Author: Migrant Tales

Ali’s journey (June 13, 2018): The long journey back. Baghdad feels like a sauna

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Twenty-five days have passed since Ali,* 22, who speaks on condition of anonymity, “voluntarily” returned to Iraq from Finland. Sometimes the journey back to where you were once from is longer than the one that took you to foreign lands. The first journey fueled by hope and the other one back to your former homeland with question marks and doubts.  

Below is the first message I received from Ali when he landed in Baghdad on May 21:

Baghdad sometimes feels like a sauna, according to Ali.

He continues (the comment was lightly edited) in a message dated May 23:

“Well yeah it is so exhausting [the journey back], but that feeling when you see ur mom after long, long time it’s the best feeling in the world; [it’s the same feeling when you] also my brother and some friends, but still, for sure, there’s that feeling of not being safe etc.. it makes me think too much but I don’t wanna think of it, like it’s like that and [there is] nothing i can do so.. but i feel good and all good for now. And also i feel like it’s been 100 years when i was here last time and things are not the same…”

This evening when I spoke to Ali he repeated what he said in Finland and on his return to Baghdad: “Even if I’m here I still don’t believe that I’m back. It’s a weird feeling because I never saw myself returning.”

Continue reading “Ali’s journey (June 13, 2018): The long journey back. Baghdad feels like a sauna”

Finnish identity: You define who you are, nobody else can or should do that for you

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We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Anaïs Niin (1907-77)

The Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a shrinking single-issue political party that wants, but cannot succeed, at turning Finland into a Denmark-style country where political parties try to outdo each other in their racism and bigotry. 

With parliamentary elections just ten months away in April 2019, it is clear that the PS is doing everything possible to attract attention with their political antics. Contrary to the 2011 parliamentary elections, when the number of their MPs rose to 39 from 5 in the previous election, those years are long gone.

According to some polls, the PS is going to be one of the biggest losers of the 2019 parliamentary elections.

While this may be the case, the PS will launch repeated attacks and spread lies about migrants and minorities.

One of these involves closing our borders to asylum seekers, especially to those who cannot read or write.

One PS city councilman from Mikkeli contended in a blog post, which was full of grammatical errors that 46% of all sexual crimes against under-18-year-old teenagers are by asylum seekers.

The claim, which the councilperson bases on a Police University College report, forgets to mention that 46% figure he uses is from a sample of 147 cases or a total of 68 cases. In 2015, 32,477 asylum seekers came to Finland. If we just look at that year, 147 cases out of 32,477 asylum seekers total 0.45%.

Getting one’s facts wrong and grossly exaggerating them is nothing new for the PS.

Another recent claim by the PS is that in 30 years Finland will have cities where white people will be minorities.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

The claim, that white Finns will become a minority in the face of migrants and minorities, is one of the oldest tricks in the books by anti-immigration parties.

Continue reading “Finnish identity: You define who you are, nobody else can or should do that for you”

Facebook Venla-Sofia Saariaho: Poliisi ja onnea

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Tälle tapauksella oli hyvä loppu: Sailön otettu 20.2.2018 ja vapautettu Joutsenon säilöönottoyksiköstä 17.5.2018 melkein neljä kuukauden jälkeen. Kaikki joka ovat olleet Joutsenon säilöönottoyksikkössä ovat samaa mieltä yhdestä asiasta: Se on kauhea paikka ja peilikuva siitä mitä meidän yhteiskunta ei pitäisi olla. 

Säilöönotto päättyi menestyksekkääseen Lex Gaudiuksen kanteluun Itä-Suomen hovioikeuteen.

____________________________________________

 

Lue alkuperänen Facebook juttu tästä.

Postaus julkaistu luvalla. 

How to fool customers by changing the expired sell-by dates of your products

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Migrant Tales has exposed how an Espoo-Helsinki-based food distributor allegedly pays asylum seekers under the table. The company’s name, which the authorities know, allegedly threatens asylum seekers to do their dirty work, like change the sell-by date of its products. 

The company in question allegedly told one of these asylum seekers that it had employed that it would report the person to the police if it did not change the expired sell-by date of its products.

The asylum seekers had two rejections for asylum and deportation proceedings were hanging over his head.

Let us show you how this company changes the sell-by dates of one of its many products.

  1. Remove the whole flour (chakki atta) from a pink bag;

  2. Use nail-polish remover to erase the old sell-by date with a fake date;

  3. Put the chakki atta flour back in the same bag you took them out of and sew the bag so nobody will suspect a thing.

1.  Take the expired chakki atta whole flour from the pink bag.

2. Changing the sell-by date is easy. In the extreme left picture, it reads that the whole flour (chakki atta) in the bag was packaged on 22 Jan. 17 and should be sold by 21 Oct 17. With some nail remover and a cloth (second picture) wipe the old dates off the package. Use a stamp with new dates and, presto, the product has a fake sell-by date. How much profit does this company make on these products?

3. A sewing machine and fake sell-by dates make the product look new.

 

 

How Finland’s media writes about migrants and minorities: Helsingin Sanomat does it again

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This story below by Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily, is a typical example of how the media portray migrants and minorities in this country: There must be a picture of a Somali woman because it is about migrants, and not one member of the non-white Finnish community is interviewed. 

While the story gives superficial reasons why white Finns are so strict about whom they accept as Finns, the reporter should have dug deeper and ask how we ended up becoming a racialized society.

You will not have to search far because the answer is in our recent history. Even at elementary schools in the 1970s, children were taught that n stood for the n-word. While eugenics was relegated into the dustbin of history after World War 2, history books in Finland fifty years ago claimed that we were made up of two races: the Nordic and Eastern Baltic.

Learn your ABCs at elementary school in the 1970s. N-word washes her face, but it doesn’t whiten. Why do Finns have difficulty in seeing non-whites as Finns? Part of the answer is in the racist upbringing that we had at school.

In 2015, Migrant Tales published a series of stories highlighting the Finnish media’s deficient and opinionated reporting about migrants and minorities.

We will begin to publish more of these types of stories from June.

Read the full story here.

Below are some of the things to watch for when looking at the Finnish media’s bias when reporting on migration and minorities:

  • White sources are almost always used as authorities when immigrants and minorities are the topic;
  • Editors too often ask white experts – rarely if ever migrant or minority experts –  their view of the “immigrant problem;”
  • Editors of Finland’s main dailies are white Finns;
  • We give inflated respectability and importance to racists because they mirror our attitudes;
  • In Finland, the stronger racism became, the more airtime it gets;
  • The rise of racism in our society and our coverage of it reveals how unbalanced and uncritical our media is;
  • When it comes to fighting racism, the media are part of the problem.

 

White Finnish privilege #53: Plan Finland’s unplanned pregnancy campaign #ProtectBlackGirlsToo #Whatofme

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Plan Finland’s failed campaign against unwanted pregnancies in Africa is an example of a broader, more serious problem: white exceptionalism. In looking at the campaign by Plan Finland, one can only wonder what these people thought when they launched it.

To grasp the full extent of the problem and how disrespectful the campaign is, what would white Finns think if blacks from Africa launched a campaign with white Finnish pregnant twelve-year-olds wearing suggestively African clothes?

Newspapers and blogs in Zambia and elsewhere have picked up the story.

Writes Mainstream Humanitarian:

“Later, they found a 12-year-old pregnant Zambian child, (Whose name we can not disclouse due to media ethics protecting children), made her wear the clothes and had a Finnish photographer; Meeri Koutaniemi take her pictures. Subsequently, they produced romanticized pictures of child pregnancy, which was stated by the designer herself in a video, and made her pose in a sexually suggestive way in the name of fashion photography. The girl and her family did not receive any form of compensation.”

Indeed, such a campaign would never happen in Europe and Finland because black Africans do not have such power and privilege over white Europeans, who still support their colonial privilege as white saviors.

Two pictures of Fridah, the 12-year-old Zambian girl used by Plan Finland’s campaign. Photo: Plan Finland.

Dr. Faith Mkwesha, who is the founder and executive director of Sahwira Africa International (SahWira Africa International), an anon-government organization that organizes cultural activities and consultancy on African culture and development issues, is one of Plan Finland campaign’s most outspoken critics.

“I think our campaign has exposed the racism in the campaign and the white savior complex,” she said. “The white savior is the idea that white people are better, progressive and exceptional and [that] black people and people of Africa or Asia etc are uncivilized and barbaric and need white people to save them from their ignorance.”

According to Dr. Mkwesha, it is precisely this type of white-savior mentality that gave European colonial powers the justification to enslave and pillage whole continents and regions.

“It [the white savior mentaility] is maintained because white people build their identity in relation to others,” she continued. “So now, when they do charity [work], they feel they are better and keep in place white superiority. That is why they use people in distress to appeal to their emotions.”

Continue reading “White Finnish privilege #53: Plan Finland’s unplanned pregnancy campaign #ProtectBlackGirlsToo #Whatofme”

Exposing white Finnish privilege #52: Having no privilege is dangerous

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A report commissioned by the Finnish ministry of the interior revealed that migrants are 2.5 times more likely than white Finns to be assaulted, reports YLE News. 

Another study published in 2014 by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), showed that first-generation immigrants at school are more likely to experience bullying, physical threats and sexual harassment than white Finns.

Even if violence and harassment of migrants are too common in Finland, the report published by the ministry of the interior claims that “very little is known about the relative security of different groups in society.” In its survey, THL admitted in their study that there has been up to know very little information about this groups of minors who have foreign-born parents.

While it is a good matter that Finland wakes up to the ogre of racism and the violence it sows in society, that the results of these studies “surprise” officials reveal, in my opinion, a heavy dose of denial and the unwillingness to do anything effective to challenge the problem. White privilege must numb and discourage them to act effectively.

 

Read the full story here.

White Finnish privilege #52

While Finnish privilege not only permits you to keep your social entitlements, it guards you better from violence unless you are a woman.

Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #52: Having no privilege is dangerous”

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Denmark proves that Nordic “equality” is selective and does not apply to minorities like Muslim women

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While we should not be surprised that Denmark, the Nordic region’s and one of Europe’s most Islamophobic country, voted to ban the niqab and burka,* according to Politico. While I have seen only twice in my lifetime in Finland a woman wearing a niqab, I have never seen one using a burka. How many women will be affected by this ban? Apart from making it clear who has the right to gender equality in Denmark, the measure is another example of Europe’s hypocrisy. The women Denmark targets are the ones that it now attacks with more gusto thanks to the ban.

What policies – if any – does Denmark apply to create an inclusive and culturally diverse (non-white society)? Ban, tar and feather these women in public is the answer.

The only good thing I can say about the country is that the Perussuomalaiset party’s [1] bid to turn Finland into an Islamophobic and racist nation like Denmark failed. Small consolation to an overbearing social ill facing us today.

Read the full story here.

* The media mixes up niqab with burka, a garment worn by women that covers their body and the face. When some media speaks of the niqab, a dress that covers the woman’s body except for the eyes, they call it wrongly burka. 

[1] After 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.

Mohammed’s deportation from Finland to Iraq on May 29

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There are many reasons why some consider the Finnish justice and asylum system inhumane towards asylum seekers. Amnesty International has cited factors like restrictions of the right to free legal representation and reduced appeal times in 2016 as factors that have undermined asylum seekers’ situation in Finland. 

Mohammed*, who came with his brother from Iraq to Finland in October 2015,  was a minor of 16. Over two years later, when he became an adult, his brother was deported to Baghdad on Tuesday, May 29.

“My brother and I are close,” said Mohammed’s brother. “We were always together and even made the difficult journey to Finland from Iraq together.”

Mohammed’s brother said that after receiving three rejections for asylum and a new one for a new case, his brother was asked to visit on May 15 the Mikkeli police station.

“The police told him that he had to sign a paper to return to Iraq,” he said. “My brother refused and told him that he would never return to Iraq voluntarily.”

On that day, Mohammed was detained, put in a police cell and sent to the Joutseno immigration removal center.

Since he did not have the services of his former lawyer, he was given one by the state pending his deportation.

Mohammed’s last days spent in Finland were in a small room at the Joutseno immigration removal center.

“Even if my brother sent numerous messages to the lawyer and even if she promised she never visited him in Joutseno,” he said.

According to Mohammed’s brother, the lawyer had assured his brother that he would not be deported.

“My brother had an appointment with the judge about whether he would be deported,” Mohammed’s brother said. “She said she had made a new appointment with the judge but later denied that she had ever made such a meeting.”

“They deported my brother despite the lawyer’s assurances that it would not happen,” he said. “I got a message on Tuesday (May 29) from my brother that he was at the airport and they were going to deport him.”

Mohammed’s brother states that the lawyer didn’t do anything to help his brother and lied to him.

Mohammed told his brother in Baghdad not to worry about him, even if returning to Iraq is a shock and even if he doesn’t dare to venture outside his home for too long.

Migrant Tales hopes to publish soon a letter from Mohammed about his stay in Finland and his return to Iraq.

The United States and Finland must stop incarcerating migrant children

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One picture on the left shows how migrant children in the United States are being separated and incarcerated. On the right, is a picture taken in Finland last year of a minor looking out the window at the Joutseno immigration removal center. 

One of Finland’s most anti-immigration governments, which has brought the hostile environment to our shores, can claim with a poker face while it incarcerates minors it does not separate children from their parents.

But then we have unaccompanied minors who are incarcerated in Finland never mind the child protection authorities that ethnically profile migrant families.

The United States versus Finland. What is the difference?  See the video on the right here, and the one on the left here. The picture of the girl on the right was locked up with seven of her brothers and sisters at the Joutseno immigration removal center. The family was released in 2017 from detention, and all its members have a temporary residence permit in Finland.