Come an watch today at 7 pm a wonderful play reflecting these troubled times at Botta, Museokatu 10, Helsinki. Below is a review that Migrant Tales wrote about Helsinki Noir at the end of December. “Writer and director Ahti Tolvanen, who is a member of the Migrant Tales board, has written a play that reflects hard and…
Month: January 2025
Opulence and injustice are deadly mixes
Watching political events in the United States and the Donald Trump’s inauguration as the US’ 47th president, brought despair and forced me to dig deep for hope and consolation. One of the matters that I will never forget is the last military dictatorship (1976-83) of Rafael Videla in Argentina. His stranglehold over the country was…
Mahad Sheikh Musse* (Facebook): Nuoriso ei voi kantaa vastuuta siitä, että yhteiskunta pettää heidät
#Nuoriso, #vanhemmat ja #viranomaise – vastuut ja epätasa-arvon haasteet! Rakenteellinen syrjintä ja rasismi heikentävät yhdenvertaisuutta viranomaistyössä, ja pahimmillaan ne toimijat, joiden tulisi tukea nuoria, sulkevat heidät ulos tärkeistä palveluista ja mahdollisuuksista. Tämä epäoikeudenmukaisuus ei koske kaikkia nuoria samalla tavalla, vaan kohtelu riippuu usein heidän taustastaan. Kantaväestöön kuuluvat nuoret ja maahanmuuttajataustaiset nuoret kohdataan eri tavoin –…
Iraqi asylum seekers in Finland: Awaiting and living under the axe of deportation
Deportation is one of the cruelest matters about migration. Another deportation ruling hangs over an Iraqi family of five who has lived in Finland for ten years. Tragic is the fate of the children, aged 16, 14 and 7 years, who don’t read and write in Arabic and remember their parents’ former home country through…
The ever-greying of Finland and our new citizenship
Twenty-eight years ago I wrote in a Finland Bridge column about the greying of Finland. Even if Finland has the third-oldest population in the world after Japan and Italy. Has anything changed since 1997 and what are the solutions to our demographic woes? Some far-fetched solutions I suggested back then was to raise the retirement…
Fabricated charges will not silence me
Former Perussuomalaiset* and today Center Party councilperson Tanja Hartonen’s attack on me is a good example of political revenge aimed at silencing me and Migrant Tales. I am sure that all these made-up stories about what I said at city committee meeting will not stand the light of day. The truth is that Hartonen became…
Mistaking your identity
In a world where migration constantly weaves new identities and is even seen as a threat to national identities, countries in Europe are throwing all their political weight to slow such a natural process. Being from a multicultural and multinational background can be a problem in a world that sees new identities as a threat….
Mahad Sheikh Musse (Facebook): Suomen pitkä rasismin historia
The fall of (US)America
The 5 November US presidential election will be remembered as the alarm that signifies the end of USAmerica and when all of its contradictions caught up with it and destroyed it. Nothing good can come out of a second Trump term except for more global and national chaos. The US poet Allan Ginsberg (1926-1997) put…
Opitaan Fingliska Mara-Liisa Tolvasen kanssa
Tapasin Mara-Liisa Tolvasen Thunder Bayssä Kanadassa vuonna 2006. Thunder Bay (Tunterpei) on kaupunki, jossa on paljon suomalaistaustaisia. Marja-Liisa oli niin ystävällinen, että hän antoi minulle sanakirjan, jossa on joitakin Fingliska-sanoja. Sanoja Saulstemarie tai Suustemarie = Sault St. Marie Supperi = Sudbury Tunterpei = Thunder Bay Vankkuuveri = Vancouver Vinnipekki = Winnipeg Rutto = Trudeau (ent….