Author: Migrant Tales

Denial, ignorance and racism are the lamentable side of the same coin

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

When do immigrants and Finns with culturally diverse backgrounds become their worst enemy? Does it happen when we become blind or play down the existence of social ills such as racism and prejudice in our society?

Martin Luther King (1928-68), sheds some light to this question: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

In the same manner, we can highlight the “appalling silence” and denial of some immigrants.

It’s misleading — to put it very lightly — to think that just because a person is an immigrant  he or she does not hold any prejudices. There are ample threads on Migrant Tales that reveal how some immigrants  can be more racist and nationalistic than some Finns.

Where do you expect racism in the Americas came from? It did not spring from nowhere.  Some immigrants brought it with them as part of their baggage to the New World from their former home countries.

The need to adapt in a new society may be so strong for some that it may encourage them to become more nationalistic and racist than some Finns. The other lamentable side of the coin is denial of the existence of any problems such as discrimination.

One person that comes to mind is Belgium-born naturalized Finn Freddy Van Wanterghem, a Perussuomalaiset party city councilman from Kotka who has pretty extremist ideas especially about Muslims and Africans.

I recently read an interview about with a black African on Mikkeli-based daily Länsi-Savo. The person denied that he had ever been mistreated in Finland.

“I have never faced racism in Finland,” he was quoted as saying. “There was more of that in Egypt, where people thought we were stealing their jobs…Young people may sometimes comment things (in public). It’s more teasing than racism. Usually they are surprised when I speak back to them in Finnish.”

If we are fair, it must be pretty depressing if you are black to be constantly asked the question “have you suffered racism in this country?” Even if this may be the case, denial isn’t the correct path.

Denial, ignorance and even racism of some immigrants are even greater challenges than the institutional racism we find in society.

Savon Sanomat: Rasismi on uhka kaikille

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Enrique Tessieri Puheenjohtaja Kansainvälinen Mikkely ry ja Alain Minguet Puheenjohtaja Joensuun seudun monikulttuurisuusyhdistys ry

Miksi meidän tulisi olla huolestuneita rasismin noususta Iisalmessa, Lieksassa ja muualla? Mitä se kertoo Suomen yhteiskunnasta ja sen pahoinvoinnista?

Suomessa rasismi on noussut ihmisten tietoisuuteen yhä voimakkaammin erityisesti viimeisten kahden vuoden aikana. Siitä vaikeneminen ei ole oikea tie.

Ilmiötä ei voi selittää syyttämällä maahanmuuttajia. Lausahdus “meidän kotiseudulla ei ollut rasismia, ennen kuin tänne muuttivat maahanmuuttajat”, ei tunnu selittävän perimmäistä syytä.

Miten on mahdollista, että niin pieni joukko, reilu kaksi sataa, maahanmuuttajaa voi saada Lieksassa niin paljon vastustusta, vihaa ja pahaa aikaan?

Yhdysvaltalainen vapaustaistelija Martin Luther King Jr. (1928 – 1968) edesauttoi elämässään merkittävästi mustien oikeuksia 1950- ja 1960-luvuilla. Hänen neuvonsa kantautuvat myös tämän päivän keskusteluun. Hän sanoi: “Vihaa ei voi poistaa vihalla, vain rakkaus pystyy siihen.” Strategiamme rasismia ja vihaa vastaan tulee olla sama kuin Kingin.

Taistelu rasismia vastaan on myös askel meidän lastemme ja lastenlastemme paremman tulevaisuuden puolesta. He voivat elää maassa, jossa rasismi ja viha toisia kohtaan ovat poikkeus ja harvinaisuus.

Suomeen mahtuu paljon erilaisia ihmisiä. Voimme olla hyvinkin erilaisia, mutta olemme kaikki tämän maan asukkaita. Pohjana on kunnioitus ja hyväksyntä puolin ja toisin. Tämä ei ole uutta suomalaisille, vaan se on tapa, joka on ollut aina läsnä.

Rasismi on uhka kaikille, myös niille, jotka levittävät sitä tietoisesti tai tiedostamattaan. Jos annamme rasismin ja eriarvoisuuden voittaa, seurauksista tulee kohtalokkaat. Köyhdymme yhteiskunnallisesti, poliittisesti ja ennen kaikkea taloudellisesti.

Mitä tapahtuu kylälle, maakunnalle tai maalle, jos saamme rasistisen leiman? Kuinka monta osaava ihmistä tai maahanmuuttajaa haluaa pysyä täällä ja muuttaa tänne? Kuinka monta yritystä haluaa sijoittaa rahaa ja luoda työpaikkoja? Uskomme, että hyvin harva. Ne, jotka pystyvät, muuttavat muualle etsimään parempaa työtä ja valoisampaa tulevaisuutta.

Voimme olla ylpeitä monista hienoista saavutuksistamme Suomessa, mutta rasismi ei kuulu tähän listaan. Suomessa on paljon valveutuneita esimerkillisiä kansalaisia, jotka eivät hyväksy nyt yhteiskunnassa vellovaa keskustelua. Näiden ihmisten tuleekin puhua ja kuulua entistä äänekkäämmin.

He ovat ymmärtäneet, että toimivaa ja pysyvää yhteiskuntaa ei voi rakentaa vihan perustukselle.

Lue juttu Savon Sanomissa.

How well does Finland’s school system educate children with immigrant backgrounds?

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By Enrique Tessieri

A story on the Guardian  praises Finland’s educational system for setting a “great example” in educating immigrant children. While I am certain there are many success stories out there, are matters that rosy as the London daily claims?

When I read the article I thought about a  survey published in February, which showed 41% of  teachers would want to limit at schools the amount of pupils with immigrant backgrounds?

Like everything else, perspective is key. What do children with immigrant backgrounds say about our educational system? Do they agree whole-heartedly with what the Guradian writes?

Certainly there is a lot of good will in this country to make immigration work. Even so, do we agree about the big picture, or what is the role of these students will be when they become adults in our ever-culturally diverse society?

Certainly there are big differences between schools in eastern Helsinki and small towns like Liperi.

“Liperi is a small town in the region of Pohjois-Karjala and there weren’t too many Russians when we moved there (in the 1990s),” says Aune Rugoyeva. “It was sometimes pretty tough at  middle-school since my classmates chewed me out (for being Russian) and excluded me (from the rest of the group). It was a very lonely place to be.”

The bullying that Aune suffered at the school was possible thanks to the teachers who turned a blind eye, according to her.

One of the most important questions our world-famous educational system should therefore be asking is how does it encourage cultural diversity?

When schools speak of “multiculturalism,” or diversity, do they overlook the important fact that the pupil is culturally hybrid and can move between two or more cultures ambidextrously?  When students with immigrant backgrounds, especially those who are visible minorities and who have lived most of their lives in Finland, are asked to “tell about their cultures” at school do we fall into the trap of “us” and “them?”

Probably the last person to understand a student’s hybridity is a someone who has never been an immigrant never mind lived in two or more cultures simultaneously.

Does our school system strengthen and reinforce the students cultural hybridity as an integral part of Finnishness? Most importantly, does it teach important values such as acceptance and respect of such diversity?

Another matter that the Guardian article did not write about is that teachers in Finland rank almost as high as the police with respect to their conservative views of society.

MTV3: Kauppalehti: Siivousfirmojen pitää irtisanoa maahanmuuttajia

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Comment: What can you make out of this story below? MTV3 claims, quoting business daily Kauppalehti, that the office that hands out work permits in the Uusimaa region of Southern Finland wants cleaning companies to hire EU nationals.  This may be easier said than done. 

MTV3 reports that the employers of the cleaning companies are pretty irritated by the recommendation since finding such workers among EU nationals are scarce.  Siskon Siivous general manager, Pasi Hämäläinen, said that two thirds of the company’s employees come from outside Europe.

” This latest case does give the lie to claims about alleged welfare shopping by humanitarian migrants,” writes JusticeDemon in a thread.

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Uudellamaalla kiistellään siivousalan työvoimatilanteesta, kertoo Kauppalehti. Uudenmaan työlupayksikkö on evännyt työlupia afrikkalaisilta ja aasialaisilta siivoojilta ja kehottanut yrityksiä palkkaamaan siivoojia Euroopan talousalueelta. Luvatta jääneet siivoojat olivat olleet töissä jo vuosia, turvapaikkahakemuksen käsittelyn kestäessä.

Read whole story.

MTV3: Janne Virkkunen: Tulevan presidentin puututtava Suomen ahdistavaan ilmapiiriin

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Comment: Former Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief, Janne Virkkunen, expresses concern over the anti-immigration atmosphere in Finland. He partly blames its rise on the Perussuomalaiset (PS), whose head, Timo Soini, is well aware of the racism issue of the party. 

Globalization is another factor which has motived some Finns to look for a scapegoat for the country’s problems, according to him.  

The former editor-in-chief said that curbing debate on the Internet will not undermine hate speech. He believed that one matter that could be done now is for the presidential candidates to take a strong stand against such a social ill. 

Migrant Tales agrees totally with Virkkunen’s analysis and medicine for Finland. The only way that racism can be beat is to react and confront it with facts. Too many politicians in Finland have, however, chosen to remain silent on this front. 

Silence is racism’s best ally because it feeds its delusional view of the world. 

If we permit racism to enter our society through the backdoor and allow it to grow unchecked, it will impact Finland politically, socially and economically.  

By racist parties we mean those that encourage and spread urban tales about immigrants for their own opportunistic means. The most notable of these are the PS in general and the anti-immigration wing in particular led by MP Jussi Halla-aho. 

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Helsingin Sanomien entinen päätoimittaja Janne Virkkunen on huolissaan Suomessa leviävästä ulkomaalaisvastaisuudesta ja vihakirjoittelusta. “Minua ahdistaa. Yhteiskuntamme ilmapiiri on tällä hetkellä sellainen, että suvaitsemattomuus vain nousee nousemistaan,” Janne Virkkunen sanoo.

Read whole story.

The snow job of the far right in Finland

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By Enrique Tessieri

The shocking revelations in Germany, whereby 140 people have died since 1990 as a result of far-right violence, is a wake-up call for us in Finland as well.  How is it possible that so many people are killed by a far-right terror cell without anyone raising a question? 

Writes Spiegel Online International: “Now, Germany has been startled from its slumber. Ever since the discovery of an underground far-right terror group which apparently targeted Turkish small businessmen all across Germany for many years, the law enforcement agencies have been asking themselves how they could have overlooked something that is actually impossible to overlook.”

The guardian.co.uk reports: “The German parliament has passed a cross-party resolution expressing ‘deep shame’ that a neo-Nazi terror cell was left unchecked to murder 10 people during 13 years on the run.”

Supo assured Finns in early November that while it takes the far right seriously, it does not consider these groups dangerous, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

What does “dangerous” mean? Should we be concerned?

Any person with some understanding of what has happened this year should be concerned. A party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which got 19.1% of the votes in April from a tad over 4% in 2007, has received a dubious reputation in only eight months after its election victory. Just over a week after the election, it became pretty clear what some of their MPs thought about racism. Then came other issues concerning democracy, sexism, homosexuals never mind links to neo-Nazi associations like the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV).

Denial is one of the oldest snow jobs in the books: Racists never admit they are racists never mind the far right telling us that they are extremists.  That is why the role of  academics, analysts, writers and journalists who are on the ball are crucial at exposing these groups for what they are.

Some sectors of Finland, especially the police and Supo, have pretty conservative views about Finnish society. For some of them, the PS and groups like Suomen Sisu aren’t an issue because they identify with their ideology.

Even so, we at Migrant Tales see a worrying trend in Finland after April even though we feel that more Finns than ever expected are standing up to this menace posed by racism and nationalism.

By extremists we mean the SKV, Suomen Sisu and “light” versions of the latter like the PS, especially the Nuiva manifesto faction led by Jussi Halla-aho.

Should we be concerned or not in Finland?

I would be.

Further momentum against racism in Finland

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By Enrique Tessieri

Here is a story published Sunday on Savon Sanomat of Kuopio that shows members in the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party giving the thumbs down to racism. Jukka Kotimäki, PS organization secretary of Siilimäki near Kuopio,  states that he does not want openly racist people to be a part of his party. 

Even though we are speaking of a small community in Eastern Finland, it shows that there is already debate in the PS on this important issue. We should applaud a member of the PS, who states that racism has nothing to do with his party.

While this is a very good sign, the PS still has a lot of work and issues to resolve concerning its stand on discrimination and racism. One of the persons we’d be happy to hear and make a break with this type of anti-social behavior is PS head Timo Soini.

Migrant Tales wrote recently about how most parties in Finland are giving the thumbs down to racism.

In my opinion, the mere idea that Finland could turn into a Denmark or that some politicians believe that they could become a Finnish Geert Wilders or even a modern Arthur Seyss-Inquart exposes not only their delusional opportunism but their ignorance on immigration.

While there is still a lot of work to do on the anti-racism front in Finland, there is hope  especially for our children and grandchildren so they may live in a country where racism and hatred of other groups are shameful and rare.

Shortly after this latest blog entry was published, @HelsinkiObs tweeted the following:Please also note that @anon_finland have taken a very strong stance. #anti-racism.

Thank you for the heads up!

Most Finnish parties are giving the thumbs down to racism

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By Enrique Tessieri

Left Alliance presidential hopeful, Paavo Arhimäki, said Sunday that his party has taken the strongest stand against racism when compared with the candidates of the Swedish People’s Party and Greens, reports Tampere-based daily Aaamulehti. It is an encouraging sign that Finland’s political parties appear to be competing to be the most outspoken on racism.

I have my doubts, however, about Perussuomalaiset (PS) party presidential candidate Timo Soini, who still hasn’t made a clear and conclusive break from racism never mind other forms of discrimination. I still don’t know what the Christian Democrat candidate, EuroMP Sari Essayah, thinks about the issue.

I am pretty sure that veteran politicians like Sauli Niinistö of Kokoomus never mind Paavo Lipponen of the Social Democratic Party know that discrimination has to be challenged and is a sign of a society in steep decline.

Lipponen has in the past spoken strongly against the far-right menace in the PS and to Finnish democracy.

What would you say about Center Party presidential candidate Paavo Väyrynen, who served during the cold war as foreign minister? If he didn’t care a lot about human rights violations committed by Finland against Soviet asylum seekers why would he have a different opinion on immigrants?

Even so, parties like Kokoomus, Social Democrats and Center Party have pretty mixed opinions about racism and how it should be tackled.

Even if racism has lifted its head in Finland, the opposition to this social ill has been promising.

It clearly shows that Finns can, together with other minorities, can defeat this menace.

Teaching Tolerance: White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy

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Comment: Even if racism comes in different forms in different countries and regions, it’s the same thing. People who work against this social ill face similar problems irrespective if they are in Lieksa, Finland, or in Fresno, California. 

If, for example, we want to see what kind of a threat neo-Nazi groups pose for Finland, it would be good to turn our attention to Germany to see what they have done on this front. If we want to see what anti-immigration far-right parties have in store for us, we could look at the impact of parties like the Danish People’s Party.   

There has been dear little public debate in Finland about those who work with immigrants and try to empower minorities to stand up for their rights. Sometimes “well-intentioned” groups may do just the opposite and promote apathy, however. 

The Teaching Tolerance story below asked four women some of the most common mistakes “white anti-racist” activists make when working with ethnic minorities. 

These are some of the issues they brought up: 

  • Not acknowledging that they have power and privilege by the mere fact that they are white. 
  • The most common mistakes white activists make are 1) setting an agenda with the illusion of inclusion, and 2) having to have a franchise on comfort.
  • White anti-racists make a mistake when they shut out the poor and uneducated and keep in those “in the know” to decide what’s good for people of color.
  • “Getting it” is the biggest point, I feel. Getting it means many things: the ability for white activists to understand that they have a space and place of privilege. It really is up to white people to give up their privilege and be okay with that. 
  • I believe that white allies can “get it” if we define “getting it” as becoming attuned to the subtle effects of racial bias in everyday interactions and environments. We can “get it” if we recognize the systemic presence of racism and how race-based oppression is allowed to continue.  

Do we “get it” in Finland? 

Thank you @getgln for the heads up!

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What does “white anti-racist” mean? How can guilt get in the way? And what’s all this talk about being “colorblind”? Teaching Tolerance asked community activists to share their thoughts on these questions, and others. Their answers shine light on the concepts of comfort, power, privilege and identity.

Read whole story.

HS in English: Poll: long road ahead to universal acceptance of minorities

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Comment: Two polls published on last Saturday and Thursday by Helsingin Sanomat have raised quite a stir in Finland. So much so, in fact, that President Tarja Halonen commented on the one published on Saturday, which showed that two thirds believed that there is much or a fair amount of racism in Finland. 

Some right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party were outraged by Halonen’s statement in light of the poll:  Said President Halonen: “People who recognise racism in themselves have ended up voting for the True Finns. The True Finns have been seen as their way of reacting to some problems which they consider to be truly serious. I have said that the questions and problems can be the right ones to some degree, but the answers are wrong.”

A new poll on Thursday gave more fuel to Saturday’s poll, when it showed that over half interviewed said they would take a negative view of the idea of marrying a member of the Romany minority; 32% said they would not like the idea of marrying an African. Over a third responded that they would not want a Somalian family to be their neighbor. 

Despite the result, the vast majority of those polled said they had no problems marrying a white USAmerican. 

Do you agree as the headline by Helsingin Sanomat that the road to acceptance of minorities in Finland will be a long one?

In my opinion, the length of that road depends on us. If immigrants and Finns with multicultural backgrounds, together with other members of our society, take leadership on this front the journey will be shorter. 

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Modu Sidibeh, a 46-year-old Gambian-born youth worker who works in Kauniainen, is shocked, but not really surprised, to read the results of a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat.

Read whole story.