Author: Migrant Tales

Racism in Finland: She loves me, she loves me not…

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By Enrique Tessieri

The region of Pohjois-Karjala in eastern Finland has gained a dubious reputation for being one of Finland’s hotspots of racism. A poll published by Joensuu-based Karjalainen shows that while people from this region are  not against labor immigrants but they don’t want refugees moving there. 

If I interpreted one of the findings of the poll correctly, everything is supposedly fine in Pohjois-Karjala for immigrants as long as they go to work there and pay taxes, right?

Wrong.

If anything, the poll reveals how deep in denial some inhabitants of the region are concerning racism and how it has flourished. Remember the businessmen who did not want people with “pigment problems” to apply? What about those establishments owned by self-employed immigrants that have been attacked in cities like Joensuu? Ever heard of Lieksa?

The poll even suggests blame on immigrants: There was no racism in our town before foreigners came here.

Even if some inhabitants of the region may not want refugees, I wonder if any person would want to move to a city like Lieksa?

Despite the big challenges that Pohjois-Karjala faces, Karjalainen and associations like JoMoni led by Alain Miguet have done a lot of good work on the anti-racism front.

Their jobs are not made easier by parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which have not made a clear break with racism. Instead, some of their MPs even openly promote it.  The PS are now the biggest party in Pohjois-Karjala, according to a poll published on Turn Sanomat.

The more racism lifts its head in Finland, doublespeak explanations claiming that we don’t have a problem with such a social ill will become more prominent.

We will claim that we like certain immigrants but loathe others.

Pohjalainen.fi: Perhe-elämä kuuluu ihmisoikeuksiin

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Comment: Below is a very good letter to the editor on family reunification published on Vaasa-based daily Pohjalainen. It is surprising that Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen, a member of the Christian Democrats (KD) that stresses the importance of family values, wants to tighten family reunification laws even further.

It’s not that Finland is being invaded by families of immigrants and refugees. In the last 12 years an average of 329 people annually have been able to bring their families to Finland.  Forty percent of all applications are rejected by the authorities. 

The anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is most likely the reason explains Räsänen’s and the government’s stance. Acting tough — they believe — on immigration is good for the polls and keeps the PS from growing further at their expense.   

Räsänen’s and the government’s view about tightening family reunification laws is a disturbing glimpse of how Finland procrastinates on this front. How can you accept an asylum seeker,  who is a minor, and deny that person the right to have his parents by his side? That is pretty inhumane in my opinion. 

Certainly if you believe that Somalia is a peaceful place and all those that come from there are fake asylum seekers, then I understand why you want to make family reunification more difficult.

A visit to Mogadishu by Räsänen and other Finns would do wonders to wake them up to the suffering and squalor there.  

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Emina Arnautovic

Nykyisessä hallituksessa maahanmuuttokysymykset ovat sisäasianinministerin pöydällä. Kristillisdemokraattien puheenjohtaja Päivi Räsänen on lyhyenä ministerikautenaan antanut muutamia lausuntoja maahanmuuttopolitiikkaan liittyen. Viimeksi hän esitti perheyhdistämisen sääntöjen kiristämistä, vaikka ministeri Astrid Thors korjasi todettuja ongelmia jo edellisellä hallituskaudella.

Read whole story.

Knowledge about the threat of racism is nothing new in Finland

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Lame excuses like “we haven’t had too many immigrants in Finland” are used to justify some of our knee-jerk reactions towards other groups. A talk about racism over 40 years ago on YLE shows that there were people in Finland who understood perfectly well what racism is and what kind of a threat it poses to society.

Check out the talk, Mitä on rasismi (What is racism), on Elävä arkisto.

The nineteen-minute talk on YLE in 1969 shows that people in Finland could analyze what racism is and how racists create and spread urban myths about other groups.

Jussi Jalonen’s blog on Uusi Suomi shows eloquently how groups like the PS’s hit-and-please-forget tactics on racism.

If it was pretty clear to the YLE commentator what a racist was over 40 years ago why is it difficult for some of us don’t know what it is today? Racists are either too opportunistic and/or ignorant to know that racism is a big no-no in a modern society like Finland.

What they do, however, is rehash old racist theories and offer them as something new, which they are not.

Apologies on behalf of the commentator for using the term “n-word” in Finnish.

Thanks to Janne Suuronen for the heads-up.

guardian.co.uk: Far-right Finnish politician Timo Soini bids for presidency

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Comment: Here is an interesting story published on guardian.co.uk about far-right Finnish politician Timo Soini, the leader of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. It is interesting how the Guardian does not have a problem with the term “far right” and puts the PS in the same group as other ones in the Nordic region like the Danish People’s Party, Progress party of Norway, and Sweden Democrats. 

If anyone watched the presidential debate on Thursday on television, I was surprised by what Social Democrat hopeful, Paavo Lipponen, said about the PS not being a far-right party. 

The guardian.co.uk writes: Destruction seems to be part of Soini’s plan. He says that Finland could easily retract the backing its parliament gave the expanded European financial stability facility, the eurozone bailout fund, in September, a move that would rip apart the rescue package stitched together last month. “We can even now say that it is full stop for our bailing out,” he insists. “We can say it, even if we are members of the eurozone and the EFSF’s [European Financial Stability Facility’s] power has been enlarged. Each and every individual decision, by Finnish law, has to be made in this house, and if this house… says this is the end of the story, it’s the stand of the Finnish parliament and we can do it.”

And continues: “You can’t find a politician in this country who says that I have extreme views about foreigners or homosexuals or anyone else,” he insists. “It’s so painful to the old and established party to confess that there’s a real challenger on economics, or bailing out the EU, that the easiest solution is to demonise us.”

Why would Soini need someone to say these things if he has a lot of members in his party who are saying them for him?

What will be Soini’s stance if one day the PS gets into government and puts some of their ideas into practice? 

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Timo Soini is excited about Italian bond yields. “I just heard that the interest on Italian 10-year loans is now over 7.3%,” he whispers as a cast-iron lift hoists us from the ground floor of the monumental Finnish parliament to his office above. “This is a horrendous situation.” But it’s clear that, from his political standpoint, it’s actually quite good news.

Read whole story.

Our reaction to racism in Finland should be a reaction

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The lead story in Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat has President Tarja Halonen’s reaction and concern about Saturday’s opinion poll published in Finland’s largest daily, which showed Finns’ attitudes and perceptions of racism.

One of the finds of the poll was that two thirds have seen racism in Finland even though a small amount considered themselves responsible for such behavior. Over a third polled saw Islam as a threat to Europe and democracy.

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen expressed concern as well about the poll results. “What the heck do we Finns fear?” he was quoted as saying on Helsingin Sanomat..

One of the most disappointing matters about the poll results is Perussuomalaiset (PS) party chief Timo Soini’s decision to not take part in the debate. He wrote on his blog that the Helsingin Sanomat poll as well as two others published on the same day show how biased the Finnish media is against the PS.

One of these published Saturday by tabloid Iltalehti showed that the majority of Soini’s followers do not want Finland to scrap the euro nor leave the European Union.

Should we be concerned? Certainly and especially visible immigrants and minorities living in this country.

Racism does not only threaten immigrants and minorities in Finland, but undermines our whole society, even those that spread it.

Taking into account how racism has lifted its head with a vengeance in this country especially in the past two years, ignoring it would be a perilous mistake.  Our lame response to this threat has led us to where we are today.

Our example, as President Halonen wisely points our, debating and condemning this social ill openly are the only way of challenging the threat.

The ever-embattled Soini of the PS of Finland

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By Enrique Tessieri

Perussuomalaiset (PS) party chairman, Timo Soini, appears more embattled every day as he watches with weary eyes polls. The latest one published by Helsingin Sanomat Saturday shows racism to be more acceptable among PS supporters.   

The latest revelations, including other ones like PS party members belonging to neo-Nazi associations such as the Suomen Kansallinen Vastarinta (SKL), show that the ever-embattled Soini has fewer explanations to offer and prefers to blame the media for being biased against his party.

If we were fair, Soini knows better than anyone else that the greatest enemy of the PS isn’t the Finnish media but the likes of PS MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, Teuvo Hakkarainen, Juho Eerola,  Tuomas Okkonen, a Perussuomalaiset (PS) party board vice president in Oulu, and others.

I’ve seen it many times happen during my long career as a journalist and foreign correspondent. Anytime a politician begins to blame the media for his problems, that politician or party is in deep water.

Ossi Mäntylahti asks  on his Uusi Suomi blog why can’t anyone comment on Soini’s blog and if he is following Halla-aho’s policy of not speaking to the media?

Soini’s cover as the “good cop” in an unpredictable party like the PS has eroded in the eyes of many voters.

Another factor that will hit the PS are the horrific events that took place in Norway on July 22, which have been a a hard blow to far right and right-wing populist parties in the Nordic region.

In light of the party’s ever-growing problems, it is surprising that Soini has  “nothing intelligent to say” as he points out on his blog.

He writes: “A political leader has two opportunities. To follow one’s plan or listen to other people’s plans. I have my own plan.”

It would be fair to Finland and to those who voted for the PS to have some idea what that plan is. At present it is entangled in a mess created by no one else but the PS.

HS-gallup: Enemmistö pitää Suomea rasistisena

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Comment: A poll published  Saturday by Helsingin Sanomat, the country’s leading daily, reveals that two thirds of Finns believe that racism appears in Finland a lot or very much. Despite this view, only a minority of those polled felt that they held such attitudes towards people from other cultures. 

Somalians, Muslims and the Romany minority, were the most disliked by those polled and especially by supporters of the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. Contrarily, the most favored groups were Chinese, Estonians, English, Swedes and Saami.

What does this poll tell us? It reinforces the attitudes that some Finns have with respect to certain groups. It tells us that people like Somalians, Muslims and the Romany minority have a difficult struggle ahead of them in the country to become accepted. 

Negative attitudes in the poll expose the ignorance of some Finns. One of the favorite arguments of the far right about Muslims, for example, is that they are so different from us that they will never adapt. This permits people to hold hostile and racist attitudes towards certain groups. 

Twenty-nine percent of those interviewed and a high 51% of PS supporters believe that some immigrant groups of will never adapt to modern societies like Finland. 

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Suomi on vähintäänkin melko rasistinen maa, ajattelee enemmistö suomalaisista. Kaksi kolmasosaa kansasta ajattelee, että Suomessa ilmenee rasismia paljon tai melko paljon. Siitä huolimatta omassa itsessään rasismia tunnistaa tai tunnustaa paljon vain kaksi prosenttia ja melko paljon kaksitoista prosenttia.

Read whole story.

The day will come when cultural diversity will be accepted in Finland

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By Enrique Tessieri

Native American Louie Gone asks an interesting question: Why isn’t a person’s “mixed” heritage acknowledged of all places in a country like the United States? How does Finland support identity development and what kind of exclusion or inclusion does it promote?

I visited this week an elementary school in Eastern Finland and saw a bunch of posters hanging on the walls with different names of countries, flags, and how to count up to three in languages such as Arabic, Denga and others.

While I am certain that the teachers’ intention at the school is to promote respect for diversity, one could ask if it actually doest that.

Why doesn’t the school promote the idea that the children can discover, put into practice and celebrate their new Finnish or hybrid identity on their terms?

What is interesting is that these so-called students with immigrant backgrounds have lived most of their lives in Finland.

It would be far-reaching and probably make some Finns uncomfortable if we’d empower children and people with culturally diverse backgrounds the right to belong and influence our culture as equals.  That would require a very strong dose of acceptance, a word that it rarely used by politicians in this country.

The last people to use terms like mutual acceptance and respect for diversity in Finland would be those that are pushing and placing people in different ethnic categories. They do so with the same intention as Gone mentioned: To conquer and rule.

If I were the principle of that elementary school in Eastern Finland, I would have asked the students to draw the flags of their former home countries together with the Finnish one and then mix them together and imagine how fortunate they are.

Thank you for the heads up @getgln!

PS of Finland: Giving racism a new respectable face

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By Enrique Tessieri

A number of far right anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MPs have seen an image facelift after they were elected. PS MP Juho Eerola has seen the biggest transformation. 

I suspsect that after the April election, PS head Timo Soini called MPs like Eerola and told them to get a hair cut and look more respectable.

PS MP Juho Eerola before and after. Source: Eduskunta and Wikipedia.

Even PS MPs like Teuvo Hakkarainen was learning how to use a tie after he got elected. PS MP Jussi Halla-aho, the leader of the party’s anti-immigration wing, changed his Facebook profile picture. It could not, however, stop him from making controversial statements like “multiculturalism sucks ass” or that the military should overthrow the elected government in Greece.

Even James Hirvisaari, one of the eeriest of the Suomen Sisu PS MPs in parliament, got a suit and tie.

No matter how many suits these type of politicians put on they cannot hide who they are. Despite his haircut and respectable look, Eerola was incapable of condemning his aide Ulla Pyysalo for belonging to a neo-Nazi association.

One of the matters that surprised the Allies when they caught former concentration camp SS guards and commandants was how much they looked like the next-door neighbor.

The PS may want to give a legitimate face to racism and exclusion.

What does not change behind the new persona is the questionable ideology.

eWeek Europe: Anonymous Implicated In Finnish Web Hacks

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Comment: The main aim of the hackers that exposed the vulnerability of the Finnish data security system was to expose neo-Nazi organizations like Suomen Kansallinen Vastarinta. I wonder how many red faces there would be if they’d hack the Suomen Sisu association website? 

Anonymous Finland claimed responsibility for the hacks in a statement Monday. 

Writes Anonymous Finland:  “We have no tolerance for any group based on racial, sexual and religion discrimination as well as for all the people belonging to them and sharing their ideologies, which is the reason why We decided to carry out last Monday’s attack. That said, We demand SVK to cease its social and net activities and dissolve immediately: should it not happen, We will continue to carry out attacks to its website in the form We will find more appropriate for our intentions.”

And continues:  “We have seen a massive increase of racism among large layers of the population and national politics, as well as of violent verbal and physical actions towards foreigners. We have seen the birth of groups and political movements and apparition of political figures who support racist ideologies and foster and encourage racial hatred through flamboyant rhetoric, people and movements…”

Certainly what Anonymous Finland has done is a breach of the law but what can we say about websites like Hommaforum and Scripta, which are trying to make racism a normal thing in our society? 

Here is another link to Oo News! that writes about the incident.

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By Iris Cheerin

Neo-Nazi politicians were exposed in Finland – but was Anonymous really responsible?  In the largest ever breach of its kind, Finnish websites were hacked last week and personal data leaked onto a file sharing website, it has been reported.

Read whole story.