By Enrique Tessieri
In many respects, the treatment of Somalis in Finland sadly reminds me of how blacks in the United States were excluded from society in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement was in full swing. Like in the United States, racism in Finland not only threatens our values as a society but questions who we are as a nation and people.
Probably one reason why some Finns still deny that racism is a problem in this country is because it would be a costly matter to admit. For one, it would suck out much of the questionable credibility of some political parties and their politicians, who have made their political careers on spreading fear and suspicion of immigrants and minorities.
Contrary to popular belief, parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which have capitalized politically by appealing to that anti-outside world and anti-immigrant streak in some Finns, are weakening not strengthening us as a country.
How can a nation that fought so nobly in the Winter War (1939-40) and created an exemplary social-welfare state that has today one of the best educational systems in the world have discrimination issues with a group like the Somalis? It is not only shameful but disgraces our society.
A story on Kainuun Sanomat claims that racist abuse and attacks on the Somali community in Finland started to rise after the April election, when the anti-immigration PS became the third-largest party in the Eduskunta (parliament).
Refugee of the year (2011), Saido Mohammed, said: “After the parliamentary election [Somalis that live in] Helsinki have said that they are spat at daily.”
Researcher Marja Tiilikainen reinforces Mohammed’s claim, stating that the election gave permission to people to harass Somalis in public.
The real enemies of this country are not immigrants but those who claim, with a poker face, that they aren’t racists.
Bollocks. I have few friends in Helsinki who travel daily around “enriched” areas and they dont see “spats” and thats something you cant hide. And yes they use public transport.
Other thing what makes me to suspect that is that spitting other isnt common in finland, its common that teens spit on ground. I havent seen anyone spitting other and i have been all around and seen almost everything.
Hannu
I can believe this, and I’m sure than none of those few are Somalis, but how does this lack of friends qualify you to call Saido Mohammed a liar?
Hannu
It’s always nice to come across a guy that’s seen almost everything. Have you ever seen a racist attack of any kind in Finland?
Actually, racism is increasing rapidly everywhere in Finland. in Oulu there was somali guy died this week after Finns attacked his apartment and broke into…… licensing of racism provides by the government to the Finns.
Hi Akaaro and welcome to Migrant Tales. We are just as concerned as you about this matter. The best thing we can do is to expose it and nor remain silent.
“Actually, racism is increasing rapidly everywhere in Finland. in Oulu there was somali guy died this week after Finns attacked his apartment and broke into…… licensing of racism provides by the government to the Finns.”
And this is why I am sceptical when people start to claim racism has increased. So far they have said there has been no racist motive for the attack. If you take all the bad things that happen to black people as racism, then no wonder you think racism has increased.
Yossie
If you take everything happening to black people as racism, they why would it seem to increase? Surely that would become your baseline, in which case you wouldn’t see an increase unless there were more things happening to black people, and why would that be?
Both methods would actually work as barometers of change, assuming racism in all events with blacks and those events involving blacks proven to involve racism. What else would the change be due to if you are looking at assaults? Possibly a larger population. That is one factor.
However, a lot of racists kept quite when they thought that other Finns were all happy about the immigrants. Now that they see that a large percentage appear to be unhappy, you start to get a ‘mob’ mentality, in that it encourages some idiots to feel justified in being openly racist. You can see that, can’t you?
How do you imagine racism actually develops in a society, if not like this? Or have there never been racist societies in history? They get that way somehow and it’s good to ask yourself how that happens, how ordinary people come to hold very racist views. The more racism in a society, the more racist attacks, yes? Seems a reasonable assertion.
Mark
I find it unreasonable to believe that one person’s view can be extrapolite into a country wide fact. I believe more in the statistics that collect more data than one person’s experience. If I remember right the statistics were showing that the racist crimes were lower than before right?
Also what I meant was that when you see some person claiming racism has increased, and then you see a piece of news about a racist crime and think: thats it! racist crimes are increasing. Then you go on telling how you feel racist crimes are increasing again. Its a cycle. Well, that still doesnt make it so that they are in fact increasing. Only thing we can truly believe is statistics. So waiting for the newest ones before saying anything for sure might be the best.
How I see the effect of PS victory is actually different. What you can see is that your concerns has been noted in elections and you can make a difference in demogratic way. Since you have other means to get heard. resorting in violence can only do harm so there is no reason for it. This is my reasonable assertion.
Yossie, why is it so difficult for you to acknowledge that some people see racism as a serious social ill in this country that picked up after the election in April? Is it so difficult for you to admit such a thing because much of your arguments would end up in the dustbin? Or is it because you still haven’t accepted the fact that there are other people living in this country who have as much right as you to be here?
Mark, yes i have seen. Last case was culture x man attacking culture x woman because she dared to be with finn.
Justicedemon, So you claim that only when there is only somalis around these happen? If its so usual then my friends who take atleast 2 trips with public transport per day would have seen it.
Hannu
You said you don’t have many friends who travel around in Helsinki. You quite specifically said “I have few friends” (which I must say does not surprise me in the least). Then you argued from this lack of information that Saido Mohammed is lying.
Why should anyone believe you? How does your shortage of friends in general, and your complete lack of Somali friends in particular, make you any sort of authority on the specific situation of Somalis in Helsinki? We can all see that it merely makes you a sad and angry little racist cyber warrior who doesn’t get out much and is very probably under regular police surveillance since 22/7.
Have you tried buying fertiliser lately?
JusticeDemon, Hannu gets most of his information from these two hate sites: Hommaforum and Scripta. Especially the latter one has done a lot to insult Muslims, Somalis and immigrants in general.
Justicedemon: It might not be a good idea to put ideas in Hannu’s head. Sadly he appears delusional and somewhat unstable.
Given that has “seen almost everything”, I am also forced to conclude that he possesses somewhat “limited” cognitive abilities. He is clearly unable to draw upon his vast level of experience in any coherent fashion.
Hannu: I pity you. This may help you make some more friends… http://www.succeedsocially.com/sociallife
Perhaps with a few friends you’ll be a less angry person?
Enrique
You a free to see racism as serious social ill. However it is not fine when you start to make claims that all bad things happening to black people are racism. Or that a picture of a blond girl in a dating site is racism! You are going way ahead and it discredits you when you are like a boy that keeps yelling wolf
–You a free to see racism as serious social ill. However it is not fine when you start to make claims that all bad things happening to black people are racism.
We are not claiming that ALL incidents are hate crimes. But you have to admit that there is underwhelming debate in Finland about racism and the courage and leadership to grab this social ill by the horns.
Whatever you say, the PS victory in April was a somber day for immigrants and other minorities. It emboldened the bravado of some Finns, especially those in parties like the PS and associations like Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta.
What are we supposed to do? Go to a corner and cry? No way. As parties like the PS grow, we grow in strength as well because our claims are valid.
Hannu
Did you get the Migrant Tales shift again this weekend? Short straw, eh, tough luck! Let’s try to make it interesting for you.
Wow. That’s bad. And I mean it.
I have some questions, if you don’t mind…
Were culture x man and culture x woman of the same culture?
Were they related that you knew of?
What kind of attack was it? Was it verbal, pushing, shoving, hitting?
We’re they speaking Finnish or a foreign language?
If it was a foreign language, how did you know what they were arguing about?
Did you report it to the police, if not, why not? Did anyone intervene?
Is this the only time you’ve seen this particular kind of thing happen?
Did he object to her being with a Finn, or just with a man who happened to be Finnish?
If he objected to her being with a man, is that racism?
If he objected to her being with a Finn, is that racism?
If he attacked her and she is the same culture x as him, is it a racist attack, or an attack because of racism? Is that the same thing?
Interesting case. Just pulling on your vast knowledge again, Hannu, would you say have you seen any other instances of racism, but this time by Finns against immigrants?
I feel sorry for the woman involved. She now has something in common with the 40% of Finnish women who have experienced violence at the hands of a Finnish man (based on the research of Finnish sociologist Johanna Kantola). I guess your shocked especially by the high murder rate of women by their partners or former partners, which is regularly between 20 and 30 a year in Finland. That’s like 250 Finnish women every 10 years. That’s like, what, 5 bus loads of women?! Brutal stuff, eh!….
Yossie
Yes, but this ‘one person’ happens to be a very prominent Somali who has his finger on the pulse of the Somali diaspora in Finland. But hey, I know what you mean.
It’s a tricky one, this Yossie, me old pal. The problem with the statistics is that you can never tell what is happening with non-reporting. In the UK last year, hate crime went up, but most researchers think that that was because more people felt brave enough to come forward and report it to the police, that it mattered and they would be taken seriously.
Likewise, if the statistic goes down, it doesn’t necessarily mean the situation is getting better, because it might be less people are reporting it because they feel it won’t be taken seriously or they perceive institutional racism in the police. E.g. as institutional racism in the police was tackled in the UK, hate crime statistics went up. Ironically, ministers and the police have been relatively happy about that.
Yep, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve seen this kind of circular thing before: someone says that most racist crimes are not racist crimes, and then a story comes out in the news and everyone calls it a racist crime and a few months later it turns out its not a racist crime. And then someone asks you is racist crime is going up, and they say, no way, it’s just everyone is making up racist crimes when there isn’t any. But it doesn’t prove anything, does it?
Hey, Yossie, it sounded like you were saying PS supporters are the kind of people that would resort to violence if they thought they weren’t getting heard. I’m sure it’s not like that.
Mark
We sure can go circles around this and say all the changes was cause of people being less willing to report or more willing depending on how we want to interept the statistics. In general, unless there is something major we can point out, we should be hoping the adequate sample size would eliminate the personal variation when it comes to willingness to report these crimes. Else the purpose of the statistic is questionable.
This tells us not to make hasty calls of racist crimes unless you really have prove of such. But ultimately you are right of course. Single cases dont prove a trend. If there is couple of really cold days during the winter, it doesnt necesserely make it a colder winter than the previous one.
If PS party has a support of 19% like in the elections, can I promise you any of them doesnt resort in violence? Of course not. Just saying there is less of an reason for the possibly violent people to get violent.
Yossie
Yes, it’s good not to go around in circles. Clearly the statistics will generally be seized upon by different political groups to support quite opposing claims. One thing is clear though, you were very wrong to suggest that we can only truly believe in the statistics.
You are confusing at least three different elements by suggesting non-report can be controlled for by sample size, suggesting it is a variable subject to ‘personal variation’.
First, the statistics you are relying on are the police statistics on race crime. This is not a ‘study sample’ that you can increase at will. It is a sample made up of those that choose to report race crime. Non-reporting are those that choose not to contact the police, and we have absolutely no information on them or how many of them there are.
In a survey, you could ask people if they were a victim of racist crime and then ask if they reported it to the police. But it’s a strong argument that those that don’t report crimes to the police are also less likely to want to record their crime in a survey, giving rise to ‘non-response bias’. Another problem is that some sectors of the population who might be more subject to racist crime would be underrepresented, for example because surveyors go to public transport hubs, and so find mostly employed people, or they fail to get sufficient younger people. You can assess this kind of undercoverage by comparing with known statistical data on populations. But, assuming that underreporting is in no way connected to personal characteristics, there is no way to estimate the level or extent of non-participation and non-reporting.
In some instances, you may have demographic information about members of a survey sample who have chosen not to respond to a survey. Then you can do various analyses on that subsample and look for typical characteristics or reasons for ‘non-response’. If I remember correctly, the validity of those statistical analyses would be subject to sample size. From what I understand, non-response was not analysed in the MIDIS study, but non-reporting based on self-report was.
I’m not a statistician, but I work with statistics daily. Let me know if something doesn’t seem right.
Mark
I would still say I trust statistics more than I would trust a single observer. Of course if you can make wildly different interpretations from statistics then, I would consider the statistics to be flawed for purpose of revealing the situation
About what I meant about sample size. Yes it is provided from police statistics and that is what we have. Now, since we cant be sure how many crimes are actually reported and how many arent, we cant give the absolute amount of racist crimes. However should be able to monitor the differences per year.
Now what I tried to point out, I´ll give you an example: If we were to somehow magically know that the report rate for racist crimes was 66% in general. That would mean that if the racist crimes(and our sample size) in Finland would be 3 per year. In average that would make 2 reports out of 3 cases.
Now since the sample size of 3 is ridiculously low, we might end up 3 reports per year. Next year might easily be 0 reports making it decrease of crime by 100% huge success! Now with appropriately high sample size, that meaning if the sample size is high enough, this kind of change would dissapear since couple of different decision in any directions wouldnt make the statistics to go from one end to another.
So if there isnt any large scale events trying to effect the report rate, we should be able to compare the reports year to year to see if there is increase in racist crimes or not.
I am by no means a professional and suppose you are better to tell me if I got it right or horribly wrong
Yossie
We’re not talking about a sample size, but an incidence rate. Usually, it’s not the statistics that are flawed so much as the interpretations. The ping I think you are getting at with the size issue is that the larger the Syriac the less chance it is going to vary significantly, i.e., an increase of 50% sounds like a lot, but if it’s gone from two to three cases, it ain’t anything to write home about. What you didn’t seem to take into account in your example though was variations in non-reporting. It’s not something that we can assume is constant. That’s why looking at surveys of confidence in the police are useful or noting complaints about police inaction to crime reports. We could argue with MIDIS that those who were assaulted are more likely to want to register the fact by reporting on the survey; also, being the Helsinki area, there might be a higher incidence than elsewhere; these factors together could inflate figures. But this in turn is offset by the fact that non-reporting is also likely to be higher among non-respondents, and if it’s 90% among those that did participate, it could be even higher when you take this into account.
Syriac = sample. My phone text prediction is a bit dodgy sometimes. 🙂
Yes they were.
No they weren’t.
First verbal and then physical.
Foreign.
That woman told to my friend, who is her boyfriend, and he who told to me.
No, that man got his ass kicked. Justice served.
In that severity, yes. otherwise no. By severity I mean it escalated to mass fight later that night.
Object being too “west” and being with “westeners”
Yes.
Yes.
Racist attack withouth doubt, he thought that she belonged to “their kind”.
As attacks because of race? no. As not liking “them assholes”, plenty. Attacks because someone acts like an idiot, plenty. I have hard time to brand my friend as racist when she is so fed up with “certain ethnicity and their ways” that she said she will kick next in balls withouth asking.
And now we go in family violence stats. First of all womens do about half of serious violence in families, kill less mans but kill more kids. They just cant kill mans I assume….
Family violence stats are flawed because “no man” would report it because “otakko nä akalta turpaan” or similar what 112 said to man who asked protection.
Hannu’s replies to my questions:
Were culture x man and culture x woman of the same culture? yes they were
Were they related that you knew of? No they weren’t
What kind of attack was it? Was it verbal, pushing, shoving, hitting? First verbal, then physical.
We’re they speaking Finnish or a foreign language? Foreign
If it was a foreign language, how did you know what they were arguing about? That woman told to my friend, who is her boyfriend, and he who told to me.
Did you report it to the police, if not, why not? Did anyone intervene? No, that man got his ass kicked. Justice served.
Is this the only time you’ve seen this particular kind of thing happen? In that severity, yes. otherwise no. By severity I mean it escalated to mass fight later that night.
Did he object to her being with a Finn, or just with a man who happened to be Finnish? Object being too “west” and being with “westeners”
If he objected to her being with a man, is that racism? Yes
If he objected to her being with a Finn, is that racism? Yes
If he attacked her and she is the same culture x as him, is it a racist attack, or an attack because of racism? Is that the same thing? Racist attack without doubt, he thought she belonged to ‘their kind’.
Funny, Hannu that you complain that everything is racism. I’m not surprised you think this if you think that him attacking her because she was with a man was racism. Clearly that alone is not racism. Hannu, ‘their kind’ might refer to his religious group, in which case this is racial bigotry, it’s religious bigotry. Still not right, but you should educate yourself about the different kinds of bigotry.
Well, I suppose that would take courage that you do not have, confronting your friend because they fall into the habit of negative stereotypes. But I suppose you would brand a Somali a racist who is stereotyping Finns on the basis of constant racist abuse from ‘some’ Finns. At least, that is the habit of some criticising immigrants who speak out on this blog.
Source, please. I do not like domestic violence by either gender, and I accept that there is under-reporting of violence against men. However, the consequences of male violence against women are far more severe, hence the number of women being regularly killed in Finland. Levels of violence are accepted as being high in Finland across the board of statistics. And yet it is immigrant violence that receives your attention, Hannu. Funny, that, isn’t it.
No, not justice served Hannu. You are condoning crime, irrespective of who it is against. If the woman was harrassed or attacked, then she should report it. In fact, it’s been shown time and again that in instances of violence of men against women, police involvement is the single biggest deterrent to future violence. Certainly a crime in response to a crime is the law of thuggery.
Ironic isn’t it that folks like you Hannu condemn immigrants and their home countries abroad for their chaotic or non-existent judicial systems and yet in the next breath, you are quite happy to condone ‘mob-imposed justice’ in Finland.
typo – ‘this is NOT racial bigotry…’
I’m from Finland and I’m Somali. The other day some Finnish random person threw a rock at my face as I was walking to the market and called me a skinny. This all happend after he dropped his wallet and I ran after to give it to him.
Hi Private, and welcome to Migrant Tales. I am sorry to hear what happened to you. It is shameful and disgraceful behavior. But we are happy that you told us because many people visit this blog. It is another questionable feather in the cap of Finns who still think that racism is ok.
We hope that you can share some of your thoughts with us about life in Finland.
Private
Did you pick up his wallet and returned it to him? What does ‘skinny’ mean, is that from a Finnish word? Did the rock hit you? Did you report it? Was anything else said.
Sorry for the questions, but I’d like to know more about this incident.
Mark, unknown by attacker one woman who dress like a finn is picked up from group of finns and attacked cannot be anything else than racism. Attacker couldnt know her religion or anything. Its text book example of racism. Judging one only by on skin colour.
And source you wanted http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2010/01/torkea_perhevakivalta_kohdistuu_miehiin_naisia_useammin_1352897.html?origin=rss
Also i want to tell that i dont like violence but when someone attacks and get his ass kicked i wont mind, its like instant justice. And that case wasnt my problem, they can report it if they want.
Hannu
Please rewrite this, because I cannot make sense of it.
Yes, that an old textbook, but it’s well read in Finland, that’s for sure. Funny then that you are only interested in the racism of blacks in Finland and have nothing to say about the racism of white Finns towards immigrants. Is that in your textbook?
If she is Somali, and looks Somali, then another Somali might assume that she is Muslim, and so religion may well have been at the heart of it. And while that remains a kind of bigotry that ignores the rights of someone to practice religion in their own way without harrasment, it would NOT be racism.
You know, this is the only severe case of racism that you have seen where it ended in a fight, and in this case, there were two victims: the woman was a victim of the man who objected to her adopting ‘Western’ ways (that seems the most probably cause), while that same man was a victim of an even worse assault as he got his ‘ass kicked’. You have not acknowledged the fact that he also became a victim. On the contrary, you celebrate the thugs that took the law into their own hands.
And on this basis, this single experience, you feel justified and qualified to to say ‘bollocks’ when an article on Migrant Tales reports about racism against Somalis. It’s quite clear you have only a very narrow and very biased amount of experience on this issue. Offering up ‘friends who travel Helsinki daily’ as your key witnesses is pathetic. Nope, you ‘suspect it’ to be a lie because you are a racist Hannu and you only see what you want to see to confirm your prejudices against Somali people.
Fine, but don’t come on here pretending to be the font of all knowledge on the issue of racism against Somalis. If you do, I know that now I certainly will be the first one to shout ‘bollocks’ to your racist claims. 🙂
Ok, ill reply in finnish what may be better.
Ei ollut somali.
Mitä muuta kun rasismia voi olla kun etninen mies kävelee pari kertaa pöydän ohi katsoen vihaisesti ja lopulta pysähtyy ja sanoo jotakin etniselle naiselle, heidän välillään käydään sanaharkka jonka lopuksi mies tinttaa naista nyrkillä naamaan. Pelkästään etnisyyden perusteella tuo mies valitsi uhrinsa ja pelkästään etnisyyden perusteella oli sitä mieltä että hän saa päättää miten tuon etnisyyden naiset käyttäytyy tai on.
Jälkeenpäin sain tietää että “huora” oli loukannut kovasti tätä etnistä miestä olemalla länsimaisittain pukeutunut jne,,,
Ja tehdään selväksi, he eivät tunteneet toisiaan. Nainen oli tullut tänne aikaa sitten ja mies äskettäin. Heillä ei ollut yhteistä sukua tai mitään.
Ja pahoinpitelystä. Samantien kun tuo sankari oli naista lyönyt niin tuli nyrkkiä pöydässä istuneilta miehiltä ja minusta se ei ole väärin, siinä vaiheessa kun alkaa väkivaltaiseksi menettää oikeutensa olla koskematon ja ei todellakaan ole uhri.
Ja tosiaankin minulla on ystäviä ja sukulaisia jotka kulkevat päivittäin joukkoliikenteessä rikastetuilla alueilla ja jos tuo sylkeminen ja muu olisi niin yleistä kun enrique väittää niin väkisinkin olisivat nähneet jotakin.