Enrique Tessieri Archives - Page 190 of 245

Susheela Daniel: On being a multicultural Finn

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

I got to know Susheela Daniel through many of her insightful Facebook postings. She was one of the brave women who protested in front of parliament against the election of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party MP Maria Lohela as speaker of parliament. One of her latest Facebook posts was on “integrated migrants” raised some good questions about Uncle Toms in the migrant and minority community.

An Uncle Tom, or Tuomo-setä or setä Tuomo in Finnish, is a term used in the United States for people who betray their race in order to get privileges. Urban Dictionary defines it in the following way: “A black man who will do anything to stay in good standing with ‘the white man’ including betray his own people.”

Susheela Daniel. Photo by Fateme Azizi.

In a multiethnic country like the United States, the Uncle Tom label plays an important role. One of the roles it plays is a bit similar to a deserter in times of war.

Taking a look at the violence and hostility that some minorities are facing in the United States, it’s clear that the Uncle Tom label aims to protect a community that is already embattled by racism, social exclusion and scarce opportunities.

How would one define an Uncle Tom in Finland?

Daniel admits that she’s never heard of the term Tuomo-setä in Finnish never mind in English but agrees that the phenomenon exists in Finland.

Continue reading “Susheela Daniel: On being a multicultural Finn”

UPDATE (November 20): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

November 20

Aukeavatko suvakin silmät? – (Tamperelainen)

What’s wrong with this community paper editorial? Community papers like Helsingin Uutiset and Vantaa Sanomat are just as bad as other media in spreading bigotry and urban tales about immigrants. They do this for two reasons: they don’t know better and because it’s a good way of boosting their advertising revenues. The editorial by the latest Tamperelainen spewed some pretty harsh rhetoric about asylum seekers. It claimed, among other things, that some asylum seekers are swindlers and that Europe should take a tougher stance against such people. The editorial by the paper’s editor, Karri Kannala, headlined “When will Kumbaya multiculturalists open their eyes,” claims the following: “Speaking of migration is racism, promoting Finnish identity is fascism. You can only talk about multiculturalism if you are a kumbaya multiculturalist, other opinions aren’t welcome.” Bigotry, racism and prejudice still attract big crowds in Finland. They are used by community papers as well and are an example of the worse type of journalism that you can find.

Read full story in Finnish here.

Defining white Finnish privilege #25: This land is my land, this land isn’t your land

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Migrant Tales

It’s disturbing to watch in Finland journalists who maintain and promote urban tales and racism. One of these is Tuomas Enbuske who invited Lenita Airisto to his television talk show to speak about Muslims. When Aristo opens her mouth and gives her opinions about cultural diversity, it’s evident that she still lives is a provincial and stuffy time warp of pre-1990s Finland.

One of the many things she said that exposed her bigotry in a recent talk show with Enbuske was that Muslim women should show more flexible in Finland and take off their veils if they live here.

Airisto, who shamelessly patronizes the Muslim host, Maryam Askar, continuously pats her on the shoulder as if she had such a right.

The patting on the shoulder is a good example of how Airisto sees minorities like Askar as if they were children.

But then she states something that exposes her white privilege to a tee:

“You have come to my country, Finland is my country, and has taken you in with open arms…”

This affirmation, which is highly offensive because Airisto still believes that Finland and the Finns are only white.

What Airisto is doing is denying Askar the right to be different, which is the basis of racism in Finland. Racists and racism is nothing more in Finland than people who have serious issues with people who are different from them.

Host Tuomas Enbuske is no rocket scientist when it comes to debating matters like immigration and Muslims. He shows more ignorance and conservative opinionated views than sound judgement. In one of his talk shows he advertised “why Somalis rape?” His show got a warning as a result from The Council for Mass Media for making such a racist statement.

Continue reading “Defining white Finnish privilege #25: This land is my land, this land isn’t your land”

Terrorism ironically exposes the lies of Islamophobic politicians and parties

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The closer terrorist acts hit us like the one that befell Paris on Friday, the fewer the arguments nationalist-populist politicians have to defend their Islamophobia. While this may not apply to all of Europe, especially to Eastern European countries like Hungary and Slovakia, it has come as a political blow to anti-immigration politicians in Finland.

What can you say and how would you interpret what Perussuomalaiset (PS)* head, Timo Soini, said after the Paris attacks?

“There is a danger that innocent people, who are escaping terror and terrorism would be related to [the Paris attacks],” he was quoted as saying in the national media.

President Sauli Niinistö and Minister of the Interior Petteri Orpo confirmed what Soini said.

Certainly one reason why Finland’s head of state and its ministers said what they did is because they are not only concerned about Isis-inspired terrorism in Europe but the homegrown kind that could spring from careless Islamophobic statements that could lead to deaths.

Words have consequences and can be easily turned into bullets and bombs.

But should we take Soini’s warning in earnest or does his statement reveal the power struggle in his party between politicians like MEP Jussi Halla-aho and himself?

We mustn’t forget that it was Soini who gave a political voice to xenophobes in his party.

If there is an apology that should be given to migrants and minorities in Finland, it should come from the PS and Soini.

It is ironic but as terrorism gets closer to us the clearer we some of us are able to distinguish between fact and anti-immigration fiction.

* The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English-language names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

France’s and Isis’ spiral of one-way terror and destruction

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The Paris attacks of Friday 13 came as a windfall to hardliners who still believe that the solution in the Middle East is military. We are now seeing the impact of such a mistaken policy in the way of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers coming to Europe this year and the terror attacks of Friday.

Zoe Samudzi offers us poignant analysis of the terror that struck Paris:

“It is important to honor the individuals who were killed in these acts of violence, and central to honoring their deaths is ensuring that we understand why these attacks may have happened in an effort to prevent further human suffering.”

The big question, and a very effective one, is if we want to honor these individuals by understanding why such attacks took place in the first place.

It would be interesting to find out what percentage of Europeans, who are not driven by fear or feelings of blind revenge, believe what President Barack Obama said about the attacks and that they were against “all of humanity and the universal values we all share.”

Are those “universal values” that President Obama states include invading and sledgehammering other countries?

France, which has been one of the most bellicose countries against Syria, responded with a new wave of bombings shortly after the attacks in Paris. You don’t have to be an expert on the Middle East to understand that those bombings won’t solve anything except increase the number of deaths and amount of destruction.

We need more sustainable solutions in the Middle East. Bombing is not one of them. Thank you Michael McEachrane for the heads-up.

Continue reading “France’s and Isis’ spiral of one-way terror and destruction”

How Timo Soini and the PS hope that the terrorist attacks of Paris will give them a picker-upper in the polls

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Below are two quotes. One is by the present foreign minister, Timo Soini, and the other below is by former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. Soini is a member of a party that made its mark in politics thanks to its anti-immigration and isolationist rhetoric.

Since Soini and his party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, base their rhetoric on false promises that have been broken after becoming a member of government, their popularity has taken a nosedive in the polls.

What they say and promise have nothing to do with present-day Finland because they are based on lies and if they had free reign they’d legally turn migrants and minorities to third-class citizens.

Everything they propose to demote migrants and minorities in Finland is unconstitutional.

But the show must go on before the PS ship sinks for good as the Titanic did in 1912.

Let’s check out two very different quotes by Soini and Tuomioja about the carnage that took place in Paris Friday.

Soini was quoted above as saying on Uusi Suomi the following about the Paris attacks: “We have to take what happened [in Paris] seriously. The simple message shouldn’t leave any doubt that democracy will be defended. We will neither give these forces the upper hand nor bow to them but we’ll attack and challenge them.”

Continue reading “How Timo Soini and the PS hope that the terrorist attacks of Paris will give them a picker-upper in the polls”

How will the far right and anti-immigration parties in Europe try to exploit what happened in Paris today?

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Terrorism is a sign of how dysfunctional our society an countries are at dealing with global conflicts. I’m so saddened by the violence and watch with manifest unease how the far right and anti-immigration populist party will exploit what happened for their own benefit. We still haven’t got confirmation on which group is behind the attacks. My condolences go to the victims and their families.

Read full story here.

Finnish fitness center advertises migrants needn’t apply as members

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Believe it or not in Finland there are fitness centers that advertise to their Finnish customers that foreigners won’t be allowed to use their facilities, especially those that live in an asylum reception center nearby.

Kuntokeskus Valolinna is a fitness center in the town of Heinola, located about 140km north of Helsinki, which advertised on its website and in a newspaper the following:

Kuntosali Valolinna will continue to serve only Finns in the future. Due to outside requests, migrants staying in Heinola will not be allowed to become members of our fitness center because our membership is full.

Say what?! You won’t accept foreigners because your membership is full?

An asylum reception center is being opened near Kuntokeskus Valolinna and this appears to be the reason why the fitness centers wants to assure its customers that these people fleeing war will be kept out of the fitness center.

Non-Discrimiantion Ombudswoman Kirsi Pimiä was quoted as saying in YLE that the announcement by the fitness club is discriminatory.

Continue reading “Finnish fitness center advertises migrants needn’t apply as members”

Finland’s and fortress Europe’s razorblade chicken feed response to the refugee crisis

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Like cancer, fear, inaction and xenophobia cripple and destroy nations.

Finland and Europe are looking more lost than ever concerning the refugee crisis and this has been shamelessly exposed in the raw at the EU’s Malta summit. If we fail to resolve the refugee crisis as a region we will face another problem that will be many times worse: Forfeiting our noble values and freedoms for short-term ineffective quick fixes.

One of these freedoms at jeopardy is the Schengen Agreement, which allows passport free travel through 26 European states.

Since such short-term responses to the crisis, which aren’t responses at all, are doomed to failure it means that the matters will get worse before they improves. We know well what is at stake in Europe when we pander xenophobia and scapegoat groups.

According to The Guardian, there’s nothing to suggest that the “the confusion, disputes and mudslinging of the past few months” have brought the EU closer to a solution. Probably the most worrying question is that our inaction will exonerate isolationist hardliners like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“I don’t say he [Orbán] should be entirely supported,”a senior diplomat at the Malta summit was quoted as saying in The Guardian. “But he has a point. There is some truth in what he says. Drastic, restrictive positions would have helped earlier.”

In Finland anti-immigration politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Laura Huhtasaari are stating that we should scrap our international refugee agreements and laws in order to stop refugees from coming to the country.

While some of you may not think much about what Huhtasaari posted, her party is one of the coalition partners in government of a prime minister who offered his home to refugees not too long ago.

Imagine. Here’s an MP of a government party of a country making such a claim that saw over 1.2 million of its people emigrate between 1860 and 1999 and relocated some 420,000 refugees after hostilities ended with the former Soviet Union in September 1944.

Laura Huhtasaari Raato, if we close our border it’s still ok to seek asylum. We must now decide what agreements and laws we can respect because we have reached a limit [with the number of refugees].

Raato Laaksonen Do you mean that lawmakers will decide not to respect laws?

Laura Huhtasaari If laws and agreements bring considerable harm and turn against us we have to review whether we plan respect them.

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Continue reading “Finland’s and fortress Europe’s razorblade chicken feed response to the refugee crisis”

Attempted arson attack against Helsinki’s Pitäjämäki asylum reception center

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales understands that Helsinki’s Pitäjämäki reception center was the target of an arson attack on Friday or Saturday. A Molotov cocktail was hurled at the reception center but didn’t light up properly.

A handgun and tommy gun was found in the possession of a man sitting in his car near the Pitäjänmäki reception center.

The man in the car wasn’t apparently planning to attack the reception center and wasn’t connected with the arson attack, according to the source.

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On Friday the police apprehended a man in car with a handgun and tommy gun near the Pitäjänmäki reception center.

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While this attempted arson attack was not reported by the media the question is how many of these types of unreported attacks have their been in Finland?

Two arson attacks have already been reported by the media: in Lammi (6.10) and Ylivieska (31.10).

Category: Enrique Tessieri