Month: January 2019
What about if what happened to a 10-year-old Muslim girl last month is true?
Remember the picture of a 10-year-old Muslim girl that went viral on the Internet on December 19? We still have not heard from the parents of the terrible picture of the girl below. What about if the story is true and that racism was the spark that caused the incident?
While we don’t know why, the police and the principal of the Juvanpuisto school in Espoo may consider what happened “not racist” because of the age of the children. If this is the case, they know that children learn their racism from their parents and their friends. One case in Mikkeli a few years ago shows how cruel children are when it comes to racist bullying and harassment.
If the school wants to resolve what happened behind closed doors, it is its right. However, hiding what happened from the public eye is wrong and will only permit these types of incidents to happen – as they do – again.
Here is the question: What about if the four children suspects who attacked the girl did try to rip off her hijab and insulted her for wearing one? What about if it was not the first time that the girl experienced racist bullying at school? What does it say about the school and how it counters this type of bullying?
The police and school deny what happened to the girl had to do with racism. There were even reports in the media that the wounds that the girl suffered weren’t diagnosed as serious after taken to the hospital.
Certainly, physical wounds are one matter but the psychological wounds from what happened will most likely affect the girl for the rest of her life.
If racism was the culprit, and if the police and the school principal brushed the incident under the carpet by playing down what happened, it reveals worrisome issues about our society and about those that protect and educate us into becoming members of society.
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MP Ozan Yanar is right: President Sauli Niinistö’s New Year’s speech is problematic
Whenever President Sauli Niinistö comments about asylum seekers, migrants and minorities there is usually a problem (see links below). Those of us who are anti-racist activists, will never forget his two-extremes argument, which puts people who fight to defend human rights as one extreme with the other extreme consisting of Neo-Nazis and other far-right groups like the Perussuomalaiset.*
His New Year’s speech didn’t leave us disappointed. Green League MP Ozan Yanar rightly pointed out some of the flaws in his speech about migrants.
The president said that migrants should take responsibility by “exerting control” over the actions of members of its community, tweeted MP Yanar. Migrants are not a monolithic group.
President Niinistö responds to MP Yanar’s tweet by stating that he did not mean migrants but everyone irrespective of their background. If this is true, why didn’t he say so in his New Year’s speech?
I have mentioned it before and I will state it again: President Niinistö is no friend of Finland’s culturally and ethnically diverse community. It is unfortunate that he prefers to hand out populist soundbites.