Author: Migrant Tales

Slow due justice – if any – plaguing racialized communities of Finland

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Hate speech, hate crime, and racism appear to rank low on police’s priority list. Many people who have turned to the police to report such a crime are usually surprised by the following fact: slow response and reaction; your case may never see the light of a day in court.

A shameful case is that of Fares Al-Obaidi, a young Muslim who was attacked in June by a group of enraged townspeople of Teuva, located in Western Finland.

Nine months have gone by that terrible incident that changed Al-Obaidi’s life, and no charges have been brought against anyone.

“What happened to me changed my life,” he said. “I have to take sleeping pills and for stress and depression.”

Al-Obaidi said in December: “The fact that I know nothing about my case [and the charges] gives me the impression that what happened to me isn’t important to the police. Those who attacked me are walking freely with no consequences.”

“Helsinki City Councilor Fatima Diarra states in one of the tweets below that whenever she is racially harassed, since 2007, she has always filed a complaint to the police since they go nowhere.

She continues in the second tweet: “I got information from the police last Friday that one of these cases will be dropped. With this type of [racist] harassment, [the perpetrators] try to scare you or silence brown and black people. But dear ones, we are not going anywhere. Finland is our home.”

Source: Twitter
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Populism and lack of leadership under Petteri Orpo fuel Kokoomus’ tailspin

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The National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) received a political bomb that exposed the party’s internal strife between its liberal and populist-conservative wing.

Kokoomus’ candidate for Helsinki mayor, Kirsi Piha, and Helsinki city councilor Hanna Gullichsen, both party’s liberal wing, announced they would step aside.

Piha stated in a blog posting her decision to pull out from the mayorship race of Helsinki exposed the deep ideological fight between the liberal and populist-conservative factions.

Just like Piha, who said she would not stand for Helsinki city council, so did Gullichsen announced not to seek reelection.

Both Piha and Gullichsen were clear about their decision.

Piha said that her values conflict with the leadership of Kokoomus under its leader, Petter Orpo.

“Kokoomus’ base value is to create wellbeing and active society where everyone has opportunities, work and to live a good life,” she wrote. “Everyone. It is not based on stereotypes and by the thought that marginalizes [other groups]. Human dignity must not be politicized.”

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Former PS MP Ano Turtiainen gets sacked from the party

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It took a while, but, in the end, it came: MP Ano Turtiainen got sacked Friday from the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party after being expelled in June from the PS parliamentary group. The interesting question that the PS board’s decision offers is what it means for the party and Turtiainen’s political future.

An incident between PS Speaker of Parliament Juho Eerola and Turtiainen after a session was the stick that broke the camel’s back. Eerola had asked Turtiainen, who believes that Covid-19 is a conspiracy, to wear a mask while in a parliamentary session.

Ano Turtiainen. Source: Facebook

The comment by Eerola angered Turtiainen, and he started to insult the speaker of parliament in the hallway.

For the PS, the incident shows how little due diligence they do on their party members. If you hate migrants, gays, and feminists, that’s ok.

By kicking out a member, who is an MP, is already a serious matter. The PS board made its decision to save the party’s skin and dubious reputation. There are no ethical considerations except for the fear that Turtiainen can undermine the party’s popularity.

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Perussuomalaisten mukaan, maahanmuuttopolitiikka säädellään valtuustossa

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Ovatko nyt menossa kuntavaalit tai eduskuntavaalit? Jos tärkkäillään perussuomalaisten vaalimainoksia, voidaan päätellä, että valtuustossa tehdään maahanmuuttopolitiikka kuten eduskunnassa.

Värin.

Perusuomalaisten puoluesihteeri, Simo Grönroos (huom. ruotsalainen sukunimi), ruokkii vastakkainasettelua ja valetietoja maahanmuutosta. Hän on äärioikeistolainen etnonationalisti ja fasistisen Suomen Sisun aktiivi.

Mitä Grönroos ja perussuomalaiset oikeasti tarkoittavat, kun puhuvat “maahanmuuttajista?” Suurin osa maahanmuuttajat Suomessa ovat valkoisia eurooppalaisia.

Vaalimainos väittää:

  • Maahanmuutto tuo enemmän julkisia menoja, kun se kasvattaa verotuloja
  • Kadut muuttuvat turvattomiksi, koulut levottomiksi, asuinalueet suomalaisille vieraiksi
  • Suomi on toistamassa Ruotsin virheet maahanmuuton suhteen.

Washington Post olisi antanut näille väitelle neljä Pinokkiota.

Nolo ja harhaanjohtava mainos perussuomalaisista.

Vaalimainos on mielestäni potaska.

The far right and their rabid show dog in Finland that knows no master

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If there is one matter that will bring down the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, it is their racist and nationalistic ideology. We already saw this on 22/7 with Anders Breivik and now with political violence against Pekka Kataja of the same party.

On July 17, Kataja was paid a visit by three men who attacked him with a hammer and another weapon. After receiving twenty blows to the head, he was kicked on the floor by the suspects.

Read original story here.

At first, two men were suspected but were released later from custody after offering credible alibis.

The police believe that the attempted murder case against Kataja is political. A 41-year-old person is now in police custody as one of the suspects, with two others still at large.

The prime suspect has published on far-right websites under his own name.

Since the crime against Kataja is somehow connected to anger against Kataja for not allowing Torssonen to run for parliament in 2019 because of his far-right ideology, it will be interesting to see who the perpetrators are and their connections to far-right ideology and the PS.

Is there greater complicity, and what about the PS? Even if Torsssonen was sacked from the PS, it does not rule out wider complicity. If there is a clear connection to the PS, it may impact the party’s success in the upcoming municipal elections.

Migrant Tales has referred to racism as a rabid dog shown off by Islamophobes. The dog, which attracts a lot of attention, is kept on a short leash. Even so, the rabid dog may bite its master, and hard.

The rise and fall of Timo Soini as PS chairman is a perfect example of the rabid dog. It also resembles the plot of the 1931 classic Frankenstein movie, where a monster is brought to life that later kills his creator.

Kokoomus’ and Finland’s downward spiral

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The last opinion poll published by Helsingin Sanomat doesn’t show us any big surprises. A few percentage-point fractions up or down and, end of story. If, however, we take a longer view, the situation of the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) raises some questions.

Just like Jutta Urpilainen and the Social Democrats learned before the 2011 parliamentary elections, which revealed the ugly face of racism and our toothless reaction to it, copying the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a bad idea.

Apart from the Social Democrats, Blue Reform, which splintered from the PS in June 2017, tried and utterly failed at becoming a “light” version of the PS.

With the municipal elections scheduled for this spring, Kokoomus is feeling the heat. Instead of lowering the heat of racism and bad taste, they are just raising throwing more petrol on the fire.

The best example of this strategy’s failure under the leadership of Petteri Orpo is the latest opinion poll.

Orpo and his party are trying to be a light version of the PS’ racism and populism but are failing. The failure of such a political strategy would be costly.

One of these campaign messages by Kokoomus is by Atte Kaleva, who states in the tweet below that “I have a dream: Helsinki without communists. Let’s work together to turn this into a reality.”

How many Finns vote for the Communist party anyway? Does 0.1% sound right for the whole country?

Atte Kaleva, the Kokoomus municipal party candidate revealing his political gray matter. Source: Twitter

One wonders about Kaleva’s desperation and how he is sucking up to populist buffoonery, and how Kokoomus, like the Republican Party of the US, have veered to the radical right.

If you think of it, the same is happening in Finland right under our noses: Kokoomus is becoming more populist and abandoning its liberal ideology to cozy up to the PS, which terrorizes – just like Trump’s voters – all those that disagree with it.

Wake up Kokoomus, wake up Finland, before it is too late.

KOTOUTUMINEN #14: Disseminate and vanish

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Remember back in the 1990s when Finland brought Vietnamese refugees and dispersed them like pepper throughout Finland? It appeared back then that the main goal of the migration authorities was to disseminate newcomers and make them vanish.

One matter that this type of coercive assimilation aimed at doing was to ensure that these Vietnamese boat people would not form communities. By not enabling them to form strong communities, white Finland was ensured.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Image1-53_edited-1.jpg
Finns living together in a house in Colonia Finlandesa, Argentina. Source: Olavi Lähteenmäki, “Colonia Finlandesa – Uuden Suomen perustaminen Argentiinaan 1900-luvun alussa”

Even today, you will hear, as I did this week, complaints by some municipal politicians that “too many migrants live in one area of the city.”

“Why don’t they disperse them and force them to live elsewhere?” one of the persons in the room asked. “They try to but then they always want to return [to where they lived].”

Not accepting cultural diversity shows how difficult it is for some to share public spaces and accept that Finland has changed. Instead of trying to sweep these people under the rug and pretend that their communities do not exist, why not accept them as an integral part of our society? Aren’t they the new face of Finland?

I wonder what such Finns I heard this week believe is an effective path towards inclusion. Apart from being too simplistic and revealing racist attitudes, such policies would never work.

And what about the hundreds of thousands off Finns that emigrated to other lands? Many stuck together, formed associations and groups, newspapers to defend their culture and lives in their new homeland.

The same thing that migrant and minority communities are doing today.

See also:

*Kotoutiminen is the Finnish term for integration. It came about in the late-1990s because there was no such term in the Finnish language.

Länsi-Savo: Olemme kaikki mikkeliläisiä

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Länsi-Savo kirjoittaa Perussuomalaisten kunnalisvaaliehdokas Jorma T. Hartikaisesta:

 ”Mikkelissä perussuomalaisten kuntavaaliedokkaana oleva Jorma T. Hartikainen hourittelee, homottelee ja muuten vain solvaa Facebookissa poliitikkoja ja maahanmuuttajia.”Hartikainen vastaa: ””Kyse on enemmän siitä, että sanoin asiat selkeästi, ettei jää epäselvyyttä, mitä tarkoittaa.”

Valitettavasti Hartikainen ei ole ainut kuntavaaliehdokas, joka syyllistyy epäasiallisista kirjoituksista.

Länsi-Savo jatkaa: ”Mikkelin seudun perussuomalaisten puheenjohtaja Raimo Heinänen sanoo, että hän on tietoinen Hartikaisen Facebook-päivityksistä, mutta ei ole lukenut aivan viimeisiä.”

Kirjoittaa Heinänen: “Tutustuttuani niihin tulen esittämään Mikkelin seudun perussuomalaisten hallitukselle JT Hartikaisen poistamista valtuustoehdokkuudesta.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Oli pettymys lukea (LS 6.2.), kuinka perussuomalaisten listalle ilmoittautunut sitoutumaton (Jorma T. Hartikainen) kunnallisvaaliehdokas oli haukkunut demareita, kuten pääministeri Sanna Marinia, Satu Taavitsaista, vihreitä, naisia, seksuaalivähemmistöjä ja maahanmuuttajia.

Kaikissa kommenteissa oli annos väkivaltaa.

Ei näin.

Suomi ja Mikkeli ovat onneksi muuttuneet. Muistan hyvin, kun ensimmäinen vastaanottokeskus tuli Mikkelin Varsavuoreen 1990-luvulla.

Tein silloin ison jutun Apu-lehteen, jossa ihmettelin miten töykeästi kotikaupunkini oli kohdellut turvapaikanhakijoita.

Huutelu kadulla ja vihamielinen käytös näitä ihmisiä kohtaan oli arkipäivää.

Jutun julkaisun jälkeen sain ensimmäisen kerran tappouhkauksia.

Tämä yllätti minut, vaikka kotimaassani Argentiinassa olin tottunut siihen, että toimittajia vangittiin ja heitä katosi.

Continue reading “Länsi-Savo: Olemme kaikki mikkeliläisiä”

Who is Finland’s Marjorie Taylor Greene?

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TOPLINE

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the far-right conspiracy monger who was voted out of her two committee assignments this week. In the age of misinformation, peddling conspiracy theories and racism are rewarded handsomely.

Voters are gullible and conspiracy lies are quickly consumed with the help of the eyes and ears.

KEY FACT AND BACKGROUND

Greene claimed a lot of weird and dangerous things like violence against fellow representatives, school shootings that killed children that she considered false flags, and even Jewish laser beams from outer space that set forest fires in California.

Here is the question: Who is Finland’s Marjorie Taylo Greene?

That is not a tricky question. In the Finnish context, it would be none other than MEP Laura Huhtasaari, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politician with the sinister kindergarten smile.

Greene twitting impeachment proceedings against President Biden (left) and (right) Huhtasaari inviting her followers to a far-right userbase called Gab.

CRITICAL QUOTE

Even if Huhtasaari has not written about Jewish laser beams from outer space, she is an avid supporter of former US President Donald Trump like Greene, hates Muslims like Greene, and even reposted and flirts with QAnon malarkey, like Greene.

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A piece of heaven in hel: Be a Finn for 90 days

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During the global pandemic, Helsinki Business Hub, the international trade and investment promotion agency of Finland launched a campaign to attract foreign top professionals to work for 90 days remotely, as freelancer, an entrepreneur, or investor located in Helsinki. A catchy slogan and an all-round package attracted over five thousand applicants during the application period in December 2020. A relatively stable pandemic situation and lack of formal restrictions in Finland boosted the interest among applicants.

Go to the original posting here.

Fifteen lucky people fulfilling “tight criteria” will soon arrive in Finland exempting the border rules. Business-oriented Americans were in focus but amounted only to one third. Details of other applicants’ demographics have not been disclosed yet. Remote workers dominated the statistics. Direct applicants for jobs in Helsinki were only recorded for “future
work opportunities”.

Those admitted will enjoy an exclusive service package covering any bureaucracy connected to relocating (visa, registration, permissions, housing, work facilities, childcare, or schooling), consulting, and networking – yes, even socializing! Almost all the pitfalls of regular immigration to Finland magically wiped away! In return, Finland expects a promotion of a
favorable, but delusional, image of immigration, business, or employment as a foreigner in Finland.

BBC reported on the campaign: “Finland’s radical plan to lure global talent.”

Why is it unrealistic and unfair?

Continue reading “A piece of heaven in hel: Be a Finn for 90 days”