe to one of the best in Europe with the best educational system is quite a feat.

I personally don’t know of any country that can beat that.

* Remiel is a Finnish citizen with an immigrant background. He needs to write anonymously because, according to him, there is discrimination in Finland.

Jussi Halla-aho: Of human value

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: We get a lot of email and tip-offs from our readers. The latest one we got is of three blog entry translations in English of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation. This first one, Of human value, was published in Scripta on April 13, 2005.

Our only motive for publishing these blog entries is so that other Europeans who don’t speak Finnish can read what kind of a politician Halla-aho is.

For more insight into the PS, take a look Far-right and anti-immigration quotes in English by the PS.

Migrant Tales will publish Sunday France the football giant (2006) and on Monday, Do not tolerate the intolerant one (2007).

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An axiom is a claim that is so obviously true that it doesn’t need to be backed up. It’s probably axiomatical (pun intended), that when granting a claim the status of an axiom, we should be especially careful. The claim should preferably be such, that it can be proven to be and have been true everywhere and always.

One of our modern axioms is that all people share a human value, and said human value is of equal size for every person. Even the worst racists and anti-egalitarians try to fit the human value axiom into their own theoretical formulas. Denial of the axiom is altogether politically incorrect.

If we claim that everyone is of equal worth, we also claim that we know the value of a human being and that it can be measured. If it cannot be measured, we cannot prove how much each individual has it. Human value can’t be anything that comes from outside us (from Heaven), or at least it can’t be proven as such, because it’s not written in the stars, waters or rocks. Actually, nothing points to equal human value (or human value in general) being anything else but a convention and a statement typical for our age, like past axioms: ”The Sun revolves around the Earth” ”The Pope is infallible”, ”A woman has no soul”, or ”Masturbation leads to near-sightedness”. They used to be believed in as blindly as human equality is believed in now. There’s been as much measurable evidence to support them as there is for human equality. Because they couldn’t be proven, they were declared axioms that didn’t have to be proven.

The only human value that can be measured and therefore exists beyond all doubt is the instrumental value of an individual. Individuals can be set to a hierarchy based how much the community would weaken were their abilities and functions removed. A farmer, a breeder of edible animals and a construction engineer are more valuable than others, because without them the community would die of starvation and cold. On the other hand, they would survive even if everyone else were removed. An individual using a weapon is the next most valuable member of society, because he protects the food supply and houses from beasts and enemies and keeps community members from responding to their primitive urges and annihilating each other.

An artesan (and his modern variations) is valuable in the sense that his products and inventions make life easier for everyone hierarchically above and below him. Natural scientists (especially physicists and chemists) are valuable, because they produce knowledge, which both the artesan, soldier, construction engineer and food producer put into practice. It’s possible to survive without basic research, but it’s uncomfortable. A doctor is valuable, because he makes our lives last longer and increases our quality of life. Necessary he of course isn’t, because the large majority of people would survive to breeding age without him. Breeding is the primary function of all species that everything else leads to.

The people listed above pretty much materially produce the society in which we live. These professions make free time and the existential thoughts that follow it possible, which includes most of astronomical and even more so all humanistic sciences. They separate us from monkeys, but are in no way necessary. Although it has to be said, that behavioral sciences have perhaps made us less likely to kill each other. Then again, wartime increases cohesion within groups and almost always leads to technological breakthroughs.

Artists, priests and politicians are basically worthless. Any community would perform its functions well enough without them, and everything that they do is possible only because of the actions of others. Artists especially are plagued by bitterness towards science, but no painting would be painted without the chemical industry, which is natural science in effect. The meaninglessness of these professions to the rest of the community is manifested by them surviving on alms and handouts alone (which are called state grants).

Intelligence, when it is not used for something necessary, is of subjective value, but a few will deny that reading a good book or listening to someone talking sense stimulates the intellect and puts you in a good mood. I consider it absolutely bizarre and insulting to think that Esko Valtaoja wouldn’t be more valuable than Juha Valjakkala, Helena Lindgren or an immigrant leaning on a wall at the Helsinki railway station.

Based on what I’ve said above and until someone explains me proper how come everyone is of equal worth, I am of the opinion that difference means difference of worth and everyone is of unequal value. However, unlike egalitarians imagine, unequal value doesn’t lead to gassing of those of lesser worth, unless there is no other valid reason for said gassing. I consider myself more valuable than a mouse carcass lying on a forest path, but I won’t tear the carcass to pieces because of that. I enjoy the world more with art and linguistic studies in it (I’m not all that certain about religions and the Parliament). But if the boat starts leaking, I consider it clear that the less valuable cargo goes overboard first, in this case artists and linguists.

Egalitarian nonsense is brought about by having too many people with enormous energy but nothing sensible to do. Karmela Liebkind, Rosa Meriläinen and Mikko Puumalainen as Finnish examples. Like people from any era, we are also blind to ourselves and our thoughts being just a momentary flash, soon to disappear in the endless tide of time. Upcoming generations will spit on our graves and guffaw and fart at what we consider meaningful. There is no reason to believe that ”equality”, ”tolerance”, and other things important to us will end up in the long list of nonsense from a bygone world. Alongside the Sun revolving around the Earth, infallibility of the Pope, the soullessness of a woman and near-sightedness as a result of masturbation.

The PS of Finland makes its post-election debut in the European media with labels like “xenophobic,” “far right” and “MEPs with criminal records”

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Migrant Tales

It has been quite a rough two weeks for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party after the May 25 EU parliamentary elections: accusations of being far-right in the company of neo-Nazi parties like the Golden Dawn of Greece; and speculation by a senior Finnish official in the Financial Times that it was unlikely that the PS would join the European Conservatives and Reformists group of the European parliament because the party is xenophobic.

To add to the PS’ image problem, the Financial Times headlined the following story on Wednesday: “MEPs with criminal records join Tories’ euroceptic group.”

The two MEPs with criminal records are PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho and Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People’s Party, who was convicted in 2002 for claiming that cultural diversity was linked to rape, violence and forced marriages.

The membership of the PS and DPP in the ECR reveals that UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his fellow conservative apparently consider shoplifting a worst crime to have on your political record than ethnic agitation.

Certainly the PS, which has tried its hardest to change its anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam image, wasn’t too happy about what the foreign media wrote and launched on Friday a witch-hunt to find the anonymous senior official that was quoted on the Financial Times.

PS party secretary, Riikka Slunga-Pitsalo, gave an ultimatum in a statement: “We expect an answer and clarification [from the ministry for foreign affairs] by Monday. We’ll consider what steps will take after that. The smear campaign of Finland’s third-largest party by the foreign media must end.”

Intended for mass consumption and portray the party once again as being unfairly victimized by the media, it’s clear that the anonymous source that the PS wants to lynch in public will never be uncovered.

Another interesting matter to watch after the EU elections is whether Marine Le Pen’s National Front will succeed in forming a new group in the European parliament. For that, the National Front needs at least 25 MEPs from 7 countries.

Members of the far right are, however, optimistic that they’ll succeed at forming a new far right anti-EU group, the European Alliance for Freedom.

“We hope to get more than seven member parties,” a source was quoted anonymously by EurActive.com. “This would reduce the pressure, for instance, if one party leaves. We’re soliciting the same MEPs or parties as the Europe for Freedom and Democracy [EFD] and even the European Conservatives and Reformists group.”

Another interesting group to watch from the anti-immigration and anti-EU perspective is if UKIP can get enough members to form the EFD.

The former home of the PS, the EFD, looks like a sinking ship with former members defecting to the ECR or EAF camp. Read full story here.

Even if the PS has tried to make itself appear more “mainstream” by toning down its anti-immigration rhetoric, voters should not forget that it was anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam rhetoric that the party used shamelessly to lure voters.

We don’t have to waste our time accusing individual politicians of being racists. What should be done is never to forget the racist comments they’ve made in the past. That is evidence that will follow and haunt them throughout their lives.

Another matter we shouldn’t forget is that the PS can, like the UKIP did in the EU elections, metamorphose into a ever-hostile anti-immigration party. Considering their ability to ditch their campaign promises depending on the political winds that are blowing at the time, it would be wishful thinking to believe that the party wouldn’t ratchet its anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric to secure votes.

In my opinion, it is the disgraceful political record and the PS’ chicanery that has estranged many voters from politics.

The PS of Finland launches witch-hunt against the anonymous senior official who said it was a xenophobic party

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Migrant Tales

The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have launched a witch-hunt against an anonymous senior official who said on the Financial Times that it was unlikely that the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group would want to team up with the PS because it is a”xenophobic and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia [party].”

Said the senior official: “I find it very difficult to believe that [David] Cameron’s Conservatives, with whom we work closely to promote innovative, open and competitive societies, would team up with the True Finns whose rise to large extent is on xenophobia and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia.”

PS party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo expressed rage in a statement for what the senior official said.

“We expect an answer and clarification [from the ministry for foreign affairs] by Monday. We’ll consider what steps will take after that. The smear campaign of Finland’s third-largest party by the foreign media must end.”

Minister for foreign affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, questioned on YLE if the senior official that was quoted by the Financial Times even worked at the ministry.

While the media has the right to quote anonymous officials, plans to find such a source by the PS reveals how little respect and ignorance of the party for press freedom and how the media works.

Read full statement (in Finnish) here.

One of the most incredible statements that Slunga-Poutsalo makes in the statement is that the PS isn’t a far-right party but one that is center left.

Last week, the Huffington Post, news agency AFP, PolicyMic and others labelled the PS a far-right party in the company of neo-Nazi groups like Greece’s Golden Dawn and Jobbik of Hungary.

If the PS is center left, why did the PS team up with the ECR, which are pretty close to the Youth Wing of the National Coalition Party?

The Youth League of the National Coalition Party made 150 proposals last year that, if implemented, would turn Finland into a U.S.-modeled country where money is king. Some of the proposals made by the group are racist and xenophobic and in line with the most far right representatives of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

The youth wings of the PS and National Coalition Party have lobbied to demote the Swedish language to elective status in schools.

The political record and chicanery of the PS of Finland is what has estranged so many voters from politics

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Migrant Tales

While some are still scratching their heads about the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* joining the European parliament’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group this week, it shows why so many voters have become estranged from politics.

Read full story here.

Before the historic 2011 parliamentary elections for the PS, when 39 of its MPs got elected from 5MPs previously, the party had a solid anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam message.

It’s party leader, Timo Soini, watered down the PS’ stand on Europe recently by stating that he’s now against Finland leaving the EU. While its anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric are still strong and lurking in the sidelines patiently waiting to stir voter emotions, its most outspoken enemies these days are homosexuals and gay marriage.

Hoping to become the biggest party in Finland after next year’s parliamentary elections, the PS has, however, tried to give a more moderate and mainstream image of itself. This is understandable considering that it wants to be a member of the next government and the disappointing showing of the party in the presidential, municipal and euro elections.

In all three elections, the PS hasn’t come even close to its 19.1% showing of 2011.

But after criticizing and riding the wave of voter discontent and mistrust of mainstream parties, the PS is trying to look more like them. Is this a good matter or is it another trick by the party to lure voters?

While at Migrant Tales we have spoken out repeatedly against the PS’ racism, provincialism and nativist nationalism, what is happening inside the party resembles the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The last paragraph of Orwell’s book says it all with respect to the revolution at Manor Farm and what the PS did in 2011:

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Green Party politician Ozan Yanar asks a very valid question on his Facebook page. He states with evident dismay that here’s the “labor party without socialism” that has joined David Cameron’s conservatives in the European parliament. The absurdity of the situation is further highlighted by the fact that AKP, the political moderate voice of Islam in Turkey, joined the ECR [through the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists], according to him.

Moreover, the ECR is in favor of Turkey’s membership in the EU. PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who has declared war on Islam in the same way as the worst Islamophobes in Europe, is now a member of a political group that approves Turkey’s membership in the EU.

In anyone’s book a criminal record isn’t a good matter to have in your records. Even so, and in the conservative spirit, where social and economic inequality are acceptable because people aren’t equal, the membership of the PS and Danish People’s Party in the ECR proves that it’s politically worse getting arrested for shoplifting than ethnic agitation.

UK Prime Minister Cameron, the leader of the ECR, isn’t too bothered by racism and prejudice since it was his government that launched the “Go Home” campaign against undocumented immigrants and spread fear to Britons that the country will be overrun by swarms of Romanians and Bulgarians on January 1.

Cameron has been playing political catchup with dismal luck against his rival Nigel Farage of the UKIP. If the UK prime minister would have taken the time to see what happened in Finland when mainstream political parties started to flirt with the anti-immigration message of the PS before the 2011 elections, he would have learned an important lesson: Don’t try to compete against xenophobic parties because you give legitimacy to them.

While the PS’ leader Timo Soini wants to show that his party is “normal” and “mainstream” these days, we should never forget what the party said and did to get where it is today.

In that message and in their actions is concentrated the poison that has estranged so many Europeans from politics.

* The English name of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is officially the Finns Party. The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

What does PS membership in the European Conservatives and Reformists group reveal about the Finnish populist party?

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that one notices about the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is how it has metamorphosed and continues to do so. Even so, its stand on our social welfare state isn’t clear never mind what it thinks about EU membership, even if its leader, Timo Soini, now says that the party wants Finland to continue being a member of the EU. The party’s entry into the Europe of Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is highly revealing, since it reinforces what we’ve known a long time about the PS.

One matter it reveals is that the PS is an opportunistic party that doesn’t really have a clear stand on anything except that it polarizes instead of unites, speaks and stresses “us” and “them” in its rhetoric. Deep inside its reason for being hinges on anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam stands.

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

A way to understand the PS stand on many issues is to check what the ECR stands for. Below are some of the principles that the European parliamentary group supports, according to Wikipedia:

Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalized NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures
Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

In many respects, the PS stand on many of these issues is similar to the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, which is in favor of “streamlining” the welfare state.

The youth wings of the PS and National Coalition Party have lobbied to demote the Swedish language to elective status in schools.

Financial Times: Finnish and Danish MEPs “with criminal records” join Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s group

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Migrant Tales

While some speculated that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and the Danish People’s Party (DPP), both with MEPs with criminal records, would be given the cold shoulder by UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, the opposite happened, writes the Financial Times.

The two MEPs with criminal records are PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho and DPP’s Morten Messerschmidt, who was convicted in 2002 for claiming that cultural diversity was linked to rape, violence and forced marriages.

Writes the Financial Times quoting Mats Persson of the Open Europe think-tank said:

This will raise the eyebrows of many in Europe who thought the Danish People’s party in particular wouldn’t pass the Tory party’s blush test…The good news for the Tories is that they’re on course to become the third largest party in the European Parliament. The risk however is that they drive reform-minded liberal parties straight into the arms of the big federalist block in the EP [European parliament].

PS chairman Timo Soini expressed satisfaction about being accepted into the ECR.

“Fifty-five MEPs have joined so far this group [ECR],” Soini was quoted as saying on YLE. “This group is in practice bigger than the Left and Green group [European United Left-Nordic Green Left].”

The PS and DPP used to belong to the Europe for Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, with far-right parties like the Slovak National Party, whose leader said that the best policy for dealing with the Roma is “a long whip in a small yard.”

With parties like the Lega Nord – formerly an EFD member – joining Marine Le Pen and the PS and DPP the ECR, the interesting matter to watch is if UKIP’s Nigel Farage will be able to get the seven parties and 27 MEPs are needed to form a group in the European parliament.

Read full story here.

Another interesting question to ask is why Cameron permitted two anti-immigration parties with MEPs with criminal records to join the ECR?

One answer is that Cameron and his fellow conservatives in the group don’t care too much if a politician has been sentenced for ethnic agitation or has issues with racism. Taking into account the Tories’ anti-immigration rhetoric that has grown recently due to the growth of the UKIP, this is nothing strange.

The PS’ entry into the ECR puts the party well into the conservative, populist and far-right camp.