I got an email from Zuzeeko who writes the neat On the Road to Success blog and recently launched with some other people a new magazine called Dunia. This is what he wrote:
Wow! Glad to hear the racist graffiti are now history. I consider this a success for Kansainvälinen Mikkeli Ry and the good people of Mikkeli. Sincerely, I never thought the graffiti in the pedestrian tunnel would be removed. Congratulations! This is worthy of an update on the blog. Don’t you think?
He is absolutely right. We wrote about the matter on Migrant Tales but nothing about how the second graffiti was removed. The fate of the second spray-painting in Mikkeli in eastern Finland was reported by Kansainvälinen Mikkeli (International Mikkeli) on Facebook on November 2.
This wall had sprayed blacks out while the other one on a school wall read “White power.” Both were painted over by city employees in early November and early October, respectively. This shows what a group of determined people can do to make Mikkeli a more pleasant place to live.
Ridding the graffiti was not only a victory for Kansainvälinen Mikkeli but for all the people of the city. It is a clear message that we take a very tough view of racism.
I was surprised, however, that even if a teacher had seen the “White power” graffiti on the wall he had done nothing about it after he had noticed it in spring.
When I approached the teacher about the matter in September, he considered it more important to tell me that whenever anti-immigration parties like the True Finns and Muutos 2011 are labelled racists whenever they criticize foreigners.
Was this the reason why he preferred to do nothing for so many months and in the process put in question the values of our world-class educational system?