Migrant Tales, Author at Migrant tales

Our Finnish modern-day eugenicists are no different from the past

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Who are those modern-day eugenicists breathing life back into this disgraced pseudo-science whose aim was to create a master white race by wiping out other ones? If we look at Europe and the Nordic region today, we can find many politicians with the same nineteenth-century agenda but in a different context.

Some may rightfully argue that eugenics is long dead. True, but what hasn’t died is racism that manifests itself in new forms.

In Finland, you will find them in groups like Suomen Sisu, Suomalaisuuden liitto, neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, in parliament and city councils as well as in all walks of life in Finland.

Suomalaisuuden liitto, or the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, is one of many eugenicist-spirited associations in Finland that want to keep Finland white.

They are present as well in anti-immigration right-wing populist parties like the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and Progress Party of Norway. While these types of modern-day eugenicists can be found throughout Europe in parties like Golden Dawn of Greece, Hungary’s Jobbik and the National Front of France, their message is the same: We must keep our country white.

What these anti-immigration and xenophobic groups haven’t told us yet is how they plan to keep their countries’ white. Is it only a matter of time when they’ll begin drafting legislation to deport Muslims and other visible minorities to where they came from? Think of the consequences to our democracy and way of life if we permit this type of hatred to get the better of us.

When I moved to Finland permanently in December 1978, the first matter that surprised me was prejudice. It seemed that the only contact some Finns had with blacks was through Archie Bunker’s TV series. Finns were not only prejudiced to outsiders but placed labels on themselves as well.

If Finns housed such views of themselves, one can only imagine how they saw non-Finns like blacks and Southern Europeans.

The same idea, that we are being invaded by criminals, was evident in Finland’s immigration policy. Finland got its first Aliens Act in 1983, about 66 years after independence. Immigrants had no rights before the Act and could be held indefinitely and deported by the police without a fair trial.

The answer to how some Finns saw foreigners can be found in popular culture and in Irwin Mutakuono ja lakupelle (Mudfaces and n-clowns). The lyrics were written by Veikko Salmi.

Another racist hit by Irwin Goodman was Marcello Macaroni. The song was sung as well by Esa Pakarinen, a Finnish movie star.

If you check out former song on YouTube, it has over 1.2 million hits.

Continue reading “Our Finnish modern-day eugenicists are no different from the past”

Creating political Frankensteins with the help of social media and prejudice

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Migrant Tales

In Saami mythology there’s a large-but-not-too-bright monster called Staalo, which was made from a log, lichen and a few incantations. If we look at the recent rise of intolerance in Finland and Europe, social media has breathed life back to many Staalo-like political Frankensteins.

Staalo is a monster found in Saami mythology. Source: Tajukangas.

In the case of Finland, you need a political party with some credibility among voters, like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), to ensure success that your Frankenstein will work.

One political Frankenstein creation of social media is PS MP James Hirvisaari, who is so hard up for publicity these days that he seeks publicity in the tabloids by raising issues like fecal skid marks found on the toilet bowls of parliament.

Another social media creation is PS MP Juho Eerola, who admits liking fascism and claimed the recent Jyväskylä attack by neo-Nazis as a publicity stunt by the Left Alliance.

Letting off the hook other parties in Finland by blaming only the PS would be too simple. You can find these types of political Frankensteins in all of the parties. None probably have so many as the PS.

Dutch football master Edgar Davids wrote about racism in a recent column. He compared such people to sheep without backbone.

Racism exists because still too many people don’t take it seriously. Such people rarely see matters from the victims’ point of view but from their white comfort zones.

Writes Davids: ”How can you know what racism is like if you have never experienced it? It’s very difficult to imagine.”

When more people start raising their voices by saying no to this social illness, matters will begin to change.

Dan Koivulaakso, one of the three authors Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland), asks on a Kymen Sanomat column why Eerola reacted the way he did concerning Jyväskyä.

The answer is simple: Intolerance and society’s indifference to the far right and racism help keep alive these political Frankensteins.

FIS: Somali family reunifications plummeted to just over 500 in 2012

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The number of Somali family reunification applications in 2012 plummeted to just over 500 application compared with 1,900 in the previous year and 3,900 in 2010, reports Helsingin Sanomat, citing the Finnish Immigration Service (FIS).

There were a total of 8,600 applications in 2012. The highest number were from were from citizens of the Russian Federation, followed by Thai and Somalis, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

The sharp drop in applications by Somalis is due to tightened laws. Application fees have soared as well.

A Somali resident in Finland, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Migrant Tales that matters started to get especially difficult from 2012.

“In 2011 there were still some who could bring their families,” the Somali said, “but in 2012 almost every application was turned down by the authorities.”

FIS reported earlier that at the end of 2011 there were a total of 6,100 family reunification application by Somalis. According to the Refugee Advice Center, only 329 family reunifications took place on average annually between 1999 and 2010.

Apart from the suffering of living separated from your loved ones indefinitely, what’s supposed to happen if separation is the price you must pay if you want to stay in Finland?

It’s natural that immigrant and refugees want to bring their families to their new homeland.

Finns that moved to the United States in the nineteenth century did the same. First came the relatives and later on the neighbors and friends.

Husein Muhammed: Ääriapajilla

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Husein Muhammed

“Vaadimme kaikkien etnisten suomalaisten asuinalueiden liittämistä Suomeen. […] Ainoastaan etninen suomalainen voi olla Suomen kansalainen. […] Ulkomaalaisten maahanmuutto Suomeen on estettävä.”

Näin julistaa itseään Suomen Kansallissosialistiseksi Puolueeksi nimittävä joukko, joka tähtää vuoden 2015 eduskuntavaaleihin. Puolue on omien nettisivujensa mukaan perustettu joulukuussa ja se pitää päämajaansa Kotkassa. Tavoitteena on saada eduskuntaan “kansallissosialistisesti ajattelevia ihmisiä”.

Juutalaisten holokaustia puolue nimittää “kuudeksi miljoonaksi valheeksi”. “Puolueen esikuvana toimii Adolf Hitler ja hänen NSDAP-puolueensa.” Joskin puolue pyrkii realismiin: “Maailma on kuitenkin muuttunut paljon 1900-luvun alusta, joten kaikkia Adolf Hitlerin oppeja ei voida soveltaa kirjaimellisesti.”

Huomatkaa sanat “ei voida” ja “kirjaimellisesti”. Jotain sinne päin siis kuitenkin tavoitellaan.

Sisäministeriön tammikuussa julkistamassa tilannekatsauksessa arvioidaan väkivaltaisen ekstremismin riskin olevan Suomessa vähäinen. Katsauksessa tarkastellaan niin äärioikeiston, äärivasemmiston kuin väkivaltaisen ääri-islamin uhkaa. Vaikka riskejä pidetään vähäisinä, kaikkien edellä olevien ryhmien kohdalla mainitaan tällä hetkellä jo olevan uhkaavia piirteitä.

Tilanne voi muuttua yllättäen. Esimerkiksi Kreikassa äärioikeistolainen Kultainen aamunkoitto -puolue on lyäärihyessä ajassa muuttunut suureksi uhaksi samalla kun myös kreikkalainen vasemmisto on radikalisoitunut. Kultaisen aamunkoiton jäsenet syyllistyvät järjestelmälliseen väkivaltaan maahanmuuttajia kohtaan. Tuhannet maassa pitkään asuneet maahanmuuttajat ovat joutuneet pakenemaan väkivaltaa. Osa on tullut myös Suomeen. Olen henkilökohtaisesti kuullut heidän erittäin seikkaperäisiä ja uskottavia kertomuksiaan väkivallan uhriksi joutumisesta.

Myös Itä-Euroopassa ja Venäjällä on runsaasti avoimen väkivaltaisia äärioikeistolaisia liikkeitä. Lännessä alalla ovat kunnostautuneet muun muassa eri maiden Defence League -ryhmät. Itä- ja Länsi-Euroopan äärioikeiston välinen hienoinen ero on lähinnä siinä, että itäeurooppalaiset ryhmät kohdistavat vihansa ensisijaisesti juutalaisiin ja romaneihin, länsieurooppalaiset muslimeihin.

Varsin monipuolisen kuvan äärioikeistolaisista liikkeistä antaa esimerkiksi Lisa Bjurwaldin kirja “Europas skam – rasister på frammarsch”. Se ei tosin juurikaan puhu Suomesta, sillä se on kirjoitettu silloin, kun Suomessa maahanmuuttajavastaiset liikkeet olivat vasta heräämässä. Näistä antaa hyvän kuvan Li Anderssonin, Mikael Brunilan & Dan Koivulaakson tuore kirja “Äärioikeisto Suomessa”.

Jera ja Jyri Hännisen “Tuhansien aatteiden maa – ääriajattelua nyky-Suomessa” on monipuolisempi ja tasapuolisempi kirja, joka tarkastelee kaikkia suomalaisia ääriliikkeitä ja niiden ajatusmaailmaa. Kirja on erityisen mielenkiintoinen siksi, että siinä huomaa, kuinka toistensa ääripäinä pidettyjen liikkeiden tavoitteet johtavat lopulta pikemminkin samaan lopputulokseen: yhteiskuntarauhan järkyttämiseen. Sisäministeriön tilannekatsauksessa on käytetty varsin paljon tilaa väkivaltaisen ääri-islamin tarkasteluun. Siinä puhutaan myös joistakin radikaaleista Suomessa, vaikka tiettävästi Suomessa ei ole ollut yhtään islamin nimissä tehtyä väkivaltatekoa. Katsauksessa mennään myös pahasti metsään nostamalla huolenaiheeksi musliminuoret, jotka eivät “täysin samaistu suomalaiseen kulttuuriin, mutta eivät toisaalta tunne vanhempiensa kulttuuria omakseen”.

En tiedä kuinka moni suomalainen nuori “täysin samaistuu suomalaiseen kulttuuriin”, mutta olisi todella erikoista edellyttää maahanmuuttajataustaisten nuorten “täyttä samaistumista” suomalaiseen kulttuuriin sen enempää kuin vanhempiensa lähtömaidenkaan kulttuuriinkaan. He ovat suomalaisia, maahanmuuttajia, mahdollisesti muslimeja – ja vaikka mitä. Radikalisoitumista voi välttää tai siihen voi sortua riippumatta täydestä samaistumisesta tiettyyn kulttuuriin.

Alussa mainitulla natsipuolueella tulee tuskin olemaan edellytyksiä eduskuntavaaleissa. Ei siksi, etteikö monia miellyttäisi sen ajatusmaailman, vaan siksi, että ääriapajilla kalastelee jo niin moni perinteinenkin puolue. Enkä tarkoita vain Perussuomalaisia.

* Kirjoittaja on lakimies ja tietokirjailija sekä Etelä-Suomen etnisten suhteiden neuvottelukunnan puheenjohtaja (2011 – 2015)

Alkuperäisen blogikirjoituksen voi lukea tästä.

Tämä blogikirjoitus julkaistiin Migrant Talesissä luvalla.

University of Eastern Finland concerned over threats to their racism researchers

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Unions representing racism and multiculturalism researchers at the University of Eastern Finland, expressed concern Wednesday over the threats they are receiving, reports YLE in English.

In a joint statement, the unions said that such threats to its researchers should be a cause for concern, especially in a region where intolerance is on the rise.

“Our researchers into racism and multiculturalism have been subjected to threats,” said Antero Puhakka of the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals (JUKO). “Anonymous threatening letters have been posted to their homes and researchers have faced abuse on Facebook. Complaints regarding the activities of researchers and teachers have been filed with the vice-chancellor or to a higher authority.”

The JUPO representatives added that their must be zero tolerance for such harassment and intimidation.

We should never give in to racists, who have no regard for our democratic way of life and who believe they can intimidate people they disagree with. If we permit intimidation and fear to overtake our good judgement, the threat to ourselves and our society will become much worse.

Migrant Tales has been a target of death threats in the past and of harassment.

How far has the PS beachhead spread in twenty-two months?

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales wrote the following day after the historic April 17, 2011 election had sent shock waves throughout Finland and Europe: “Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland.”

Back then, our blog got got cited by Time Magazine. The above quote was a response to PS chairman Timo Soini’s statement: “We [the PS] are not extremists so you can sleep safely.”

The rise of a large right-wing populist party with Counterjihadists could not have been possible without the complacency and silence of other political parties. The PS in its present state and size is a knee-jerk reaction to Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity, the euro crisis and political establishment.

Even if the PS claims to be an option to the way politics have been traditionally practiced in Finland, it’s a mirror of the other parties in their crudest form. In those traditional parties, like the PS, you’ll find many who are just as conservative, intolerant, oppose cultural diversity and see the outside world with manifest unease.

How far has that beachhead spread in twenty-two months?

There’s bad and good news. The bad news is that the PS will remain, at least for the time being, a player in Finnish politics that other parties will eye with distrust and unease. The good news is that it’s doubtful that the party will ever match its 2011 election result. That became clear in the presidential and municipal elections, which were disappointments for Soini and the party.

Another important wild card to hit the PS was mass-killer Anders Breivik.

The Nordic region was never the same for anti-immigration populist parties like the PS after Breivik erupted with his Counterjihadist crusade and started murdering in cold blood innocent people.

These factors, together with many the many scandals that have rocked the party in recent months, have undermined the PS if not permanently from ever becoming a credible party.

Even if Soini claims that the municipal election was a clear victory for the PS, it was anything but that if we compare it with their parliamentary election victory. Half of those that voted for the PS in April 2011 had ditched the party by October 2012.

While the PS has been a great source of scoops for Finland’s yellow press, it must be a disappointment for some of its supporters. What has it accomplished in parliament except for poisoning the air with its Finnish teaparty populism?

Even if the PS appears to have suffered unconvincing election setbacks in the presidential and municipal elections, the party is on a collision course with itself as well.

Right after the municipal elections of October 28, Soini announced that the PS will become the biggest party in Finland in the EU parliamentary elections of 2014.

Making such promises and having to eat your words will not help the PS but deepen its problems.

A party that cannot root out its racists, fascists and political opportunists can never lead a good country like Finland, unless we wish to destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build.

See also Finland election: A perilous watershed.

Oulu city councillor and transsexual attacked

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Green Party Oulu city councillor, Janne Hakkarainen, was attacked and beaten over the weekend while accompanying a transexual, reports Oulu-based daily Kaleva. Hakkarainen said that three men attacked them in a park after he accompanied his friend home from a bar after 4:30am.

Fortunately a person spotted what was happening and forced the attackers to stop and flee the scene.

Hakkarainen and his friend suffered bruises and contusions to the head and arms. Police are investigating the incident.

About two weeks ago, a group of neo-Nazi thugs attacked a book presentation in Jyväskylä. The attack was seen as an infringement against freedom of speech and the right to assembly.

An attack on any minority should be seen as an attack against all minorities.

Helsinki’s and Greater Helsinki’s immigrant population to rise by over 131% in 20 years

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Migrant Tales

A forecast that will be published Monday by Statistics Finland sees the immigrant population of Helsinki and its surroundings rising by over 131% in two decades to around 300,000 from 130,000, reports YLE in English, citing Swedish-language daily Hufvustadsbladet.

Writes Yle in English: “Most non-Finnish speakers come to Finland and the Helsinki region from Africa and the Middle East. The forecast indicates most of them reside in Helsinki. Those arriving from Asia tend to move into Espoo while those from Russia prefer to live in Vantaa.”

If the population of Helsinki and surroundings will rise in the next twenty years, Finland’s total immigrant population will see strong growth as well from the present 257,248 persons (4.8% of the population). Helsinki has the highest share of immigrants today (11.8%), followed by Vantaa (11.2%) and Espoo (10.5%).

If these forecasts are reliable, Finland will be a very different country this century when compared with the last, when it was predominantly white.

As more immigrants move to Finland, it’ll be harder to deny these newcomers and their children their rights and their neighborhoods.

If we compare the over 1.2 million Finns that emigrated from this country between 1860 and 1999, some of them even founded ethnic colonies in countries like Argentina.

Finland’s past and even present attitude of cultural diversity isn’t anything to write home about. When Vietnamese boat people came as quota refugees to Finland in the 1980s, the official policy was to pepper them throughout Finland to make sure that they’d integrate and not form ethnic neighborhoods.

This was a dreadful mistake. Assimilation (one-way integration) doesn’t work unless it’s the aim of the majority culture to divide and conquer different ethnic groups.

A very worrying sign, however, is how some Finns want to deny cultural diversity its rightful place and recognition in society by placing caps on how man children with immigrant backgrounds can attend a schoolroom.

Finland is today an ever-growing culturally diverse society.

That’s a fact. No matter how much some wish to still cover their eyes and deny it.

City of Joensuu: Challenging and beating intolerance one step at a time

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Our reaction to intolerance in Finland has paid off. At least it did for me late-Friday night in downtown Joensuu when I was about to parallel park my car.

Thanks to associations like JoMoni working in close cooperation with local authorities like ELY-keskus, Joensuu have challenged intolerance. In many respects, it’s like the success of the North Karelian cardiovascular disease project of the 1960s and 1970s. Source: City of Joensuu.

A young man holding two beer cans, who was standing next to a parked car with his friends, wouldn’t move when I asked him to. He just stared back and started laughing.

He eventually moved to the side. That’s when he yelled: ”Damn n-word.”

I got out of my car and asked him what he called me.

”Nothing,” he responded.

While this situation may appear insignificant, it was an encouraging example of how hard work and countless anti-racism campaigns in Joensuu have changed matters.

The young man and his friends probably knew that they could get into hot water with the law if they continued to provoke me with their racist remarks. This was Joensuu 2013, not the 1990s.

The North Karelian city used to be a hotbed of skinhead activity and racism in the 1990s. Back then, a black basketball player of the local Kataja team was beaten up and moved back to the United States.

The message of those who play down racism, and thereby embolden this social ill, is clear: We’re too powerful, too strong for you to confront.

Wrong: You are being challenged. We will send you back to where you came from.

Julian Abagond: What they do not teach you about anti-racism at American high school

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The reason why I reposted this blog entry By Julian Abagond is to show how a country can down play the role of racism in its history. History erases history, right? Now consider a country like Finland, which doesn’t have such a terrible legacy. It must be pretty easy then to minimize the existence and impact of such a social ill our society.

What do they teach about anti-racism at Finnish high school? Even if our history is different from the United States, racism has its roots in our history as well. Its face has been very clearly shown in the first decade of this century. The spectacular rise of the Perussuomalaiset party in the 2011 election is a good example of its ever-growing clout.

Migrant Tales

_______

By Julian Abagond

declaration-of-independence-rough-draft

America has a proud history of anti-racism – like the Declaration of Independence, abolitionists, Nat Turner, the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, the civil war, the Gettysburg Address, Emancipation, the Radical Republicans, Reconstruction, Ida B. Wells, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr, the civil rights movement, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis and so much else.

But since 1890 it has been played down or lied about in American high school history books.

Why?

White teachers in the South: Those who write history books for high school try to appeal to white teachers in the South, particularly in Texas, to sell more books.
High school history avoids ideas, especially “divisive” ones like anti-racism. It is way easier to teach names and dates – partly because they are so boring!
To talk about anti-racism would mean talking about racism – which is also played down and avoided.
A white racist view of Black History which writes it off as unimportant because it is “only about blacks”, a sort of sidebar to Real American History.

For example:

John Brown (pictured right) is written off as a madman, religious nut, fanatic, etc. Yet writers whom Americans are taught to admire in English class. like Emerson and Thoreau, admired him! Not that anyone at high school is going to tell you that.
Abraham Lincoln, whatever his faults, fought his own racism and freed the slaves. That inner battle with his own racism is never shown.
The civil war, before 1970, was taught as being mainly about states rights and preserving the union, not about freeing the slaves. Lincoln, even now, is misquoted to that effect.
The Gettysburg Address: students used to have to learn it by heart. Now most history books do not even print it in full! And those that do barely talk about it. Even though (or, more likely, because) it wonderfully sums up the Union cause in the civil war, tying black freedom to the Declaration of Independence.

White Reconstructionists, who worked for making the races equal in the South, sometimes putting themselves in great physical danger, like by teaching black children to read, are called carpetbaggers (pictured right) and scallywags – terms lifted straight from white racist propaganda of the time.
The civil rights movementbecomes pretty much just Rosa Parks not giving up her seat on the bus and Martin Luther King giving a great speech about being colour-blind, thus ending racism – and any further need for anti-racism!
Martin Luther King, like Lincoln, wrote profoundly about race and America, but, as with Lincoln, little of it is used. Both King and Lincoln condemned America for its racist crimes – also left out.
The Black Panthers – the Texas school board requires they be put in a bad light because they were for “violence”.

Thanks to the overthrow of Jim Crow in the South by the civil rights movement, high school history books are better now than in the 1950s, but there has beenlittle change since at least the late 1980s.

Source: Some of this comes from chapter 6 of James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me (2007). Unfortunately he mainly just talks about anti-racism by white people!

Read original story here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.