Category: Enrique

Racism in Finland: The media is part of the problem

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which has capitalized politically on xenophobia and racism, claims that the Finnish media picks on it unfairly. The fact is, however, that the PS could have never achieved what it did in the April 2011 election without the help of the media, which gave its racists inflated respectability and importance.

If the PS criticize today the media for being biased against them, is it an indication that the Finnish media has become more critical of, and is less inclined to, give racists credibility and importance as in the past?

The documentary gives a warning at the end: “The most important thing we’re saying is don’t trust the media. Don’t take television, the press, radio [and social media] at face value and above all don’t take them sitting down.”

The Finnish media is not the only one that has been taken for a ride by racists and anti-immigration politicians.  We saw this happen in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s with John Kingsley Read, founder of the xenophobic National Front, and Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

Powell claimed in the 1968 speech that the influx of black immigrants from Commonwealth countries caused him to be “filled with foreboding.” He claimed that he seemed to see a race war emerging where our rivers would end up “foaming with much blood.” Powell’s speech was given 45 years ago. Britain’s immigrant population has grown many fold since then. Where are those rivers of blood that Powell warned us of?

I’ve jotted down some notes from a 1984 documentary that shows how racists in Britain were given “inflated respectability and importance” with the help of the media.

The mistakes that the media made in Britain are happening in Finland today. It’s important that we study what occurred in Britain because the media plays an important role in shaping our attitudes and reinforcing our prejudices. Such prejudices are then reinforced by mainstream political parties, which gave the xenophobic and racist message of parties like the PS political credibility.

In sum, there was and still is very little critical thinking by the media concerning the so-called immigrant and cultural diversity issue. Instead of reporting news, too many reporters, editors and the media editorialize their prejudices when reporting the news, which should aim at being fair and well-balanced.

Read of the National Front claimed that immigrants were tearing toilet bowels and placing their feces in back alleys apparently because they had never used a Western toilet before. While the BBC reporter didn’t question this claim when he interviewed Read, he did some investigating and found out that it was completely untrue, according to the local council and health authorities.

Politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola and others have used the same tricks as Read by inflating rape and crime statistics committed by immigrants. Rarely if ever did reporters question if these claims are true.

I would go as far as to say that if the Finnish media would have done its job effectively, it is highly doubtful that the PS could have won 39 seats from 5 in the previous election.

In the same way that Read rose to prominence on its xenophobic message that struck fear in people, the PS copied what groups like the National Front did. Apart from allowing unsubstantiated racist slander to be published freely, editors like Helsingin Sanomat’s Saska Saarikoski gave PS MP Jussi Halla-aho greater respectability and recognition. His ex wife, Anja Snellman, believed that she was defending Halla-aho’s right to free speech but in fact it was her Islamophobia and prejudices that were the issue. One publication that has done a lot to spread racist myths in Finland is Uusi Suomi. Much of the bogus and inflated rape claims by PS candidates like Halla-aho and Hirvisaari were spread from Uusi Suomi. Common mistakes by the Finnish media when reporting on migration and minorities:    

  • White sources are always used as authorities when immigrants and minorities are the topic
  • Editors of Finland’s main dailies are white Finns
  • Immigrant and visible minority voices are rarely if ever permitted to make their case
  • Rarely if ever do editors ask if the source of the”immigrant problem” are whites
  • We give inflated respectability and importance to racists because they mirror our attitudes
  • In Finland, the stronger racism became, the more airtime it gets
  • The rise of racism in our society and our coverage of it reveals how unbalanced and uncritical our media is
  • When it comes to fighting racism, the media are part of the problem

 

Old Finnish national social constructs still fuel intolerance and exclude visible minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Association of Finnish Culture and Identity (Suomalaisuuden liitto) is an association founded in 1906 to “strengthen the sense of national identity, to promote Finnish education and culture.” While this statement may appear innocent at first, the association endorses the intolerance white Finnish speakers have today against Swedish speakers never mind immigrants and visible minorities.

In sum, the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity is an enemy of Finland’s inevitable cultural diversity.

The values and attitudes of the association are maintained with the help of myths tucked deep in the nineteenth and twentieth century. In their world, Finnish-speaking culture is static and supposed to remain in a time warp. They promote an exclusive ethnic club that has no place in modern Finland today.

One of its campaigns is to undermine cultural diversity in Finland together with Vapaa kielivalinta, the youth wings of the PS and National Coalition Party. These four groups succeeded at gathering over 50,000 signatures for a direct initiative to demote the Swedish language  to elective status at schools.

Swedish is a minority language in Finland. It is the country’s second official language together with Finnish.

593-Etela-Savon_maakuntaliitto_logoHere’s a logo used before by the Regional Council of South Savo. It depicts the inhabitants of this region as indigenous natives, which fuels “us” versus “them.” Anti-immigration groups in Finland argue that they are “vulnerable natives” being attacked by “immigrant colonizers.”

 

When the association speaks in defense of “Finnish culture,” it is defending only the rights of white Finnish speakers and not that of other groups who are Finns as well.

It shouldn’t be surprising that in the face of Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity, there’s still no non-white Finns on the board “strengthening our national identity.”

The Association of Finnish Culture and Identity is today led by anti-immigration and anti-EU Perussuomalaiset (PS) party members. Its chairman is Sampo Terho, a PS Euro MP.

When building a social construct like Finnish national identity, like what happened to Swedish and foreign surnames in 1906-07 and in the 1930s that were changed into Finnish ones, there are bad side effects like xenophobia and racism.

Groups like the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity continue to promote intolerance, indirectly and directly, by not questioning, or even recognizing, how some of its former causes, like strengthen Finnish identity, promoted, and continue to fuel, intolerance and hostility towards non-white Finns.  

One of the biggest decision that Finland must make in order to take that first crucial step towards cultural diversity is acceptance and respect for other groups. This process is a two-way street.

While many of us are acceptant of cultural diversity, the shadow of our own national identity social construct continues to intimidate us into not accepting that our national identity in this century is very different from what it was before.

Apart from being a proud nation of its accomplishments, it is a nation that accepts and is respectful of its cultural diversity that is inclusive.

 

 

 

Child without residence permit denied medical attention in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales recently wrote about the poor treatment a foreign couple received at an Eastern Helsinki health center that refused to treat their sick child. In a fresh case published by Lääkärilehti (Finnish Medical Journal), a three-week old baby suffering from respiratory problems was denied medial attention because the child didn’t have a residence permit. 

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 Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Pediatrician Tea Nieminen was quoted as saying in the journal that “a gross mistake” is committed if an acutely ill child suffering from respiratory problems can’t get medical attention.

Just because a patient doesn’t have a residence permit shouldn’t be an excuse to not treat a patient, she said.

The father of the child, who spoke English, went to a health center before being treated by Nieminen

Nieminen, who runs a private practice, said she was “appalled” that the family came to her after being denied attention elsewhere.

According to Nieminen, medical ethics and Finnish law require doctors to treat patients in need, especially children and pregnant women, regardless of their legal status.

 

Why does intolerance get so much attention in the media?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Why does racism, xenophobia and intolerance get so much space in the media and so little condemnation by politicians and society? Is it because racism strikes a chord inside of us or is it because we are taught from a very early age to leave if alone? 

We can make the following argument as well: Do we give too much attention in the media and blogs like Migrant Tales to politicians who make their racist views public? Would turning our backs on them make the problem go away?

It’s pretty clear that silence is a poor response to a social ill like racism. History has taught us that if you don’t openly challenge intolerance, it will grow and not only live another day but many.

There is another important question we should be asking: If we are taught that racism is bad, why do we have so few tools to challenge it?

Jennifer Harvey, an associate professor of religion at Drake University in the United States, offers us some insight.

You can read her blog entry, “For Whites (Like Me): On White Kids,” here.

Harvey writes:

So, if it’s your 4-year-old starting to notice darker skin (which happens when we raise our kids in predominantly white environments), the platitude “we’re all the same underneath” implies they’re noticing something they shouldn’t and insinuates there’s something wrong with darker skin we must need to overlook (meanwhile, your child hears remarks about beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair all the time). How about discussions about and images of the many different beautiful shades of dark skin instead?

And continues:

I know “everybody’s equal” means “we all deserve to be treated with fairness.” And when we tell kids we’re all the same underneath skin, gender, sexuality, physical abilities and other differences we’re trying to tell them we share human dignity and worth.

Obviously, I believe these things.

But, have you ever actually met a “generic” human? Someone without a race or a gender?

Well, guess what? Neither has your child.

In many respects, we do the same thing in Finland. We speak about the virtues of “social equality” but in fact we are taught at the same time to be colorblind and see everyone as “we’re all the same underneath.”

One way to put the issue in context is to replace the word “migrant” with “women.”

Would it be ok to make a case for sexism and claim that the only purpose of women in our society is to make children and serve their chauvinistic husbands?

Certainly not!

If you think of it, this is exactly the argument that anti-immigration groups are making: Migrants have no rights, you are second-class citizens, go back to where you came from.

We know such a statement is wrong because we are taught that “we’re all the same underneath.”

 

Mixed reactions to Hakkarainen’s racist blog entry that victimizes immigrants and Muslims

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Teuvo Hakkarainen’s recent blog entry, which attacked immigrants and Muslims, has been condemned by the vice president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Eero Vainio, and by Muslims like Abdirahim Husu Hussein of the Center Party. 

Reaction to what Hakkarainen wrote is a positive sign that part of Finland’s political establishment considers Islamophobia, racism and intolerance in general unacceptable and out of tune with our values.

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Read original blog entry here.

One reason why the Social Democrats have spoken out against Hakkarainen is because he named SDP Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja an “imam” and supporter of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Vainio said that Hakkarainen’s opinions are a good example of how the PS diverts attention from the country’s real problems and shifts them to imaginary ones like immigration.

“The Perussuomalaiset have to get their act together and aim at offering solutions to real problems facing our society in the face of fear-mongering,” he was quoted as saying on Tampere-based daily Aamulehti.

Nasima Razmyar, an SDP Helsinki city councillor and Muslim, said on a blog that what Hakkarainen wrote made her blood boil but would not demand an apology from him.

One of the reasons why Razmyar fell short of asking for an apology is because she apparently believes that racism can be eradicated from the halls of parliament with odd empathy for the racist.

Swedish People’s Party chairman, Carl Haglund, considered what Hakkarainen wrote as “sheer racism.”

“Somebody has to say something,” he was quoted as saying on tabloid Iltalehti. “I’m surprised ho little attention has been given [to what Hakkarainen wrote]…”

Without condemning what Hakkarainen wrote, PS parliamentary leader Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner was quoted as saying on Helsingin Sanomat that the MP’s views did not represent the party’s.

”Critical debate is accepted and welcome [in the PS],” she said, ”but I will not say where we draw the line [on debate].”

Hakkarainen claimed on his blog entry that immigrants who move to this country live off social welfare and are “increasingly guilty of crimes, which were previously rare, among others, like gang rape.”

He claimed that it is every “Muslim’s honor and responsibility to kill and annihilate every religion and Jews, according to the Koran,” and that, “the West is being flooded by millions of Muslims in a wooden Trojan horse…”

Citing a story on Turun Sanomat, the PS MP said that there are Muslim extremists concentrated in the city of Turku ready to declare jihad on Finland.

On an Uusi Suomi blog entry, Hussein offered Hakkarainen an invitation to meet and know more about Finland’s Muslim community. Such meetings have been arranged before for the PS MP, according to the Center Party politician.

”I haven’t heard that such a meeting has ever materilaized, thus I come to the conclusion that either MP Hakkarainen isn’t interested or he really fears Muslims,” he wrote.

Hussein cited on his blog entry a campaign phrase used by the Center Party in the 2012 municipal election to lure back voters that ditched the party and voted for the PS in the April 2011 election.

”We say that it’s time to come back home,” he writes. ”Good man, I want to tell you that it’s time for you to step into the light.”

Let’s play fill in the blanks with far-right Finnish MP Teuvo Hakkarainen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Teuvo Hakkarainen attacked immigrants and Muslims in a latest blog entry, where he accuses them of living off social welfare and Muslims of taking over Europe. In order to understand how ludicrous and racist the PS MP’s arguments are, Migrant Tales will play “fill in the blanks.”

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Migrant Tales has “played” fill in the blanks with PS MP James Hirvisaari’s rants.

Hakkarainen is, unfortunately, an example of how some politicians in Finland can get away with anything as long as what they state is racist or prejudiced.

But let’s play fill in the banks with Hakkarainen.

The PS MP claims that immigrants who move to this country live off social welfare and are “increasingly guilty of crimes, which were previously rare, among others, like gang rape.”

Some may believe the latter is true. All immigrants immediately become gang rapists as soon as they cross the border.

How would a white Finn feel and react if a fanatic claimed the following: “Finns are no good alcoholics, increasingly guilty of crimes, which are rare elsewhere, like pedophilia, shooting classmates in cold blood at schools, killing their children and wife before taking their own life.”

While the latter statement isn’t true because it generalizes and reveals extreme prejudice about the Finns, Hakkarainen does the same thing when he blames immigrants and Muslims for everything under the sun.

In another part of the PS MP’s blog entry, he claims that it is every “Muslim’s honor and responsibility to kill and annihilate every religion and Jews, according to the Koran.”  And continues: “The West is being flooded by millions of Muslims in a wooden Trojan horse…”

Citing a story on Turun Sanomat, he claims that there are Muslim extremists concentrated in Turku ready to declare jihad.

If we play fill in the blanks with the latter affirmations, it could look like the following:  “It’s a Christian and atheist’s honor as well as responsibility to control and kill and invade other countries, according to the Bible.” And continues: “The South and East are being flooded by military intervention and multinational companies in a wooden Trojan horse…”

If you want to continue playing fill in the blanks, just substitute words like immigrant, migrant, gay, Muslim, refugee and replace them with the group and/or ethnicity that is doing the victimizing.

 

 

PS MP Hakkarainen of Finland launches new attack against immigrants and Muslims

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who suggested two years ago that homosexuals, lesbians and Somalians should be relocated to the Åland Islands, has launched a fresh attack against immigrants and Muslims on a blog entry.

Sensible people understand that generalizing about different groups, like Hakkarainen does, is not only wrong but racist.

Migrant Tales strongly condemns this type of hate speech that only serves to fuel ethnic hatred and further Hakkarainen’s questionable political career. We not only condemn the PS MP’s words, but the silence of Finland’s political establishment, especially that of the PS.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-8-19 kello 20.16.06

Read original blog entry here.

Hakkarainen, who represents the Central Finnish town of Viitasaari where there are few to no Muslims, was the first part of the PS tragic-comic political play that kicked off after the historic April 2011 elections.

Watch what the newly elected MP had to say about Muslims in this video English subtitles.

At that time, PS chairman Timo Soini defended politicians like Hakkarainen with a poker face by claiming there wasn’t one racist running for office.

According to Hakkarainen’s latest blog entry, the government doesn’t want to admit that Finland allows too many migrants to the country, which cost too much to upkeep and are a drain on the country.

He claims that too many immigrants live off social welfare and are ”increasingly guilty of crimes, which were previously rare, among others, like gang rape.”

According to the PS MP, whose drinking problems have been well-documented by the media, it is every Muslim’s “honor and responsibility” to kill and annihilate every religion and Jews, according to the Koran. ”The West is being flooded by millions of Muslims inside a wooden Trojan horse…” he wrote.

Citing a story on Turun Sanomat, he claims that there are Muslim extremists concentrated in Turku ready to declare jihad.

Hakkarainen slammed Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, who he called an ”imam” and supporter of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Is Hakkarainen for real or is he a political buffoon, who likes to amuse hard-core racists like himself?

He is for real. He is one of the many faces of intolerance and nationalism of Finland today kept intact by society’s near-silence.

Anti-immigration forces in Finland loathe cultural diversity in order to defend white privilege

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Paavo Arhinmäki, head of the Left Alliance, was quoted as saying in Joensuu that Finland has never been a “monocultural” country. This is true but how many Finnish politicians understand never mind speak out and defend multiculturalism or cultural diversity? Unfortunately, too few.  

The fact that too few politicians have the courage to speak up for Finland’s cultural diversity is one of the factors that is throwing sand in the gears of acceptance and respect for minorities.

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Read Finland never was, is, and will be only “white” here.

Those that claim that Finland is a ”monoculturally homogeneous” country, aim to turn back the hands of time to the days of nationalism and fascism of the 1930s.  

Which groups speak of Finland as one cultural bloc and fight tooth and nail against culturally diversity?

The first political group that comes to mind is the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party and its many cronies like the Suomalaisuuden liitto and Vapaa kielivalina, which aim to demote the Swedish language to elective status at schools.

But these are not the only ones who see cultural diversity as a threat to white Finnish-speaking Finland.

All political parties have strong anti-immigration voices. One of these is the youth wing of the National Coalition Party, which has given us the likes of Wille Rydman.

So what should you know if you want to understand the mindset of Finland’s present anti-immigration sentiment?

First and foremost we must understand history. After the Finnish Civil War of 1918, right-wing and far right forces had a carte blanche to build a country based on nationalistic, conservative and fascist values prevalent in Europe during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s.

That changed after the war, when those forces that furthered right-wing and conservative-nationalistic forces were put in cold storage.

Those very forces are now lifting their heads through parties like the PS. The issues are the same as before the war but in a different time-frame context. Before communism was the enemy and today it is immigration and cultural diversity.

As post-war Finland showed, values like mutual acceptance and respect between different political forces is possible.  Not only did it learn to coexist together in peace, it was one of the factors that made Finland prosper as a nation.

I wonder what type of country Finland would be today if the Nazis, which the Finns fought side by side with against the former USSR, would have won.

Today we need the same recipe for success that was in force after the Continuation War (1941-44): political acceptance and respect for all groups in Finland. Today we need acceptance and respect for cultural diversity – not failed ideologies that promoted racism and “monoculture.”

Finland never was, is or will be white and Finnish speaking.

What language are you supposed to use with the doctor if you don’t speak Finnish or Swedish?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What happens if you don’t speak Finnish or Swedish and need to take your one-year-old baby to the doctor’s? What about if the doctor isn’t a Finn? Migrant Tales got the following email from one of our readers: 

Hi, I’ve lived in Helsinki for 3 years and would like to share a story that happened to me, my European husband and baby. I’m sharing this story with you because it was the most racist treatment my family had ever received in Finland.

On February 2013, I went to the children’s clinic because my baby was suffering from high fever. Arriving at the clinic in the morning, I was told that no doctor was available to treat my baby girl. The nurse was, however, very helpful. She took us to a room and gave medicine. The nurse recommended that we visit our local health center in [in the eastern Helsinki neighborhood of] Kontula, which she called on our behalf but there were no doctors available on that day. We were then sent to the Myllypuro health center, where we had an appointment with a doctor at 1:30pm.

We arrived to the Myllypuro health center at 1:25pm. Since it was the first time we’d been there, we didn’t know where to go. We asked a clerk at the information desk, who told us that we were in the right place. While this was happening, I  heard from afar my name but wasn’t totally sure. We took a seat and waited for our name to be called by a doctor.

At 1:40pm the doctor called my name. In a very rude manner and speaking only Finnish, which we had difficulty understanding since we don’t speak Finnish well, the doctor said he wouldn’t treat us in English. He said in English that the health center doesn’t accept patients who don’t speak Finnish.

I asked, even insisted, why he couldn’t speak English since he spoke the language fluently.  He answered back in a rude manner and we continued to argue. I told him that I wouldn’t leave until he treated my baby. The doctor then threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave. He said that we were in the wrong place since we should have gone to the Kontula health center in the first place. He also said that he couldn’t treat my baby because he didn’t have the right medial instruments. I told him that we were sent to the Myllypuro health center by a nurse and that she had made the appointment on our behalf.

I asked him why he treated another couple’s baby and not mine while we waited 20 minutes for the nurse at the Myllypuro health center to make an appointment with a doctor at the Kontula health center. I don’t understand why the doctor who wouldn’t speak English to us or treat our baby wasn’t attending any patients. Couldn’t he have checked my baby at that time?

We got an appointment with a Russian doctor at 3pm. The appointment given to us was that of an African couple, which had to wait before we were treated by the doctor. This was not fair to the African couple, I thought.

We spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon before our baby was finally treated by a doctor. Why didn’t the doctor in Myllypuro help? No compassion exists in this country!

I made a complaint to the Ombudsman explaining exactly what had happened to us.

I got a letter from them stating that I had nothing to complain about since my baby got treated. I’m not happy with the response from the Ombudsman. I may have been slightly late to the health center because I didn’t hear my name called but the treatment I got from the foreign doctor, and that he wouldn’t speak English to us, is is pure racism and discriminatory.

Please tell me what I must do.  I feel voiceless in this country, where most Finns want cover up racism at all costs.

Lives are put on hold at the Karhula, Finland, refugee center

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Have you ever visited a refugee center in Finland? I did on Sunday in Karhula, located 130km east of Helsinki. The refugee center, which comprises of two four-story blocks, revealed some of its inhabitants when you reached a small court in its middle hidden from the outside world. 

The court, which had bed sheets and clothes drying on each of the buildings’ floors in the damp and rainy afternoon day, surprised and shocked me. Do people live here? It must be depressing, I thought.

The feeling is something like being at a railway station or airport transit lounge, where there is a sense of hope even if you are in a no-man’s or woman’s land.  The refugee center is different from the optimistic anticipation you may feel at a railway station or airport. The only thing missing is that don’t know where the next station will be.

Two asylum-seekers from Africa started speaking to me from the second floor while four children, aged about seven, who asked me to take a picture of them.  All four spoke fluent Finnish, which suggested that their parents had lived at the refugee center for quite some time.

“How long have you lived here,” I asked.

Nobody knew or answered back.

One of the children appeared disturbed and hyperactive. The only girl in the group told me proudly about a spare bike tire, which is used as a swing. She asked me to take a picture of her next to the so-called swing.

A former asylum-seeker with whom I visited the refugee center told me that some people wait 2-4 years for a positive decision, even longer, to remain in Finland.

“You live in constant fear in a refugee center because you never know when you’ll be deported,” he said. “Your life is on hold. Apart from fear, you are mocked by a near-constant sense of pessimism.”

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 If there is a picture that says it all about the refugee centers, its this one. Everything is broken.

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 The Karhula refugee center is a depressing place.

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As if hidden from the outside world, a small court instantly appears. It shocks you.