By Roble Bashir and Enrique Tessieri
Migrant Tales met on Thursday the elderly Somali woman who was assaulted in April by Finnish men at Helsinki’s Myllypuro metro station. This is part two of the interview with Abdulle Korad Musse, 63.
For the elderly Somali woman, who speaks to us with the help of an interpreter, racism is a terrible issue like the suffering that the long civil war has brought on her people and country.
The fact that most Somalis have endured and seen unimaginable suffering in their former home country as well as endured the dark side of racism in Finland, has made some of them exceptionally strong and resilient.
Abdulle Korad Musse admits that Finland isn’t a safe country for Somalis.
Apart from her son being attacked by Finns when she lived in Joensuu, her son was assaulted in Helsinki as well. She says that a complete stranger once kicked her in the shin when she was going up the escalator.
Musse admits that some Finns can be exceptionally mean. Once they tipped off the security guards that she was shoplifting at an Itäkeskus S-Market.
”I was stopped by security guards after I paid for my goods,” she says. ”The security guards took back the items to the cashier to see if they were stolen. They apologized after they found out that everything was in order.”
Musse says she felt so humiliated and angry that she threw all the goods in the plastic bags at the security guards.
”You can imagine what a scene I created: a Somali woman suspected of shoplifting in public,” she says. ”I have never stolen anything but I have seen Finns shoplifting. I still feel very bad about what happened to me.”
Musse says that Somalis in Finland don’t trust the police.
”I don’t think the police do their job well in this country,” she says. ”I know Somalis who have been physically attacked and the police has not resolved their cases even after five or six years.”
She claims that the police drag their feet when a Somali is a victim of a crime. Musse does not believe that anything will happen to those that attacked her in April.
”They simply don’t care,” she adds. ”They don’t care because you’re a Somali and because there are racist police in this country.”
Musse believes that since the authorities cannot directly kick the Somalis out of Finland, they use other methods to tell you that you’re not welcome. Everything you do takes a lot of time for a Somali in this country: finding work, getting citizenship, family reunification, and asylum, according to her.
The Somali woman applied in 2010 for a new flat from the city. She has to walk up three flights of stairs to get to her home. The doctor has told her that she should not walk up the stairs and carry heavy objects.
”Everything is far away from my flat,” she continues. ”I have to walk to the other side of the apartment complex to dry clothes. Walking to the bus stop takes fifteen minutes. I am afraid to walk through the forest alone to get to the bus stop.”
Musse says that she gets her strength from Allah.
”Only he knows where I will live and when I will die,” she concludes.
She’s right, Finland to me is using a dirty tactics to make Somalis run away from Finland, they have to accept them in but will make their lives hard enough to non sustain. I don’t think she will receive that much from the court justice, ive been attacked many many times and up to this day i havent received any justice, like she said in this article they just don’t care, Eeven dogs have more value than us Somalis.
This perception of institutional racism seems altogether too common among visible minorities. There is certainly scope here for investigating its source, for example by reviewing clear-up rates and the duration of preliminary investigations.
Guards apologized yet she threw the good on their faces. What a splendid behavior! Role model for all somalis no doubt.
I get the feeling this person expects to get what he wants in a snap of her fingers. If that doesnt happen, its racism. I have no idea what Tessieri wants to achieve by spreading a somali woman’s prejudices? More prejudice towards police maybe? How that helps immigrants I dont know…
–Guards apologized yet she threw the good on their faces.
Not on but at them. I would be pretty pissed off. It appears that this type of ethnic profiling does not bother you a bit.
Yossie, my surname is spelled TEssieri, ok?
Ethnic profiling? Did you not write that some mean person had tipped the guards off. How does that make it off as ethnic profiling?
Pissed off or not. Throwing a tantrum and throwing stuff is not the way to go. Maybe in somalia but not here.
I´ll be more than willing to spell your name correctly when your buddies do the same for Halla-aho. You dont seem to care when his name gets intentionally mocked. Didnt see you moderating the name then. Maybe you like to have double standards?
–Ethnic profiling? Did you not write that some mean person had tipped the guards off. How does that make it off as ethnic profiling?
The customers did the ethnic profiling and the security guards obliged by responding.
–I´ll be more than willing to spell your name correctly when your buddies do the same for Halla-aho.
So you take out your frustrations on me? Didn’t you claim that “throwing a tantrum” is bad?
–You dont seem to care when his name gets intentionally mocked.
Halla-aho is a public figure – I’m not. Public figures get mocked a lot. But if we compare what Halla-aho has written about immigrants and visible minorities (Finns) in this country, mocking his name is a million times less offensive than what he’s insinuated.
Why doesn’t that bother you?
Yossie.
You want to silence MT as your media, here is where we can only present our ideas and voice.
-I have no idea what Tessieri wants to achieve by spreading a somali woman’s prejudices. quoted.
You can only understand this when you understand why finnish media not reporting what happens to the immigrants particularly visible minorites. Enriques scoops out the prejudices that other local press doesn’t like to write about.
-I have no idea what Tessieri wants to achieve by spreading a somali woman’s prejudices. quoted.
To this we have to add MT’s tough reporter Roble Bashir.
Yossie, Akaaro answered your question. I totally agree with it.