Category: Enrique Tessieri

Police University College of Finland: Hate crimes retreat by 13.7% in 2016

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The amount of suspected hate crimes in Finland retorted to the police in 2016 was 1,075, down 13.7% from 1,250 cases in the previous year, according to the Police University College of Finland and the ministry of interior’s police department. Despite the fall in suspected hate crime cases, the police said that the number of hate crimes has not fallen to pre-2015 levels. 

Read the full hate crime report (in Finnish) here.

The majority (77%) of all the hate crime cases was due to ethnic or national origin with religious background accounting for 13.8%, down 16.1% on year. While persons with Finnish citizenship accounted for 60% of all suspected hate crimes, followed by Iraqi (12%), Afghan (6%) and Somali (3%) nationals.

The most common cases of a hate crime due to religion were Muslims.

“Almost half of the crimes [due to religious background] were assaults,” the report states. “Most common location of the suspected crimes based on religion or belief was immigration station [asylum reception center].”

 

Figure 1: Suspected hate crimes during 2011-2016.

Hate crimes due to the ethnic or national background (etninen tai kansallinen tausta), religion or belief, sexual orientation, transgender identity or appearance, disability, and total.

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Aren’t white Finns a part of our culturally diverse society? How the media frames “us” and “them”

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One matter that pops up when speaking of multicultural Finland is how media like YLE picture such a state. Where, for example, is the white Finn in the picture below? Why isn’t there a representative of the white Finnish community in the image?

Aren’t white Finns an integral part of our multicultural, or culturally diverse community that is the total opposite of white supremacy?

If you want to find out what some Finns think of migrants, minorities and white supremacy, look at what pictures the media uses when writing about migrants and minorities.

Where’s the white Finn? Read the full story here.

Saturday was a day of marching neo-Nazis and coded populist anti-immigration rhetoric

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 Blue Reform (formerly Perussuomalaiset*) MP Sampo Terho took part on Saturday in YLE’s Ykköaamu talk show. Later in the day in Tampere, neo-Nazis and other fascists held demonstrations. 

One of the matters that struck me the most about Terho’s interview was when the host, Seija Vaaherkumpu, asked him about what differences there were between the Perussuomalaiset (PS) and his newly formed party.

One of the matters he said was that Blue Reform doesn’t like to “yap about migration” in the opposition but wants to influence policy in government.

Yes, right, Terho. When you were head of the PS parliamentary group, your former party and you spearheaded the tightening of immigration policy by making family reunification an impossible dream for many migrants. You did away as well with residence permits given on humanitarian grounds; you shortened appeal times, you undermined the legal rights of asylum seekers and poisoned the air with your oversimplified rhetoric.

One good distinction between Blue Reform and the PS concerning immigration policy is how they express their racism and contempt for cultural diversity (anti-white supremacy). Terho’s group speaks more in code while the PS says it straight out. Terho is also minister for European affairs, culture and sport as well as chairman of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, which systematically destroyed – and continues to undermine – cultural diversity with the help of whitewashing.

Watch the Ykköaau talk show here.

Another important matter that arose in the interview is Terho’s hostility towards asylum seekers and Muslims. He showed as well that he is still an anti-immigration populist with a deep love of neo-liberal economic policies.

Meanwhile, around one thousand people took part on Saturday in Tampere in neo-Nazi and anti-fascist demonstrations, reports YLE News.

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What does Finland fear as its society becomes more culturally and ethnically diverse?

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What do you think are the main issues that migrants and minorities face in Finland? Is the majority population having a difficult time sharing public spaces with migrants and minorities? Are Finns suspicious of difference? Do they fear that they’ll lose power and privilege as our society becomes ever-culturally and ethnically diverse?*

One of the most significant problems facing our ever-growing culturally diverse community is that there are too few migrants and minority participation. It’s like an all-male board championing for women’s rights.

How does tokenism down out our voices in those associations that are supposed to stand up for our rights?

How could we change this?

 

Read the full story here.

* By cultural and ethnic diversity I mean anti-white-supremacist. White Finns are as well a part of our culturally diverse society, even if some, I suspect, believe that “them” are those that are culturally different from us and “us” are the white Finns. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Päävo Väyrynen is Finland’s cold war foreign minister

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If there is one politician in Finland that gives some heartburn, that politician is without a doubt Paavo Väyrynen. It is unfortunate that the Finnish media doesn’t return to the cold war era and look into Väyrynen’s record when he was the foreign minister most of the time from 1977 to 1993. During that period there were severe censorship issues in the Finnish media and human rights violations when, among other things, Soviet citizens were forcibly returned to the USSR even after asking for asylum. Are we surprised that Väyrynen is anti-EU, anti-immigration and a nationalist?

He was always those things. Finland’s cold war stance was just that: anti-EU, anti-immigration, censorship, human rights violations, and nationalism.

The media should talk about his track record when mentioning Väyrynen.

Read full story here.

 

 

 

 

YLE News: What Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen forgets to tell us about growing hate speech in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There’s a lot of evidence of how Finland denies an issue like racism and near-constantly plays down its impact on migrants, minorities, and society in general. Prosecutor General Raija Toivainen claims in a YLE News story that racist statement lead to bitterness, radicalization, and terrorism. 

Fine. I agree, but then states:

“Racism’s targets are driven into a corner, where it is easy to become bitter. This creates the perfect breeding ground for organised crime or even terrorism… People who have been chased to the fringes of our society are easy to manipulate and cajole into extremist groups. Do people that spread racist hate speech realize the effects of what they are doing?” she wonders.

So hate speech and hate crime drives “victims” into a corner and from there they become radicalized and terrorists.

While this may be the case, Toivianen forgets to tell us about the danger of terrorism by white Finns. Why didn’t she mention Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who murdered in cold blood 77 people in 22/7?

And what about the complicity of the politicians and public officials who should know better?

Hate speech is the soil from where violence breeds. It is indiscriminate and emboldens white Finns to commit crimes, even terrorist acts. Hate speech and racism affect everyone in society.

Hate speech and racism affect everyone in society and not just one group.

We should never forget this fact, but it’s convenient and allows us to “condemn racism” and never leave our racialized comfort zones.

Read the full story here.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Defecting from a single-issue party like the PS of Finland

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Pekka Sinisalo defects from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* to the Blue Reform party because, under Jussi Halla-aho,  it is a single-issue party. Before the PS imploded in June, it was a supposedly a 1.5-issue party. The Finnish media forgets that the PS is the only party in modern Finnish history that decided to target and capitalize on Islamophobia and racism. Those that form part of Blue Reform haven’t apologized and are part of that disgraceful history. 

 

Like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in Finland racism and fascism is a matter of interpretation. Source: YLE.

* After 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.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: White washing in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If Finland had a very effective white washing* process in place from independence, who dismantled it or was it ever dismantled? I have my serious doubts.

Blackfaces are still aired on Finnish television. The clip above was shown on Pressiklubi on October 6, 2017, and the full movie in 2016.

In the 1970s, when it was forbidden for Sami children to speak their own language at Finnish schools, children learned that “n” stands for the n-word. They learned that no matter how much an n-word washes her face, it would not whiten.
A racist ad of how a detergent literally whitewashes little black children published in a sport’s magazine in the beginning of the last century.

 

* Someone who is looked at as leaving behind or neglecting their culture and assimilating to a white, western culture. Source: Urban Dictionary.

Groups like Suomalaisuuden liitto were responsible for whitewashing and killing diversity in Finland

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If there is an association in this country that is guilty of whitewashing and killing cultural diversity, one of them is Suomalaisuuden liitto or the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity. 

It would be naive to believe that the same structures that aimed at annihilating the Sami culture and the hostile and systemic social exclusion of the Roma in the past have disappeared. You can actually find them everywhere: in our integration program for newcomers, education, and the generally accepted narrative that gives white Finns their identity, power, and privilege to exclude minorities and migrants.

Even if whitewashing is a formidable foe, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people, associations, and institutions in this country that want to dismantle this racist system. We are, however, still too few and too weak to make a real difference.

I know what whitewashing is because my family was affected by it.

Despite the fact that one of my long lost late relatives, Jacob Weikan (ca. 1785-1848) was the first Jew to get a residence permit in this country in the eighteenth century, anti-Semitism and nationalism forced and encouraged my family from my mother’s side to abandon their Jewish identity.

The whitewashing was so thorough that my grandfather, a captain in the Finnish defense forces and a White Guard, hid his Jewish background all his life with his nationalism. Very rarely did he speak about his Jewish roots but expressed it in a question that wasn’t supposed to be answered: Do we have Jewish roots?

Integration was a different matter in the first half of the last century compared with today. One way was to change your “foreign” surname into a Finnish one.

The document below shows how my grandparent’s family changed their surname in 1931:

In light of the petition made by military instructor Harald Vilhelm Handtwargh, the governor of the province of Mikkeli grants his family permission to change their  surname to Harvo; this is backed by statements from the vicar [of the Lutheran church], Suomen Sukututkimusseura [Finnish Genealogical Society], and the Suomalaisuuden Liitto [Association of Finnish Culture and Identity.

Is it a surprise that the chairman of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity is none other than Sampo Terho, a former member of the Perussuomalaiset* (PS) party  and today’s minister of European affairs, culture, and sport?

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UPDATE: How Migri and Finland play down the plight and suffering of asylum seekers

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I heard on Wednesday that a nineteen-year-old Afghan resident who came as an asylum seeker to Finland took his life this week. A fellow Afghan who knew him said: “What happened is very sad. He wasn’t very social and liked to be by himself.” 

UPDATE (10:13 pm): According to his friend, the young man wanted to see his sister in Iran who had died this year but couldn’t because he had a one-year residence permit and this made him sad. Migrant Tales cannot confirm if a person with a one-year residence permit can travel abroad.

The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) said in a statement last year that there have been 15-20 suicide attempts of which five resulted in deaths.

Migri said in a YLE story that there were 60 suicide attempts in 2016, of which 40 happened in August-September of that year. All in all, there were nearly 70 suicide attempts during 2016-2017, but these have fallen by “less than ten times” this year, according to YLE, which cites a Migri source.

“This year no one had lost his or her life due to a suicide attempt,” said Migri’s Olli Snellman was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat. “Last year there were one or two [deaths]. It’s a really small amount considering that there were 40,000 asylum seekers [in the country].”

Like a lot of news about asylum seekers, the narrative is the same: Play down their situation, fuel suspicion and mistrust. These aren’t “real” refugees anyway.

Like the young Afghan who took his life, it would be interesting to know how many commit suicide after they get their residence permit.

The person in the picture below is one such case.

The young nineteen-year-old Afghan who took his life this week.