Month: April 2015

Kadar Gelle: Perussuomalaisten tilastokikkailu paljastui – Minne katosi median vastuu?

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Kadar Gelle

Perussuomalaisten ajatuspaja Suomen Perusta julkaisi muutama viikko sitten selvityksen, jossa esitettiin laskelmia maahanmuuton kustannuksista Suomen julkiselle taloudelle. Selvityksen mukaan jotkut maahanmuuttajaryhmät tuottavat suurempia kustannuksia kuin toiset. Työn perässä maahanmuuttava länsieurooppalainen on erilaisessa tilanteessa kuin sodan jaloista Suomeen tuleva pakolainen. Tämä sinänsä ilmiselvä tieto on kuitenkin perussuomalaisten käsissä rakennettu ennen kaikkea rasistisen perusviestin tukijalaksi.

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Selvityksenloppupäätelmä nojaa muun muassa ilmiselvän tarkoitushakuiseen väestörajaukseen, jolla vanhimmat ikäryhmät siivotaan pois tilastoista. Kun tarkasteluun otetaan Suomen aikuisväestö kokonaisuudessaan, kantaväestön nettovaikutus julkiseen talouteen on raportin omilla luvuilla laskettuna maahanmuuttajia huonompi. Lapsesta aiheutuu yhteiskunnalle yhteneväiset kulut riippumatta siitä, onko hän maahanmuuttaja tai kantaväestöön kuuluva. Aalto-yliopistolaisten ylläpitämän Informaatiomuotoilu-blogin kirjoituksen mukaan lisäksi perussuomalaisten käyttämät luvut ovat harhaanjohtavia jo otannan osalta.

On hyvin hälytyttävää, ettei media analysoi juurikaan uutisiaan, vaan julkaisee esimerkiksi Perussuomalaisten helposti kyseenalaisiksi todennettavia olevia tutkimuksia sellaisenaan. Onko kyse sitten median omasta ennakkoluuloisesta maailmannäkemyksestä vai silkasta ammattitaidottomuudesta? Tästä voisi saada hyvän tutkimusaiheen. Voi spekuloida, että kyse on yhdistelmästä osaamattomuutta ja klikkailujen keräämisestä rahan takia. Vaikuttaa siltä, että perussuomalaisten kiihkoiluja ei enää uskalleta journalistien toimesta haastaa. Voi tietysti myös olla, että osa journalisteista on ennakkoluuloisia maahanmuuttajia kohtaan. En tiedä, onko näin, mutta vaikea on löytää muita ymmärrettäviä selityksiä näin ponnettomalle journalismille, jota tämän rasistisen selvityksen julkistamisen yhteydessä saimme nähdä.

lkuperäisen blogikirjoituksen voi lukea tästä.

Tämä blogikirjoitus julkaistiin Migrant Talesissä luvalla.

Henning van der Hoeven: Mindset

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The image created in my mind about Finland, and the Finns is based on the little that I know about their history like the Winter War against the Russians. Hell, they beat Napoleon and Hitler but guess what, Finland with just a few good men, had beaten the big bear at their own game.

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A vocational school offering guidance to students in Mikkeli asked they’re interested in nature, plants and flowers? Studying gardening would be an interesting profession.

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Finland’s scapegoating culture and climate

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A good example of Finland’s xenophobic climate is a citizens’ initiative that would hasten the deportation of sentenced foreigners, according to YLE in English. The minimum number of signatures required for such initiatives to be debated and voted on in parliament is 50,000.

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On Wednesday morning the citizens’ initiative had 52,037 signatures.

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My identity is mine, not yours, so stop labeling me according to your prejudices

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Don’t let anyone, no one, ever define who you are. That’s your right and never give it away.

Why do some public services like the police even some migrants believe they have the right to define who are? The police do it constantly. Every time they label a person or group as a person with “foreign” or “migrant” background they are effectively relegating that person publicly to second- or third-class status in society. 

Like in neighboring Sweden, where “a person with migrant background” is code for non-European or non-white, in Finland, it is used to remind you that white Finns run this country politically, culturally, economically and socially.

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If a flag represents a country what represents a person’s personality and his or her identity?

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UPDATE (Apr. 13): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

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Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity please go to this link.

Apr. 13

Muutos 2011 racist ad (Vantaan Sanomat)

What’s wrong with this ad? Coded racism in the media is common but being outright racist, like the what is written on Jari Leino’s Muutos 2011 ad is less common. Even if Vantaan Sanomat is a community paper, certainly it must abide to some standards. The ad states: Finland is for the Finns; Somalia is for the Somalis; advance vote Somalis back to their country. The editor of Vantaan Sanomat, A-P Pietilä, apologized for the ad but was his apology crocodile tears? Pietilä has a long track record stretching back to the 1990s of having strong anti-immigration opinions. Was publishing Leino’s ad a “mistake” or a lowly stunt to get public attention for the paper and of Pietilä’s anti-immigration views through a far-right Muutos 2011 candidate? All of these are valid questions that the media hasn’t even bothered to ask.

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 See original online ad here.

Nasima Razmyar: A powerful voice of Finland’s ever-growing culturally diverse society

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In the last four years since the 2011 parliamentary elections, Nasima Razmyar, 30, has developed tremendously as a politician to become a strong voice of hope of Finland’s ever-growing culturally diverse society.

Razmyar, a candidatae for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) who lost getting elected by about 100 votes in the last election, vows to work tirelessly to change the present anti-cultural diversity climate presently gripping Finland.

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Nasima Razmyar speaking to a group of students at Otava Folk High School in 2014.

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Defining white Finnish privilege #21: Who can be a Finn?

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A Finn is anyone with Finnish citizenship, right?  Citizenship can be obtained through birth (jus sanguinis) or naturalization. Even if this should be clear as day, certain public services like the police continue to group Finns according to their so-called “foreign” or “immigrant” backgrounds.

I don’t have any problems with my foreign background even if I am a Finn. However, labeling me in such a way in such an anti-Other environment puts matters in a different context.

Is the label person with foreign or immigrant background an inclusive word that promotes social equality with white Finns? If it doesn’t what is it’s role then? Is it to rank non-white Finns as second- or third-class Finns?

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Finns learned white privilege at school from a very early age when learning the alphabet. Saamis were called “Lapps” and an example of the letter “n” was the n-word. Source: Suohpanterror

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Minister Carl Haglund: Sports is an underused yet vital tool for migrant inclusion

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A group of 60 experts and others interested in the field of sports and social issues agreed with Minister of Sports Carl Haglund, who stated Friday in Helsinki that sports is an underused tool for social participation and action.

“It’s a shame [that sports is so underused],” said Haglund, “since it would be a very powerful tool that’s fun as well [to help migrants become a part of society].”

The minister stressed as well the importance of organizations representing migrants participating in government sports programs.

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From left to right: Daryl Taylor, Nicky Verschraegen, Obiora Aniche, Carl Haglund, Peter K. Kariuki, Ayisat Success Yusuf and Yvette Ayivi.

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Helsingin Sanomat apologizes again for Estonian story but what about JSN’s Uimonen?

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There’s an interesting story on Saturday’s Helsingin Sanomat where editor Kaius Niemi apologizes (again) for a story published on Estonians earlier this month after it become clear that a complaint had been made to the Council of Mass Media in Finland (JSN). 

The story that was removed asked readers to vote for the best nickname for Estonians. Some offensive names for Estonians that readers could vote on included virukset (virus = a person who is half Estonian and half Russian), kroonit (they’re so much after money) and retiisit (during Soviet occupation Estonians were red from the outside but white inside).

While the JSN aims at ensuring good professional standards in Finland by journalists and the national media, should JSN head Risto Uimonen take a look at the mirror for statements he made in January after the Charlie hebdo attack in Paris?

Uimonen was quoted as saying on Yle in English that what happened in Paris was an example of a clash of civilizations between the West and the Islamic world.

“This is a strong attack on democracy and freedom of speech,” he was quoted as saying on Helsingin Uutiset. “It pits two understandings of democracy, western and Islamic, against each other–and they can’t be reconciled.”

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Continue reading “Helsingin Sanomat apologizes again for Estonian story but what about JSN’s Uimonen?”