Comment: Here is an interesting column on Multilingual Mania that could be a good wakeup call to us how anti-immigration matters could turn nasty in Europe and Finland.
What would happen if we substituted some words in the blog entry below terms like Arizona for Europe or Finland? Do these statements sound eerily familiar today in our part of the world, even if they were said in another continent?
“We’ve seen it over and over–measurement of the skull incompatible cultural traits to prove that African Americans people from outside Europe were inferior and deserved to be enslaved treated as third-class citizens, the depiction of indigenous Native Americans Muslims and Africans as wild savages living in the stone age who needed to be ripped away from their cultures and re-educated assimilated, and the idea that all Arabs are either radical terrorists or culturally inferior, and far too many other instances.”
And: “The lies paint a portrait of immigrants as drug dealers, child molesters rapists, leaches, thieves, murderers, and other big, bad, evil monsters. This video discusses and confronts some of the lies, mistruths, and distortions of information that are coming out of the mouth of authority figures regarding immigration.”
The spreading of lies and exaggerations by Finnish anti-immigration politicians have been handsomely rewarded by the way of votes. It has helped a party like the Perussuomalaiset to become the second largest in Finland. Alejandro Chávez, the son of the famous United Farm Workers activist César Chávez, said: “People will suffer not the politicians (spreading these lies).”
Do you think that media and people in this country should be more outspoken against those politicians that are using the anti-immigration card to reap political benefits?
Are we too soft on them?
_______________
It’s a classic trick of the racists to paint a portrait of a people so horrible that it makes anything that is done to them to be justifiable. It’s quite a brilliant idea, really, to be able to paint such a nasty picture of someone in the mind of the public without many people hardly even catching on to the trick. This strategy serves to dehumanize people, stripping them of their humanity and making them into objects that deserve to be tamed, oppressed, and controlled.
And thats exactly what you are doing against your enemies. Remember your “they have no place in this society and society should show that” and similar.
Hannu, it we are honest the PS is only an opportunistic party reaping the political fruits of racism, xenophobia and exclusion. Since I respect our system of democracy, I do not want laws that limit freedom of speech (unless it incites violence towards other groups) never mind invalidate half a million Finns that voted for the PS. The PS is only a mirror of society. If there is something we must condemn, it is the attempt by some politicians and parties to normalize racism and exclusion. Our concern should be at the root of the problem, which is what I mentioned.
– Do you think that media and people in this country should be more outspoken against those politicians that are using the anti-immigration card to reap political benefits?
Isn’t media already doing this or how far it should go?
–Isn’t media already doing this or how far it should go?
Yes it is, Jaakko.
Hannu
Your point is a good one. In fact, it’s extremely useful to contemplate – are we trying to tame, oppress and control people in PS or their supporters?
Tame their ideas, yes, probably true. Are their ideas wild? A bit – certainly wide of the mark on most issues. Tame their passions? Yes, they seem to be very passionate in a way that verges on hatred and could easily and surely is an incentive to violence and assault upon immigrants. The thing that is wild about PS, or even slightly primitive, is the sense that ‘racial purity’ (or ethnic purity) has any place in todays world. The world is mixing more and more, people are travelling more and more, and the fascination and genuine interest in the cultures of other people, whether it’s north of the river, or north of the equator or whatever, is just growing. So, yes, guilty as charged Hannu.
Oppress? That’s a tough one. Maybe in terms of ridiculing or stigmatizing their opinions, then yes, there is an element of that in the stance I (not speaking for Enrique or others) might take against anti-immigrationists. Does it amount to oppression, or is it just part of debate? Truly, oppression must go further. Indeed, it must go further than just insulting the odd anti-immigrationists as plain idiots (many of them are); we must stop them working, living next to each other (they might reinforce each others negative view of culture), we must isolate them, stop them getting any kind of political power or media representation; we must stop them changing the laws in any way to accomodate their opinions, or we must at least advocate that, even if we cannot deliver. So, is that what I advocate for PS members? NO. So, not guilty on that charge.
Control? The only level of ‘control’ that I would like to achieve is over the debate. But I might be tempted to control it more. But to control, I must first have power. With that power, I could try to besmirch the good reputation of PS members, suggesting they are animals or worse, cultural savages – some of its bound to stick, even if it isn’t true, especially if people are just fed up with politicians getting paid a packet and giving nothing in return. I could try to control the way that people perceive PS politicians by only voicing negative opinions about them, and never acknowledging how they benefit the debate in any way. I could avoid talking about PS members in any way that reminds people they are just ordinary human beings. I could do that. But personally, I don’t. Not only that, but I don’t have a national media platform with which to promote such a control agenda in the first place.
Now, Hannu. In all honestly, tell me how you think anti-immigrationists (including PS, racists, racial purists etc) stand on these three charges? Taming, oppressing and controlling?
Hannu
Yes, Hannu, you are a bunch of easily led, undisciplined gangsters who should have paid more attention at school, and accordingly need to be watched closely and not permitted to assume any position of authority in a civilised society. The statistics clearly show a preponderance of PS supporters in the prison population, and we are much more likely to find them in the pub than in the library. You can’t refute that truth however much it hurts, and bleating about how this oppresses you will make no difference.
Stop drinking. Get some book learning and some self knowledge. Stop trying to find someone else to blame for your own feelings and failings. Learn to live with your fellow human beings.
I wonder how Israelis get away with wiping all Arabs with one “terrorist” paintbrush. Yet, racially, they’re the same. The English called the Irish all manner of insults, yet they’re both, as racists would say, “white”. What Enrique should admit is that different tribes just don’t get along anywhere. How about Argentina, your home country, where most of the native Mongolian-strain groups were wiped out? Did you have that guilt drummed into you, and do you apologize for your “people” who did such damage to “native peoples”?
Do you take steps to make retribution to them?
I think that if we want to go all the way with the guilt trips, then the different tribes of Africa will be paying each other back in cattle and goats for a very long time to come. High debts!
Mary Mekko
Do you really think Israelis ‘get away with it’? I would say that is just not true.
You miss the point as usual. You confuse political and imperialist troubles with racism, and also blame racism on tribalism, even though we very clearly do not live in tribes or anything like a tribal society in today’s day and age. A few gangs does not make a tribe, much less a tribal culture.
But then I think you reveal the real reason why you don’t want to understand or accept what racism actually is, rather than confusing it with everything else under the sun – it makes you feel uncomfortable; it makes you feel guilty. And rather than understand or process that feeling, you would rather dismiss racism. If the hat doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. If you are not a racist, then why feel guilty? Why try so hard to dismiss racism as something other than what it is?
It’s very difficult to have any kind of reasonable discussion with you if you do not even acknowledge there is racism, or when you do (yes, you are that contrary), it’s only racism against whites that interests you. So which is it? Tribalism or racism? And if it’s racism, let’s hear you come out and condemn all racism, by black, whites or whatever, against whomever! And then maybe also we can talk about the more serious aspects of racism, which are the institutional barriers that it builds up – because so far to date, you seem to think racism is just kids badgering people on the street!
Finland is not USA. Finland is country still inhabited by natives, USA is inhabited mostly by immigrant descendants. Feel the difference?
Laputis, this argument that Finns are “indigenous” and immigrants “invaders like Columbus” is a ludicrous. It may work on Hommaforum or Scripta but not on Migrant Tales. Like JusticeDemon pointed out, Finns are descended from immigrants. For a matter of fact, it was the Finns that drove the Saami from southern Finland to the north.
Laputis
People are people at the end of the day…. feel the difference? Nope!
Laputis
The population of Finland is entirely descended from immigrants. You should have sat closer to the front of the class at school.
Ok, so justicedemon show me your studies about PS voters and enrique too, enrique that you are saying you dont want limit freedom of speech… thats something ridiculous… Of course you forget to mention that only “right opinions” have right and others are fobias like in USSR.
As far as i know finns came here when ice came off and if you didnt know sami and finnish are from same language group and evolved from protofinnish.
Hannu
– “As far as i know finns came here when ice came off and if you didnt know sami and finnish are from same language group and evolved from protofinnish”
Well, that view is starting to be old hat, old boy!
http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/kuzn.html
And meanwhile, genetic studies show that the Saami peoples are about 50–50 European and Uralic, while the Finns are 90% European and 10% Uralic.
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2221031?dopt=Abstract
Given that PS has a rather poor view of Swedish, is there any reason to think that Saami is viewed any more positively anyway?
Also, if you want to draw your cultural roots back to ancient times, then I assume you also want to see a return to Finnish paganism? Then we could also go back to believing the Earth is a round disk…
Hannu
What studies are you talking about? The preponderance of PS voters in the prison population is shown according to precisely the same methodology as you use when discussing violent crime committed by immigrants, i.e. with no weighting for age, sex or socioeconomic situation. Most PS voters are young males. Most prisoners are young males. Therefore most prisoners are PS voters, quod erat demonstrandum.
The same methodology also shows that there is a high preponderance of PS voters among the afternoon clientele of suburban pubs.
How is someone arriving after the ice age not an immigrant? Do you have some arbitrary cut-off date, O Wise One, or is this just your alcohol problem talking again?
As a fan of unfettered freedom of speech, are you free to shout fire in a crowded theatre for no better reason than to enjoy the suffering that this causes?