Author: Migrant Tales

PS MP Hirvisaari gets suspended for five months for not sacking Eronen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The Helena Eronen scandal, the parliamentary aide that infamously suggested in Finland that foreigners should start wearing armbands to help police profile ethnic groups, took a new turn Tuesday when the Perussuomalaiset (PS) parliamentary group decided to suspend MP James Hirvisaari until September 15 for not sacking his aide.

It is clear that in the face of  Eronen’s and Hirvisaari’s open defiance, the PS will end up paying a costly political price taking into account the October 28 municipal election. This latest political fallout is taking place a year after the PS won its historic election victory and at the time when Anders Breivik is testifying in Oslo for killing 77 people.

While it was expected that the police will not investigate Eronen’s complaint to sue Turun Sanomat for defamation, it may well turn the other way around with criminal charges brought against her for what she wrote as a parliamentary aide, according to Turn Sanomat.

In many respects Eronen’s and Hirvisaari’s insistence that we must read what she wrote as satire reveals what is wrong with the thinking of these public servants and their anti-immigration ideology.

Just like their free-for-all to insult any ethnic group or nationality, they have no limits, no shame, no morals, no respect and no empathy. They are political liabilities to our democracy because of their shameful disregard for our civil rights.

They are the far-right ogre that has entered parliament in sheep’s clothing.

As Breivik speaks out against multiculturalism the more damage he inflicts on anti-immigration parties

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

As Anders Breivik,who killed 77 people on July 22 on his crusade against multiculturalism, takes the stand and speaks out against immigration and Islam the more damage he inflicts on anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region like the Perussuomalaiset (PS).  After his rampage in Norway, nothing was ever the same for parties like the PS because Breivik  put them on the defensive.

Writes the BBC: “Breivik’s comments have ranged from vehement criticisms of liberalism and multiculturalism to claims that he ‘supports the model in South Korea and Japan.'”

Breivik was quoted by the BBC as telling the court he had “carried out the most spectacular and sophisticated attack on Europe since World War II” and  would do it again.

Certainly far-right anti-immigration PS MP Jussi Halla-aho would have wished that Breivik would have never existed. He if anyone has done more damage to Halla-aho’s and his Counter-Jihadists’ rhetoric.

In a story published today Migrant Tales writes:  “He [Halla-aho] says on the [Tom Enbuske talk] show that Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer is a mentally ill lone wolf, despite the fact that he quoted him in his anti-Islam manifesto.  Certainly it’s convenient for Halla-aho to single out Breivik as a madman because it permits him to wash his hands of the probable impact his xenophobic rhetoric may have on others [like Breivik].”

You don’t have too bright to grasp that if you let out a social ill like racism and feed it with your hate it’s going to hit back one day.

That is exactly what Breivik did.

He is no madman nor loan wolf but a shameful anti-social miscreation our society gave birth to.

Halla-aho says ghettoization spreading in Finland’s major cities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho said on a popular talk show that he stands by everything he said and doesn’t regret anything. He does, however, admit that sometimes the timing of what he said was wrong. He then tells us that ghettoization is taking place ” full steam ahead” in Finland’s biggest cities.

As Migrant Tales has warned and as scandals continue to rock the PS whiile opinion polls show voters turning their backs on the right-wing populist party, the anti-immigration message of the PS will start to pick up.  Halla-aho didn’t lose such an opportunity on the talk show, claiming that our biggest cities are turning into ghettos.

Some analysts see, however, that his far-right anti-immigration rhetoric are the problem that will cause social exclusion and ghetoization.

With the usual poker face, Halla-aho tells us that all he want to do is avoid the problems that immigration brought to Sweden. He says on the [Tom Enbuske talk] show that Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer is a mentally ill lone wolf, despite the fact that he quoted Halla-aho in his anti-Islam manifesto.  Certainly it’s convenient for Halla-aho to single out Breivik as a madman because it permits him to wash his hands of the probable impact his xenophobic rhetoric may have on others.

On a more positive note, the anti-immigration message that spread like wildfire in Finland before the parliamentary election appears to have met greater scrutiny today by the media, some politicians and the general public.  A case in point is the Helena Eronen scandal that suggested   “armbands” for foreigners.

One typical debate and public-relations stunt used by Halla-aho and his far-right group is profiling themselves as white Finland’s saviors and victims of the media.  He claims that in Finland one cannot have a different opinion concerning immigration despite the fact that it was his anti-immigration message got him elected to parliament in the first place.

Below are two classic videoclips that Halla-aho doesn’t regret. On the one immediately below he warns “most Finnish cities will be surrounded by a ring of burning ghettos.”  Finland’s foreign population in 2010-11 totalled 167,954 people, or a mere 3.1% of the total poulation.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=30SSbpq-o_A]

Here is another one that was used in last  year’s parliamentary election. The campaign ad asks if multiculturalism is a “too hot potato” for Finland? Note the turban on the potatoe. Isn’t it from India?

Multiculturalism means for Halla-aho an immigration policy that permits Muslims and Africans from moving to Finland and Europe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L0zgxL8l_xg]

These videoclips were taken from Jussi K. Nieminen’s Facebook page.

The Eronen “armband” scandal reveals healthy accountability by the media

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The Helena Eronen scandal exposes an important watershed in Finland. It is a similar turning point as we saw on July 22 with the mass killings in Norway by Anders Breivik and in February, when Tommi Rautio suggested decoarating a white Finn for killing a Muslim in in cold blood in Oulu. The latest scandal reveals something equally important: accountability.  

Back in the so-called good old days before last year’s election, politicians could say just about anything they pleased against immigrants and visible minorities without being held accountable. Times have changed since then and the Eronen scandal is a case in point.

What would happen if Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho published today a fraction of the quotes he made last decade? What would happen if Eronen published her infamous column on sleeve emblems in 2006 or 2008? Would she experience anything close to the criticism she is getting today? Probably not.

The magic word is accountability. Politicians, and especially those who gained prominence with their racist and Nazi-spirited language before last year’s election are now being held accountable for what they write by the media, some politicians and the general public. This is good news for Finland.

Accountability can do wonders. An association like Kansainvälinen Mikkeli sent an email to all those candidates before last year’s election who were strongly in favor of cutting back funds to immigrant associations and tightening immigration policy. You’d be surprised by how apologetic some were when they answered back.

It shows that if we ask questions and let politicians know that we are watching, listening and ready to act they will think twice what they say in public.

The media can play an important role. Leadership was shown by Turun Sanomat last week, when it picked up Eronen story on Uusi Suomi. The Turku-based daily merely did its job by asking her a question and, most importantly, held her accountable for what she wrote.

It’s still unclear whether Eronen will be able to keep her job as PS MP James Hirvisaari’s aide. In the meanwhile the scandal will continue to grow.

Turun Sanomat reports that apart from Sweden, Russia and former IVY countries, the column that suggested sleeve markings for different national groups has now spread to Holland, Iceland, Italy, Poland and Romania. To add more fuel to the fire, Johan Bäckman asked the police to investigate whether Eronen’s column is guilty of inciting ethnic hatred, according to Turun Sanomat.  

Finland’s interior minister wants to make begging illegal

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Christian Democrat (KD) Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen was quoted as saying on MTV3 that she is in favor of making begging illegal in Finland.  Just like many past suggestions by the conservative Räsänen, like her provocative views on homosexuality that caused last year an exodus from the Lutheran Church, her views on begging and how to deal with a group like the Roma of Eastern Europe doesn’t come as a surprise. 

While Räsänen uses the term “organized” begging, it’s clear that she is targeting Roma beggars from Eastern Europe that come to Finland.

In order to understand the dynamics of the Finnish government’s tough stand on immigration and its views of certain ethnic groups, Kokoomus Prime Minister appointed last year Räsänen to head the interior ministry in charge of immigration policy.

Her appointment was a clear attempt by the government to not only calm the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, which had gained a historic 39 seats in last year’s election, but to rob it of its anti-immigration thunder.

Räsänen’s stand on gay rights and marriage reflect her conservative views on immigration and Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity.  Last year she said there are plans to tighten once again family reunification laws, which were tightened by the previous government.

Her views on immigration are pretty well summed up on a blog entry she wrote on Uusi Suomi:  “Our country’s culture, values and morals have been built around Christian ethics and we must not abandon them starting from our homes, day care centers and when bringing up children.”

What Räsänen is saying in the quote is that she doesn’t believe in cultural diversity but that immigrants should assimilate — not integrate — to Finnish society.  Assimilation is one-way integration, or something like sitting on your behind and requiring immigrants to adapt to your culture while you do nothing except watch.

Some have criticized Räsänen’s double standards. On the one hand she claims to uphold Christian values concerning the family but doesn’t appear to be bothered by minors who are refugees in Finland that are forced to live without their parents because of strict reunification laws.

While Räsänen likes to give the public simple answers to complex problems, her latest view on begging will not resolve anything but complicate the problem even more. We will soon see pictures of the Finnish police rounding up, arresting and deporting women and children from Finland. It will reveal and reinforce the image that we are an intolerant country that doesn’t have a clue on how to deal with a social problem like begging in our society.

It prefers instead to brush the problem under the rug by making “poverty illegal” by patronizing to parties like the PS.

Nipping fascism, Nazi-spirited and far-right ideology in the bud in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

After most of the Finnish media was taken for a long and extensive ride by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, Migrant Tales  has warned on numerous occasions about the threat the party poses is not only to immigrants, visible minorities and Finns with international backgrounds, but to our whole society. The Helena Eronen scandal, when she wrote about sleeve emblems, is another case in point. 

Tuomas Muraja, Turun Sanomat’s foreign editor, the daily that published the story on Eronen’s column, says outright that history will see PS chairman Timo Soini as the man who brought the “aggressive far-right” to parliament.

The whole scandal reveals a lot about what Eronen thinks about our democratic institutions and institutions like the media.  After the attraction that her blog entry caused in Finland and abroad, Eronen is now planning to sue Turun Sanomat for defamation.

Her writing about sleeve emblems and her boss, PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was fined by a court for hate speech in December, say a lot about Eronen. She used to advertise openly on her Uusi Suomi blog profile belonging to the anti-immigration Muutos2011 party.

Another factor that sheds more light on her far-right anti-immigration ideology is that she visited Auschwitz in 2007 and knew where people were some exterminated during the Holocaust. Here more on the topic by Ossi Mäntylahti.

Jews were forced by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe to wear a yellow Star of David. This is satire, right?

As if missing totally the point, Eronen blames the Turku-based daily for the bad press she attracted. She conveniently forgets that it was what she wrote that was unacceptable, especially coming from a parliamentary aide.

Those who visit our blog regularly have noted by now that every month  there is a scandal coming from the PS. The lion’s share of the scandals hinge on racism, homophobia, offering medals to cold-blooded killers, as well as an eerie fascination for fascism, Nazi-spirited and far-right ideology.

Muraja correctly states that the whole Eronen scandal and what she wrote wasn’t satire at all but exposed far-right or Nazi-spirited ideology with humor or as a joke. Spreading fascist, Nazi-spirited and racist jokes are nothing new by these groups. Such writings are primarily meant for their followers even if they are published online.

Another important aim of this type of questionable satire and jokes by groups like Suomen Sisu is to move the goalposts in order to make racism, and the ideology that supports it, “normal” to common voters.

Will they succeed depends on our reaction and how deeply we want to bury our heads in the sand.  The only reason why there are far-right MPs in parliament is because we have given them a mandate. It is now our job to take it away from them.

How? The answer lies in our democratic institutions and most importantly in our values: independent media, vigilant public, and leadership.

In many respects what happened in April 2011 is due to many factors: the financial scandals that rocked the Center Party, the EU financial crisis and the bailout of Portugal a week before the election, but most importantly traditional parties lacking courage and leadership to challenge the PS.

Migrant Tales writes shortly after the election:  “Another factor that spurred the PS to new heights was a watershed statement in March 2010 by Kokoomus chairman Jyrki Katainen, who stated that being critical and debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist. After that green light to racism was given, the Social Democratic leadership gave the PS another pat on the back with their infamous saying, maassa maan tavalla.”

Even if we respect the election result we can passionately express our opposition to the political agenda of a party like the PS.

Unless we want to turn Finland into a country where fascism, far-right and Nazi-spirited ideology have a clear mandate, our media, politicians and the general public will have to do much better.

Our Finnish national identity in the new century

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Glancing through a pile of documents and certificates my late grandfather (1892-1979) had is like entering a time machine. Two certificates catch my attention: a Finnish-language test in 1925 and another one when he changed his surname from Hantwargh to Harvo.  Both documents offer us a glimpse of how a social construct like Finnish national identity was forged in the last century.

Taking into account how some Finns define it today an ever- globalized world, it’s easy to see that their definition of a Finn has its roots in those two documents.

Being a Finn had little to do with your place of birth but is due to jus sanguinis, right of blood. Your citizenship is not determined by place of birth but by having one or both parents as citizens of that country.

The first document proving that my grandfather spoke perfect Finnish is understandable in the jus sanguinis context. The second one, which was from 1931, states at the following:

In light of the petition made by military instructor Harald Vilhelm Handtwargh, the governor of the province of Mikkeli grants his family permission to change their  surname to Harvo; this is backed by statements from the vicar [of the Lutheran church], Suomen Sukututkimusseura [Finnish Genealogical Society] and the Suomalaisuuden Liitto [Association of Finnish Culture and Identity]…

Taking on a new national identity was relatively  easy in the last century as long as you were white, nationalistic and didn’t make too public your foreign roots. In the case of my grandfather it was his Jewish background.

Today there are totally new demands placed on our society with respect to inclusion and “us.”  How we included and excluded people and groups in the last century is, I believe, what is causing us to fall flat on our faces and hindering us from seeing the bigger picture of what Finnish identity is in the new century.

Since we are a young nation with a young identity there is time to make it more inclusive. But for that change to happen it requires us to see the world in a radically different way than today.  A good example is some of our feelings towards the Russians and that fear of being a small nation constantly under threat.

It’s clear that in order to build a more inclusive and culturally dynamic society, we have to break away from our past hatreds, prejudices and myths.

But let’s not fool ourselves, breaking free from them will be a long process that will take a concerted effort and generations.

This document gave my grandfather the right to change his surname from Handtwargh to Harvo in 1931. 

One good way to become a more inclusive society today would be to change Section 5 of the Constitution from jus sanguinis to jus solis, right of the soil, nationality or citizenship granted to a person born in country.

The whole idea of jus sanguinis is deeply rooted in how ethnicity and nationality were defined in the nineteenth and greater part of the twentieth century.

While I am happy that Finland is an independent country today, we cannot escape the fact that it was built on nationalism and racism that was ever-present in Europe before and even today.  Thus our independence was in many respects an ethnic thing. We didn’t like the Russians never mind Russification.

The racism and nationalism that existed in Europe in the nineteenth century had a clear role: It justified the colonization and exploitation of other people in Africa and Asia. It was very ethnocentric as well. We thought that we were the epitome of civilization and therefore it was our right to  exploit others because they were less “advanced.”

As we know, World War I exposed the barbarism of our “civilized ways” and was pretty good reality check.

Hopefully our culturally diverse identity will not resemble an excerpt from Heikki Waris’ “An introduction to Finnish history” on page two:

“A fourth aspect is the high degree of homogeneity of Finnish society. Racial homogeneity particularly characterizes the Finnish people who have practically no racial minorities, the less than three thousand Lapps in the northernmost arctic communities making up the largest racial minority group. Consequently, racial prejudice and discrimination are nonexistent.”

Apart from avoiding mention of the Roma of Finland and Finnish expats and those with international backgrounds, Waris’ affirmation are quite humorous from today’s perspective.

Räsänen sees no wrongdoing, ethnic profiling by police with spot identity checks

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Christian Democrat (KD) Finnish interior minister, Päivi Räsänen,  didn’t see any abuses nor ethnic profiling with spot identity checks of foreigners by the police, according to YLE. The statement follows a story on Wednesday after the office of the Ombudsman for Minorities expressing concern about the large number of complaints that foreigners are being arbitrarily stopped on the basis of their ethnic background. 

Räsänen said that while she hasn’t received any complaints of ethnic profiling, the present methods prove to be effective in clamping down on undocumented immigrants.

“The vast majority of foreigners look just like the natives, so it’s not even a very sensible way to supervise aliens,” she said.

JusticeDemon said in a comment on Migrant Tales:  “The idea that members of visible minorities should be disproportionately stopped while going about their daily business in order to catch illegal aliens makes no sense whatsoever in terms of intelligent policing priorities.”

He states that the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants in Finland are visa or visa-extempt overstayers. “Their typical profile is likely to match that of a visitor, not an immigrant,” he said.

While some analysts believe that Räsänen was appointed to head the interior ministry to calm the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, for some she is the last person to approach in government to tackle a problem like ethnic profiling by the police.

Räsänen uses the adjective “illegal”  when speaking of undocumented workers.

“In fact, Finland acts rather efficiently in the matter of illegal immigration and there is no reason to weaken this efficiency [by not carrying out spot checks], because it is our strength and in this we can set an example for other Schengen countries.”

Eronen strikes back in order not to strike out

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The Helena Eronen scandal, Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP James Hirvisaari’s aide who suggested with bad satire that foreigners should start wearing armbands, struck back today with a new column in order not to strike out. 

She has come back but with a vengeance especially against Turun Sanomat, the Turku-based daily that broke the story that then spread to Sweden, Russia and who knows where tomorrow.

After being apparently shocked by the reaction that her column caused, her boss Hirvisaari must have given her a long pep talk. Such pep talk, however, spells disaster and convolutes the PS even more, especially after the party’s parliamentary group recommended sacking Eronen.

Eronen claims that she is innocent. Her aim was to use satire to show how armbands for foreigners could help policemen distinguish between foreigners and Finns. The column was as well a pretty clear jab at the Ombudsman for Minorities.

Hirvisaari as well as his ideological comrade in arms, PS MP Olli Immonen, hold the Ombudsman for Minorities office in low regard. Immonen suggested in October that it would be a good idea to make the Ombudsman for Minorities office redundant.

There’s a lot more to what and why Eronen wrote what she did than meets the eye.

Her defiance is evident. When she published her latest blog entry, she included the one that got her in this mess in the first place and was later republished on Hirvisaari’s blog.

Uusi Suomi censored the column again as it did the first time.

Eronen offers an odd apology with her fingers crossed apparently behind her back. She does say sorry per se but only to those who were authentically offended. She does not tell us what “authentically offended” means but it becomes clear pretty soon.

After a long not-so-mea-culpa explanation she finally gets to the punch line of her column and singles out Turun Sanomat: “And so my blog entry was handled by a brilliant Turku journalist…”

There is one important matter missing in Eronen’s latest blog entry: She doesn’t tell us what she did wrong and why it has caused such an uproar.

Eronen asked for trouble when she wrote her column about armbands

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Finland has been inflicted for a number of years by people who think they can say and write anything they please about immigrants and visible minorities in Finland. It’s only natural that when you let out racism and prejudice to roam freely in society unchecked, things will eventually snap as we saw in Norway in July. What did Helena Eronen, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s aide, do wrong?

Eronen blames the scandal on her own ignorance, according to an interview she gave to YLE. “The strong reactions to it [blog entry] were to be expected,” she said.

Reactions to what she wrote about sleeve emblems for foreigners to help the police in Finland have been published in Sweden and now throughout Russia and former IVY countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Eronen blew it to put it lightly. If you are white and try to be “sarcastic” about other nationalities, work for a right-wing populist party like the PS and your boss is none other than Hirvisaari, you are going to get in hot water. She forgot as well those whom she was being sarcastic about, the immigrants, and if this may be offensive to some groups.

Who are the losers and winners of the scandal?

The biggest loser shouldn’t be difficult to figure out. That’s Eronen and the negative debating atmosphere in Finland concerning immigrants and visible immigrants.

Do I think that Eronen’s column was in bad taste? Certainly. But there may be a silver lining revealing that matters may have changed in Finland since Jussi Halla-aho and his xenophobic band roamed the net with near-impunity.

Some, like MP Hirvisaari, who was fined for hate speech in December, still don’t get it. They live somewhere deep in the previous decade when defaming and insulting immigrant groups and cultures was a free-for-all social media lynching job.

Hirvisaari added more damage and salt to Eronen’s wound Wednesday by republishing his own blog the column that was taken off Uusi Suomi. He went as far as to claim that the scandal is an example of the rot that inflicts the media in Finland.

The biggest winner could be the PS. Eronen could give them a scapegoat opportunity to wash their hands of all the racism and prejudice they have spread in Finland since last year’s election, according to a column by Jussi Jalonen. Such a sacrificial object looks especially inviting for the PS with the municipal election nearing in October.

Finland, and I am certain Eronen as well, have learned a valuable lesson: When you write about immigrants and visible minorities you should be extra careful and try to see the world from their perspective when dressing a column up in sarcasm.

If you have that ability, probably one of the first things you’d do is drop the whole topic and write about something else.