Category: Enrique Tessieri

Defining white Finnish privilege #23: Greater police powers to monitor migrants and minorities

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Finnish white privilege, like any majority culture’s privilege, not only permeates in our institutions but marks the pace of how those with no privilege are treated in this society. Granting the police greater monitoring powers [1] to carry out arbitrary checks on migrants, and subsequently on non-white Finns, is a case in point in white Finnish privilege. 

Writes YLE in English:

New legislative changes came into force in May allowing police and border guard officials to perform immigration checks as part of their everyday duties, without any prior suspicion of crime. The wider powers will allow officers to conduct thorough inspections of business premises as part of their work.

The goal of the legal reform is to clarify the jurisdiction of police and border guards. Previously police were only able to investigate business premises for possible immigration offences if they suspected a crime had been committed.

The Council of Europe, and other anti-racism activists in Finland and abroad, have expressed concern about ethnic profiling by the police.

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The language and actions of anti-immigration parties and groups are based on violence

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Some 40 members of the neo-Nazi Suomen Vastarintaliike (SVL) took part in a demonstration Saturday ended violently, according to YLE in English. Thirty-two people were detained in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä by the police and charged with rioting and assault.

While the SVL have always been a violent group, the statements that were made after what happened in Jyväskylä are the most surprising.

One of these is by the new National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehminen, who claimed on YLE that he was surprised that the SVL demonstration turned violent in such an organized manner.

The police may have been surprised by what happened in Jyväskylä but many aren’t. What can you expect from a group that openly wants to change Finland into a Nazi state with violence?

The other surprising statement was from Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen, who declared in recent a Facebook post war on multiculturalism states, now claims that he “doesn’t support the use of violence under any circumstances.

The first thing that strikes me about these two statements is their incredulity. Before making such statements as the above, both Kolehminen and Immonen could ask the following questions:

  • Have the SVL grown in recent years?
  • If it hasn’t grown why has coverage of its violent acts become more visible in the media?
  • Is violence only physical? Can words be violent and/or cause acts of physical violence?
  • If a party like the PS constantly victimizes and excludes certain groups from being equal members of Finnish society, isn’t such a stance just as bad as an act of physical violence?

Iltalehti

Here’s one example of how rhetoric can turn in to violence. Tabloid Iltalehti reports that multiculturalism caused tempers rise to such a point that a man shoved a six-year-old.

Apart from posing with a group of SVL members in a picture in June, one could ask what Immonen really meant by condemning all forms of violence if his political career has been based on violent statements against migrants and minorities?

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PS MP Immonen “flees” country in the face of his declaration of war against multiculturalism

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The headline in Iltalehti, a tabloid that has for years been responsible for spreading racism in Finland,  writes on the front page that Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen has fled the country in the face of the hostile comments he made against cultural diversity. 

Running away and hiding because of what he wrote shows once again that anti-immigration parties like the PS are inflicted with bravado and cowardice. They cannot be taken seriously.

Tuesday’s mass demonstration in Helsinki for an open and multicutlrual Finland was a clear rejection against Immonen’s declaration of war against what he called the “nightmare of multiculturalism,”

Immonen

 

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Migrant Tales (June 23, 2012): What is the fine line that separates Anders Breivik and PS MP Olli Immonen?

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This week we heard Anders Breivik’s closing statements in his defense for killing 77 innocent victims. In his final tirade of how multiculturalism is responsible for fuelling the Islamization of Europe, the mass killer showed no remorse.

“The attacks on July 22 were preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people,” he said. “I therefore demand to be acquitted.”

In a recent column, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party MP Olli Immonen writes at the same time as the Breivik trial is ongoing:  “…it is clear that current developments [concerning Islamization] will lead to a situation where our Western way of life in Finland and elsewhere in Europe will be threatened. The confrontation between Islamic and Western culture is one of the megatrends of this century.”

Shivers went up my spine when I read both quotes. While they convey the same message, there is a  difference: Breivik went on a killing rampage while Immonen didn’t.

The Norwegian mass killer uses Islamization to justify what he did; Immonen uses the same arguments but to attract media attention and, crucial to his political career, future votes. One is being tried in a courtroom for mass murder while the other is in parliament spreading Breivik’s Counter-Jihadist views.

In many respects, the debate revolving around whether Breivik is insane or not when he carried out the killings speaks volumes about how we want to continue seeing ourselves as a people and society irrespective of 22/7.

The question is an exceptionally tough one: Are Breivik’s thoughts “sane” but what he did “insane?” In other words, is it ok to spread hatred, racism and prejudice of other groups as long as you don’t take the law in your hands and start killing people?

If Breivik were Immonen and Immonen, Breivik, the verdict would be clear: Breivik would be “sane” and Immonen “insane.”

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July 28, 2015: Finland’s Rosa Parks moment

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On December 1, 1955 the late Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That historically important incident was for many the spark that ignited the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. 

In Finland something similar had happened today, when around 15,000 people demonstrated against racism and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Olli Immonen’s Facebook post, which encourages Finns to fight against “the nightmare of multiculturalism.”

Well, that battle cry that Immonen made has got him and his party in hot water and didn’t produce the reaction he was hoping for.

Center Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä condemned what Immonen said.

“I want to develop Finland as an open, linguistically and culturally international country,” he tweeted on Sunday afternoon, according to YLE. “I cannot accept Immonen’s remarks.”

National Coalition Party (NCP) MEP Henna Virkkunen Was quoted on YLE as saying that her party together with the Center Party want to be members of a government with a party that is openly racist and fascist.

RosaParks

Today’s anti-racism rally in Helsinki attracted 15,000 people, according to the organizers.

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Olli Immonen and the PS: I dream of a country that is inclusive, not racist and extremist

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I’ve been traveling during the last weekend until Monday in northeast Argentina, where the Finns established a colony in 1906. I had limited access to the Internet but when I read what Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen wrote on Facebook a cocktail of sadness mixed with concern overcame me.

What is surprising about what Immonen wrote is not what he wrote per se, since we all know that he is hostile to migrants and all minorities that live in Finland, but the complacent silence of his party to what he wrote.

That eerie silence is something that we’ve experienced many times before from the PS.

What did Immonen write?

Näyttökuva 2015-8-20 kello 23.55.24

Here is my response:

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UPDATE (July 22): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

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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.

July 22

Miksi mamulla on varaa merkkivaatteisiin? (Suomen Kuvalehti)

What’s wrong with this opinion piece? While the intentions of the journalist, Sami Kuusela, are noble he falls into a trap: he agrees 50/50 with what the racist claims.

We’ve written about Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jari Ronkainen in February, whose only merit to get elected was publishing a racist video about two migrants. In an interview on Lahti-based daily Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, Ronkainen admits that his claim that migrants get more social welfare than “ethnic” Finns is not based on hard fact but what he read on the Internet. National Coalition Party MP Pia Kauma pulled the same stunt last year. Kuusela claims in the opinion piece that one reason why migrants have more money to buy better clothes than so-called ethnic Finns is because many don’t drink. While this may be the case, is there any study that shows that migrants dress better or drink less than Finns? Why does Kuusela believe that migrants dress better than white Finns? Isn’t that reinforcing 50/50 an urban tale that Ronkainen is trying to capitalize on?

Another matter that raises some questions in Kuusela’s opinion piece is using the term mamu when he refers to migrants.

* 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.

Let´s (not) forget 22/7 and Anders Breivik

Posted on by Migrant Tales

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
Martin Luther King Jr.

As we distance ourselves from the horror of July 22, 2011, when a Anders Breivik killed 77 innocent lives, the more our collective memory begins to fail us. Islamophobia, xenophobia and anti-cultural diversity sentiment have strengthened their grip in the Nordic region after 22/7.

The political landscape is a rude reminder that we have started to forget: the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* of Finland are in government for the first time and the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party won the elections in June.

That´s not all. The Progress Party (FrP) of Norway, in which Breivik was a brief member, is today in government for the first time after its founding in 1973.

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

Posted on 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.

July 20

HOK-Elanto bouncer under discrimination investigation (YLE)

What else could have been said? While this story is pretty clear and to the point about a discrimination case of a bouncer who claimed there was a quota of how many non-white customers could enter the restaurant, it’s unfortunate there’s no editorial or opinion-piece condemning what happened never mind giving a solution on how to challenge this type of blatant discrimination. Finnish journalism, like YLE, needs more teeth to question the complacent journalism we too often see in this country especially when it comes to writing about our ever-growing cultural diversity. The latter was reinforced by Michael Haltzel, who wrote the following about Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman and foreign minister, Timo Soini, whenever members of his party make racist and outrageous statements. Haltzel wrote: “The domestic press corps seems content to question him once, receive an evasive answer, and leave it at that.”

* 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.

Finland’s Finance Minister Alexander Stubb is a huge disappointment

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What has happened to National Coalition Party (NCP) Minister of Finance Alexander Stubb? In March 2011 he took a strong stand against the xenophobia that was and still is gripping  Finland.

He characterized over four years ago, when he was foreign minister, Finland’s ongoing debate on immigration and immigrants as “oppressive,” according to tabloid Iltalehti.

Today, I must admit that Stubb is a huge disappointment. From giving the image of being open-minded to diversity he now seems more like a politician interested in power and personal gain than the interests of everyone living in Finland never mind Europe.

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