Toinen tärkeä mutta huolestuttava kirjoitus Adam Al-Sawadista.
“Lyhyesti sanottuna arkielämästäni on tullut sellaista, että minusta tuntuu että yhteiskunta työntää minua koko ajan poispäin. Että en kuulu tänne, että yhteiskunta hylkii minua, että minulta yritetään viedä kotimaani ja turvani,” hän kirjoittaa Facebook seinälle.
Lukekaa.
Continue reading “Facebook: Tämä on avunhuuto, koska voimani hiipuvat vähä vähältä”
In Finland, we have had a number of arson attacks against asylum reception centers. We even have one substitute MP of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party who wrote that “god had answered his prayers” when a building, which was supposed to house asylum seekers, was razed to the ground earlier this month.
Does Finland play down crimes carried by their nationals but magnifies those committed by asylum seekers, migrants, and minorities?
Green League chairman Ville Niinistö said during the weekend that the police doesn’t take attacks against reception centers seriously enough. If such attacks were carried out against senior homes or day care centers the reaction of the police service would be different, according to him.
Why don’t the police and politicians brand arsonists who attack asylum reception centers as terrorists? I wouldn’t even want to think what our reaction would be if an asylum seeker carried out similar acts. Why does the prime minister call an emergency crisis meeting because of a suspected rape case when there are thousands of shameful rape cases that go unreported and are committed daily by suspected white Finns?
The post on Samuel Turtianen’s Facebook wall offers us more hypocracy. The posting was published on PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s, MPs Olli Immonen’s, Teuvo Hakkarainen,’s and Laura Huhtasaari’s wall, all of whom are well-known Islamophobes.
The PS is a government party that shares power with the Center Party and National Coalition Party.
Turtiainen appears to be a supporter of the PS.
He writes:
“Dear Citizens, those of you who have taken to some extent personal risks in acting and eliminating already functioniong and planned asylum reception centers. Your work is and has been in many respects important to our independence and defending our security. The hands of the police are politically tied, which means that the people have to act on their own. These acts have thanks to the media became widely known to all of us and we know what’s the question. Is the time right to expand our actions to the enemy’s main centers, where this [asylum reception center policy] is managed. In the shared article it become clear that our worst enemy [Finnish Red Cross] cheers [a person down] when a cirtizen expersses her personal fears.”
The “article,” or opinion piece by Tiina Palovuori, a PS member, was about her recent visit to an asylum reception center in Tampere. She asked if she had to take precautions because she feared being raped.
When we label Others terrorists and criminals we permit scapegoating to live anther day and justify our exclusiveness, entitlement or white Finnish privilege. It makes us feel like saints.
The mixed response of the police, politicians, and the general public in the face of ever-growing xenophobia in this country reveals the extent of our own moral problem.
In the Finnish language, it would read something like the following below:
* 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 is Finland’s first published writer with Somali roots. She moved to Finland as a refugee in the early 1990s when she was 13 years old and when one of her countries became absorbed in a costly and painful civil war that continues to date.
Her first book, Aavikon tyttäret (Daughters of the desert), published by Otava last year, gives a glimpse of the lives of women in Somalia during that country’s struggle for independence in 1940-60.
Apart from being the first “Somali” writer to publish in the Finnish language, her latest milestone as a writer was winning in December the 2015 Suomi-palkkinnon award, which is given by the ministry of education to aspiring and established artists and writers.
This year’s prize was 24,700 euros.
“I’m not the only one who’s got the award there were others [like writer and film director Hassan Blasim and artist Abdel Abidin],” said Farah with a hint of humility. “This year’s [Suomi-palkinnon] awards reflect support by the ministry of education for multiculturalism.”
Farah said that there are many challenges as Finnish society becomes ever-culturally diverse. She believes that multiculturalism can work, but it’s important that migrants and minorities don’t isolate themselves from the rest of society.
“We live in difficult times these days,” she continued. “It’s even scary and I sometimes feel that we’ve returned back to the 1990s [when racism was more public].”
According to Farah, one of the problems that Finland should acknowledge today is that social exclusion is a problem we must challenge. She said that even if you were born in this country to non-Finnish parents you’re still not accepted as an equal member of society never mind as a “real” Finn.
Continue reading “Writer Nura Farah is one of the bright hopes of multicultural Finland”Kati van der Hoeven-Lepistö
“Isn’t this world magnificent and so incredibly beautiful?” What a wonderful and perfectly balanced planet that can maintain an unimaginable variety of all kinds and sorts of lives. Just think about this, all this has been made with no human intelligence. In fact, the planet gives life a chance to exist.
Following the path of evolution humans have become so intelligent (so arrogant) that, he thinks that he can control the planet itself. Humans seem to have forgotten that they were not who created this world, but that it is this the world that allowed them (us) to exist.
Scientist want to learn more about life, the planet and the cosmos how it all works from a technical point of view. This is all very interesting, good to know. Knowledge and understanding are valuable things. With all this knowledge, we humans still seem to be unable to live our lives as it is intended.
Continue reading “Kati van der Hoeven-Lepistö: Peace and harmony”
Koko Hubara
Kirjoitan tätä suoraan blogipostauskenttään, sydän murskana ja silmien takana itku, joka ei enää edes tule ulos.
Minä haluan tietää, miksi minä olen painajainen. Mikä se painajainen on.
Onko se painajainen se, että minun vanhempani ovat saaneet aikanaan kokea niin syvän rakkauden toisiaan kohtaan, että he halusivat mennä naimisiin ja perustaa perheen. Onko se painajainen se, että he halusivat muuttaa Suomeen, koska täällä meidän perheellämme on paremmat ja turvallisemmat oltavat. Onko se painajainen se, että minä synnyin raskausviikolla 32 ja jäin henkiin, koska täällä on niin hyvä terveydenhuolto. Onko se painajainen se, että meillä oli kotona yksi jumala, mutta joulu ja hanukka, kaksi pääsiäistä, vai se, että me emme sekoittaneet maitoa ja lihaa samalla aterialla. Onko se painajainen se, että se koti oli ihan tavallinen omistusomakotitalo ihan tavallisessa lähiössä.
Vai onko se painajainen se, että tänään minä heräsin elossa ja lähdin lapsen kanssa pyöräretkelle Isoon Vasikkasaareen. Söin lihapullia ja muusia, join lasin rosé-viiniä, lojuin hiekkarannalla, puhuin ystävän kanssa pojista. Onko se painajainen se, että ihoni on tummempi kuin ystäväni, lapseni on tummempi kuin ystäväni lapsi. Onko se se, että paluumatkalla pysähdyin Hesarin Alepaan ja ostin banaaneja, maitoa, Angry Birds -jukurttia ja neilikkakimpun. Vai se, että katselin youtubesta junavideoita, luin (taas) iltasaduksi Kuka lohduttaisi Nyytiä, lauloin ensin Tuiki, tuiki tähtösen, sitten Numi, numi yaldatin.
Ja nyt kirjoitan tätä. Tämäkö on se painajainen.
Social Democratic Party (SDP) MEP Liisa Jaakonsaari gives a good interview to Helsingin Sanomat about the government’s 80-point plan to tighten immigration policy that not only targets asylum seekers but impacts negatively the whole migrant and minority community of Finland.
According to Jaakonsaari, 70 of the 80 points in the government’s plan has the stamp of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. If this is the case, no wonder Finland is having difficulty in focusing on more pressing matters like jump-starting economic growth and creating jobs.
Like the SDP MEP correctly pointed out, the big picture of the new policy is clear: Asylum seekers shouldn’t come to Finland because they’re not welcome.
Imagine, we already have an underclass of people in this country that are so disenfranchised that Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government can even propose, with a poker face, shelving indefinitely their basic civil and human rights. This is happening in a country that takes seriously human rights and brags about social equality.
Migrant Tales wrote recently:
The government now hopes with the 80-point plan to not only make life difficult for asylum seekers, and in turn for all migrants and minorities in this country, but introduce policy changes that are unconstitutional. PS Social Welfare Minister Hanna Mäntylä has been eager to lower subsidies to asylum seekers that get a residence permit.
Asylum-seekers, migrants, and minorities aren’t the only one’s feeling the brunt of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government, which is comprised by the PS, Center Party and National Coalition Party. Finns who are pensioners, unemployed and rely on social welfare are the target of massive social welfare cuts that will make their lives harder.
Jaakonsaari said that giving a temporary residence permit to those that get asylum in Finland is a good example of PS anti-immigration ideology. Even if it wasn’t pointed out in the Helsingin Sanomat interview, the idea to offer temporary residence permits comes from Norway, where the anti-immigration populist Progress Party (FrP) shares power with Conservative Party (Høyre).
The Finnish media hasn’t for some reason connect the dots, but nationalist-populist parties in the Nordic region are following each other’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies on how to tighten and make life as hard as possible for asylum seekers and their respective migrant communities.
What’s the solution? There is none except that as long as the PS are in government, the anti-immigration climate in Finland will not improve but get worse. Hostility against migrants and cultural diversity is what makes the PS tick politically.
Don’t expect anything to improve in the short-run either.
Massive spending cuts by the government and tighter immigration policy will encourage migrants and refugees to compete and fight against each other and against poor Finns for ever-meager resources. But mark my words: The more space that is given to the PS politically the more hostility there will be against asylum seekers, migrants and our ever-culturally diverse society.
Even if SDP leader Antti Rinne is quoted as saying that he backs and considers government plans to tighten immigration policy “a very good idea,” such a stance is a big mistake. We saw this type of mimicking of the PS in 2011 with poor consequences for the Social Democrats.
Continue reading “Is Finland swapping Nordic values like social equality for social inequality?”
Don Flynn*
Halfway through December seems like a good time to sketch out some ideas on what 2015 might come to mean in a history of immigration which has yet to be written.
My provisional take is that it will come to be seen as the year in which the movement of people into and out of the country became finally and indissolubly Europeanised. There are circumstances in which we could easily imagine this to be a good thing, with progressive, forward-thinking governments working together to see how the movement of people is going to play its role in promoting sustainable growth and the welfare of populations, while at the same time cementing human rights and fairness right the way across the system.
Sadly this isn’t the way in which immigration has been considered by governments for a long time. The resulting dysfunction has meant that Europe has become associated in the minds of many with turmoil and threat. The image of desperate refugees landing on the Greek islands; the bodies of children washed up on holiday beaches; people pushed back by thuggish police action on the borders of Hungary; or the migrants living in the squalor of the ‘jungle’ camps in Calais will probably be the abiding memories of the past year for many.
The truth is that these chaotic scenes have arisen for reasons which have less to do with the sheer press of numbers than with the utter failure of the European authorities to anticipate the inevitable flow of people away from the war zones which now stretch in great conjoined arcs across the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and into North Africa.
Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism has been updated throughout the year. Too many stories that appear in the Finnish media exemplify poor and sloppy journalism, especially when they cover racism and our ever-growing culturally diverse society. The editorial published below by Lahti-based Etelä-Suomen Sanomat is a rare example of spot-on journalism in Finland.
To see examples of poor and shoddy journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.
Häpeäksi Lahdelle – (Etelä-Suomen Sanomat)
What’s so good about this editorial? Kalle Aaltonen is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party Lahti city councilman who likes to spread anti-immigration rhetoric to get attention. Each insult that he throws appears to boomerang back to him with a provocation. On Wednesday, he appeared to accept the latest challenge. He didn’t find a new provocation that challenged him but probably the last nail on his political coffin. He wrote on his Facebook page that the Red Cross could go “f**k itself as well as all of you other wankers who have made it possible/permitted Finns’ kindness and taxes to be misused.” The PS will decide Wednesday whether to sack Aaltonen from the party. In the face of these irresponsible statements by a city councilman, Etelä-Suomen Sanomat took leadership and denounced Aaltonen’s latest rant. Too often we’ve seen the opposite in Finland when the national media incorrectly believes that by not noticing racism and politicians like Aaltonen racism will go away.
Apart from telling the Lahti city councilman that what he said was unbecoming of a politician and defending the important role that the Red Cross plays in managing the record number of asylum seekers in Finland, the last paragraph of the editorial is spot on:
“Perussuomalaiset party secretary Riitta Slunga-Poutsalo has described Aaltonen’s behavior as idiotic. There’s not much we can add to that. Aaltonen’s coarse language is not only a shame to himself and to the Perussuomalaiset [party] but to the whole city council and through it to the city of Lahti. If Aaltonen is incapable of making the right decision others will have to do it on his behalf.”
* 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.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS) are eager to pass legislation that will not only hurt asylum seekers but all migrants and minorities that live in Finland. After breaking almost all of their campaign promises and after their poll rating have plummeted to single-digit percentages, the PS only have one trump card left in their political bag of tricks: anti-immigration rhetoric and policy.
The PS won’t openly admit except occasionally that they have a semi-secret ideological love affair with the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party (DPP).
Just to give you a small glimpse of what the DPP stands for, the poster below published by Politiken, one of the country’s biggest dailies, offers an eyeful.
Like the rise of the PS, the only issue that has kept the DPP in politics since early 2000 is Islamophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric. They never form part of the government but instead support minority governments, like now.
Continue reading “The “Denmarkization” of Finnish immigration policy”
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Leena Meri came to the rescue of MP Laura Huuhtasaari, who claimed that human rights don’t apply to everyone. What Meri argues about the UN Declaration of Human Rights is equally worrying considering that she was a policewoman.
Both Meri and Huhtasaari are in the same league when it comes to Islamophobia. Both are building their political careers on hostility towards Muslims. It is naive to think that the hostility they spew about Muslims doesn’t affect all migrants and minorities in this country.
What does this anti-immigration former policewoman PS MP write in the party’s online publication to support her colleague Huhtasaari?
Human rights weren’t originally founded to give rights to practice terrorism but on the contrary. In other words grant normal people the right to live in freedom without being under a dictatorship or terrorism. If our laws in any way are hindering our fight against terrorism such laws should be changed quickly instead of debating such matters.
Meri appears not to have read, like Huhtasaari, the UN Declaration of Human Rights carefully. She should especially take a look at articles 10 and 11.
ARTICLE 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
ARTICLE 11.
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
