Author: Migrant Tales

A new low in Finnish journalism: Forcing asylum seekers to like our food

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One more time I’m going to show one of the low points of the A2 Pakolais-ilta debate on refugees. Yes, right, it’s the porridge scene where the host Wali Hashi offers porridge to a Syrian family. Not funny but it reveals a lot about the media’s attitude. 

If we are what we eat we do have to be careful when speaking about food. If you don’t like your host’s food it means you don’t like your host. Your host is what he eats.

The way that the Finnish media took the complaint of poor food by some asylum seekers is highly revealing. It shows, in my opinion, knee-jerk ethnocentrism.

If some asylum seekers are dissatisfied with the food don’t we have the know-how and resources to solve the problem? Why make such a fuss over it?

Why shove the issue in in their faces?

If the media gets offended at some asylum seekers because they don’t like the food it shows that we still have a lot to learn about cultural diversity.

Everyone should not forget as well that you are what you eat.

UPDATE (October 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

October 6

A2 Pakolais-ilta (YLE)

What was wrong with this television debate? Even if one of the hosts on the program was Wali Hashi, it was white Finns’ perceptions and opinions about asylum seekers coming to Finland and how they should integrate to our society. The term “integration” was mentioned a lot of times but it was code for assimilation, or one-way integration. Every form of prejudice Finland has about asylum seekers and migrants,  like they are criminals, rapists, social welfare bums and other labels, were pushed around freely during the one-sided debate. Forcing a refugee family to eat porridge and speaking of these people, who are also medics and university graduates, as helpless children who have to learn that zucchini is kesäkurpitsa in Finnish is beyond me.  The program did little to dispel the xenophobic climate in Finland but instead reinforced it by not challenging it. On top of this you had one National Coalition Party MP, Susanna Koski, and a pastor, Marjanna Toivianen, who still don’t know that the correct Finnish term for integration is kotoutuminen, not kotiutuminen, which means “coming home.” In 1998 Finland had to invent a new term for integration because none existed before that. That term is kotoutuminen.

If YLE cannot do a descent TV debate on our ever-growing culturally diverse society it should not do one at all.

Näyttökuva 2015-10-7 kello 8.47.49

 

 

Please repeat after me: Kotoutuminen on avain eri asia kun kotiutuminen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

En sanoo mitään A2 Pakolais-illan ohjelmasta, koska se oli pettymys minulle. Mielestäni siinä vahvistettiin enemmän kun haastettiin suomalaisten ennakkoluuloja pakolaisiin ja maahanmuuttajiin. 

Yksi asia joka pisti silmään oli ettei ohjelman vieraat, kuten kokoomuslainen kansanedustaja Susanna Koski sekä pappi Marjaana Toiviainen, tienneet ero sanasta kotoutumisesta ja kotiutumisesta.

Kotoutuminen on aika uusi sanaa suomen kielessä ja se tarkoitta prosessi jolloin maahanmuuttajia sopeutuu meidän yhteiskuntaan. Kotiutuminen on aivan eri asia eikä sillä pitäisi olla mitä tekemiseen ihmisten sopeutuminen Suomeen.

Näyttökuva 2015-10-6 kello 23.59.41

Näyttökuva 2015-10-6 kello 23.27.11

Toinen vieras joka ei tiennyt mitä on kotoutuminen ja kotiutuminen oli pappi Marjaana Toiviainen.

Like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, like Timo Soini’s Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* starts to implode with third vice president Sebastian Tynkkynen demands that the populist anti-immigration party exits government, its self-destruction will not be caused by outside factors but from within. 

One guiding star of the PS is not only its inexperience but outright ignorance that shows us the ugly face of its racism.

Teuvo Hakkarainen, a PS lawmaker, said something incredible over the weekend as did Social and Health Minister Hanna Mäntylä of the same party. One said it outright while the other one said it indirectly.

Hakkarainen was quoted as saying in Oulu-based Kaleva that  international agreements and the Constitution hinder  the PS from realizing its policies.

Mäntylä, who has a fixed obsession against asylum seekers, proposed again that asylum seekers should be treated unequally before the law and should not have equal access to the law and social welfare.

Näyttökuva 2015-10-4 kello 12.23.42

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Yes, you read right: Hakkarainen states that we should change the constitution and shelve international agreements to we can socially exclude and treat migrants as third-class citizens in Finland.

Continue reading “Like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, like Timo Soini’s Finland”

M. Blanc: Why immigrants are afraid to speak out in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: One of the worst things that one can do is to be intimidated by violence and threats. Such threats have become, unfortunately, a too often occurrence in Finland. Here is a rebuttal by M. Blanc. I raise my hate to him for having the courage and strength to write despite the flack he’s got. 

Read M. Blanc’s first opinion piece here. 
___________________

M. Blanc*

I wrote an piece about my experiences and stated the reasons why I have decided to leave Finland and how foreigners are treated by great number of Finns. I kept close track of how people reacted to what I wrote on Facebook and all of a sudden hundreds of foreigners were encouraged and agreed with my points and thanking me for speaking out. Of course there were those who started saying that I am the problem and I am lying to manipulate others. Some guy even compared me with Hitler!

I got a lot of messages from people that had been through the same things as I and they thanked me for sharing my experience. Last week, however, I started to get a lot of bullying and hate messages and they are still following me even though I have left Finland for good…

Now I realized why hardly any foreigner is speaking out in public because they are afraid and get so much pressure! I have received a lot of scary messages from Finns including one with a life threatening statement. I deleted all the messages from the people harassing me and soon will delete my account but I have a few screenshots in case I take legal action below.

I just don’t know what has happened to some people… Sometimes I feel life is worthless and there is no more reason to live when people are so ugly to each other like now… At least I wish I had never existed in this world for these people…

Näyttökuva 2015-10-5 kello 22.25.19

Näyttökuva 2015-10-5 kello 22.25.30

Please explain, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, what does “Finland isn’t a racist country” mean?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Standing together with four other Nordic prime ministers, Juha Sipilä states that Finland isn’t a racist country, according to YLE in English. I’m a bit baffled by Sipilä’s statement. What does Finland “not being a racist country” actually mean? 

Is he saying that racism doesn’t exist? Does his claim mean that it’s under control? Does it mean that we have racism and the prime minister is ashamed by it?

Or is it denial that such a social ill is one of the biggest challenges we have as our society becomes ever-culturally diverse?

We don’t know because the statement doesn’t give us too many clues.

Sipilä also claimed at the press conference that all of the Nordic countries “are international, open and tolerant.”

Taking into account recent election results in Denmark and Finland, one could debate the prime minister’s claim.

The only prime minister at the press conference that could be considered “international, open and tolerant” is Stefan Lofven of Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland all have populist and anti-cultural diversity parties that could be described as “xenophobic, closed and intolerant.”

Who are they?  The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* of Finland, the Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party of Norway.

All three of these parties base their political support on anti-cultural diversity sentiment, excluding and victimizing migrants and minorities and encouraging that they be kept on short leashes.

Näyttökuva 2015-10-4 kello 23.35.13

Read full story here.

Why have we seen in recent years the rise of populist parties in the Nordic region that are xenophobic and hostile to cultural diversity if we “are open, international and tolerant?”

Continue reading “Please explain, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, what does “Finland isn’t a racist country” mean?”

What the Finnish media leaves out in a story is an editorial line just like silence is a political decision

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Silence is a political decision. 

In journalism it works in the following manner: Silence is what you don’t report and intentionally leave out in the story. That is a policy decision, or an editorial line. 

As more asylum seekers come to Finland I try to remember what the media reported about the arrival of Somalis to Finland in the early 1990s. The reporting was disgraceful, unprofessional and outright racist.

No doubt about that.

The first time I ever got death threats in my life was in Finland, when I wrote about for Apu magazine a big story on a refugee center in Mikkeli.

When I reported this matter to the police in Helsinki, the matter that surprised me was how he played down what happened. He just wasn’t interested, He didn’t take what happened to me seriously.

Näyttökuva 2015-9-20 kello 10.09.23

This 1994 billboard by tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reads: “Somalis got asylum by swindled the authorities.” Source: Migration Institute.

While the national media doesn’t show its racism like the billboard above, it’s reporting is below standard it is still “white” and opinionated. Too often it is a mouthpiece for racist comments by politicians and rarely does it ever challenge them.  

The most recent example of the above was YLE’s 8:30pm news Saturday. For some odd reason YLE reports the news about the demonstrations for and against asylum seekers as two extremes.

If we put that type of reporting into context and applied it to Britain you’d probably see the former Islamophobic English Defense League at one end and anarchists at the other.

In Finland the media incorrectly reports that those who are in favor or against asylum seekers are two extremes.

They’re not.

Continue reading “What the Finnish media leaves out in a story is an editorial line just like silence is a political decision”

Finnish government and the PS: Kid gloves and wishy-washy statements on asylum seekers and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There are a number of demonstrations planned today demanding that Finland shut its border to asylum seekers. What may surprise some is that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a party sharing power in government, is organizing some of these demonstrations like the one in Tornio, a town located next to the Swedish border, according to tabloid Iltalehti.

Racists have done wonders for Finland’s image abroad and these people in Tornio will reinforce that image.

As long a politicians continue to give wishy-washy statements on racism and as long as the media parrots this type of narrative the international media is our last hope. They will name and shame us into action.

Näyttökuva 2015-10-3 kello 10.34.22

Demonstrations are becoming quite common in Finland due to the government’s wishy-washy stand on asylum seekers and racism.

If we are concerned about our international image we should take steps to challenge racism and outbursts of bigotry in this country thanks to parties like the PS.

Continue reading “Finnish government and the PS: Kid gloves and wishy-washy statements on asylum seekers and racism”

When a Finnish-language teacher loses respect for her foreign students

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What do you do if you are an asylum seeker that got a residence permit to stay in Finland and went to a Finnish-language course for a whole year? Everything is fine until you meet your first Finnish-language teacher who has no respect, never mind cultural sensitivity, for the your background and needs.

“She was not only a bad teacher but cruel,” said the Somali woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “She made me cry all the time. When I asked help from her she’d say that I had to pay more attention to her in class. I have never met such a bad teacher in Finland.”

somalit

Most of the students in the class were Muslims and as everyone knows some of them pray five times a day.

“The teacher wouldn’t allow us to step out of class to pray for five minutes,” she continues. “She said that if I stepped out to pray I’d be marked as absent from the class.”

We studied Finnish 3-5 hours a day.

Continue reading “When a Finnish-language teacher loses respect for her foreign students”