Category: Enrique Tessieri

Simon Wiesenthal Center will monitor the PS as one of ten parties for spreading xenophobia and anti-Semitism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After being named one of the nine scariest parties to be elected to the European parliament by Huffington Post, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the  global Jewish human rights organization that challenges anti-Semitism, issued a statement where it names the Perussuomalaiset (PS) as one of ten parties it will monitor closely for  spreading xenophobia, nativist nationalism, anti-immigration rhetoric and anti-Semitism.

Placing the PS in the political company of France’s National Front, the neo-Nazi and far-right NPD of Germany, Greece’s Golden Dawn and Jobbik of Hungary, shouldn’t come to a surprise. What is, however, surprising how uncritically the Finnish media has treated the PS, especially when it comes to its anti-immigration and anti-Islam views.

Concerned by the rise of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe, the Simon Wiesenthal Center called on in early May EU Vice President Catherine Ashton to condemn the entry of “hatemongers into the European Parliament, launch an investigation into their source of funding” and “urge the parliamentary faction blocs to ostracize them.”

Näyttökuva 2014-5-29 kello 9.08.08
Read full statement here.

The interesting question we should be asking is why have publications like the Huffington Post and now the Simon Wiesenthal Center listed the PS? Why has the Finnish media been more “understanding” and commonly let off the anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party easily off the hook for its hostility against migrants and visible minorities?

The answer is pretty clear since the Finnish media is part of the problem. It gives too often racists inflated respectability and importance.

Opposition to the PS and politicians who spread racism and hatred, and who have been sentenced on top of it for ethnic agitation, should never be considered “normal” politicians but outright extremists that are a threat to our way of life.

The PS has members who are Holocaust deniers and who play down the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.

One of these is newly elected PS MEP Halla.aho.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-10-3 kello 0.36.10

 

 

In October, PS MP James Hirvisaari got sacked from the party after he took a picture of a friend making a Nazi salute in parliament.

 

 

 

 

Financial Times: MEP Jussi Halla-aho racist track record leaves PS out in the cold

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Success comes with a high political price especially if you base that success on spreading racism and prejudice. That is exactly the case of the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* who are hoping to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in Brussels but have been rejected by them because they see PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho as too racist, according to the Financial Times.

The Financial Times writes in another story that the freshly elected MEP, who was convicted in 2012 for “stirring ethnic tensions,” said “…something about the prophet Muhammad that we dare not repeat on a family blog. The True Finns [PS] also briefly suspended him from the party after he suggested that Greece’s debt problems could only be solved by a military junta [he retracted the comments].”

What is interesting to note is that the same anti-immigration and anti-Islam message spearheaded by Halla-aho and his cronies that was decisive for the PS’ historic victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections, is turning into its political epitaph to ever becoming a credible and mainstream political party.

The 12.9% showing of the PS on Sunday is still a long way off from the 19.1% it won in 2011. The PS’ showing in the presidential (9.4%) and municipal elections (12.3%) were equally disappointing.

If the same trend continues, it means that the PS will face a big upset in next year’s parliamentary elections.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-28 kello 22.34.38

Read full story here.

Knocking at the ECR’s door is another close ally of the PS, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), which won the euro elections in its country by doubling the number of MEPs to 4 from 2009.

According to the Financial Times, both the PS and DPP both have MEPs that were convicted for ethnic agitation and therefore carry a lot of political baggage.

I find it very difficult to believe that [David] Cameron’s Conservatives, with whom we work closely to promote innovative, open and competitive societies, would team up with the True Finns whose rise is to large extent based on xenophobia and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia, writes the Financial Times, quoting one senior Finnish official.

While it’s clear that the PS is eyeing next year’s parliamentary elections and therefore is keen on joining the ECR group in order to get greater respectability, the big question is where they’ll end up in Brussels.

Moreover, even if the PS wishes to make its anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam stand mainstream, it’s another question if Europe’s mainstream parties will permit them to join their club.

PS leader Timo Soini says that joining Marine Le Pen’s is out of the question even if the National Front leader has courted the PS to join the European Alliance for Freedom, a new hard-right group spearheaded by the French politician.

That leaves the PS with Nigel Farage’s UKIP and the Europe Freedom and Democracy group (EFD), where members like the Lega Nord of Italy, which praised Anders Breivik for murdering 77 innocent victims on 22/7, are defecting.

Will Farage and Le Penn join forces? Will the PS be part of that new political group?

Time will tell.

Even if anti-EU and anti-immigration groups made gains in countries like France and the United Kingdom, 70% of the European parliament’s 751 MEPs belong to pro-EU groups in the center-left and center-right.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS promote nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Disingenuous Finnish PS MEP-elect Jussi Halla-aho fears image would suffer with parties like far-right National Front

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In an interview on YLE, Perussuomalaiset (PS) newly elected MEP Jussi Halla-aho said that it was doubtful that the anti-immigration party would form part of a parliamentary group with far-right parties like the National Front of France “because the party’s image would suffer.”

What a disingenuous statement by a politician who has based his career together with the PS on spreading racism and hatred of Muslims and migrants. Moreover, hasn’t he considered that the only group where the PS will be accepted is the present one, or the Europe for Freedom and Democracy?

If put in the right context, Halla-aho is saying that the PS’ image would suffer ever-greater damage if it grouped with parties like the National Front.

The French xenophobic party’s leader, Marine Le Pen, has said that she would like the PS to form part of her new group in the European parliament.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-27 kello 7.07.39

Read full story here.

 

Without naming the National Front or Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom, Halla-aho said that far-right anti-immigration parties in Europe were in the same ideological ballpark as the PS.

In the face of Halla-aho’s comments, what then is the difference between the Lega Nord of Italy, which praised Anders Breivik after he murdered 77 victims on 22/7, and parties like the National Front?

The PS can blame itself and its actions for its right-wing populist, far-right and nationalistic anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam image.

The PS forms part to the same European parliament group as the Lega Nord, Danish People’s Party, UKIP and others in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

 

Huffington Post: The PS of Finland is one of the nine scariest parties elected to the European parliament

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Is it surprising that The Huffington Post named the “True Finns,” or Perussuomalaiset (PS), in the same far-right league as the National Front of France, Danish People’s Party, Lega Nord, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn? Nigel Farage’s UKIP is not on the dubious list.   

Unfair? Not really if we look at PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s track record and his racist rambles about Muslims and migrants.

Finland’s other elected PS MEP, Sampo Terho, considers himself as a politician who is “critical of immigration.”

If you add both MEPs together, their message and rhetoric equal the following: We loathe cultural diversity and we are for social inequality.

Terho is chairman of the Suomalaisuuden Liito, a narrow-minded hate-mongering association that spreads hatred of cultural diversity because it believes the only “right” Finn is a white Finn.

Have any newspapers or journalists in Finland ever seriously questioned the PS’ strange bedfellows, starting from the anti-EU and anti-immigration Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European parliament? Why don’t they ask them how they can be part of the same parliamentary group as the Danish People’s Party and Lega Nord, of which one of its members stated that Anders Breivik’s ideas were “in defense of western civilization?”

Why would Europe, never mind Finland, vote for candidates who invest in spreading hatred and reinforcing racism against migrants and minorities? The answer to that question is pretty clear: Europe hasn’t done enough to challenge intolerance and its European “white” ethnic privilege issues.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-26 kello 18.45.58

Read full story here.

 

If we look at the Huffington Post list of Europe’s nine scariest parties that were elected to the European Parliament, then we can see that all of them have major racism issues dating back throughout their history to the present.

About half of the countries on the list had colonies in Africa and elsewhere and were directly responsible for the slave trade and pillaging their former colonies of their wealth and committing systematic genocide with the help of eugenics. None of them have ever apologized for the atrocities they committed as former colonial powers.

Should we be surprised, then, that a country like France, the United Kingdom, Italy or Germany has a party that openly hates migrants?

One important question that none of these parties will ever answer clearly is how they plan to roll back the hands of time and restore their countries to their imagined ethnic “purity” of fifty years ago.

Geert Wilders tried that in March and unleashed a political scandal when he said he would make sure that there would be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, according to The Guardian.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-19 kello 11.07.36

Are the PS a racist party? This cartoon was published by the PS and attempts to show that climate change is something that African medicine men predict.

 

For migrants and minorities, the EU elections on Sunday were a clear indication that matters will get much worse in Europe before they improve. Opportunistic politicians will target migrants and minorities to get elected and seek power.

They will speak and act like former colonial masters but in a twenty-first century context.

 

 

The EU elections are a call for migrants and minorities to raise their voices and take charge of their future in an ever-hostile Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What does the election victory of anti-EU and anti-immigration parties reveal for the future of the EU, immigrants and minorities in Europe? The bad news is that matters will get worse before they improve, even if these parties didn’t get a clear mandate in the EU elections.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-25 kello 7.32.29

Writes the Guardian:”But not by as much as they did in the past. This was in no meaningful or moral sense a victory for the pro-European parties or for the European project that they cherish and drive. These parties have no sure mandate now…That’s not to say that the popular uprising at the ballot box swept the board. It didn’t, and it is extremely important not to exaggerate it.”

One of the scariest matters concerning Sunday’s result is how anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam parties want to reform Europe. What credible answers if any do they have concerning our ever-growing cultural diversity?

For minorities and migrants in countries like France and the United Kingdom, the election is a clear wake up cal. Placing one’s hope that parties like the National Front and UKIP have credible solutions for our cultural diversity is foolish thinking.

The only ones who will improve the lot of migrants and minorities in Europe are migrants and minorities with sensible Europeans. For that Europe needs a civil rights movement like what happened in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

Thus not only was the EU political map redrawn, but a new clarion call could be faintly heard: participate and be active or suffer the consequences.

The euro elections have shown parties like the PS to be hostile to development aid, immigrants, minorities and gays

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It’s clear that if we allowed ourselves to be spoon-fed by the populism and anti-EU, homophobic and anti-immigration rhetoric of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, minorities would always be threatened with social exclusion. PS MP Maria Lohela, who is said to turn into a Ms Hyde if you mention the word “Islam” to her, offered in parliament another one of her party’s “great” ideas on how to scrap development aid.

Lohela suggested a new development aide model for Finland that would be financed by taxpayers and that the role of the state would be to offer tax incentives so that people could give money to development aid out of their own pockets, according to Finland’s largest daily,  Helsingin Sanomat.

 

Näyttökuva 2014-5-22 kello 7.50.18

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

While it’s clear that Lohela and the PS loathe helping less-fortunate people living in development countries, the most recent proposal is just as absurd as the one the MP made earlier this year concerning gay marriage. Lohela said that Finland didn’t have to pass same-sex marriage legislation since homosexuals could marry the opposite sex.

With euro elections ending on May 25, the party has made very public its anti-immigration and racist views, like with the publishing of a racist cartoon below denouncing climate change as a hoax predicted by African “medicine men.”

Näyttökuva 2014-5-19 kello 11.07.36

 

Read full story on Migrant Tales here.

 

A poll by Helsingin Sanomat of Finnish MEP’s showed that the PS to be the most eager in wanting to restrict the free movement of people within the EU.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-22 kello 8.18.45

 

PS MEP candidates were the most for limiting free movement of people in the EU. Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

Taking into account the type of Europe the PS wants to forge, which is very similar to far-right Danish People’s Party and UKIP, people should get out and vote against these these types of anti-EU, homophobic, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam parties.

Why? Because we are against the model they’re trying to create for Europe since it would polarize our society and bolster intolerance and hatred of migrants and other minorities.

Why do countries that have built  a model social welfare state in the Nordic region want to support parties like the PS? Shouldn’t they instead challenge the root of the problem, which is poverty, inequality, racism and intolerance.

 

Integration by perkele

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some have heard of the expression of management by perkele, which means swift decision-making by management and where your opinion as an employee counts little. In Finland the goal is integration, or two-way adaption, but what happens on too many occasions is integration by perkele. 

Integration by perkele has a clear message: This is our country, perkele, and don’t forget it! Since this is my country, you are going to adapt to me. In plain English integration by perkele means assimilation.

The cartoon below offers a good example of integration by perkele.

220px-svvalues_narrowweb_300x3080

How do you recognize integration by perkele? Here are some good examples:

Is integration by perkele an effective way to adapt migrants and minorities? If you want an answer to the that question, why not ask Amerindians, who were victims of systematic genocide, the Roma, Muslims and gays in Russia, Poles in the UK, Turks in Germany, Moroccans and Latin Americans in Spain, Africans in France, asylum-seekers in Greece as well as other migrants and minorities?

Certainly they’ll tell you about the hostility they face daily thanks to integration by perkele.

* 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. 

 

Anti-immigration Europe: The fruits you harvest depend on the seed you plant

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In many respects, Europe looks like a region that is running scared with a notable part of its population seeking to support populist, anti-immigration and even neo-Nazi parties that offer no credible solutions to issues like rising unemployment, poverty and estrangement from our political institutions. 

IMG_3515

If students from a small town in Eastern Finland did a poster advertising Finland, what push and pull factors would they highlight for migrants?

 

In Finland, some politicians are learning slowly but surely that it’s a very bad idea to flirt with these right-wing populist parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) that are anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam.

In many respects, those right-wing populist political forces they flirted with not only paved the way for a new political landscape in Finland after 2011, but marked their eventual political demise. A case in point is former Social Democrat party chairman Jutta Urpilainen, who flirted with the PS in 2010 with her infamous maassa maan tavalla statement, or in Rome do as the Romans do.

Taking into account the avalanche of bigotry at the time especially after 2008 thanks to the PS and many of its politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others, Urpilainen’s quote was seen as offensive to migrants living in this country. Instead of promoting Social Democratic values like social equality and inclusion, Urpilainen’s statement singled out and victimized non-ethnic Finns.

Another politician the PS should thank for helping them become one of Finland’s four largest parties is National Coalition Party Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, who said before the 2011 parliamentary elections that “debating immigrant issues in this country doesn’t mean you’re racist.”

 

If politicians like Katainen or Urpilainen think it was fair game to victimize migrants, is it then ok to be a bigot, sexist or homophobic in Finland? Shouldn’t human rights, Nordic welfare state values like social equality, non-discrimination be defended by politicians? Why do they give with their silence and lack of leadership the green light to others to bully migrants and minorities?

A part of the answer to the latter question lies in the fact that migrants and minorities are vulnerable and easy targets with little power in their respective countries. Anti-immigration politicians get their inspiration from apathetic migrants and the mood swings of society that they help create.

The same mistake that the Social Democrats and National Coalition Party committed in 2010 is happening in other parts of Europe like in the United Kingdom. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has become more anti-immigration and anti-EU in order to appease UKIP. He has helped the anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party to grow into a formidable political force that is now threatening his party in the Euro elections.

This video clip UKIP’s Farage when effectively cross-examined by James O’Brien on LBC. Finnish journalists could learn a lot from this interview.

 

What have we learned from the UKIP and PS cases? One important lesson is not to suck up to the arguments of  populist parties that aim to polarize society. Instead of parroting their intolerance, politicians should take part in an open debate with them and expose them for what they are: a sham.

Politicians should answer simple questions like why are racism and prejudice hazardous to society?

One of the examples they could give is the stereotype that women don’t excel in math. How do you think a woman feels as a minority in an advanced math class with other males? Consider the pressure and stress she has to face daily to prove that she’s just as good, if not even better at math, than her male classmates. Think of the power and potential that would be released from that woman if she weren’t a target of prejudice.

Rubén Blades is a famous salsa singer from Panama, who said in one of his songs, Siembra (harvest), that Latin Americans everywhere shouldn’t allow their conscience to die and be careful with the seed they plant because the fruits they’ll harvest depend on that seed.

In the song, Blades states that the seed that needs to be planted are those of affection and humility. They are the ones that will give hope to future generations.

But with the rise of right-wing populist, anti-immigration and even far-right parties in Europe today, what kind of seed are we planting and what will be its fruits?

 

In the hands of white Finnish privilege, our ever-growing cultural and ethnic diversity is a pathway of good intentions and social exclusion

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Or is the saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions?”

One would think that the great amount of effort put into Finland’s educational system would help it to come to grips with social ills like racism and xenophobia. If we look at the political landscape of Finland, and how hostile this country has become for some migrants and visible minorities, it shows that something vital like tolerance and respect weren’t taught enough at school never mind at home.

Näyttökuva 2014-3-19 kello 20.36.26

The #I, too, am Finland! campaign was a very successful way of promoting inclusion.

It’s ironic that all those things that made Finland into a successful country today, even like its military victories of the Winter War (1939-49) against a vastly outnumbered Red Army, are threatening us today.

Take for instance the Winter War, when Finland was attacked by the former Soviet Union on November 30, 1939. Not only do we know of the military exploits of the Finnish army during that gruelling 105-day war, but how it helped to unite a country by healing the wounds of the 1918 Civil War.

If the Winter War did a lot to unify the country, it reinforced as well our suspicions of Russia, which still exist today, and of the outside world.

Certainly living next to an autocratic state like the USSR can bring out the worst or the best in any nation.

The worst that our relationship with out giant eastern neighbor has fuelled is xenophobia and hostility to cultural diversity. With the help of negative attitudes of foreigners, building of social constructs and laws like the Restricting Act of 1939, were easy to keep in force for decades. For one they helped us as well to “forget” the over 1.2 million Finns that emigrated from this land between 1860 and 1999 and what they contributed to our diverse Finnish identity.

For these reasons and others, Finland was never a breeding ground for cultural diversity but a hostile place for it.

Since white Finnish-speaking Finland has monopolized this “privilege,” which gives it near-total control of political, economic and social power, it’s clear why some Finns are today so uneasy about our ever-growing cultural and ethnic diversity.

I for one am an optimist about Finland’s bright future as a culturally and ethnically diverse nation. I’m optimistic because our diversity as a nation is a fact, not a social construct like white Finnish privilege.

If we don’t succeed at challenging matters like intolerance, we run the risk of impoverishing ourselves.

It’ll be like be on a road to impoverishment where we’ll smile cordially at each other with the best intentions to the road to hell.

Pew Research Center survey: Anti-immigration and anti-minority sentiment runs high before Euro elections

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Pew Research Center, a Washington-based “fact tank,” reveals in a survey just before the European parliamentary elections on May 22-25 that anti-immigration and anti-minority sentiment runs  in countries like Poland, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy and Greece.

Euro MEP candidates like Jussi Halla-aho and Juho Eerola of the PS have used anti-immigration sentiment to attract voters. Halla-aho’s visit in February to Lieksa in eastern Finland is a good example of how he promotes anti-immigration sentiment by demonizing Muslims.

Some parties with strong anti-immigration campaigns include Britain’s UKIP, a close ideological ally of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland, France’s National Front, Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.

Näyttökuva 2014-5-17 kello 0.36.00

The Pew Research Center survey revealed that an average of 55% of respondents in the seven EU countries said they want fewer migrants. The strongest anti-immigration sentiment was found in Greece (86%) followed by Italy (80%).

If views of migrants was negative, so were attitudes of minorities like the Roma, Muslims and to a lesser extent Jews.

The survey revealed that the Roma are viewed as the most unfavorable (50%) minority with the Muslims (46%) trailing closely behind. While attitude towards Jews weren’t as negative as those towards the Roma and Muslims, they were especially high in Greece (47%), Poland (26%) and Italy (24%).

Still confused about how racist parties like the UKIP are? Check out this video clip below where the head of the UKIP, Nigel Farage, answers some hard questions in the same way that PS chairman Timo Soini did when he was interviewed on BBC’s Hard Talk in 2013.

UKIP’s Farage political views are very similar to Soini’s. Listening to the interview by LBC’s James O’Brien of Farage shows close similarities of how Soini speaks to the Finnish media.