Category: Enrique

Far-right groups and anti-immigration extremists in Finland and Europe flirt with fascism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

When far-right groups and anti-immigration extremists flirt with fascism nothing good can ever come out of it. Even if it sounds incredible, we have in Finland our own holocaust deniers and those who claim the Nuremberg Trials were  a farce.    

Has Perussuomalaiset MP Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola and his aide Ulla Pyysalo as well as Kotka councilman Freddy Van Wonterghem ever seen war? I don’t mean playing a Playstation 3 war game or seeing a war movie, but suffering and witnessing the real thing?

When politicians make statements denying or playing down the Holocaust, state that the the Nuremberg Trials [see Natsi-Saksasta] were “a farce,” or openly admit they like Benito Mussolini and fascism, they are breathing life back to a beast that can terrorize Europe again.

Even if the fascism they like is different from the one we saw in the 1930s, it is the same ogre but in twenty-first century garb. The scapegoats and enemies may have changed, for example Muslims today and Jews before, but it is the same beast.

Rudolf Hoess, the Auschwitz commandant during 1940-43,  justified the death of an estimated 2.5 million with the following quote:  “I had my personal orders from [Heinrich] Himmler [to exterminate Jews]…Not justified [to exterminate so many people] – but Himmler told me that if the Jews were not exterminated at that time, then the German people would be exterminated for all time by the Jews.”

But there is a far bigger question that Auschwitz doesn’t answer right away: Does that type of systematic mass murder that took place there reveal the dark side of the Nazis or something worrying about us?  Do we all have the potential as a group to become mass murderers?

If we look at the former Soviet Union under Stalin, the systematic genocide committed against Amerindians by white Europeans, the terror that reigned under the Pol Pot regime of Kampuchea, China under Mao Tse Tsung, the slave trade and European colonization of Africa  as well as many other cases, they prove beyond any doubt that we are capable of  barbaric deeds.

It makes no sense to spread hatred and attack and victimize other human beings and groups. If you disagree you need to reread your history again, and again, and again.

The author at the gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp where it reads Arbei Macht Frei, “Work Makes (One) Free.” 

 Some 400,000 Hungarian Jews were exterminated in spring 1944 at Birkenau, or Auschwitz 2.

 The shoes of the victims that ended up in Auschwitz’ gas chambers.  

Let’s stop fooling ourselves about the Romany minority in Finland and Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I’ve been following with disappointment the stories published in the Finnish media about the East European Romany minority beggars coming to Finland.  If politicians don’t get it, it’s pretty clear that a part of the media never mind the public won’t either.  Social ills like xenophobia, prejudice and racism are not “fixed” in a few days, months or years but take generations for the open wounds to heal.

Moreover, a great part of the Romany minority problem in Europe is not only due to these people, but to our own prejudices and racism that we have seen erupt recently in countries like Slovakia, Hungary and others.

So far we have two apparent political solutions in Finland on how to solve this so-called “problem:” One of them is to deport them out of Finland and another is to seek help from the Romanian authorities by sending a fact-finding mission to that country.

Let’s get serious for a moment folks.  What we should be really doing is ask why an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) has raised this issue and how the government is responding.

It’s pretty clear that the PS, worried about its poor standings in recent opinion polls, is using anti-Roma sentiment to lure disappointed voters back to its party.  The government in turn has no choice but to be seen doing something as the PS attempt to raise this issue as a matter of national security.

But let’s try to understand the recent red-herring debate in parliament between the opposition PS and government. Why are we so concerned about these people coming to Finland? Is it our racism and loathing that reflects back on us when we see them begging? Is it our failure as a society to deal with our own Romany “problem?” Are we shocked to see that there are actually people in Europe who are poor and exploited?

In Finland we have about 10,000 people belonging to the Romany minority. Political parties have rarely if ever spoken up for them.  If our handling of our own Romany minority problem is anything to go by, we are very far from finding any solutions to these people from Eastern Europe.

Another important question we should ask is how many people are we speaking of? Hundreds, thousands or maybe tens of thousands? Why don’t we have any ball-park figures? Is this the way politicians and the media victimize a group like the Roma and show them to be a bigger threat than they actually are?

One of the matters I’d recommend to all parties concerned in this country is that we should stop treating racism and social exclusion as something that we can fix instantly.  No matter how much we try, the Romany minority problem will not go away tomorrow nor after tomorrow.

It will take a lot of time to solve and heal.

In order for us to do something effective in the meantime, we should take a totally different approach to the problem. We should start to look at our history and our own prejudices as part of the problem.

 

Migrant Tales Literary: Yearning never waits

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I made one of the greatest discoveries of my life in 1998 at the Finnish Seamen’s Church of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Even if such pleasant interior landscapes no longer witness my silence and stance, they are now distant memories that have turned into spacious imaginary cities of the mind where each building has a tale to tell, whispering.

Even if I had visited the Finnish Seamen’s Church on many occasions,  the days I spent there as a tenant brought me back to the beginning of a long journey I began around two decades ago when I moved back to Finland.

William Blake (1757-1827) once said that improvements make straight roads but that it  was the crooked ones without improvement that are roads of genius. Is yearning and following your heart’s desire a crooked road that can lead you to wonderful places never imagined?

The former Finnish Seamen’s Church is today a cultural center in dire need of money and repair. 

Even if my great grandparents, Dante and Jacob only appear occasionally in talk, I can say with total confidence that the yearning and restlessness  I feel today is because of them…

…or possibly it’s because I was born in an enormous migrant transit lounge called The Americas.

Like many others, my family has been on the move for generations: from my father’s side, my great grandfather Dante was from Italy, my grandfather Nemo was born in Brazil, my father and I were born in Argentina, and my three children were  born in Finland.

Yearning is a powerful force. It is the fuel that turns on our hope; it is so powerful that it rarely dies in a lifetime but lives on for generations.

The world is becoming a very small place as time takes us by the hand to the future. It’s pretty certain that my children and grandchildren will be much luckier than I. They will have the ability to visit and leave cultures and lifestyles at will and be – if they wish – from many places simultaneously. They will travel without the baggage of hatred and prejudice constantly overlooking them.

As long as smaller cultures and not devoured by larger ones, life in the new millennium will resemble vast cities like New York or London, where everyone is from somewhere but few from there.

If we all learned to let go and allow yearning to take us by the hand, maybe the first lesson we’d learn is that we are nothing than temporary migrants on Earth searching for that hill where the grass is greener on the other side.

(1999)

Being a bystander is being part of the problem that has inflicted Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Would it be correct to claim that if we put prejudice, discrimination, racism and social exclusion on the defensive in our society we’d become stronger? How would it impact homophobia, gender violence and violence in general?  

There’s an interesting blog entry by Joe Gerstandt  that sheds light on how a social ill like gender violence has not been challenged seriously enough in the United States. His conclusions offer us in Finland and Europe an opportunity to see why we aren’t doing enough on issues like racism, hate speech and social exclusion.

One of Gerstandt’s  interesting conclusions, and one which we have made on Migrant Tales on many occasions, is the role of the bystander, or the person who decides to be silent in the face of social injustice.

Gerstandt uses a quote by Desmond Tutu to drive home his point:  “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Instead of griping about prejudice, racism, social exclusion and the rise of far-right ideology in Finland, we have to seek effective answers to challenge such threats to our society.

Writes Gerstsandt: “Bystanders might be good at not doing stuff that they are not supposed to be doing. Bystanders are not dropping hatecrimes on people, they are not running around spewing a bunch of vile stuff. The bystander problem is a problem of omission…it is the stuff that they are not doing that is the problem.”

Before last year’s parliamentary election in Finland, we got a taste of what can happen when there are too many bystanders and silent people in our society watching over a looming social problem like xenophobia, far-right and right-wing populism.

But since we are interested in solutions on Migrant Tales, we must seek ways that would encourage and even inspire more people to become leaders instead of bystanders.

If our traffic stats are anything to go by, they show that many immigrants, visible minorities and Finns from all backgrounds have got the message: We cannot stand and watch from the sidelines any longer as our society and institutions are being openly challenged by populists, modern fascists and political opportunists.

Ilta-Sanomat poll shows Greens leading PS in municipal election

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A poll commissioned by Ilta-Sanomat gave the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party a big surprise. If the October municipal election took place today, the Greens would get 11% of the votes compared with 10% by the PS.  The previous setback that the PS got from the Greens was in the presidential election, when an openly gay candidate beat two conservative anti-EU hopefuls, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party. 

The poll showed that most of the votes would go to Kokoomus (26%) followed by the Social Democrats (17%) and Center Party (16%).  The Left Alliance would get 8% while the Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s Party would attract 5% and 4%, respectively.

Before the April 17 election, which gave the PS their historic victory,  the Greens were the only party that openly questioned and criticized Soini’s party.

The good showing of the Greens in the presidential election and in the Ilta-Sanomat poll could be voter payback and support for speaking out against a party that has disappointed many voters.

A lot of things can happen before the October municipal election but one matter is for certain: The PS’ journey south in the months ahead will be a bitter pill to swallow.

With such a prospect ahead, Migrant Tales believes that the far-right anti-immigration wing of the PS led by MP Jussi Halla-aho will step up their attacks against immigrants and visible minorities as the municipal election nears.

A good example of this was a proposal by hard-core far-right PS MP Olli Immonen who suggested that Eastern European Romany beggars should be forcibly deported out of Finland.

PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was fined for hate speech in December, has stepped up his attacks on Muslims in blog entry published today headlined “Belgiastan.”

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from November 16, 1995

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic, prejudiced, racist or anti-Russian views.

Taking into account the suspicion, hostile attacks (verbal and physical) against a group in Finland thanks in part to tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat, a leader of the Somali community asks Finns not to blame them for everything.

I have wondered many times why the Somalis have been so victimized in Finland. One of the reasons may be that they were the first visible black group that came to Finland in large numbers. Their presence in our society acted as a key that apparently released some of our most racist views of Africans. This same victimization is still going on and was used by some Perussuomalaiset (PS) party members to get elected to Parliament in April.

With the PS heading south in the polls, some party members are reverting to the message of racial hatred and suspicion to bolster their sagging popularity.  One of these groups that is being targeted by the PS is the Romany minority.

*Migration Institute archive.

Migrant Tales in a nutshell and its stand on prejudice and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrqiue Tessieri

If I had to state in a picture and short description who we are and why we do what we do, the picture* below says it eloquently. Apart from being a blog that “aims to be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public,” we don’t hide our objection to prejudice and all forms of racism.

For us, racism isn’t only an opinion, but a rude offense and a threat to our society’s values.

You can see it this way…

or the other way…

No matter which way, racism is wrong.

*Thank you Anne Casey for the heads up!

Social change in Finland: Leading by example

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

 This blog entry is dedicated to D4R and Sasu. 

No matter how you look at those immigrants and visible minorities in Finland that face prejudice on a daily basis, we hold the key to change. Nobody can change our reality in this country for as long as we don’t take the initiative. 

We need lots of people, good people, people with new ideas, people who are examples of our community, people from all walks of life. Since we live in a globalized world, those heroes that will make our country a better place to live for everyone may come from faraway countries.

One of them that changed history with her humble example was the late Rosa Parks, who showed that guts and convictions can go a long, long way.

In segregated Alabama Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white person on a bus on December 1, 1955. Her arrest led to a community boycott by black people and a landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation was illegal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8A9gvb5Fh0]

Another landmark case similar to Parks’ is the Greensborough 4. These were four young brave black men became national heros at a Woolwoorth’s department store lunch counter.

I have always had deep respect and admiration for people who have had courage to stand up for their rights and fight for social justice despite the overwhelming odds. For me Sacco and Vanzetti were one of these great childhood heroes that showed with their examples the ugly face of the U.S. justice system.

One does not need an army to create social change. All you need is yourself, your example and a firm conviction. Society, like culture, changes constantly.

Some who became examples to others through their struggles were: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Brown, Väinö Linna’s “Rokka,” Ernesto Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi, Nat Turner, Aung San Suu Kyi, Alvaro Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of my favorite heroes, to name a few.

Cabeza de Vaca’s life is nothing more than the story about a man who learned to travel between cultures during his long sixteenth-century sojourn in Texas and Southwest United States. Some consider him the first American (I don’t mean USAmerican) because he learned to live among the Amerindians.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax7KjLUOt8w]

Despite the great things these people did it all comes down to the same matter:  leading by example.

How do we stand up against prejudice and improve the plight of immigrants, visible minorities and Finns with international backgrounds in this country?

We cannot change the world but with our example we can change what is around us.

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from February 26, 1996

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.

The billboard below is a worrying example of what employees, officials and researchers face in Finland if they work with refugees or the immigrant community. The headline of the ad states in bold letters:  “Employees who work with refugees get death threats.” Sounds eerily familiar?

One common argument used by some to justify these types of death threats is that their grandparents fought against the former Soviet Union to preserve our independence. Even if they have never seen the horrors of wars, they are willing to instill terror in others in the most cowardly fashion: anonymously.

Some even state with bravado that they are over 120 years old. They ask our newest inhabitants if their relatives fought in the Civil War of 1918, Winter and Continuation War. I am pretty certain that if those that threaten other people’s lives anonymously ever had to defend this country, they’d be the first ones out of here.

Give me a break! Threatening people’s lives is as lowly as one can stoop! Did the veterans who fought for Finland defend this country so that some people could take the law in their hands and terrorize others? Certainly not!

*Migration Institute archive. 

Foreign Student front cover from April 1981

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off stuff from the past like magazine stories and Finnish tabloid ads, or lööppi in Finnish. The Foreign Student was a short-lived but courageous newsletter of the Foreign Student Club of Helsinki. The humble publication existed from January 1981 to January 1982 and lasted 11 issues. It was probably the first-ever publication in Finland that spoke out critically against Finland’s then non-existent and arbitrary immigration policy.

The editorial headlined “Self-Censorship” is critical about the then Aliens’ Office, which operates like a state within a state.

 “Many of us deep inside want to do something constructive for the cause of foreigners here in Finland. We want deep inside to see a law [Finland’s first Aliens Act of 1983] protecting us, a law which will give us security. Also, many of us feel a deep nervousness of the Aliens Office…Is our situation hopeless? Are we doomed to sit in silence for the rest of our days [in Finland]? What to do?”

Sounds like the same argument today.

The editor of the Foreign Student was officially John Arnold.  The editorials were written by Enrique Tessieri.

The front cover of the April 1981 issue represented the “ideal” foreigner, who never said anything bad nor raised a finger against the arbitrary treatment by the then Aliens Office.