Category: Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales (December 27, 2011): Immigration laws reveal what kind of society we are

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Migrant Tales insight: This opinion piece was published exactly five years ago. Check out what we wrote back then and how immigration law in Finland have tightened. If immigration laws reveal what kind of society we are, what do our immigration laws reveal about ourselves?

Last year, 32,476 asylum seekers came to Finland. While many of us received them with open arms, that welcome eventually turned into suspicion and a sinister wish that they’d leave our country as fast as possible.  

The attitude of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government, after he offered asylum seekers his home in September of last year, not only exposes hypocrisy but reveals moral cowardice in the face of a challenge. 
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Tell me what your immigration laws are and I will tell you what kind of society you live in. Show me how those laws defend minorities and encourage cultural diversity and I will show you hypocrisy.

There is a saying that a person’s true character is not exposed during good times but when there is great adversity.

The global financial meltdown of markets in September 2008 and the euro financial crisis today is testing our “good will” to breaking point.

Far-right, populist and even right-wing conservative groups in countries like the U.S. have succeeded in making  racism sound fair, according to Colorlines.*

There are worse examples of how the spirit of the laws and that of deeds show how our societies are flirting and have succumbed in some cases to the ways of despotism.

A case in point is Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona, who got his wings clipped after the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security stripped him of several federal tools for immigration enforcement, according to Police Patrol. *

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A letter of apology for the disgraceful treatment of asylum seekers in Finland by the government

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Dear Asylum Seeker, 

The cartoon below by Ville Ranta could apply to Europe as well. Instead of having politicians like Perussuomalaiset* Defense Minister Jussi Niinistö, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and other government ministers stating that “you can’t come in because there’s no room for you,” it’s our hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that has been exposed to the tee. 

Even if some may curse your present, I welcome it. Thanks to you, the over million asylum seekers that came to Europe in 2015, you have exposed our hypocrisy and our exceptionalism.

Aminkeng A. Alemanji wrote in his doctoral dissertation a very good description of how our exceptionalism works:

“The imperfection of the other is used to establish and maintain the hierarchies that put the dominant group [white Finns and Europeans] at the top and the Other at the bottom. [T.] Coates [2015, 105] reminds us that “a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below”, and in Finland it is the Other as a result of his/her imperfection that is below – the valley necessary for the mountain [the dominant group] to be a mountain.”

This is an old cartoon from last year but still topical. See the original posting here.

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Is Christmas a time of joy and hatred towards Muslims?

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An asylum seeker in Finland sent Migrnat Tales this picture at a bus stop in Mikkeli, located about 230km north of Helsinki. Finland is gearing up for the Christmas spirit as some racists post posters full of hatred towards Muslims. We apologize to our Muslim friends for posting such a horrible poster. 

The question about this poster is pretty simple: How come a person can easily place such a poster at a bus stop? Why didn’t they stop such a person? Why didn’t they tear down such a poster?

The people who posted this poster below are the same ones who will tell you with a poker smile that there’s no racism in Finland. They justify their hatred by believing in ethnic fairy tales.

Just taking down these types of posters in silence isn’t enough. Politicians, as well as other civil leaders and the general public, should go public and condemn such racist and Islamophobic diatribe.

Remember when PM Juha Sipilä offered his home in Finland to asylum seekers?

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In September 2015, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä offered his home in Kempele to asylum seekers. Even so, the tone and position of the prime minister and the government changed by December when Sipilä said that he couldn’t offer his home to asylum seekers any longer because his hometown in northern Finland wasn’t safe for refugees.

Yes, you read right: The prime minister admits that his small town in northern Finland isn’t safe for asylum seekers. If Kempele isn’t safe for refugees, it isn’t safe for any visible migrant and minority.

It’s incredible that a prime minister admits that he cannot guarantee the safety of people in this country and, worse, does nothing to address such a problem.

The sequence of events in fall-winter 2015 tell it all: kind words by Sipilä to asylum seekers coming to Finland; a rape takes place in Kempele at the end of November, one suspect, who is an asylum seeker, is detained; Kempele residents come out like a lynching party to protest against the asylum reception center in the town, which moves to an undisclosed location.

Read story and watch video here.

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Repatriation agreement between Iraqi Ministry of Migration & Displaced and Finland comes to naught

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Talks between the Iraqi Ministry of Migration & Displaced and Finnish permanent secretary of the interior ministry, Päivi Nerg, have ended without any agreement, according to an official statement, which added that some 5,000 Iraqi asylum seekers have returned from Finland to Iraq. 

The Iraqi foreign ministry has confirmed as well today in a statement the latter by stating that it will not accept any deported Iraqis from European countries.

Last year, 32,476 asylum seekers came to Finland. Of these, 20,485 were from Iraq.

According to Finnish media sources, Finland has forcibly deported some 1,500 Iraqis against their will to Iraq. That compares with 1,600 who returned on their own will and 1,500 through the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Four thousand Iraqi asylum seekers have gone missing in Finland.

Migrant Tales understands that the police have urged asylum seekers to leave the country with a 1,000-euro incentive.

The ministry of migration & displaced said that Iraq would be willing to accept Iraqi criminals but Nerg said that such an agreement wasn’t possible, according to the statement.

Read original posting here.

Defining white Finnish privilege #32: The white Finnish police service and “them”

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If there is an institution that is the epitome of white Finnish privilege that is doing everything possible to hinder cultural and ethnic diversity among its ranks, that institution is the Finnish police service. 

Am I exaggerating?

Just go to the police service’s online pages and you will not find a single person who is a visible minority.

Gathering from the police service’s website, women are well-represented but nothing, absolutely nothing, is said about visible minorities never mind the police’s sensitivity towards our ever-growing culturally diverse community.

Visit the Finnish police service’s web page here.

Definition #32

The fact that there isn’t a single visible minority on the Finnish police websites shows us that they are far behind the times of other European nations like the United Kingdom and Sweden.

There must be a lot of opposition to cultural diversity as well if  a recent poll showed that about half of the police surveyed claimed to have voted for the National Coalition Party and the anti-immigration populists Perussuomalaiset.*

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Finland’s about-turn in immigration and asylum policy reveal populism and suspicion

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There is an interesting article in newsmagazine Suomen Kuvalehti that claims that before Finland gave 85% of asylum seekers a positive decision today it’s almost the opposite. 

The article quotes National Coalition Party (NCP) Interior Minister Paula Risikko, who claims that Finland’s hardline stance is the same as Sweden’s and no different from the EU concerning Iraqis.

“It [refugee policy] isn’t [different], on the contrary,” she was quoted as saying in Suomen Kuvalehti. “Finland gives its support to the commission to renew [and implement] a common a common refugee policy [for the EU]. The aim is to prevent abuse of the asylum procedure and to counter the ongoing illegal movement of asylum seekers from country to country and harmonize policy on this.”

If we study closer Risikko’s statement, it’s clear that it has nothing to do with reality but is purely political and based on suspicion of Iraqis, the biggest national group that came to Finland from fall 2015.

Moreover, her suspicion isn’t only seen in her statement but in the harsh laws that the government has proposed and passed that tighten immigration and refugee policy.

Read full story here.

One good matter that asylum seekers have given Finland is that they have exposed our ineffective immigration and integration policy as well as our exceptionalism and denial of racism.

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Finland’s ever-growing crisis of undocumented migrants is the government’s and Social Democratic Party’s doing

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Thanks to the 107 MPs listed below that voted on April 13 to approve law 2/2016 that did away with granting residence permits on humanitarian grounds, Finland faces today an unprecedented rise of undocumented migrants.

According to various estimates, the number of undocumented migrants is seen rising from a few hundred to thousands, even by as many as tens of thousands.

Prior to scrapping residence permits on humanitarian grounds, an asylum seeker who got a negative decision from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) was granted a temporary residence permit if there wasn’t a repatriation between Finland and his country.

Law 2/2016 is poorly thought-out and is an example of how populism and xenophobia are guiding the government by the leash when it comes to immigration policy. Thus Finland’s immigration policy doesn’t hinge on whether countries like Iraq are safe or not, but on anti-immigration politics.

I am astounded many times to watch officials of the Migri, politicians who are interviewed by complacent journalists state that these people only came to Europe to search for a better life.

So?! Is it is a crime to flee a failed state like Iraq embroiled in violence and search for a better life in Europe?

Anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland has become so extreme that we label whole groups for fleeing countries that we destroyed directly and indirectly in the first place.

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Thanks to PM Juha Sipilä, Finland’s ranking as the country with the most press freedom will most likely see a setback in 2017

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Reporters Without Borders (RWB) ranked Finland as the 1st of 180 countries in its 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Even if Prime Minister Juha Sipilä believes that his questionable behavior towards YLE‘s affairs will not impact the country’s ranking, he will probably be in for a surprise. 

RWB’s methodology to access press freedom comprises of 87 questions in 20 different languages. Sipilä has hurt Finland’s ranking under “media independence,” which reads: “Measures the degree to which the media are able to function independently of sources of political, governmental, business and religious power and influence.”

It’s pretty clear that as a result of the actions of the prime minister, YLE’s ability to function independently without political and government influences have come to public light and are compromised.

Two reporters at the state-owned broadcast company, Jussi Eronen and Salla Vuorikoski, resigned this week citing that critical reporting of politicians like the prime minister has been suppressed at YLE.

There are other questions as well about press freedom in Finland. How come reporters are required to show the article to the person you interviewed before the story is published?

Read full story here.

Having worked for over twenty years as a foreign correspondent in countries like Finland, Italy, Spain, Argentina and Colombia, I’ve always wondered about the exceptionalism of the Finnish media.

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Am I surprised that Finnish fiction sees migrants as unhappy victims? Not!

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Researcher Pasi Saukkonen tells us in a YLE story that “not one content immigrant is found in Finnish fiction.” One may ask how come?  The answer, in my opinion, is simple: It’s a white Finnish view, their prejudices and the narrative they want to give of Others. 

The fact that there isn’t “a single content migrant” reflects, in my opinion, the xenophobic attitudes, exceptionalism, and outright denial of Others from being treated as equal members of society.

White Finnish authors cited in the article write about migrants through the lens of exceptionalism and white Finnish privilege.

Entitlement gives, in these cases, the power to construct social narratives based on the writer’s prejudices. and ignorance.

There are many countries where immigration is seen as something positive. In Finland, however, it is seen as something negative, especially if those people are Muslims or dark-skinned.

Am I surprised why migrants never enjoy a good ending in fiction?

Not at all. It’s only another indication of Finland’s suspicion of Others.