Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.
African Proverb
When was the first time that immigrants demonstrated for greater rights in Finland? Two major demonstrations by non-Finns took place in 1974 and 1982. The first one was by some 50 Pakistanis who marched from Turku to Helsinki because they were going to be deported by the authorities after they came with expectations of finding work in Finland.
Eila Kännö (1921-2009), the cantankerous Aliens’ Office head during 1970-84, was a state within a state. An interesting matter to investigate would be the relationship her office had with Pakistani honorary consul, Arne Roiha. In order for Pakistanis to get a residence and work permit in Finland, they had to get the green light from Roiha, who ran and employed Pakistanis at three restaurants in Helsinki: Kaisaniemi, Ässäpata and Klippan. Roiha fled to Florida from Finland due to problems with the Finnish tax authorities.
The second demonstration, which took place on October 19, 1982, was the largest march to ever take place in Finland. Some 300 foreigners and Finns marched from Helsinki University Porthania Hall to the Eduskunta (parliament).
The march, which was the top story on the 8:30 news, received wide attention by the Finnish media. A day before the demonstration, former Aliens’ Office head Eila Kännö had vowed to throw in jail the foreigners who had organized the march. The march was organized by the Helsinki Students’ Union (HYY). In Finland, foreigners did not have at the time rights to organize demonstrations.
The caption reads: Historic in Finland – foreigners dare to demand greater rights. This march took place on October 19, 1982. Published by Kansan Uutiset Viikolehti.
One of the more interesting aspects of these early campaigns was that they exposed Finland’s failure to implement its international treaty commitments. Under Article 6 of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, Finland had made the following promise:
This treaty commitment was not fully implemented until the constitutional reforms of the early 1990s.
There was a lot of bluff and bluster in this area in those early days. Generally speaking, discriminatory limitations of rights could simply and safely be ignored up to the point at which a public authority had a legal duty to issue any sort of decision. No enforcement action was ever taken when this was a matter of official discretion or required the authority to take any sort of initiative (including prosecution). Thus foreigners could call the bluff by organising and implementing a public demonstration, but they would not get a reply to any official notification of the intention to demonstrate. This is what happened on the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1988. On the other hand a foreigner could not be officially registered as the editor of a periodical publication.
It seems extraordinary nowadays that the founder members of the Association for Foreigners in Finland had to secure the official permission of the Council of State to register their organisation in 1984.
In the business world, a foreigner needed a licence from the State Provincial Office to register any sort of business enterprise, but there were no consequences for failing to comply, as the authorities would not take the initiative in invoking any sanction. The most spectacular example of an unlicenced foreign business in Finland in those days was Aeroflot, which technically did not exist as a body corporate (and therefore could not be sued as such!). This fundamental failure did not prevent Aeroflot from securing the necessary licences to engage in civil aviation.
This unwillingness in enforcement was probably due to a keen public/national interest perception on the part of prosecutors and other officials. It could never be in Finland’s interests to take positive enforcement measures that would expose the country’s failure to implement its commitments under the Paris Peace Treaty and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
–SECTION II/Article 6: Finland shall take all measures necessary to secure to all persons under Finnish jurisdiction, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, the enjoyment of human rights and of the fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, of press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting.
What a joke, no? It is incredible that Finnish historians have not even looked into this period and how Finlandization manifested itself in immigration policy. This, in my opinion, is a good example of how Finnish authorities took advantage of their special relationship with Moscow. If you are going to wait for a Finnish historian to write about this, it will probably get known decades later. I would demand a public apology from the authorities because our human rights were clearly violated.
Finland has at least passively encouraged the view in Brussels and elsewhere that she implements her treaty commitments, in contrast to certain other EU Member States that will agree to anything in Brussels but then fail to implement it at home. Thus it is part of the national mythology that Finland paid off its war reparations and so on.
The truth is somewhat more complex, and I suspect that a policy of flying under the radar has also played a significant role in international relations since the Paasikivi-Kekkonen era. You explored one aspect of this in your study of the application of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratified by Finland in 1968. It seems that at least some defectors from the USSR were sent back there with no examination of their claims, while others were at least allowed to pass through Finland and seek asylum in other countries. The main problem was ensuring that the cases of asylum seekers from the USSR were managed quietly.
Finland lost its first case at the UN Human Rights Committee in 1988. The case concerned a foreigner who had been detained pending expulsion from Finland and had not been permitted to seek judicial review of that detention.
The technical background to that case was a highly suspicious error in translating the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights to exclude administrative detention from the scope of the Covenant. However, the wording of the Covenant makes it quite clear that it applies to all forms of detention. What made the alleged translation error suspicious was that the Swedish language editions of the Covenant adopted in Sweden and Finland were identical except for this one point where the edition adopted in Finland corresponded to the Finnish translation.
Now either this was the greatest translation miracle since the Septuagint or the error was deliberate.
More recent problems with the UN Human Rights Committee have concerned Finland’s unwillingness to protect the rights of indigenous Sámi reindeer herdsmen.
Similar situations have arisen in recent years with national implementation of EU Directives. The most famous of these concerns motor vehicle tax, but there are one or two national implementations of Directives governing immigration that are also suspicious. I won a deportation appeal in 2000 that turned on Finland’s failure to implement the Mobility Directive correctly.
These cases of incorrect national implementation suggest that Finland sometimes tries to take advantage of its small size and inconspicuousness in order to enjoy undeserved credit for guaranteeing certain rights. They also give the lie to the country’s pretensions as a model student in the European Community and other international organisations.
The authorities are even now still very good at making nice looking laws on paper and then completely disregarding them in practice. Such is true of the Language Law and recently §122 of the constitution is constantly disregarded, e.g. in the recent decision on Kokkola/Karleby and its future administrative orientation.
Sometimes I find it embarrassing that people point to Finland as a model of good policy when it comes to respect for minorities. I suppose they are half right; we do have good policies. Sadly, they are seldom actually followed in practice. States based upon the rule of law ought to follow their own laws if they want to maintain any sense of credibility and moral justice.
Hi Jonas,
Partly this is about agitating for practical implementation and overcoming official obstruction, or to put it more bluntly: insisting on your rights.
The motor vehicle tax fiasco has been a good example of this, with the administration trying every obstructionist tactic in the book to avoid refunding illegally levied taxes. Petteri Snell has built his reputation as a law practitioner on the back of this nonsense.
A few years ago I assisted a couple of immigrants who insisted on their rights under a Community instrument that Finland had taken too long to implement. An EU Directive gains vertical direct effect on the deadline for implementation, regardless of whether it has been implemented in the national law of the Member State. This means that individuals can claim any rights that the instrument gives them in relation to the State.
The degree of obstruction and obfuscation faced by these applicants was at times even farcical, especially when a document was allegedly lost beyond all hope of retrieval on its way between two agencies of the same government department, and especially when that department initially requested and then deliberately buried an opinion of the Ministry of Justice on the legality of its policy position. The report of the Deputy Chancellor of Justice on the matter barely scratches the surface of the absurdities that occurred in that case, and I am still awaiting the outcome of a petition to the European Commission that should wrap up the whole sorry affair.
All of which puts me in mind of the measures whereby the officials of the Autonomous Grand Duchy systematically frustrated the efforts of the Czar to enforce compliance with his edicts over a century ago. Plus ça change…
“The caption reads: Historic in Finland – foreigners dare to demand greater rights. This march took place on October 19, 1982. Published by Kansan Uutiset Viikolehti.”
No it doesnt or you did cut it out. And since you have that paper are you still even bit bitter that great USSR didnt make it 😉
We can speculate on the missing words of the caption, but osoittaa mieltään seems most likely, and “dare to demand greater rights” is a reasonable translation of uskaltavat osoittaa mieltensä oikeuksiensä puolesta in the context of a picture caption.
Judging by the attention you pay to this blog, intternetnetsi, it seems that you are similarly keen to encourage interculturalism in Finland. 🙂
I think I recognise one or two of the people in that picture as well. With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, the expression uskaltavat seems a little silly, but there was a lot of bluff and bluster in those days based on vague regulations and even deliberate disinformation. Nowadays any public official who threatens repercussions for individuals involved in political protest can expect to be challenged very quickly to explain the detailed official powers and legal justifications behind the threat. Eila Kännö retired at just about the time when such challenges began, but I have speculated elsewhere that she would have been rapidly discredited in any such situation. This, indeed, is exactly what subsequently happened to some of her subordinates.
““dare to demand greater rights” is a reasonable translation of uskaltavat osoittaa mieltensä oikeuksiensä puolesta in the context of a picture caption.”
No, there isnt greater in that sentence. And your finnish version isnt right.
Hannu, I think you better accept what JusticeDemon says and I. Translating does not mean changing words into another language but to capture the meaning in the other language. In English we can “dare to demand greater rights.” If you are so against this translation, show us a better one.
“Judging by the attention you pay to this blog, intternetnetsi, it seems that you are similarly keen to encourage interculturalism in Finland. :-)”
Interculturalism sounds new, i dont know what it means.
If it means that some german or italian etc comes work in here or as transfer student then yes.
OK – I’ll try again and take a bit more care. I think dare to demand greater rights is a reasonable rendition of uskaltavat osoittaa mieliänsä oikeuksiensa puolesta.
The semantic content of greater is already built into the notion of demanding, insofar as it makes no sense to demand what you already have. A demand always refers to some change that is viewed as an improvement/increase by the demander. In the content of a march to Parliament, it makes perfectly good semantic sense to talk about demanding greater rights. If you take greater out of this sentence, then you imply that the demonstrators had no rights at all.
Professional translators deal with this kind of thing all the time. One of my favourite examples is Nokia irtisanoo 50 työntekijää taloudellisista ja tuotannollisista syistä, which renders perfectly into English as 50 redundancies at Nokia. You may object all you like about how the English doesn’t say anything about production, finance or dismissal. This misses the point.
How else could you render uskaltavat osoittaa mieliänsä oikeuksiensa puolesta? Dare to indicate their opinion on behalf of their rights is not only gibberish, but could also cover a celebration of rights already gained, with no suggestion of lobbying for improvement.
Simple. “Foreigners dare to demonstrate for their rights”.
There is ZERO implication in Finnish text for “greater rights”. There is no content for that in text.
It carries same message in English and Finnish in that case.
Yet more anti-Finnish propaganda from Enrique, who always sternly refuses to see any fault in immigrants.
Tiwaz
If you were demonstrating for your rights, would this be a celebration of rights that you already have or a demand for more rights?
I think you have missed part of the meaning of the phrasal verb “demonstrate for” in the relevant sense. If, as you insist, there is no implication in the Finnish text that these demonstrators were demanding greater rights, then your suggested translation cannot be correct, as it clearly does imply such a demand.
To shift the context slightly, on your reasoning Lebanonilaiset naiset osoittavat mieliään äänioikeutensa puolesta would not imply that anyone was demanding the right to vote or an extended/equal right to vote.
To demonstrate for something is necessarily to demand something, so if you want to use the verb “demonstrate for”, then you will have to concede that some demand was involved. As you cannot demand what you already have, demonstrate for likewise implies a perceived shortcoming in things already possessed. English does not use demonstrate for to denote celebrations that involve no demands.
Ask yourself whether suomalaiset naiset osoittavat mieliään yli sata vuotta kestäneen äänioikeutensa puolesta really makes sense. It seems to me that juhlivat would be the appropriate verb here. We don’t say mielenosoitus without the idea of vaatimus and we don’t say vaatimus without the idea of tunnistettu puute.
I think your translation is OK, but Ricky’s translation is also OK. You have each unpacked the content of osoittaa mieltä jonkin puolesta in a different way.
Thank you JusticeDemon. I do not understand why this is creating such a stir. I think both ways the meaning comes across clearly, full stop.
Enrique I think you better accept what Tiwaz says and I.
In translation you dont change meaning or add anything.
intternetnetsi
I suggest you study a little before pontificating on translation theory. Begin with the question of what matters to the translator: the meaning intended by the author for the original reader, or the meaning understood by the reader of the translation. Remember that the author’s work is coloured by certain assumptions about the original reader that no longer hold for the reader of the translation.
There is a certain extreme parochiality already built into the Finnish language, and the translator must find ways of compensating for this. Muotkatunturin paliskunnan poroisäntä ei enää vaikuta meidän keskuudessamme will be expressed in English in a wide variety of ways depending on the intended reader.
Justicedemon im sorry, i thought this was for finns.
–Justicedemon im sorry, i thought this was for finns.
This is a polycultural forum for anyone who is interested in cultural diversity in Finland.
Enrigue your tags again..
Civil liberties = Foreigners dont have any.
Multiculturalism = Define word
Racism = Define word and how it even can fit in this post.
xenophobia = Learn what phobia means.
Civil liberties: By law immigrants have these rights but in practice it is a different story. Immigrants must be much bolder in exercising their civil rights. They should lead the way not allow Finns to represent them.
Multiculturalism: In my opinion it means a society comprised of different cultural and ethnic groups. Each groups’ rights are protected by law. Even though societies are multicultural, there is a sort of melting pot of cultures where they learn to accept each other. Integration into society is part of the multicutlural process.
Racism: When you discriminate against a person because of his racial background.
Xenophobia: Extreme hatred of people of different backgrounds. Skinheads are a good example of xenophobia. The Nazi regime in Germany is another good example.
It is easy for you as a Finn to belittle racism/xenophobia. I wish you could be a Somali for a day searching for work in Finland and then let’s talk about what these terms mean. Your views would change 180 degrees.
Justicedemon why you want to keep criminals in finland? why you hate us?
–Justicedemon why you want to keep criminals in finland? why you hate us?
This is the flaw in your immigrant argument: you equate people from other cultures as criminals. This is nothing new and was the prevailing view by the police in the 1980s. Their job was to discourage people from moving to Finland because they feared that crime would rise as a result. Another important matter in a democracy is learning to listen to other people’s opinion. There is no hate.
“you equate people from other cultures as criminals.”
I equate criminals as criminals.
“Multiculturalism: In my opinion it means a society comprised of different cultural and ethnic groups. Each groups’ rights are protected by law. Even though societies are multicultural, there is a sort of melting pot of cultures where they learn to accept each other. Integration into society is part of the multicutlural process.”
Im lapp and in my culture is ok to hit in face someone who tells what to do, wee im multicultural! Is your right more than mine?
Where you think laws come? from thin air?
And ask lapp to accept something… easier is that you stab your face.
“Racism: When you discriminate against a person because of his racial background.”
Then how we can be racists against russians or sami?
“Xenophobia: Extreme hatred of people of different backgrounds. Skinheads are a good example of xenophobia. The Nazi regime in Germany is another good example.”
Well why they didnt hate me or my greenred friend then?
And Read AGAIN what phobia means!
I have bearphobia, sharkphobia, wolfphobia… you can add more..
–Im lapp and in my culture is ok to hit in face someone who tells what to do, wee im multicultural! Is your right more than mine?
It is funny, Hannu, I have studied Sami folklore and I never heard about your claim. Ridiculous.
–I have bearphobia, sharkphobia, wolfphobia… you can add more.
These belong to the animal kingdom. They do not live in our society and compete for jobs. Xenophobia is a totally different phenomenon. See a psychiatrist for the “bearphobia” etc.
Are you Sami or a Finnish-speaking former resident of Lapland?
So you claim you know better than i how things are done in lapland… study more and stop to being arrogant.
And of course theyre animals but whats difference. Learn what PHOBIA means.
“I wish you could be a Somali for a day searching for work in Finland and then let’s talk about what these terms mean. Your views would change 180 degrees.”
I think you are right on that. It’s probably very difficult task.
However if I had the educational background Somalis are bringing to a highly competitive and educated country like Finland I wouldn’t never go there. I would perhaps go to Jamaica, a place where my skills and qualifications would put me in a better position to find a job.
This thread began as a discussion of the civil rights struggle of foreigners in Finland in the early 1980s. Our friend intternetnetsi clearly knows nothing at all about this (no shame in that if he is under 40), and so he has tried to divert the discussion into other areas, beginning with translation and moving onto the article tags and what they mean.
The three short comments posted between 09.10 and 09.14 this morning are beneath you, intternetnetsi.
For what it’s worth, Ricky, I don’t entirely agree with your definitions and I’m not entirely sure that racism should be a tag for this particular article at all.
Xenophobia is an intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. This need not be accompanied by hatred, though it often is. Referring to skinheads as an example of xenophobia does as much a disservice to this particular youth cult as referring to Moslems as an example of terrorism does to Moslems. I have known plenty of skinheads in the anti-racist movement.
You need to bear in mind, intternetnetsi, that English is not an agglutinating language. The meaning of xenophobia is not constrained by its Greek roots. Phobia in English is a different word. Your question about the meaning of phobia is rather like asking the meaning of rata in the word linnunrata.
For a list of civil liberties, we need look no further than the Constitution of Finland. The fundamental civil liberties are listed in Chapter 2. Nowadays these have been elevated to constitutional status, meaning that ordinary laws must implement and uphold these liberties. Everyone under Finnish jurisdiction enjoys these fundamental civil liberties.
The situation in 1980 was much less clear. Finland had concluded various international treaties promising universal civil liberties within its jurisdiction, but its domestic implementation was haphazard. This meant that a foreigner in Finland could invoke these liberties only by facing down the government with a threat of conflict leading to national embarrassment in an international court or other dispute resolution forum. It was our experience that the government generally backed away from such cases at an early stage. CB Hall described this as the Finnish avoid confrontation reflex.
I am no fan of multiculturalism. As I have explained before, apartheid South Africa was multicultural. This is why I prefer the expression interculturalism (Google it!).
Racism is not the same as racial discrimination. This goes to the core of the distinction between prejudice and discrimination. Many people hold racist views who would never dream of discriminating or never have the opportunity to discriminate on racial grounds, and it is at least possible to discriminate on racial grounds without holding racist views (for example out of acquired habit). This is a complex question, because we are not always even fully aware of our own prejudices.
Hi JusticeDemon, the questions you pose are complex as you mentioned. Even if we defined multiculturalism we would run into some problems. I googled interculturalism and the first question I asked was how it differs from multiculturalism. Both aim at the same goal: the integration/socialization of groups into society. However, one difference that we find is that multiculturalism may be a more “negative” term to some because it is the state that it dictating this type of policy (it comes from above). Moreover, critics of multiculturalism believe that the age-old problem of racism is never adequately addressed under multiculturalism. Thus, I guess, these critics believe that a policy of multiculturalism, which encourages cultural diversity, does so without attacking the core of the problem: prejudice/racism within all groups/mutual mistrust. There are also those that claim that multiculturalism fosters fragemantaion rather than integration.
The type of society I saw in Southern California in the 1970s, encouraged different groups to be “proud” of their national backgrounds (emphasis on “us” and “them”). This, if you recall, was the period when “Black Pride” came into vogue. Also, Mexican Americans, still speak of their group as “The Race (La Raza).” That is a pretty incredible label taking into account that they consider themselves the race.
But as JusticeDemon pointed out by mentioning CB Hall, a well-known advocate of civil liberties for immigrants in the 1980s, relations between different groups will not be resolved by the “avoid confrontation reflex.” They have to be debated. You cannot brush such an issue under the rug and leave it to chance, or, worse, to policy makers with monocultural backgrounds who see multiculturalism from a legal/government-policy standpoint.
There is an interesting comment by kenhsu about the generational differences in Finland with respect to attitudes towards foreigners by Finns. He states that the baby boom generation has a more negative attitude of foreigners than the present generation. Maybe so.
Whichever way you define “multiculturalism” as meaning in general terms a society comprised of many cultures, the aim is the same: How to promote the socialization, integration and enrichment of society. Possibly a society with many cultures works best when we accept a general culture (general code of conduct we abide by) and others which “fit” and compliment it. An example would be the following: In the general culture all of us know how to interact without insulting each other because we are culturally adroit; it is a bit like travelling within cultures (we “travel” and can appreciate the other person’s background in the same way that he can appreciate ours. In many cases this may be easier said than done. However, using myself as an example (multicultural background and having lived in many countries), I have learned a thing or two about how to integrate myself into the mainstream. I know I have only scratched a very humble surface concerning this matter.
“They have to be confronted by debate”
You’re absolutely right Enrique, debate is be the key to solve many problems, however nothing has been more suppressed than a open, freely and honest debate on immigration.
The MSM has only allowed pro immigrant views, anything but has been quickly labelled “racist”, “xenophobic”, “islamophobic” and so on.
Recently the mood has changed, after people has got so feed up with all this political correctness madness and voted to so many far-right parties. Now the MSM is opening its pages for some immigrant critical point of views.
On a debate you need both views otherwise it’s not a debate but an indoctrination.
I said for you before, I don’t agree with many of your views, multiculturalism in particularly, however I do respect and admire you for promoting a real debate on immigration, allowing both sides to have a go on their views.
Tony, I do not claim to know everything nor be the bearer of absolute truth. I only have a few opinions on the topic which I have gathered through life and my studies. Moreover, JusticeDemon made a good point: why does racism have to be a tag on many of the posts. True, maybe we can use a more suitable one. But the core of the matter is that we can debate and while we do so learn from each other.
As Tony said how you can use something ridiculed as weapon?
When i exaccerete than Tony is drug dealer and he exacceretes that i live with reindeers. Where is possibility to use it?
Ridicule it so it comes as common joke and no one wouldnt believe it and its impossible to use it on any malicious things.
Reminds me when i called because i couldnt pay rent in time “we härmäläiset are slow so lets check, you lapps should know it :)”, and that other was local in härmä.
“Xenophobia is an intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.”
Sure it is, but what about rational explained things 🙂
Published by “kansan uutiset”
communists who should in modern times be seen as been published in the völkisches beobachter nazi magazine.
Nah, it was also published by others such as Uusi Suomi. I used this picture because it was, in my opinion, the best.
I would rather see all these people be taken into court for their evil deeds.
Funny still the picture shows only racists – there isn’t any black faces in the group.
According to your logic.
–Funny still the picture shows only racists – there isn’t any black faces in the group.
Twilight Zone logic?
“With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, the expression uskaltavat seems a little silly, but there was a lot of bluff and bluster in those days based on vague regulations and even deliberate disinformation.”
Yeah, JusticeDemon we should point out that in the 1980’s there were still in effect a lot of “anti-foreigner” laws which had been placed there basically to make it impossible for the USSR to make a “friendly takeover”.
Of course Enrique sees this as racism and xenophobia and blaa blaa blaa, but it was due to facts of life. If foreigners would have been granted rights to freeley engage in politics, unionize and business, Finland would have become a Soviet state quicker you could say Jack Robinson.
So in a sense – it is true the foreigners “dared” to demand their rights as participating in politics or a demonstration did in fact jeopardise their residence permit or citizenship if they got into the wrong books.
At the same time – there still being the USSR threatening Finnish independence these foreigners while working for a “good cause” as in human rights etc. ere also working for the inhuman USSR as a 5th column, which makes their demonstration in my eyes criminal.
–were also working for the inhuman USSR as a 5th column.
Your comments never cease to amaze me. This is by far the most outrageous. Appeasement will get what you want but at a high price. All these hang ups about diversity as well as acceptance of people who are different, is an outcome of those cold war days. It gave Kekkonen the right to bully Finland politically as it did to promote the idea that Finland was a closed nation to foreigners and foreign investment. Those days are now long gone.
Enrique truth hurts? You still agitate totally red opinions. Tell hello to tehtantaankatu.
–You still agitate totally red opinions. Tell hello to tehtantaankatu.
I thought they were “redgreen” as you stated before. Sorry, Hannu, but I do not belong to any political party.
Long gone? Its funny. You multiculturalist people haven’t noticed theres no USSR to fall back on.
Why, Henrik, do you always get personal and start labeling people as this and that. It does not help you drive home your arguments.
“I thought they were “redgreen” as you stated before. Sorry, Hannu, but I do not belong to any political party.”
Sure you dont but you still agitate their politics, and yes green is more red nowadays.
As long as it makes you face the fact where your arguments originate from then it works. In 1970’s the ideology was “communism”, now it is “multiculturalism”, in 1970’s the bad person label was “anti-soviet” now it is “racist”. Meanwhile theres the same people in shelter jobs employed in propagating the ideology and the same businessmen making a quick buck. Nothing changes.
Is multiculturalism an “ideology” such as communism? Is it a political party? Does it have a chief ideologue such as Karl Marx was for the latter? On all these accounts the answer is negative. As far as I am concerned, multiculturalism means two things: more diverse societies in a globalized world. In order to live in harmony, we pass laws that respect people’s culture. Multiculturalism does not mean that a person won’t ever integrate into society. However, that society is made up by many people from different backgrounds.
Racism is racism. It is for me, as you know, one of the greatest social ills that exists. Racism is in my opinion ignorance of one group towards another. Racism can work both ways. However, a racist is a racist. You can look at a racist in the 1950s, 1920s and in the 19th century and the same qualities will rise to the surface: putting down one group in order to defend his political and economic privileges. Racism is not a country but exists everywhere and depends on that regions particular historical and social context.
Your argument style concerning multiculturalism and racism is odd: you belittle both blablabla (using your expression) without giving any solutions except for old ones that never worked. In order to reach social harmony in a culturally diverse society, you can take the long and traumatic road (racism, prejudice forced integration no respect for other people’s culture) or avoid this route and deal with the matter immediately. It is a bit like the welfare state: we avoided social conflicts by establishing a welfare state, which in turn quelled conflicts in society. Either way, you are going to end up with a society that is respectful of those that live within the borders of a country. There is no way around it – except for conflict if you go by the integration by perkele way.
“Racism is racism. It is for me, as you know, one of the greatest social ills that exists”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8166173.stm
“’Record rise’ in UK anti-Semitism…
Muslim leaders issued a joint statement denouncing anti-Semitism, amid fears that violent elements from within their own communities were responsible for the increase in attacks”
Hi Tony, I hope you are well. Thank you for posting this link. This shows how important it is to do away with antisemitism and how international events impact people in totally different regions. The Jewish community has also blamed countries such as the Netherlands, Poland and Norway for following the same path as Nazi Germany by banning Kosher slaughter practices.
Once again the message passes by unnoticed…
The very same people you want so much to protect from “racism” has no problem in exercise it.
The world you want will never exist, but the reason, with you refuse to see, it’s the way the “diverse” part of immigrants behave.
“In order to live in harmony, we pass laws that respect people’s culture.”
UK has done that and has indeed achieved great “harmony”, but an “enriched” kind of “harmony”…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
“Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa widely considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries”
“The Jewish community has also blamed countries…”
Yes but I don’t remember seeing them rioting on streets, burning flags or throwing petrol-bombs at the police…
Of course he cant see, like that second generation immigrant decided to leave politics because of violence and minister has to be in police protection because of her opinions. That all in sweden.