Category: Enrique Tessieri

If Finland treats racism and discrimination with kid gloves, a social movement can help

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Isn’t it sad to note how the Finnish media now discovers that migrants get paid less and have lower social security benefits than Finns?  Some, even union leaders like Sture Fjäder of Akava, go as far to state that unskilled migrants should get paid less. He later apologized for such a statement but won a confidence vote to keep his job. 

Even Finland’s Nobel Prize in economics, Bengt Holmström, said that white Finns must not share power and privileges with migrants and their children. In other words, they should get lower salaries social security benefits – are you ready for this?! – so that it does not irritate Finns.

Read the full story in Migrant Tales here.

Unbelievable, no?

But if you want to look deeper, all these comments and denial by the media, politicians and the public shows that Finland lacks the will and resolve to treat migrants and minorities as equal members of society. It exposes as well that racism and discrimination are deeply embedded in Finnish society.

Lower pay and lower social security benefits for migrants and minorities did not happen today or the previous week but has happened for decades.

I wonder how many people and journalists have read Pasi Suakkonen’s study, Maahanmuuttajen kotoutuminen Helsingissä (2016)? The study points out that migrants make annually on average nationally 27.3% less (21,479 euros versus 29,550 euros by Finns), and in Helsinki 38.5% less (22,286 euros versus 36,239 euros) than Finns.

Do they know that unemployment on average is 2-3 times higher among migrants than the national average? Do they know that migrant wages are so low in Helsinki that such people usually have to turn to financial support to get by?

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More lies by Donald Trump and our obsession in Europe with “blood and race”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Relentless to bolster white USAmerican power and privileges, President Donald Trump announced the he will end with an executive order birthright citizenship, which is also known as jus soli, or “right of the soil,” guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment. Looking at Trump’s record and hostility against Hispanics, migrants, Muslims and other non-white minorities, it is clear that the US president is playing with fire.

While it will be difficult to repel the Fourteenth Amendment with an executive order, Trump’s latest announcement is another injection of xenophobia and white supremacy that will inspire future murderer.

 

Source: QuoteHD.

The legal term for birthright citizenship is jus soli, or “right of the soil.” It’s different from the term jus sanguinis, or “right of blood,” referring to laws which rely on a person’s heritage to decide his or her citizenship status.

Trump lied and claimed in an interview with Axios that the US is “the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,”adding “it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

There are 33 countries, all in the Western Hemisphere, that grant citizenship to anyone born on its soil, according to PunditFact. Everywhere else in Europe and East Asia, citizenship derives through their parents.

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Racism, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Words can turn into bullets and corpses

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Recently we have seen the consequences of hatred towards minorities in the United States: The cold-blooded shooting of an alt-right suspect that attacked a synagogue killing 11 people in Pittsburgh, the killing of two African Americans in Louisville, and mail bombs sent to Democrats and liberals who oppose President Donald Trump.

This is the United States under an administration and Republican control of the House and Senate spewing hatred against minorities. Imagine, President Trump, wants to send the army to protect the US border with Mexico against Central Americans fleeing political violence that the United States has caused.

Here is one survey by the EU that reveals Islamophobia in Finland. Source: Discrimination in the EU in 2015.

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Finland’s Nobel Prize in economics states that white Finns must not share power and privileges with migrants and their children

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Bengt Holmström is a Finnish economist who received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2016. What he may know about economics does not mirror his knowledge of Nordic values such as social equality and especially how migrants and minorities live in Finland. 

In an interview in YLE, and speaking as a white Finn on behalf of migrants and minorities in Finland, he states that foreigners would accept getting paid lower salaries and have less comprehensive social welfare.

“It’s good for them [migrants],” he stated. “By the same token, it would let them to move up the [social] ladder and it would not irritate Finns so much [because foreigners have done little to nothing to build the country’s social welfare system that has taken white Finns decades].”

In other words, let’s make discrimination and inequality the standard. Isn’t that how things are run in this country?

As we accept – and do nothing – to promote and make migrants equal members of society, Holmström ensures that their children and grandchildren will continue to live as second-class citizens.

While such claims by Holmström should raise eyebrows, he does us a favor by reinforcing what we’ve always known about this country: Non-discrimination laws in Finland don’t really work and are hypocritical.

Read the full story here

 

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White Finnish privilege #54: Disguising your racism, bigotry, and prejudices effectively

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In Finland, there are many ways how white people and their institutions discriminate against people of color, migrants and minorities in general. Since all forms of discrimination are highly adaptive, they can also effectively disguise their racism, bigotry, and prejudices. 

Apart from an employer claiming that a person does not speak Finnish well enough to be hired, another form of widespread discrimination is the white savior complex used against groups like the Muslims.

The white savior complex, which is deeply entrenched in the worst forms of ethnocentrism, functions as an effective weapon to oppress and exclude other minorities and migrants as well.  This form of racism is especially prevalent – the list is not all-inclusive – among social workers, teachers and represenatives of multicultural associations.

Their racism, if exposed in the raw, would reveal the following:

“I don’t like you because you are a Muslim but I cannot say that too directly. But if you let me fill your head with ideas like taking off your hijab, how backward your culture is, and that women are equal (sic) in Finland blah blah blah, that will let me oppress you with near-impunity. You see, I’m not interested in your equality, but that you remain an unequal member of society.”

A good example of an oppressed person by a white savior and his or her institutions is one who never finds work to make enough money to stand on his or her feet financially. Such people form part of an integration project that excludes them from society indefinitely.

The best form of integration would be to teach such people of color to become active citizens and to challenge the very system that oppresses and excludes them.

But that would be too dangrous for some because it would end up jeopardizing their power and privilege over such groups.

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S. Ukkola’s colorblind racism, white fragility, expose a wider problem of Finnish society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Sanna Ukkola, a YLE journalist married to Matias Turkkila, the editor of the xenophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party publication Suomen Uutiset,  not only exposes in a column colorblind racism* and white fragility, but wider issues about Finnish society on racism, ethnicity, and identity. 

Writes Julian Abagond about colorblind racism (1970- ): “…also known as aversive racism, is racism that acts as if skin colour does not matter – even when it does.”

Robin Diangelo states that white fragility, which acts as a form of white bullying, functions to take ethnicity off the table and avoid discussing social ills like racism.

Ukkola has gained a reputation in Finland for writing about migrants in a populist and offensive manner. On too many occasions her opinions show her ignorance on the topic.

Even if Ukkola gets away with her views, which are highly contradictory, she sometimes sticks her foot in her mouth big time. One such case was last year, when she put on an Amerindian feather hairpiece that caused outrage from the Saami community and accusations of cultural appropriation.

To add more salt to injury, Ukkola showed a clip of Pekka ja Pätkä blackfaces on the TV program.

Tweets Outi Länsman: “Finnish journalism. The year is 2017.” Read the full story here.

Like with the Amerindian feather headgear stunt, Ukkola does the same thing in her latest column headlined, “Migrants aren’t your stuffed animals.”

One of the biggest problems, apart from her column that reveals colorblind racism, is that as a white person Ukkola is telling how migrants should be identified by Finnish society.

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Xenophobic and pro-Russia online publication MV-lehti founder Ilja Janitskin slapped with 22-month prison sentence

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Migrant Tales applauds the sentencing by the Helsinki District Court on Thursday of Ilja Janitskin, the founder of the xenophobic website MV-lehti and Uber Uutiset, on 16 criminal charges. Janitski was handed a twenty-two-month prison sentence and with two others found guilty, was ordered to pay the biggest share of damages amounting to 136,000 euros. 

In another twist to the story, which YLE News does not report on, the BBC also describes Janitski’s publication as anti-immigration, Europsceptic, and pro-Russian.

Writes YLE News:  “Some 90 criminal complaints related to the site were filed in connection with the expansive case, including aggravated defamation and ethnic agitation.”

While some, like Professor Matti Tolvanen, see the sentence as a blow to the spread of hate speech in Finland, Migrant Tales is not as optimistic but considers it a right step in the right direction.

The far-right and Islamophobic voice in Finland has found a platform through publications like MV-lehti and the Perussuomalaiset party.*

Read the full story here.

The 16 crimes thatJanitskin was convicted of included: three counts of aggravated defamation; two counts of aggravated incitement against an ethnic group; three counts of copyright infringement; two counts of breach of confidentiality; two counts of illicit gambling charges; and four counts of illicit fundraising charges.

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A woman of color in Finland was told that she was ethnically “unsuitable” for a job

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In Finland, labor market discrimination is rampant. A woman of color from Rwanda, Alice Mutoni, thought she was about to get hired but things went sour when her probable employer discovered that she was black. He said, “this was a Finnish company selling Finnish things,” according to YLE News. 

The non-discrimination ombudswoman, Kirsi Pimiä,  said that Mutoni’s case was a typical example of workplace discrimination in Finland. She said that her office receives regularly complaints about ethnic- and race-based discrimination.

”We have seen a lot of racism in Finland, and research findings indicate that Finland tops the table when it comes to this type of discrimination in Europe,” Pimiä was quoted as saying to YLE.

 

Read the full story here.

One of the best ways to complain about discrimination in Finland is to raise a storm, like Muoni did.

 

Ali’s journey: Getting married in Turkey and the long wait. Will he get a visa to Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

On 10.10.2018, Ali,* 22, and his Finnish wife, 19, spent one of the most memorable days of their lives when they got married in Ankara. Present at the ceremony were two witnesses, the wife’s sister and a friend of Ali’s. Marriages in Turkey take place at the Turkish Marriage Offices.  

“Everything went smoothly and rapidly,” said Ali. “The justice asked who we were [prove our identity] and if we accepted each other as wife and husband.”

Ali came to Finland as an asylum seeker in 2015 and fell in love with a Finnish woman, whom he had to leave behind because he had five rejections for asylum. Ali was detained and sent on two occasions to the Joutseno immigration removal center.

See links below for more stories about Ali’s life in Finland, his detention, and return to Iraq.

The process of getting married to a Finn if you are an Iraqi can take months and is costly.

“I had to spend 1,000 dollars in Iraq to an agent who helped me get all the connections in Ankara,” he said. “Then, after we got married, we went to a private company that does the interview for the Finnish embassy to apply for the visa. That cost 600 dollars.”

After having done all the paperwork and interviews, Ali said that he expects to wait 6-9 months for the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to decide whether he will give him a visa or not.

“The Finnish embassy may interview me as in some cases but sometimes they don’t,” he said.  “I’m hopeful that things will go well. It was sad to part but my wife gave me a lot of encouragement.”

The newly weds in Ankara, Turkey.

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