Whenever I look at the chart below I think about the one-sidedness of genealogical studies and the justification of “blue blood.” This simple chart show tear to shreds any justification that we haven’t mixed with other ethnic groups if we all once migrated from Africa.
The question isn’t how different we are but how closely related we are.
One of the matters one learns after answering thousands of comments on Migrant Tales and posting near daily on this humble site is the language and arguments used by anti-immigration groups, which are openly against a Finland that is international, multicultural and open.
By multicultural I mean treating everyone in this country, irrespective of their background, with respect and equality.
A common argument used by the anti-immigration camp in Finland, even by well-intentioned socialists, is that “we must find work for all of our jobless before we can think about migration,” or we can only think about migration “when matters for ethnic Finns are optimal.”
If we expose the red herring and decipher the code behind these arguments, the following dangerous message emerges: We don’t want any migration. We are against multiculturalism, cultural diversity and our global integration.
Apart from being a subtle yet dangerous declaration of war against migrants and minorities in Finland, it leaves is with the following critical questions:
Don’t be fooled by the “we must employ ethnic Finns first” argument because such advocates believe in your social exclusion and keeping you, your children and grandchildren as a second- or third-class citizen in this society indefinitely. By denying you a rightful identity other than “migrant” or “person with migrant background,” is a dead giveaway of your social exclusion and unequal place in this society.
It’s crucially important that present and future generations of Finns, irrespective of their ethnic background, learn from an early age that all forms of intolerance is a threat to our values. There’s nothing Nordic or “patriotic” about being racist and socially excluding others.
What is our goal? To be treated with respect and as equal members of society. This is the best insurance of the survival of our Nordic welfare state. Bring in intolerance and you’ll destroy what took so long to build.
I believe in this country and its ability to tackle anti-Nordic welfare state values like social exclusion and racism. But if push comes to shove, we shouldn’t hesitate for one second to use every democratic means at our disposal to drive home our point. And that is what we are doing or should be doing at this moment.
Invovle everyone but especially those who are socially excluded and especially vulnerable.
Jay Smooth offered in early March some good points on how to spot a racist by sticking to the that-sounded-racist conversation as opposed to they-are-racist conversation. The former conversation allows you to focus on what the person said and why what they said is unacceptable. The other one will take your focus away from the issue.
Keeping this in mind, it’s easy to spot racist and unacceptable comments by politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho and others.
Taking the question a bit further, what does it say about the media, our politicians and society when they forget these racist rants and treat politicians who made them as if nothing happened?
It sadly reveals that if you are a white Finn you can nearly say anything you want about refugees, visible migrants and Muslims and almost get away with it. Even if Halla-aho got sentenced for ethnic agitation, the national media continues to give politicians like him inflated respectability and importance.
Searching for easy targets and scapegoats is a dangerous and slippery slope that some witnessed in last century in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler and his henchmen were hostile to cultural diversity like some politicians and political parties in Europe today. The more they executed their plans “to make Germany Jewish and minority free,” the tighter the noose around its neck got until it snapped and become lifeless in 1945 with the fall of Berlin.
With European parliamentary elections (MEP) on May 22-25, there’s a danger that anti-immigration, far-right and nationalistic parties will make big gains.
No matter if these parties are from Finland or Italy, United Kingdom or Bulgaria, they lack credible solutions. Many voters will be shocked and disappointed if they ever get an opportunity to implement their policies.
Their negative and hostile stances on immigration and cultural diversity raise an eerie question as well. Considering that Europe already is culturally diverse, how are these parties going to make Europe white again? Are their actions and attacks against minorities going to get ever-merciless? Did Geert Wilders of the Islamophobic Party for Freedom give us a glimpse in March when he ensured supporters that there would be “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands?
The recognition we give people who spread racism, prejudice and hatred makes a big difference. Look at former PS MP James Hirvisaari after he was sacked from the party in October for taking a picture and posting on social media a person making a Nazi salute in parliament.
Hirvisaari, who was sentenced as well for ethnic agitation, became a political nobody and joke after he got the boot from the PS.
Contrary to Hirvisaari, Halla-aho has played his political cards differently. For Soini’s favor and protection, Halla-aho has toned down his racist rants without changing his views on “multiculturalism” and “runaway immigration.”
If you want to spot a politician who sounds racists look at what he or she said. What the person said is written in stone and can’t be denied with the usual “I’m not a racist” defense.
Here’s one of many quotes that got Halla-aho in hot water: “Robbing passers-by and living as parasites on tax money is the national, maybe even genetic characteristic of Somalis.”
In another blog post in June 2008, he wrote that the Islamic prophet Mohammed was a pedophile and that Islam was a pedophilic religion because its prophet had intercourse with his nine-year-old wife, Aisha.
Are these statements racist? Any sensible person can tell that they are because they single out, victimize and exaggerate a whole group of people. These statements weren’t made with the intention to foster healthy debate but to insult and insight ethnic and religious hatred.
Here’s another one by Halla-aho, who states that people from Africa live in the Stone Age and therefore should not live in Europe. One of the pet arguments of anti-immigration politicians is to stress how different people are in order to justify their racism of different groups. Here’s one he made in 2007:
An African who’s been brought to Helsinki from the savannah pollutes no less with his conspicuous consumption than an ethnic Finn. He will probably pollute more because moving from the Stone Age directly to the modern world, he lacks consumerism and eco-conscience, which Westerners have.
If you still have doubts whether the PS makes racist and unacceptable statements, visit The Truth about the True Finns blog and Halla-aho’s quotes (in Finnish) on Wikiquote. Read a long list of racist, homophobic, fascist and neo-Nazi quotes by PS politicians here.
Juho Eerola, who is the PS’ third vice-president, is another MP who has toned down his views. Check out what he said on Hommaforum, a hate site, on July 6, 2010:
I myself am attracted to Benito Mussolini’s fascism, and in particular the economic policy [the country] pursued. Entreperneurship was encouraged but it was under strict government control. Vital large corporations could not be owned by foreign investors but were firmly in government hands. Italy achieved during those times full employment and strong economic growth. We could learn a lot from such a model.
Apart from migrants, visible minorities or gays, the rise of the PS especially in 2011 was seen as a new and interesting addition to the Finnish political scene. Even if the PS are a knee-jerk reaction of voters to ever-growing poverty and social inequality in Finland, what is surprising is that some voters picked a party that is provincial, hostile and scapegoats migrants and minorities.
It’s no secret that the UKIP and PS are close ideological allies in Europe. The Guardian of London published an opinion piece that gave ten reasons why you should not vote for the UKIP. The exact same reasons apply to the PS.
Another opinion piece on the conservative Telegraph explains how UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage has taken British voters for fools.
The PS are doing the same thing in Finland. Like their ally in the United Kingdom, both parties may have their victory in the upcoming MEP elections, “but then they will begin the long march back into political obscurity,” according to the Telegraph.
MPs throughout Europe are opportunistically using the xenophobia card to boost their chances of getting reelected. This is the case of Suna Kymäläinen, a Social Democrat (SDP), who is eyeing the April 2015 parliamentary elections in Finland.
Kymäläinen is a sad example of how politicians who don’t belong to anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), like to stir up anti-foreign sentiment in order to optimize their chances of getting reelected.
We saw this electoral strategy with dire consequences in 2010, when SDP chairman Jutta Urpilainen, flirting with the PS by infamously stating maassa maan tavalla, or in Rome do as the Romans do. In plain English her statement meant if you don’t behave like us you can go bak to where you came from.
Just like Prime Minister David Cameron and the Tories feel the anti-EU and anti-immigration UKIP breathing down their necks, they have only themselves to blame. Cameron’s anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric has not swayed support to the UKIP but strengthened it.
Finland showed in 2011 that you cannot flirt with an anti-immigration, far right or populist party because you’ll lose.
That is exactly what happened in our country to the run up to the 2011 parliamentary elections. The PS can thank the euro crisis, Portugal’s financial bailout a week before the elections, National Coalition Party chairman Jyrki Katainen, and Urpilainen for helping Timo Soini’s party gain 39 seats in parliament from just 5 in 2007.
In March 2010 Katainen opened the floodgates of anti-immigrant sentiment in Finland by stating that debating immigrant issues didn’t make you a racist. Some saw Katainen’s statement as a green light to racists.
It’s sad that politicians like Kylmäläinen haven’t learned from past mistakes as is the case with the PS and UKIP.
If the draft bill that would prohibit non-EU citizens from purchasing land in Finland ever becomes law, some believe that it will have a negative impact on businesses especially in eastern Finland that depend on Russian tourists.
Probably the most incredible matter is not the bill and how it reveals our age-old xenophobia of Russians, but how politicians like Kymäläinen deny that is has nothing to do with racism or discrimination.
During a May Day rally on Thursday, Kymäläinen denied that she is a racist. “The smear campaign is pointless,” she continued. “It just shows how little people know about the foreign problem.”
Isn’t it surprising how some politicians absolve themselves of all guilt when they are accused of being xenophobic, racist or anti-Russian? Any sensible person would not waste his or her time figuring out if Kymäläinen is racist or not. The question is if her bill is.
Taking into account the weaknesses of Kymäläinen’s arguments for the draft bill in the face of ever-growing anti-Russian and intolerance throughout Finland and Europe, there are other issues that the bill brings to light.
Two of these are: Why are you targeting Russians and are you trying to score brownie points for your election campaign in 2015?
A news story on YLE by students claims that little to no action is taken at schools to address racial harassment. At the beginning the teacher may take an interest in racist bullying but then interest wanes, according to the story.
Migrant Tales has published some personal accounts about racial harassment at Finnish schools.
One common characteristic that groups these types of stories is the teacher, who doesn’t do anything to stop the bullying.
Racist bullying has happened at schools in the past, as Abdulah’s case proves, and happens today. You don’t have to be dark-skinned to be harassed. Russians, some of whom are white, get bullied as well, according to Aune, who grew up in the small town of Liperi in Eastern Finland.
She said that teachers did nothing to stop the harassment.
Migrant Tales reported in May 2013 about a black child called Julian who was harassed so much at school that his mother decided to move to Helsinki.
His mother said: “Soon the majority of his classmates started bullying him. They named him a black monkey and told him to go to the toilet bowl because the color of his skin was like the color of feces. (Sara stops for a moment what she is saying to contain her tears. She succeeds).”
According to the YLE story, students and even some teachers take part in racial harassment. The story claims that teachers are more racist today than before and that this has a negative impact on the student’s studies.
“Teachers have pet students who are usually white,” said a seventh-grade student. “Classmates tell me that they ‘feel sorry for me when I hang around dark-skinned students.’”
Sara Chafak, who has Moroccan and Finnish parents, was chosen as Miss Finland in 2012. She said that she was racially harassed from nursery school because of her ethnic background.
Children who are under six years old attend nursery school in Finland.
“The first time I was harassed was at nursery school,” she continued. “I was called the n-word because I was the only dark-skinned [child].”
The former Miss Finland said that nursery school teachers did take action against such bullying but at elementary and middle school it was a different story.
Since teachers didn’t react to racial harassment Chafak didn’t care to complain to anyone, according to her.
Related post: Do “mamu” an “maahanmuuttajataustainen” downgrade people in Finland into “us” and “them?”
The Foreign Student was a short-lived but courageous newsletter of the Foreign Student Club of Helsinki. The humble publication appeared from January 1981 to January 1982 and lasted 11 issues. Much of the things the newsletter wrote about 35 years ago are still valid today.
Surprisingly those that opposed what we wrote weren’t officials or Finns, but some migrants who were nervous about rocking too much the boat. As our reporting got bolder, the more opposition we got.
Despite what happened, we’re very proud of the Foreign Student for speaking out at the time against Finland’s discriminatory and arbitrary immigration policy.
Below is an editorial from the February 1981 issue.
ON IMMIGRANTS LIVING IN FINLAND
Immigration has been a major factor in the growth of countries in America such as the United States, Canada, Argentina etc. This constant injection of people from the four corners of the Earth put new strength and progress into the mainstream of the New World. This was essential to its greatness today.
The day and life of immigrants have changed if we compare it with a hundred or two hundred years ago. Today it is harder to immigrate because stricter controls have been enacted by receiving countries.
I am an Argentine-American-Finn (I still haven’t figured out how I should group these words, either alphabetically or just at rancom, from my mother’s side a Finn with Swedish and Dutch blood and from my father’s side with Italian and French ancestry.
The world has changed to say the least when “culture” and “ethnicity” are involved. Through history people have tended to mix more and more. This trend has not subsided.
The Swedish-Finns are the largest minority in this country. Also, we have the Gypsies and the Lapps as small minorities. According to the Finnish Statistical Yearbook for 1977 we find around 12,000 people living in Finland with non-Finnish passports. of course we have within this group a large minority of Finns who have opted for Swedish nationality and who are also living in Finland. Weill the future put new minority groups in Finland? The answer is in the affirmative. I have a Finnish fiancée and when we have children they will be part of a minority. Talking about Swedish-Finns we could also mention the Japanese-Finns, Italian-Finns, German-Finns, Kenyan-Finns, British-Finns, Thai-Finns and the list has almost no end.
The Interior Ministry must understand that our children and even we are becoming a larger and ever more important minority in Finland. We want to grow with our children having the same rights as anyone else. Finland is a humanistic, progressive and technologically advanced nation in the eyes of the world. Could we also see this tradition fall on the foreigners living her as permanent residents?
Enrique Tessieri
Chairman, F.S.C
Migrants were very active in the early 1980s and on October 19, 1982 we marched for the first time since a group of East Pakistanis, today Bangladesh, marched from Helsinki to Turku in the early 1970s demanding work. The march by the East Pakistanis may have been the first by foreigners in Finland.
Migrants and Finns should join hands as they did in 1982 and the early 1970s demanding civil rights and jobs.
According to a blog by Pekka Myrskylä, Statistics Finland development manager, the majority of migrants in Finland live in poverty. If this is true, shouldn’t this worry us? Shouldn’t we begin to do something about the ever-growing inequality and poverty among migrants as well as Finns?
The likelihood that anti-immigration and populist political parties will make significant gains in the European parliamentary (MEP) elections on May 25 is other disturbing writing on the wall. Finland’s anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset are expected also to do well in next month’s elections.
The question is what do we do if Europe makes a deeper turn to the populist anti-immigration right. Should we stand idle and silent and see how our rights are being watered down or act?
If we look at the marches of the early 1970s and 1982, the answer is clear: unite and challenge the beast.
According to Statistics Finland’s Working Paper series, Finland is no land of opportunity for migrants, writes Pekka Myrskylä. The Statistics Finland’s development manager claims that the employment level of Estonians and Thai citizens matches that of white Finns. The majority of migrants live in poverty in Finland, according to him.
If what Myrskyä writes is true, it reveals once again how anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and others have directly lied to voters that migrants get more welfare benefits than Finns.
Certainly one question we could ask is why are we being told these disturbing facts about migrants now. Why didn’t politicians, policy-makers and the media challenge the hostile attacks against migrants before the 2011 parliamentary elections, when politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen and many others of the PS were having a field day claiming that migrants rape and live off social welfare?
The fact that most migrants live in poverty in Finland today gives us new arguments to raise our voices even more and demand basic rights. Just like the Civil Rights Movement (1955-68) of the United States, our clarion call should also be jobs and social equality.
Myrskylä writes that since unemployment rates are higher among migrants since many are employed in low-income jobs, it explains why there is a wage disparity of 25% with native Finns, who make annually on average 36,800 euros versus 27,500 euros by migrants. The gap in unemployment benefits is even higher, totaling 39% (15,000 euros versus 9,400 euros) and up to 59% for those who are outside the labor force (7,500 euros versus 3,100 euros).
Myrskylä 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.”
One out of five migrants who move to Finland leave the country in search for better opportunities elsewhere. As much as 80% of migrants that come from the Nordic Region and Western Europe leave.
The situation is, however, different for people from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia where 90% stay in Finland after five years. Myrskylä said that people who come from crisis regions and from poorer nations remain because they have nowhere else to go.
Finland’s good educational system is a lure for migrants. However, many of these students move out of the country after taking a degree.
Timo Soini, tiesitkö, että Suomesta lähti yli 1,2 miljoona suomalaista siirtolaista 1860-1999 aikana? Tässä olivat myös pakolaiset. He jotka unohtavat tämän tärkeän faktaan unohtavat ketä me olemme. Miten maa joka on nähnyt niin paljon siirtolaisia ja on ottanut vastaan 420 000 karjalaista pakolaista voi suhtautuu torjuvasti ja jopa vihamielisesti siirtolaisiin ja pakolaisiin?
Älä ratsasta maahanmuuttovastaisuudella. Tulet häviämään ja tulevaisuuden suomalaiset, jotka ovat etnisesti ja kulttuurisesti moninaisia mutta suomalaisia, tulevat häpeämään sanomaasi.
Kuvassa on patsas Hangossa jossa muistetaan näitä siirtolaisia ja pakolaisia. Kuva on ottanut Erkki Siirilä vuonna 1980.
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How can a country like Finland, which saw over 1.2 million people emigrate during 1860-1999 and resettled 420,000 Karelian refugees after the Continuation War (1941-44) with the former Soviet Union, loathe migrants and speak contemptuously against refugees? How do you explain the rise of an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) that grew from a mere 5 MPs in the 2007 elections to 39 MPs in 2011?
How is it possible that the president of that party, Timo Soini, could claim on national television Thursday that it was immoral if people fled war and came to Europe as refugees instead of fight for social justice in their war-ravaged homelands?
Why do we continue to call evacuees those who fled their former homes and lands because they were ceded to the USSR? Why do we still refer to Soviet citizens who fled the country to the West as defectors and not refugees?
The answer is pretty clear: Denial of our history mixed with the shadow of the cold war, which ended with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Add to the latter the fact that we’ve done everything to kill diversity in the last century and a picture emerges. Our identity rests in that diversity. Erasing it is like erasing ourselves and our history.
Such a one-sided view of who we are and our history was and still is possible thanks to a closed and exclusive view.
Certainly it was politically correct to call Karelians and people from Petsamo and Salla “evacuees” and Soviet citizens “defectors” as opposed to refugees. Our giant eastern neighbor wouldn’t have liked it.
Our own prejudices and racism is nothing more than denial of who we are. We still lack courage to challenge this denial. However, time is on our side and one day we’ll be able to see the last century in a different light. This will make us stronger, not weaker.
The ethnic and racist fairy tales of some Finnish politicians and parties like the PS is based on your ignorance and theirs.