Category: Enrique Tessieri

(Migrant Tales 12.2.2017): Dear Sweden, don’t play ball with the Sweden Democrats – Finland is the best example of the disaster that awaits you

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Dear Sweden, 

In all of the Nordic region, we have seen far-right populist parties rise in this century with a hostile even vicious anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity agenda. Of all the Nordic countries, you are the only one in the Nordic region where populist anti-immigration parties have not formed directly or indirectly a part of government. 

A poll in November, however, showed a sharp rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats to 21.5% when compared with 12.9% it got in the 2014 parliamentary elections and not trailing too far behind the Social Democratic Party (25.7%) and Moderates (22%).

The Sweden Democrats are the third largest party today in the 349-seat Riksdagen (parliament) with 49 seats (12.9%) in 2014 compared with 20 seats (5.7%) they won in 2010.

In an analysis piece by Expo, an anti-racism and anti-fascism NGO in Sweden, they explained the rise of the Sweden Democrats in 2010 to the Riksdagen in the following words:

“The Sweden Democrats gain from presenting themselves as an alternative to the so-called establishment,” wrote Expo chairman Daniel Poohl. “The bloc politics that has marked the election campaign has turned the Sweden Democrats into a distinct third alternative, an underdog.”

Poohl continues to warn us in 2016 about the Sweden Democrats: “That’s where we come in. This is the white paper [stating that they aren’t a racist party and have no ties to fascism] that the Sweden Democrats would have to do, but will never be able to write. The racism found in the Sweden Democrats isn’t something that belongs to history but is a part of the party’s concept.”

Migrant Tales wrote the following letter to Sweden in june 2015 warning about the perils of playing ball with a populist party that loathes immigrants:

“Today, you, dear friend in Sweden, are the only country that can restore sanity to this part of Europe and effectively challenge this force that is undermining and threatening our Nordic values. We need you to hold out and show leadership, which has been shamefully lacking in the rest of our region.”

 

Read the full story here.

However, it looks like there is a tear in the cordon sanitaire that excluded the Sweden Democrats from Swedish mainstream politics. Anna Kingberg, the head of the Moderates, said that her right-wing conservative party would be ready to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats, according to Politico.

Continue reading “(Migrant Tales 12.2.2017): Dear Sweden, don’t play ball with the Sweden Democrats – Finland is the best example of the disaster that awaits you”

Sweden’s parliamentary elections expose the country’s issues with racist exceptionalism

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Sweden heads for the polls on Sunday to elect 349 seats to the Riksdag (parliament). Despite the good showing in the polls of the far-right Sweden Democrats, which has roots in the neo-Nazi movement, is slated to capture 20% of the votes.

The rise in popularity of the Sweden Democrats has been fast and a reminder that Sweden continues to have serious unresolved issues with racism. 

The Sweden Democrats entered the Riksdag in 2010 for the first time with 20 MPs (5.7%), and four years later they more than doubled the number of MPs to 49 (12.9%). 

Contrary to other Nordic countries like Norway, Denmark, and Finland, Sweden has refused to cooperate with anti-immigration parties. There are some signs that this may change with parties like the conservative Moderates offering an olive branch last year to the Sweden Democrats. 

Since Finland is a close neighbor to Sweden, a good showing by the Sweden Democrats in Sunday’s election could boost the populist anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset.* Finland has parliamentary elections in April 2019. 

The parliamentary elections of September 9 are exposing Sweden’s dark side. Source: The Local.

The interesting question to ask with respect to the rising popularity of the Sweden Democrats, and ever-growing xenophobia in what is probably one of Europe’s liberal countries, why are we in this political bind? 

Many factors are at play. One of these is Swedish exceptionalism, which portrays a myth of a white near-perfect society until migrants arrived and ruined it all.

What surprises me a lot is how migrants are being singled out as “the problem” and “cause” of Sweden’s problems. How many politicians are asking how the dismantling of the social welfare state, rising discrimination, social exclusion and the lack of political will to tackle these social ills are at the heart of the problem?

Scapegoating migrants for Sweden’s woes is punching below the belt and turning one’s back on the country’s more serious problems like social inequality. 

Even if there are some troubling question marks of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and that his administration deported 2.5 million people, or more than any other president in US history, he does have a point in the following quote:

“Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security would be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us, or don’t sound like us, or don’t pray like we do – that is an old playbook, it’s old as time.”

Sunday’s election result in Sweden will reveal a lot of ugly things about the country that we knew but which politicians rarely acknowledged. One of them is racism, social inequality, and exclusion. 

Despite assurances by Nordic countries of social equality, each country in northern Europe has seen the rise of hostile anti-immigration parties that target migrants and minorities. Apart from Sweden, such parties share power in government in Norway (Progress Party), in Denmark (Danish People’s Party), and in Finland (Perussuomalaiset, today Blue Reform). 

All of these populist parties miss the mark by a long shot because migrants and minorities are not the main cause of these countries’ woes. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Finland’s speaker of parliament stokes the white Christian flames of “us” and “them”

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Conservative National Coalition Party speaker of parliament, Paula Risikko, was quoted as saying in Senäjoki-based daily Ilkka that she is concerned about the role of Christians in Finland.

“Was it easier before to be religious,” she was quoted as asking in Keskisuomalainen. “For example, it’s not as easy today to bring one’s religious views at work. Christians are being pushed in a closet at the same time when other [religions] are coming out of the closet.”

From giving the thumbs up to far-right demonstrators, expressing ignorance that Finns are not only white, and her tough stand on asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, which she calls illegal immigrants and spreads fear, Risikko’s conservative views continue to insult minorities in this country.

Behind that smile and her Marimekko shirt, lies a sinister ideology that sees migrants, especially Muslims, as a threat to Finland. Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

Certainly one reason for Risikko’s latest comment is the parliamentary elections of April 14, 2019, and the EU elections the following month. Does Risikko believe that stoking the flames of “us” and “them” will give short-term political gains?

Do her comments target Muslims and other minorities? Does it reveal her white fragility? Or are they a glimpse of how politicians in Finland continue to lurch towards cheap nationalism with the help of “us” and “them?”

All of the above stain Risikko. 

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä fuels Finland’s hostile environment for migrants

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While I was not surprised by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s comments about migration and the rise of the far right in YLE’s Ykkösaamu talk show, the interview offers a good example of how his government continues to fuel Finland’s hostile environment for migrants. 

According to Adrian Berry, a leading UK immigration lawyer, defined in in The Guardian, the term hostile environment: “It is a series of legislative initiatives to make it much more difficult to lead an ordinary life in the UK, but secondly, a change in direction in the way the Home Office assesses individual people.”

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is considered the brainchild of the UK’s hostile environment. 

This definition by Berry offers us the opportunity to assess the hostile environment for migrants in Finland.  In the same manner, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has tightened immigration laws which in turn has changed radically the way Finland assesses people from certain countries, especially Muslims from Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Anti-immigration rhetoric and mistrust have made the lives of migrants and minorities more difficult because they encourage social ills like racism and discrimination. 

Sipilä’s comments in YLE’s Ykkössmu talk show how much in the dark the prime minister- Blaming the riots in Chemnitz on “uncontrolled immigration” is sticking one’s head in the sand. 

The reason why Sipilä invested few words in the show on the threat of the far right in Europe is either because he is in denial or ignorant of the problem in a European historical context. Remember the slippery slope that led to Nazi Germany’s final solution?

A recent editorial in The Guardian wrote the following about the demonstrations in Chemnitz: “It is disturbing to see a far-right mob rampage through the streets of any city but, for obvious historical reasons, the scene is uniquely distressing in Germany.” 

OK, you don’t believe in the liberal media. Let’s look at what Spiegel Online of Germany wrote: “In Chemnitz, refugees find themselves under threat by neo-Nazis and hooligans. Politicians have pledged to take a hard line against right-wing extremist violence, but they look helpless nonetheless. Meanwhile, the right wing seems to have the upper hand in Saxony.”

Veikka Lahtinen tweets: “When the prime minister explains that “uncontrolled immigration” is the cause for the racist demonstrations in Germany,  you can guess that [parliamentary and EU elections] are less than a year off, and that in Finland the only center-right response to the extreme right is to use the same language.” 

What does the conservative Financial Times write? 

“Chemnitz, Saxony’s third-biggest city, has become a symbol of the relentless rise of the hard right in Germany. At a series of demonstrations this week, young men in black hoodies changed ‘Germany for the Germans’ and ‘Foreigners Out.’ A country that thought it had long ago laid Nazism to rest was confronted with its ugly rebirth.”

Prime Minister Sipilä’s interview revealed how much of a bubble – like the EU – the prime minister inhabits. Sipilä actually believes that by raising the number of quota refugees from 750 to 1,500 will help alleviate the so-called immigration crisis.

What Sipilä conveniently forgot to offer are the solutions to stop people from migrating to Europe from regions like Africa. Without even offering a shred of evidence, he suggested too many of them were economic migrants. 

As a Latin American, and after so much meddling in our politics and economy by Washington, my family decided to migrate to the United States because there wasn’t a bright enough future in Argentina.

If you have not solved the “migration problem” up to now, it is only a pipedream to believe it will be solved in the near future. Matters will only get worse. 

Prime Minister Sipilä’s comments reinforce how much in the dar he and his government is on immigration and a slew of other issues. 

Finland’s ministry of the interior will (alas) launch an independent inquiry of Migri

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Conservative National Coalition Party Minister of the Interior Kai Mykkänen announced Friday that an independent inquiry of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) will be launched, according to YLE. The minister said, however, that the independent inquiry should not be seen as a lack of trust in Migri’s work, which has had to process some 45,000 residence permit applications. 

Calls for an independent inquiry of Migri, which could be carried out by UNHCR, has the support of opposition parties like the Social Democrats, the Greens, and Swedish People’s Party as well as of NGOs like Amnesty International, Finnish Refugee Council, and the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman. 

Frank Johnson, the director of Finland’s Amnesty International chapter, welcomed the announcement by Mykkänen. He said that the independent inquiry, called for by Amnesty International, Finnish Refugee Council, and the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman, was “a good decision.”

Read the original tweet here.

Even if Migri has processed 45,000 residence permits since 2015, when a record 32,477 asylum seekers mostly from Iraq, it does not let them off the hook and permit civil servants to make faulty decisions that impact people’s lives or their deaths in some cases.

Mykkäen said that “there is no evidence that suggests that Migri rejects asylum applications systematically.

Part of the of criticism of Migri is due to their interpretation that countries like Afghanistan, where the security situation has deteriorated, and Iraq are “safe” to deport asylum seekers. 

Some believe that the large amount of rejections of asylum applications by Migri is politically influenced. Since 2015, the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, which split into two factions in June 2017, was invited to form part of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government. This has fuelled a hostile environment for migrants in Finland. 

Prime Minister Sipilä’s government has tightened immigration laws like family reunification as well as other services  entitled previously to asylum seekers. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Why exaggerating about the dangers of “Sweden’s immigration problem” is racist

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You hear a lot from anti-immigration politicians like the Perussuomalaiset* and even the police about how we must contain “Sweden’s immigrant problem” from coming to Finland. If you analyze such a claim and weigh its truth you will rapidly arrive at the following conclusions: It is racist and untrue. 

It is racist because it paints migrants with a single brush. The claim suggests that migrants are the cause of crime, rape, no-go zone lawlessness,  abuse the system, and destroyed our near-perfect society. 

Dead wrong. For starters, Sweden was never a near-perfect society. That is a myth. 

A number of studies also confirm that migrants do not bring more crime. Here is an article on the myth of migrant crime in the United States. The link between immigration and crime only exists in the imagination of some people.

The Conversation writes about crime levels in Europe: “Similarly, a large-scale European study on the effects of immigration on crime concluded that while an increase in immigration generally does not affect crime levels, it does go hand-in-hand with increased public anxiety and anti-immigration stances.”

     The argument by some xenophobic politicians   that there is a link between immigration and crime is simply untrue and exaggerated.

Instead of fueling hatred and polarizing society between “us” and “them,” the fact that politicians and the media believe that there is a link between immigration and crime poses something more worrying about ourselves: racism, ethnonationalism, and denial with a capital “D.”

The fact that politicians and the media continue to support such untrue claims reveals as well their lack of leadership and deep-seated prejudices based on racism, which are alive and well and which have always existed in such countries. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

The Trumpization of Finnish politics

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Perussuomalaiset (PS)* vice president Laura Huhtasaari, a vocal Islamophobic anti-immigration politician, has been since January under scrutiny due to the plagiarism found in her Master’s thesis. 

If you read the reaction of the Finnish media about the latest ruling by the University of Jyväskylä, one common theme is that the plagiarism scandal will not affect Huhtasaari never mind the PS.

The whole affair is a bit like Donald Trump, who hops from one scandal to the next. Scandals don’t appear to hurt the US president but strengthen his support base.

Is the Huhtasaari plagiarism scandal one good sign of the Trumpization of Finnish politics and how the anti-immigration party has poisoned politics in Finland since its historic election victory of 2011?

Laura Huhtasaari has made a name for herself with her Islamophobic statements and her support for US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. She has been called a number of things like the Islamophobe with the kindergarten teacher smile. 

Huhtasaari, who is a teacher, got a damning report from the University of Jyväskylä this week concerning her master’s thesis. According to a statement by the University of Jyväskylä, Huhtasaari’s thesis “had a disregard for good scientific practice and dishonesty in the form of plagiarism, according to Helsinki Times.

The statement states the following about Huhtasaari’s thesis, which was approved in 2003: “For their part, the procedures have misled the scientific community of researchers and the authors of future theses. plagiarism nature and scope, the violations of good scientific practice are serious,” reads a press release from the University of Jyväskylä.

Huhtasaari’s thesis cannot be revoked by the university since there is a five-year statute of limitations. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Does Finland’s integration plan turn migrants into active or submissive members of society?

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We hear near-constantly from the police in cities like Varissuo and journalists warning us about the dangers of “multiculturalism”  in Sweden and how it may spread and wreak havoc in Finland. This type of reporting is unfortunate because it not only reinforces stereotypes about migrants but their exclusion from society. 

As long as Finland’s official immigration policy, the overriding message of politicians and journalists is to portray migration and cultural diversity as a threat, these types of conclusions and stories we’ll continue to spoon feed our prejudices and leave unchecked our stereotypes.

Portraying migrants and visible minorities as a threat only helps to feed the present hostile environment towards such groups. 

Finland generally sees – especially non-white, non-EU Muslim – migration as a threat. Our integration program and countless Finnish-language courses for such migrants are designed to turn most of them into second-class members of society. It’s not very empowering to know that your job prospects are bleak and that your salary is too low to pay for your cost of living in Helsinki. 

The Saami offer migrants and minorities today a good example of how they suffered centuries of cultural encroachment and how their language and culture were supposed to disappear from the map. 

Adapting to Finland does not mean giving up your culture but to be proud of it. It does not mean dying your hair white or becoming a Bounty candy bar, which is dark from the outside, white from the inside. 

This video shows (in Finnish) what some Saami youths think about being a minority in Finland. 

Watching an interview with Saami youths in the video clip above, there are two statements that caught my attention.

“I don’t consider myself to be a Finn and I know there are Saami who see themselves as Finns,” said the first woman on the left. “But I’m [not a Finn but] a Saami and Finnish citizen.” 

Petra Laiti added: “Saami culture is not defined by Finnish culture and that Finnishness is an umbrella term formed by different [cultural] groups that form part of this blanket definition.”

In an interview with regional police officer Vesa Jauhiainen, who works with migrants and their children in Varissuo, correctly stated that marginalization of youths and ineffective integration are factors that cause problems. 

But here is the million-euro question: What expectations do white Finns have of migrants and minorities concerning their adaption or “integration?” 

While this may seem as an obvious question to some, it reveals many of the problems that migrants face in Finland. Is the object of our integration program to convert migrants into members of society or prepare them to become equal members of society? Does our integration program do anything to prepare and adapt the Finns to a society that is culturally and ethnically diversity? 

Considering the history of minorities like the Sami, Roma as well as other groups in Finland,  the answer to the above questions is clear: Most migrants are not supposed to become equal members of society, especially groups like non-EU Muslims, unless they have been here for many generations. 

We need an earnest discussion in Finland on how to empower our ever-growing culturally diverse communities and, if they wish, to become active members of society.  

Integrating and encouraging migrants and minorities to be submissive members of society is a recipe for failure and for future social problems, which are evident today. 

  

Blue Reform MP Simon Elo: Let’s make discrimination official in Finland

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Even if the Blue Reform*, which is an offshoot of the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS), wants to change the constitution so that non-Finnish citizens would get paid less social welfare than Finnish citizens, the suggestion by MP Simon Elo exposes to the tee the racism of his party and hatred of migrants. 

Blue Reform, like the PS, are not only a danger to our Nordic welfare state and democracy, but a threat to migrants and minorities living in Finland. 

Why? Because both parties are racist. 

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

The fact that a party in government wants to officialize discrimination reveals the extent of racism in the government and why this social ill has worsened under Prime Minister Juha Sipilä.

Such discrimination that Elo proposes isn’t possible because it is unconstitutional. Section 6 of the Finnish constitution expressly states: 

“Everyone is equal before the law. No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age,
origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.”

Finland will hold parliamentary election in April 2019, which explains why Blue Reform is so eager to take out its racism card in order to attract similar-minded voters.

Blue Reform’s support, according to various polls, is dismal, or under 1%.

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.

Neo-Nazis and the Perussuomalaiset: Where do they and we draw the line?

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A year has elapsed after a Moroccan went on the rampage on August 18 and started attacking people indiscriminately with a knife in the southwestern city of Turku. Two people were killed and 10 were wounded. 

On the anniversary of the stabbing, which is seen by the authorities as Finland’s first modern terrorist attack, three far-right and neo-Nazi groups organized a march to commemorate the anniversary. Another group called Turku Without Nazis (Turku ilman natseja) organized a countermarch to protest the presence of the three far-right groups: Nordic Resistance Movement (Pohjoismainen vastarintaliike, PVL), Soldiers of Odin, and “188” or Nationalist Alliance (Kansallismielisten liittouma).

What went largely unnoticed by most of the Finnish media was the participation of an anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP, Kike Elomaa, and two members of her party. All three took part in the demonstration organized by the far-right and neo-Nazi groups.

Some may rightfully ask why far-right groups have grown in this country and elsewhere. The answer to that question is simple: Far-right- and neo-Nazi-leaning parties like the PS have allowed them in places like parliament. 

PS MP Kike Elomaa and two party members taking part in the far-right and neo-Nazi demonstration in Turku on Saturday. Source: Ilta-Sanomat.

At the heart of the problem is also Finland’s difficulty in seeing and condemning far-right and neo-Nazi groups. 

As US political scientists Steven Levisky and Daniel Ziblatt stated in their analysis of President Trump’s administration, “The erosion of democracy takes place piecemeal, often in baby steps.”

Our blindness to the threat posed by far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Finland is a good example of how the erosion of our democracy is happening before our eyes and in baby steps.  

 

Read the full story here. 

The silence of the politicians to such threats, especially that of the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, is another problem promoting extremist groups. 

Even if far-right groups like to talk about free speech, their aim could not be further from the truth. Their aim is not more democracy but less of it. 

It is up to us to stand up and draw the line between us and far-right groups and neo-Nazis. If we do not do it, nobody else will do it for us. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.