Month: October 2014

Defining white Finnish privilege #13: Case Matti Putkonen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the exclusive privileges white Finns who belong to anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have is making ludicrous claims about migrants and minorities. Matti Putkonen of the PS is the latest case of white Finnish privilege. He is claiming – without proof – that “the cost of migration” to Finland may be now as high as 2 billion euros, according to tabloid Ilta-Sanomat. 

On top of such an unsubstantiated claim, Putkonen can even accuses The Finnish Immigration Service of fostering racism because it plays down “the cost of migration.”

According to the FIS, “the cost of migration” is 203 million euros.

Näyttökuva 2014-10-31 kello 10.14.06

White Finnish privilege gives Putkonen the right to make outrageous claims about migration. Read full story here.

 

What do Putkonen and the PS mean by “the cost of migration” anyway? If the majority of migrants living in this country work, pay taxes and consume, how can they be only a cost to society?

In the world of white Finnish privilege and anti-immigration sound bites this is plausible. As PS MP Tom Packalén and National Coalition Party MP Pia Kauma recently showed, it doesn’t matter if what you say is an outright fabrication since your aim is media attention at all costs. It doesn’t even matter it your unsubstantiated claims are proven wrong. Your claim has spread with the help of the media to the public. Mission accomplished.

What Putkonen’s figures and claims about migration reveal a systemic campaign against migrants and minorities for shameless political profit.

As Migrant Tales wrote recently, the figures presented by Putkonen are the PS and grossly exaggerated and one-sided. There is nothing in the PS claim how much growth migration brings to Finland.

A recent OECD report revealed that in Finland migration had boosted growth in 2011 by 0.16%, including pensions.

So what Putkonen and the PS are claiming is what they’ve been lobbying all along: migrants shouldn’t have any rights to collect social assistance like native Finns.

The social aid that most migrants enjoy in this country is the same that native Finns have.

Definition #13

To understanding the ludicrous claims of Putkonen and the PS  concerning “the cost of migration,” we can play fill-in-the blanks to grasp their absurd claim. All you need to do is replace the word ‘migrant’ with ‘woman.’ Certainly we could be even bolder: replace ‘migrant’ and ‘woman’ with all Finns who get social assistance.

Here’s an example from a quote on Ilta-Sanomat:

Putkonen now claims that the cost of migration is greater, about two billion euros.

Putkonen now claims that the cost of women is greater, about two billion euros.

Or: Putkonen now claims that the cost of our welfare state is greater, costing hundreds of billions of euros.

Attacking migrants is a cowardice act like sexism. In the same way that Putkonen makes his nonsensical claims, how would it sound if he said that since women have babies that costs Finland an arm and a leg?

He would never do that because women have won important rights in this country even if they still make about 20% less than men.

Migrants continue to be disenfranchised in Finland and they are being kept on short leashes with the help of  white Finnish privilege as Putkonen and the PS too commonly show.

See also:

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

PS’ Timo Soini of Finland looks more like a wolf and less like a sheep as April elections near

Posted on by Migrant Tales

With the help of one term, “cultural marxist,” Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini gave us the clearest-yet image of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Soini lashed out on his blog at the same-sex marriage lobby and particularly at Nasima Razmyar as “cultural marxists” after she compared the PS leader and Christian Democrat Päivi Räsänen as “conservative Islamists” for opposing same-sex marriage.

Parliament is expected to vote in November on a same-sex marriage bill in Finland. The PS and Christian Democrats have opposed such a bill.

The use of an antijihadist term like “cultural marxist” shows once again the ever-louder anti-immigration shift and hostility of the PS towards migrants as the April elections near.

According to Urban Dictionary, “culture marxist” implies the gradual destruction of our traditions in order to build a failed communist-like paradise as we saw in the Soviet Union. The term is used by far-right counterjihadists to alarm Europe of a takeover of the region by Islam.

The term was used countless of times in Anders Breivik’s manifesto on the day he killed in cold blood 77 people to save the West from Islam.

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Consensus has opened the door to the PS, a party with far right, anti-immigration, homophobic and nativist nationalistic roots.

 

Using a term like “cultural marxist” by Soini is further proof that the PS will continue to step up its attack on migrants and minorities in Finland as the April 19 elections near.

Contrary to the 2011 elections, which saw the PS become the country’s third-largest bloc in parliament, Soini is clearly worried about how to lure voters in 2015. In 2011 that was easy because of the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, a week before parliamentary elections.

If the EU and the euro zone are no longer issues as in 2011 that leaves only one that the PS  is shamelessly exploiting: immigration and Islam.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

 

When youth leaders of parties like the NCP of Finland are in the dark about cultural diversity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is sad, even unfortunate, that some of our future political leaders of the National Coalition Party (NCP) see Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity as a threat and the adaption of these newcomers and their children as an ethnocentric one-way affair. 

One of the first matters that these youth leaders would learn about the over 1.2 million Finns that emigrated from this country between 1860 and 1999 is that they were keen on maintaining in faraway lands their roots and ties with this country. They did this by establishing newspapers, printing presses, associations and even getting involved in labor movements in countries such as the United States.

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Migrant Tales has written a lot about the Susanna Koski and the Youth League of the NCP. Read full story here.

If we look up to those Finnish immigrants for not forgetting their cultural and linguistic roots, why are NCP and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* youth leaders hostile to migrants in this country who want to do the same?

Migrant Tales spoke briefly on the phone with Susanna Koski, the head of the Youth League of the NCP, which listed as two of its political aims in 2014 to do away with ethnic agitation laws and the ombudsman for minorities office. The Youth League of the NCP will meet on November 7-9 to draft a new set of goals for 2015, according to Koski.

“No comment,” she said concerning her stand on the ethnic agitation law and whether it should be included in the 2015 program.

It is surprising that youth leaders of Finland’s largest and third-largest political bloc in parliament, the NCP and PS, respectively, see cultural diversity as a threat.

Both the youth leagues of the NCP and PS lobbied to demote Finland’s second-official language, Swedish, to elective status at schools.

Meanwhile, the ministry of education and culture announced that it will grant the youth leagues of the NCP and PS 650,000 and under 30,000 euros, respectively, in aid, according to YLE.

One of the reasons why the Youth League of the PS was granted such a small sum of money was because their values concerning multiculturalism, or cultural diversity, wasn’t in line with state policy. The same question could be asked of the Youth League of the NCP and if its position on multiculturalism are in conflict with our official values.

The Youth League of the PS will appeal the matter.

If there is a factor that threatens to retard Finland’s progress as a modern Nordic welfare state in this century, it’s the provincial and intolerant world view of youth leagues of the NCP and PS.

Not understanding the role of immigration, integration and the need to integrate and make our society more inclusive to newcomers is like shooting oneself in the leg big time.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Migrants’ Rights Network: Note to Party leaders: Misleading voters about what can and can’t be done on immigration will still get you nowhere

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Don Flynn*

Emergency brakes and benefit caps were put on offer by party leaders this week. Both are intended to get across the message that immigration can be got back under control. But aren’t there bigger truths that we should be trying to get across, like how the movement of people is all a part of the ‘new normal’ of everyday life in the twenty-first century?

Näyttökuva 2014-10-28 kello 10.53.54

Read posting here.

 

Just as Clacton recedes into memory so Rochester looms up as the next thing to get excited about. It brings with it the dreadful thought that the entire run-up to the 2015 general election will be made up of a series by-elections provoked by Tory defections to the UKIP insurgents, ensuring a steady draft of oxygen to keep the embers of anti-Europeanism glowing fresh and bright for months to come.

What will this mean for the public conversation on immigration policy? Funnily enough their historic victory in the Essex seaside town earlier in the month could open up some interesting tensions even within UKIP’s seemingly intransigent ranks. The victorious defector from the Conservatives, Douglas Carswell, seems to have been at pains to make the point that strident anti-immigration is not really his bag during his interview in the Guardian last week.

But this line is unlikely to hold together the momentum of the UKIP charge. People veering in the direction of that party do so because they like its message on getting tough with immigrants. That is the lesson the leaders of the mainstream parties believe they are learning about the moods of the electorate, and their efforts to halt the contagion are addressed almost exclusively to this issue.

The Conservative response moved on a pace during the past week with David Cameron’s dramatic announcement that he was seeking an ‘emergency brake’ on migration from the EU. At the Tory conference at the beginning of the month he had claimed that reform of free movement rules was needed because immigration had “increased faster than we in this country wanted… at a level that was too much for our communities, for our labour markets.”

The difficulty with all of this is that there is precious little evidence of real substance that is likely to convince other European leaders of the need for the type of radical reform of free movement law that Mr Cameron appears to want. The most authoritative study of the impact of free movement on the UK labour market, published by the independent Migration Advisory Committee in July, pointed to the need for stronger inspection powers for regulatory bodies like the Gangmaster Licencing Agency, but found no evidence for the claims of overstrain made by the prime minister.

The report supported the view that public services like health and education had been stretched in parts of the country which had experienced migrant influxes. But other experts have pointed out that these could be remedied by strengthening the resources available to local and regional government to anticipate and plan for this type of inward migration.

The Rochester and Strood by-election, triggered by another Tory defection to Ukip and set to take place on 20 November, has brought Labour’s leader out into the open to declare his policy on immigration.

Mr Miliband’s strategy is focusing on the changes that he thinks are possible regarding border controls, access to welfare benefits, control of private sector employment agencies, and longer transition periods to full free movement rights for citizens of countries acceding to the EU.

As a measure of practical politics, limiting benefits has the virtue of promising voters a tough approach aimed at winning reform from other heads of government in areas of policy, which might just about be achievable. It seems clear that whilst the other EU leaders might be willing to discuss limiting rights to social security benefits, with much longer periods of qualification before these became payable, they are most unlikely to budge an inch on anything as radical as the outright refusal to allow EU nationals to take jobs in other countries, which would be the effect of an ‘emergency brake’.

But two questions still hang over the Labour strategy. The party has to anticipate that it will draw the criticism about measures such as border controls that check when people leave the country as well as enter, or limit entitlement to welfare benefits for longer periods. These would do very little to reduce the numbers of people currently coming to exercise their free movement rights. The volume of migration is driven by the availability of employment opportunities in the UK, and not the prospect of receiving a social security payment. As long as the economy can continue its phenomenal success in creating large numbers of new jobs whilst the rest of Europe flatlines, then inward migration will remain an issue for those who worry about numbers.

The missing ingredient in all these attempts to box clever on immigration is that of preparedness to actually tell voters the truth about why the world is standing on the threshold of a new period of high migration. Immigration is regarded by many people as a sort of accident that the country stumbled into around about ten years ago when politicians took their eyes off the ball and allowed more people to enter as workers and students. Solving the problem for them requires little more than reversing these errors and returning to the controls of the 1990s and earlier.

This approach ignores the fact that a whole new type of economy has been put in place over this period, and that it is not only the UK but the entire industrialised world that is struggling with the problem of how to manage immigration in this epoch of globalisation.

A great deal of the anxieties which currently lead many people to take an anti-immigrant stance would be reduced if a concerted effort was made by the politicians of all parties, in alliance with grassroots civil society organisations working on issues of impact and cohesion, setting out to make the case that what we have now quite simply constitutes the ‘new normal’ of life in the twenty-first century.

The allure of the so-called insurgents lies in the view that ‘stop the world, I want to get off’ really is a practical policy option. It isn’t, and it is instructive that even UKIP’s recent high profile recruits are prepared, though very tentatively, to voice that fact.

This rejection of pessimism needs to be reinforced by people who are trying to make mainstream politics credible once again, capable of addressing the problems which people really face in their lives today, and not going off into the symbolism and myths encouraged by identity politics and anti-immigration stances.

The ‘emergency brake’ will not stop Mr Cameron hitting the brick wall that looms up so prominently for his political choice. For Labour, a conversation about the policy option details is all very well, but if it supports the delusion that immigration is undesirable and needs to be pushed down it will be as self-defeating as anything the party tried under the terms of the ‘five year plan’ initiated in 2005 when it was clear that immigration was becoming an unpopular issue.

Instead, telling the truth about the new normal of migration in our modern world really is the best chance we have got to stop the slide into evermore desperate and dangerous types of politics.

Read original posting here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

*Don Flynn, the MRN Director, leads the organisation’s strategic development and coordinates MRN’s policy and project work. He is a regular and sought-after speaker at conferences, seminars and lectures on behalf of MRN.

The source of the 1.5 billion-euro-claim for “the cost of migration” is none other than the PS

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini, party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo and Matti Putkonen gave a press conference Friday where they claimed that “the cost of migration” and development aid totaled up to 2.7 billion euros. 

Migrant Tales wrote that when these figures were drawn out of a PS hat, not one reporter at the press conference asked how they had arrived at such a figure after Slunga-Poutsalo claimed that migration costs the country annually 1-1.5 billion euros and development aid 1.2 billion euros.

Only one paper, however, tabloid Iltalehti, did some investigating and approached the PS with that all-important question: How? As expected, the source was Putkonen of the PS.

When approached by the Iltalehti reporter, Slunga-Poutsalo referred the reporter to a PS lobby group, Suomen Perusta, which said they weren’t the source of such claims.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

Putkonen boasts being the source: “I claim that the figure [cost of migration] is 1-1.5 billion euros a year. I challenge the officials to tell me if I’m wrong or right.”

Putkonen added that the 1-1.5 billion euro figure comprised of matters such as travel expenses, housing, clothing, daily allowances or monthly welfare payments, interpreters, cost of civil servants, asylum centers and other expenses.

So the claim by the PS, which shouldn’t surprise us, is a bunch of malarkey.

In another story, Iltalehti cites official figures from the ministry of employment and the economy, which place costs at 203 million euros.

As can be seen, calculating cost is not a simple matter. How do you take into account those refugees that establish businesses in the future and create jobs?

Certainly if you are an anti-immigration party your goal is to inflate as much as possible costs, which is what the PS is doing.

One of the big problems in the claim by the PS is what it refers to as “the cost of migration.” Is Putkonen referring to the cost of refugees or the total cost of migration to Finland? How can “the cost of migration” be so high if the grand majority of migrants work, consume and pay taxes in this country?

A recent study by the OECD that revealed that migration had boosted growth in 2011 by 0.16% including pensions.

Let’s hope that national media challenges in its editorials the populist claim by the PS that aims to maintain a climate of suspicion against migrants in this country.

All it needs is a critical two-part question: How did you arrive at such a figure and what are your sources?

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

An effective way of putting racism in context in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There are many ways to understand ethnic hatred and racism in Finland. One of these is by substituting the word ‘migrant’ for your ethnic group and/or ‘woman’ in a text that’s aimed at fueling ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Let’s take the recent claims of two politicians, MPs Tom Packalén and Pia Kauma, to see how passions are fueled or can be smothered. 

Original claim by Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Packalén.

Before: Gangs made up only of young people with migrant backgrounds said their motives are racist because their aim is to hurt white Finns.

After: Gangs made up of only young white Finns said their motives are racist because their aim is to hurt migrants and minorities.

Näyttökuva 2014-10-26 kello 10.24.24

Before and after. Racism is like the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) mushroom. It looks beautiful when it fruits and may invite some to eat its hallucinogenic poison. Time, like racism, reveals the true face of this mushroom when it ages and dies.

 

As we all know, Packalén pulled a fast one on the media and public. The problem with the PS MP’s claim is that it just isn’t true and an inflated exaggeration. Even so, his claims have spread fear and labelled non-white Finns, encouraging even neo-Nazi groups like the Kansallinen Vastarinta and members of the PS to patrol the streets of Helsinki.

Here’s National Coalition Party MP Kauma’s claim.

Before: Migrant mothers buy new baby carriages with social aid.

After: White Finnish mothers buy new baby carriages with social aid.

Like with Packalén, Kauma’s claim is stuffed as well with lots of baloney.

Even if these two MPs made up these stories in light of the April parliamentary elections, is one point. But the other very important one is that they succeeded at getting a lot of media coverage, which was their original aim.

Check out the two postings below on how by just changing a few key words in a vengeful and racist text reveals the underhanded motives of the writer and brings the topic closer to home:

If you still are trying to grasp these two disgraceful examples, why not replace migrant or ethnic group with ‘woman.’

Remember how urban tales about women were and still may be rampant in Finland? Women can’t drive, they’re poor in math, all they know what to do is have babies and cook…This is the exact anatomy of racist discourse in Finland today. Migrants live off welfare, they’re lazy, sly and shouldn’t be trusted…

How many generations did such outright lies about women still continue to oppress them?

Ever figure out how it feels to be in a university math class and be the only women? Think about how much pressure there is on that woman and how much energy she must expend to prove that she’s just as good as her male classmates.

This exact feeling is what many migrants feel in society. They’re constantly trying to prove that they are just as good and worthy of being treated as equal members of society.

Thus there is nothing harmless when politicians reinforce prejudices about migrants. On the contrary – it is a violent act that aims through power to dominate others.

Add to the latter the near-silence of society and a bigger picture of the social ill emerges.

Racism is not only costly to society but especially to the victim.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Finnish anti-immigration sound bites + near-silence of society = peril

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some soap operas are so sweet and melodramatic that they form cavities in your brain. In the same way, the message of anti-immigration and xenophobic parties is so outrageous that they leave a whole in your head.

 

Timo Soini and the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* which became Finland’s third-largest parliamentary bloc in 2011, are appealing to voters on two crucial issues in next April’s elections: migration and development aid, which they claim are costing Finland 2.7 billion euros, according to the PS. 

While it’s not surprising that a party that promotes xenophobia and has its roots in far-right ideology is targeting migrants and development aid, what is a continuing mystery is how they arrived at such calculations.

The figures were given at a press conference on Friday where PS’ chairman Soini, party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo and Matti Putkonen were present.

While there were other topics discussed at the press conference by the PS members, it is surprising that not one journalist asked how they arrived at such costs (1.5 billion euros for migration and 1.2 billion euros for development aid). The latter figures were given as a solution on how to cut Finland’s budget deficit and spur economic growth.

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Read full story here. Eastern European migrants in Britain added 5 billion pounds to the economy, according to another BBC story.

 

With such figures and with such a xenophobic message, the PS is back to its favorite political fix: scapegoating.

What remains unclear is how attacking and scapegoating migrants is going to actually help Finland raise itself from its present economic slump. Some economist claim that it would do just the opposite: deepen our economic woes.

Certainly it’s difficult for a party that still believes in Social Darwinism to see migration and cultural diversity in a positive light. If i would have been present at the press conference, I would have asked Soini or Slunga-Poutsalo to name one country where migration has failed and been costly.

Just like adding 1 + 1 = 2, it’s clear that migration fuels growth as this BBC article shows. There was also a recent study by the OECD that revealed that migration had boosted growth in 2011 by 0.16% including pensions.

So why is the PS saying that migration is a burden for Finland? While in a different historical context, their aim is no different to what the Nazis did in the 1920s. They saw great potential in capitalizing on racial anti-Semitism as a mass political force.

When the PS scapegoats migrants, development aid, the public sector, the Greens and environmental policy, it not only shows its anti-Keynes side, but its similarity to parties like the ultra-conservative Tea Party as well as Thatcherism and Reaganomics.

John Maynard Keynes, who was one of the most influential economists in the past and even the present century, believed that during economic slumps it was the government that should step in and restore confidence in markets even if it meant increasing  budget deficits.  Austerity would only worsen matters.

It’s clear that the PS proposal to lower the cost of migration and development aid is meant for populist public consumption but also to help maintain a climate of suspicion and mistrust of  migrants and minorities. Certainly sensible Finns, who are the majority in this country, don’t want to follow the PS’s xenophobic path.

Finns and especially migrants and minorities should not stand idle in the face of such xenophobic sound bytes by parties like the PS but openly challenge them.

Certainly if we want to go down a ruinous path that will cause extreme hardships on Finland, the PS may be the party you are seeking to vote for in the April 2015 elections.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

 

 

Finnish NCP youth league gives thumbs down to cultural diversity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Remember the proposals that the Youth League of the National Coalition Party (NCP) made last year concerning the type of society they’d like Finland to be in the future? Some of the many proposals that raised eyebrows and created quite a media storm back then included plans to scrap the Ombudsman for Minorities as well as ethnic agitation laws.

If last year’s proposals got them in hot water, their latest “wish list” could be criticized for what has been omitted or doesn’t say. For example, there is no mention whatsoever about Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity but it does favor plans to undermine religious freedom. If the youth league had its way, it would drop religion classes for migrants and concentrate more on teaching Finnish at schools.

Isn’t that what happens today?

 

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Read full NCP youth league program (in Finnish) here.

 

It is odd that those that drafted these proposals believe that by not teaching a non-Lutheran religion at school will automatically enhance these migrants’ and minorities’ chances of speaking Finnish.

There’s nothing new in this proposal. Youth Wing NCP former head, Wille Rydman, said the same thing when he suggested that multiculturalism should be substituted for Finnish-language courses.

Another proposal by the youth league is to deport those migrants who have been sentenced for a crime and that the government should do everything possible to invite skilled labor to Finland.

What the Youth Wing of the NCP means by inviting skilled labor to this country is that labor markets should give employers better opportunities to hire cheap labor.

It shouldn’t come to any surprise that the Youth Wing of the NCP has striking ideological similarities with the Perussuomalaiset.*

Both are in the business of coercion and domination of migrants by encouraging future Uncle Toms, or mamus.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Nura Farah: A blooming flower with a pen that many aimed to destroy

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There is an interesting interview of Nura Farah, Finland’s first Somali-born writer, who speaks openly about growing up as a black person in this country from the 1990s, when even middle-school teachers took part in the racist bullying of non-white Finns.

Racist bullying and racism are white privilege weapons used by this society to destroy another person by wiping out his or her self-esteem.

Migrant Tales has published a number of stories about racist bullying at Finnish schools. While it’s clear that some Finnish teachers didn’t take part in this type of school vigilante behavior, those who did are a shame to our school system and society, especially those who remained silent.

One of the problems of the 1990s concerning racism and racist bullying was that it wasn’t even seen as a problem at schools. If it occurred, it was given low priority by the teacher, school and society.

A story by YLE (in Finnish) tells about how hostile this society was to some non-white Finns and migrants during the 1990s, when our migrant population started to grow rapidly.

Racist bullying doesn’t end after you leave the school but can continue in the town where the victim grew up. And why shouldn’t racist bullying continue to be a problem at our schools and society? Aren’t National Coalition Party MP Pia Kauma and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Tom Packalén unfortunate recent examples of this type of behavior?

It should be made clear that racism and racist bullying at school are hostile acts that aim to destroy the victim’s self-esteem and shatter him or her into tiny pieces. You’re not supposed to ever pick up those pieces of your shattered self.

But you can be defiant and strong and do something bold like accepting yourself.

This is what Farah did when she was 20.

 

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

Farah’s family moved to the eastern Helsinki neighborhood of Kontula in the 1990s. She was 13 years old.

According to her, racism in the 1990s was terrible. Even some middle-school teachers took part in the bullying using the n-word freely and even asking in class why don’t Somalis go back to where they came from.

Somalia has been gripped by a terrible civil war since 1991, when then de facto President Siad Barre was toppled and fled the country.

Another very important message that Farah gives is that children born in Finland, irrespective if they come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds,  shouldn’t be made to feel like outsiders. She said that the most important matter for third-culture children is to learn the language well and to get involved.

One important step in the latter direction is, in my opinion, to stop using terms like ‘pupil with migrant background,’ or maahanmuuttajataustainen,  to label non-white or third-culture students at school. In today’s strong anti-Otherness context, such labels have a tendency to remind the pupil that he or she is an outsider.

It’s clear that with writers like Farah we’re taking those first important steps in ensuring that our children and grandchildren don’t get treated in the same way as some of us did at school.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Migrants’ Rights Network: Eurosceptics make all the noise, but the real case for free movement and migration has yet to be made

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Don Flynn*

David Cameron’s vow last week to have ‘one last go’ at changing EU migration rules have dominated discussion in recent days. Commission president Manuel Jose Barroso’s comments are welcome, but the positive case for free movement needs to be made by principled politicians as well as EU officials.

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Read full posting here.

 

The crisis on the centre-right of UK politics, provoked by the rise of Nigel Farage’s UKIP, ratcheted up another notch last week. David Cameron pledged to have ‘one last go’ at limiting the right of citizens to free movement within the EU.

Mr Cameron made the promise during a visit to Kent, where local politics is gearing itself for a by-election in the Rochester and Strood constituency next month.  The contest was triggered by the defection of Tory MP Mark Reckless to UKIP at the beginning of October.

The exact demand the prime minister is putting together on EU migration is not yet known, though there has been speculation that it might comprise a new numerical limit affecting the numbers of EU nationals allowed to stay and work in the UK.  According to the Sunday Times, Cameron is planning to achieve this by withholding the issue of national insurance numbers to EU immigrants with low skills.

This turn of events seems to have excited hard-line Eurosceptics in all parties. One prominent politician, who happens to be the coalition Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, interpreted the PM’s words as‘lighting a fire’ under the EU.  UKIP leader Nigel Farage declared the promise to bring down migration to be ‘vacuous’, arguing that this could never be done whilst the UK remains a part of the EU.

Mr Cameron faces a real problem here. He now needs to curtail the insurgency on the right wing of his party, whilst coming up with a more realistic list of demands for EU reform.

Jose Manuel Barroso

In the past the outgoing president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has enjoyed a degree of support amongst prominent European leaders and officials for some reform of free movement rules.  Back in May 2011, he was prepared to consider a power to allow EU free movement to be temporarily suspended in emergencies. However, his willingness to consider changes of this sort seems to have sapped away in recent months.

During his current visit to the UK, Barroso has signalled his frustration with the direction of travel within the Conservative party. In the past considered a strong anglophile, Barroso has made it clear that limiting the rights of EU nationals to seek work in the UK would directly contravene basic EU laws.

Speaking on the BBC Andrew Marr Show on Sunday Barroso said, “I cannot comment on specific suggestions that have not yet been presented. What I can tell you is that any kind of arbitrary cap seems to be not in conformity with Europeans laws. For us it is very important – the principle of non-discrimination.”

Already there are signs that Mr Cameron’s plans have been thrown into disarray by Barroso’s comments.  The Conservative party had previously indicated that we could expect a major speech by the PM before Christmas, which would lay out his proposed EU migration reforms. However, the party is now briefing that this may not take place and that Cameron’s pitch to EU government for reforms could be kept under wraps for the time being.

Case for migration

Political games of this sort will have consequences for migrant communities across the UK.  Though it seems clear that freedom of movement is continuing to aid a tentative and fragile recovery from the recession without hampering the employment prospects of native workers, the government has still not worked out how to translate this into a ‘feel good’ factor for voters about EU migration.

Whilst the Conservative party leadership’s proposals remain unclear, we can expect Eurosceptic camps across the parties will continue to ramp up their anti-immigration rhetoric in the run-up to the next election. But beyond the centre right, no other significant players within mainstream politics seem to be making the case for EU free movement rights.

There are plenty of arguments to be made here. Both economic pragmatism and political principle suggest that migration from the EU is beneficial and ought to command the support of at least a significant proportion of voters.

The best that can be hoped for from the current situation is that it might finally provoke a reaction from those who support EU free movement. We are long overdue hearing from politicians across all the parties who have properly examined the facts on immigration and who know that it plays a critically role in the UK.  Will they at last come up with a principled defence of the right of people coming to the country to work and contribute?

If so, we expect they will offer up messages that will quickly be taken up and amplified by organisations, interest groups and individual citizens who know that immigration is an essential component of life in the modern world – these perspectives could yet win the day when it comes to voting in the general election in May 2015.

Read original story here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

*Don Flynn, the MRN Director, leads the organisation’s strategic development and coordinates MRN’s policy and project work. He is a regular and sought-after speaker at conferences, seminars and lectures on behalf of MRN.