Category: Enrique

Sport is one of your best passports to acceptance in a new country

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Since sports can be your passport to acceptance in a new country, its role should never be underetimated never mind undermined. It’s clear that we need to do more work in Finland to promote sports in order to include more immigrants and their children in this activity.

In the United States I played basketball, track & field, and soccer to gain new friends, respect and acceptance. If you were good at sports in school you were immediately accepted in the so-called elite student class.

Sports is an effective integrator because any sensible coach or trainer understands that racism and discrimination hurt the person’s and team’s performance. Teamwork works best when these latter social ills don’t take the driver’s seat.

Sports offers our integration program a good benchmark. Pereformance is judged by skills not by a sportsman’s or woman’s ethnicity.

Basketball was my passport to acceptance in the United States, track & field helped me to meet new Finnish friends and soccer enabled me to be accepted by Latinos.

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This is me before the Fosbury flop at a track & field meet in California in 1971 between Hollywood and Eagle Rock High School.

One of the most important moments of my sporting career took place at the regional track & field championship in Varkaus in the early 1970s. I had won the high jump compeition but there was a slight problem.

”We cannot give you the award because you don’t live in Finland,” an official of the event said.

”But I am a Finn,” I responded. “My grandfather was an active sportsman and leader in SVUL [Etelä-Savo sports federation]. I visit Finland every summer.”

After much thought, the ogranizing committee decided to give me the award.

I am eternally grateful to them that they did. I tried to get in touch with the organizers thirty years later and thank them for making the right decision and not allowing nationality to get in the way.

But who had informed them that I didn’t live in Finland at the time?

In the 1970s Finnish citizenship was defined on very narrow terms. Even if my mother is a Finn, I had no right to citizenship. This changed in 1984, when children of Finnish mothers were given citizenship automatically.

One of the challenges facing Finland today is that there are too few immigrants that excel in sports when compared with Sweden or other European countries like England and Holland.

Leena Harjula-Jalonen of the Finnish Multicultural Sports Federation (FIMU) agrees.

”This situation should be better studied in order to address the issue more effectively [so more immigrants and their children can participat and excel in sports],” Harjula-Jalonen told Migrant Tales, adding that high participation costs and targeting state aid to such programs are some of the many challenges facing immigrants.

Here’s an article on Wednesday’s Helsingin Sanomat that sheds more light on the problem.

Nipping prejudice in the bud with our example

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We must find effective ways to nip prejudice in the bud. The worst matter we can do when it happens is our silence, which emboldens and strengthens intolerance to see a new day. How you may ask can we challenge such social ills? The answer is simple: our example and leadership. 

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Racist rants are usually accompanied by Nazi slogans like this one found in Mikkeli, Finland.

One of the worst mistakes some make when speaking about other groups is to generalize. When we generalize we water the seeds of our prejudice, which eventually bloom and reinforce our intolerance.

A study by  Janet Swim and Laurie Hyers in the United States asked the following question to women if they heard a sexist joke: Would you put them in their place, or would you be too nice to confront?

The study showed that 50% of the women participants said they’d ignore the comment, while 16% would actually comment on its inappropriateness. Two percent would grumble and do nothing.

I suspect that when it comes to racist jokes or comments, the number of people that would ignore them would be much higher than 50%.

Our reaction should be like Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s, who said that his country had become after Anders Breivik’s attacks a “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” according to their ethnic background.  His answer was more democracy, openness and tolerance, not less.

If you are at a meeting with colleagues or friends and they make a racist joke, tell them that it’s inappropriate.

Our reaction to intolerance should be first and foremost a reaction.

Jyväskylä may turn into another blow to Finland’s Counterjihadist -anti-immigration hardliners

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If the Counterjihadist-anti-immigration tide turned in Finland and the Nordic region after 22/7, when Anders Breivik went on the rampage killing 77 innocent people, the attack in Jyväskylä on Wednesday by suspected far-right thugs could be a serious blow to anti-immigration and far right groups in Finland. 

Whenever hatred metamorphoses into violence, like in the case of Breivik, and now the attack on the event in Jyväskylä, people get scared  and think twice before jumping on the hate bandwagon again.

It’s like picking and bullying somebody in a group. It may seem “fun” at first but when it turns messy that’s when people start regretting what they did.

Since politicians who built their popularity on racism and intolerance are the worst opportunists, it’s clear that they will play down what happened in Norway, as Jussi Halla-aho and James Hirvisaari did, and as Juho Eerola now does with Jyväskylä.

Eerola not only told the suspected neo-Nazis in Jyväskylä how to crash the next book event, but that the organizers had staged what happened in order to sell more books.

Halla-aho, Hirvisaari and Eerola are Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs who have built their political careers by spreading hatred and intolerance of immigrants. All three are or have been members of the extremist href=”http://www.migranttales.net/supo-suomen-sisu-is-an-extremist-group/”>Suomen Sisu association.

Migrant Tales has written before that you cannot keep racism on a short leash. Intolerance knows now master. It can bite back at its keeper and hard as we saw in Norway in July 2011.

 

 

Red Herring tales (Part 2): City of Vaasa bans the burkini

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As expected, the Vaasa city leisure committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to prohibit the use of burkinis. The committee claims that the swimming outfit, consisting of a head scarf, tunic and trousers designed for Muslim women, is a dangerous to the swimmer and unhygienic.

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It’s unclear from the rules if Muslims are required to go to the sauna naked.

While the city may have a point, the prohibition goes much deeper: it’s another example of our hardened stance against Muslims and cultural diversity in general. It is a sure recipe for failure in integrating all parts of our ever-growing culturally diverse society. The following message rings out loud and clear:  This is Finland and this is how we do things. Go back to where you came from if you don’t like it.

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 The cartoon depicts perfectly when the city of Vaasa prohibited the use of burquinis at their public pools.

Migrant Tales spoke last week to the City of Vaasa official who made the proposal to the leisure committee. I wasn’t impressed by the reasons for prohibiting the burquini, which revealed a red herring: We are not willing to compromise and work with you on this matter.

The quotes by the city official that reinforces the above were: “We have for as long as I can remember men from wearing shorts [at pools]. There are no exceptions,” and “99.9% of the swimmers are for the ban.”

The percentage figure, 99.9%, reveals that only a handful use burkinis.

If it is a single-digit figure couldn’t it have been resolved in a different way?

It is incredible as well that while some officials speak of getting immigrant women out of the home and integrate them into our society, the burkini ban does the opposite and will encourage them to stay home.

Another matter that raises serious questions is the Suomen Uimaopetus- ja Hengenpelastusliitto (SUH), the Finnish swimming instruction and lifesaver’s association, which is planning to recommend prohibiting this spring the burkini throughout Finland.

Who is the SUH? Is it one association or many different that should look into the matter and recommend policy?

The SUH official told Migrant Tales that he had got in touch with Suomen Somaliliitto, the Somali Association,  and a Somali Helsinki city councillor. None of them had responded back about the burkini, according to the SUH official.

How should this affair been handled?

Why didn’t the City of Vaasa get in touch with the local imam(s) and spoke to them about this problem to find a solution? This would have been a more effective and sensible way to find a compromise.

In sum, the burkini prohibition in Vaasa reveals one of the biggest challenges and issues facing Finland as it becomes ever-culturally diverse: Taking into account other cultures and empowering them through the decision-making process.

Post-Jyväskylä: Where do we go from here?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Considering how the media treated before the April 2011 election racism and far right ideology and how social media sites were teeming with racist online lynch mobs, we are today waking up from the hangover of our state of social inebriation. The aftereffect will not go away in a day, week, or month but will take a very long time to wear off. 

Instead of alcohol, Finland has been consuming and experimenting with racism, nationalism and far right ideology as answers to our ever-growing cultural diversity The more it drinks, the more we lose touch with reality and what is good for us.

Was it a coincidence that the attack in Jyväskylä marked exactly the  eightieth anniversary when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany as chancellor  and transformed the country into a totalitarian state?

When speaking of far right violence and racism in Europe, we cannot avoid addressing social ills like intolerance.

Claiming that social exclusion of white Finnish youths is one of the main factors behind what happened in Jyväskylä is only addressing part of the problem without seeing the whole picture.

Reading a number of editorials about what happened in Jyväskylä, only one by Savon Sanomat cited racism as the real culprit. It wrote: “An even  greater threat from organized extremist movements is a sort of daily racism that is targeted against immigrants and even to our [Swedish-] language minority. Attitudes in Finland have changed course, which isn’t anything to brag about.”

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The Kuopio-based daily makes a valid point. Every day racism, xenophobia and attacks against our Swedish-speaking minority feed far right and populist-nationalist groups. They are the 98 octane fuel that permit it to spread their intolerance.

Bears hibernate in winter but so can countries for many years when they live in a state of denial. Finland is no longer a nation owned and controlled by just white Finns. It is a fact that we are an ever-growing culturally diverse nation.

Let’s not give an Andres Breivik the opportunity to commit murder on a mass scale before we understand that our response to intolerance was inefficient.

Everyone in Finland has the right to be treated as an equal member of society and with respect.

Some sectors of our society have a very hard time accepting this. They are not only white marginalized Finnish youths, but a far bigger group that extends to all sectors of our society.

PS’ second vice president doesn’t condemn but “gives advice”to Jyväskylä’s neo-Nazi attackers

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) second vice president, MP Juho Eerola, did not condemn the attacks in Jyväskylä by suspected neo-Nazi thugs but advised them how to do it more effectively, reports National Coalition Party’s online Verkkouutiset. Writes Eerola:  “The next time don’t look like “patriots” when you plan to enter such an event.  Don’t go as a group but be [inconspicuous] in the crowd.”

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Eerola’s views are shameful if not worrisome. They reveal how some PS members  hold rights rights like freedom of speech and the right to assembly in contempt.

The PS MP denied on Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat that he was giving advice on how to carry out the attack and should express his ideas more precisely the next time.

Eerola’s aide, Ulla Pyysalo, had applied for membership in the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansallinen Vastarina (SKV) but refused to resign from her post unless she found a new job by the end of the year.

Eerola, whose sympathies with fascism are well known, defended Pyysalo and did not see any reason for her to resign. He said he’d be more worried if his aide belonged to a far-left organization.

One of the matters that  worries me about t people like Eerola and his band is they think they can rewrite history and put our way of life in cold storage in order to please their views, which are harmful to our society.

 

 

 

Interior minister: Far right isn’t “a big threat” despite what happened in Jyväskylä

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Christian Democrat Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen condemned the attack by three suspected neo-Nazi thugs in Jyväskylä as an assault against freedom of speech and the right to assembly, reports YLE. She didn’t consider, however, the far right to be a threat to Finland but said that the authorities aim to do more work to address social marginalization.  

Whether the far right is a threat or not to Finland depends on your perspective. If you are a white interior minister and a member of the Christian Democratic Party, maybe the threat of the far right isn’t such a pressing issue. 

The minister who is making such a statement believes homosexuality to be a sin, begging should be made illegal, and approves indirectly ethnic profiling by the police.

In many respects, it’s the same question if racism and discrimination are widespread or not in Finland.  If you are white it’s more difficult to grasp the problem than if you are a visible minority.   

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While social marginalization may be one of the culprits that is fueling far right ideology in Europe and Finland, there are others like intolerance and prejudice taught at home.

Challenging far right ideology, and the 98 octane fuel (racism, xenophobia, prejudice, marginalization, among others) that feeds it, must be everyone’s priority.

The first important step is that our reaction to far right violence and its ideology should be first and foremost a reaction.

Räsänen’s views on what happened in Jyväskylä and its causes show a very meek rection.

Jyväskylä is (another) wakeup call to growing far right violence and intimidation

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Wednesday’s attack by neo-Nazi thugs at a book presentation in Jyväskylä is a wakeup call to the growing menace of far right violence in Finland. Was what happened in the central Finnish city a surprise? 

The answer is no if you ask researcher Vesa Puuronen of the University of Eastern Finland.

”When we consider recent political and ideidological developments in Finland and Europe,” he was quoted as saying on YLE in English, ”then this is by no means a surprising incident.”

Considering that a group of suspected neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) members tried to disrupt a peaceful meeting where people were exercising their right to meet and express themselves is a cause for concern.

In many respects the rise of far right and neo-Nazi (see Hungary and Greece) are fuelling and emboldening likeminded groups in Finland. It would be naive to think that we are some island immune to their ideology.

One has only to go back to the April 2011 election, when the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party won a historic election victory to become Finland’s third-largest party in parliament.

While not all PS MPs and party members belong to the far right, a group led by MP Jussi Halla-aho  pretty much dictates policy on immigration and cultural diversity. Their view of on these issues is similar to other far right groups in Europe like the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party.

As long as politicians, civil leaders, policy makers and the general public remain quiet and play down  the threat that far right groups in this country, we’ll be  emboldening them to new acts of violence. Racism, xenophobia and prejudice are some of the fuels that these groups thrive on to grow.

What happened in Jyväskylä is not only disgraceful, but a directattack against all of us who believe in the rule of law.

Suspected neo-Nazis attack book presentation event on the far right in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A group of men with bottles and knives barged in a book presentation in the central Finnish city of Jyväskylä on far-right extremism, according to Yle in English. The men, who called themselves ”patriots,” injured one of the body guards who was taken to hospital. The attackers fled the scene. 

Members of the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) are suspected to have attacked the book presentation.

Two of Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland) three authors, Li Andersson and Mikael Brunila, were present at the event but weren’t hurt.

The police, who haven’t yet  caught the suspects, said that they are investigating the incident as aggravated assault.

MTV3 reported on the 10pm news that two of the attackers ave been identified but could not confirm if the police had apprehended them.

skvThis neo-Nazi SKV sticker was found in front of my home in spring.

The attack in Jyväskylä demonstrates that far right and neo-Nazi groups in Finland are getting bolder. 

Far right in Finland ‘s third author, Dan Koivulaakso, was attacked with pepper spray in June at a North Pride event in Oulu.

If the police would connect all the recent dots about the presence of far-right violence in this country, I’m certain that some would be concerned.

The same way that the police plays down the threat of these groups, it doesn’t appear too concerned either by the rising number of hate crimes and racism inflicting this country.

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I spoke with Alain Minguet, a Green Party city councilor and president of JoMoni, over a year ago that something like what happend in Jyväskylä  could take place, or worse.

Many who write about racism in Finland get harassed. The first story I wrote about how badly Somali’s were treated in Mikkeli in the early 1990s for a major Finnish magazine landed me two death threats by phone. There was a third caller who harassed and insulted me over the phone.

The death threats and threats in general haven’t stopped. I filed a complaint to the police last spring about such cases but haven’t heard a word from them. The policeman investigating the case doesn’t even answer my phone calls.

Believe it or not, the police in Mikkeli and Pieksämäki have told me that I should not report racist harassment cases to the police.

It’s time for the authorities to get tough with neo-Nazi and far right groups that use violence and death threats to get across their message.

 

What does Finland’s integration law reveal about our society and expectations?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A good question we can ask about Finland’s integration act is what it reflects about our views and expectations of newcomers. Can any law integrate people effectively?  

If you want to speak of one- or two-way adaption, one should ask some of Finland’s oldest minorities like the Roma and Saami what memories such a law may evoke.

Considering that children who spoke Saami at school in the 1960s were punished in Finland, it’s natural that there are a lot of bad feelings and distrust of white Finns’ intentions.

If we look at second- and third-generation Finns, we don’t even know what these people were supposed to integrate to. It’s sad that the answer to this question has been in some cases society’s indifference and rejection.

Apart form the lack of resources that the present integration law faces, another challenge is if it offers a big picture of our ever-growing culturally diverse society. How, for example, does it promote acceptance as well as respect for new Finnishness and other new identities?

It would be too simplistic to claim that the integration law is a utter failure. For one it keeps those who are hostile to our ever-growing cultural diversity at bay. Its existence permits it to indirectly integrate Finns as well to the idea that we are becoming a culturally diverse society.

What does the act reflect about our views and expectations of newcomers? In many respects it reflects our expectations and too little of those that are being integrated.  Thus we speak of two-way integration but in practice it’s one-way.

Canadian Social psychologist J. W. Berry highlighted three important matters in order to manage successfully a culturally diverse society. Even if he speaks of multiculturalism, it can apply well to Finland, which accepts culturally diversity in its laws.

Writes Berry:

  • In our view there needs to be general support for cultural diversity as a valuable resource for a society;
  • There should be overall low levels of prejudice in the population;  
  • There should be generally positive mutual attitudes among the various ethnocultural groups that constitute the society;
  • There needs to be a degree of attachment to the larger national society.

Do you agree?