Since the 2011 parliamentary election, when the Perussuomalaiset(PS)* won 39 seats from five in the previous election, the PS has consolidated its power – with the help of other mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party (NCP) – by spreading fear and lies about migrants.
Any sensible person understands that migration is a very powerful force that can offer a lot of benefits to the host country. In Finland, it has been the opposite: migration is not good unless you are a “super migrant.”
The Foreign Student started to write about Finland’s unfair immigration policy in 1981-82. Back then, some saw the ideal foreigner as the front cover of a soap commercial.
Wrote Migrant Tales in 2012: “These [xenophobic] politicians sound like they are reading to you the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale when Prince Charming wakes the beautiful princess with a kiss from her deep sleep. Anti-immigration politicians and parties don’t speak of Sleeping Beauty per se, but about super immigrants.”
It is incredible how much harm the PS has done to Finland by spreading fake news about migrants. Probably the most incredulous thing is how little has been written about the PS lie.
Today, almost 13 years since the parliamentary election of 2011, a group of researchers, comprised of Aalto University economics professor, Matti Sarvimäki, and researchers Hannu Pesola and Tuomo Virkola of the Institution for Economic Research (VATT), questioned PS claims that people from outside the EU come to work and then live off welfare.
The Helsingin Sanomat article reports: “The current governing party, the PS, has estimated, based on studies by its own think tank, that employment for non-EU job-seekers collapses rapidly, and they will typically end up living on social benefits. The researchers’ report shows that this is not the case.”
The researchers concluded that “even after ten years of living in the country, those who move to Finland with a work permit still pay more taxes on average than they receive in income transfers.”
While it is a very positive matter that Finland is trying to rely on facts about migration instead of racist hearsay, the conclusions of the study leave opened a lot of open questions.
One of these is if the tightening of immigration policy is based on politics and not what is good for the country? Has the PS and the opinionated views of politicians about migrants been possible thanks to deep-seated racism and because the media has reinforced such views with stenography journalism?
If we deny racism and play it down, as we have done for years, we do very little to challenge and rid it from our society.
Too little is being done to challenge racism in Finland.
It is not being challenged vigorously enough because Finns continue to benefit from it.
