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.
Ville Ranta on EU’s inhumane refugee policy
Kokoomus’ perilous path, caving into far-right populism and xenophobia
Conservative parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) are on a dangerous path putting in peril human rights and the rule of law. The latest suggestion by Kokoomus parliamentary group leader, Kai Mykkänen, to pass legislation so Finland could suspend asylum applications like Greece is worrying.
The Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party clutched political power in the last decade with the help of anti-Muslim racism. Only white EU citizens were spared from their hateful rhetoric as long as they kept quiet.
Anyone from outside the EU with different skin color or religion was targetted and victimized by their hateful rhetoric.
Since the historic victory of the PS in the 2011 parliamentary election, when they won 39 seats from 5 seats previously, the party’s message has steered further to the far right.
Even if it was only a time when the PS would show it real far-right colors, it is disappointing to watch how Kokoomus has climbed into bed with the PS.
Kokoomus parliamentary group leader Kai Mykkänen stated after Greece decided to suspend asylum applications for a month that Finland should pass legislation to do the same.
“Finland must be prepared, if necessary if we were exposed to pressure from a large number of [asylum] applications coming towards Finland,” he was quoted as saying in Yle and added that the country should be able to do what Greece did under exceptional circumstances.
Somebody should tell Mykkänen and his party that it is a human right, specifically Article 14, guarantees the right to seek asylum. It does not read that such a human right can be suspended under any circumstances.
With such arguments, we could put on hold our democratic system whenever a political party in power deems.
Kokoomus, never mind the PS, are placing Finland on a dangerous path.
(Part 2) At the mercy the faculty process: Staff well-being in the University Of Helsinki
By Dr. Gareth Rice*
The Urbaria Document
The URBARIA document delineates the results of a workplace well-being survey conducted by the occupational healthcare provider Mehiläinen. It is bulletproof evidence that those who abused their power were not held accountable. The results were shared with staff in an “info coffee session” on 12th June, 2019. The survey was based on interviews with 30 individuals involved with the running of URBARIA. Rather than focus on individual gripes, the survey highlighted collective concerns.
I saw a familiar pattern which had been going on for years. To quote from page one of the document: “Urbaria’s work atmosphere is poor, with inappropriate behaviour occurring on many levels. The problems were seen to result from the management not being present or acting poorly.” Professor Mari Vaattovaara, URBARIA’s director and those who continue to protect her have lot to answer for here. I exposed her skull-duggery in the Geosciences and Geography Department at the Kumpula campus back in 2014. I thought that global exposure in Times Higher Education would have embarrassed HY into taking action against such behaviour. Alas, the URBARIA document confirms that the same inappropriate behaviour has simply been allowed to migrate from one HY campus to another.
Looking on the URBARIA website, you’ll see one background image of a pigeon – not sure of its connection with academic research – and some information about places, people and politics. You get no sense of how much of a ‘sandcastle’ URBARIA is. As outlined in the document, its goals, responsibilities and job descriptions are unclear and there is a lack of resources for the Master’s Programme in Urban Studies and Planning and ambiguity of content. There are also major problems with supervision and management, communications and transparency of recruitment processes. Many of these serial problems were presided over by Vaattovaara, who is URBARIA’s director and bizarrely is due to remain in that post until 2021!
A particularly concerning section of the URBARIA document states the following: “Complaints were raised on the actions of three individuals at the institute, both as supervisors and wielders of authority. Since the URBARIA document wasn’t official, why weren’t the three individuals named? Would they have been named in an official document? I am quite sure that everyone who made the complaints knows who the three individuals are, so why protect them?
The next sentence in the document reads: “The matters stated in the complaints have been dealt with according to the Faculty process with the dean, director of department and head of human resources, and they will be considered closed at this session.”
What exactly is “the Faculty process” for resolving complaints, especially ones of a serious nature? I really hope that it isn’t the same process which was in place from 2008-2014; this gave Vaattovaara power which she was able to freely use against colleagues in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the Kumpula campus.
It goes on: “However, if no change is seen in practices, the matter should be raised directly with the director of department.” Can we trust that the director of the department will escalate the practice in question so that HY’s Faculty process is able to put an end to it? But it should be more than this. The wider academic community and the public really need to know that the Faculty process is properly fit for purpose: Has it resulted in disciplinary action against the three aforementioned individuals? Does it allow HY to terminate their employment contracts if they refuse to change their behaviour? On page 3, the document goes onto state that, “Inappropriate behaviour can result in a reprimand, warning or, ultimately, termination of employment.” Termination of employment is rare but it has happened. In relation to the sacking of Professor Lassi Päivärinta for sexual harassment, Hämäläinen told the Helsinki Times in 2014 that: “It has been the top priority of the university to guarantee the well-being of its employees. We have a zero tolerance policy toward inappropriate behaviour.” It’s this sort of transparency that HY owes its staff and the public instead of trying to hide behind the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999).
It’s not all doom and gloom. The URBARIA document recommends a number of measures, which if strictly adhered to, will make it near impossible for any inappropriate behaviour to continue. In an attempt to distance itself from nepotism, HY’s recruitment processes “will be observed to an even higher degree.” In an attempt to stop Professors from being able to guarantee academic tenure to their favoured PhD students or friends, irrespective of better competition, “General disqualification rules” were introduced last year. They apply to applicants who have “Joint publications (three years), supervisor-employee relationship, polemic relationship, supervisory relationship (10 years), family connection or friendship. In the case of director of department, the rules only pertain to employees directly under their supervision, students, etc.”
Staff workloads are “determined in the employment contract, while more specific details are agreed with their supervisors and immediate supervisors.” Again, if they are strictly adhered to, staff can negotiate various tasks to ensure that they have a balance between teaching, research and other duties. This should send a clear message to certain bullying Professors, who in the past were able to keep their teaching hours secret and offload work onto junior colleagues (as was the case in the Department of Geosciences and Geography).
Under the section “Rules of Conduct for Workplace”, the URBARIA document claims that HY is also committed to “the guidelines and activities of the Finnish National Advisory Board on Research Integrity (TENK).” This is good to hear, for there are too many Professors who have their names on academic publications without having contributed anything to them. I have spoken with enough PhD and Master’s students to know just how powerless and intimidated they feel when they are basically told that their supervisor’s name should appear on all of their publications. There now seems to be a way stop this misconduct: “Suspicions relating to research ethics (pertaining to, for example, publication author lists, research methodology misconduct, rights to data, research misconduct) should be first discussed with the supervisor, after which a written notification should be submitted to the chancellor, if necessary.”
The URBARIA document also highlights a concern about order of operations. The Master’s Programme in Urban Studies and Planning was established at the University level “without making a decision on its resources at the same time.” Whilst this led to “heavy workloads and uncertainty among staff and those heading the programme”, it should not detract from another important issue: Thanks to increased transparency, more discerning academics are wise to how badly URBARIA is run and have chosen to avoid the place.
To those who want to see improvements in Finnish higher education the message should be clear enough: The chain of command in HY has protected those who wish to abuse their power which has led to the problems outlined above. Ultimately, the reason why perpetrators followed the route they did was because they were allowed to, and that’s our fault. As a culture, that’s our fault. My advice? When you come across those who abuse their power, be fierce in your convictions and don’t shy away. If HY wants to be a genuine supporter of the #eisyrji campaign and to better convince the academic community that its top priority really is to guarantee the well-being of its employees, then it would do well to more frequently exercise its zero tolerance policy toward inappropriate behaviour.
Go to Part I here.
*Dr. Gareth Rice is an academic currently based in the UK. Prior to this he worked in Finnish Higher Education as a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer in Urban Geography. As an occasional journalist his writings have appeared in Times Higher Education, National Geographic, Counterpunch, Helsinki Times and Migrant Tales. He enjoys visiting coffee shops to meet friends, sometimes new people or to read magazines, which typically include Prospect, The Atlantic, The Economist, Monocle, MOJO, Sight and Sound or The New Yorker. He also appreciates nature, has spent a lot of time in Nuuksio National Park, Lapland and Loch Lomond exploring the great outdoors.
(Part 1) At the mercy the faculty process: Staff well-being in the University Of Helsinki
By Dr. Gareth Rice*
This article has been almost one year in the making. What it reveals will, I hope, move the academic community to stop looking at Finnish higher education through rose tinted glasses, and to raise its brow and express earnest concern about the abuse of power and lack of accountability within one of Finland’s best known universities and their botched attempts to cover them up.
On 20.08.2018, University of Helsinki tweeted the following: “We are proud to be a part of the #eisyrji campaign, against discrimination in the workplace. Let’s make Finnish working life even more equal: http://www.eisyrji.fi #equality.”
With this tweet the University of Helsinki (HY) was declaring that it was part of the Work Against Discrimination campaign and a staunch advocate of an equal work culture. The tweet also helps to create the impression that Finnish higher education has a reputation of playing fair when it comes to the recruitment, promotion and treatment of academic staff. There are faculties in some Finnish universities where this is undoubtedly true and they should be commended for such good practice. As this article will show, however, such good practice has not extended to the Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies (URBARIA) https://www.helsinki.fi/en/helsinki-institute-of-urban-and-regional-studies at the University of Helsinki (HY). There you will find a despicable open secret that staff are afraid to even acknowledge for fear of losing their jobs.
I gather that it will not seem presumptuous to assume that, since you are reading this article, you may be aware that I have previously written similar articles. They exposed the abuse of power and lack of accountability in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at HY. At the time, the casual, practiced nature of the behaviour suggested to me that it was part of a longer-term pattern. To re-read those articles is to be reminded that, between then and now, insufficient progress has been made by HY to properly deal with the ineradicable perpetrators. In any case, I believe that – if you read this article right to the end and ponder over the details and evidence presented – you will sense that my frustration was outweighed by my indefatigable zeal for more accountability in Finnish higher education.
It has not been possible to write the article until now because HY was able to (legally!) withhold a certain document – a report concerning a work well-being evaluation at URBARIA – from the media and the general public. So concerning is the content of this document that it is easy to see why I ended up dealing with HY’s legal team, who were the last in the queue of those who attempted to keep it from me.
The hassle of getting the document is just as important to this story as its contents. I tried on for size every possible approach to get a copy of the document, but the responses to my initial emails gave me an accurate enough read on how HY was intending to play this game. When I asked to see the document, I was passed around various staff members, all of whom were equally cagey in their responses to me. A typical email response read:
Dear Gareth,
We share the material and documents of the work well-being evaluation only to those, who are currently part of that work community because that evaluation relates strongly to the well-being issues in that work community. We have emphasized confidentiality to all who participated in that evaluation so it would not be correct to share that material outside of that work community.
If it wasn’t evident to me at this point that HY wanted to stymie the writing of this article, what happened next made it very clear. I wrote a letter to Esa Hämäläinen, HY’s Director of Administration and asked him for a copy of the document. He emailed me back to say that, “Our university lawyer, Ms. Laura Karppinen, responds on behalf of the University Leadership to your request.”
When I emailed Karppinen to request access to the document I was again refused. Since I was now dealing with a lawyer I couldn’t resist inquiring about the legal basis behind HY’s decision. She told me that: “In accordance with the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999) section 5, subsection 4, and with the judgment by the Supreme Court of Administration 2002:2, this type of work well-being documents are not official documents and consequently not within the sphere of public access, as they are documents prepared for the internal activities of authorities.”
Karppinen’s email closed with following words: “However, since you have requested a copy of the report, you have the right to demand that the matter be decided by the University by a written decision. Please inform me if you wish a formal decision to be made.” Taking this to be a glimmer of hope, I responded right away and suggested that Karppinen go right ahead to get a formal decision from HY.
It’s a good thing that I wasn’t overly optimistic. A few weeks later her email arrived with two attachments. A letter entitled “Dean’s Decision” stated that, “The Faculty of Science refuses the request for access made by Dr. Rice.” In the “Statement of the reasons for the decision” section the letter went on to quote section 5, subsection 4 from the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999): “This Act applies to documents prepared for negotiations or communications between persons in the service of authorities or between authorities and private individuals or corporations acting on their behalf, or for other comparable internal activities of such authorities, only if the documents contain such information that, according to the archives legislation, they are to be archived. However, if the documents are archived, the authority may order that access to them may be only by permission of the authority.”
The legal language boils down to this: if HY wants to keep documents from the media it just needs to ensure that those documents are not defined as official and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999) enables them to do so.
The second attachment was information about my right to appeal, which I would need to lodge with the Administrative Court of Helsinki within thirty days’ notice of HY’s decision. Unless the Court overturned HY’s decision, I would need to pay a general processing fee of 260 euros, not to mention the costs of flights and accommodation to and from Helsinki.
The clock was ticking but I had no intention of going to court to appeal HY’s decision. Given how stitched-up things are in Finland, I figured that they would probably circle the wagons and win, and that I’d be left downtrodden and out of pocket. My smile had gone. No-one at HY was willing to spirit out a copy of the document to me. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing else that I could do. Case closed. Move on.
***
A few weeks later, in December 2019 I received an anonymous envelope. Inside was a four page document, written in Finnish. It was entitled “Osastonjohtajan infokahvitilaisuus URBARIA 12.6.2019, Porthania 3. Krs.” A quick online translation check told me that the document’s English title was “URBARIA info coffee session by the director of department on 12 June 2019, Porthania (third floor).” Could this be the document that HY had previously withheld from me? I had no idea but I was keen to find out.
I needed advice. Who had the moral fibre I could trust? The only person who I felt would be honest enough to confirm the authenticity of what I had been sent was Karppinen. She had been very straight with me in all of our correspondence. I steeled myself and started to type the email and waited. After only a few days her response came: “Dear Dr Rice, Thank you for your message. I can confirm that the document you attached is indeed one of the documents mentioned in the decision HY/1725/00.09.02/2019,…” However, before starting to write this article I also checked that the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999) only applies within Finland. It did. My smile snapped back on.
Go to Part II here.
*Dr. Gareth Rice is an academic currently based in the UK. Prior to this he worked in Finnish Higher Education as a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer in Urban Geography. As an occasional journalist his writings have appeared in Times Higher Education, National Geographic, Counterpunch, Helsinki Times and Migrant Tales. He enjoys visiting coffee shops to meet friends, sometimes new people or to read magazines, which typically include Prospect, The Atlantic, The Economist, Monocle, MOJO, Sight and Sound or The New Yorker. He also appreciates nature, has spent a lot of time in Nuuksio National Park, Lapland and Loch Lomond exploring the great outdoors.
The new PS youth association is led by Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu members
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party decided today to found a new youth association after the previous one, PS Youth, was replaced by a new one called Perussuomalainen nuoriso, or unofficially Young Perusssuomalaiset, reports Helsingin Sanomat.
Last week, the former PS Youth turned down a motion from the parent party to change the bylaws and force its members also to be members of the party.
Six days before the vote on Saturday, former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen admitted he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and fascist.”
Even if the PS party leadership likes to speak in code to convey to its voters that they support ethnonationalism and fascism, Jalonen’s candid statement was too much for the party.
Surprise, surprise, the new vice president of the youth association is Asseri Kinnun, the former chairperson of PS Youth.
The new youth association of the PS is a farce. The only thing that changed is the control that the parent party has over the association.
Perussuomalaiset haluavat lopettaa humanitaarisen maahanmuutto ja romuttaa kansainväliset pakolaissopimukset ja ihmisoikeudet
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.
“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.
Pelottavatko turvapaikanhakijat? Yle vastaa sinun puolestasi: “Kyllä!”
Jos katsoo eri lehteä etusivuja ja kirjoituksia siirtolaiskriisistä Turkin Kreikan rajalla, melkein heti alkaa karmia. Ihmiset, jotka ovat menettäneet kaiken, luokitellaan “hallitsemattomaksi” uhkaksi?”
Tämä on mielestäni vastuuntunnotonta tai populistista journalismia.
Miksi eivät lehdet kirjoita kuinka näitä ihmisiä voi auttaa?
Jotkut poliitikot Suomesta väittävät ettei Eurooppa kestä enää miljoonaa turvapaikanhakijaa, kuten vuonna 2015.
EU on kuitenkin rikas ja vauras maanosa. Toisen maailman sodan jälkeen Euroopassa, joka oli melkein tuhottu raunioiksi, oli arvioitu 7-11 miljoona pakolaista.
Hoidimme asiat kuntoon.
Suomeen tuli silloin noin 420000 evakot tai pakolaista Karjalasta. Vuonna 2015 saapui n. 32000 turvapaikanhakijat, joka on n. 8% yllä mainittusta luvusta.
Our incapacity to feel for others, our indifference to their suffering is what is causing our moral downfall in the EU
Some studies claim that vote share for Eurosceptic parties has more than doubled in two decades, according to the Guardian. This problem has many answers. One of these is that Europeans have not done enough to root out all forms of racism.
Our colonial legacy still hangs as an onerous shadow that encourages us to delay and deny our history and who we are today.
Millions of Europeans emigrated in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century to other shores. Ever asked why? Social inequality, nationalism, ethnonationalism, and war.
Let’s return for a moment another factor that characterizes the Marine Le Pens, Matteo Salvinis, Boris Johnsons, Viktor Orbáns, Geert Wilders, Jussi Halla-ahos and a long list of others.
Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert, the US Army psychologist at the Nuremberg trials (1945-46), said what the Nazi war criminals on trial had an incapacity to feel with their fellow men. That fellow men and women are today Muslims, among other groups.
“Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy,” he said.
Greek-Turkish border crisis: Shame on the EU, shame on Turkey, shame on us
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED
Shame on Greece. Shame on Turkey. Shame on Europe. Shame on President Sauli Niinistö as thousands of migrants are massing at the Greek-Turkish border.
The pictures that Europeans are witnessing the humanitarian crisis through their local media are scary.
Yesterday, Monday, it was reported that a child aged 6 or 7 died off Greece when a boat capsized, according to Euronews.
An invisible Alain Kurdy? Remember the little boy called Alan Kurdi who drowned and whose lifeless body was found washed up on a beach? You know, the boy that exposed our shame for a while until we pushed it away.
Too many of our politicians, like the media, spread fear as well.
President Sauli Niinistö appeared on television Monday using terms such as “uncontrolled” immigration, a favorite term of the far-right, and in some conservative circles. He said that the situation at the Greek-Turkish border is pretty much the same as in 2015.
“It (the situation) is very awkward,” he was quoted as saying in Yle. “I do not see much difference in the situation that took place in 2015. It was then, mainly with the help of smuggling people [to Europe], that a lot of people appeared and came to Europe. Then I would call it uncontrolled immigration wave, and this is not the second one.”
How does President Niinistö know that we are facing a so-called second wave of immigration from the Middle East region and Afghanistan? Why doesn’t he speak of the suffering that Europe, Russia, and the United States have brought to the region?
Reaction from opposition parties like the Perussuomalaiset* and the National Coalition Party convey the same message. They do not offer any viable solutions except for closing borders and taking harsh measures.
The situation is pretty simple: the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and destabilized the region. Europe and Russia are involved in bombing and selling arms to the region, causing a humanitarian crisis and millions of displaced people.
Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at HEC Paris, said that Greece’s decision to close the border may be illegal and a breach of international agreements. “[It] represents a manifest breach of both European asylum law and international humanitarian law by creating an unprecedented mechanism that will likely condemn deserving asylum applicants to deportation and death,” he said in Euronews.
He said that the action by Greece would be challenged “at national, EU and international level.”
If we are fair and honest, Europe is a wealthy region, and tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of migrants, will not force our countries to go bankrupt.
Europe has seen worse.
The only thing that is bankrupt now is the EU’s sense of justice and values.
Jussi Halla-aho and PS press kit is now available
Check out our constantly updated page about Jussi Halla-aho and the Perussuomalaiset.
The aim of the page is to keep in the spotlight the racist and far-right matters that Halla-aho and the PS say on a weekly basis.
We will also publish anti-immigration quotes from parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and Christian Democrats.
Visit the page here.
If you hear or read about a quote about the PS that would interest our readers please drop us a line.