Jussi Halla-aho, the chairperson of the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, exposed another spoonful of its ever-visible far-right credentials on Saturday by demanding a 3,000-euro a month salary minimum for migrants to get a residence permitand weakening workers’ rights.
The PS leader, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion, believed that the best way to lower unemployment would be cutbacks in unemployment security, watering down protection against dismissal, do away with national collective bargaining agreements and undermine employers the right to strike.
Considering Halla-aho’s racist views of migrants in general and Muslims in particular, his views to dismantle Finland’s welfare state do not come as a surprise.
Even if the PS is leading in opinion polls, the party’s biggest folly will be at the end of the day their racist and neo-conservative economic views.
Migrant Tales insight:Wael Cheblak, who is running for Helsinki city council, is an old and esteemed activist of Migrant Tales. While we do not endorse candidates in general, we sometimes make exceptions like in the case of Cheblak. If you vote for 1108 you vote for Wael Cheblak.
Integration of vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities is important. Immigrants have different knowledge and skills. We should promote immigrants’ access to the labor market and education that will further improve their skills.
We must strive to make information about opportunities and services available to all citizens.
Safely, well-being and local services belong to every Helsinki resident. Are you to build a better tomorrow? Vote for an exemplary multicultural Helsinki with equal rights for all.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is the biggest threat to our Nordic welfare state and democracy. Their xenophobic ideology reveals a noticeable conflict.
Gunnar Myrdal (1898.1987), a Swedish economist who did a groundbreaking study in the early 1940s about its racism, brought this dilemma to light:
“How can they [USAmericans] claim to respect the dignity of all persons, equality, and the inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and a fair opportunity, while countenancing pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks and their rights to that freedom, that justice, and that fair opportunity?”
In the same light, we can ask to whom and how social equality, one of our Nordic welfare state pillars, applies to migrants and minorities? Do these noble values apply to Muslims, people of color, and other visible migrants and minorities? Are we also living in a conflict where we preach one thing but do the opposite?
Take, for instance, one of PS’s first vice-president Riikka Purra’s reaction Fardowsa Mahamoud’s decision not to do military service because the hijab, or veil, is still prohibited.
Ever wondered the source of the strong undercurrent of xenophobia in present-day Finland? The answer is in its history. During independence, Finland has been quite an unfriendly country towards foreigners. The Restricting Act of 1939 speaks volumes. Did you know that Finland passed its first immigration act in 1983 or about 66 years after gaining independence?
The prevailing xenophobic attitude and suspicion of foreigners reveal a lot of things like the rise of the far-right Perussuomnalaiset (PS)*.
It also explains why the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) interviewed every candidate who applied before for Finnish citizenship. I was one of them.
My interview with Supo took over two hours, and the first question that asked was, “why are you applying for Finnish citizenship?”
My answer was straightforward: “Because it’s my right.”
A tabloid Ilta-Sanomat billboard from 1992. Much of the hostility that people of color faced in the 1990s was by the media. Here, the tabloid states that Somalis conned the authorities to get asylum in Finland.
Behind that response, because it’s my right, came from my insistence that since my mother was Finnish, I too should be considered a Finn. Even if Finnish women had the right to vote from 1906, they weren’t trusted until 1984 to give Finnish citizenship to their children. Only Finnish men could do that.
Prior to the interview with Supo, I had some issues with the honorary consul of Mali in Helsinki called Jalkanen. When I went to visit him to get a visa to that West African country, he appeared inebriated and was very suspicious about me visiting Mali.
At the time I worked for Apu magazine, and wanted to do a travel piece on Mali and Niger.
At the meeting with Jalkanen, his suspicion grew as we spoke. He then called a friend of his who was a Supo agent. He asked him to pry into my secret Interpol files to make a background check. His Supo friend called back quite rapidly.
Jalkanen started to speak after hanging up the phone with his friend.
Like many children of Finnish parents, I, too, spent summers in the countryside with my grandparents. During all of these years, I thought, incorrectly, that I was a Finnish citizen or had a right to citizenship. I was wrong.
Until 1984, children of Finnish men had the right to pass on citizenship to their children. Even if women got the right to vote in 1906, it took about 66 years after independence for women to win this right.
This meant, in effect, that I was treated as a foreigner in this country. I had to get residence permits and at one point a work permit for each job I had.
One day, at the Aliens’ Office, I asked one of the employees why I had to apply for a residence permit if I was a Finn because of my mother. The response shocked me to the core.
Being a foreigner in Finland in the 1980s meant a lot of red tape. Residence permits were first granted for six months and a work permit for each job. On top of this, your human rights, which were considered suspect since it spoke out against the former Soviet Union, were violated.
“In our opinion, you are not a Finn,” she snapped.
Twenty-year-old Fardowsa Mahamoud’s questioning why the hijab, or veil, is not permitted in the Finnish military brought a sense of déjà-vu. About six years ago, Busman Gill Sukhdarshan Singh won after a year-long legal battle to wear a turban at work.
In Finland, Sikh bus drivers won the right to use turbans at work, while in the United Kingdom granted such a right in 1969.
Singh’s struggle and Mahamud’s rejection by the Finnish military are all examples of how some sectors of Finland continue to believe that they are the only one’s living in this country. Even if our official adaption policy is supposed to be a two-way street, it is a one-way process (assimilation), full stop.
Mahamud wanted to enroll in the army to serve later as a peacekeeper, which is her dream. Her efforts came to an abrupt end when an interview with the Karelia Brigade said they did not permit hijabs for safety reasons and that uniforms had to have the same appearance.
“I was disappointed to learn this,” she was quoted as saying in Yle News. “I wouldn’t have applied for service if I didn’t accept what they wear in the army, but the hijab is my choice and decision. It’s important to me.”
Finland is a cowardly and paranoic country that does not believe in humanity. But I respect humanity because GOD is the great Creator of man, and all of God’s creatures are important and valuable to me. Man is a creature of God. I am a disciple of truth, and the truth is my power.
Through this blog, I declare my readiness for the whole world and the universe. Declare readiness to rescue and release Finnish women and their children held captive by ISIS in Syria at the Al-Hol Camp!
A lot has been written in the Finnish media on the repatriation of Finnish women and their children to Finland. In Norway, there was a government crisis in January 2020 after an alleged Norwegian woman was repatriated to the country allegedly linked with Isis and her five-year-old child who needed medical treatment. Denmark, one of Europe’s most Islamophobic country announced that it plans to repatriate 22 Danish women and their children, according to Reuters.
These are Finnish women at the camp. Finland has a legal and moral duty to save them. But Finland is a cowardly, paranoic, and dishonest country and unwilling to show mercy to its children.
But I am an Iranian, a zealous Iranian zealous for months. I have been expressing my desire to save these innocent children and their poor mothers. Still, everyone says to me: No, this is not possible. We should not bring ISIS children to Finland. They are Muslims and are dangerous. Several people, all Finnish, even said to me: Do you know their fathers? Are you related to them?
These are horrible and extremely unfair questions. I have no racial or family relationship with them. I have never seen any of them. But my relationship with them is a human relationship. I hear the heartbeat of these poor women, and Ifeel the cries of their innocent children in the dust. They run in the soil and grow up in a fanatical environment. I do not know who their fathers are. I just want to save the women and children because their cries have deafened my ears.
I am the only one who announces such readiness. I’m the only one who wants to do that. I am the first person to make this request. I register my name, Dana, through this blog, and God and Enrique Tessieri plus Migrant Tales and the universe are my witnesses.
I wisely want to help these mothers and their children and bring them back to Finland.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a far-right and racist party that will fail in the end because its core values are based on malarkey. Parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) that want to form bedroom alliances with the PS will fail as well.
The chairperson of the National Coalition Party(Kokoomus), Petter Orpo, is well-known as a politician who vacillates on different issues. When it comes to migrants, he tends to blow with the wind.
Orpo has said in autumn that he would not mind forming a government with the PS where its leader, Jussi Halla-aho, would be prime minister. He confirmed his party’s willingness to form a government with the PS in Friday’s Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, a newspaper with ties to the Center Party.
One reader commented on Maaseudun Tulevaisuus about such a government: “I haven’t seen yet such an eerie nightmare where Kokoomus and the Perussuomalaiset are ruling the country.”
“If the ruling parties suffer a big defeat [in the municipal election], the least they must do is change the direction of their policies,” Orpo was quoted as saying. “If a party in the government suffers heavily, it may make you wonder if you want to be a member of the government.”
MAY 19: Yesterday, in front of the Alppikulma gate, more than 10 homeless people were waiting at 5 o’clock to enter the building. A foreigner from an African country who shaves his head is under so much pressure that he does strange things. But I will only describe his work yesterday.
He has to carry a large bag of his belongings, including clothes, shoes, and other necessities. We are all like that. Because in Alppikulma, we are not allowed to keep anything. Several times my belongings were dumped in the dirty water of the hallway floor, and my belongings were dumped on the floor in my room so that I could be punished and not keep anything in my room anymore. They said it was the cleaners’ job. Yes, that’s right. But the cleaners also said it was the workers’ order, and the workers said the managers and managers said the order came from Helsinki Kaupunki. (Helsinki city…)
Carrying a big bag on my back is painful. I always have back pain. Sometimes my shoulders hurt so much that I do not sleep until morning. But I have strongly protested. I have always defended the rights of the homeless, and I have achieved some successes.
Alppikulma is a temporary shelter for the homeless. Photo: Dana
I arranged the breakfast program for these poor people since I complained about the boiling water and the homeless problems (for about 7 months) … but I do not eat breakfast myself, and I have good reasons not to touch it. One of my reasons is the many insults inflicted on me just because of the demand for boiling water … let alone a painful and long story. But let’s talk about a foreign man who has been in Finland for many years and his Finnish language is good enough.
His name begins with the letter S.
S is a skinny African with a shaved head who is completely anxious and worried. He drinks a lot of beer, and by no means can he sit still. He runs, gets barefoot, puts his shoes on, and insinuates to himself that the street is his home. He takes his clothes out of his bag and reassures himself that yes, I live too. The man is harmless. He has not insulted me even once. But he is so anxious that he makes everyone laugh.
Yesterday, he threw the beer bottle at another man from a distance of 12 meters. The one could not take it, the bottle fell to the ground, and the beer came out like a firecracker. The poor Finnish man opened it and drank it, but he came quickly, took the bottle, drank some of it, threw it on the grass behind the wall, and started running on the grass with shouts of joy. … and then he ran in the courtyard of Alppikulma …. Finally, he sat down with a few men and drank his beer in peace for a few minutes … He put his clothes on the ground and walked beside them…
Prime Minister Sanna Marin fired back at a session of parliament Thursday at the far-right Perussuomaliset (PS)* party. Making Finland an open and safe country is crucial if it wants to attract newcomers to the country.
“Madam Speaker. Violence on streets, violence at homes, violence at schools are all severe matters, severe matters of which all of us are concerned.
I will now address the Perussuomalaiset point because it also gives a distorted picture of the type of people that live in Finland. It’s not so that every person who has come from elsewhere [to Finland] is a violent criminal, a person who does wrong. In this country, we have numerous groups of people who come from elsewhere and who work tirelessly, raise families, and are concerned about Finland’s future in the same way as people born here.
The phenomenon, violence on streets, violence at homes, violence at schools is a serious matter that we must address. Still, it is also wrong that we give here [in parliament], the very picture that the Perussuomalaiset spread, that every migrant is a person who does not fit in this society. It isn’t like that at all.”
