Author: Migrant Tales

Finland’s Nobel Prize in economics states that white Finns must not share power and privileges with migrants and their children

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Bengt Holmström is a Finnish economist who received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2016. What he may know about economics does not mirror his knowledge of Nordic values such as social equality and especially how migrants and minorities live in Finland. 

In an interview in YLE, and speaking as a white Finn on behalf of migrants and minorities in Finland, he states that foreigners would accept getting paid lower salaries and have less comprehensive social welfare.

“It’s good for them [migrants],” he stated. “By the same token, it would let them to move up the [social] ladder and it would not irritate Finns so much [because foreigners have done little to nothing to build the country’s social welfare system that has taken white Finns decades].”

In other words, let’s make discrimination and inequality the standard. Isn’t that how things are run in this country?

As we accept – and do nothing – to promote and make migrants equal members of society, Holmström ensures that their children and grandchildren will continue to live as second-class citizens.

While such claims by Holmström should raise eyebrows, he does us a favor by reinforcing what we’ve always known about this country: Non-discrimination laws in Finland don’t really work and are hypocritical.

Read the full story here

 

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White Finnish privilege #54: Disguising your racism, bigotry, and prejudices effectively

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In Finland, there are many ways how white people and their institutions discriminate against people of color, migrants and minorities in general. Since all forms of discrimination are highly adaptive, they can also effectively disguise their racism, bigotry, and prejudices. 

Apart from an employer claiming that a person does not speak Finnish well enough to be hired, another form of widespread discrimination is the white savior complex used against groups like the Muslims.

The white savior complex, which is deeply entrenched in the worst forms of ethnocentrism, functions as an effective weapon to oppress and exclude other minorities and migrants as well.  This form of racism is especially prevalent – the list is not all-inclusive – among social workers, teachers and represenatives of multicultural associations.

Their racism, if exposed in the raw, would reveal the following:

“I don’t like you because you are a Muslim but I cannot say that too directly. But if you let me fill your head with ideas like taking off your hijab, how backward your culture is, and that women are equal (sic) in Finland blah blah blah, that will let me oppress you with near-impunity. You see, I’m not interested in your equality, but that you remain an unequal member of society.”

A good example of an oppressed person by a white savior and his or her institutions is one who never finds work to make enough money to stand on his or her feet financially. Such people form part of an integration project that excludes them from society indefinitely.

The best form of integration would be to teach such people of color to become active citizens and to challenge the very system that oppresses and excludes them.

But that would be too dangrous for some because it would end up jeopardizing their power and privilege over such groups.

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Päivän sitaatti Maija Vilkkumaa: “Maahanmuuttopolitiikkaa johtaa umpirasistinen ihminen.” Kuka hän on?

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Maija Vilkkumaa viittaa Timo Soiniin.

“Mut voisko tässä olla joku tällanen, että mä muistan, kun puhuttiin, kun perussuomalaiset otettiin hallitukseen, ja sitte, että vähän…osaks joo – okei, heillä oli niinku kovahko suosio vaaleissa -, mut sit siin oli myös just semmonen, et meidän pitää nyt sitten antaa heidän tehdä omat virheensä ja sillä seurauksella, että meidän maahanmuuttopolitiikkaa johtaa umpirasistinen ihminen, joka on niinku mun mielestä tehnyt vahinkoa sekä Suomelle että sit myöskin tietenkin näille pakolaisille, joita hän ei ole päästänyt…ja et ei se nyt aina ole hyvä tapa sekään, että päästetään ne leikkeihin mukaan,” Vilkkumaa lausui.

Lue koko juttu tästä. Lähde: Iltalehti.

 

S. Ukkola’s colorblind racism, white fragility, expose a wider problem of Finnish society

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Sanna Ukkola, a YLE journalist married to Matias Turkkila, the editor of the xenophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party publication Suomen Uutiset,  not only exposes in a column colorblind racism* and white fragility, but wider issues about Finnish society on racism, ethnicity, and identity. 

Writes Julian Abagond about colorblind racism (1970- ): “…also known as aversive racism, is racism that acts as if skin colour does not matter – even when it does.”

Robin Diangelo states that white fragility, which acts as a form of white bullying, functions to take ethnicity off the table and avoid discussing social ills like racism.

Ukkola has gained a reputation in Finland for writing about migrants in a populist and offensive manner. On too many occasions her opinions show her ignorance on the topic.

Even if Ukkola gets away with her views, which are highly contradictory, she sometimes sticks her foot in her mouth big time. One such case was last year, when she put on an Amerindian feather hairpiece that caused outrage from the Saami community and accusations of cultural appropriation.

To add more salt to injury, Ukkola showed a clip of Pekka ja Pätkä blackfaces on the TV program.

Tweets Outi Länsman: “Finnish journalism. The year is 2017.” Read the full story here.

Like with the Amerindian feather headgear stunt, Ukkola does the same thing in her latest column headlined, “Migrants aren’t your stuffed animals.”

One of the biggest problems, apart from her column that reveals colorblind racism, is that as a white person Ukkola is telling how migrants should be identified by Finnish society.

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Xenophobic and pro-Russia online publication MV-lehti founder Ilja Janitskin slapped with 22-month prison sentence

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THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Migrant Tales applauds the sentencing by the Helsinki District Court on Thursday of Ilja Janitskin, the founder of the xenophobic website MV-lehti and Uber Uutiset, on 16 criminal charges. Janitski was handed a twenty-two-month prison sentence and with two others found guilty, was ordered to pay the biggest share of damages amounting to 136,000 euros. 

In another twist to the story, which YLE News does not report on, the BBC also describes Janitski’s publication as anti-immigration, Europsceptic, and pro-Russian.

Writes YLE News:  “Some 90 criminal complaints related to the site were filed in connection with the expansive case, including aggravated defamation and ethnic agitation.”

While some, like Professor Matti Tolvanen, see the sentence as a blow to the spread of hate speech in Finland, Migrant Tales is not as optimistic but considers it a right step in the right direction.

The far-right and Islamophobic voice in Finland has found a platform through publications like MV-lehti and the Perussuomalaiset party.*

Read the full story here.

The 16 crimes thatJanitskin was convicted of included: three counts of aggravated defamation; two counts of aggravated incitement against an ethnic group; three counts of copyright infringement; two counts of breach of confidentiality; two counts of illicit gambling charges; and four counts of illicit fundraising charges.

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A woman of color in Finland was told that she was ethnically “unsuitable” for a job

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In Finland, labor market discrimination is rampant. A woman of color from Rwanda, Alice Mutoni, thought she was about to get hired but things went sour when her probable employer discovered that she was black. He said, “this was a Finnish company selling Finnish things,” according to YLE News. 

The non-discrimination ombudswoman, Kirsi Pimiä,  said that Mutoni’s case was a typical example of workplace discrimination in Finland. She said that her office receives regularly complaints about ethnic- and race-based discrimination.

”We have seen a lot of racism in Finland, and research findings indicate that Finland tops the table when it comes to this type of discrimination in Europe,” Pimiä was quoted as saying to YLE.

 

Read the full story here.

One of the best ways to complain about discrimination in Finland is to raise a storm, like Muoni did.

 

Ali’s journey: Getting married in Turkey and the long wait. Will he get a visa to Finland?

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On 10.10.2018, Ali,* 22, and his Finnish wife, 19, spent one of the most memorable days of their lives when they got married in Ankara. Present at the ceremony were two witnesses, the wife’s sister and a friend of Ali’s. Marriages in Turkey take place at the Turkish Marriage Offices.  

“Everything went smoothly and rapidly,” said Ali. “The justice asked who we were [prove our identity] and if we accepted each other as wife and husband.”

Ali came to Finland as an asylum seeker in 2015 and fell in love with a Finnish woman, whom he had to leave behind because he had five rejections for asylum. Ali was detained and sent on two occasions to the Joutseno immigration removal center.

See links below for more stories about Ali’s life in Finland, his detention, and return to Iraq.

The process of getting married to a Finn if you are an Iraqi can take months and is costly.

“I had to spend 1,000 dollars in Iraq to an agent who helped me get all the connections in Ankara,” he said. “Then, after we got married, we went to a private company that does the interview for the Finnish embassy to apply for the visa. That cost 600 dollars.”

After having done all the paperwork and interviews, Ali said that he expects to wait 6-9 months for the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to decide whether he will give him a visa or not.

“The Finnish embassy may interview me as in some cases but sometimes they don’t,” he said.  “I’m hopeful that things will go well. It was sad to part but my wife gave me a lot of encouragement.”

The newly weds in Ankara, Turkey.

Continue reading “Ali’s journey: Getting married in Turkey and the long wait. Will he get a visa to Finland?”

Laura Huhtasaari and Ville Tavio: How some sectors of the Finnish Lutheran Church promote racist discourse

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The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

William Blake (1757-1827)

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* vice-president and MP, Laura Huhtasaari, is keen on building her political career on Islamophobia and polarizing our country into two distinct camps: “us” and “them.” 

Apart from plagairizing 80% of her Master’s thesis, she copy-and-paste jobs of her Islamophobic and anti-immigration rhetoric from the likes of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US President Donald Trump.

On October 8, Huhtasaari and PS MP Ville Tavio took part in an open talk about asylum policy in Finland at St Michael’s Church (Mikaelinkirkko) of Turku.

I wrote a rebuttal last year to an anti-immigration column written by Tavio published in the Helsinki Times. He never bothered to reply. Like Huhtasaari, Tavio is an admirer of Marine Le Pen’s Islamophobic and openly hostile Front National.

What did the Lutheran Church wanted to gain by inviting two anti-immigration hardliners to debate asylum policy is a mystery to me.

Huhtasaari lets off her usual Islamophobic rants about Muslims at the event:

“I honestly hope that the church defends Christian values, Christians, Christian traditions, otherwise Muslims will wipe out [our Christian way of life].”

See the original Facebook posting here.

While it’s doubtful that two politicians like Huhtasaari and Tavio will help create a better society based on mutual respect and understanding, the real worrisome matter is the reaction of other politicians and society in general.

Mostly silence and turning a blind eye.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.