Extremism almost never sees itself as ‘extreme’ When I was young I studied ‘brainwashing’ as part of my studies in psychology. One feature that constantly emerged was how ‘extreme’ interpretations of events typically took a grain of truth and wrapped it up in a generalisation such that it would act as a shield to any…
Category: Mark
Meet the Somalis – the illustrated stories of Somalis in seven cities in Europe
The Open Society Foundations have recently published a fascinating set of seven illustrated stories, called ‘meet the Somalis‘, covering the experiences of Somalis living in cities across Europe. On November 21, this will coincide with the publishing of the Foundations’ research report “Somalis in Helsinki”. To quote the Foundation’s website: “The Somali community in Europe…
Bank accounts for the stateless – money laundering legislation is not an excuse for financial exclusion
This post follows on from a recent post by Enrique on continued practices of financial exclusion in relation to individuals who have had difficulties establishing their identification with Finnish authorities and have subsequently had problems opening bank accounts. It is also a response to one commentator’s fallacious claim that money laundering legislation is an adequate…
Confessions of a recovering racist
Society has achieved at least one significant victory in the fight against racism – it has succeeded in making open racism a dirty concept. The power of stigma that worked so effectively to reinforce racism has been harnessed to turn the tide against open discrimination – at least in polite society. Today, in most public…
Migrant Tales Literary: If you are a Finn
If you are a Finn, what is a Fonn? Was your flag blue and white, or was it lilac and yellow? Sorry, what was that again? Sano säki mua suks? Or was it san snää mnuu snuuks? So who hates who in this mnuu snuu, I wonder? So, I am the maahanmuuttaja. There…
Is condemning racism really condemning racism? Suomen Sisu’s ‘vodka’ problem!
I think it’s positive that Olli Immonen, PS member of parliament and new Chairman of Suomen Sisu, the Far Right grouping, so openly ‘condemns’ racism on the Suomen Sisu website, but sadly, the comment is open to some interpretation. The reason is that like PS, they condemn racism in one breath, and then choose to…
Migrant Tales Literary: V-Day – one billion rising!
Today marks V-Day, one billion rising, referring to the number of women on the planet who have either been raped or beaten during their lives. Eve Ensler, of The Vagina Monologues fame, has penned a passionate piece calling for women to rise up in protest and men to support them on Valentines Day 2013, in…
On human dignity
Do all humans have the same value and are all humans deserving of dignity? These are the questions asked by Jussi Halla-aho (hereafter J-Ha) in an old but now infamous blog post from 2005. J-Ha contended that only instrumental value is measurable and truly meaningful and that it is common sense to see the value of…
Police college of Finland: are they perpetuating hate?
What an irony. You would think that the publishing of hate crime statistics would be an annual opportunity to raise the profile of hate crime and also to renew efforts to prevent it. But no, the forums are alive with spurious interpretations of what it all means and even attempts to show that Somalis are…
Approaching hate crimes in Finland: problem solver or angry boss?
Enrique mentions an interesting comment from a policeman in Mikkeli talking about racism, who compares racism to being hassled when he returns to his home town because he is now a policeman. The comparison is very poor, but it’s also very telling. It is from our mistakes that we really can learn the most. In…