An Espoo District Court sentenced Monday an eighteen-year-old man for six years in jail for the manslaughter of Abdisalam Mohamed Abulah, 18. The father of the victim, Mursal Abdulah, told Migrant Tales that he will appeal the decision.
Abdulah is one of three victims who lost his life in a span of about three weeks in January-February. Related to one of the killings in Finland’s “black February” was a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilor, who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of the Muslims in Oulu.
Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah had plans to study medicine. He was a Manchester United fan.
Helsingin Sanomat reports that the victim, who attended the same high school as the sentenced young man, went to sleep at his home because he had lost the keys to his home.
Migrant Tales understands that the young man sentenced for manslaughter admitted consuming 16 bottles of beer and drugs when he killed Abdulah.
The fight erupted at the parent’s home of the young man, who slept in a room in the basement. He asked Abdulah if he was a Muslim, who responded that he was. He then asked Abdulah what he thought about Jesus.
Abdulah didn’t answer the question and told him that he did not want to talk about religion. There was silence between the two and soon a fight erupted, according to the sentenced man, who claimed that he feared Abdulah.
Abdulah lost his life when the assailant assaulted him on the head with a metal bar for weights.
Exactly a year ago Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?
In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that day.
In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.
Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVD0ztWaKA
In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.
Everything changed, however, after July 22.
The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.
Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.
In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.
A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party. Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.
The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.
Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.
The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.
In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?
Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.
But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.
Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?
If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain: We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.
Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.
Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.
That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.
It is ironic that those right-wing populist and far-right parties that have gone out of their way to warn us about the threat of multiculturalism and religions like Islam have become the threat and Trojan Horses in our societies. In one horrific blow, Anders Behring Breivik did not only strike at Norway’s liberal democracy, but tore a hole in the argument of the anti-immigrant populists and fanatics.
In the Nordic region, living in a post-22/7 Europe and Nordic region means a serious loss of public face for those groups that have been the breeding ground for hatred towards immigrants and minorities. We know as well that Islamists are not the only ones who commit acts of terrorism, as the Guardian of London pointed out.
When these groups warn us today of the “threat of multiculturalism” and how it is acceptable to treat minorities with contempt, a killer called Anders Behring Breivik will haunt us in the back of our minds.
Every time these individuals and groups spread their usual rhetoric of hatred, we will stop to think and see Breivik’s eerie arguments and logic that drove him to become a mass killer.
When people go to the polls the next time in this part of Europe, some will see gruesome images of Breivik shooting down young members of the Labor Party. People will think twice whether to cast their vote for the Progress Party of Norway, Finland’s PS, Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats.
They will ask if supporting a party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric is feeding future homegrown terrorism.
Possibly what happened on 22/7 will be a wake-up call for these parties to think about the impact their provocative claims not only have on immigrants but on deranged people like Breivik.
When Abdulah*, 30, talks to you about his twenty-two years in Finland, one of the first questions that arises is how has so much suffering escaped our attention. For Abdulah, acceptance isn’t only virtually impossible from white Finns, but can be just as hard to get from the Somali community.
“I have decided to live outside this society,” he says. “I have learned that there is no place here. Even my people have turned their backs on me.”
Abdulah says that there are two matters you must never lose if you don’t want to be abandoned by the Somali community.
“Language and religion are crucial,” he explains. “I don’t speak Somali that well anymore since I grew up in this country. I became an atheist two years ago and left the Muslim faith.”
How long will it take for minorities like the Somalis to be treated as equals in Finland?
Abdulah admits that he no longer believes in god.
“How can there be a god if people are constantly killing each other in Somalia?” he continues. “How can there be a god if there’s so much hatred and racism towards you in this country? How can god exist in such hells?”
There are many young men like Abdulah in Finland, who grew up the greater part of their lives in this country. He says that some have problems with the law.
“I don’t identify with such people anymore because I used to be one of them,” he says. “If you start drinking and taking drugs, your situation will only get worse. That’s the reason why I changed my life.”
Abdulah hasn’t forsaken hope despite the difficulties he’s faced. Two factors give him strength: his family and plans to be a gardener.
Billboards like these in the early 1990s spread prejudice about Somalis in Finland. The tabloid ad claims that Somalis had made phone calls to the tune of hundreds of thousands of marks and supposedly passed the bill to the social authorities.
“But living in Finland still feels like being in a trap,” he adds. “I want to free myself but I don’t know how.”
Abdulah discovered Migrant Tales by chance when he was searching for an alternative forum that spoke up for immigrants and visible minorities like him.
“I used to visit Suomi24, Hommaforum and even took part in Iltalehti chat forums,” he says.“They always said the same negative things about immigrants and Somalis. I felt relieved when I found Migrant Tales. It was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel that gave me hope.”
Abdulah is a very sensitive and respectful person. Despite the difficulties he’s encountered, he believes that one must be outspoken if he’s going to challenge a social ill like racism.
“We have to fight back,” he concludes. “Silence hasn’t changed my life for the better. That’s why I’m active in forums like Migrant Tales.”
*Abdulah’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Even if I have never met Abdulah* in person but only by phone and through his comments on Migrant Tales, it’s as if we’ve known each other for a long time. Abdulah moved to Finland from Somalia in 1990 with his parents and six sisters. He was eight at the time.
When Abdulah came to Finland, there were only 21,174 immigrants living in the country, accounting for a mere 0.4% of total population, versus 183,133 (3.4%) today, according to the Population Registration Center.
“For a child from Somalia, moving to Finland was at first exciting,” he says. “We were starting a new life in a new country. I was fascinated by the snow.”
Abdulah says that his brief honeymoon with Finland ended abruptly when he started elementary school. He was the school’s first and only black student.
“That’s when the bullying started; I was even attacked physically by my classmates,” he continues. “Something bad happened to me almost every day at school.”
Being black in an all-white crowd can be sometimes dangerous in Finland.
Abdulah says that once all of his classmates, which numbered about 20, waited to attack him after school. Even a school “friend” assaulted him once with a knife.
“I’ve been bullied, called names like the n-word, insulted, kicked and hit hard at school,” he says. “The only way to survive was to be quiet and roll with the punches. There was nothing else I could do because the teachers never believed me. They were always on the side of the white students.”
“I’ve been bullied, called names like the n-word, insulted, kicked and hit hard at school,” he says. “The only way to survive was to be quiet and roll with the punches. There was nothing else I could do because the teachers never believed me. They were always on the side of the white students.”
Abdulah says that he’s tried to make friends with Finns but it has been virtually impossible. He did make some friends at school but their friendship never lasted long.
This type of tabloid ads were common in the early 1990s. It reads: “Armed refugee hater chased after blacks.”
“First they’re your friend and then they abandon you,” he says. “I was nine when I met a very nice boy at school. On the way to his home a friend of his meets us and asks him why he’s with me. He then told me right their on the spot that he could no longer be my friend.”
Even if the bullying has left deep scars on Abdulah, one of the worst memories he recalls was when he was nine and walking with his mother to the market.
“A drunk man attacked me on the street and started insulting me,” he says. “My mother called out for help but nobody came. That incident really traumatized me. I was only a child.”
Abdulah admits that growing up and living in Finland has made him paranoid. The election of an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset didn’t help dispel his fears about racism against Somalis in Finland.
The matter that concerns Abdulah the most about the Perussuomalaiet is their belief that Finns should not have children with blacks.
“With the election victory of the Perussuomalaiset that brought to parliament some fascist [anti-immigration] politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others, things started to turn ugly in this country from an already very bad situation for Somalis and blacks.”
Part 2 will be published Saturday.
*Abdulah’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
What kind of worlds live inside the heads of people who make political statements by attacking an event like North Pride, a sexual-diversity festival organized through Sunday in the northern Finnish city of Oulu?
Writes YLE in English: “A discussion event in Oulu on the situation of gay asylum seekers was the target of a pepper spray attack that led one speaker to be hospitalized on Thursday evening.”
The hospitalized speaker was Left Alliance blogger and city councillor hopeful Dan Koviulaakso, who was rushed to hospital after an attacker pepper sprayed his face.
“It was no doubt a strategic attack against us as we oppose the persecution of gay, bi and transgender people. We’re against far-right extremists and racists,” said Left Alliance Oulu city councillor Juha Tapio, adding that security would need to be stepped up in the coming days.
Apart from condemning such an attack, it is a sad example of how intolerance roams freely our streets and mocks at our civil liberties and democratic institutions. The consequences of the attack become more ominous if we consider that on Sunday it’ll be a year after Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway.
Far-right anti-immigration/anti-minority groups should know that intolerance has no master. Nobody can control it if you let it out of the cage. It can bite back hard as we saw happen in Norway on July 22.
Finnish MPs, Jani Toivola (Green Party) and Silvia Modig (Left Alliance), are the official patrons of the event.
Ignorance is a crucial factor that still holds Finland back from tackling effectively a social ill like racism. If it’s not seen as an issue, very little will be done to challenge it.
Add to the latter the fact that even some of our elected representatives in parliament don’t know the difference between racism and discrimination, and the issue becomes clear.
The comment by Tossavainen not only offers us a glimpse of the elected official’s knowledge of racism, but how his ignorance plays down the problem.
Diluting a term like racism to mean something else is like using water in liquor bottles “so no one knows you drank some.” Soure: Allenate’s photostream.
It’s clear that a lot is lost when you water down a term like racism and redefine it as “age racism.” It’s like taking the term Holocaust and applying to something minor than the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War 2. Diluting the meaning of the term to mean something else is synonymous to denying or playing down what Nazi Germany did to the Jews.
The same applies to the term racism. If we use it differently, like in “age racism,” we deny the history and suffering of other ethnic groups like blacks in the U.S., Somalis and other minorities in Finland.
If an MP doesn’t get what racism is, how can you expect him to fight such a social ill?
Tossavainen is not alone in Finland. There are other politicians from other parties who believe that there is such a thing as “age racism.”
When reading the thoughts of far-right politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP James Hirvisaari, one of the most vocal white-Finnish-power advocates in this country, one should look for the visible or invisible but in his writing. Migrant Talesfished one today from Facebook.
The PS MP writes: ”Some ‘humanitarians’ are driven by naive utopian ideology: [they claim] ‘let’s do away with borders and mix national groups so we can end all wars…‘ [Here it is: But] I believe that a strong and healthy society can withstand weaknesses and diversity but let’s not make these two matters the norm. Fashionable liberalism can make art from shit in all areas of life.”
That’s not all. A person on the Facebook thread claims that “multiculturalism is a death knell to all [white] Europeans” and “we are now at war.”
At war against whom? Against their stupidity or is it a desperate attempt to lure voters to a sinking political ship called the PS?
If you have problems grasping how far below the belt Hirvisaaari hits with his far-right thoughts, one way of understanding them is by removing key words from his writings such as “Muslim” or “Islam” and replacing them with “Finn” or “Christian.”
Here is a small example of how I’ve refilled the blanks in one of his recent blog entries:
Hirvisaari writes: When I criticize Islam, I criticize those who hate Jews, humiliate women in many ways…
Refilling the blanks: When I criticize Christians, I criticize those who hate Muslims, Finnish men who humiliate women by killing their wives and children before taking their own lives…
While Hirvisaari lacks the grey matter to be in the same ideological hate league as David Duke, his views on ethnicity are very similar to those of the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard. The big difference between the two is geography: Duke lives in Louisiana and Hirvisaari is from Asikkala, Finland.
What does PS MP James Hirvisaari think about white power and the Ku Klux Klan?
Like Hirvisaari, Duke denies that he is a racist. Instead he likes to think of himself as a “racial realist.”
Contrarily, Hirvisaari sees himself as a ”white Finnish ethnic realist,” who is saving white Finns and Europeans from multiculturalism, a political ideology or immigration policy according to him that permits too many blacks and Muslims to live in Europe.
Yksi mielenkiintoinen kysymys joka nousi esiin perussuomalaisista viime vuoden historiallisen vaalivoiton jälkeen oli keitä he ovat? Yli vuosi vaaleista ja kysymys on yhä vailla vastausta: keitä he perussuomalaiset ovat?
Jos esitämme kysymyksen suoraan perussuomalaisille, vastaus saattaa olla yhtä sekava ja ristiriitainen kuin puolue itse.
Riippumatta puolueen jäsenistön monimuotoisesta ideologisesta taustasta, voidaan kysyä kuinka on mahdollista että äärioikeistolainen poliitikko kuten kansanedustaja Jussi Halla-aho ja puolueen puheenjohtaja Timo Soini voivat istua saman pöydän ääressä? Mikä yhdistää molemmat poliittisesti?
Olisiko reilua sanoa, että perussuomalaiset ovat oikeistolainen populistinen puolue, jossa on ripaus äärioikeistolaista nationalismia? Olisiko paras kuvaus puolueesta seuraava: se on EU-, maahanmuutto-, islam-, homo- ja näkyvien vähemmistöjen oikeuksien vastainen puolue?
Jos tarkastelemme perussuomalaisten läheiset poliittiset sukulaiset Pohjoismaissa, sieltä löydämme islamivastaisen Tanskan kansanpuolueen, Ruotsin demokraatit sekä Edistyspuolue Norjasta.
Kaikkia yllämainittuja yhdistää kolme tärkeää asiaa: Ne ovat EU-vastaisia, maahanmuuttovastaisia ja erityisesti islamvastaisia.
Perussuomalaisten ainoa europarlamentaarikko, Sampo Terho, kuuluu euroskeptiseen poliittiseen ryhmään EFD:n. Suurin osa EFD:n europarlamentaarikoista tulevat UK Independence Party:sta (10), joka haluaa että Yhdistynyt kuningaskunta irtautuu EU:sta, ja ksenofobinen Lega Nord (9).
Perussuomalaisten kansanedustajien mielipiteet poikkeavat selvästi muiden puolueiden kansanedustajien mielipiteistä YLE:n vaalikoneen mukaan:
100% näkee, että EU-maiden ei tulee auttaa taloudelliseen ahdinkoon joutunutta jäsenvaltioita (Eu-vastainen).
97% sanoo ettei Suomi tarvitse lisää maahanmuuttajia (maahanmuuttovastainen). Mm. kansanedustajat Olli Immonen ja James Hirvisaari uskoo, että suuri uhka Euroopalle on islam (islamvastainen).
82% vastustavat homo- ja lesboparien nk. sukupuolineutraalia avioliittoa (homo- ja vähemmistöoikeuksien vastainen).
97% pelkää moraalin ja perinteisten arvojen heikentyvän Suomessa (kohti Impivaaraan).
83% katsoo, että Suomen pitää vähentää kehitysmaiden auttamista (Impivaara meille ja teille).
Asia on enemmän kuin selvä. Perussuomalaiset ovat EU-, maahanmuutto, islam-, homo- sekä vähemmistöoikeuksien vastainen puolue jolla on kytköksiä äärioikeistolaisiin.
The million-dollar question after the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s historic election victory was what kind of party had entered the Finnish political stage. After over a year in parliament and numerous scandals that have rocked the PS, a question still begs an answer: Who are they?
If you seek an answer directly from the party, the response you’ll likely get is as convoluted as the PS itself. Great lengths will be taken to point out what they’re not.
This shouldn’t surprise us considering that the PS’ political fuel comes from near-constant whining and scapegoating.
The historic election success of the PS was by and large based on hit-and-run tactics like scapegoating and denial.
Irrespective of its hodgepodge nature, how is it possible for a far-right politician like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and party chairman Timo Soini to sit at the same table? What unites both men ideologically?
Would it be fair to call the PS an opportunistic right-wing populist party with a heavy dash of far-right nationalism? Would the best description of the party be: anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-gay, and anti-minority rights?
If we look at close political relatives of the PS in the Nordic region, we’d find the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats, and Progress Party of Norway.
All of them are anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam.
The PS’ only MEP, Sampo Terho, is a member of the eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) parliamentary group. The biggest number of EFD MEPs come from the UK Independence Party (10), which wants the UK to exit the EU, and the xenophobic Lega Nord (9), which considers southern Italy a part of North Africa.
Even if the PS wants to tone down its right-wing conservative radicalism because it doesn’t sit well with moderate Finnish voters, it’s fair to claim that they are an anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti gay, and anti-minority rights party.
The PS are an anti-EU party because 100% of PS MPs don’t want Finland to bailout any EU country. Some even believe that the Finland should exit the EU.
They are an anti-immigration party because 97% of the MPs don’t want anymore immigrants to move to Finland. If Finland must accept immigrants, they should be white Christians.
The PS is an anti-Islam party because MPs like Olli Immonen and James Hirvisaari, among others, believe that it’s only a matter of time when Europe will be taken over by Islam (Eurabia).
They are an anti-gay party because 82% are against same-sex marriages.
Conclusion: The PS are an anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-gay and anti-minority rights party with ties to the far right.
