Historian and professor Yuval Noah Harari* talks to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about the threat of the global coronavirus pandemic. Harari stresses unity. Closing borders and isolating oneself is not the full answer. An outbreak of coronavirus in one country is a threat to everyone.
Amanpour: “What as an ordinary citizen worries you the most?”
“I think the worst thing is unity, we see in the world, the lack of cooperation coordination between different countries and, the lack of trust between countries and also between the population and the government. This is the payday for what we’ve been seeing in the last few years with the epidemic of fake news and the deterioration of international relations.”
Finnish MEP Laura Huhtsaari of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is at it again. Huhtasaari, like her PS MEP colleague, Teuvo Hakkarainen, and all of the party’s 39 MPs are calling for disunity during a time when we need to pull together.
The world will start to be a better place, and far-right parties that spread hate, like the PS and others, will shrink in size and be exposed for what they are: a pandemic worse than COVID-19.
For some, the news is welcome. One of the main aims of AFCI is to undermine the role of the Swedish language. Swedish is Finland’s second official language.
AFCI no longer has an English page on its website. Source: AFCI (2017).
Another problem with AFCI is that it mostly run by members of the PS, a party that is openly hostile to Islam that sees the encroachment of English as a threat to the Finnish language and culture.
One of the matters that characterizes the AFCI is that it is in a time warp where its views of the Finnish language and culture are obsolete.
Another matter that the AFCI is accused of was its role in whitewashing Finnish culture. Right after it founding in 1906-07, there was a drive to change people’s “foreign”-sounding surnames into Finnish ones.
During 1935-35, some 200,000 Finns changed their surnames into Finnish ones.
Not granting funding to the AFCI is a step in the right direction.
Onko perussuomalaisten kansanedustaja Sanna Antikianen sairaanhoitaja tai lähihoitaja? Twitter profiliisa hän on sairaanhoitaja ja toisessa mainoksissa hän on lähihoitaja.
Jos olet sairaanhoitaja, kohteletko työssä muslimeja tasavertaisesti?
Onko mahdollista olla sairaanhoitaja Suomessa ja vihata eri ihmisryhmiä?
Tässä Sanna Antikainen on “sairaanhoitaja…” …ja tässä “lähihoitaja.” Mitä olet, Sanna Antikainen, sairaanhoitaja tai lähihoitaja?
Yksi asia on kuitenkin varmaa Antikaisesta: hän ei tykkää muslimeja.
”Viime vuosien ajan Suomen turvallisuustilanne on yhdessä muun Euroopan kanssa muuttunut askel askeleelta huonompaan suuntaan. Lukuisat eri terroristi-iskut Euroopassa ovat vaatineet satojen ihmisten hengen. Elokuussa 2017 Suomen Turussa nähtiin ensimmäinen terroristi-isku, kun parikymppinen turvapaikanhakija teurasti julmasti suomalaisia naisia kadulla.”
The EU’s refugee policy is inhumane and all about sticking one’s head in the sand. Cartoonist Ville Ranta makes a good point showing how the EU is treating the refugee crisis.
Cartoonist Ville Ranta has a way of showing the exact thing. He states that the EU finally a common ground for a refugee policy. Ready? the police ask, with the EU politicians stating “ready.” Source: Iltalehti.
Tänään A-studiossa esiintyivät vihreiden kansanedustaja Emma Kari ja Riikka Purra perussuomalaisista ja keskustelivat miten EU pitäisi tehdä kun vastaisen rajansa tuhannet pakolaiset odottavat päästä Eurooppaan.
On selvä mitä on Purran ja hänen puolueen linja, mutta on valitettava ettei toimittaja Annika Damström kysynyt mitä perussuomalaisten kansanedustaja tarkoitti kun sanoi, että humanitaarinen maahanmuutto on lopetettava Suomeen.
Riikka Purra toistaa samat asiat: turvapaikanhakijat eivät ole oikeita turvapaikanhakijat, Turkki on turvallinen maa. Lähde: Yle.
“Humanitaarinen” maahanmuutto tarkoittaa useasti perussuomalaisten retoriikassa muslimi turvapaikanhakijat mm. Lähi-Idästä.
Jos Suomi halua lopettaa humanitaarinen maahanmuutto Suomeen se tarkoittaa käytännössä, että Suomi ei kunnioittaa enää kansainväliset pakolaissopimuksia ja ihmisoikeudet.
Yksi ihmisoikeus (artikla 14) on turvapaikka hakeminen.
Tänään esiintyivät vihreiden kansanedustaja Emma Kari ja perussuomalaisten kansanedustaja Riikka Purra A-studiossa ja keskustelivat miten EU pitäisi tehdä kun vastaisen rajansa tuhannet pakolaiset odottavat päästä Eurooppaan.
Not obtaining the two-thirds majority needed to change the bylaws, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth turned down a motion from the party to change its bylaws 56 votes in favor to 45 against. The vote was a definite setback to PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho.
Even if the party will make a decision in early March on how to proceed after the vote, it means that PS Youth will split from the parent party.
The only ones who appear surprised by the result is the PS leadership. Under Halla-aho, the party has promoted, even encouraged, ethnonationalism and fear-mongered about how white Finns will become a minority in their own country thanks to Muslim migrants.
PS party secretary Simo Grönroos, who is a declared ethnonationalist and a member of the fascist-spirited Suomen Sisu, confirmed after the vote that the party would establish a new youth association.
“Of course it is important that the party has its own youth organization,” he was quoted saying in Yle News, “so yes the party will found its own youth wing.”
Halla-aho is in the same quandary as former PS leader Timo Soini when internal power struggles were waged between him and the far-right Islamophobes led by Halla-aho.
Thanks to a media that is normally toothless in confronting PS politicians with tough questions, and other politicians who fear that opposing the PS’ racist policies may be counterproductive, Halla-aho and his cronies have had an easy ride in Finland.
Former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen, changed that momentarily when he admitted over the weekend at a conference in Estonia that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.”
The former interior minister and leader of the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) parliamentary leader, Kai Mykkänen, wants stricter laws to combat terrorism. What re the motives behind the tightening of such laws? Do such laws only to Islam-based terrorism?
He writes: “According to the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo), the threat of terrorism in Finland continues to be individual actors or small groups that get their motivation from radical Islamist propaganda or encouragement from terrorist organizations. Marginalization and loneliness are the fuel that feeds radicalization.”
Looking at Mykkäenen’s text, there is nothing mentioned about what could be seen as far-right terrorism from 2015 in Finland when asylum reception centers were vandalized in cities like Pori, Rauma, Kankaanpää, Siilijärvi, and others.
And what does Mykkänen have to say about far-right vigilante groups like the Soldiers of Odin?
When these far-right groups appeared, and which have close ties with neo-Nazi groups, they were treated with kid’s gloves by the police and too many politicians.
National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen stated in 2016 that vigilante gangs are fine as long as they didn’t break the law.
“It’s a positive matter that [Finnish] citizens [note: not migrants] are interested in their neighborhood’s security and take part and debate in such matters,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat.
The leader of the Soldiers of Odin, Mika Ranta, has threatened in a statement below that the vigilante group will go to the border and defend Finland if asylum seekers started coming as in 2015.
“If a 2015 invasion takes place and the defense forces are at the border [helping asylum seekers] to carry their baggage inside [as in 2015], we will with other nationalists [code for far-right and Islamophobic groups] close [by force] the Tornio border checkpoint. Finland must not make the same mistake that Sweden and our defense forces made and for this reason obliges us to take action!”
Source: Soldiers of Odin.
Fear-mongering with the help of disingenuous terrorist laws that apply to only one group but are blind to other forms of terrorism is a blow to the credibility of such legislation, and to the political party drafting them.
As in the past, Mykkänen and Kokoomus are eager to score political brownie points with voters and continue flirting with the Perussuomalaiset party.*
Migrant Tales insight:The story below was one that was published in February 2012 about “Black February,” when three Muslims died and a Finn committed suicide after killing one Muslim and wounding another. As with the Pakistani who was viciously attacked in February 2018, there were a lot of question marks about how the police carried out the investigations.
Today we talk openly about instigating civil war and about politicians admitting they are fascists. The party? Guess.
This artricle below is to raise our consciousness about how Islamophobia is a cancer spreading in our society at this moment.
Remember Black February? Over about three weeks we read about the deaths of three Muslims , a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of these victims in cold blood. On Monday Migrant Tales had the opportunity to meet the father and a family friend of one of the victims, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah.
The first thing that you notice when you meet Abdisalam’s father is his grief. Anguish inhabits all of Mursal Abdulah: It’s in his eyes, in his face, in his posture, in his voice, in his persona.
The death of his eighteen-year-old son was such a strong blow that he is still recovering from the shock when two policemen broke the tragic news to him and his wife on a Friday February 17 at 10am.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said returning to that terrible moment of his life. “My wife fainted.”
Abdisalam’s father and wife were in the first group of Somali refugees that came to Finland in August 1990 by train from the former Soviet Union. Their son was born in Finland. Abdisalam was a good athlete, student, and son, according to his father.
“He [Abdisalam] planned to study medicine,” he continued. “I was ready to send him abroad so he could become a doctor.”
Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi was a Manchester United fan. In August he would have turned nineteen.
The last time that Abdisalam’s father saw his son was on Thursday night. “His last words were that he was going to take a shower, go to a [high school] party and return,” he said. “He never did.”
Abdulah isn’t at all happy with how the police have handled the case. Apart from not expressing any empathy for the parents’ grief, it was difficult to get any information from them about the crime.
“We were treated coldly and felt like we were the criminals,” he said. “The police appeared to be more concerned about keeping the case under wraps because they feared a revenge attack by Somalis.”
Abdulah says that if a crime were committed by a Somali it would have received a lot of media attention.
“The thing that struck us the most was when we went to the police station,” he said. “The same information that they wouldn’t give us, we then read in the tabloids right after we left the police station. How is it possible that the papers knew more about Abdisalam’s death than us?”
Abdisalam’s death happened between midnight and 7am. The suspect and the victim were school acquaintances. Abdulahi says that his son died from a mortal blow to the head. The suspect’s father was present at the crime scene as well.
I asked Abdulahi if he feels that justice will be done? “I don’t know,” he said trying to be diplomatic. “I’m not sure that I trust the police.”
One of the matters that the father has a big question mark is the complicity of the father in the whole affair. He doesn’t believe the police that the father was not an accomplice in the crime. “Abdisalam was big and physical compared with the attacker,” Abdulah said. “There must have been somebody else helping him [that could have been the father].”
A friend of the family present at the interview speaks.
“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”
Abdulah concludes: “Those Somalis that went to Australia and Canada are living better lives than I in Finland. All I have to show for over twenty years in Finland is a cold country with long winters and the death of my son.”
Migrant Tales expresses to the parents, relatives and friends its condolences for Abdisalam.
