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Multiculturalism is dead – long live multiculturalism

Posted on by Mark
Warning: this article quotes racist profanity by way of illustration. Apologies in advance if you find it offensive.

The King is dead – long live the King! So runs the traditional proclamation when the monarch dies, only to be reborn magically through the next heir. The irony of listening to politicians line up to proclaim that ‘multiculturalism is dead’ is that even after a million such proclamations, Europe moves forward in the very next moment being just as much multicultural and multiethnic as it was before. Not one whit has changed. Except that somebody has clearly been trying to ascend to the throne….

The thing that disappoints me most about politicians that say things like ‘there isn’t a racism problem in Finland’, or ‘multiculturalism is dead’ is that as leaders, they give permission to other people to say and believe the same, even when it clearly isn’t true.

When they say racism isn’t a problem, what they mean is that it isn’t perceived as a big enough problem among the electorate for them to start getting caught up in the emotive and moral minefield that is trying to explain and tackle racism.

When they say that ‘multiculturalism is dead’, what they mean is that populist arguments that immigration is bad have started to convince enough of the electorate that if they were to come out and argue against racism, it is going to lose them votes, crucially amongst their own support.

It has in recent decades become the case that if you start to seriously lose ground on an ideological point in politics, you simply abandon the stance temporarily or permanently or suffer the risk of never getting into power – i.e. leave the job of trying to win the argument to idealists and sociologists. Politicians are pragmatic, at the best of times.

The problem is though that it’s not just political ground they give up, it’s moral ground. The chances are that the silent suffering of immigrants subject to daily, weekly or monthly racist abuse goes on, and even increases. Meanwhile, racists take their propaganda to new levels, with a blatant denial of ALL racism, because if you deny that something is racist, then you cannot be accused of racism when you do it.

To give you some idea of how far this rationale can be stretched, I want to share a discussion I had recently with someone who said one footballer calling another footballer a black c*nt was not racist, because, ‘well, he’s black isn’t he?’ They think that because they find a ‘fact’ to hide behind, they are stating something that is merely true, and so how can it possibly be racist? This same kind of vacuous argument and hiding behind ‘facts’ is put forth again and again by those defending their prejudices on Migrant Tales.

For example, if it’s something that insults and denigrates an entire immigrant group, it’s not racism if they can claim it is as fact, regardless of how shaky or questionable that fact is, or whether it’s absolutely clear that the trait in question can NEVER be a group trait, but only an individual trait. At times, they deny there is even a racial element even when one is blatantly obvious (ergo: “black – but he is black, it’s a fact, it’s not being ‘racial’ to recognise it as a fact,” and said with no hint of intellectual uncertainty). By hiding behind these ‘facts’ and only accepting the validity of race when it suits to denigrate ethnic groups, they can tell us, with a completely straight face – “there is no racism in Finland!”

Of course, there are many nuances to the denial of racism, and these are just a few.

There is one word that springs to my mind when it comes to some politicians and their attitudes to racism – spineless! It’s easy to play the denial game if you know that half the population is also playing it, and most of the other half cannot be bothered to argue about it, even if they know it for what it is. That’s my cynical streak talking.

At the end of the day, the argument about what multiculturalism actually is will rumble on. I would urge you not to buy into the idea that politicians are the best custodians of our culture, simply because they are too concerned with whether it will have any vote value. Alternatively, I urge you to recognise that multicultural is the acceptance that there are many different ways to do culture in legitimate and peaceful ways. In protecting the freedom of those that are different to us, we are protecting our own freedom to be different.

My grateful thanks to Enrique and Migrant Tales for the opportunity to contribute on a regular basis.

Have a nice weekend.

Mark

Three anti-immigration PS MPs will pay Hirvisaari's fine for hate speech

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Three far-right anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs, Juho Eerola, Jussi Halla-aho and Olli Immonen, announced today  in a statement that they will pay PS MP James Hirvisaari’s 1,424-euro fine slapped  for hate speech by a Kouvola court in December. The statement, which was signed the three PS MPs, states that the fine was politically motivated. 

Instead of arguing the absurd defense line of the three PS MPs, let’s see who these three far-right anti-immigration politicians are. Starting with Jussi Halla-aho, he was fined for defaming a religion in 2009. Halla-aho is a Counter-Jihadist who has written on blogs like the Gates of Vienna, warning us about how Muslims are taking over Europe.

Juho Eerola is another anti-immigration politician who praises fascism and Mussolini’s corporatist economic system because it had no unemployment. Certainly he expresses such opinions carefully and in a hush-hush fashion. When his aide, Ulla Pyysalo’s name came up on a neo-Nazi membership list of the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, Eerola did not consider this enough grounds to sack her.

Olli Immonen has warned on a number of occasions about an ensuing war between Christian white Europe and Islam. Immonen has been remarkably quiet after the cold-blooded killings in Oulu that saw a naturalized Finn of Moroccan background gunned down by a white Finn.

The three, including Hirvisaari, are members of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association, which strongly discourages white Finns marrying non-Finns.

Of all the three, the eeriest has got to be former Finnish Railways (VR) employee MP Hirvisaari. After the tragedy that struck Norway on July 22 when Anders Breivik went on the rampage, Hirvisaari blamed the “100% rapes” committed by immigrants on Norwegians and that country’s loose immigration policy for the killings.

Your story – the story of who you are!

Posted on by Mark

Migrant Tales implies just that, stories about migrants. Stories go a long way in defining who we are. We tell the story of our life, our journey, our relationships, our belonging, and our struggles, hopes and triumphs. Through sharing, we can achieve also belonging. By properly hearing a story, we learn of the world and indeed, we learn more about ourselves.

We often though not always tell that story through language, and not always our first language, as a way to share with others in our community. Indeed, a living community is in many ways built with ‘shared stories’. Everyone has a right to tell their own story, and to hold many versions of the same story. No one story will capture all the truth of who we are.

Stories tell us many things. They tell about things that have happened, they tell about how people have treated each other, how we have treated other people, they tell about changes in our lives, they tell about our search for meaning, for purpose, and for belonging. We often find these things through work, through friendship and love, through families and through testing the world we live in, to see what gives.

For a migrant, a big chunk of their story is likely to remain untold or even untellable, especially in the public space. The cultural, geographical and embodied references that help to place others into our own story are just not easy to communicate. Likewise, a new language can blunt our expression to the point of making us appear quite simple or slow. The avenues through which we can share our story may appear dark and forbidding. Not only that, while we struggle to find the tools to tell our stories, others are busy telling a different story about us, and with all the ease and narrative force that comes with having native use of the language.

When someone is telling a story about someone else, one of the key things to disappear is nuance. What I mean is the complexity and texture of human experience, which defies any box or any stereotype. Ideas about the person become simplified, usually by putting them into a group. In the absence of real and lived experience emanating from the immigrant’s life, the native storyteller relies instead on creating a collective story, about a group, constructed with broad strokes and bold phrases. Not only do these particular natives seek to construct the story according to their own rules, but they in turn ‘give’ this story back to the immigrant and ask them to take it as their own. Immigrants are literally told what their story is to be.

There is only one way out of this sorry situation, and that is to encourage people to seize back their stories. Each story told identifies an individual and it’s only this direct knowledge and information put into the public storehouse of stories, that will counter the oversimplified ‘group’ picture that some seek to write on behalf of immigrants. People do want real knowledge of other people, especially strangers.

In the absence of knowledge about strangers, we tend to make things up, things that reflect our fears and our prejudices. But given the opportunity to hear another’s story told in an honest and heartfelt way, then most of us will rejoice and be happy that uncertainty has given way to empathy and a real sense of another.

We all have a story. Don’t let anyone take it away from you.

Another scandal is brewing thanks to the Perussuomalaiset

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Another scandal involving the Perussuomalaisete (PS) party is brewing  after what happened to councilman Tommi Rautio and MP Teuvo Hakkarainen. At the eye of the latest scandal is Jani Viinikainen, a PS Pirkanmaa region board member, who founded an anti-Roma Facebook page called, Mannat kuriin (Let’s put Gypsies in line)! 

On the list of “like” supporters you’ll  find convicted far-right blogger Seppo Lehto, a few members of the  Finnish Defense League, PS members and the usual crowd of  interculturally challenged Finns.

The recent scandals that have hit the PS fan happen less than a week before the party’s national executive board meet on Saturday, March 4.

Is this what PS chairman Timo Soini meant when he stated in October that the party does hate anyone?

Last year Viinikainen founded a homophobic Facebook forum.   The PS Prikanmaa regional board was planning to sack him but decided the contrary in December. Viinikainen got off the hook with a warning.

While some Finns and PS members may consider these types of Facebook pages “funny,” they show a more sinister side of the the party we have all learned to know:  Immigrants and Muslims are not the only political scapegoats of the party.

It has been less than a year since the PS won their historical election victory in April.

Every month the PS produces a scandal. What will be March’s?

PS red faces (again) after MP Hakkarainen's latest scandal

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The latest scandal caused by none other than Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Teuvo Hakkarainen has caused agan a number of red faces in Timo Soini’s party. Hakkarainen was in such a drunken state, according to Nelonen, that he ended up at the premises of the Bandidos Motorbike Club and gave a prostitute 100 euros out of pity.  

The woman whom Hakkarainen had offered money has a different account of what happened, according to tabloid Iltalehti. She claimed that the PS MP wanted to have sex with her and another woman.

“I don’t know how I ended up there,” he was quoted as saying. “We were at a bar [didn’t remember the name of the establishment] and a bit too drunk and then there were these  people with whom I went with. And I went there and then I noticed and asked [myself] who were these people wearing [motorbike gang leather] vests. I stayed there a little while and left.”

The Helsinki Distric Court sentenced in 2005 two Bandidos MC members for taking part in a shooting, Helsingin Sanomat reported. The Bandidos Motorbike Club is an organized crime syndicate with membership worldwide.

Hakkarainen flatly denied that he is a member of the motorbike club.

He said that the latest scandal would not hurt him politically.

When PS parliamentary leader Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner was asked to comment on what happened, she gave to the media the party’s standard response. According to her, she had not heard about the incident until Helsingin Sanomat approached her. Ruohonen-Lerner did not want to comment and said Hakkarainen could explain what happened.

The PS appears to have given up patching up Hakkarinen’s scandals as we have seen on other occasions.

Is the PS the party that aims to lead us out of the euro morass and into the twenty-first century? Imagine the suffering and ignorance we’d see thrown at Finland’s   and  immigrants’ faces if Soini ever became prime minister.

That would be a very unfortunate day for Finland.

The Finnish media and Länsiväylä should follow Migrant Tales

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales was way ahead of the Finnish media when it was the first to reveal the ethnic backgrounds of the violent killing that occurred on Friday February 17 after a naturalized Finn who was born in Somalia went to a high school prom. Länsiväylä claims incorrectly that the police have now confirmed the ethnic backgrounds of the victim  and the suspect, who is a white Finn.   

The police confirmed to Migrant Tales the ethnic background of the victim three days later after the killing.

Migrant Tales was first before the Finnish the media in another tragic death that took place earlier involving a Somali in Oulu.

What was tragic about both deaths was the reaction of some bloggers. Some of these were wild fabrications with one matter in mind: To erase shame by pinning the crime on a suspect, whom some claimed was Somali.  D4R and Migrant Tales were right on the ball all along. We knew the real facts behind the killing.

Our motto is a very simple one:  “To be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.”

Wikileaks document warns of neo-Nazi (far-right) anti-immigration groups in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A Wikileaks document reveals a disturbing perception that Migrant Tales has expressed concern in the past: the threat of  far-right anti-immigration groups in Finland like the Finnish Defence League, Suomen Kansalinen Vastarina (SKV) or the Suomen Sisu faction of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. In the presidential election, all of the candidates except for PS’ Timo Soini, Sauli Niinstö of Kokoomus and Christian Democrat (KD) hopeful Sari Essayah, stated in an MTV3 poll that the far right does not pose a threat to Finland.

Even if there isn’t a clear distinction made by the authorities on what is far right, neo-Nazi or a Nazi-spirited association, such groups have one matter in common: their loathing for certain immigrant groups like the Muslims. A key term like “mutual acceptance” would be like consuming political cyanide for them.

One of the questions we must ask when speaking of anti-immigration and extremist groups in countries like Finland is who considers them a threat? A white Finn may see them less of a danger than an immigrant, who may be a visible minority.

This compromise made by some Finns, whether a far-right or right-wing populist group is a threat, is the political slippery slope that Finland was on and which permitted the PS to score a historic election victory in April. The reasoning must be something like the following: I can accept, even support a nationalist party like the PS as long as they are hostile to immigrants and minorities but don’t mess with me.

Those who may have played down the PS and especially its Nazi-spirited members  have now seen the consequences of their compromise:  polarization of society, crimes against immigrants and a threat to those very values we consider sacred in our society like social equality for all.

The most recent scandal caused by PS councilman Tommi Rautio is the latest proof of the face of the PS and its far-right faction despite assurances of the contrary by the party.

What we are seeing as well within the PS is an ideological battle for power: On the one side we have the far-right Suomen Sisu faction led by MP Jussi  Halla-aho and others and on the other the Soini populists.

Fortunately Finns do not buy as much as before the anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim message of the PS as we saw in the presidential election. Even so, the PS is still a major party in Finland despite a sharp fall in popularity.

But bare no mistake: The PS would not only spell disaster for Finland if it ever became the biggest party in the country but would punish harshly  immigrants, their children, Finns with international backgrounds, minorities and sensible Finns.

Timo Soini's little PS fish and big PS fishes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The PS councilman Tommi Rautio scandal, where he stated on Facebook that he’d decorate the Finn who killed a Moroccan native in cold blood at a pizzeria Oulu, is turning into a messy Breivik-type watershed for the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The concern raised by PS chairman Timo Soini, and how the Rautio scandal has already impacted the party’s popularity internally and externally, is clear in its new non-convincing  get-tough stance on racism. 

Eyeing with concern the party’s delayed response to the Rautio scandal, the The PS of Köliö suspended on Sunday the councilman about a week before the party meets next weekend. Soini said almost two days after the scandal broke out that Rautio would be formally sacked from the party when the PS’ national executive board meet on March 4.

Should we believe the latest assurances that the PS is getting serous about racism? Certainly not. Rautio is a small fish compared with big PS fishes like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others.

Why isn’t the PS equally concerned about their big fish like PS MP James Hirvisaari, who got fined for hate speech in December, as was PS MP Jussi Halla-aho in 2009 by a court for defaming religion? Remember PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen?

Soini has repeatedly played down the problem of racism in his party. In December he said that there were only “one, two or three” such cases. Shortly after the April election, he said there were no racists running for office.

The Rautio case proves that small fish in the PS are expendable whereas big ones are not.

The "us"-and-"them" smoking-gun statement that once justified mass murder in Europe

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that surprises me about some politicians in Europe and Finland continue to flirt with ideologies that led Europe down a path of near-total destruction in the 1940s. The younger they are, and the further their time perspective of those times, the more they appear to flirt and idolize with fascism. To them I would like to give them a quote by Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commandant of the Aushcwitz concentration camp during 1940-43. 

When we speak of fascism we should put it in a 2010s context. It has different enemies but is the same political beast.

In order to understand the horrors of World War 2 and especially those of the Nazi régime, a very good starting point to understand those harrowing times is reading up on the Nuremberg Trials.

Hoess was not tried at Nuremberg but in Poland, where he was tried by a Polish military tribunal and hanged at Auschwitz on April 7, 1947.

One of the matters that strikes you when you read about Hoess, and all those that were tried for genocide and war crimes after the war, is how they played down their roles.

There is one quote by Hoess that, in my opinion, gives us the smoking gun to the madness, racism, hatred and mass murder that roamed Europe freely at the time.

This is how Hoess justified what he did that caused the death of about 2.5 million Jews at Auschwitz.*

Hoess: “I had my personal orders from [Heinrich] Himmler [to exterminate Jews].”

Question: “Did you ever protest?”

Hoess: “I couldn’t do that. The reasons Himmler gave me I had to accept.”

Question: “In other words, you think it was justified to kill 2.5 million men, women, and children?”

Hoess: “Not justified – 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.”

The last quote by Hoess is chilling and reveals the smoking gun that justified mass murder by the Nazi régime. What is even scarier today is that it is still used by people to justify their racism and declarations of wars against other groups. Some of these are groups, politicians and individuals who claim that Muslims will take over Europe. They make up their stories with the help of high birth rates and a pocket calculator.

If predicting the future were so easy, then we have invented a time machine to the future (sic!).

* Leo Goldensohn: Nuremberg Interviews. Vintage Books. New York 2004. p. 296.

Migrant Tales blog: Trolls can distort your view of other groups

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales has seen a lot of traffic as of late. Every day we see as well more trolls knocking at our door and some of them do get through. 

If, however, you did make it past the moderators and act like a troll on our blog you will be treated accordingly. You will be seen as a pack of cigarettes with the famous warning: Trolls are hazardous to your mental health and may seriously distort your view of other groups.

If, however, you want to learn and debate in earnest about immigration, immigrants and Finnish identity in this century, you are most welcome to do so.

What is wrong with some people in this society? Some trolls house so much hatred and ignorance together  with low self-esteem that they write like ticking time bombs ready to implode.

Here is an idiotic thread that failed to make it past the moderators. He calls himself Tired Johnny: “When this country is disgusting for you, please -and you are free- “get-out”. Nothing is holding you here. Bye, bye!!”

Here is another one by none other than True Finn: “The foreigners who comment on this thread are so aggressive and anti-Finn that they give a really bad image of foreigners living in Finland.”

Bad image?! Excuse me. Ever heard of Tommi Rautio?

True Finn goes as far as to call me a “Nazi.” LOL!

Here is another one who must see Muslims in his sleep. He calls himself anonyymi: “Islamilaisesta näkökulmasta katsottuna Suomi kuuluu Dar al-Harb alueeseen eli sodan maahan (From the point of view of Islam Finland belongs to the Dar al-Harb region war zone).”

What is wrong with this person? Can you ever have a civil debate with him? I seriously doubt it.

Here is another one who calls himself truesoldier: “…your racist racist that occurs here frequently is a sign that things are not well with you.”

This is a typical comment by a “racist” troll who switches the tables and accuses us of being racist. It is as ludicrous as accusing the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany of being a member of the SS. We have seen a lot of this before on many occasions.

Here is another very weird one  by crusader: “Only Aryan Jesus can save Finland from the non-white non-Christian subhuman seedline of Satan. All you Finns out there need to fight in the name of Aryan Jesus for your nations purity. Hail Christian Europe, but most of all Hail Aryan Jesus!”

We at Migrant Tales not only owe our eve-growing popularity to what we write and believe, but to our trolls who spread our name on the net.

To them we offer our eternal gratitude!