Category: Enrique

Finnish immigration policy is lost in time

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Every country has a sensitive nerve. Find and touch it and you will hear pain – or outrage. In the US it is Washington’s unilateral approach to foreign policy, accepting that it was a crime against humanity to drop two atom bombs on Japan, in Spain it is the pillaging of Latin America from the 16th century, in France it is accepting that French culture has been relegated to a second-class global status, in Argentina it is being an animal rights advocate and in Germany it is exposing in great detail the crimes committed against the Jews and other nationalities during the Nazi regime.

What is Finland’s vulnerable nerve? In my opinion it is having a totally new look at Russia and immigration in general. Specifically, seeing these two latter matters as an opportunity – not as a gas pump to feed one’s nationalism and an opportunity to exploit to the maximum.

Those who know little about Finland will usually claim that the country has been hardened by its uneasy relationship with its giant eastern neighbor Russia. Three terrible wars (Civil, Winter and Continuation) shaped how some Finns saw the outside world. Basically it was seen as a threat compared with being an opportunity.

If anything, Finnish immigration policy, especially after the Second World War, reflects this attitude. Imagine, if the “white” Russians have caused so much harm to Finland, what kind of a unknown threat would other cultures pose on the country? Finland’s attitude towards outsiders had also been expressed in its antiquated foreign investment laws that prohibited foreigners from owning stakes in key industries such a forestry, own land etc. The law, which came into force in 1939, was only thrown into the trashcan of history after Finland became a EU member in 1995.

Even though I have a lot of hope that matters will eventually change for the better in Finland, I’m not holding my breath. Many of the policy makers who are now drafting Finland’s immigration and multicultural policy grew up during the cold war era, when Finland walked a very thin geopolitical line. Another factor that has kept Finland’s immigration policy lost in time is that it is guided mostly by nationalist emotions. How many foreigners or sons of foreigners wield enough power in Finland to influence such decisions? Very few – if none. The situation is a bit like being a white racially ignorant social worker from Alabama offering advice to Blacks in Harlem. The best people to help such Blacks are the Blacks from Harlem.

To conclude, Finland’s stance and policy on immigration is like the internationalization that Finnish companies underwent in the 1980s. They became “international” companies but had few if any non-Finns working for them.

In memory of Eila Kännö

Posted on by Migrant Tales

For those of you who had the opportunity to move to Finland in the 1970s or early 1980s, will certainly remember Eila Kännö, the head of the then-Aliens’ Office. Has anyone counted how many times the name of the immigration office has changed since the 1970s? I have lost track.

She was the epitome of keeping Finland “clean” of foreigners.  Kari, the late Helsingin Sanomat cartoonist, who was well known for his stance against immigrants in Finland, did a cartoon of Kännö.  She was depicted as a doorwoman standing guard in front of hordes or inhuman-looking foreigners attempting to enter the country. Helsingin Sanomat compared her style of rule with Benito Mussolini’s.

But her hard-line stance was her downfall. Kännö had threatened in an evening paper to throw the foreigners, who had staged the biggest demonstration ever in the early 1980s demanding greater rights, into jail because it was illegal for a non-Finn to organize a demonstration. There was a loophole: The Helsinki University Union student body organized the demonstration.

That demonstration was what probably brought Kännö down. The more hostile and reticent the Aliens’ Office became the more of a liability she became.  It’s incredible that some Finns and well-known journalists like Pekka Karhuvaara approved of her tough autocratic style.

One of the favorite arguments used by police authorities back then why Finland had to keep outsiders from living in Finland was because they were “potential criminals.” Incredulous, no?

We should never forget this bleak period and more should be written about it. Not for revenge but that such policy mistakes never occur again.

The future human landscape of Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

While we can debate how many foreigners will come to live in Finland in the next decade and if they’ll come to live in the country, what will Finland’s human landscape look like in the next and following decades as the country become more multicultural?

By multicultural I am referring to Canada’s novel immigrant policy whereby everyone is equal – regardless of color, national and religious background – in the job market and has the right to maintain and practice their culture.

One interesting matter that worries me about the whole debate of foreigners in Finland is that it is very one-sided. We rarely pose the following question: How receptive of a society are we to outsiders? Does Finnish society have the ability to accept people from different backgrounds as full members of society?

Or does Finland want to follow the questionable path of some countries like France and the US, where unskilled labor is exploited to the maximum?

So what will the future human landscape of Finland look like? If we are able to attract enough foreigners to live and work in our country, it will mean a lot of changed to how we define and  perceive  Finnish culture. There  will be the majority culture and the so-called minority cultures which,  like subcultures, will have their own distinctive identity in Finnish culture. These new members of our society will speak differently the Finnish and/or Swedish language not because they do not know the language well enough, but because they want to develop their own Finnish identity through language and culture.

“It paid to be Alfredo Stroessner’s son”*

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María Eugenia Heikel, 57, the former wife of the late Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s son Gustavo, is just one victim of the ruthless regime that ruled one of Latin America’s poorest countries for 35 years. (Click to see Spanish version of the article in El País of Madrid).

Even though the Stroessners fled the country 19 years ago in 1989, neither Alfredo nor Gustavo Stroessner have been brought before a Paraguayan court for human rights violations and amassing huge fortune estimated at somewhere between two and three billion dollars through a well-organized network of coercion and corruption.

But all this may change after April’s presidential elections, when 56-year-old cleric Fernando Lugo caused a political earthquake by ending Colorado Party rule after 61 years. Edgar Ruiz Diaz, a journalist who works at ABC Color, Paraguay’s leading daily, has been investigating the Stroessners for a long time. “Even though the Stroessners fled the country in 1989, the system [of cronyism and corruption] they left behind is still intact,” he said, adding that the main reason why Paraguay’s former rulers have not been brought to justice is because the judges are Stroessneristas.

Heikel, who is the daughter of Finnish immigrants that settled the country in the 1920s, told this journalist 10 years ago that her former husband had amassed a fortune between “$300 and $500 million” that was deposited in US and Swiss banks. Today, she’s not that certain any longer. “The investigation into his finances was halted,” she says. “I cannot confirm how much money he has abroad.”

How is it possible that a Paraguayan air force colonel can amass such a fortune? Heikel said that apart from the insurance and construction companies that her husband ran, he received a percentage of the profits that casinos and bingo establishments made. “It paid to be the president’s son,” she said a decade ago.

Heikel’s problems with her former husband started when the family fled to Brasilia after a 1989 coup. “Gustavo was the most affected by living in exile,” she says. “He changed and started to pray all day and would not even give me money to buy a Coke. He was not well. People who know him tell me that he has not changed.”

Heikel explains that in 1993, when she left for Rio de Janeiro to take part in an equestrian competition,
she made the decision never to return to her husband’s side. “It was a very difficult moment in my life because I had lost everything,” she said. Heikel said that her ex-husband’s reaction to abandon and leave her penniless was “cowardly.”

While in Rio de Janeiro, Gustavo Stroessner spread false accusations about Heikel. She states that her former husband had channeled these lies through his sister-in-law Marta Rodríguez, who was married to “Alfredito” Stroessner before Gustavo’s brother died of a drug overdose at the age of 50. “Nothing was ever proven [when I returned to Paraguay in 1998] and neither did I steal anything from anyone,” Heikel says.

“When I lived in Rio, I feared for my life and was always very careful about my movements [in public].” In Paraguay, Heikel waged a tireless legal and media battle against her husband. She even exposed sensitive information about her husband in the Paraguayan media. She said, however, that an agreement was reached in 2002 with Gustavo Stroessner over compensation. Heikel did not reveal the sum but denied she was a millionaire. “I can now live without worries,” she said. Even if Gustavo Stroessner was seen as the heir -apparent to succeed his father, Heikel stated that Alfred Stroessner was against him becoming president. “He never wanted to be president,” she says. “I told him not to get involved in politics.”

Heikel claims that Stroessner’s harsh rule in Paraguay was due to communism. “We were fighting against communism,” she concludes. “We did not have the same problems as Uruguay and Chile [in the 1970s].”

*The article appeared in the June 4th issue of IHT’s El País edition.

How immigrant-friendly is Finland?

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If we look at the unemployment figures (20% jobless among foreigners) and the motives of non-Finns that moved to this country according to their residence permit applications, we are still faraway from being an immigrant-friendly country.

According to the Finnish Immigration Service, last year 6,196 (32%) residence permit applications were for employment followed for studies 3,980 (20%) and other reasons such as specialists, researchers, athletes (16%). Most of the residence applications were for studying and family ties based on marriage and children (5,464/23%).

Add both of the latter groups and it reaches 43%!

The total number of foreigners that applied for residence permits in 2007 stood at 19,216, up 33.3% compared with 14,420 in the previous year. Of the above-mentioned amount, the Finnish Immigration Service rejected 2,015 applications versus 1,633, respectively.

Even though the Finnish foreign population has been growing since the mid-1990s, when it became a EU member, Finland is not a paradise for foreigners who are seeking employment. Even so, matters can change. At the present rate, however, things are changing very slowly.

My controversial documentary on Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If I had access to a generous amount of financing and got the chance to do a documentary film on Finland, what would be the first images I would show you?

I would not start with a long and slow scene of dragonflies and insects dancing in the summer air above a pristine lake hugged by towering spruces, birches, firs and a few mountain ashes peppered here and there.

Wrong again. It wouldn’t be a full-bloom sunset radiating warmth in early spring, even if it is freezing outside. Nope, I wouldn’t attempt to picture how the full moon emits soft light as a soft pillow to lay your deepest thoughts inside a near-still autumn forest.

No, the documentary wouldn’t kick off with a scene showing modern architecture and of quiet and obedient buildings lined up in cities like Helsinki, Turku or Oulu. I wouldn’t even consider picturing a famous landmark like Finlandia Hall, or the paper mills of Tampere, which must have inspired the late Väinö Linna, the author of the Unknown Soldier.

The documentary would definitely not start with the rude rumbles of war and of scenes showing Karelian refugees abandoning their homes behind them – but not their dreams.

Definitely not: I wouldn’t start by asking an obvious question to President Tarja Halonen such as, “what would you like to tell the viewers,” never mind get into a heated debate with Finland’s last cold war President Mauno Koivisto. Forget Carl Mannerheim, Risto Ryti and Juho Paasikivi as well.

Possibly the documentary could kick off sportsmen like Paavo Nurmi, Lasse Viren, Mikko Ala-Leppilampi or maybe it is not such a good idea after all. What about Jean Sibelius? Mika Kaurismäki? Eeva Kilpi? Mika Waltari? Aino Kallas? Minna Canth? Lordi? What about a group of Finnish folk dancers entertaining a large crowd of Canadian Finns in Thunder Bay? No, no – and NO!

First scene

After the opening credits, the first image you would see is a truck transporting cut logs to a paper mill. As the forest industry got more efficient and produced more money for their owners such as the state, Finland didn’t become richer – but poorer.

Those old-growth forests that were once so abundant 50 years ago, are today like rare tropical islands in the Pacific untouched by mankind and womankind. Forests that are in their natural state, or close to it, cover 1.1 million hectares, or only 5.5% of forestland in Finland. Only 0.4 million hectares (2% of the land) have been protected.

Forest companies have devised new catchwords to justify the devastation they reap: metsätalous, which means in general terms felling your forest so it will generate the greatest economic wealth at the cost of biodiversity.

What about if you don’t want the woods to look like enormous planted fields, where trees grow like wheat or other cash crops? What about if you long to walk in forests that has free will and can decide for itself how it will grow, and die?

In the future, I fear our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have to visit “nature zoos” in order to see how natural forests once looked like.

The next scene would depict how global warming is challenging our country and way of life. It’s December 23 and the camera is focused on a thermometer outdoors: At 10am it’s 2C, but at 2pm the temperature soars to 17C, and finally rests at 35C at 4pm!

OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit, but temperatures have been steadily rising in Finland, increasing by 0.7°C (33.26F) since the previous century. By 2025, they are expected to rise by 2°C (35.6F), and during 2030-80 by as much as 4-6°C (39.2F-42.8F), according to a study by Finland’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Of course these are very tentative predictions. By the time we get to 2025 or even sooner, we may notice that matters are in much worse shape than we expected.

Even though Finland will be hard-pressed by such challenges, our traditional way of life is being undermined by “global warming,” which is forcing us to change our lifestyles.

One of the greatest threats to the soul of this nation – and that of many others as well – are the negative matters that globalization such as excessive greed. Thirty years ago, Finland was another country with different values that didn’t always revolve around the size of your wallet.

So add to this the lethal variable of global warming and our destruction of our forests coupled with our insatiable desire to accumulate more wealth and comfort, and it is pretty clear to understand what is wrong with us.

Hopefully, when it is still not too late, we can look deep behind into time and rescue bits and pieces of where our ancestors and culture came from to rebuild a more lasting society – and world.

Dear reader, as you can see, I would have totally misled you about what Finland is if I’d only talk about the things I omitted at the beginning of the column.

In my opinion, the greatest challenge to our country is the destruction to our environment and biodiversity as well as our way of life.

So help us save Finland – and let’s not forget our planet as well.

Note: This column was published in Suomen Silta magazine.

Is there racism in Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the most successful posts of this blog is, Are you a target of racism in Finland? In my opinion the reason why so many have read it is because there is a racism problem in Finland. A Niko wrote a recent comment, where he states, “there are some real problems in Finnish society but racism is not in the top 5.”

If unemployment is about 7% among Finns and about 20% among foreigners, certainly that shows that there is a problem. Is this due to racism, discrimination or because Finns are suspicious of outsiders?

Some Finns argue that one reason why foreigners don’t have jobs is because they don’t speak the language nor understand the culture. This sounds like an excuse to justify the present situation, whereby some foreigners continue to be marginalized from Finnish society. It is, however, a good point, but it is not a valid one. In Spain, where there are many Latin Americans who speak Spanish as their mother tongue and even have the same religion as many Spaniards. one would guess that integration into Spanish society would be easy. Wrong. Most of the Latin Americans, especially those from Ecuador, Dominicans, Bolivia and others, who are racially different-looking from Spaniards, suffer racist attacks and are at the lower end of the societal totem pole.

This suggests that that a big part of the problem resides in Spanish attitudes towards outsiders.

Why do Africans from former French colonies, where they speak French, are a target of constant racism in France? Shouldn’t a common language unite them? Or is it racism?

A so-called “civilized” country like Finland is measured by its ability to accept – not reject and exclude – and facilitate the integration of “outsiders” into society. Up to now, it has done a pretty poor job at this.

When unemployment of foreigners and Finns is at about the same level, then that will be one indication that we have slain, or at least contained, the ogre of racism that is still alive and kicking in Finland.

Spain’s Valencia shameful example to its immigrants

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The regional government of Valencia, which is ruled by the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) , is planning to force immigrants to sign a contract obliging them to respect local “customs and traditions.” Apart from being illegal and a slap in the face to respect for other cultures, the PP-led initiative is racist as well.

But what does respecting “local customs and traditions” mean? Who is to say what is Valencian never mind Spanish culture unless you want to dwell in generalities and stereotypes.

Unfortunately the measures, which will put the PP on a collision course with the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, it exposes the myopic world of some Spaniards in the PP. It also exposes their cultural uncertainty. Such politicians continue to live in the “good old days” when Spain conquered and pillaged other cultures.

In an attempt to win over voters, PP leader Mariano Rajoy launched the idea of a immigrant contract on the campaign trail. The PP lost the March 9 election to the Socialists.

Possibly this would be a good case to take such a racist measure to a European Union court. It would be a good matter to tell these politicians as well that there are many examples were multicultural societies have benefited from cultural synergy.

Has the English language been undermined by the fact that it has been influenced by over 300 languages? Certainly not. Such a matter has strengthened – not weakened it.

Carnage in southern Spain

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It was a quiet Saturday evening when a phone call awakes me from my rest at about 11pm.

“A lot of Finns have died in Málaga [in southern Spain],” the journalist from a large Finnish magazine said. “Can you check what is going on and I’ll call you at noon [Sunday].”

The first death count I heard was eight, which had risen to nine, with 22 people being sent to different hospitals. That was Saturday evening.

About 3.5 hours before the call, a young man had passed a bus full of Finnish tourists that was going to the airport. The driver, who lost control of the black SUV and was driving under the influence of alcohol, crashed into the ramp and then smashed against the bus, causing it to overturn. Part of the ramp broke off and flew with tremendous force and cut into the bus like a sword. Some of the passengers were unrecognizable. DNA tests had to be made to determine their identity. That is how ferocious the crash was.

Contrary to Saturday night, when Andlausian authorities said there were two Finns in critical condition contrary to one on Sunday. There were still 18 hospitalized the day after the crash. By Thursday, there were 13 still hospitalized but they were ready to fly back to Finland on Friday. Only the lady, who was in critical condition, would continue to be hospitalized in the intensive-care ward.

There were a few matters that shocked and surprised me about reporting the event:

1) A 6-year old girl was one of the victims that died in the crash.

2) The victims and the suffering they endured.

3) The driver and how he has ruined his life. The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Spain’s top judicial watchdog body, told me that the driver could receive a prison sentence of “over 10 years.”

4) Why didn’t the Finnish embassy in Madrid raise a flag in half mast to honor those who died in the crash?

So, apart from the prison term that awaits the driver, does he have to pay any indemnities to the victims of the crash? “The one who will pay the indemnities is the insurance company,” Enrique López, a CGPJ spokesperson, told me. “Not the driver.”

Franco’s shadow still hangs deep in Spain

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“Democracy is shit!” a former Spanish diplomat in his 70s told me at a Madrid bar. “Democracy does not work. The socialists have destroyed Spain!”

A small lapse of silence as he gathers some wind for is arguments: “Our foreign policy is in tatters (because Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero defied George W. Bush by pulling Spanish troops from Iraq in 2004).”

I listened for a while longer and remembered an old couple in the 1960s that lived in exile in Paris from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). There names were López and Angelina. I remember López very well because he fought for the Republican Army and told me a little about the horrors of that conflict.

After López’ and Angelina’s image faded in my thoughts, I responded:

“In Argentina one of the problems we had before the 1916 elections was that voting was only a privilege of the few,” I said. “This is what messed up Argentina for close to the seventy years.”

I was surprised that still in Europe there were people who thought so lowly about democracy. But if we look at the conflict in the Balkans and the persecution of minorities like the Roma, it’s unfortunate that a large minority of Europeans don’t appreciate Western democracy.

Our discussion on whether democracy was good or bad for Spain ended in an instant. Even so, such a discussion would have never been possible under dictator Francisco Franco’s regime (1939-75).