Author: Migrant Tales

When countries become nationalism addicts and junkies

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Xenophobia tends to pile up. Like blacks in the United States, Finland’s “black” problem is Russia, and from the 1990s, Muslims.

In the 1980s, when I lived permanently in Finland, and about 12,000 foreign nationals were living in the country, the racist undercurrent that flowed like a mighty river was ever-present. It reminded you whenever you talked about the Russians and later on, Muslims became a part of that shameful picture.

That undercurrent showed itself on several occasions. It did so in the early 1990s when Somalis started to arrive in Finland. That undercurrent, especially nurtured by tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat, acted like a thug’s warning.

You will pay a high price If you get too friendly with foreigners.

That toxic undercurrent has gotten stronger in recent years. Finland’s biggest opposition party is openly Islamophobic and racist. Politicians, even in the government like MP Eveliina Heinäluoma and a long list of National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) politicians in the opposition, have cuddled up to our hostile environment.

I always say that minority rights in Finland will not improve under their leadership. And even less so if the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, Kokoomus, Center Party, Liike nyt, Christian Democrats ever get power.

Finland’s deep mistrust of Russia and Russians stems from its difficult history with that country. The war in Ukraine has only revived even more such hatred. Matters will get worse for Finland’s minorities.

We saw that in Estonia when the new government of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas announced that it would phase out the Russian language at nursery homes and schools by 2030.

About a quarter of Estonia’s population speaks Russian as their mother tongue. The right to an education and recognition will spell trouble for white Estonians by denying rights to such a large group of people.

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Police open new investigation of National Coalition Party MP Wille Rydman

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After an initial police investigation into alleged sexual harassment by National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MP Wille Rydman, the National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi) announced that it had opened a preliminary investigation into the MP’s activities. Rydman is a staunch anti-Muslim who is unofficially Kokoomus’ Jussi Halla-aho.

Halla-aho is the former chairperson of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS), who built his political career in the 2000s by writing Islamophobic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and sexist blog entries.

The first story published by Helsingin Sanomat broke about the MP’s alleged inappropriate behavior towards women and minors was published in June 19.

Keskusrikospoliisi stated: “A preliminary investigation has been opened because the police received new information and the police have interviewed persons who were not heard from in the previous preliminary investigation carried out in 2020. Based on the new information, there are [now] grounds to suspect the person of a crime.”

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The United States gets a taste of its bad karma

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With all the noise going on in the United States due to the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, which have shown how former President Donald Trump attempted to stay in power with the help of a coup, one wonders if all that is happening is bad karma.

No matter how much exceptionalism people in the United States attempt to show Trump as an aberration, he is USAmerica that came home to roost.

The US has bloodied its hands in so many coups around the world since the nineteenth century. It never apologized publicly for them never mind offering any compensation for the social damage and deep scars they caused to society.

On Tuesday, former national security adviser to Trump, John Bolton, surprised some by admitting that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.

As a Latin American, Bolton’s admission that he helped plan coups in countries like Venezuela unmasks the hypocrisy of the United States. Even if some US politicians praise the importance of democracy, Washington’s track record shows how much disdain it has for promoting democracy outside of its borders.

Another matter that the US has condoned is the spread of torture. Such an outlandish method was used by military dictatorships thanks to the CIA and School of the Americas, blamed for teaching and equipping de facto dictatorships in repression techniques and human rights violations committed by former students of different Latin American armies.

Even if France offered the military regime in Argentina its know-how on torture gained from the Algerian War (1954-62), the US was responsible for training security personnel in torture.

One of many terrible military dictatorships supported by the US was Rafael Leonídas Trujillo y Molina of the Dominican Republic, who ruled the country for thirty-two years (1930-61), was also a torturer.

Writes John Gerassi in “The Great fear in Latin America:” “Trujillo’s SIM (Military Intelligence Service) used slow-shocking electric chairs, or an electrified rod known as “The Cane,” especially effective on genitals, or nail extractors, or whips, or the Pulpo (octopus), a many armed electrical device screwed into the skull. Kilometer Nine [the jail] also featured a water tank with bloodsucking leeches.”

Gerassi continues quoting a Look senior editor who visited the country: “I still shudder about Snowball, a dwarf – now jailed – whose specialty was biting off men’s genitals.”

Strange world we live in, no? The US destroys and impoverishes Latin America by not allowing it to realize its own social, political, and economic potential, and then complains about why so many Latin Americas are desperately attempting to enter the US by any means.

Europe has the same issue highlighted by the cartoon below.

A fateful June: The future of the environment, millions of refugees and even world peace hung in the balance

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Ahti Tolvanen*

At last there has been a decision of the world’s nations to put an end to the burning of fossil fuels. It took the world at least 50 years to arrive at this point which happened in Stockholm June 3rd, 2022 in the closing statement of a conference to observe the 50th anniversary of the UN’s first Environmental Conference in 1972.

In 1972 the US was waging a cruel war in Vietnam against an enemy supplied with weapons from Soviet Russia. Critics were saying it was a farce to have talks about the environment and make no mention of the

US´s destructive military intervention. Olaf Palme was famously outspoken on the theme.

Now the shoe was on the other foot. Russia had invaded Ukraine in February and the US was shipping weapons to repel the attackers.

NGOs led by the Climate Action Network lobbied and demonstrated energetically to have an end to fossil fuels renounced in Glasgow at COP 26 but were stymied in the last hours, mainly by the fossil fuel lobby. It took another International conference to get there.

Scientists have been warning the world about fossil fuels as the main driver of the climate crises for years, but the way climate politics works, we needed to have fossil phase-out on the books or we will never get it done.

In 1972 when the first Stockholm conference convened acid rain and a loss of ozone were serious environmental concerns. Measures were put into place to alleviate these in the following years. But in 1972 the human biological footprint was at approximately the level of natural replacement. Since then we have lost about 60% of living creatures and are consuming renewable resources at nearly twice their rate of renewal.

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Highland Park shooter raises far-right Suomen Sisu to international notoriety

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After Highland Park shooter Robert E. Crimo III, 22, murdered six people during the July 4th festivities and was apprehended by the police, social media is buzzing with his use of a symbol that is similar to the one used by Suomen Sisu, a far-right neo-Nazi association that used to recommend the works of Nazi war criminal Alfred Rosenberg.

Even if Suomen Sisu likes to call itself a “nationalist movement” that seeks the preservation of European states and white culture, it’s been called by the Finnish secret police Supo an “extremist organization.” Others like the Finnish Criminal Police (KRP), and the Council for Mass Media (JSN) called the association  “Nazi spirited.”

Above is the official description of Suomen Sisu in English. Others read it differently: “Suomen Sisu is a Finnish far-right movement which objects to Muslims and people of color and supports the preservation of national states and white European heritage with white supremacy. Through its activities, the organization seeks to protect white Finnish culture, and racist, ethnocentric views, by promoting white Finnish far-right views. Suomen Sisu builds a society in Finns where there are no non-white people and this fact makes us happy.”

Whether the symbol used by the Highland Park killer is a copy or not is like arguing if Suomen Sisu is a far-right white supremacist association or not.

What has happened is that Suomen Sisu’s real face has been exposed thanks to a murderer who is attracted to far-right ideology.

Source: Twitter
Source: Twitter

War in Ukraine forces Finland to lurch to a dark place where human rights must eventually take a backseat

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The polarized debate in parliament Monday on renewing the Border Guard Act and Emergency Powers Act is just another example of how Finland has lurched into a dark place where human rights are a nuisance and should not take presedence The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS), with the helping hand of the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and other minor parties like the Christian Democrats and Liike Nyt, are picking on their favorite target: asylum seekers.

According to some, the new laws are not in conflict with the EU, which does not allow member states to stop people from seeking asylum. Others, like European Union Institute professor of international law and human rights Martin Scheinin, believe the new laws will send Finland back thirty years.

Scheinin tweets: “Today, Parliament will finalize the content of the amendments to the Emergency Powers Act and the Border Guard Act. The idea is to introduce a constitutional derogation found in Section 23 of the Constitution, which deals with exemptions in times of crisis. This [the exemptions] turns back the clocks at least 30 years.” Section 23 of the Constitution states that fundamental rights and liberties in situations of emergency cannot breach its human rights obligations.

Here’s the question: Are the draft Border Guard Act and Emergency Powers Act in conflict with EU laws? Looking at parties like the PS and Kokoomus, who speak of asylum seekers as a threat to Finland, would be the first parties to trash human rights or severely water them down.

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Denmark shooter is allegedly white and has ties with the far-right

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It was about 11 years ago on 22/7 when Norwegian Anders Breivik shocked us by murdering 77 victims. His motive? Anti-Muslim racism. Yesterday, there was a hint of déjà-vu when a 22-year-old “ethnic Dane,” a term used to mean white Dane, went on the rampage in the Fields shopping center of Copenhagen killing at least three and wounding a number of victims.

The “ethnic Dane” suspect? Source: Facebook.

While the police have not ruled out terrorism, unverified reports allege that the shooter had ties to the far right. Some eyewitnesses even heard the man shout at the scene of the crime, “Get out of my country!”

Why does the evidence point toward a deranged white Dane committing these heinous acts? For one, no Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politician has posted anything about the attack. PS chair Riikka Purra hasn’t even sent condolences to the victims.

Contrary to how far-right groups react to such a shooting, one important matter to remember is that we cannot generalize. For example, if the suspect is a white Dane and was motivated by racism, we should not label all white Danes as terrorists. The act at the shopping center was by a sick person who is a danger to society irrespective of his background.

If these accounts are true, that the suspect has ties to the far right and whose motive was anti-Muslim racism, it should be another stark reminder of how words and racism have deadly consequences.

A country like Denmark, which has a reputation for being one of the most Islamophobic countries in the EU, has not toned down its anti-Muslim rhetoric. The hardline anti-immigration policy comes straight from the government.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the country had been hit by a “cruel attack,” according to CBS News. “It is incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Pointless,” she said. “Our beautiful and usually so safe capital was changed in a split second.”

This story will be updated.

Cold war journalism in Finland: Ghostbusting the past (City in English 3/1990)

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Migrant Tales will launch stories about how the cold war, or Finlandization, encouraged self-censorship and censorship. My journalism career began in 1986, when I made a living from writing. As a journalist writing for the Finnish and foreign media, the foreign ministry warned me several times about questioning Finland’s foreign policy and human rights violations in the former USSR. One official said if I didn’t stop writing negative things about the Soviet Union, I’d be blacklisted by the foreign ministry. It was a shameful period that we must never repeat.

Since September 19, 1944, just after Finland signed an armistice with the USSR, which concluded the so-called Continuation War, the lights of that period of turmoil were turned off. Those who turned off the lights did so in the hope that no-one would ever find his way back into that era characterized by so much irrationality and rivers of blood.

Two years previous, in April 1942m a book on Field Marshall Carl Gustaf Mannerheim had been published by one of the country’s leading publishers, WSOY. Field Marshall Mannerheim is a leading figure in Finnish history; he was one of the main architects in keeping Finland free from the communists.

The Continuation War should not be mistaken for the Winter War (1939-40) when, for over a period of 105 grueling days, the vastly outnumbered Finns miraculously kept the Red Army in check. During the Continuation War, Finland fought side by side with Nazi Germany against a common enemy – the Soviet Union.

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Avoid turning Finland into a United States

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In a thousand years, if there’s History, America will be remembered as a nasty little Country. Full of Pricks…

Allen Ginsberg, Epilogue from “The Fall of America poems of these states 1965-1971”

Following the dysfunctionality and cultural war raging in US politics, any sensible person can conclude that the present situation is due to several factors. As a Latin American who has seen how US foreign policy has ruled and destroyed the region for its selfish benefit, it’s clear that the US is getting a bitter taste of its own medicine.

What is happening in the United States, how it is lurching into becoming an autocratic country, is nothing new. Money, greed, gullibility, and fairy tale exceptionalism are some culprits.

What is happening in the US will not end well. Even so, what is transpiring now in that country is a warning that we must avoid the same mistakes: unchecked capitalism, greed, and our misguided belief that money talks and has the last word.

Finland has succeeded in building a model society where the state attempts to take care of its own. In recent years, however, parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), Center Party, Christian Democrats, Liike nyt have started to dismantle our welfare state piece by piece.

Politicians like Petteri Orpo, Elina Lepomäki, Heikki Vestman, Wille Rydman, Kai Mykkänen, Hjallis Harkimo, Päivi Räsänen, Jussi Halla-aho, and scores of others, would not think twice about selling out our welfare state for the USAmerican model based on extreme social inequality.

Even if we have one of the best education systems in the world and the highest standards of living in the world, about 18% of the population votes for a racist far-right party.

Watch and follow what is happening in the United States and cringe.

The recent decision by the US Supreme Court to strike down Roe and Wade and abortion rights for millions of women is an example of the lunacy that has inflicted USAmerica.

Certainly, one factor that has polarized the United States is racism and white supremacy.

Below is Republican Congressperson Mary Miller of Ohio, who thanks Trump for the Roe and Wade decision.

She said: “I would like to thank Trump on behalf of all the MAGA [Makke America Great Again] patriots in America. I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday.”

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P9Pse3mb7NM

If that wasn’t enough, check the speech below where she quotes and thanks Adolf Hitler. “Hitler was right on one thing, he said whoever has the youth has the future,” said Miller. “Our children are being propagandized. I want to encourage you to do two things: tell your children’s minds what is true, right, and noble, and then they can overcome evil because then they can discern what is evil and what is good. ”

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