By Enrique Tessieri
I was pretty surprised Thursday that a blogger from a forum called Ylilauta had hijacked my Facebook picture and started defaming me and our blog, Migrant Tales. I got in touch with the administrator of the site, who took the offensive content off the site the following day. Fortunately I took a snapshot of what was written.
One of the matters that surprised me when my picture was hijacked from Facebook and when offensive comments were made about my person and Migrant Tales, there was no apology from Ylilauta.
What happened is a case in point on how racism spreads, planted and buds on the Internet.
Writes Jonne: “Migrant Tales is a blog by an immigrant douche living in Finland. It concentrates on bashing the True Finns party and blaming most Finns to be racist and xenophobic. My eyes are bleeding.”
What our mission statement says: Migrant Tales is a blog that debates some of the salient issues facing the immigrant and minority community in Finland.
The most offensive part of the thread was the following: “I just can’t read that shit. “Some immigrant mudface preaching on how Finland must be multicultural and immigrants are enrichment. Just fuck off.”
Wow! A mudface?! I haven’t heard that term for decades. It was commonly used in the 1980s, which suggests that the writer may be in his 40s or 50s.
Jonne uses terms like “enrichment” and “cultural Marxist,” which reveal that he hangs around far-right websites like the Gates of Vienna. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer, used “cultural Marxists” on his deranged manifesto.
If there is defamation and racism on the Internet, it is our responsibility to expose it especially if we are the target.
The damage has already occurred but possibly we can discourage it from happening again.
really angry about this situation. i think the most important thing is to denunciate all the cases, in public and to the authorities. this kind of people should not poisson anyone life. specially the life of so many other non-xenophobe finns. fuerza, enrique.
First time reader. I hope you don’t judge all of us Finns, we are not all like this.
I love immigrants. I don’t care about skin color, be it green or purple, we all are humans.
This Ylilauta in pretty notorious site and has been on news for their criminal hacking activities, I really wish sites like this would get supervised more.
Why do Finns feel the need to apologise for the actions of other Finns and explain how they don’t represent the majority etc. I mean would you deem it necessary for Somalis to do the same for those pirates who hijack cargo ships, kidnap and sometimes murder Westerners off the horn of Africa (much more serious crimes)? I highly doubt it, another example of a lack of consistency and double standards. One rule for native Europeans another for the rest.
I know that feel, and i say this as a victim of discrimination. Here in Russia immigrants actually have no rights and some internet forum is just a joke for me. In elementary i was bullied constantly because of my hair and eye colour. I was born in Russia, i am orthodox, i hold only Russian citizenship, Russian is my mother tongue. Technically, i’m not even an immigrant. But i’m “alien” anyway. Only thing i am guilty of are my nose, hair and eyes.
After dissolution of USSR lots of families were left in former soviet republics, families that spoke only Russian, though not being ethnic Russians. There was a choice – either you stay in newly forming national republic or move to the country of your culture (Russia). Second was a bad choice for me. Constant bullying on ethnical basis formed a lots of complexes and psychical problems. More than it, nobody was there to help or support me, i was raised by single mom that was working. There is no psychologists in Russian schools and generally, it’s a third world country after all. You are happy to live in country where you can defend your rights and honor.
So sorry to see that racism is alive and well in Finland.
Here in the United States, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, transphobia and ableism are commonly justified by “free speech” or “irony.” These are weasel words used by cowards who refuse to take responsibility for what they’ve said. My grandparents did not survive the Holocaust just so that their grandchildren should have to experience it all over again.
Wow, I’m just astonished at the amount of bigotry still roaming in European countries. You’d think that we’d learn from the atrocities commited by the evil Nazis under Adolf the Hitler.
I am truly ashamed of the actions of my fellow countrymen.
I am very sorry Enrique, and hope you do not judge Finnish people based on what you saw on Ylilauta.
As a gay man, I take positive representations where I can get them. Any time a same-gender relationship is portrayed in a positive but very real light benefits us all. The same can be said of multiculturalism, which, much like being gay, will likely remain a minority viewpoint in the a world that seems married to racist traditions, and never really “come out of the closet” and been truly ready for acceptance of the rich culture which migrants bring us.
Anytime we can get some good press, it helps us all. I’m a big fan of immigration and I’m proud that Enrique has taken a stand and acknowledged that some of us are different, and thats ok.
Hyym aika normi retoriikka. Mielenkiintoisaa on se, että he käyttävät avoimesti rasistista kieltä. Nykyään useimmat ovat oppineet että N-sana, M-sana ja vaikkapa vinosilmä ovat rasistisia sanoja. Tietenkin harvempi miettii miksi ne on rasistisia, jolloin rasismi pääsee vain muuttamaan muotoa.
Don’t care for these Enrique, we shall continue no matter how they smear. Mudface, N-word….etc..etc we don’t care, you dont offense us, you will reap what you saw.
sasu hyvin sanottu.
Klay_Immigrant: Minun tietääkseen ainoot ihmiset jotka julkisesti joko puollustavat tai selittelevät toisen saman ryhmän jäsenen tekoja ovat värilliset. Ei kukaan Suomalainen noussu korokkeelle ja julistanut että Pekka-Eerik Auvinen ei edusta Suomalaisia tai norjan massa murhaaja Anders Behring Breivik ei edusta äärioikeistoa. Valkoinen mie oli hän sitten suomalainen, virolainen, britti tai jopa venäläinen ei tarvikse nousta puollustamaan kaikkia valkoisia. Tietenkin etninen viha jota olemme välillä joutuneet todistamaan romaneja ja venäläisiä vastaan motivoidaan usein samalaisella ryhmäsyylisyydellä mutta ei rotu ole ollut hallikseva elementti.
Sensijaan värillisten on noustava korokkeelle ja julistettava, että se pahan tekiä ei edusta meitä. Se melkeimpä odotetaan värillisiltä. Meidän on jollakin ihmeelisellä tavalla edustettava kokonaista rotua. Jokainen musta tietää mitä toinen musta ajattelee ja itä-aasialaisilla oli varmaan jokin suuri yhteinen kokous jossa päätettiin, että itä-aasialaiset ovat nörttejä ja naisemme ovat alistuvia.
Lisään hieman. Siis valkoiset saattavat välillä nousemaan heidän etnisyyttä mutta se on hyvin harvinaista. En ole vielä kuullut veläisen noukseen puollustamaan tai kieltämään mitä toinen venäläinen teki. Se on yksi tärkein etuoikeu joka kuuluu valkoisena olemiseen. Vaikka mitä teetkin niin se nähdään aina individuallistin tekona
horrible 🙁
It just shows that some judge others by very small details: because you Enrique have a foreign name, you must be “foreigner” and you should not say anything about “our” country. As a matter of fact, anybody who lives in a country for a while should have a say how that country is run.
Ylilauta is like one of the internet’s dirty toilets filled with shit and puke. You find everything from young kids thinking racism is cool and edgy to middle aged hardcore neo-nazis posting stuff to influence young minds. Slurs like mudface and shitskin are the order of the day. I feel it’s best to avoid these types of sites.
Klay, I think apologizing for the actions of some is a positive thing. It puts positive messages out there that please don’t group all of us with those idiots, because some people who have experienced many counts of racism against them personally begin to feel that all people are like that. That is how racism started in the first place, people not understanding the separateness of each individual from each other. People are grouped.
Coming from the South in the states, where sadly racism is alive and kicking, I always felt I had to apologize because I found so many things offensive and could see in the eyes of the people it was hurting that they could use a hug, even if it was a verbal hug of I am so sorry. Apologies are a great start and can be the beginning of unifying those against racism and join them in the fight against racism. Suppose everyone who opposes racism left a comment on a facebook page that said I am sorry for the idiots around us, people would see that probably 98% maybe more Finns and people in general are not racist and truly care about each other. Something happens when the masses speak like this, governments listen, the minority of racists get squashed into silence. Look how the “three letter group” in the states got squashed. (I don’t even want to refer to them by name because it disgusts me)
Anyway if some kind person wants to say I am so sorry for the actions of a few of my countrymen, I want to say to them, Thank you for being so kind. <3
First, I didn’t see anyone apologising for ‘other Finns’. YOU created that one, Klay. I saw Ruth backing up Enrique, saying NO-ONE’S life should be affected this way. Straw man all the way to the bonfire, there Klay.
Second, your comment about the Somali’s being held responsible for the actions of others is exactly what goes on on this blog every time somebody throws a crime statistic out as a way to denigrate a group. This blog does not condemn ‘Finns’, it condemns individuals who are xenophobic and racist.
Third, not content to slag other people off completely erroneously for sticking people into groups, you do exactly THAT in the last sentence – ‘one rule for native Europeans…’!
Klay, give it a rest!!
Mark you are so right, grouping people in one lump and then making statements about them is something we all need to be careful about. Klay probably didn’t even realize he just did that. There are certain things in the world that make it obvious to identify bad people. If someone robs a bank, kills someone, or is a pirate hijacking a cargo ship we all know and agree these are criminals. So I would never think that a guy from my neighborhood who robbed the corner store would require that I go around and apologize for this individuals actions. But when it comes to racism where the hurt and the pain is not always so obvious to many and the hurt is directed to a group of innocent people for no other reason than to hate them, then I do think as a society we should speak up and say that is not me and I will not tolerate that in my society.
Hi Donna, great to see you on Migrant Tales. And welcome!
Thanks Tuomas.
On what do you base your profiling of the typical Ylilautalainen? They write differently on some other sites.
Klay
I mean would you deem it necessary for Somalis to do the same for those pirates who hijack cargo ships, kidnap and sometimes murder Westerners off the horn of Africa (much more serious crimes) Quoted.
Somalis always fight any harm against innocent travelers on our coast whatever the circumstance is, but have you asked for yourself how the piracy started and why more 250 warships are on Somali coast, those are not helping cargo ships to sail peacefully.
save my day 🙂
good to remember that you have people giving death threats on your site, and it took a few days before you realized it.
Göran, are there new ones (death threats)?
Hi MT.
Illiteracy can’t be hidden. When Görän can’t distinguish the singular from the plural his counting is 1, many…….!!
Can’t distinguish the use of an example from reality. Pffffffffff….boring. And…………………………
So simple!!