Category: Enrique

How sincere is PS MP Immonen about Finnish Karelia?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finnish Karelia, Salla, and Petsamo were territories ceded to the former Soviet Union after the Continuation War (1941-44).  Counterjihadist Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen sent a parliamentary question Friday asking the government to investigate whether Russia offered in 1991 then President Mauno Koivisto (1982-94) the possibility to buy back the ceded region.

Koivisto, who was the country’s last cold war president, denied in a Helsingin Sanomat interview in 2007 (15 years later!) that then Russian President Boris Yeltsin had offered Finland the opportunity to buy back Finnish Karelia.

Finland used to look like a maiden before 1944. It lost part of its skirt (Finnish Karelia) and an arm (Petsamo) to the former Soviet Union after the war. 

Finnish Karelia represents everything that was and went wrong with Europe at the time. It is a small jigsaw puzzle of a terrible war that ended up costing the lives of an estimated 60 million people.

If the offer by Moscow to Helsinki is true, speculation has it that the sizable Russian population in the ceded region was one important reason why President Koivisto did not want to negotiate with the Russians.

In 1991, Finland’s immigrant population was miniscule, totaling 26,255, or 0.5% of the population.

Finns were back then – as today – very set in their ethnic perceptions of themselves and suspicion of the Russians continues to be high in Finland.

The interesting question to ask about the purchase of Finnish Karelia is what role did issues like ethnic and national ”purity,” Finland’s deep-seated cold war mentality and fear of its giant neighbor.

What kinds of passions does PS MP Immonen’s parliamentary question awaken? Is it another PS election ploy to incite nationalist sentiment and lure voters to the embattled party?

If Karelia were returned to Finland under the leadership of Immonen and the PS, what would they do about the Russian population and other ethnic minorities living there? What kind of ethnic cleansing would take place and how would it affect relations with Moscow? Would we return back to the same tensions that characterized Finnish-Soviet relations in the 1930s?

Since Immonen is a radical Counterjihadist who predicts a war between the Christian West and Islam, we should ask what political mileage does the PS MP want to get from such a parliamentary question.

While it is positive to debate our history openly, Immonen’s parliamentary question should be seen as a sham that exposes his ultra-nationalistic credentials.

Politicians  like Immonen don’t bring us closer to understanding the Karlian question, but take us further from it.

 

“After the immigrants, you’re next”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

This chilling phrase that was written on flyers in a gay clubbing district of Athens, Greece, is only the tip of the iceberg concerning the ever-growing violence and intolerance spreading throughout Europe.

Writes the Trumpet.com: “Masked men on motorbikes patrol the streets of Greece’s streets, attacking immigrants and driving off. Mobs armed with improvised weapons beat them in public squares. Neo-Nazis have been elected to Greece’s parliament, with slogans like “Foreigners out!” and “The garbage should leave the country!”

Would you call it far-right ideology? Fascism? Populist radical right thinking? Counterjihadist-spirited? Intolerance? Ignorance?

Since some politicians have no problems about lying to your face, use the following test to peel off their masks of deceit. Do a simple test: Take their denials and turn them into affirmations.

A racist will usually state, ”I’m not a racist,” and a populist radical right politician will claim that he’s not a radical.  Sensible people know that the opposite is the truth.

A good column on the Independent of the U.K. by Laurie Penny states that there isn’t anything wrong to draw parallels with what is going on in Europe today and Nazism of the 1930s.

Writes Penny: “Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities, and world governments appear frighteningly relaxed about it as long as the Greek people continue to pay off the debts of the European elite.”

In the Nordic region we have a few parties that would be more than happy to put in cold storage our civil liberties. Some of these are the Progress Party of Norway, Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland.

One of the most surreal matters about the Nuremberg trials of Germany were the denials of the Nazi regime’s leaders. If they were to be believed, they had nothing to do with the estimated 60 million who perished in World War 2.

Let’s nip intolerance in the bud and save ourselves a lot of hardship in the future.

PS Counterjihadists: Live and die politically by the sword

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is at a crucial juncture concerning its strange-bedfellow relationship with Counterjihadist and populist radical right members. What kind of links do some members of the PS have with far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League (FDL)?

The FDL is nothing more than a mouthpiece of the English Defense League, a violent street protest movement that opposes the spread of Islam in Europe.

What would happen if a whistle-blower in a group like the FDL  revealed the strong links between the far-right group and certain prominent members of the PS?

Certainly all hell would break loose.

Politicians like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and especially James Hirvisaari have a lot to worry about these days since they are the Counterjihadists and populist radical right members of the PS.

You get a lot of interesting mail in Mikkeli like a recent copy of the Perussuomalainen. Note the highlighed words in yellow asking  “immigrants” and “everyone” to become PS candidates in the October municipal elections. The PS would be the last party I’d join for obvious reasons.

Things have changed a lot since the April 2011 elections, which gave the PS its historic victory. Since then, different ideological power struggles have become more pronounced within the party. The rude appearance of Norwegian Counterjihadist mass killer Anders Breivik in July 2011 has divided the PS ideologically.

This week we saw PS MP Juha Väätänen being ousted as chairman of the party’s Helsinki branch. This is expected to turn into a messy power battle as the municipal elections near in October.

In Mikkeli, we saw the PS implode when two of its four city councillors ditched the party to join the Christian Democrats and Center Party.

Figuring out what kinds of undercurrents are threatening the PS’ unity is not easy because the party is a tinderbox with the following warning: Do not move – highly explosive.  Approach at your own risk.

In the meantime, take a seat and fasten your seat belts in a new act unfolding of the tragic-comic political play called the PS.

Norwegian armed forces show cultural sensitivity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Since July 1, the Norweaign armed forces have relaxed rules for religious headgear, writes the Local, quoting daily Stavanger Afterbladed. It is now possible for Sikh soldiers to use turbans as well as for Jews to use skull-caps while serving in the Norwegian armed forces. Muslim women are permitted to wear a hijab with their uniform. 

Objection to the new military dress code has been voiced by Jan-Arlid Ellingsen of the populist anti-immigration Progress Party.

”The armed forces should be kept independent of ethnic and religious affiliations,” he was quoted as saying on Norwegian news agency NTB. ”It’s fine having symbols to denote affiliation, but it’s entirely unnecessary to show them.”

Ellingsen forgets an important point: The uniform that the Norwegian armed forces uses shows cultural and national affiliation. There is no such thing as “culturally neutral” clothing.

YLE poll: The PS is expected to make the biggest gains in the October municipal elections

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A poll commissioned and published by YLE on Sunday reveals that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party will make the biggest gains in the October 28 municipal elections. If the PS gets 15.8% of the votes as the poll suggests, it will be a big leap from 5.4% that the party got in the 2008 municipal elections. 

The poll sees that the National Coalition Party getting in October 22.7% compared with 23.5% in 2008. That would be followed by the Social Democrats with 18.7% (21.2%), and the Center Party with 16.6% (20.1%).

Even if the PS are seen making significant gains in the municipal elections, it is a sharp fall from what polls showed the PS getting in summer 2011. Back then, the PS was the biggest party in Finland with 23%, followed by the National Coalition Party (21.6%), Social Democrats (18.1%) and Center Party (13.8%).

If the PS do well in the municipal elections of October, it reveals that some Finnish voters’ confidence in traditional parties has recovered somewhat but not enough to relegate Timo Soini’s party to the minor political leagues.

Some analysts believe the euro crisis and the government’s mixed messages concerning the latter have helped the PS.

 

Du Bois and Finland: “Your country”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I read an interesting blog entry on Racism Review about what W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), sociologist, historian and civil rights activist, wrote* about blacks in the United States. His words still ring out today in light of the hostility we see today towards immigrants and visible minorities in many parts of Europe and the United States.

Even if the number of immigrants and visible minorities has been small in countries like Finland, these people form today an integral part of our society and history.

That history is being made right now and at this moment. Every day that passes we shed more roots in this country. Our home in Finland begins to sound like Woody Guthrie’s famous song, This land is your land.

Take a look at what Du Bois wrote over a century ago and try to picture Finland and our every-growing cultural diversity. Board a time machine and travel 30 years in the future and imagine Du Bois’ words in a Finnish context today:

Your country? How came its yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit.

Around us the history of the land has centered for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right.

Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving?

Would America have been America without her Negro people? Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my fathers well sung. If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, than anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free. Free, free as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder fresh young voices welling up to me from the caverns of brick and mortar below—swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine, and thus they sing: Let us cheer the weary traveller, Cheer the weary traveller, Let us cheer the weary traveller Along the heavenly way. And the traveler girds himself, and sets his face toward the Morning, and goes his way.

*Reference: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (pp. 125-126). Public Domain Books. Kindle. (Free version here)

Estonia’s GasTerm Eesti uses Auschwitz photo to promote gas company

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Believe it or not, the Estonian gas company, GasTerm Eesti, published on August 23 on their website a photograph of the Auschwitz concentration camp, with the infamous inscription Arbeit macht frei, or work makes you free. The caption of the published photo read: “Gas heating – flexible, convenient, and effective.”

GasTerm Eesti has removed the offensive picture and issued an apology, according to Haaretz.

Writes the Jerusalem Post: “The next day the photo was removed from the company’s website and an apology was posted there. Company director Sven Linros said, according to DzD.ee portal, “Hitler killed himself because he got a gas bill … a lot of people laugh at this, but I do not.”

Is anti-Semitism alive and kicking in Estonia?

When will parties like the PS start banning Islam in Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Pär Norling, a leader of  the populist radical right Sweden Democrats of Bolnäs, located about 250km north of Stockholm,  demanded the following on Sveriges Teleivision (SVT): ”Ban Islam in Sweden and deport those who persist in believing in the religion.” When will we start to hear similar demands from politicians in Finland?

One matter that populist radical right and Counterjihadist-spirited parties in Europe and Finland don’t tell you is that the fuel they use to fire their arguments comes from abroad. It’s hardly ever homegrown.

MPs of parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) claim as well how incompatible a religion like Islam is with our Finnish way of life. One of their best-kept secrets they will never tell you publicly, however, is that they too wouldn’t have any problems banning Islam from Finland.

Migrant Tales believes it is only a question of time before anti-immigration and Counterjihadist politicians will begin making the same demands about Islam in Finland as Norling, who claims that neo-Nazism is a by-product of immigration.

Writes the Local of Sweden, quoting the Sweden Democrat politician: “’That [Islam] can exist elsewhere but in Sweden it doesn’t fit in.’ When asked what ought to be done with those who still want to believe in the religion, despite it being banned, Norling responded: ’Then the solution is deportation.’”

We don’t need to ask the politician what he thinks about religious freedom. It’s obvious that Norling’s solution suggests embarking on a slippery slope that would not only compromise our civil rights but undermine our Nordic democratic institutions.

Even if politicians like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and his band of Counterjihadists, populist radical right and anti-immigration followers would never dare make such a statement about Muslims in Finland, it is exactly what they aim to do if it were possible politically.

It’s clear that parties like the PS want to drastically limit immigration especially from Africa and the Muslim world. Didn’t Halla-aho suggest recently that the refugee status of Somali refugees in Finland should be lifted due to the improved situation in Somalia?

One of the big differences between the Sweden Democrats and PS is size. The former is a small party in Sweden, while the latter is the country’s third largest.

Counterjihad Trojan Horse in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik cited five Finnish groups in his manifesto, 2083 – A European Declaration of Independence. These were the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, Suomen Sisu, Suomalaisuuden liitto, Suomen kansan sinivalkoiset and Vapaan Suomen liitto, according to a report by the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO).

Writes YLE in English: “Texts similar to the manifest of Anders Behring Breivik have been published in Finland which [Maria] Paaso says shows an ideological preparedness to commit violent acts.”

While these latter groups haven’t carried out the same type of terrorist acts like Breivik did in July 2011, both are strongly bonded by Counterjihadist and/or populist radical right (PRR) ideology.

Some well-known Counterjihadists in Finland are PS MP Jussi Halla-aho, MP James Hirvisaari, MP Olli Immonen and others.

Counterjihadism is a radical ideology that speaks out against immigration and the Islamization of Europe. Counterjihadists like Breivik blame “multiculturalism” for the spread of Islam in Europe.

As most sensible people know, multiculturalism is a Canadian integration policy that was implemented in the 1970s. Counterjihadist ideology, however, sees multiculturalism as an immigration policy that permits Muslims and non-Europeans to emigrate and live in Europe.

Some well-known European Counterjihadist websites are: gatesofvienna.blogspot.com, jihadwatch.org as well as brusselsjournal.com. To these you could add Halla-aho’s Scripta blog in Finland.

Contrarily, PRR groups base their ideology on populism, radicalism and right-wing position on the left-right scale.

Populism means hostility to representative-pluralist politics. The PRR sees democracy as nativist, authoritarian and populist, according to a study by the University of Leicester.

Breivik is an excellent example of what Counterjihadism and PRR ideology are and can breed in countries like Finland.  In Norway we tragically saw how it came to fruit.

The Internet is the breeding ground for Counterjihadist ideology in Europe and Finland. Some of these forums in Finland are Hommaforum and Scripta. Two PS members, Matias Turkkila and MP Halla-aho, are their editors respectively.

Turkkila was named in May by the PS as the new editor-in-chief of the party’s newspaper and web page.

The aim of Counterjihad and PRR groups is simple: keep Europe and Finland white (culturally and ethnically) and place as many obstacles on cultural diversity as possible.

One should never underestimate an ideology like Counterjihadism or any other one that is exclusive and bases its ideology on “race and blood.”

If there are threats to our Nordic and European way of life today, we will find them right under our noses. Two of these are definitely Counterjihadism and PRR.

 

Finland’s demographic landscape is changing (again)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland is presently in the midst of one of its biggest demographic changes in its history due to the rapid growth of its immigrant community. Our ever-growing cultural diversity as a nation has brought out the best in many of us but has encouraged some of us to throw in the towel on sanity. 

Is Finland in danger of becoming a Hungary or Greece?

Those promoting Hungary’s far-right Jobbik or Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party model on immigration and cultural diversity are none other than the usual band of extremists of parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), who see nothing wrong with these xenophobic and anti-Semitic groups.

They don’t see these parties as a danger because Jobbik and Golden Dawn promote the same matter as the PS: ethnic purity at any cost, even losing our Nordic liberal democracy to far-right extremism.

Migrant Tales wrote in a recent blog entry: “In many respects it [open discrimination of immigrants and visible minorities] will look like Russification all over again in the 2010s but with different players – the PS are the Russians and immigrants/visible minorities are personified through Eugen Schauman.”

When I moved to Finland a second time in the late-1970s, our foreign population totalled about 10,000 people, or around 0.2% of the population. Most of these so-called “foreigners” were Finnish expats who had moved back to the country.

The biggest national group living in Finland at the time were Finns who were naturalized Swedes.

Back then, Finland was in its own league when it came to cultural diversity. Albania was the other European country that resembled Finland. People joked back then that our country was the Albania of Europe since it had so few immigrants.

Our foreign population started to grow rapidly and steadily after it hit rock bottom in the 1970s, when it totaled about 7,000 souls. By 2002-03, Finland’s immigrant population passed the 100,000 barrier for the first time, reaching 103,687, or 2% of the population.

Our immigrant population totals today 183,133 (3.4%).

With the rise of far-right, populist and anti-immigration parties growing throughout Europe, we in Finland should be especially concerned about how such a trend could impact our country socially, politically and above all economically.

Finland needs right-wing populist and anti-immigration parties like a hole in the head.

We need more than ever today leadership and proactive solutions to make cultural diversity work.