European Commission to take Finland to the EU Court of Justice for not having racial equality body

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Migrant Tales

The European Commission (EC) will take Finland to the EU Court of Justice for not having a racial equality body for employment matters, according to an EC statement. Article 13 of the Racial Equality Directive requires member states to set up a national equality body whose tasks, among other aims, include providing assistance to victims, conducting and publishing independent surveys and reports.

Writes Yle in English: “The release also specified that the Commission’s action against Finland is due to the Ombudsman for Equality not receiving any special tasks concerning racial discrimination in working life.”

Even if the government wants to draft a new non-discrimination act as it proposed to parliament in April, the EC said that it did not comply with EU directives, reports YLE in English.

The first question that comes to mind is why doesn’t Finland have a racial equality body?

Read full European Agency for Fundamental Rights 2010 report here.

In a nutshell, the Racial Equality Directive sets a number of minimum standards like the creation of equity bodies. There is as well a burden of proof clause that requires the complainant to show ”from which it may be presumed that discrimination occurred.” Thus it is the defendant that has to prove that the principal of equal treatment has not ben breached at the workplace.

There are many things that worry me when I read statements like these. Do they show that Finland is still decades behind other European countries on how to challenge discrimination and promote cultural diversity?

Finland’s past record on cultural diversity is questionable. Thanks to the Restricting Act of 1939 (law 219/1939),Finland did everything possible to keep foreign investment out of the country until 1992, when it became redundant. It was only in 1983, 65 years after it gained independence, that it had in force its first aliens act. Finland was together with Romania the last European country to grant citizenship rights to Jews in 1918.

Russofobia is still alive and kicking in this country as well.

Pekka Myrksylä’s blog reveals that the majority of migrants in this country live in poverty. If what Myrskylä claims is true, it sheds a disturbing light on the power and domination relationships between migrants, minorities and white Finnish-speaking Finns and their institutions.

While it’s important to point out that there is good will in this country to promote respect for cultural diversity and social equality, is enough being done? Is it perfectly clear to public servants such as the police, teachers, media, politicians, employers and others that cultural diversity is a two-way process and not integration by perkele.

How is two-way integration promoted in Finland? If migrant unemployment is on average about two to three times higher than the national average, what does this disturbing fact reveal? Does it reveal that we aren’t doing enough on the discrimination front?

Finland’s interior minister wants more quota refugees in 2015

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen of Finland, who considers homosexuality to be a sin and wants to tighten immigration laws, said on YLE that she would like to raise the number of quota refugees next year by 300 to 1,050 from 750.

While this is welcome news, especially for the few hundred refugees that will get a new life in our country, one wonders why Räsänen is making such a statement in July, when most Finns are on vacation.

Räsänen has been no friend of migrants never mind refugees. This is the same politician that denies ethnic profiling by the police, has done nothing to loosen costly family reunification requirements, and oversees a ministry that detains asylum seekers who are minors.

Does the announcement by her have to do with the fact that Finland takes in so few refugees to begin with?

While even giving one person asylum is important, the 300 extra quota refugees that Räsänen speaks of is a drop in the bucket, even shameful, considering our country can do much more to help families who are victims of war and persecution.

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Räsänen states that the rise to 300 more quota refugees has to do with the good reception that municipalities have given to refugees.

Räsänen said she’d prefer quota refugees from Syria.

According to Eurostat, Finland gave asylum to 1,795 people and in fourteenth place when compared with other EU countries. Excluding Iceland, which gave asylum to 15 people, Finland took the least amount of refugees in the Nordic region after Sweden (26,395), Norway (6,770) and Denmark (3,360).

Read full Eurostat statement here.

Between 2003 and 2013, Finland has missed its 750-quota refugee target: 746 in 2013, 734 in 2012; 626 in 2011; 634 in 2010; 727 in 2009; 737 in 2008; 727 in 2007; 676 in 2006; 690 in 2005; and 679 in 2004, according to Finnish Immigration Service (FIS).

YLE:n vastauksen Pekka ja Pätkän neekereinä elokuvista

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Sain seuraavan vastauksen YLE:ltä elokuvista Pekka ja Pätkän neekereinä. Toivottavasti kirjoititte aktiivisesti YLE:lle tästä elokuvasta.

Miten se on mahdollista, että verorahoilla ruokimme ennakkoluuloja ja vahvistamme rasismia maassamme?!

Susannah sanoo: “Oliko pakko esittää tämä elokuva sellaisen katselun aikaan, että moni lapsikin näki sen. Eikö muka Suomi Filmien kirjoissa olisi ollut monta muuta vaihtoehtoja?”

Pekka ja Pätkä neekerinä näytettiin TV1 30.6.2014 klo 13.25. Facebook kommenteista voi päätellä, että jotkut valkoiset suomalaiset eivät näe rasismia elokuvissa.

Tässä sähköposti:

Kiitos yhteydenotosta ja palautteesta.

Viestinne on kirjattu palauteraporttiimme, josta se on Ylen ohjelmista vastaavien luettavissa.

Ystävällisin terveisin
Yle Ohjelmapalaute Tiina

**********************************************
Tiesitkö tämän Ylestä?

From: “Enrique Tessieri” <[email protected]>
To: [email protected],
Date: 01.07.2014 14:58
Subject: Palautetta Ylen nettisivuilta
Sent by: [email protected]

Submitted on Ti, 01.07.2014, klo 14:58
Submitted by user:
Submitted values are:

Vastaanottaja: Radio- ja tv-ohjelmat

Viesti:

Miten on mahdollista, että voitte näyttää televisiossa rasistisen elokuvan kuten “Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä?” Uskon, että suuri osaa suomalaisista tietävät, että sanaa neekeri on loukkaava. Eikö tämmöiset loukkaavat vahvistavat ennakkoluuloja ja suvaitsemattomuutta? Mitä se vahvista lapsissa, jotka saattoivat katsoa kyseinen elokuvan maanantina.

Terveisin,

Enrique Tessieri

Tässä vähän aiheesta: http://wp.me/p2rIYQ-7b5
Nimi: Enrique Tessieri
Sähköpostiosoite: [email protected]

Defining white Finnish privilege #6: Not having a voice and the media

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Migrant Tales

In many respects white privilege, or specifically white Finnish privilege, is a good way to understand some of the challenges that migrants and especially non-white Finns face in this country. Migrant Tales invites readers to share their thoughts on the social ill.

Please send your comments on the topic to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

The blog entry by Pekka Myrskylä below refutes one of the biggest claims used by anti-immigration politicians that migrants get more social welfare than Finns. While Myrskylä, a development manager at Statistics Finland, states that the majority of migrants in Finland live in poverty, this news didn’t get much attention in the national media.

He writes:

Generous social welfare benefits to migrants appear to be an urban legend. Since migrants make a quarter less than natives, welfare benefits are smaller since they hinge on earnings-related subsidies.

For a sociologist, or particularly a critical discourse analysts, who study the use of written and spoken texts to uncover the relationship of power, abuse and control in society, it’s clear why there was so little attention given to what Myrskylä wrote.

Read full blog entry (in Finnish) here.

____________

Definition #6

Since the media is – like most politicians – the humble servant of white Finnish privilege, migrants and visible minorities don’t count in the media.

The tiny impact that Myrskylä’s blog entry reinforces the latter affirmation. States critical discourse analyst Teun Van Dijk about why migrants and minorities don’t have a voice in the media:* “It obviously has to do with power and control. When you have power you control what they [migrants and minorities] can do and what they can’t do. You limit their freedom…”

White Finnish privilege, or specifically privilege controlled by white male ethnic Finnish-speaking Finns, will not be relinquished to minorities and women. Why? Because they don’t want to or have to.

One institution that understands this loud and clear is the Finnish media.

*There are some migrants who are in the media like Abdirahim Husu Hussein, Ali Jahangiri, Wali Hashi and others have radio shows and are employed by YLE. This is a good sign and good news but we still have a long way to go for migrants and their children to have a bigger voice in the media. One of the interesting questions to ask is under whose terms they report the news. Is it on theirs or their employers? Can they challenge white Finnish privilege on their shows and articles?

I doubt it.

See also:

Is Heikki the drunk Finnish or Swedish?

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Some Swedish Finns are up in arms about a children’s book published in Sweden that pictures a wino called Heikki, according to YLE in English. The character in the book, who is lying in a bush next to a plastic bag full of beer, was too much for Swedish Finn Sirpa Lamminpää, who filed a complaint to the Discrimination Ombudsman.

YLE in English reports that the Discrimination Ombudsman will not take the case since “perceived prejudice” in printed books is falls under the jurisdiction of Swedish Chancellor of Justice.

Illustrator Gunna Grähs defends the character by stating that Heikki is a Swede.

“Perhaps she [Lamminpää] is simply upset about the character being an alcoholic,” Grähs was quoted as saying. “Only one thing links him to Finland, and that is his name. In my opinion Heikki’s is a case of social class, not nationality.”

Grähs has a good point. Sweden is culturally diverse and a person with a name like Heikki can be a Swede.

Even so, the commotion about Heikki shows that Sweden is still a far ways off from being a post-racial society.

Risto Laakkonen, who is outspoken on migrant rights in Finland, said that any type of stereotyping is wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated.

Read full story here.

Laakkonen was active in a campaign in the 1970s to change the way that the Swedish media pictured Finns. Whenever a crime was reported by the media the first national group that came to mind as the culprits were Finns.

“With [then] Ambassador Max Jakobson we got in touch with all the editor-in-chiefs and managing editors of all the newspapers and television channels and told them that this type of stereotyping isn’t good since you’re labeling people who are working in this country,” he said. “The portrayal of Finns as the culprits ended pretty rapidly.”

Laakkonen said that in Finland it was impossible for the media to be racist towards migrants since there were so few back in the 1970s. He said that Finland’s media caught up to the Swedes in the 1990s.

“Things were actually much worse than today before when you had openly [fascist] groups [like the IKL 1932-44] that talked about Finns as a tribe and influenced this type of thinking to be taught at schools,” he said. “The Perussuomalaiset* are small fry when compared to the past.”

Laakkonen said that human rights and tolerance are like a tree that must be watered.

“The tree will die if you don’t water it,” he said. “All you need is 10% of the population to be awake and active [for human rights] for things to change.”

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The 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.

Why does YLE air a racist movie like Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Migrant Tales

A tweet by @Mastersson alerted me Tuesday about a comedy called Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä (Pekka and Pätkä as n-words), were the duo blackface themselves. While this may have been “normal” in 1960 when the film was made, one wonders why the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) aired this movie Monday afternoon?

Pekka and Pätkä as blackface performers Neekereinä. WARNING: The link to the video contains racist language that some may find offensive.

Moreover, there is a consensus in Finland these days that the term neekeri is considered racist and insulting to blacks.

The only ones using the term neekeri today in Finland are normally hard-core racists.

At Finnish elementary schools not too long ago children were taught that the letter n stands for the n-word.

Since we know that children like to watch television during their summer holiday, how many watched Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä Monday afternoon? Since we know that racism is learned at home and at school, did the movie dispel or strengthen their views of blacks?

I would stick my neck out and claim that every movie depicting blacks and other minorities like Amerindians back in Pekka’s and Pätkä’s days were racist. Another movie that the comedians starred in 1957, Ketjukolari (Pileup), is so racist that I wouldn’t publish it on this blog.

What does it show? Cannibal blackfaces that show disrespect to Africans by portraying them as buffoons. In the same movie, there are Amerindians portrayed as “primitives” in the most stereotypical manner. There’s a lot of sexism in the film as well.

I’m going to write an email to YLE and express my outrage that this movie was aired on public Finnish television. I invite you to do the same.

Defining white Finnish privilege #5: It’s ok to be a racist

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Migrant Tales

In many respects white privilege, or specifically white Finnish privilege, is a good way to understand some of the challenges that migrants and especially non-white Finns face in this country. Migrant Tales invites readers to share their thoughts on the social ill.

Please send your comments on the topic to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Perussuomalaiset* Espoo city councilman Teemu Lahtinen “likes” neo-Nazi Kansallinen Vastarinta, according to Paljastettu 3. This isn’t the first time PS party members have been found with their hand in the Nazi cookie jar like Ulla Pyysalo and Tuomas Okkonen. White Finnish privilege permits you to apply to or “like” neo-Nazi groups on Facebook and get away with it.

_________________

Definition #5

White Finnish privilege allows you to make racist statements and attack minorities with near-impunity. True, you might get slapped on the hand for making such racist comments, but the rewards in many cases outweigh the scorn. Since you are a white Finn, your hate speech, which you claim is being censored (if it’s “censored” how come we can read it in the national media?), can land you a profitable political career as an MP, MEP or councilman or councilwoman.

If migrants and visible minorities said the same racist things that politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen, Teuvo Hakkarainen, Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen of the Christian Democrats, Youth League of the National Coalition Party Chairwoman Susana Koski, Social Democratic MP Kari Rajamäki and many others did, they’d be lynched on social media and ostracized by the white Finnish media.

White Finnish privilege means that your role as a migrant and minority, which you are near-constantly reminded of, is usually that of the victim of racist insults and prejudice. White privilege encourages you to “try harder” and “learn more Finnish” as your situation becomes ever-compromised.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The 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.

See also:

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The 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.

Close your eyes and repeat: The PS of Finland isn’t a racist and fascist party…

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Harri Tauriainen, a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilman of the northern city of Kemi, is a good example of how racism and fascism have found fertile ground in the PS. Taurianen was elected by the region of Lappi as a PS candidate for the April 2015 parliamentary elections, according to Rovaniemi-based daily Lapin Kansa.

Tauriainen, a councilman of Kemi, got more votes than any other candidate in his city in the October 2012 municipal elections.

An interesting pattern emerges after having followed for some time the political antics of an anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party like the PS: Say outrageously racist things, fear-monger with gusto, get elected, and then start to appear mainstream but don’t forget to speak in code to your followers.

The PS has done a half-ass job with Tauriainen’s political facelift. He took some white power and “save our race” pictures down from his Facebook page below after the municipal elections. True, we haven’t heard him lash out at migrants like before. We haven’t heard him state:

“…it’s odd that we can’t put in line in Finland this colored human trash. Just put a stamp on their ass and deport them for good from Finland.”

In one picture greeting PS MPs this year in Kemi, Tauriainen has a White Guard emblem on the left of his coat.

While one of the aims of the White Guards was to contain the spread of communism and socialism in Finland, it was disbanded after Finland signed an armistice ending hostilities with the former Soviet Union in September 1944.

Those who wear White Guard emblems these days are considered far-right activists that long for the days of fascism of the 1930s.

Tauriainen”likes” the far-right Suomalaisuuden liitto association.

He denies that he’s a fascist but calls himself instead a nationalist.

Tauriainen’s Facebook page in October 2012.

Taurianen’s Facebook picture album today.

The PS facelift to make the councilman more mainstream only required taking down two pictures and some racist posts. There is, however, a second drawing in the first row that isn’t apparently considered racist by the PS. That picture states that Finland should guard its borders from foreign ogres like the one pictured in the drawing.

Despite the facelifts to become more mainstream, the PS has lagged behind its historic parliamentary election victory of 2011 in the presidential, municipal and euro elections.

If the PS attract around 12% of the vote in next year’s parliamentary elections, it means that about half of its 38 MPs won’t get elected.

This is good news for Finland but bad news for an anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party like the PS.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The 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.

Finnish gay rights hall of fame, shame and extra shame

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Migrant Tales

As the winding history of Finland’s first same-sex marriage law is being written, there’s already a hall of fame and shame from February 2013. As everyone knows, the citizens’ initiative for same-sex marriage was defeated Tuesday in the legal affairs committee of parliament by a vote of 10-6.

Even if those 10 who voted against the citizens’ initiative still believe that the world stands still and moves to the beat of their morality, there are two others that have the dubious honor of being in the hall of extra shame: Social Democrat MPs Mikael Jungner and Arja Juvonen of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.

MP Suna Kymäläinen, a Social Democrat, wasn’t present at the voting because she came down with the flu on Tuesday morning and there’s wan’t time to get a substitute for her.

Green Party MP Oras Tynkkynen, who is a member of the legal affairs committee, wrote on a blog that the voting would have been much closer if the two Social Democrats would have been present.

PS MP Juvonen has gone on the record favoring same-sex marriage but wasn’t present to vote at the legal affairs committee.

Juvonen wrote on a blog that she intentionally chose not to attend the meeting because the PS’ and her stand over same-sex marriage are different.

“That’s why there was a substitute [at the meeting] that voted and took to the committee the party’s [official negative] stand [on same-sex marriage] because I couldn’t have done it.”

Wow, so here’s an PS MP who told voters before she was elected that she supports same-sex marriage but couldn’t vote on such an intiative because the party’s chairman, Timo Soini, keeps his MPs on a short leash.

From left to right: MPs who voted for the same-sex initiative, those who voted against, and those who were absent.

Jungner denies that he was at a bar when the voting took place.

The same-sex citizens’ initiative will be voted in the fall by parliament.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The 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.

Four in five Swedes express concern over xenophobia

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Migrant Tales

Swedes are more worried about the rise of xenophobia in their country than the ever-growing number of immigrants, according to The Local, citing a study by the SOM Institute of Gothenburg University. The survey revealed that while 49% expressed concern over immigration levels, 78% were worried about the rise of xenophobia.

Read full story here.

Writes The Local: The negative attitude towards xenophobia is likely due to the fact that the topic has been a hot one for the past two or three years, said Marie Demker, a political scientist, was quoted as saying.

“I noticed that people fell that xenophobia threatens society,” she said. “We talk an awful lot about xenophobia and there is also a strongly negative attitude to all forms of racism and xenophobia.”

Demker said that it was “quite clear” that her countrymen and countrywomen were more worried about attitudes towards immigrants and refugees than they were about foreigners themselves.

Compared with the “what do you think about immigrants” surveys carried out in Finland, we can learn a lot from Sweden. Instead of asking if Finland should increase the number of immigrants, why don’t we ask them their opinions about xenophobia? Irrespective if a country has few or many immigrants, few will say that there are too few immigrants, which reveals that these types of surveys have loaded questions.

Meanwhile, Eurostat announced last week that Sweden took in 20% (26,395) of all asylum seekers in the EU in 2013. That was followed by Germany (26,080), France (16,155), Italy (14,495) and the United Kingdom (13,400).

Finland ranked 14^th with 1,795.

Category: Enrique Tessieri

European Commission to take Finland to the EU Court of Justice for not having racial equality body

Read full European Agency for Fundamental Rights 2010 report here.

There are many things that worry me when I read statements like these. Do they show that Finland is still decades behind other European countries on how to challenge discrimination and promote cultural diversity?

Finland’s interior minister wants more quota refugees in 2015

While even giving one person asylum is important, the 300 extra quota refugees that Räsänen speaks of is a drop in the bucket, even shameful, considering our country can do much more to help families who are victims of war and persecution.

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Read full Eurostat statement here.

YLE:n vastauksen Pekka ja Pätkän neekereinä elokuvista

Susannah sanoo: “Oliko pakko esittää tämä elokuva sellaisen katselun aikaan, että moni lapsikin näki sen. Eikö muka Suomi Filmien kirjoissa olisi ollut monta muuta vaihtoehtoja?”

Pekka ja Pätkä neekerinä näytettiin TV1 30.6.2014 klo 13.25. Facebook kommenteista voi päätellä, että jotkut valkoiset suomalaiset eivät näe rasismia elokuvissa.

Defining white Finnish privilege #6: Not having a voice and the media

Read full blog entry (in Finnish) here.

Definition #6

Is Heikki the drunk Finnish or Swedish?

Read full story here.

Laakkonen said that in Finland it was impossible for the media to be racist towards migrants since there were so few back in the 1970s. He said that Finland’s media caught up to the Swedes in the 1990s.

Why does YLE air a racist movie like Pekka ja Pätkä neekereinä?

Pekka and Pätkä as blackface performers Neekereinä. WARNING: The link to the video contains racist language that some may find offensive.

At Finnish elementary schools not too long ago children were taught that the letter n stands for the n-word.

I would stick my neck out and claim that every movie depicting blacks and other minorities like Amerindians back in Pekka’s and Pätkä’s days were racist. Another movie that the comedians starred in 1957, Ketjukolari (Pileup), is so racist that I wouldn’t publish it on this blog.

Close your eyes and repeat: The PS of Finland isn’t a racist and fascist party…

“…it’s odd that we can’t put in line in Finland this colored human trash. Just put a stamp on their ass and deport them for good from Finland.”

Tauriainen’s Facebook page in October 2012.

Taurianen’s Facebook picture album today.

Finnish gay rights hall of fame, shame and extra shame

Green Party MP Oras Tynkkynen, who is a member of the legal affairs committee, wrote on a blog that the voting would have been much closer if the two Social Democrats would have been present.

From left to right: MPs who voted for the same-sex initiative, those who voted against, and those who were absent.

Four in five Swedes express concern over xenophobia

Read full story here.

“I noticed that people fell that xenophobia threatens society,” she said. “We talk an awful lot about xenophobia and there is also a strongly negative attitude to all forms of racism and xenophobia.”

Read full story here.