Enrique Tessieri Archives - Page 15 of 245

Linkedin: Finland’s Interior Minister Mari Rantanen: Liar, liar, pants are on fire, your nose is longer than a telephone wire

Posted on November 24, 2024November 24, 2024 by Migrant Tales

I’m surprised that the media and politicians are surprised by far-right Finns Party (PS)Interior Minister Mari Rantanen’s double-talk about favoring Christians over Muslims in next year’s quota refugee pick.

Rantanen’s fishy denials that next year’s selection of quota refugees had anything to do with preferring Christians over Muslims, prompted the non-discrimination ombudsman to do some investigating, and guess what they uncovered: There was a plan after all to prefer Christian quota refugees over Muslims.

But let’s not take Rantanen’s or her temporary replacement, Lulu Ranne’s word. It is a clear matter that one of the Perussuomalaiset’s (PS) aims is to stop Muslim and other asylum seekers from coming to Finland.

In an Interview with the tabloid Iltalehti in 2023, PS chairperson Riikka Purra acknowledged that she aims for zero asylum seekers, like Denmark, from Muslim countries. Speaker of parliament, Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation in 2012, has repeated the same aim.

One of the motivating factors behind the US Republican’s wish to promote anti-abortion is the fear that white USAmericans will become a minority in an ever-ethnically diverse country.

The PS expresses the same fear and motivation. They also believe that Finland will be “Islamized” and taken over by non-white people. Such a phobia is one of the biggest motives for the PS’ xenophobic migration and zero-tolerance refugee policy.

It’s still too early to see what political impact Rantanen’s lies will have on the party and trust in the rule of law in Finland. Like a slippery slope after the passage of the pushback law in July, which emboldened xenophobes in the government, was it a factor that encouraged the PS to introduce changes in the quota refugee system in Finland?

As the PS and government tear down the rule of law and stain our international and national image, all of this is done to feed the voracious hunger for racism and bolster sagging opinion polls.

Read the original posting here.

Linkedin: Islamophobia is on the rise in Finland: What is the role of the government?

Posted on November 2, 2024November 2, 2024 by Migrant Tales

If this question were asked to Prime Minister Petteri Orpo of the National Coalition Party, we would not have to guess his answer. Pointing to the anti-racism plan and a “very good” government program, Orpo would dodge the question in his usual style by sweeping the issue under the rug.

In other words, his response would be the government is not fueling racism.

But Orpo is no magician who can cover the sun with his finger with his denials and weak leadership. Each denial hides his disingenuous double-talk and outright lies but exposes them like foul air.

The policies that the government uses to oppress the most vulnerable members of society, single parents, the unemployed, migrants, and workers, include policies to undermine their power.

Two reports published in October show that matters will continue to worsen. The first one was published by the Police University College, which reported a record rise in suspected hate crime cases to 1,606 cases versus 1,245 cases the previous year.

As in previous years, the biggest victims were Muslims.

Due to the lame actions of the government against racism, I expect the number of suspected hate crimes to rise once again to a new record in 2024.

Last year was problematic for Muslims and minorities in Finland. Shortly after naming the new government in the summer, the government was marred by the resignation 11 days later of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Minister of Economic Affairs Vilhelm Junnila. That was followed by the surfacing of 185 racist blog posts written in 2008 by Riikka Purra, the finance minister and PS chairperson.

Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman’s 2016 posts came to public light, too. In one of them, he stated, “I’d still rather ban people wearing scarves than those scarves” and these “desert monkeys make me sick.”

The first weeks of the government were so scandalous that Munich-based daily Südddeutche Zeitung, christened Orpo’s government the “Chamber of Horrors,” while Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called its start “a fiasco.”

Last month, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), reported that “one in two Muslims in the EU face racism and discrimination in their daily life – a sharp rise since 2016.”

Said FRA director Sirpa Rautio: “We are witnessing a worrying surge in racism and discrimination against Muslims in Europe. This is fuelled by conflicts in the Middle East and made worse by the dehumanizing anti-Muslim rhetoric we see across the continent.”

How the media feeds xenophobia in Finland and forgets to tell us that the sole aim of Denmark’s exteme migration policy is to keep Muslims out

Posted on October 29, 2024October 30, 2024 by Migrant Tales

In an interview with Helsingin Sanomat, Danish MP and Minister for European Affairs Maria Bjerre only had positive things to say about her country’s migration policy, one of the most restrictive in the EU. The interview by Elina Kervinen was in my opinion a good example of how the media feeds xenophobia by sidestepping some crucial points.

The whole article tells us things we already know, and its purpose is to absolve Denmark’s migration policy of racism, which we have described on Migrant Tales as working on steroids.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

Why does this interview wreak of opinionated hogwash?

– It mentions things we already know like doing away with “pull” factors that will discourage asylum seekers (the article brands them as “illegals”) from coming here.
– Bjerre is speaking in code. What she is saying are ways to effectively stop Muslims and other Third Worlders from comig to Europe. No mention in the article about the 6.168 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
– In the face of the millions of Ukrainian refugees, it is absurd that Bjerre opportunistically claims that we have the biggest crisis since 2015 when over a million refugees came to Europe from the Middle East and elsehere.
– The chart below shows you that we are not in a crisis. In fact, Europe only gets the minority of refugees.
– If we make it difficult for migrants to come here – excluding Ukrainians – who is going to replenish our aging population?

Does this chart back what Bjerre is claiming and which the reporter sidesteps? Source: Frontex and Spanish Ministry of Interior.

One of the matters the reporter does not answer is why other EU countries agree with Denmark’s extreme migration policy. There is no mention in the story about the rise of the rise of the xenophobic far right in many EU countries and their support for Albania-type refugee centers.

MTV reporter Ivan Puopolo has zero credibility

Posted on October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 by Migrant Tales

MTV reporter Ivan Puopolo must be the most opinionated reporter working for the mainstream media. His reporting is not credible because he breaks one of the golden rules of journalism: do not editorialize in your stories.

Puopolo’s interviews and stories are full of toxic opinions. Apart from his non-existent credibility, he does a lot of harm to MTV.

Apart from also being a mouthpiece for the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, helping politicians like PS chairperson Riikka Purra spread the great replacement theory and victimizing migrant youths, a recent interview with Esko Aho is a case in point, whom he interviewed without mentioning the former prime minister´s links with Putn´s Russia.

Another question that I have asked MTV is Puopolo´s role in the television station’s ads below.

On the left MTV was active in portraying black and brown youths as criminals even if the police estimated at the time 150-200 youths belonged to gangs. On the right, Puopolo interviews Interior Minister Mari Rantanen about the new integration plan. Not the person with the knife. MTV has done a lot of harm in spreading racism and polarizing viewers. You can read more about the role of the media, police, and politicians in spreading racism.

I emailed this complaint to MTV but have not heard back from the private media company.

The PS is fascist and racist to the core

Posted on October 17, 2024October 17, 2024 by Migrant Tales

On Wednesday’s A-studio talk show, viewers got once again a taste of the depths of fascism and racism of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) through MP Joakim Vigelius. One of the matters that surprised me was how the host, Petri Raivio, did not stop to fact-check Vigelius’ brazen lies.

Since the Finnish media rarely fact-checks or takes a clear stand in its editorials on migration policy issues, spreading lies and half-truths by xenophobes is fairly easy.

Apart from being a charlatan, Vigelius insulted on the show Social Democrat Vice President Nasima Razmyar with his racist remarks. The PS MP maintained that people from the Middle East and Africa should not come as quota refugees to Finland next year because they “don’t integrate” and are “a threat to society.”

He argued, in front of a woman who was born in Afghanistan that people like her are mostly unemployed, cannot live off their means, have problems following laws, and are prone to commit crimes even if she is a living example of the opposite of his lies.

PS MP Joakim Vigelius. Source Yle

Another incredible matter that came to light on the talk show was his exaggeration and racism about Europe’s migration problem. Imagine, Vigrlius is worried about such a problem even if Finland had last year 5,372 asylum seekers, according to Statistics Finland.

The asylum seekers coming to Europe are only a drop in the bucket of all those in the world fleeing strife.

The PS is fascist to the core and so is its enabler, the National Coalition Party

Posted on October 13, 2024October 13, 2024 by Migrant Tales

With poll ratings heading south and the municipal election approaching in April, parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* are turning (as usual) to racism and bigotry. They do this because they are fascists to the core.

The media in Finland is part of the country’s racism problem. Since it is white, it would care less for the well-being of migrants and minorities. How many editorials have Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, written about the PS’ and the government’s draconian migration policy?

Zero.

All of this tightening and making life harder for migrants and minorities living in Finland is ok if you explain your flimsy reason: security.

Despite the reasoning, the PS and the government offer no proof that migrants are a threat. Here is a question to the government: Why is Finland’s migration policy so hostile to migrants?

Remember Finland’s day of infamy in July when it passed the pushback law? Well, there has been no rush of migrants to the border. The only fact is that the border continues to be closed, and businesses in cities like Lappeenranta suffer economic hardships.

On the left, Minister of Transport and Communication/Interior Minister Lulu Ranne is smiling because she is announcing how Finland will tighten its migration policy and enforce harsher sentences against migrants. On the right, is a picture that unmasks Ranne as a bully and racist. She is saying to migrants enter Finland at your peril. Sources: Suomen Uutiset and Haleingin Sanomat.

The government continues to shamelessly expose its racist policies. The latest of these is a Helsingin Sanomat scoop that claims the PS wants to exclude Muslims from the quota-refugee scheme in 2025.

The plan, promoted by Ranne and Mari Rantanen, on leave as interior minister until the end of the year, should not surprise us since it is another example of Finland’s zero asylum seeker policy.

Linkedin: Finland’s perilous watershed

Posted on October 11, 2024October 11, 2024 by Migrant Tales

While politicians of the Finns Party (PS) and National Coalition Party beat their chests every time Finland tightens its migration policy, the two minor government parties, the Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrats, look the other way with shameful silence.

The government, especially the PS, claims that its anti-immigration policies will make us stronger as a nation. The logic has a striking connection with the Nazi racebook. In that logic, they believed that getting rid of the Jews would help make the Germans realize their full potential and become the master race.

Today in Finland, like in other countries of the EU there is a similar logic: Let’s stop people like Muslims from settling inside our borders.

Finland’s transformation from a liberal Nordic welfare state to one that is showing signs of becoming iliberal is concerning to say the least. If there was a watershed that pushed Finland in this direction it was in July, when it approved the pushback law by denying people asylum thereby shelving its Human Rights commitments, Constitutional rights and internaitonal agreements.

This pictures the long struggle by Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Finance Minister Riikka Purra, and the Perussuomalaiset* to shelve Human Rights, Constitutional Rights, and international agreements by Finland thanks to the passage of the pushback law in July. Source Twitter/Kalle Koponen, HS

Other shameful policy changes will weaken us and impoverish Finland.

Some of these include:

·     changing the period of residence for citizenship from five to eight years;
·     tougher requirements to get permanent residence and citizenship;
·     prohibiting asylum seekers from getting a work permit;
·     residence permits granted under international protection will become
temporary and their duration will be the EU minimum;
·     speeding up deportations and asylum applications;
·     tighter family reunification requirements;
·     if laid off and cannot find new employment, a person will be forced to leave
the country in three (non-specialists) or six months (specialists);
·     taking away the right of undocumented migrants (excluding children and others in a particularly vulnerable position) to only have access to emergency health care services;
·     reviewing dual citizenship rights to Russian nationals.

The rise of the far right exposes our failure and our propensity to racism

Posted on October 1, 2024October 1, 2024 by Migrant Tales

The rise of the far-right and their simplistic scapegoating of migrants and minorities reveals a sad reality hitting Europe. The rise of the far-right does not expose the obvious but the fact that we have failed to educate generations after the horrors of World War 2.

If there is one matter that characterizes an autocratic state like Nazi Germany, it is the fact that the system gave people the right to oppress and murder on an industrial scale. It wasn’t the “rotten apples” at the top who made it possible, but with the support of the masses.

Teaching and institutionalizing racism, us versus them, is a sure way of gaining political and finally, autocratic power, as we saw in Germany after 1933.

Populism is like a drug addict who needs a constant. The drug addict gets the fix but it does not resolve his main problem: addiction and destruction of the person’s physical and mental health.

In Finland, the “drug-addict” political parties that capitalize on scapegoating migrants and minorities are the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, National Coalition Party (NCP), and Christian Democrats, and to an ambivalent extent the Swedish People’s Party and Social Democrats.

Only the Greens and Left Alliance have given a flat no to the present political development that normalizes racism and social exclusion.

Despite assuranced to the contrary, the Finnish government is a far-right homophobic, Islamophobic bad joke

Posted on September 29, 2024September 30, 2024 by Migrant Tales

THE STORY WAS UPDATED

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

The saying sits well with Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government. Can you teach a party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* to be civil and ditch their racism? For the PS to turn in a new political leaf and abandon their nationalist rants and xenophobia would be tantamount to political harakiri.

One matter that I have never grasped and accepted is how so-called mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party (NCP), the media, allow politicians of the PS to bash and denegrate migrants and minorities.

The latest scandal to hit the government involves minister of foreign trade and development, Ville Tavio, a PS politician who has made a name for himself as a far-right homophobe, Islamophobe and xenophobe.

The unilateral decision by Tavio not to participate in a gender-equality alliance for the rebuiling of Ukraine which also include sexual minorities, has received a lot of criticsm from President Alexander Stubb.

“I hope that in the future we will not see similar mistakes from the ministry for foreign affairs, that the president will not be informed of matters that belong to the minister for foreign trade and development cooperation, but are related to our foreign and security policy,” Stubb was quoted as saying in Yle News.

Just as the dust was settling, Tavio was quoted in Helsingin Sanomat by stating: “I support the rights of sexual minorities. The Perussuomalaiset will secure a better Finland for sexual minorities in general by opposing Islamzation.”

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio. Source: Kauppalehti.

Even if we can point out the NCP’s political sin of going to bed with the PS, Finland has the government it deserves. If you look at their over first year in government, the question is what type of Finland will we have at the end of their term in 2027?

What will our welfare state look like and how much will social inequality grow and polarize our country? Would you dare to see?
It would be naive to believe that Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government will strengthen our welfare state The only matter it will strengthen is social inequality. As mentioned in a previous posting, about one third of Finnish voters are racist. The rise of the PS is a good example of the latter.

Going back to the original question: Can you teach a dog new tricks?

No, but if its racism is stongly grounded on racism, nationalism and social exclusion, then you can. The dog does not learn new tricks per se but is emboldened to carry out its old tricks.

Using sociological intervention in an orienteering course for immigrants and Finns at Otava Folk High School

Posted on September 24, 2024September 25, 2024 by Migrant Tales

The paper, written by Enrique Tessieri in 2009 for the Social Science Department of Turku University, explains how sociological intervention helped promote and strengthen cultural sensitivity at a folk high school 14 kilometers from the Eastern Finnish city of Mikkeli. From 2010-2011, Otava Folk High School became the first school in Eastern Finland – if not nationally- to offer halal meat regularly to its Muslim students.

One of the positive changes that sociological intervention brought was bringing down the fences between us and them by creating a more inclusive climate. “Otava Folk High School was one of the first in 2010 to serve regularly halal meat in Finland 2-3 times a week to students, which are mostly Muslims. In order to promote inclusiveness, students are no longer called migrant students but multicultural students. Otava Folk High School offers different types of education but the most important for multicultural students include upper secondary school, comprehensive school, predatory comprehensive school, and Finnish language and culture courses for asylum seekers.” (See “The Shifting Global World of Youth and Education,” edited by Mabel Ann Brown, Routledge, 2018, page 105).

While these changes were promoted with the help of sociological intervention and cultural sensitivity, they were short-lived in 2018 by Principal Harri Jokinen, who cited economic factors.

If you are going to promote cultural diversity and sensitivity at a school, it depends a lot on the management, in the case of Otava Folk High School,, on the principal.