Category: Enrique Tessieri

The PS has found its political role model in the Sweden Democrats

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Tom Packalén is an example of how the good election result of the Sweden Democrats has invigorated him and the PS to start scapegoating migrants in Finland. Taking into account the poor result of the PS in the last presidential, municipal and EU elections, it’s clear that some PS MPs will do anything to get attention and hopefully votes.  

Even if the PS claim to not have any official contacts with the Sweden Democrats, they are perfect political soul mates. Both parties loathe migrants, especially those that aren’t white like them.

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Read full blog entry (in Finnish) here.

 

Packalén’s blog entry on Uusi Suomi is quite revealing not for its well-balanced points of view but because it scapegoats, generalizes and victimizes all migrants.

Packalén admits on the blog that his anti-immigration views were the reason why he went into politics.

Here are a few questions Migrant Tales would like to ask the PS MP:

  • You label the members of the youth gang on your blog entry as migrants but how many of these are Finns? Do you even know?
  • Finland has one of the lowest number of migrants in the European Union. From your anti-immigration perspective, doesn’t this mean that immigration policy has been “successful?”
  • You call these so-called migrant youth gangs “racist.” Do you have any what white racism is?
  • Instead of whining about “failed immigration policy,” what solutions do you want to bring to the table? In your blog entry you offer none.

Migrant Tales does not condone any type of violence but we don’t go around – like you – stressing and pinning the blame on all Finns when a crime is committed.

That, MP Packalén, is the difference between your opportunistic and populist claims and what we are saying.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Time warp Fazer of Finland: Stereotyping Mediterranean “gigolos” to sell salt licorice

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I was surprised to see Fazer, a Finnish foodservice company, advertising salt licorice on television with the help of a 1980s stereotype of a Southern European gigolo  who speaks Finnish with a me-Tarzan-you-Jane accent. 

Migrant Tales sent an email to Fazer Monday morning about the ad but never got a reply. I did, however, get in touch with the the Mainonnan eettinen neuvosto, an advertising ethics board, which recommended that we sent a complaint to them, which we will.

It’s clear that one of the biggest challenges that migrants face in Finland is tackling stereotypes about them. The most recent television ad by Fazer reinforces stereotypes about one group of migrants.

Fazer has a questionable record on stereotyping different ethnic groups in its products.

Pressure from the Finnish Consumer Agency, EU and Ombudsman for Minorities forced the company to stop using a Golliwog on its licorice brand in 2007. In 2011 it was forced to change the image  on one of its produces that used a stereotyped image of a Chinese man (see below).

images

Before…
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…after.

 

golliwog

Golliwogs on Finnish licorice brands has been a common site since the 1920s…

IMG_4651

…and another company continues to flirt with them to this date. This licorice was sold at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.

If you feel that this TV commercial by Fazer is offensive, send an email to the company, the Mainonnan eettinen neuvosto or Ombudsman for Minorities.

Another effective way would be to boycott Fazer products.

Sorry folks, but the Garden of Eden never existed in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I was recently interviewed by two students of the Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences (MAMK), who asked me why I’m so passionate about anti-racism. “Finland is a good country to live in with good laws that should protect everyone,” I said. “I don’t want our country to be fed to the dogs by racists, nationalists and populist parties. Our country deserves better.”

Certainly I am not waging such an effort for myself, but for my grandchildren and great grandchildren so that they may live in a society where there is social justice and equality for everyone irrespective of their ethnic and cultural background.

gardenofeden

The biggest shock to ethnic purists  is the discovery that the Garden of Eden never existed in their country. How come Adam & Eve are “white?”

 

It saddens but does not surprise me that we are not heading towards such an ideal society. On the one side, you have Finns who are trying to do everything possible to discredit and undermine your presence in this country or are indifferent, while on the other side there is a courageous group of people who are challenging intolerance.

Gathering from much of the near-unchallenged prejudices and discrimination roaming freely in our society and spread by parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, those very dangers that such parties and anti-immigration politicians warn us of is being inflicted by them. The greatest threat to our peace and social cohesion in this century are these types of parties and politicians, not the migrants and minorities they commonly target.

Some good recent examples of the hate campaign against migrants and refugees are PS MP Maria Louhela, who makes outrageous claims about so-called “humanitarian migration,” a term used by anti-immigration politician to mean asylum seeker who didn’t get asylum but for humanitarian reasons cannot be sent back to his or her war-ravaged country.

The use of a term such as “humanitarian migrants” speaks volumes about Louhela and her red herrings. If refugees are “migrants allowed to stay in the country because of humanitarian reasons,” it suggests that they aren’t real refugees and only seeking to come here to live off our social welfare, a common argument used by anti-immigration groups.

Another PS politician from the city of Salo, Heikki Tamminen, claims that migration is bad because one of the consequences is that people from different ethnicities mix genetically.

What answer would Tamminen give if you asked him if the Garden of Eden was in Finland? Since modern Finns never migrated anywhere, as Tamminen suggests, they must have then magically appeared from nowhere in a Garden of Eden in Finland.

Ludicrous!

Tamminen and other anti-immigration politicians could take a look at what DNA exposed about European hunter-gatherers that lived in this part of Europe around 7,000 years ago, who had blue eyes, black or brown hair and dark skin, according to the Guardian.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

What will the April 2015 elections of Finland reveal about ourselves as a country?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It’s clear that the parliamentary elections of April 2015 in Finland will reveal a lot of matters about this country. In many respects it’s like strip tease joint where women or men, disguised as political parties, take off their clothes. Sexuality isn’t being shown in bare flesh but in political ideologies such as racism, whiteness, anti-cultural diversity, anti-EU and nostalgia of a Finland that only existed in our imagination. 

The anti-immigration, far-right and populist winds blowing over Europe should concern us. But it is a good sign as well that there is a lot of opposition, thanks to social media, against such social ills. Pulling a 1933 political stunt on a country could be more difficult today than over eighty years ago, when Nazi Germany came into being.

As April 19 nears in Finland, it’s clear that anti-immigration voices are getting louder and more hostile. Should it surprise us then that the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* which claims to have sacked all of its racists and fascists, is leading the charge on this front?

Finland’s darkest political period in this century (2011-15) could be seen in the same light as the half-a-century old rants made by USAmerican racists of the South. What these Finnish politicians say today will make their great grandchildren’s faces turn red with shame. Racists always look ugly as time unmasks their lies.

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There’s a very good column on City by Taneli Hämäläinen that summarizes, in my opinion, the way PS politicians switch the argument around. We’ve seen this on Migrant Tales on a number of occasions used by far-right anti-immigration voices. It’s like claiming that the Jews unleashed the Holocaust and the Nazis were their victims.

The issue is not asking how racist a country like Finland is, even though this is an important question, but what is our response as a society to such a social ill.  Is there a response? If so, is it effective? If not, why?

You don’t have to be black or a member of an ethnic minority to understand how insulting and lowly some politicians will act to get votes and feed their narcism in the process.

But let’s go back to the main question of this posting: What will the April 2015 elections of Finland reveal about ourselves as a country?

It will reveal two things: If racism and fascism (1) are are growing or on the defensive.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

(1) Tiina Rosenberg gives a good definition of fascism as a political ideology that want to exclude other groups. The aim of fascism in Nazi Germany was based on an argument that they had to kick out and/or exterminate other minorities like the Jews, Roma and their political enemies in order to become a super race.  Nazi war criminal Alfred Rosenberg, who was sentenced and hanged for war crimes, is a good example of this type of ideology. He writes about it in The myth of the twentieth century.

 

Apparently few migrants and minorities attended the National Sports Forum

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some claim that one of the problems that migrants and minorities face in Finland is that they are underrepresented in different associations.  Last Sunday, the National Sports Forum held a meeting in Helsinki to talk about the future of sports in Finland. Gathering from the picture below, it’s clear that few migrants and minorities were invited to the event. 

This is odd considering that Helsinki is an every-growing culturally and ethnically diverse city. In 2013, around 45% of all the migrants in Finland live in Helsinki (50,661), Espoo (20,612) ad Vantaa (16,024), according to the Population Register Center.

The total amount of migrants that lived in Finland last year was 195,511, or 3.6% of the population.

So what happened?

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The National Sports Forum was held in Helsinki on Sunday. Visit the site here.

As everyone knows, sports plays a key role in promoting adaption and inclusion of people of all ethnicities into Finnish society.

The National Sports Forum should do a much better job next time to invite Others that are not seen in the picture above.

 

Too many Finnish politicians and parties are ignorant of their country’s migrant and refugee history

Posted on by Migrant Tales

-titta, en finne igen i fyllan!
-satans finjävlar!

-look, (a) drunken Finn!
-damn Finnish devils!

The infamous saying, en finne igen, yet another Finn, can be found in Urban Dictionary. The statement was used by Swedes to claim that Finns are “violent, primitive savages” because some have issues with learning Swedish and alcohol. After World War 2, hundreds of thousands of Finns emigrated to Sweden. 

Watching YLE’s Pressiklubi and the debate between rector Tiina Rosenberg of the University of Arts Helsinki and Simon Elo, the head of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* youth league, it’s clear that the PS is one party that is very selective about how it treats Finnish history and racism.

One of the ways of tackling the prejudices that the Swedish media spread and reinforced about Finns in the 1970s was an active campaign by the Finnish embassy in Stockholm to meet the editors of different media. One of the outcomes of such lobbying was not labeling crime suspects to national origin.

Elo states on the interview that the PS has renounced racism but the party continues to act in the same way as the Swedish media did over 40 years ago when labeling Finns.

A good example is the latest edition of the party’s newspaper, Perussuomalainen, which claims in the most sensationalist language and images that Jihadists use refugee centers in Finland as holiday resorts. The pictures and the message of the story labels Muslims and migrants in Finland in the same way as the Finns were labelled once by the Swedish media.

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Watch program here.

 

Moreover, when Rosenberg mentioned that many Finns emigrated to Sweden, Elo snapped back and stated that it was “an insult” to compare Finnish migrants to refugees that come to this country.

Elo, with his knee-jerk statement,  exposes in one sentence the prejudices that this country has for refugees.

This shouldn’t surprise us since the term is loathed in the Finnish language so much that the 420,000 Karelians that were forced to flee their homes after the Continuation War (1941-44) are called evacuees, or evakkot, not refugees.

For some strange reason as well, Soviet citizens that defected to Finland during the cold war were never seen as refugees, which they were.

Elo’s statement, that one cannot compare asylum-seekers that come to Finland to Finnish emigrants that moved to Sweden because they “were hardworking,” exposes not only the PS politician’s ignorance of this country’s history but the myths that his party is reinforcing and spreading.

What does it say about Finland as well, a country that has seen over 1.2 million emigrants between 1860 and 1999 and resettled 420,000 refugees, doesn’t have a clear idea and understanding about its own immigrant and refugee history and on top of this has a party (PS) that is openly hostile to them?

The answer to that question lies in our own collective deconstructed memory and our low national self-esteem.

Haven’t studies showed that people with low self-esteem are more prone to prejudice?

Elo also claimed on the program that the PS is a party that supports “healthy” nationalism.

Is there such a thing in a party like the PS that flirts with far-right ideology and nativist nationalism?  Certainly Elo is white so he can claim anything he wants to but I suspect that many migrants and minorities will disagree with his statement.

Rosenberg said that the seeds of fascism are planted in a party like the PS, which singles out others from being treated equally and with dignity in this country.

Migrant Tales has said it many times: Parties like the PS are not only a menace to this country but especially to migrants an minorities.

Alberto Coronel sums up well what is happening to us in Finland today with parties like the PS with the quote below. In this same questionable group we can place the National Coalition Party, Christian Democrats, Center Party and Social Democrats.

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In plain English the quote by Chris Rock means in our context that if the PS could, they would disenfranchise as much as possible migrants, minorities and Finns who don’t see the world in the same way as them.

Why?

Because that’s their political agenda.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Defining white Finnish privilege #11: Case Teuvo Hakkarainen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Teuvo Hakkarainen is a good example of white Finnish privilege. Here’s an MP that has issues with alcohol, racism and now dates teenagers as well as allegedly takes minors to bars. He has sent on his work phone pictures of his phallus and Image magazine claims in its latest issue that the PS MP drove 306 km/hour with his motorcycle. Hakkarainen denies this. 

Let’s not forget as well that the PS MP was sentenced to prison for robbery.

After all these questionable “merits,” PS chairman Timo Soini said recently that he’s happy that Hakkarainen will be running for a second term in office.

Definition #11

Imagine for a second if a visible minority, migrant or, god forbid a Muslim would do only half of the things that Hakkarainen did. Even if that person would do only a quarter of the things that the PS MP has done and is doing, that person would be lynched alive on social media forums and by the print media.

The reason why Hakkarainen can get off the hook for all the things he’s done is because he’s white and a PS MP.

Instead of seeing him as a person squandering tax payers money, some see him as a hero.

Moreover, the PS sees Hakkarinen as an “authority” on migration. An authority? With that type of poor judgement, and not suggesting that the two are alike, we could argue that Heinrich Himmler was an “authority” on Jews, the Roma and all the enemies of the Nazi regime.

If you are white and have issues, join the PS. It’s a good party to hide your problems.

See also:

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

Dr Gareth Rice leaves Finland today

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Dr Gareth Rice, a brave man who highlighted unfair hiring practices in academia, left Finland Saturday and moved to Glasgow. He will be missed by many.

While the path that Dr Rice took is known to many non-Finnish academics, he did something more: Put himself on the line by exposing what he saw as unfair hiring practices by the university.

During July, his stories highlighting what happened appearing in a number of publications like YLE in English and Helsingin Sanomat, the country’s biggest daily.

 

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Dr Gareth Rice. Picture by Christian Thibault.

Dr Rice writes:

I have lost count of the number of brilliant foreign academics who have upped and left this supposedly fair and open Nordic country because they are made to feel belittled and marginalised by a higher education system apparently designed to guarantee that Finns progress the fastest.

Finnish colleagues have given me four different explanations for this. One is foreigners’ difficulties with learning Finnish – from which I am certainly not immune. Another is that Finns trust other Finns and thus prefer to employ them. A third is that some Finns believe that they are more entitled to permanent academic contracts because it is “their” country. But the most surprising reason is that Finnish academics feel insecure and don’t wish to be challenged and undermined by foreign scholars.

Even if one door was closed in this country another opened in Glasgow.

“We will miss him here in Finland,” said Christian Thibault, chairman of Rasmus, an anti-racism NGO, “but with the obligation to continue the good and important work which Gareth has contributed so much.”

We wish him the best of luck and hope that he’ll visit us soon.

Perussuomalaiset hate campaign against foreigners is in full swing

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I was asked this week what I think is one of the best ways to tackle racism in Finland. One of the best ways,  I responded, is challenging urban tales spread by politicians, the media and public.  

It’s clear that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party’s hostility against foreigners with the help of urban tales is moving full steam ahead. In the latest issue of the party’s newspaper, Perussuomalainen, there is a sensationalist story suggesting that refugee centers are holiday resorts for terrorists. 

The story appears only on Perussuomalainen because no reputable publication in Finland would publish it.

Why wouldn’t it be published in other publications?

Because of what it represents and promotes: hatred and suspicion of  foreigners as well as a cheap trick to lure susceptible voters to the PS.

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Migrant Tales has only copied and pasted part of the Perussuomalainen article because of its provocative racist message.

Finland is going to have to get a grip on itself and ask some hard questions: Do we want to believe these types of racist sensationalist stories and impoverish ourselves as a country, or tell those that spread such malarky that we’ve had enough?

Why is xenophobia hazardous to Finland? Because it will scare away skilled migrants, entrepreneurs and foreign investment. Who wants to live and bring up a family in a country that accepts and supports intolerance?

In many respects, and in our own context, the influence of the PS on anti-immigration and nativist nationalist sentiment is similar to far-right Jobbik in Hungary. Has Hungary become more tolerant to Jews and Roma after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán started to play political ball with Jobbik?

It’s clear that the more recognition you give to parties that have far-right ideology and racism as there main agenda, the more they’ll grow.

Those spreading this type of fear-mongering on the Perussuomalainen article are none other than PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation, and PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who was sentenced to prison for robbery and become a household name due to his issues with racism, alcohol, and now teenage girls.

I will not spend any energy on translating the ludicrous claims by the PS because the headline speaks for itself.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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.

City of Ylivieska in Finland awards anti-Semite with distinction

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Juha Kärkkäinen, who was fined by a Finnish court in the fall of 2013 45,000 euros for publishing anti-Semitic writings of the likes of David Duke and others, was awarded a distinction from the city of Ylivieska, according to Oulu-based Kaleva. Dan Kantor, executive director of the Jewish Community of Helsinki, told Migrant Tales that he was “surprised that in this century” such things happen in Finland today.

Kärkkäinen is owner of  a company  based in Ylivieska that owns shopping centers in the cities of Lahti and Oulu.

The Pro Ylivieska distinction is awarded to a person or association who has distinguished himself or herself in the community and nationally.

A Ylivieska city official whom Migrant Tales spoke to said that the award was given only for Kärkkäinen’s accomplishments as a businessman. “What he thinks (about Jews) is his personal opinion and we have nothing to do with that,” the official said.

Even if Kärkkäinen isn’t editor of Magneettimedia, the publication is still owned by J. Kärkkänen Oy.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Kärkkäinen appealed the sentence and 45,000 fine he got in the fall to a the court of appeal, which is expected to give legal validity to the lower-court ruling in the next two months.

“In the meantime Kärkkäinen has been able to publish his anti-Semitism on Magneettimedia (which is today an online publication),” said Kantor.

The decision to give Kärkkäinen a distinction by the city of Ylivieksa reveals a lot of matters, according to the executive director of the Jewish Community of Helsinki .

“First: That Finland’s laws are helpless and that such a thing (publish anti-Semitic stories on Magneettimedia) can continue to happen for such a long time (even if Kärkkäinen got sentenced by a lower court for ethnic agitation),” he said. “Second: Even if we’re waiting for the court of appeals ruling, anyone with a little common sense could tell that what was (and continues to be) published is wrong.”

See also: