Author: Migrant Tales

Red Herring tales (Part 2): City of Vaasa bans the burkini

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As expected, the Vaasa city leisure committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to prohibit the use of burkinis. The committee claims that the swimming outfit, consisting of a head scarf, tunic and trousers designed for Muslim women, is a dangerous to the swimmer and unhygienic.

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It’s unclear from the rules if Muslims are required to go to the sauna naked.

While the city may have a point, the prohibition goes much deeper: it’s another example of our hardened stance against Muslims and cultural diversity in general. It is a sure recipe for failure in integrating all parts of our ever-growing culturally diverse society. The following message rings out loud and clear:  This is Finland and this is how we do things. Go back to where you came from if you don’t like it.

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 The cartoon depicts perfectly when the city of Vaasa prohibited the use of burquinis at their public pools.

Migrant Tales spoke last week to the City of Vaasa official who made the proposal to the leisure committee. I wasn’t impressed by the reasons for prohibiting the burquini, which revealed a red herring: We are not willing to compromise and work with you on this matter.

The quotes by the city official that reinforces the above were: “We have for as long as I can remember men from wearing shorts [at pools]. There are no exceptions,” and “99.9% of the swimmers are for the ban.”

The percentage figure, 99.9%, reveals that only a handful use burkinis.

If it is a single-digit figure couldn’t it have been resolved in a different way?

It is incredible as well that while some officials speak of getting immigrant women out of the home and integrate them into our society, the burkini ban does the opposite and will encourage them to stay home.

Another matter that raises serious questions is the Suomen Uimaopetus- ja Hengenpelastusliitto (SUH), the Finnish swimming instruction and lifesaver’s association, which is planning to recommend prohibiting this spring the burkini throughout Finland.

Who is the SUH? Is it one association or many different that should look into the matter and recommend policy?

The SUH official told Migrant Tales that he had got in touch with Suomen Somaliliitto, the Somali Association,  and a Somali Helsinki city councillor. None of them had responded back about the burkini, according to the SUH official.

How should this affair been handled?

Why didn’t the City of Vaasa get in touch with the local imam(s) and spoke to them about this problem to find a solution? This would have been a more effective and sensible way to find a compromise.

In sum, the burkini prohibition in Vaasa reveals one of the biggest challenges and issues facing Finland as it becomes ever-culturally diverse: Taking into account other cultures and empowering them through the decision-making process.

Post-Jyväskylä: Where do we go from here?

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Considering how the media treated before the April 2011 election racism and far right ideology and how social media sites were teeming with racist online lynch mobs, we are today waking up from the hangover of our state of social inebriation. The aftereffect will not go away in a day, week, or month but will take a very long time to wear off. 

Instead of alcohol, Finland has been consuming and experimenting with racism, nationalism and far right ideology as answers to our ever-growing cultural diversity The more it drinks, the more we lose touch with reality and what is good for us.

Was it a coincidence that the attack in Jyväskylä marked exactly the  eightieth anniversary when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany as chancellor  and transformed the country into a totalitarian state?

When speaking of far right violence and racism in Europe, we cannot avoid addressing social ills like intolerance.

Claiming that social exclusion of white Finnish youths is one of the main factors behind what happened in Jyväskylä is only addressing part of the problem without seeing the whole picture.

Reading a number of editorials about what happened in Jyväskylä, only one by Savon Sanomat cited racism as the real culprit. It wrote: “An even  greater threat from organized extremist movements is a sort of daily racism that is targeted against immigrants and even to our [Swedish-] language minority. Attitudes in Finland have changed course, which isn’t anything to brag about.”

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The Kuopio-based daily makes a valid point. Every day racism, xenophobia and attacks against our Swedish-speaking minority feed far right and populist-nationalist groups. They are the 98 octane fuel that permit it to spread their intolerance.

Bears hibernate in winter but so can countries for many years when they live in a state of denial. Finland is no longer a nation owned and controlled by just white Finns. It is a fact that we are an ever-growing culturally diverse nation.

Let’s not give an Andres Breivik the opportunity to commit murder on a mass scale before we understand that our response to intolerance was inefficient.

Everyone in Finland has the right to be treated as an equal member of society and with respect.

Some sectors of our society have a very hard time accepting this. They are not only white marginalized Finnish youths, but a far bigger group that extends to all sectors of our society.

PS’ Eerola now claims that Jyväskylä stabbing was probably staged

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Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Juho Eerola said that Wednesday’s attack by suspected neo-Nazi thugs at a book presentation in Jyväskylä was probably staged in order to sell more books, reports Turun Sanomat citing STT.  

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Two of Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland) three authors, Li Andersson and Mikael Brunila,  were present at the event but weren’t hurt. One man, who attempted to prevent three men from gaining entry to the event, was stabbed, write YLE in English.

The man was taken to the hospital but his injuries were not serious.

Police now say that both sides were armed but declined to specify what kinds of weapons were being used.

Criticism against the police has been mounting.  Uljas, a University of Eastern Finland student publication, claims that the police were aware that far right members were going to be sent from Joensuu to the book event in Jyväskylä.

The police chose not to do anything.

While what happened Wednesday was condemned by all parties because it infringes on freedom of speech and the right to assembly, PS vice president Eerola gave advice the following day how neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta activists should crash such an event the next time.

“The next time don’t look like ”patriots” when you plan to enter such an event. Don’t go as a group but be [inconspicuous] in the crowd,” he wrote.

Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat published Eerola’s comments. He later apologized for not expressing his ideas more clearly.

While the PS MP may regret publicly what he said, it’s a common tactic used by the party’s members to express their far right or racist views. After they make an inappropriate statement they disclaim it by stating that it was  “sarcasm” or  that their statements “were taken out of context by the media.”

Eerola said that the what happened in Jyväskylä was staged in order to sell more books.

”It surprises me that whenever this type of far right violence happens it always happens at an event with Dan Koivulaakso or Li Andersson,” he was quoted as saying. ”Nowhere else does it happen in practice. It’s the right, good advertising for their book so that where they’re giving a talk on how dangerous the far right it’s where the far right strikes.”

Politicians like Eerola, whose ties with fascism are well known,  should look at the mirror before making such outrageous statements.

His aide, Ulla Pyysalo, was embroiled in a scandal in 2011 when it become public that she had applied for membership in the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansallinen Vastarina (SKV).

Eerola as well as PS MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen and many others have victimized and lynched on social media immigrants. All of them have built their political careers thanks to fear-mongering and the social media.

UPDATE: Here’s a link that lists (in Finnish) nine attacks by the SKV.

Pia Grochowski: Women in sports, what’s being missed

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Pia Grochowski

As women’s rights, LGBT rights are advancing in the world, women are taking a larger role in sports. In Finland, the position of women in sports has been rather strong in athletics, in football even hockey. Finland is a nation that is advanced in terms of gender equality. If one looks at the crossover of minority women in sports, or immigrant women in sports in Finland, the discussion takes a 180-degree turn.  Immigrant women in sports is seen as a field where there is a lot left wanting. The media discussions of immigrant women in physical activity are dominated by the access of muslim women to swimming. While this cohort is rather small, there appears to be 20 articles written for every single Muslim woman needing to swim in a special circumstance. One has to ask if this is all to it?

The trouble of immigrant women in sports is that the debate and discussions have been heavily tilted in the areas of barriers and inaccessibility. Also a sizable amount of discussion has been dedicated to the inactivity of migrant women in sports and physical activities. The representation of migrant women in this sector is one that is very passive and highly complicit to heterosexist patriarchic normative stereotypes of women. The distance in representation between the activity of Finnish women in sports and migrant women is extensive. This has severe consequences for the development of immigrant women in the realm of sports and objective representation. The engagement in sports by women has been shown to elevate their status according to the United Nations. Sports is constantly documented as a pathway towards empowerment for women. Its ironic that rather than become a sector which is used to discredit stereotype of immigrant women, it has become a sector to reinforce the stereotypes. While the inactivity of some migrant women in the field sports is concerning, the extensiveness of the discussion is negative, pessimistic and problem focused. Remedying this challenge is plagued with barriers, and possibilities for empowerment are elusive.

While I can take many turns in this discussion, and will likely do later on, I hope to focus on miss opportunities for an empowered representation of minority sportswomen in Finland. I recall a few months ago reading  the October, 2012 issue of Fit magazine. I was surprised and pleased to see the magazine featuring Jasmine Showlah, a Finnish sprinter of Ivorian background who won silver at the Finnish Championships in 2010. I was disappointed though to see rather than telling her story, which I already find inspiring considering her feats, the feature decided to direct inspiration to her rear end, “Peppu kuin spintterillä/an ass like a sprinter.” There are so many paths one can go on when interviewing a accomplished minority women sprinter: having her serve as a role-model, being a minority woman representing Finland at a elite level, tips on how to be a better runner, on how to be a better sprinter, how woman can take a bigger role in the field of athletics. All this was lost in describing how important it is for a woman to have a proper looking rear-end. There was no opportunity for a voice to be granted to the athlete here, just have her serve as a model. To put yet more salt in the wound, the main feature of the magazine was interviewing a Finnish male rockstar on his yoga habit. It’s a shame when a woman’s fitness magazine fails to advance the case for women sportspeople, let along engage in such patrio-normative representations of gender in sports.

This is just a single case, but its one of many. Not only is there an active force of representing migrant women as passive, but opportunities to engage in a discussion representing the accomplishments of even minority women are overlooked. Women make up half the immigrant population here in Finland, they face a double barrier of not only being an immigrant but also facing gender based stereotypes, and not enough is explored on why this is the case, and not enough effort is being made to rectifying the representation.

Pia Grochowski: The other side of ethnic cuisine

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By Pia Grochwoski

This month Six Degrees magazine ran multiple features on the theme of ethnic food and restaurants, “Dining with an Ethnic Twist: The popularity of ethnic restaurants in Finland continues to grow swiftly”. The proportion of ethnic restaurants in Finland continues to grow, making up 20% of the restaurant sector in Finland. It is worth noting many of these restaurants are also immigrant owned. Much of this is celebrated in that locals now have the chance to enjoy ethnic food closer to home: for vegetarians like myself it can become quite easy which restaurants to select when going out. Much of this is seen as supported as a representation of multiculturalism. What however is not talked about is the segmentation of the restaurant industry. Having worked a few years in the restaurant industry in Finland myself some key elements must be discussed before this is celebrated.

First of all, the restaurant industry is highly unregulated in terms of labour laws. Non-Finns working in these industries are often not appropriately informed of their rights, many of them can spend their entire days working in a restaurant that they don’t own. When I would meet colleagues after work some of them barely could orientate themselves in Helsinki as they never had the chance to leave their workplace. Others due to limited language ability are not capable of describing the abuse they face, or learn what is appropriate and decent working conditions. Immigrants can be easily exploited in the restaurant industry. They are also less likely to have the social ties or linguistic ability to direct a complaint. I do take care to watch for key elements of labour law abuse when visiting a restaurant, low prices, a single lonely worker running the whole place can be a telltale sign.

Secondly, there is an ethnic hierarchy in the industry. Immigrants make up a large portion of the restaurant sector, but similar too many other places in Finland face a glass ceiling. If you ever have the chance to go to a restaurant in central Helsinki, be it Italian, Finnish or other; much of the front end staff (wait staff, bartenders, host and hostesses) are Finnish or white. Finns working at ethnic restaurants (other than Finnish owned ethnic restaurants) are few and far between, this is a representation of differential pay increments. Ethnic restaurants often offer lower salaries. Back room staff (cooks, chefs, food-runners, dishwashers, cleaners) tends to be more diverse. I have rarely seen anything but an African-origin dishwasher. What surprises me about many I have spoken to is how well educated they are and their high language ability in Finnish and English. They could do much more than working as a dishwashing for less than 10€ and hour. The reason why they aren’t the elephant in the room we are all speaking of. There are few exceptions, however its apparent to me that many higher end restaurants seem to prefer a white face up front.

Which brings me to my final point. While there are some few changes being made up front: what is clear here, and what can’t be ignored is a clear barrier to immigrants in this sector-like many others. Many, if they want to advance in the sector would have to start their business: and hope it’s a success. This is facilitated by starttiraha, its one of the few avenues that is clearly open for immigrants to escape the dead end jobs in the restaurant business. The large portion of kebab shops for example aren’t are manifestation of Finnish demands for lean cuts of meat on bread: but rather a representation of a large portion of immigrants, particularly from the Middle East, unable to access decent employment by other means. Popularity and an interest in ethnic food make the starting up of ethnic restaurants more likely to be a success or lead to a sustainable livelihood.

Before celebrating the creation of ethnic restaurants, one should look at the social forces behind the fact that 3% of the population makes up 20% of a particular sector. One that is well documented to be one of the most exploitive.

PS’ second vice president doesn’t condemn but “gives advice”to Jyväskylä’s neo-Nazi attackers

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Perussuomalaiset (PS) second vice president, MP Juho Eerola, did not condemn the attacks in Jyväskylä by suspected neo-Nazi thugs but advised them how to do it more effectively, reports National Coalition Party’s online Verkkouutiset. Writes Eerola:  “The next time don’t look like “patriots” when you plan to enter such an event.  Don’t go as a group but be [inconspicuous] in the crowd.”

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Eerola’s views are shameful if not worrisome. They reveal how some PS members  hold rights rights like freedom of speech and the right to assembly in contempt.

The PS MP denied on Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat that he was giving advice on how to carry out the attack and should express his ideas more precisely the next time.

Eerola’s aide, Ulla Pyysalo, had applied for membership in the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansallinen Vastarina (SKV) but refused to resign from her post unless she found a new job by the end of the year.

Eerola, whose sympathies with fascism are well known, defended Pyysalo and did not see any reason for her to resign. He said he’d be more worried if his aide belonged to a far-left organization.

One of the matters that  worries me about t people like Eerola and his band is they think they can rewrite history and put our way of life in cold storage in order to please their views, which are harmful to our society.

 

 

 

Interior minister: Far right isn’t “a big threat” despite what happened in Jyväskylä

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Christian Democrat Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen condemned the attack by three suspected neo-Nazi thugs in Jyväskylä as an assault against freedom of speech and the right to assembly, reports YLE. She didn’t consider, however, the far right to be a threat to Finland but said that the authorities aim to do more work to address social marginalization.  

Whether the far right is a threat or not to Finland depends on your perspective. If you are a white interior minister and a member of the Christian Democratic Party, maybe the threat of the far right isn’t such a pressing issue. 

The minister who is making such a statement believes homosexuality to be a sin, begging should be made illegal, and approves indirectly ethnic profiling by the police.

In many respects, it’s the same question if racism and discrimination are widespread or not in Finland.  If you are white it’s more difficult to grasp the problem than if you are a visible minority.   

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While social marginalization may be one of the culprits that is fueling far right ideology in Europe and Finland, there are others like intolerance and prejudice taught at home.

Challenging far right ideology, and the 98 octane fuel (racism, xenophobia, prejudice, marginalization, among others) that feeds it, must be everyone’s priority.

The first important step is that our reaction to far right violence and its ideology should be first and foremost a reaction.

Räsänen’s views on what happened in Jyväskylä and its causes show a very meek rection.

Jyväskylä is (another) wakeup call to growing far right violence and intimidation

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Wednesday’s attack by neo-Nazi thugs at a book presentation in Jyväskylä is a wakeup call to the growing menace of far right violence in Finland. Was what happened in the central Finnish city a surprise? 

The answer is no if you ask researcher Vesa Puuronen of the University of Eastern Finland.

”When we consider recent political and ideidological developments in Finland and Europe,” he was quoted as saying on YLE in English, ”then this is by no means a surprising incident.”

Considering that a group of suspected neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) members tried to disrupt a peaceful meeting where people were exercising their right to meet and express themselves is a cause for concern.

In many respects the rise of far right and neo-Nazi (see Hungary and Greece) are fuelling and emboldening likeminded groups in Finland. It would be naive to think that we are some island immune to their ideology.

One has only to go back to the April 2011 election, when the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party won a historic election victory to become Finland’s third-largest party in parliament.

While not all PS MPs and party members belong to the far right, a group led by MP Jussi Halla-aho  pretty much dictates policy on immigration and cultural diversity. Their view of on these issues is similar to other far right groups in Europe like the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party.

As long as politicians, civil leaders, policy makers and the general public remain quiet and play down  the threat that far right groups in this country, we’ll be  emboldening them to new acts of violence. Racism, xenophobia and prejudice are some of the fuels that these groups thrive on to grow.

What happened in Jyväskylä is not only disgraceful, but a directattack against all of us who believe in the rule of law.

Suspected neo-Nazis attack book presentation event on the far right in Finland

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A group of men with bottles and knives barged in a book presentation in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä on far-right extremism, according to Yle in English. The men, who called themselves ”patriots,” injured one of the body guards who was taken to hospital. The attackers fled the scene. 

Members of the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) are suspected to have attacked the book presentation.

Two of Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland) three authors, Li Andersson and Mikael Brunila, were present at the event but weren’t hurt.

The police, who haven’t yet  caught the suspects, said that they are investigating the incident as aggravated assault.

MTV3 reported on the 10pm news that two of the attackers ave been identified but could not confirm if the police had apprehended them.

skvThis neo-Nazi SKV sticker was found in front of my home in spring.

The attack in Jyväskylä demonstrates that far right and neo-Nazi groups in Finland are getting bolder. 

Far right in Finland ‘s third author, Dan Koivulaakso, was attacked with pepper spray in June at a North Pride event in Oulu.

If the police would connect all the recent dots about the presence of far-right violence in this country, I’m certain that some would be concerned.

The same way that the police plays down the threat of these groups, it doesn’t appear too concerned either by the rising number of hate crimes and racism inflicting this country.

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I spoke with Alain Minguet, a Green Party city councilor and president of JoMoni, over a year ago that something like what happend in Jyväskylä  could take place, or worse.

Many who write about racism in Finland get harassed. The first story I wrote about how badly Somali’s were treated in Mikkeli in the early 1990s for a major Finnish magazine landed me two death threats by phone. There was a third caller who harassed and insulted me over the phone.

The death threats and threats in general haven’t stopped. I filed a complaint to the police last spring about such cases but haven’t heard a word from them. The policeman investigating the case doesn’t even answer my phone calls.

Believe it or not, the police in Mikkeli and Pieksämäki have told me that I should not report racist harassment cases to the police.

It’s time for the authorities to get tough with neo-Nazi and far right groups that use violence and death threats to get across their message.

 

What does Finland’s integration law reveal about our society and expectations?

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A good question we can ask about Finland’s integration act is what it reflects about our views and expectations of newcomers. Can any law integrate people effectively?  

If you want to speak of one- or two-way adaption, one should ask some of Finland’s oldest minorities like the Roma and Saami what memories such a law may evoke.

Considering that children who spoke Saami at school in the 1960s were punished in Finland, it’s natural that there are a lot of bad feelings and distrust of white Finns’ intentions.

If we look at second- and third-generation Finns, we don’t even know what these people were supposed to integrate to. It’s sad that the answer to this question has been in some cases society’s indifference and rejection.

Apart form the lack of resources that the present integration law faces, another challenge is if it offers a big picture of our ever-growing culturally diverse society. How, for example, does it promote acceptance as well as respect for new Finnishness and other new identities?

It would be too simplistic to claim that the integration law is a utter failure. For one it keeps those who are hostile to our ever-growing cultural diversity at bay. Its existence permits it to indirectly integrate Finns as well to the idea that we are becoming a culturally diverse society.

What does the act reflect about our views and expectations of newcomers? In many respects it reflects our expectations and too little of those that are being integrated.  Thus we speak of two-way integration but in practice it’s one-way.

Canadian Social psychologist J. W. Berry highlighted three important matters in order to manage successfully a culturally diverse society. Even if he speaks of multiculturalism, it can apply well to Finland, which accepts culturally diversity in its laws.

Writes Berry:

  • In our view there needs to be general support for cultural diversity as a valuable resource for a society;
  • There should be overall low levels of prejudice in the population;  
  • There should be generally positive mutual attitudes among the various ethnocultural groups that constitute the society;
  • There needs to be a degree of attachment to the larger national society.

Do you agree?