There are many things that one can do to retard or facilitate adaption of newcomers to Finland. One of the worst is constant suspicion by politicians who have no qualifications or understanding of migration. Good examples are National Coalition Party MP Pia Kauma who does not have the faintest idea about migrants but is still strolling with her baby carriage; members of the Perussuomalaiset* party who call certain migrants “harmful.”
The worst way to help adaption of newcomers to Finland is by treating them as unequal members of society and by using labels such as “person of migrant origin.”
If you want to speed up the process of adaption of newcomers to Finland and make them a part of our society, we must then really wish that and take down those structures that permit institutional racism to see another day. But how serious are we about turning newcomers into active members of society and how much ignorance and racism guide our attitudes? Unless we don’t understand this, all integration programs are doomed to failure.
How to describe Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Veikko Vallin’s tweet below? Vallin, who likes to be called the Trump of Tampere, likes posing with MAGA caps and often makes racist remarks about asylum seekers, who are mostly Muslims. He even brags on social media about how he was able to escape taxes in Finland by moving to Estonia.
One does not have to look too far into Vallin’s social media history stained with racist posts.
The PS MP now tries to show is “anti-racism” side with the following tweet:
“@jemustakalio of the Greens speaks about “brown” people. It is an odd word. If anything, it differentiates [people]. For me, skin color does not mean anything. We are all people irrespective of our skin color.”
Source Twitter
Everyone can see how disingenuous Vallin’s tweet is. What about if we substituted the term skin color with “religion” or “Muslim?”
I doubt that he’d ever claim that we “are all people irrespective of our religion.”
The hard truth about Vallin’s tweet is that it is typical of people who believe Finland is only white and that there is only one kind of Finn. It is a convenient way to close one’s eyes to racism’s harm to people in Finland.
The only appropriate time people like Vallin accept “brown Finn” is when it labels such groups as criminals.
Vallin believes that racist statements will get him reelected.
This week we learned about how widespread women in the rescue department are victims of sexual harassment and discrimination, according to Yle. We also learned about the ministry of justice’s plans to tackle discrimination and hate-speech awareness with a 52-point program with the help of training increased support for organizations racism and hate crime.
Writes Yle News: “In the future all Finnish police departments will undergo training on non-discriminatory police work while municipal councillors will take courses on hate speech,” reports Helsingin Sanomat.
As parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), Christian Democrats and Movement Now (Liike nyt), and especially the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have encouraged and given a platform to racism and bigotry, in the same way, more have spoken out against discrimination.
Do we need to know the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP’s track record and what he has said about asylum seekers, Muslims, people of color, and other minorities in the past? His tirade against asylum seekers was so racist that the Left Alliance bloc threatened to leave the meeting if Vallin didn’t stop talking.
Vallin, an avid Donald Trump follower who boasts about how little taxes he pays in Finland because his money is in Estonia, likes to also take pictures of day-care children and women in Muslim attire and publish them without permission on social media.
There is an old saying that goes something like this: I was a liberal in youth so I would not be a fascist in old age.
What motivates a politician to twist and exaggerate facts to stigmatize migrants? National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MP Heikki Vestman’s speech in parliament Wednesday is a prime example of how some politicians spread Islamophobia to attract attention and gain power.
His unsubstantiated talking points motivated me to write an email to him, which he has not yet responded to.
Moreover, the MP uses code to tell us what groups he is targetting. The term “asylum seeker” usually means Muslim.
“When I heard your speech and rationale Wednesday (20 October), I wondered how a young, apparently intelligent person could house such opinionated and unsubstantiated claims about migrants. If you are honest, would you want to [live and] grow up in a country where this type of discourse is ongoing by politicians seeking power and attention? Read some history and check out how the Finns were labeled in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s.
Does the phrase “en finne igen” ring a bell?
After North America, the greatest number of Finnish immigrants, or about half a million people, moved to Sweden. In the 1960s and 1970s, Finns had a terrible reputation in the neighboring country. Whenever a crime occurred, Swedes usually responded, “it must be a Finn,” en finne igen.
Here is a question to Vestman: Why are you picking and bullying vulnerable groups of people who cannot defend themselves from your attacks?
National Coalition Party anti-immigration MP Heikki Vestman. Source: Kokoomus
Below are some unsubstantiated claims (that I translated and paraphrased) from Vestman’s speech. He was against loosening family reunification guidelines because the minors, whom he sadly referred to as “anchor babies,” could become a national security threat.
Vestman should know that having a family is a human right.
Islamophobia and other forms of racism are for some politicians their gateway to power and infamy.
Watching part of the firey debate Wednesday in parliament that led to a vote of confidence for the government, one wonders what some politicians, especially with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, have in their heads.
The saddest matter was the bullying and false claims about migrants, nothing more than storms in teacups.
Those politicians and parties who only think beyond their noses are doomed to hitting a wall.
They are heading towards such a fate because they believe that Islamophobic and other racist soundbites will help them to have and retain power and influence.
After launching an aggressive campaign and burning up a lot of money in themunicipal elections of June, the PS came in fourth place despite some polls, which showed it to come out on top.
The result was a huge disappointment and the party gasped for air.
If there is a crack line in the PS, their disappointing result in the municipal election is an indication that the public is growing weary of their broken-record scapegoat-migrant approach.
Kun Sanna Marin vuosi sitten pääsi Vogueen ja vieläpä kansikuvaan, persunaisten närkästys oli valtaisa. Ei tietenkään siksi, että suomalaispäättäjä, nainen ja pääministeri huomioitiin tunnetussa mediassa. Ei tietenkään, persunaisethan ovat kaikkien naisten puolesta ja haluavat tukea myös naispääministeriä, vaikka hän olisikin kommunisti. Mutta SE PUKEUTUMINEN! Sannalla ei ollut takin alla mitään, EI EDES RINTALIIVEJÄ JA MAHTOIKO OLLA RINTOJAKAAN!
Laura Huhtasaari, harras uskovainen, närkästyi eniten suomalaisrintojen puolesta ja organisoi pikaisesti kampanjan, jossa persunaiset näyttivät esimerkkiä, kuinka rintavarustus siveästi peitetään. Kalkkuna Looks olisi, modernia nimeämistä käyttäen, ehkä parhaiten tuota tyyliä kuvaava ilmaisu.
Kalkkuna Looks
Ihan uteliaisuuttani kurkistin nyt vuoden kierron jälkeen, kuinka hyvin persunaisilta on sujunut siveyden sipuleina esiintyminen ja millaisilla kuvilla naiskansanedustajat ovat tuollaisten epäsiveellisten sijaan vaalisonnikarjaansa kiihottaneet. Ja – oh my God! – siellähän on voitolla Sanna Marin -tyyli ja ehkä jotain vähän antavampaakin. Persunaiset ovat siis sittenkin huomanneet, että tyylikäs vihjailu ei ole naispoliitikollekaan ollenkaan haitaksi.
Mutta hoikkuus ei sitten ole hyväksi, sillä saattaa pääministeri menettää eduskunnan luottamuksen, kuten eräs maineikas persulääkäri keskustalaislehdessä julisti. Pitäkää kiinni läskeistänne, persunaiset, vaikka Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo onkin synnillisesti sanonut, että teissä pitää niitä olla, jotta saisi puristaa!
Luovuttakaa siis, persunaiset, ja olkaa niin kuin oottekin. Politiikan tiedoissa, taidoissa ja osaamisessa ette Sanna Marinille pärjää, se on selvyys. Mutta unohtakaa kateus myös ryntäinrintamilla, ei kaikista naisista millään saa yhtä edustavia kuvia kuin Sanna Marinista.
Voisi sitä paitsi toivoa, että perussuomalaiset, kun puolueensa rakastettu lempinimikin on persu ja politiikkakin on suoraan ahterista, alkaisivat enemmän julkaista Odinin potilaat -henkisiä kuvia. Siis takaapäin ja siveästi mustissa. Kun nuo ryntäät ovat niin läääst siison ja vaalikarjakin on sentään enimmäkseen ihan aikamiehiä eikä mitään tissimaidon lutkuttajia.
It has been a bad week for Helsinki University with Helsingin Sanomat uncovering an alleged discrimination case by the faculty of theology. The incident comes after the university’s department of geography students dressed up like colonizers of a popular board game, Afrikan tähti (Star of Africa).
The Helsinki University geography department gave Tuesday a public apology concerning the incident.
Surprisingly, Jasmine Fantaa’s Instagram post, which was responsible for the incident of the geography students to go viral, was taken down and could not be accessed Wednesday.
The second discrimination case alleges that theology students of Islam with Finnish surnames were picked to teach at a school over students that did not have Finnish-sounding names.
Giving a Nazi salute at the notorious Dachau concentration camp not only shows tremendous ignorance but is a slap in the face to all the victims of Hitler’s racial policies. According to The Nomad Today, a Spanish ex-pat online newsletter, two Finnish tourists who visited the camp gave a Nazi salute.
Writes The Nomad Today: “The visitors from Finland, men aged 50 and 52 respectively, took photographs of each other at the camp near Munich…All three have been banned from the Dachau site for life, and the authorities are to press charges.”
The publication did not specify what charges were going to be brought against the two Finns.
The Dachau concentration camp opened in 1933 near Munich and was intended to hold political prisoners. Apart from forced labor, it eventually imprisoned Jews, Romani, Germans, and Austrians sentenced as criminals.
The camp was known for its treatment of its inmates that included ill-treatment, flogging, standing cells, and hangings.
