Author: Migrant Tales

PBS documentary: U.S. Border Patrol, an example we should avoid

Posted on by Migrant Tales

When I grew up in Southern California, the object of racist insults weren’t only blacks but especially Mexicans. Even if there were no Mexicans never mind blacks at our elementary school in Hollywood, some students – if not all – had very strong prejudices against them. 

An investigative documentary by PBS shows that not only is the treatment of Mexicans and other Latin Americans a widespread problem in the United States, it has risen to endemic proportions if we look at the actions of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Here is a link to the PBS website to the investigative report titled, Crossing the line. Here’s Part I.

Writes PBS: “In the rush to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants, has Border Patrol committed widespread abuse on [US]American soil? A former Border Patrol agent blows the whistle on unacceptable conditions in detention centers, including massive over-crowding and detainees who claim they were deprived of food and water.”

One part of the PBS documentary caught my eye with respect to Finland. It claimed that in 2010, there were only three complaints by detainees and 21 over treatment in general by Border Patrol officials.

If so few complaints have been filed against the U.S. Border Patrol against thousands of complaints by former Mexican detainees that suggest abuse, torture and even sexual harassment, the single- and double-digit figures above are highly revealing.

In Finland, there were questions raised by the Ombudsman for Minorities concerning ethnic profiling by the police. The police responded that there weren’t any such cases.

Such a claim in April, which was backed Christian Democrat (KD) Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen,  shows in my opinion that ethic profiling by the police is an issue just like the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants is by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Take a look at the PBS documentary. It will shock you.

When any institution like the U.S. Border Patrol is out of control and not accountable for its actions, the biggest loser are the very values that these agents claim to defend and uphold. It is indeed a slippery slope.

Who are the real enemies threatening the United States: undocumented immigrants or a U.S. Border Patrol that appears to be out of control and acts with impunity?

Thanks go to Community Village Daily Activist for the heads-up. 

Sandhu Bhamra: If you are not White, you are not-Canadian-enough

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By Sandhu Bhamra*

Are you Canadian?

I am not talking legality on right to vote and accessing free healthcare, but the sense of being, being Canadian.

Let me walk you through a mini questionnaire to help you understand where I am going with this:

When you think of Canadian identity, what do you think of?

White? Hyphenated? Multi-racial?

(Did you think Aboriginal?)

What about culture?

South Asian? Asian? Polish? English? Latino?

(Again, did you think Aboriginal?)

Or Canadian?

So, what is Canadian culture?

Canada officially has a multicultural policy, which treats all Canadian citizens with dignity “regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation”.

Or simply, in the words of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who introduced the policy in 1971, “two official languages and no official culture”.

When there is no official culture, what is that we call Canadian culture?

Born and raised in India, identity wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I landed as a permanent resident nine years ago. I grew up in an urban enclave in India, where the first language of communication was English. I spoke Punjabi, my mother tongue, at home and am well versed in India’s national language Hindi.

On landing in Vancouver, the street signs in Punjabi language, and whole lot of services, both private and government, available in my mother tongue, pleasantly surprised me.

I realized there were services available in a host of other languages. I loved the respect given to plurality of cultures in Canada – the richness of different sounds, textures, and colours was fascinating.

I thought this is the place to be. After the few initial hiccups, my husband and I decided to stay for good. We eventually became citizens, had a family, and now cannot imagine living anywhere else.

But my faith in plurality of cultures was in for a rude shock when I went to register my daughter for kindergarten early this year. The morning of the day the registrations opened, I was first in line, excitedly waiting to fill the form.

As I filled in the details, I came across a harmless–looking column: ‘other languages spoken at home’. I have been home-schooling my daughter (basic pre-school material), so it has been in English. But my husband and I take great pride in our heritage, and speak both Punjabi and Hindi at home. We listen to English, Punjabi and Hindi music, and watch TV shows and movies in all three languages, so I wrote Punjabi and Hindi as the additional languages.

Little did I know that would change the way I viewed Canadian identity.

Apparently, if you speak a language other than English at home (I guess French doesn’t count here) your kid gets automatically assigned to the ESL program.

ESL? English as a second language program. The school secretary explained that at an orientation at a later date, my kid would be tested for ESL. I thought fair enough. For all kids to perform equally well, it only makes sense if all had the same level of English proficiency. I said to her, don’t worry my daughter will pass the test. And that’s when the full force of what lied ahead hit me.

It didn’t matter if my daughter passed, the secretary explained – there is no pass or fail in ESL, just levels. Every kid who listens to sounds made in a language other than English at home gets into the program.

It didn’t make sense to me. Next moment, I was sitting in the principal’s office, a Canadian educator with Asian roots (her ethnicity is relevant in context to this post). For the next half-an-hour or so, she tried to reason in her Asian accent the importance of the program. I told her I recognized the value of ESL; all I didn’t understand was – how was this language program relevant to a child who spoke fluent Canadian English?

Because ESL just didn’t cover a language issue, she explained. It was an introduction to Canadian culture. And what exactly do you mean by that, I asked her. She wavered in her replies, giving me examples of teaching kids about “ham” and “Canadian sports” and “traditions” or other things “Canadian”. She got personal to convince me – if it weren’t for ESL, her son wouldn’t be working in IT at The University of British Columbia!

I asked her if they put a White kid in ESL or do they assume that all White children have a good command of English language and know everything “Canadian”? She confirmed my worst fear: even if my daughter were a fourth-generation Canadian, as long as she listened to Punjabi and Hindi music, she would be in ESL.

The message I got was: if you are not White, you are not-Canadian-enough.

I thanked her, and walked out asking to sit on the Parents’ Advisory Committee.

The new definition of ESL sadly reminded me of the residential schools: the ill-fated program that destroyed the culture, identity and sense of being of Canadian Aboriginal peoples in the name of assimilation.

It is not fair on my part to compare a harmless-sounding program like ESL to a national tragedy of residential schools that destroyed generations and continue to evoke bitter memories for Canadians. But with my new understanding of ESL, veiled as a language program, and intended to teach non-White kids about “Canadian culture”, I can’t help but draw the comparison of a similar “assimilation” that the Aboriginal kids went through.

I calmed myself and reasoned, if a child who lived in a war zone in Afghanistan were to come and start school here, he or she would have to know more than just English to fit in. In this context, the program seemed fair.

But three things are out of place here: first, the wrong impression that ESL is only about language. It is actually about conversion to “Canadian culture”. (The fact is I didn’t get a clear definition of “Canadian culture” from the school principal I spoke to.)

Secondly, you cannot use a blanket column to put kids from varied backgrounds in ESL just because a language other than English is spoken at home.

Is it justified to club a child whose initial formative years were in an urban school in China with a child who spent first five years of his or her life in a refugee camp in Afghanistan with a Canadian-born, raised child who knows ice hockey from field hockey, took the first steps with Caillou, can tell a dime from a nickel, sings Canadian rhymes and a flag means the Maple Leaf, just because he or she speaks another language at home?

Still, I would give the benefit of doubt to the ESL program for better “assimilation” of my children but it’s my third point we need to consider seriously: the unfair treatment to the White child whose grandparents or great-grandparents or great great-grandparents came to Canada before the “Others” came in.

A nation with physical borders has to have a commonality (other than hockey) to exist peacefully. If we have the benefit of equality of all cultures, why this is not getting culturally crossed over?

If my kid is going to learn about “Canadian” things, doesn’t the White kid have a right to know about Vaisakhi, Diwali, or Eid? Not on a special multicultural day where kids dress up in “their traditional” wear and talk about “their culture”.

Instead of telling our kids (White and non-White alike) to respect the Aboriginal land we live on and be thankful for the rich heritage they have given us, we “study” them like a species. To me, that is breeding White vs. Other identity.

This “Other”, who lived in huts and wore feathers or came from foreign mystical lands of flying carpets and snake charmers (doesn’t matter if two generations before him or her have lived in Canada) has to assimilate in the “White” culture. Where is Trudeau’s no official culture?

This reminds me of a video project I did sometime ago. The main character was a second-generation South Asian and was filmed in both Canada and at location in South Asia. The second person of South Asian heritage in the piece was I, since I narrated the story.

There were two minor characters, one Middle Eastern in descent and one White. For time constraints, we had to pick one of the two. For me, the Middle Eastern was a stronger character in terms of background story that gave depth to the narrative. For my partner on the project (a White guy), it made more sense to keep the White person – not on strength of background story but to make the overall piece more “Canadian”. I still remember his awkward laugh and hesitation as he said to me, if we keep the Middle Eastern character, the video piece wouldn’t look and sound “Canadian”.

My partner is a nice person and a friend, but I was disappointed to see how he viewed Canadian identity. A senior (another White person) called the final shot and dropped the Middle Eastern character. He didn’t say if it were for “Canadian identity” purposes, but just the White person suited the story more. It has weighed on my chest since.

I still cannot imagine living anywhere else, but I want the Canadian identity to truly reflect the plurality of cultures.

*Thanks for reading. I am a Canadian journalist with transnational experience. An award-winning broadcaster, print and web reporter, I have reported across major media platforms – print, television and web for over a decade. I just started this blog in an effort to deconstruct identity in inter-racial, inter-cultural, patriarchal modern world. For detailed biography and portfolio, visit my website.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Sandhu Bhamra: “Who do you think you are?”

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Sandhu Bhamra*

That was the title under which three young Canadian authors discussed issues of identity, location and language at the recently concluded Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver.

The three, Anosh Irani, David Chariandy and Gurjinder Basran – from different backgrounds discussed how heritage, culture, memories and language shaped their work.

At the end of the talk, I asked if there was a Canadian identity and if yes, how each defined it? I quite liked what each said, but I didn’t really get a definition.

Not to say they didn’t have anything credible to say, but each defined what being Canadian meant to them. They offered a discourse, a rather brilliant one. The audience engaged and every person who spoke added dimensions to my still unanswered question: “What is Canadian identity?”

“Identity is on a spectrum,” offered a good friend. He said his “visible identity” of South Asian heritage was one end of the spectrum and the “Canadian identity” was the other end. He said growing up in Canada and living the western lifestyle, he considered himself at the other end.

But what is this other end? The opposite end of one’s “visible identity”?

He offered a description of this opposite end: the Anglo identity, which he argued was the “Canadian identity”. But when half of Vancouver and Toronto’s population is headed to be “Visible Minorities”, how is the opposite end Anglo?

Or is there an opposite end?

Or to begin with, can identity be really gauged on a spectrum?

And that too national identity?

In a nation where multiculturalism is a policy?

A nation I willingly chose to make home, where I feel loved and protected, where I can raise this question for a dialogue without the fear of being persecuted or worse, beheaded?

I have no qualms about accepting the Anglo-French heritage of Canada, but I also cannot forget that this heritage was built on Aboriginal land and identity. I cannot argue with, or change history. It is what it is. I use the lens of the past to understand the context of my present.

But to understand the present in the context of future, I have no lens.

So the need for this dialogue.

With you.

About our present.

Our present where “Visible Minorities” are projected to be “Visible Majorities” in a few years.

Our present where Aboriginal youth continue to face challenges.

Our present where the law says there is no official culture but the norm says the Anglo culture is the Canadian culture. Again, I am not rejecting the Anglo (or in common parlance, the White identity) culture, but I am saying it cannot define the core identity of a nation where the “Other” has to wrap him or her around it. For a nation to exist peacefully, the “Anglo”, the “French”, the “Aboriginal and the “Visible Minorities” on the so-called spectrum have to have a common footing – one cannot define the other.

How do we do this? That is my question – to self, to academicians, to politicians, to social scientists, and most importantly, to the society, to you.

The friend I mention above did admit that despite his identification with the Anglo identity, he does get asked, “Where is he really from”? Despite self-identification with the Anglo culture as being Canadian, his visible identity takes precedence. Meaning, he rejects his own identity and doesn’t get accepted for his adopted identity.

And that brings me to the oft-repeated question in parties, in playgrounds and at workplaces, “Where are you really from?” Even if you are a second or third-generation non-Anglo “Canadian”, have never visited the birthplace of your parents, or grandparents, you are always recognized as the “Other” and asked this question.

I myself have given answers like “I am really from Vancouver”, then tried getting specific on the area I live in, but till I answer, “I am from India”, the person at the other end doesn’t budge.

In the early days of my arrival in Canada, I used to be annoyed when asked where I am really from. Three years later, I became a Canadian citizen and gave up my Indian citizenship. When I was still asked the same, I was perplexed. Nine years later, I still am asked the same question.

How do I feel today?

For that, I will ask you to read, “Just another Chinese Christian?” by Mr. Justin Tse.

Mr. Tse, a Ph.D. candidate at UBC, frustrated with people’s expectations from him as a Chinese Christian with roots in Hong Kong brilliantly sums up the sentiments of people like me. The best part? Humour is not lost on him.

It’s even more complicated for people who inherit multiple racial and national identities before moving to Canada. Mr. Jayson Go grew up in the Philippines, is ethnically Chinese, but now a Canadian. I went to UBC with Jayson and have been friends with him since. This is one of his recent Facebook status updates:

“Filipinos always say to me, ‘You’re from the Philippines? But you look Chinese!’ Chinese always say to me, ‘You’re not Chinese. What are you? What kind of name is Go?”

Now envision this scenario: more than fifty per cent of the population torn between these identities.

I foresee chaos.

And that is why we need a dialogue. We cannot sit comfortably in the coziness of our self-created identities and pretend the Canadian landscape is the same as it was 100 or even 35 years ago and expect every newcomer to the country and the successive generations to just adapt to the existing societal norms.

We as a society need to be sensitive to the richness of experience, language, and culture that the newcomers bring with them, keeping the context of past in mind. We need to remember that these newcomers call Canada home, raise families and the children from these homes are/will be torn between identities.

And we cannot ignore the Aboriginal youth who are growing up with their unique sense of identity in the shadow of the residential school past. As one Aboriginal friend remarked to me that his tribal identity is his first sense of identity. So how was he left out from the “Canadian identity”?

It just means one thing: the present norm of Canadian identity, loosely translated: the Anglo identity, doesn’t hold water. Anymore.

If identity is indeed a spectrum; the Canadian identity needs to be the spectrum itself, not one end. Every community, Anglo, French, Aboriginal, “Visible Minorities”, regardless of racial and ethnic origins, language, or religious affiliation needs to be a band of colour that completes the rainbow, not gravitate towards one end, the Anglo end.

*Thanks for reading. I am a Canadian journalist with transnational experience. An award-winning broadcaster, print and web reporter, I have reported across major media platforms – print, television and web for over a decade. I just started this blog in an effort to deconstruct identity in inter-racial, inter-cultural, patriarchal modern world. For detailed biography and portfolio, visit my website.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

 

 

Suomi on väkivaltainen maa

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Onko Suomi väkivaltainen maa? Vastaus riippuu siitä kuka olet: valkoinen suomalainen, mies, nainen, maahanmuuttaja, näkyvään vähemmistöön kuuluva tai vammainen.

Ennen kuin perustelen väitteeni, haluan tehdä muutamia selvennyksiä Susanna Kinnusen blogiin.

  • Olen ”pieni vihainen mies.”  Uskon, että ne, jotka tuntevat minut  henkilökohtaisesti olisivat aika paljon erimieltä.  Harrastin paljon mm.  koripalloa ja tunnetusti pelaajat ovat hyvinkin kookkaita
  • Olen  ”valtakunnanmaahanmuuttaja.” Olen suomalainen, jolla on suomalainen,  argentiinalainen ja yhdysvaltalainen tausta. Olen suomalaista sukujuurta ensimmäisessä polvessa, katson siis olevani suomalainen.

Uskon yhä, että Suomi on väkivaltainen maa erityisesti niitä ihmisiä kohtaan, jotka poikkeavat etnisesti meillä totutusta. Suomessa tehdään EU:n jäsenmaihin verrattuna kuudenneksi eniten henkirikoksia, Oikeuspoliittisen tutkimuslaitoksen mukaan.

On selvää, että alkoholin runsas käyttö lisää ja kärjistää sosiaalisia ongelmia ja väkivaltaa.

Lööppi vuodesta 1992.

Ei riitä, että joku valkoinen hyvin toimeentuleva ihminen kertoo, ettei väkivaltaa tai rasismia ole Suomessa. Olisi reilua kysyä niiden ihmisten mielipidettä jota tämä asiaa koskee.

Mielestäni tässä on koko maahanmuuttajien  ja suomen kasvavan  monimuotoisuuden kompastuskivi: kuuntelemme vain omia mielipiteitä koskien toisia ihmisiä ja ryhmiä.

Kun kirjoitin omassa blogissa, Finland is a violent country as you know, tarkoitin erityisesti maahanmuuttajia.

Jotkut kysyvät miksi Migrant Tales blogissa  kirjoitetaan paljon näkyvistä vähemmistöstä. Syy on yksikertainen: kun heille menee paremmin kun puhumme syrjinnästä ja väkivallasta (henkistä, fyysistä ja instituutionalisesta), koko yhteiskunta toimi paremmin.

Uusi Suomi

James and Jussi out of control

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As the municipal elections of October near, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs, James Hirvisaari and Jussi Halla-aho, are doing everything possible to bolster the sagging popularity of the right-wing populist party. It’s unclear, however, if they are attempting to stir up support for the Suomen Sisu wing of the party or for the PS.

In their usual style, one of the MPs throws a furious right against decency while the other swings a left at the country’s judicial system. 

Graffiti on a school wall in Mikkeli that reads “white power” in Finnish.

Both MPs, who have built their political careers on victimizing and fueling suspicion of immigrants, are out of control. Even PS chairman Timo Soini appears perplexed. His silence speaks a thousand volumes about the present state of the party.

In the same crude style that Hirvisaari customarily attacks immigrants, he now targets Finland’s political parties. He slammed on Facebook  the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) for being an elitist party, the Social Democrats for supporting “freeloading multiculturalism,” as well as the  Greens and Left Alliance for being homosexual parties. 

This video clip reveals what Hirvisaari thinks about same-sex marriages, which is just as questionable as his views on cultural diversity.

After the Finnish Supreme Court fined Halla-aho in June for defaming religion and inciting ethnic hatred, the PS MP removed the passages on his blog that got him in trouble but replaced them with links, which permit the reader to read the original text. 

The police has contacted Halla-aho about the links and told him that they should be removed. He told YLE that he would not remove them even if the police and Supreme Court order it.  

Writing about Hirvisaari and Halla-aho reminded me of a story JusticeDemon brought to my attention on the Guardian and which took place this month in England.  

The story shows how some Pakistani men in a sex case made the national headlines, while similar cases involving white men went largely unreported by the national media. 

Just as different immigrant groups in England have been labeled and accused of being pimps luring innocent white English adolescents into prostitution, muggers and looters, Halla-aho, Hirvisaari and others have stigmatized immigrants in the same way. 

A favorite label placed on Muslims and Africans in Finland is that they are “leeches” and “gang rapists.”

Migrant Tales has shown beyond any doubt that rape statistic by Hirvisaari and others are bogus. 

The victim of a rape crime can be a person who has been abused sexually or one that has been accused unjustly of such a crime. The fabricated rape case in Lammi, in which Halla-aho and Hirvisaari used in their blog writings to show that refugees are a menace to our society, is a case in point.

Despite the fact that all rape charges were dropped, Halla-aho and Hirvisaari never apologized for sending a social media lynch mob against the asylum seeker.

Writes the Guardian about a similar case in England:  “By now surely everyone knows the case of the eight men convicted of picking vulnerable underage girls off the streets, then plying them with drink and drugs before having sex with them. A shocking story. But maybe you haven’t heard. Because these sex assaults did not take place in Rochdale, where a similar story led the news for days in May, but in Derby earlier this month.”  

“Fifteen girls aged 13 to 15, many of them in care, were preyed on by the men. And though they were not working as a gang, their methods were similar – often targeting children in care and luring them with, among other things, cuddly toys. But this time, of the eight predators, seven were white, not Asian. And the story made barely a ripple in the national media.”

And concludes: “Make no mistake, the Rochdale crimes were vile, and those convicted deserve every year of their sentences. But where, amid all the commentary, was the evidence that this is a racial issue; that there’s something inherently perverted about Muslim or Asian culture?”

When we accuse whole groups of a certain crime what we do is reveal our most entrenched prejudices.


 

 

Sweden convicts Peter Mangs for Malmö immigrant murders

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A Malmö District Court convicted Peter Mangs, 40, of two counts of murder and four attempted murders, according to the Guardian. The man, who is a Swede of Finnish descent, killed his first victim in 2003 and terrorized Malmö during 2009-10. All of his victims were immigrants.

Mangs will undergo psychiatric evaluation before his sentencing in early September.

Writes the New York Times in May: “And although the scale of the accusations are nothing like the charges against Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian on trial in Oslo for the systematic killings of 77 people last year in a crusade against multiculturalism, the parallels have not been lost on residents here in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city and one of its most diverse.”

Prosecutor Solveig Wollstad was quoted as saying on Iltalehti that Mangs destroyed many people’s lives.

“He carried out his crimes in a cold-hearted manner without feelings [for the victims],” he said. “His aim was to shoot immigrants.”

Espoo-Leppävaara young man sentenced six years for manslaughter

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An Espoo District Court sentenced Monday an eighteen-year-old man for six years in jail for the manslaughter of Abdisalam Mohamed Abulah, 18.  The father of the victim, Mursal Abdulah, told Migrant Tales that he will appeal the decision. 

Abdulah is one of three victims who lost his life in a span of about three weeks in January-February. Related to one of the killings in Finland’s “black February” was a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilor, who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of the Muslims in Oulu.

Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah had plans to study medicine. He was a Manchester United fan. 

Helsingin Sanomat reports that the victim, who attended the same high school as the sentenced young man, went to sleep at his home because he had lost the keys to his home.

Migrant Tales understands that the young man sentenced for manslaughter admitted consuming 16 bottles of beer and drugs when he killed Abdulah.

The fight erupted at the parent’s home of the young man, who slept in a room in the basement. He asked Abdulah if he was a Muslim, who responded that he was. He then asked Abdulah what he thought about Jesus.

Abdulah didn’t answer the question and told him that he did not want to talk about religion. There was silence between the two and soon a fight erupted, according to the sentenced man, who claimed that he feared Abdulah.

Abdulah lost his life when the assailant assaulted him on the head with a metal bar for weights.

Racist coupons were found in mid-July at the trial.

Reporting by Roble Bashir.

 

Abagond: Is the white anti-racist an oxymoron?

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Julian Abagond

The White Anti-Racist is an Oxymoron” (2003) by Kil Ja Kim argues that you cannot be white and against racism at the same time.

By “white” she does not mean having white skin. She means thinking of yourself as white and enjoying the benefits that come with it in America:

white people need to be willing to have their very social position, their very relationship of domination, their very authority, their very being…let go, perhaps even destroyed. I know this might sound scary, but that is really not my concern. I am not interested in making white people, even those so-called good-hearted anti-racist whites, comfortable about their position in struggles that shape my life in ways that it will never shape theirs.

 Being white creates a conflict of interest that leads to white paternalism: whites who think they know what is best for people of colour.

Kim has seen it. So has bell hooks. So has Malcolm X:

 So if we need white allies in this country, we don’t need those kind who compromise. We don’t need those kind who encourage us to be polite, responsible, you know. We don’t need those kind who give us that kind of advice. We don’t need those kind who tell us how to be patient. No, if we want some white allies, we need the kind that John Brown was, or we don’t need you.

 John Brown led a slave uprising on the eve of the civil war: he died fighting for the freedom of black people.

Becoming anti-racist means giving up a white identity and standing with people of colour, not with white people. Come what may. It means not to lead people of colour but to follow. It means leaving the white club for good.

Kim breaks it down like this:

  1.  Don’t call us, we’ll call you. If we need your resources, we will contact you. But don’t show up, flaunt your power in our faces and then get angry when we resent the fact that you have so many resources we don’t and that we are not grateful for this arrangement. And don’t get mad because you can’t make decisions in the process. Why do you need to?
  2.  Stop speaking for us. We can talk for ourselves.
  3. Stop trying to point out internal contradictions in our communities, we know what they are, we are struggling around them, and I really don’t know how white people can be helpful to non-whites to clear these up.
  4. Don’t ever say some shit to me about how you feel silenced, marginalized, discriminated against, or put in your place as a white person. Period.
  5. Stop calling me sister. I will tell you when you are family.
  6. Start thinking of what it would mean, in terms of actual structured social arrangements, for whiteness and white identity – even the white anti-racist kind (because there really is no redeemable or reformed white identity) – to be destroyed.

Read original story here.

 

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

What have we learned after Norway’s 22/7?

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What goes around comes around.

Exactly a year ago Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?

In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that  day.

In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.

Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVD0ztWaKA

In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.

Everything changed, however, after July 22.

The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.

Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.

In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.

A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party.  Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.

The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself  after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.

Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.

The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.

In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?

Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.

But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.

Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?

If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain:  We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.

Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are  copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.

Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.

That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.

Migrant Tales (July 25, 2011): Living in post-22/7 Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is ironic that those right-wing populist and far-right parties that have gone out of their way to warn us about the threat of multiculturalism and religions like Islam have become the threat and Trojan Horses in our societies. In one horrific blow, Anders Behring Breivik did not only strike at Norway’s liberal democracy, but tore a hole in the argument of the anti-immigrant populists and fanatics.

In the Nordic region, living in a post-22/7 Europe and Nordic region means a serious loss of public face for those groups that have been the breeding ground for hatred towards immigrants and minorities. We know as well that Islamists are not the only ones who commit acts of terrorism, as the Guardian of London pointed out.

When these groups warn us today of the “threat of multiculturalism” and how it is acceptable to treat minorities with contempt, a killer called Anders Behring Breivik will haunt us in the back of our minds.

Every time these individuals and groups spread their usual rhetoric of hatred, we will stop to think and see Breivik’s eerie arguments and logic that drove him to become a mass killer.

When people go to the polls the next time in this part of Europe, some will see gruesome images of Breivik shooting down young members of the Labor Party. People will think twice whether to cast their vote for the Progress Party of Norway, Finland’s PS, Danish People’s Party and  Sweden Democrats.

They will ask if supporting a party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric is feeding future homegrown terrorism.

Possibly what happened on 22/7 will be a wake-up call for these parties to think about the impact their provocative claims not only have on immigrants but on deranged people like Breivik.

Matters have changed a lot in post-22/7 Europe.

See original story here.