Migrant Tales, the oldest anti-racism blog in Finland, will celebrateits 15th anniversary on May 30.
We are planning to publish an online magazine to commemorate the event. Apart from a section with greetings from people and associations, we will publish poetry, pictures, drawings, essays from our activists and readers in Finland and abroad.You can submit your writings in the language of your choice.
The online magazine will also offer an historical timeline of our most important achievements and the impact they had.
The interior ministry estimates “tens of thousands” Ukrainians moving to Finland as a result of the war in that country, according to Yle News. There are about 7,000 Ukrainians in Finland, but Anna Rundgren, a ministry of interior senior specialist, believes that the actual figure is several times higher.
In 2015, the country saw a record influx of people coming here. Thirty-two thousand four hundred seventy-six asylum seekers, mainly from Iraq (20,485) and Afghanistan (5,214), came to Finland in that historic year. The country’s first wave of refugees was in 1921 when some 6,500 Russians from Kronstadt island in the Gulf of Finland fled the Bolsheviks.
Any sensible person should understand that the Ukrainian newcomers are an important human asset to the country. If we want to make Finland their new home, we must also treat them with respect and be vigilant so they will not fall prey to human trafficking and exploitation.
The treatment that some Iraqis, Afghans, and other non-EU asylum seekers received in Finland from 2015 was shameful in some cases. In May 2016, Migrant Tales, Rovaniemi-based daily Lapin Kansa, and the asylum seekers of the Kolari asylum reception center forced the Red Cross to fire the deputy manager of the camp Jari Sillantie.
I talked to a group of students from different national backgrounds today. Two things unite them: they are mostly Muslims and present or past asylum seekers in Finland.
While Europe is opening its arms to 2.809 million refugees from Ukraine since Sunday, according to the UNHCR, the two sets of rules for refugees reveal how little Europe has done to tackle racism.
In November, Finnish politicians talked about constructing a razor-wire fence on the border with Russia to keep keep out asylum seekers from crossing the Polish Belarus border.
Even if our insincerity, or hypocrisy, is upsetting to some of us, it has riled some asylum seekers who have waited for seven years to get a residence permit in Finland.
How do you tell such a person why Ukrainians are granted automatic residence permits, work permits and access to social welfare? Will you be sincere and tell them what James Baldwin said below?
Despite our understanding of the problem, there must be a lot of resentment among those asylum seekers who have waited for up to seven years for their residence permits.
Despite all the objections to racism and Islamophobia in Finland, the silence and sub-rosa nods why such social ills continue to take root in the country. The chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Jussi Halla-aho of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, explained why Europe should open its arms to Ukrainians and shut the door on refugees from regions like the Middle East.
In light of these racist and preposterous explanations by a high-ranking MP, their context is the hope that such statements will boost the PS’ slump in opinion polls.
What is a better place to do it than from the foreign affairs committee by a politician who not only built his political career on spreading racism but was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion?
Source: Ville Ranta/Iltalehti
Below are the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee reasoning why Ukrainian refugees are better than others from regions like the Middle East and Africa on a Facebook post:
“Women and children are fleeing Ukraine. Those very children that are [fleeing] hug teddy bears in their arms, not those who claim they are 17 years old with built bodies. At the same time, when Ukrainian women and children flee the bombing, their husbands remain [in the country] to defend their homeland. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian men abroad return to fight against the [Russian] aggressor. The [Ukrainian refugee crisis] offers an average person what a refugee is and the [original] purpose of international refugee agreements.
Ukrainian refugees are grateful for having a roof over their heads. Iraqis state that the porridge is bad and why asylum reception centers are located so far from the city.
Many people already have [direct] experiences and perceptions of Ukrainians. You can see them at construction sites and farms. You can again see Iraqis…Everyone can decide where they’ve seen them.
Ukraine is a European refugee crisis. Naturally, they flee to the closest regions of Europe. [Ukrainian] refugees don’t demand that they go to the United States or Japan…”
On Tuesday, 2.011 million refugees have fled Ukraine since February 24, according to the UNHCR. Some sources speculate that up to 4 million refugees may flee the war in Ukraine.
In light of Europe’s bleak history and the worst human rights abuses, atrocities, and wars in all of history, one wonders how long our goodwill lasts.
The goodwill of the EU has been shown by granting Ukrainians special protection status. Contrary to asylum seekers who came to Europe in 2015 and faced a long and grueling asylum process, Ukrainians receive automatic residence and work permits and access to social welfare.
Even if such a policy is a step in the right direction, we can ask for how long our goodwill towards Ukrainians fleeing war will last?
If we compare what happened to asylum seekers who came to Europe in 2015 from countries like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, our goodwill ran out pretty fast.
Ahti Tolvanen, a historian and member of the Migrant Tales editorial board, tackled the question.
“It is high time that we reform the structural abuse in our labor market to make sue that these people [Ukrainians and others] aren’t exploited,” he said.
The far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is already chipping away at our goodwill and patience towards Ukrainians.
The chairperson of the PS, Riikka Purra, is already attacking Ukrainian refugees by fear-mongering. She tweets: “NOW WE HAVE TO ACT. It would be easy for Russia engulf Finland with immigrants. The government must make sure that our border can keep [refugees] out.”Thank you @nopersu and @Reija_Harkonen for the heads-up.
The racist slogan by the PS is an example of how desperate the party is and that it has nothing to offer Finland except to polarize with injections of xenophobia.
Kun muutamat opiskelijat kysyivät miksi ukrainalaisia saavat kaikki viisumi oleskella EU maissa ja toiset, mm. Lähi- idästä, eivät saaneet, kerroin heille sana, joka paljastaa hyvin asia:
The war in Ukraine is like a sinister brew boiling over death, destruction, tragedy, hatred, and xenophobia.
Apart from the shock and horror, our double standards and jingoism stand out as a stark reminder that we have done little to challenge the very social ills that caused the deaths of tens of millions of people in World War 2.
I’m talking about accomplices like the Holocaust and Stalin’s purges. And to our silence and inaction.
White Finnish privilege #82
“Rather than being a movement to turn on each other, this refugee crisis should be a reminder that ‘refugee’ is not synonymous for ‘brown person.’ Anyone could become a refugee. It’s a thing that happens to you, it’s not who you are.”
Who is Fatima? Who is the person wishing us from the Joutseno immigration removal center a kind, “Good night. Loved ones.”
Fatima is only a name. It houses no human because it is only a name written on paper by a plane dropping bombs, a tank shelling civilians, and a woman hoping for better days.
Could it be Fatima who is wishing us good night as floodlights expose the state of siege?
There is mounting evidence about how Polish and Ukrainian border guards openly discriminate against non-Ukrainians and minorities like the Roma fleeing war as well as attacks by Polish nationalists. The commissioner for home affairs and migration, Ylva Johansson, has only words of praise.
“We can expect a lot of EU unity and EU solidarity towards Ukrainian if the situation deteriorates significantly,” Johansson was quoted as saying last month in Euronews.
While such hypocrisy is visible for everyone to see if they wish, it shows not only how racist Europe is but how little it has done to combat this social ill.
In light of the discriminatory and racist treatment by Polish and other EU border guards of non-EU citizens, I was surprised by a tweet from the Polish ministry of foreign affairs denying and slamming it as “fake news.”
Source: Twitter
I wonder what the Polish chancellery has to say about an African Union and other statements that claim that racist and discriminatory treatment at the border isn’t fake news?
