Month: May 2017

Finland’s blind spot of bigotry and white privilege is the Perussuomalaiset

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If there is one party that has brought out bigotry, racism and populist far-right ideology as of late it is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. But Finland is so much in denial about its bigotry and white privilege that it sees no harm in the PS. This means that the government will do little, except offer lip service on how to challenge social ills like racism. 

That blind spot is costing Finland a lot of problems as the election for new PS chairman in early June  shows. PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation in 2012, is the favorite to win the chairmanship of the party against Minister of Culture, Sport, and European Issues Sampo Terho, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

Finland’s face of racism: MEP Jussi Halla-aho and Minister of Culture, Sport and European Issues Sampo Terho. Source: Helsingin Sanomat.

According to a poll, 40% said they would vote for Halla-aho  and 26% Terho. The poll showed as well that 25% of those polled were undecided.

If I were a bigot and voted for the PS, I would certainly support Halla-aho because he’s the real thing, not a watered down version like Terho, who has become at least in image a more diluted version of the latter’s racist views.

Continue reading “Finland’s blind spot of bigotry and white privilege is the Perussuomalaiset”

“Tolkun ihminen” and Finland’s version of the Okie from Muskogee

Posted on by Migrant Tales

President Sauli Niinistö, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and the deputy head of the Finnish Immigration Service, Raimo Pyysalo, have one thing in common: They believe that the ongoing debate about asylum seekers, immigration and our ever-growing culturally diverse society is dominated by two extremes. 

Moreover, they don’t directly condemn the extremes and rarely, if ever, name which groups form part of those fringe groups.

In the 1970s, when US President Richard Nixon was facing opposition from those who opposed the Vietnam War and civil disobedience, he tried to show that those that were against him were a minority and that the silent majority was behind him.

In the same way, the whole tolkun ihminen debate is pretty much the same thing but in a Finnish context. A minority are apparently debating heatedly while the Finnish silent majority remains passive.

Below is a song about Nixon’s vision of the USAmerican silent majority that supposedly lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

We never knew if that small town in Oklahoma represented the voice of the silent majority since the whole matter was more wishful thinking than anything else by then President Nixon.

Pyysalo writes in the Sleep Easy website about how the ongoing debate about immigration and asylum policy needs more voices from the “silent majority,” or sensible Finns who do not belong at the extreme points of the debate.

Continue reading ““Tolkun ihminen” and Finland’s version of the Okie from Muskogee”

Finland’s immigration and asylum policy is only a momentary Pyrrhic victory

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The picture below isn’t from Gaza or some war-torn region but of the playground of the Konnunsuo immigration removal center in Joutseno, Finland, a country that claims to be proud of its social achievements and respect for human rights. 

The view is the one that a family with seven children had for over a month of the playground rudely toward by high walls and barbwire.

But there is good news: The family from Karbala, Iraq, was freed from detention Friday and are now staying at an asylum reception center in Turku awaiting a decision on new asylum request, according to YLE.

This is not a picture of a prison in Gaza but where children are detained for over a month in Finland. YLE

Four years ago, Zuzeeko’s blog brought attention to an Amnesty International campaign to stop the detention of unaccompanied minors in Finland. Even if the seven Iraqi children are accompanied by their parents, the  International Convention on the Rights of the Child – to which Finland is party – outlaws the detention of children, unless as a last resort and for the shortest possible time (see article 37[b]).

Continue reading “Finland’s immigration and asylum policy is only a momentary Pyrrhic victory”

Iraqi asylum seeker: A near-deportation ordeal with the Finnish police

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A twenty-two-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who was detained illegally by the police three days before he had to vacate the asylum reception center in Pori is now a free man again. Thanks to the efforts of the Lex Gaudius law firm, the district court overruled the detention of the asylum seeker at the Metsälä immigrant removal center in Helsinki, where he was held from April 27 to May 9.

“[After this ordeal] I still find it hard to believe that I’m free,” he told Migrant Tales by phone.

The asylum seeker’s detention began at the school in Pori where he was studying Finnish. The police visited the school to detain him but he went and hid from them. On returning, apparently the principal, called the police and the young man was detained.

 

Proof that the asylum seeker was illegally detained by the police three days before he was supposed to vacate the asylum reception center in Pori.

“I was taken by the police to Rauma and then to Turku, where I was locked up for two nights and three days before a judge decided that I could be deported [to Iraq] and send me either to Joutseno or Metsälä [immigration removal center],” he added.

The asylum seeker said that his first impression of Metsälä was “shocking” because there “are criminals and crazy people.”

“It’s the same place [Metsälä] where an Iraqi tried to hang himself when I was there,” he continued. “At Metsälä you cannot go outside and it’s like a prison. I shared a room with another Iraqi who was deported from Denmark back to Finland.”

An Iraqi asylum seeker at the Metsälä immigration removal center being taken away on a stretcher after attempting to take his life. Source: Facebook.

The Iraqi asylum seeker, who has now submitted a new application for asylum to the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), said that he went back to school to learn Finnish upon returning to Pori. “All of my classmates where happy to see me,” he said.

He said that he came to Finland in search of a better life and to escape war.

“I will be killed if I return to Iraq,” he concluded. “I hope people in this country can feel in their heart our suffering and reread their history, when hundreds of thousands of refugees came to Finland [after World War 2].”

 

 

Finland to deport an illiterate, 70-year-old asylum seeker to Iraq

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales has learned that a 70-year-old Kurdish woman will get deported from Finland within 30 days. The woman, who is illiterate and came to Finland in 2015, got three rejections for asylum. 

The woman lives in the central Finnish town of Keuruu and after problems with Isis fled with her adult children to Europe.

If deported back to Iraq, the woman has no social networks and is said to be suffering from health problems.

The Finnish Immigration Service has cut her monthly allowance by 50 euros to 90 euros.

The 70-year-old woman face deportation from Finland.

How a story in Migrant Tales was incorrectly judged as “hate speech”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A news story I published Saturday about two black and one foreign woman who were insulted and threatened in a racist manner got taken down in the Rasmus forum. It was the first time ever that this has happened to me in Facebook. 

Facebook only gave me a note stating that the story didn’t abide by its community standards.

So what did my “hate speech” story say?

A year ago a white Finnish woman threw a bucketful of water at three women and four children below and started to insult and threaten them in a racist manner.

Said the victim, Ruth Waweru.Folabit, in Migrant Tales last year: “When another neighbor told the woman to shut up, she called her an n-word lover. She said that she was a Finn, and therefore, nothing would happen to her [for harassing her in a racist manner and throwing a bucket of water].”

After a year the three victims get the following decision from the prosecutor:  “I will not press charges because the suspected crime, when evaluated as a whole, should be seen as minor considering the harm it caused or the degree of guilt of the suspect that it reveals.”

I will not go into all the details of the story because they are already published, but it’s quite incredible that a white person in Finland can do something like this and get away with it. I just wonder what would have happened if the person who threw the water, insulted and threatened three white people was black.

“I’d probably get deported,” said one of the victims.

Suvi Tanninen, who complained to Facebook about the story, claims that I was guilty of “hate speech” because I wrote demeaningly about white Finns.

In the posting she calls me “a mental retard.”

One look at her Facebook page “likes” reveals who this person is: Tanninen “likes” far-right online trash publications such as Nykysuomi, MV, vigilante group the Soldiers of Odin, Suomen Sisu and Finland First.

All of the above are responsible for fueling and maintaining hate speech against migrants and minorities in Finland.

Here is the official complaint that Suvi Tanninen gave to Facebook about the article, which she claimed was hate speech (sic!). Facebook should do it’s job better and not just censor people in the way the story was today.

UPDATED (13.5): You still see people who think racism is ok and don’t mind advertising. Even so, why don’t they learn how to spell the word “racist” correctly?

 

 

 

Dear Finnish Nightmares, are you for real?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Dear Finnish Nightmares,

When generalizing about how some white Finns may react, why is it that all of your characters are white? There are “other” Finns, too. Do you take them into account? Do you ever fear that generalizing a “model” reaction may reinforce stereotypes and as a result promote a monocultural and over-simplified view of the people that live in this country? One of those stereotypes is that there are no such things as “non-white Finns.”

Enrique Tessieri, editor, Migrant Tales

 

Even if some may consider these cartoons quaint, do they promote stereotypes about white Finns? One of the first effective ways to challenge racism is by challenging stereotypes. Source: Facebook.

 

Throwing water and hurling racist insults at black people is ok if you are a white Finn

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales has followed a story that sadly began in the Helsinki neighborhood of Herttoniemi in May 2016. A white woman threw a bucketful of water at three adults and four children from the second floor and started hurling racist insults. Two of the victims were women from Kenya and another one was a white woman from the United States.

Said the victim, Ruth Waweru.Folabit, in Migrant Tales last year: “When another neighbor told the woman to shut up, she called her an n-word lover. She said that she was a Finn, and therefore, nothing would happen to her [for harassing her in a racist manner and throwing a bucket of water].”

Open-and-shut case, right?

Wrong.

Waweru-Folabit got a letter from the prosecutor almost a year later after the incident:

I will not press charges because the suspected crime, when evaluated as a whole, should be seen as minor considering the harm it caused or the degree of guilt of the suspect that it reveals.

This case, and especially the prosecutor’s decision to not press charges, is a disheartening example of how the system drags its feet and plays down racism in Finland.

If a white woman throws water at somebody and starts insulting people in a racist manner it may suggest a hate crime.

What would have happened if we’d switch roles and a black woman would throw water at a white Finn and start insulting her? Would she be charged and forced to pay compensation for damages?

On May 23, 2015 Ruth Waweru-Folabit posted this message on her Facebook wall. Migrant Tales reposted it with her permission.

Migrant Tales spoke with Waweru-Folabit about the prosecutor’s decision.

“I would have at least expected an apology from the woman and that my wet clothes she’d pay for sending my clothes to the dry cleaners,” she said. “I thought by pressing on with this case it could be a warning to others and that they cannot get away with such things. I just wanted some kind of justice for what happened.”

Continue reading “Throwing water and hurling racist insults at black people is ok if you are a white Finn”

Muhammed Shire and Johanna Ennser-Kananen: “Your Finnish is not good enough” and other myths migrants face on the job market

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: I would like to personally thank Muhammed Shire and Johanna Ennser-Kananen for shedding light on some age-old myths surrounding migrants and minorities in Finland. As sensible people interested in the best proactive solutions that are in line with our Nordic welfare state values, we should not only look at ways of challenging such myths but replacing them with effective solutions. 

Like most problems facing our ever-growing culturally diverse community, myths and blame are placed on us for not “trying hard enough” or “for not knowing enough” to land that job. Even our integration act, which came into force in 2011, makes no mention about racism and discrimination as obstacles to adaption because it plays down the impact of such social ills. Thus the burden of proof continues to be unfairly dumped on migrants and members of the minority community. 

We must change the order of things not only because discrimination and racism ruins lives and are costly, but because we must live up to our Nordic values concerning fair and equal treatment. Not doing so or leaving such matters to chance is synonymous to shooting oneself in the leg. 

If you are a migrant who has applied for educational programs or jobs, chances are that you have heard some of the following myths. In this article, we debunk them by explaining their racist nature.

Finland has one of the highest disparities between EU and non-EU citizens. For more information go to Eurostat

Myth #1: “Your Finnish is not good enough for alternative options.”

Of course we can’t and don’t want to deny the important role language can play in integration and participation processes. However, the common belief that high proficiency in the socially dominant (in our case Finnish) language will automatically open doors to professional or educational success is overly simplistic and ample research exists that debunks this myth (see, for example, Ennser-Kananen & Pettitt, under review; Krumm & Plutzar, 2008). When migrants apply for jobs, language oftentimes becomes a substitute for race, ethnicity, or other social factors like gender and religion. This happens, for instance, when employers argue (and even convince themselves) that qualified applicants with migration backgrounds “do not meet their language demands” without adequately assessing their (often multilingual) language skills and without considering or supporting their language development on the job. Arguments based on “insufficient Finnish proficiency” are easy to make because they appear to be more politically correct than those based on race, religion, or gender. In addition, they are difficult to assess for the average person without training in language acquisition, so that applicants are often left with arguments that are not valid or not convincingly supported by linguistic evidence.

If you are faced with such an argument (“your Finnish is not good enough”), ask for exact explanations of the linguistic demands for the job or program you are applying and, importantly, ask for evidence of your failure to meet them. In other words, someone needs to explain to you what the Finnish language requirements are and why they are sure that you don’t meet them. Your (former) language teachers can be excellent allies in this process. They understand language assessment, especially of multilingual language learners, and usually have experience in assessing and advocating for you. Most importantly, they understand language proficiency in the context of your overall experience at school and in Finland. In addition to your teachers, the co-author of this article, Johanna Ennser-Kananen ([email protected]), is also happy to advise you in such situations. When you request explanations and evidence from an employer, you might also want to inquire about the possibility to develop your language skills on the job. Employers who are genuinely interested in you will sometimes find ways for you to to develop your Finnish as part of your workload. (Yes, it happens! And it should happen more.) In case you do not receive all the information you ask for, consider contacting Migrant Tales ([email protected]) for advice on this matter and potentially filing a report on discrimination.

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Seiska: Keuruu’s reception center manager Rasul Azizan relieved of duties by Red Cross due to “loss of confidence”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The manager of the Keuruu asylum reception center, Rasul Azizan, has been relieved of his duties by his employer the Red Cross due to “loss of confidence,” according to Seiska. In May last year, Deputy Manager Jari Sillantie of the Kolari asylum reception center was sacked by the Red Cross because “he wasn’t suited for the job.”

The police service at Keuruu confirmed to the magazine that the Red Cross has filed criminal charges against Azizan and the police will decide whether to press charges.

Read the original posting here.

Seiska alleges in the story that Azizan is suspected of misusing funds, among another charge.

Continue reading “Seiska: Keuruu’s reception center manager Rasul Azizan relieved of duties by Red Cross due to “loss of confidence””