Enrique Tessieri Archives - Page 56 of 246

Exposing white Finnish privilege #81: Racializing crime, perpetuating stereotypes and racism

Posted on October 2, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Treat with tweezers whenever percentage figures are used to depict sexual assault cases by migrants.

A government-commissioned study published Thursday concluded that migrants are over-represented in suspected sexual assault crimes, perpetuating a toxic narrative. Such generalizations give ammunition to Islamophobes like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party to maintain and reinforce racist stereotypes.

To look at how the Finnish media reported the study, we’d have to look at what the media and study did not mention.

For one, the study cites suspected sexual assault cases but also mentions convictions. The media took the bait and cited with gusto suspected cases and concluded that “migrants are overrepresented” in sexual assault crime, accounting for 37.5% of all cases. That compares to 57.4% of sexual assaults by Finns.

In Finland, as in other Western countries, a person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.

Exposing white Finnish privilege #80: Violence against you counts but mine doesn’t

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Radical-right Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party MP, Sebastian Tynkkynen, who has two ethnic agitation convictions and a third pending, is trying to get the most political mileage from an incident at an #elokapina demonstration.

Some unknown persons at the demonstration allegedly attempted to attack Tynkkynen and shoved him. The police asked if the MP wanted to press charges, and he said it wasn’t necessary apparently because nothing serious happened.

All types and forms of violence should be condemned, but why are the PS making up a big fuss about the incident? The whole affair, in my opinion, appears like a storm in a teacup.

The incident with Tynkkynen overlooks other forms of verbal and physical abuse and violence that the PS have promoted for years and continue to spread.

Why don’t we see more leadership among politicians? What about the media? Why don’t they openly condemn racism, and especially Islamophobia, and appear worried about the growth of these social ills thanks to the likes of Tynkkynen and the PS?

White Finnish privilege #80

The answer to the above question lies in the double-standards of our society made possible thanks to white Finnish privilege.

Violence against white Finns gets a lot more attention than what migrants and minorities see.

See also:

Migrant Tales Literary: Modes of travel

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Migrant Tales

It is the same feeling of anticipation you have at an airport, where you are in the land of nowhere with a sense of being somewhere else.

You are wrong if you if you believe that there is only one way of traveling. As a migrant who has travelled all of his life, I have learned that there are many modes of travel.

**Landscapes upside down or rightside up? Photo: Enrique Tessieri**

Geography

Traveling with the help of geography is the easiest way of acquainting oneself with a new place. All you have to do is let your eyes do the recording and, presto! The sceneries and experiences that enter through the eyes usually release pleasant sensations in the mind and heart due to their novelty. Even though traveling geographically is a bit for dummies, there are other modes of travel.

Spiritually

When you travel in this way, you fall into a sort of trance daydreaming of places near and far away with a fuel called imagination. Fueling imagination is done by arousing it with the help of a good book and maps. Some of the initial beatufy of this mode of travel has been lost with the Internet.

Imagination

With the helo of imagination as a mode a travel, history can be converted into a personal time machine. Have you ever imagined while gazing at very old pictures what it would be like if you could enter them and chat with the immobile people? What would they say and what would I tell them?

Culturally

My favorite mode of travel is culturally. In order for this to be effective, I need the help of geography, spirits and imagination to sumerge myself in culture. If I do everything right, I can enter and leave cultures at ease traveling light as a feather.

Tuttu temppu jota poliitikot käyttävät: sanoo jotain rasistista ja pahoittelee sanavalintaa kun kohu nousee

Posted on September 12, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Seuraava temppu on yksi vanhimmista jota poliitikot käyttävät kun sanovat jotain epäasiallista tai rasistista.

Otetaan keskustan kansanedustaja Juha Pylväs, joka kutsui turvapaikanhakijoihin sanoilla jonkin sortin “elintasosurffarit.”

Pylväksen temppu:

Hän leimaa turvapaikanhakijat rasistisesti.
Hän pahoitteli sanavalintaa kun kohu nousi.

3. Hänen rasistinen ulostulo on onnistunut, koska se on levinnyt äänestäjien keskuudessa.

Migrant Tales Literary: Where happiness lives

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Migrant Tales

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

William Blake (1757-1827)

Leo Honka

Of all the seasons that pass over Finland, possibly fall is the most magical. But what makes it stand out from the others?

Is it the pitch-darkness? Is it the vast universe above and its peppered celestial inhabitants that appear to gaze down on us longer than usual?

Yet again it could be the sound of rustling leaves and rapid breezes that holds on for a moment to trees before losing steam. Are they the moonlight beams that light timid forest paths that lead to places that test your courage?

Or is it the bittersweet combination of homesickness dancing momentarily with merry anticipation before you part for distant lands?

Searching for happiness

For some Finns, autumn is the most mysterious season. If a ghost house comes alive in the evening, all the spirits – imagined and real – appear to awaken from deepest slumber and to the woods during this time of the year.

For me, fall is that time when I fight pitch battles against melancholy with a sword called hope. The battle is waged by visits to the forest, which teems with lingonberries, mushrooms, and other delights.

The journeys into the woods can be very spiritual. They can be like brief walks on the avenues of the soul.

**Autumn near Vanhala. Photo by Enrique Tessieri**

If weddings are commonplace in Finland at midsummer, it’s in fall when souls make secret vows and marry other souls in secret weddings under tall shady spruces by rushing, chilly streams playing splashing sounds with stones.

One of the forests I enjoy visiting in fall is near Vanhala, a hamlet made up of a few farmhouses and an elementary school. The village, which is located 15 minutes from Mikkeli, is so small that I once biked through it without noticing it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Finland’s hardline and bureaucratic immigration policy is deadly for democracy

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Migrant Tales

“Finland’s hardline and bureaucratic immigration policy based in great part on suspicion and fear of outsiders is partly to blame for the rise of a populist and hostile anti-immigration party in the last decade and even for high migrant unemployment. A systematic policy of exclusion suggests that our plans to bring foreign labor will fail. A good example of this never-never land thinking is the Perussuomalaiset* party, which wants to sell residence permits for 50,000 euros.”

The Finnish media’s reporting about migrants and minorities is a disappointment

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Migrant Tales

It is surprising, even worrying, that outsiders are the ones that help burst the media’s many bubbles. One such OP-ED published Wednesday in Helsingin Sanomat by Antti Kivijärvi, and Martta Myllyä sheds light on the blind spot created by exceptionalism and ethnocentrism.

Should it be a surprise that this state of affairs happens whenever migrants (usually asylum seekers and Muslims) and minorities are the topic?

Recently we saw this ethnocentric monster appear with the Helsinki district court’s ruling that carrying Nazi Germany flags in public was not ethnic agitation.

The debate surrounding neo-Nazis and racism in Finland does not consider the victims themselves. When have you seen a black sociologist offer his views on an act of racism or of racism in general in this country?

Two days after the Helsinki court’s ruling, Kirkko ja kaupunki was the only media in Finland that interviewed the Jewish community.

Certainly, Jews, Roma, and other victims of Nazi terror have some opinions about Nazi flags.

**Read the full story (in Finnish) here.**

QUOTE OF THE DAY: A migrant’s journey never ends and may last generations

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Migrant Tales

“When a migrant embarks on a journey, he may not realize that the journey the migrant is on never ends and that he is part of another journey that a relative began generations ago. Thus a migrant’s journey may begin during our lifetime, but it rarely ends during our lifetime. Your relatives, those who are now talk of the future, may remember and admire your journey and courage long after you died.”

My paternal (right) and maternal relatives in Argentina. On the right are Dante Tessieri and his wife Aida on the left with Angelo Lullo and his wife Augustina on the left. All three except for Augstina were from Italy. Even if the pictures were taken over a hundred years ago, I still remember them, even share their pictures with you. **Source: Tessieri family album.**

PS’ Riikka Purra feeds Afghans to the dogs

Posted on September 4, 2021 by Migrant Tales

The new chairperson of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, Riikka Purra, will soon be calling out the knives. In her latest tweet, she reveals her radical cruelty against the vulnerable.

In the Tweet below, she feeds the Afghans to the dogs and shows the worst of Finland.

No experts, human rights activists, defenders of the rule of law, feminists, journalists. No Afghans to Finland.
No requests from the United States, Nato, the EU, or UNHCR.
No debt of honor, four-year residence permits, family reunifications, citizenship.

Will, we read any editorial on Sunday or any objection by politicians to Purra’s far-right battle cries?

I doubt it.

The far right and their xenophobic diatribes score another point for now.

Finland’s issues with Nazi flags and a too often biased and insensitive media of minorities

Posted on September 2, 2021 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales published on Tuesday comments by Yaron Nadbornik, the president of the 1,100-strong Jewish Community of Helsinki, concerning the Helsinki district court’s ruling that carrying Nazi Germany flags in public was not ethnic agitation.

If there is one group of people who have a lot to say about Nazi flags and the Holocaust, they are the Jews and other minorities like the Roma.

As usual, the news in Finland about the district court’s ruling occurred in a bubble between white Finns, but to our surprise, the media did not approach one Jew or member of the Roma community for comment.

Migrant Tales did interview Nadbornik on Tuesday and asked him if newspapers like Helsingin Sanomat and others had approached him. His answer was “no.”

After Migrant Tales published his comments, Kirkko ja kaupunki did a story on Wednesday citing Nadbornik’s views.

“Displaying a swastika flag is a demand for genocide,” he was quoted as saying.

The Finnish media coverage of the district court’s ruling on the Nazi flag reveals ignorance and disinterest in the Holocaust, racism, and equity issues. Shame on the media for their incomplete coverage of an important social topic that impacts minorities.

While it may surprise some, victims of racism are usually not interviewed by the media but by white authorities who have never experienced racism.

Today is a good time for the media to wake up and challenge those structures that encourage biased reporting.