Migrant Tales will not remain silent concerning those shameful let-them-drown politicians from Finland and the EU, which are an example of the very worse in us.
In May, four let-them-drown MEPs from Finland were elected: Teuvo Hakkarainen, Laura Huhtasaari, Petri Sarvamaa, and Henna Virkkunen.
This dramatic footage shows the immediate aftermath of a shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa (on November 24) as migrants struggle to stay above water in freezing conditions as rescuers try to save them. pic.twitter.com/Rs1px3ha4x
I encourage MEPs and politicians to watch this video to get a taste of what it is like to rescue survivors in the Mediterranean.
So far this year, over 1,000 lives have been lost while crossing the Mediterranean. Since 1993, UNITED for Intercultural Action has documented “more than 36,570” deaths of people who died in an attempt to enter Fortress Europe.
When the media turns a blind eye to racism, prejudice, and social exclusion, when politicians suck up to those very policies that reinforce such social ills, it is time to take a long look in the mirror.
What would we see?
A country still in the trenches of World War 2 (not the Continuation War), a country that is by its own making near-sighted, a country that is still obsessed with blood and race.
After the Second World War, and in the 1970s and 1980s, the undercurrent of racism was strong in Finland. The only reason why it hadn’t shown its ogre face as today is because of the then underwhelming size of the country’s foreign population.
In 1970, the number of foreign nationals in Finland totaled a mere 5,483, according to the Migration Institute of Finland.
Despite social policy experts like Heikki Waris of the 1960s, who infamously claimed that “racial prejudice and discrimination are nonexistent” in Finland because there were “no racial minorities,” present-day Finland has proven him wrong. Racism has always been alive and kicking in this country.
As more foreigners started to move to Finland in the 1990s, especially from outside Europe like the Somalis, there was a racist and even violent knee-jerk reaction from white Finns.
The suffering and raw racism that groups like the Somalis continue to endure is well-documented and a permanent stain on our society.
If we do not watch out, the very racism we were spoon-fed at school and by society is the poison that can destroy all our social and democratic gains. The shadow of Hungary hangs deep over Finland as the populist radical right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* lead in opinion polls.
Our social rights and democracy can be forfeited in a day if we aren’t careful.
Fascism and all the racism that characterizes it is knocking at Finland’s door again.
If we let the beast in through the ajar door, we will only have ourselves to blame. Possibly some feel comfortable with their eyes closed. They may naively believe that fascism won’t affect them because they’re white.
Wrong.
What will emerge from it is not disastrous to some parts of the population like minorities, but be a wrecking ball that will destroy our sense of social fairness, democracy, and institutions.
Perussuomalaiset ja erityisesti kansanedustaja Riikka Purra liiottelee ja vääristele kun asia koske heidän lempiaihetta: maahanmuuttajia.
Tällä viikolla Purra kärähti vääristelystä kun Migrant Tales otti selvää seuraavasta väitteistä ja totesi, että suuri osa postinjakaijista pääkaupunkiseudulla ovat suomalaisia, eikä maahanmuuttajia.
Purra on taas levittänyt uutta väitettä, joka ei myöskään pidä paikkansa (katso twiiiti).
Helsingin Sanomat, the country’s biggest daily, celebrated its 130th anniversary on Saturday. Congratulations on your important anniversary but the picture below reinforces what I knew about the daily and Finnish mainstream media in general: It’s too white.
Considering that Helsingin Sanomat is the newspaper of Finland’s capital Helsinki, it is surprising that there are no visible minorities in the picture, considering that 9.4% (59,779 persons) of the city’s total population of 635,181 in 2016/2017 are foreign citizens, according to Helsingin väestö vuodenvaihteessa 2016/2017 ja väestönmuutokset vuonna 2016.
The percentage is even higher if look at people who speak another language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue (93,214/14.7%) and who were not born in Finland (86,998/13.6%).
Can you spot a minority? Read the full story (in Finnis) here.
One of the problems of Finland’s ongoing debate on its ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse society is that the predominantly white media give a lopsided – usually inaccurate – account of our communities.
One good way of challenging the present situation is to encourage more non-white Finns to become journalists and writers and, importantly, encourage them to write courageously about our communities and realities.
You ask me my name. I shall tell you. My name is nobody and nobody is what everyone calls me.
Odyssey, Song IX
If a refugee suffers from fear, loneliness, enforced separation, a sense of despair and is struggling to survive in his new homeland, more salt is thrown on their wounds by the hateful rhetoric of Islamophobic and racist parties.
One of these in Finland is the radical-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which labels such people “harmful” to our society while claiming that they don’t “integrate” into Finnish society.
But not only do anti-immigration parties make the lives of asylum seekers and migrants difficult, but government immigration policy is another culprit.
A new report by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights reports that the integration of young refugees isn’t doing very well. It warns that there is a risk of creating a lost generation.
Do you see the problem? The PS tries to destroy their credibility and tear down that important shred of humanity in us.
Unfortunately, those who help and educate migrants to become members of our society have never heard of the Ulysses syndrome.
Since they have not heard of this disorder, some rely on simplistic answers to integration: learn the language and read the Kaleva.
While I’m facetious, the expectations that some of these educators have on their pupils, especially vulnerable ones fleeing war and failed states in the Middle East and Africa, are ineffective in their jobs.
When you ask such a person to assimilate (one-way integration) into our culture, it is like asking a person to stand upright after he or she broke his or her leg.
Ignorance is not the only matter that causes the integration process of a migrant to fail in Finland but standing on a high horse. The view that some have of the migrant is racist in the same way as colonial powers saw and exploited their subjects.
The Ulysses syndrome should be required reading for any person working with refugees and migrants.
Viime aikoina on puhuttu siitä kuinka paljon poliitikot valehtelevat. Suomen lehdistö hyvin laiskasti seuraa näitä valheita ja kuka valheita kertoo. Puolue joka esittää vääristeltyä ja liioiteltua tietoa ja asioita, erityisesti silloin jos asia koskee maahanmuuttajia, niin perussuomalainen puolue kunnostautuu tässä.
Yhdysvaltain presidentti Donald Trump valehtele paljon. Washington Post lehdessä fakta-tarkastaa presidentin valheet. Valheet luokitellaan yhdellä, kahdella tai kolmella Pinokkiolla.
Virkaastuaisissa, Trump on tehnyt yli 13 430 valheita.
Migrant Tales otti selvää seuraavasta perussuomalaisten väittämästä: “Suuri osa postinjakajista, etenkin pääkaupunkinseudulla, on maahanmuuttajia,” sanoo Riikka Purra Jussi Halla-ahon ja Ville Tavion lehdistöttilaisuudessa.
Posti vastasi: “Suurin osa (80 %) Postin työntekijöistä Suomessa (pl Transval) on suomalaisia” JA “Suuri osa, 70 %, pääkaupunkiseudun postinjakajista on suomalaisia. Poiminnassa mukana alueet: Hki; Espoo Kirkkonummi Kauniainen; Vantaa Tuusula Nurmijärvi.”
Halla-aho, Tavio ja Purra saavat vääristelystä kolme Pinokkiota.
Suuri osa postinjakaijista pääkaupungin seudulla ovat suomalaisia, eikä maahanmuuttajia.
Kuva: Turun Sanomat ja Pinokkio nenät Hamid H. Alsammarraee.
In a bar in Lappila, located some 20 km from the city of Lahti, there is a sign on the wall the epitomizes all the hatred and mass murder committed by the Nazis: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Sets you Free).
Why hasn’t any newspaper asked the owner of the bar, Juha Koskinen, if he will take down the Nazi sign? Migrant Tales has called numerous times. Koskinen does not answer the phone return calls.
This notorious slogan stood at the entrance of death camps like Auschwitz and Dachau.
In Finland, there is a lot of neo-Nazi sentiment these days. So much so, in fact, that small bars in small towns can place Nazi-era signs with near-impunity.
What can you expect in a country where the biggest party in the polls has sympathies and ties with neo-Nazi groups.
Steen Pramming summarizes why Nazi sympathies are still found in Finland these days, even if this country signed the armistice with the former Soviet Union in September 1944.
Just like Islamophobia and racism, our education system has failed in ridding our society of these social ills.
Finland tries to put itself as a special case, when, in fact, it wasn’t. We did not fight a separate war against the Soviet Union but were up to our necks in World War 2 and allied with Nazi Germany.
It was only this year when Finland finally acknowledged that Finnish SS recruits took part in the Holocaust in Russia.
Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power.
Reino Eddo-Lodge
Watching last Thursday’s parliamentary question time was a repulsive experience. If the opposition Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is to be believed, all of Finland’s problems hinge on migrants.
An article inVerkkouutiset claims that since Prime Minister Antti Rinne’s government began its mandate on June 6, nine of the eleven weekly parliamentary question times have dealt with migrants and or immigration policy.
Such political tactics by the PS are a blow to the institution’s credibility and its elected members.
One reason why the PS is leading the opinion polls these days is because they are feared and due also to ignorance or denial about racism in Finland. They believe that if they are too outspoken against their lies, they will scare away voters.
We at Migrant Tales have never let down our guard or given such a racist party the benefit of the doubt as the Finnish mainstream media too often does.
My views of the PS have not changed. It is a racist and far-right party that is today taking the county towards the path of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Read the original story here.
These are the constant lies that the PS spreads about migrants on Thursday’s question time:
Migrants are taking money away from white Finns;
The government puts the priorities of migrants before white Finns;
Migrants are a menace to society;
Migrants commit more crime than white Finns;
We must not allow Finland to turn into a Sweden when it comes to migrants;
Blah blah blah blah…
While all these claims are exaggerated lies, the strategy of the PS is simple: Finland’s most pressing problems hinge on migrants. Get rid of migrants and, presto, problem solved.
When you watch politicians of the PS making their anti-immigration cases in parliament, they don’t tell us whom they are speaking of and how many.
If they were to mention these two things, we’d understand that they are explicitly targeting asylum seekers who are Muslims and only about 10% of all migrants living in Finland.
At present, there are several things that are giving Finland a bad name: Islamophobia, the hostile environment, and hardline asylum policy.
The latest setback to Finland’s image was handed down by the European Court of Human Rights for violating Article 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Article 2 states that everyone has a right to life, while Article 3 of the Convention prohibits torture and inhumane treatment.
While the ruling reinforces what anti-racism activists have been saying for a long time about the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), we must not forget that Finland’s immigration policy has a long history of committing human rights violations.
We could begin with some recent examples of repatriated Iraqi asylum seekers who were killed. Migrant Tales documented two cases as well as other ones.
Let’s not forget that the former government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä gave the political support to Migri to declare some of the most violent countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq as “safe countries” to deport asylum seekers.
When an asylum seeker is killed on his return, Finnish politicians like former Minister of Interior Kai Mykkänen offer “sad-and-tragic” consolation in the same empty way like politicians in the United States offer “thoughts and prayers” after a home-grown terrorist kills innocent people.
Some cases that remain as permanent dark spots in Finnish immigration history is the deportation of Ingrians and Estonians after the Continuation War (1941-44) and Soviet citizens during the Cold War.
Our past immigration policy continues to bring shame to us. It is unfortunate that we always return to it.
*A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.
When I was a young journalist, the editor of the Buenos Aires Herald approached me and gave me some sound advice.
“Remember,” I recall him saying to me, “words are like bullets. Fairness in reporting a story is important. You don’t need a bazooka to kill an ant.
Following what the media is writing about Abdirahim Husu Hussein, this golden rule of responsible and fair journalism could not be truer. Destroying people with bazookas in a hostile environment against migrants and minorities is opinionated and racist journalism.
