Category: Enrique Tessieri

Ali’s death is another sign on the road that Finland’s government would care less for asylum seekers

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We heard today that case of a returned Iraqi refugee who died in Baghdad after being refused asylum in Finland. The only explanation that the new interior minister, Kai Mykkänen, can offer is that the murder was “sad and tragic.”

YLE reported the death of the Iraqi asylum seeker and interviewed his daughter, who is still in Finland.

Ali’s death is not the first one. Migrant Tales has reported other cases like the death of two Iraqi asylum seekers in 2016.

Politicians like Interior Minister Mykkänen don’t take responsibility but allow the unjust and inhuman asylum policy to continue. With comments like “sad and tragic,” followed by washing his hands of the problem, reveal a lack of leadership and contempt for asylum seekers.

When Mykkänen states that there were too many asylum seekers who came to Finland in 2015 and thus some mistakes could have been made, he is saying in retrospect that too many Muslims came and we want most of them out of the country.

Read the full story here.

The real culprit is the indifference of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government, which simply doesn’t care if asylum seekers live or die when sent back to countries like “safe” Iraq.

An asylum seeker, who has been waiting for his residence permit for two years and a half, admits that the government and the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) just don’t care.

Continue reading “Ali’s death is another sign on the road that Finland’s government would care less for asylum seekers”

Exposing white Finnish privilege #48: Allow me to smear your religion so mine can shine

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What is surprising how Finnish white society has brought new topics in the discussion about the white Finnish narrative. A classic of this narrative is, with the help of denial, that we don’t have any issues with racism. If we deny racism we can smear other groups at will. 

The 1960s was a good decade for the xenophobe and Islamophobe. Finland’s geopolitical isolation from the world and its suspicion of foreigners allowed academics like Heikki Waris to claim the following:

“Racial homogeneity particularly characterizes the Finnish people who have practically no racial minorities…Consequently, racial prejudice and discrimination are nonexistent.”

Parties like the Perussuomalaiset, Blue Reform and others who are overtly or covertly hostile to cultural and ethnic diversity (non-white society), still use Waris’ argument. By having fewer people or restricting altogether migrants who are Muslims and from outside the EU, we can “reduce” racism as Waris incorrectly argued. It’s one of the false reasons why some want to return to the stuffy 1950s.

As one can appreciate, Waris wasn’t thorough in his deduction and critical enough about his whiteness. If you wanted to see racism in Finland during Waris’ time in the 1960s, all you had to do was ask the Roma and Saami minorities for an update.

The same denial and arguments used to whiten our society and weaken minorities and migrants today are, unfortunately, still blooming.

A radio talk show on YLE (in Finnish) below is a case in point. With little respect for our Constitution and our Nordic way of life, the talk show host uses her prejudices about Muslims to set the tone of the debate. The title of the program is revealing: The use of the Muslim veil – is it or not a personal matter?

Listen to the whole program (in Finnish) here. One question that I ask about the radio program is why are only Muslims targetted.

White Finnish privilege #48

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Migrant Tales’ response to the Helsinki police service’s actions at the Puhos shopping center

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Helsinki police service tweeted today that 260 people were spot checked at the Puhos shopping center of Eastern Helsinki on Saturday where two people with warrants for their arrest and two “illegal” or undocumented migrants were apprehended. The number of people arrested by the police was a mere 1.5% of all those they spot checked. 

The Helsinki police tweeted as well that those that were spot checked weren’t registered as alleged by Migrant Tales. They also said, as we know, carry out similar spot checks at different shopping centers elsewhere.

The Helsinki police claim that both Finns and foreigners were spot checked. We do not know, however, how many white Finns were stopped and if those Finns they stopped were second-generation or naturalized Finns.

Considering that people from the Middle East and countries like Somali visit the Puhos shopping center and that they are vulnerable visible migrants and minorities who suffer from high unemployment and social exclusion, it is odd that the police would claim as in a statement that the spot checks were “done in very good spirits.”

Who likes to be stopped by the police? What about if you are a person who comes from a war zone? Would you be happy if the police, National Border Guards, Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI), Customs, Rescue Department, and City of Helsinki health inspectors stopped you?

Speaking for myself, I would not like to be stopped by the police even if I don’t have anything to hide. I lived in Argentina during the dirty war (1976-83), when over 30,000 people vanished thanks to state terrorism. I am still traumatized by those years.

I was alerted by a Migrant Tales reporter while at a meeting in Brussels. The whole operation clearly upset him like it must have many others.

Here is a question to the Helsinki police service: How many black police officials were present on Saturday? Were all the National Border Guards white? Were there any officials who were visible minorities who carried out the spot checks? Were there any Muslims among their ranks?

Modernizing the police service to represent as well the population of Helsinki would instill trust rather than erode it.

Read original tweets here. Continue reading “Migrant Tales’ response to the Helsinki police service’s actions at the Puhos shopping center”

Maria Lohela pats far right on the back because she is an Islamophobic populist

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Outgoing speaker of parliament and Blue Reform (formerly Perussuomalaiset)* MP, Maria Lohela, finds kind words for a far-right Turku municipal council politician called Olavi Mäenpää who died this week.

Olavi Mäenpää. Source: Facebook.
Read the original posting here.

Why would a politician like Lohela mention a politician who spreads racism and hatred of migrants and minorities?

The only answer I can find is that Lohela finds ideological solidarity with people who hate migrants and minorities.

What did she write about the late far-right city of Turku municipal politician?

“Olavi Mäenpää’s unconditional outspokeness was often puzzling, sometimes offensive. His politial message targetted people…In the same time, Mäenpää was for many locals’ and voters’ the only hope who dared to crack open and upset administration structures, old, unreasonable old good-time practices. It’s in this where he has merit. Mäenpää’s energy and insistance on detail were inexhaustible.”

Continue reading “Maria Lohela pats far right on the back because she is an Islamophobic populist”

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Silence is “approval” of racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“Silence is the first thing after hate that is dangerous…silence is not the answer, hate is not the answer.”

Holocaust survivor

If what the Holocaust survivor says is true, and there is no reason to believe that it isn’t true, there is widespread approval of racism in our society. I live in Finland, so the silence I hear is a pat on the back, support of racism.

Enrique Tessieri

Watch the full video here.

Racism is an ugly monster that can and must be slayed and banished from our society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Do you remember five years ago a brave young fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she regularly endured when going to school changed her life

In March 2012, the Red Cross gave her an award for her bravery on the UN Day Against Racism.

I had the honor to interview Holm. She said that silence isn’t the answer when confronting a social ill like racism.

“If somebody speaks bad about you and wants to make you feel inferior because of your background,” she said, “then we need to talk about this serious matter and hide from it.”

Racism is too ugly to hide and happens a lot in Finland.

The bravery that the then young adolescent showed has more worth than many adults and politicians together, who approve racist harassment with their silence or use it as fuel to advance their political careers.

I will try to make contact with her and see what her thoughts are on the topic today.

Finland: Retreating into a shell and fuelling xenophobia and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As Finland retreats deeper into its shell and ethnocentrism, it feeds the beast of xenophobia and racism. Apart from Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Laura Huhtasaari, who openly encourages direct violence and hatred against migrants and minorities, there are others that are just as guilty. 

Who are they?

Interior Minister Paula Risikko and former Interior Ministry official Päivi Nerg have warned us over and over how undocumented migrants threaten our security. If Risikko and Nerg told us with gusto about the threats, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government has done little to nothing to challenge such xenophobic statements.

See the full tweet here.

Volker Türk, UNHCR assistant high commissioner for refugees, said last year that labelling refugees as security threats “risks opening the door to xenophobic and racist rhetoric and can even lead to physical attacks directed against refugees.”

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Laura Huhtsaari’s “new normal” is a synonym and carte blanche for open violence and hostility against migrants and minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* presidential contender and MP, Laura Huhtasaari, claimed in her speech Sunday that populism isn’t a passing phase but will become to “new normal.” In Huhtasaari’s and the PS’ violent world that targets migrants and minorities, the MP deceives the crowd by stating this “new normal” is a good matter.

The picture below that the MP with the kindergarten teacher smile should have shown when speaking to her followers of the PS and the “new normal” should show the picture below.

Read the full story here.

While Tony Blair is a disgraced politician who led his country into the Iraqi war in 2003 by lying, his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, lacks credibility. How can you trust a former prime minister that misled his country and the Western world with then US President George W. Bush into a disastrous war?

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Please wake me up after the Finnish presidential elections are over

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland’s presidential elections were uneventful. President Sauli Niinistö, the incumbent, comfortably won with 62.7% of the votes. He was followed By Green Party candidate Pekka Haavisto (12.4%), Laura Huhtasaari of the Perussuomalaiset Party (6.9%), Kansalaipuolue’s Paavo Väyrynen (6.2%), Center Party’s Matti Vanhanen (4.1%), Social Democrat Tuula Haatainen (3.3%), Merja Kyllönen (3.0%) and Nils Torvalds of the Swedish People’s Party (1.5%). 

Read the full story here.

While Niinistö’s election was a shoo-in, two anti-immigration and anti-EU candidates, Huhtasaari and Väyrynen, got 13% and came in third and fourth place, respectively.

Continue reading “Please wake me up after the Finnish presidential elections are over”

Exposing white Finnish privilege #47: President Sauli Niinistö’s “culture inside four walls”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED

Instead of showing leadership and giving a public face to our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse non-white society, President Sauli Niinistö does the opposite again. I have said it before and I wil say it again: President Niinistö is no friend of non-white Finland. 

In an interview on YLE, Niinistö gave an Iraqi man’s example of how he thinks foreigners should practice their culture:

He said: “I read in a newspaper about an Iraqi who had lived a long time in Finland, and he said that this [his culture] isn’t any problem. When I leave home for work, go to the store, or anywhere, I behave like a Finn. In this society, [I] follow the rules of the [cultural] game. But when I come home, I have Iraqi culture – truly impressive. And together with acquaintances can practice [my culture] very well, but the starting point is that Finland’s values are respected, democracy, gender equality.”

Listen to the full Ylen Aamu TV talk show here.

President Niinistö speaks conveniently of gender equality but doesn’t mention the importance of non-discrimination.

White Finnish privilege #47

If we study a bit closer what Niinistö said, it suggests that cultural diversity has no public place in Finland. His affirmation is full of holes that expose his ignorance and prejudices of “other” cultures.

Even if Finnish public officials, politicians, and the president speak of two-way integration, it doesn’t mean that at all because it works as a one-way adaption process.

Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #47: President Sauli Niinistö’s “culture inside four walls””