Susanna Koski: “The Youth League of the National Coalition Party has zero tolerance to racism”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Susanna Koski is quoted as saying on Helsingin Sanomat that the Youth League of the National Coalition Party that she is president of has zero tolerance to racism. “We don’t accept racism in any form or shape,” she said.  

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-12 kello 1.23.38Read original story (in Finnish) here.

Right, Koski, you don’t tolerate racism but want to do away with those laws and institutions that protect immigrants and visible minorities from racism.

What kind of society would Finland be if you did away with the Ombudsman for Minorities and laws that govern ethnic agitation?

Your comment sounds like the double-talk that we commonly hear from far right Perussuomalaiset (PS) politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and Timo Soini to justify racism and intolerance in this country.

The reason why you claim to have “zero tolerance to racism” is simply because you are white and have no idea what racism is. Your denials remind me of what happened before the April 2011 elections, which opened the floodgates of intolerance for the racists.

Let me refresh you memory. Back then, National Coalition Party chairman Jyrki Katainen said “debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist” and Social Democratic Party (SDP) Economy Minister Jutta Urpilainen’s  infamous maassa maan tatalla (In Rome do as the Romans do) statement.

If you have zero tolerance to racism why are your arguments similar to PS MPs that have been sentenced for ethnic agitation?

We wrote this week:

Some of the proposals put forth by the National Coalition Party’s youth wing are barbaric because they would bolster and reinforce our prejudice, discrimination and outright hostility to people who are different from us.

Isn’t that type of behavior barbaric?

 

Immigrants and visible minorities will defend Finland’s Nordic welfare society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Putting aside the far right opinions of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party and others that want to change this country for good and for their personal benefit, who’s out there to defend our Nordic welfare state that took so long to build?

Two important groups that will certainly fight for our Nordic welfare state are immigrants and visible minorities.

Why would some immigrants and visible minorities want to defend our Nordic welfare state? Because they stand to lose the most if the president of the National Coalition Party’s youth league, Susanna Koski, got her way.

Koski surprised even members of her party Monday by proposing, among a long list of other things, that theOmbudsman for Minorities office should be scrapped together with the quota refugee program and ethnic agitation law.

A society that offers a no-holes-barred approach to dialoging with immigrants and visible minorities would not only fuel social inequality but strife as well.

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) is another party that is in the same ideological league as the Youth League of the National Coalition Party.

Why would anyone want to change our way of life and society if it has given us so much? The only answer I can come up with is plain greed, ignorance and outright intolerance.

But not to worry! The immigrants and their children, who form part of our society, will be one of the many defenders of our Nordic welfare society.

 

 

The coup that changed the Americas forty years ago

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Today, 9/11, is the fortieth anniversary of the overthrow of President Salvador Allende by General Augusto Pinochet. A democratic era in Chile was abruptly and violently put to an end thanks to the support of the US President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.

In many respects, the coup of September 11, 1973 in Chile changed the Americas because Salvador Allende was a democratically elected president.

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La Moneda, the Chilean presidential palace, was bombed on September 11, 1973 by the Chilean air force to pave the way for de facto president  General Augusto Pinochet.  The coup was assisted and supported by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Even if the pictures from Santiago and Chile were grim on that day, the country’s new military rulers couldn’t destroy or erase the most priceless attributes of a nation: its collective memory.

Listen to Allende’s last speech (in Spanish) here.

The last song that Victor Jara composed a little before 9/11:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en8yqVxuT-U

________

Excerpt from an unpublished short story, The conspiracy of clocks: A return to the past. How many did the military detain, tortur and murder?

…After a long wait I was locked up in a prison cell. Coarse dark walls with carved messages greeted me. As the iron door shut and locked behind me, my eyes ventured through a small iron-barred window that was big enough for a baby to climb through. I looked outside but was stopped from venturing any further by coiled barbwire where a lone leafless branch hung just above it. Not knowing what was going to happen to me and for how long I’d be detained, I decided to rest my hopes on the leafless branch and imagined if I were a bird, I could fly to freedom.

Two police guards opened the cell door and ordered me to a large office where I was told to sit in front of an enormous desk that took a few seconds for my sight to travel to a police officer at the other end. His face was expressionless and his left eye twitched every time he spoke.

”You’ve committed a serious crime,” he said hinting at nothing. ”Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

The fear that torments me now feels like layers of bricks being stacked on my chest. The bricks kick the air out of me but don’t crush my ribs because my interrogators know the exact weight they must apply in order not to kill me.

”Let me give it to you straight: Only the meek have stayed on, the bare minimum to sustain military rule so we can still run our factories,” he said as his eye twitched. ”Just enough people to make our cities, towns and villages not appear too deserted. This is going to be a long war against the terrorists but we’ll prevail in the end.”

The interrogation ended abruptly…

 

Susanna Koski and the National Coalition Party’s youth wing: The language of barbarians

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The more I think about the proposals put forth by the president of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, Susanna Koski, the more I wonder where this country is heading. Would her suggestion to scrap the Ombudsman for Minorities and laws that govern ethnic agitation constitute barbarism?

Even if barbarians are considered “uncivilized,” in this day of age a person can be simultaneously so-called civilized and barbaric.

The Center Party newspaper Suomenmaa quoted the party’s youth league president, Jirka Hakala, as saying that “the fascist world view [of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party] shouldn’t get a foothold in Finnish politics.”

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation, says he will draft a law to scrap Finland’s hate speech laws, according to MTV3.

Green Party Helsinki politician Husein Muhammed makes it clear to Koski on his Facebook page that ethnic agitation in Finland is permitted.

Because Koski’s and the National Coalition Party’s youth league suggestions lack refinement, education and are based on ignorant greed with a heavy drop of narcism, could we claim that some of their proposals are barbaric?

What would happen if Finland did away with the Ombudsman for Minorities and ethnic agitation laws? Would it unleash a tide of racist hostility, awaken the primitive barbaric spirit of hate and survival, against all those that are different from Koski and members of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party?

Some of the proposals put forth by the National Coalition Party’s youth wing are barbaric because they would bolster and reinforce our prejudice, discrimination and outright hostility to people who are different from us.

Isn’t that type of behavior barbaric?

 

 

 

The shadow of Anders Breivik’s mass killings hang over coalition talks after Norway elections

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The landslide victory of Norway’s opposition Conservatives  (Høyre) on Monday was short-lived after the country’s next prime minister, Erna Solberg, faced tough coalition talks with the anti-immigration and populist Progress party (Fremskrittspartiet) of which Anders Breivik was a member and whose cold-blooded killings continue to haunt the country, reports Reuters.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-10 kello 12.50.53

Visit Wikipedia site here.

Outgoing Labor Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his allies were able to win 72 seats compared with the 96 that Solberg and its allies won, which is 11 more needed for a majority.

Høyre won 48 seats, Progress party (29), Christian Democratic Party (10) and the Liberals (9).

Even if the Progress party has tried to distance itself from the xenophobic Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party, Breivik’s shadow continues to haunt the party as well as the country.

After 22/7, when Breivik gunned down in cold blood 69 Labor Party youths on the island of Utøya (69 dead) and eight more from a bomb explosion in Oslo, life has not changed in Norway but in the Nordic region as well.

The election result of the Progress party lags behind pre-22/7 results. In September 2011, it lost 6.1% percentage points in the municipal elections and on Monday it lost 12 seats.

Even if some believe that Norway has forgotten what happened on 22/7, it’s unlikely that anti-immigration rhetoric and populism can make something so horrific disappear.

 

 

 

Youth League of the National Coalition Party sees no evil in hate speech

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The president of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, Susanna Koski, surprised even members of her party Monday by proposing, among a long list of other things, that the Ombudsman for Minorities office should be scrapped together with the quota refugee program and ethnic agitation law. 

The proposals for 2014 by the National Coalition Party’s youth wing have been strongly condemned by the party’s secretary, Taru Tujunen, who considered them “absurd.”

“I don’t understand at all why Finland should accept for example racism,” she was quoted as saying on YLE. “I’m strongly against this and the National Coalition Party denounces in full these types of proposals [by the Youth League of the National Coalition Party].”

National Coalition Party veteran MP Ilkka Kanerva said on A-studio that proposals to do away with the ethnic agitation law made far right anti-immigration PS MP Jussi Halla-aho look like “an amateur.”

“These views by the Youth League of the National Coalition Party are from another planet,” he said.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-10 kello 0.21.39

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

When asked by Nelonen why Koski wanted to scrap the ethnic agitation law, her answer took on the surreal. She defended the youth wing’s position by claiming that “people should be seen as individuals” and therefore there shouldn’t be laws against ethnic agitation.

Right, Koski, Finns are a group but other ethnic groups aren’t in this country.

What the head of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party is saying is that we don’t want to deal with our ever-growing cultural diversity.

Using the same arguments commonly used by far right PS MP James Hirvisaari, Koski asked why it’s ok to make fun of some religions but not of others.

While the 150 proposals put forth by the National Coalition Party’s youth wing would rapidly turn Finland into a U.S. American dog-eat-dog society where money is king, some of the proposals made by the group are racist and xenophobic and in line with what the most far right representatives of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

The youth wings of the PS and National Coalition Party have lobbied to demote the Swedish language to elective status at schools.

PS MP Olli Immonen, who is the chairman of the far right Suomen Sisu association that aims to keep Finland white, has suggested as well scrapping the Ombudsman for Minorities office, do away with foreign aid, the quota refugee system and ethnic agitation law.

The question we should ask is if the opinions of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party stray from what other mainstream parties think about racism and cultural diversity. Does it imply that xenophobia and racism are becoming more acceptable in this country?

This is not the first time that the National Coalition Party’s youth wing has created waves within and outside of the party.

It’s former chairman Wille Rydman was forced to resign as chairman last year for his strong anti-immigration stance.

Saul Schubak, the former vice chairman of the National Coalition Party’s youth wing, was forced to resign last year when he wrote on Facebook that people who aren’t fit to parent should not receive child allowances.

Are Finns conservatives by nature?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini was interviewed on YLE Saturday morning. Commenting on a recent opinion poll commissioned by YLE, Soini claimed that the good showing of the PS and Center Party proved that Finns are by nature conservatives. 

The YLE poll, which was published Friday, showed big gains by the opposition Center Party (23.8%) and the PS (19.3%).  The ruling National Coalition Party’s popularity slipped to 18.3% and the Social Democratic Party to 15%.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-7 kello 12.08.54

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

It’s nothing surprising that a politician like Soini, who will do anything to snatch as much power as he can in order to form part of the next government after the 2015 parliamentary elections, sees Finns as “conservatives.”

What does being a conservative mean in Finland in 2013? In general terms, it suggests having conservative values when it comes to marriage, work ethic and suspicion of cultural diversity.

Are Finns conservatives by nature as Soini claims? I have my serious doubts.

The reason why the PS is so popular, at least in the polls, is due to the lack of diversity and consensus-driven politics during the cold war era.

The rise of an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party like the PS in the 2011 elections would have never happened if Finland’s population would have been more culturally diverse.

When Soini speaks of Finns being “conservatives” by nature, he means that they are potential PS voters and in line with the party’s nationalistic name, the Finns Party, or the Perussuomalaiset as we call the party on Migrant Tales.

Our best insurance against populism and ideologies that have little respect for human rights is cultural and political diversity. More diversity coupled with social equality will help conserve our Nordic democratic way of life rather than undermine it.

Being too alike ideologically, culturally and ethnically is hazardous to our society.

 

Zuzeeko’s blog: MPs ignore bigger fish to fry in Finnish society

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Zuzeeko Tegha Abeng

Public discourse in Finnish online forums and blogs written by far-right elements and Finns Party MPs suggest that immigration is the biggest problem in Finland, but a closer look at Finnish society reveals more pertinent issues that people on the far-right of the political divide ignore, including domestic violence, family killings and violence against women and children.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-6 kello 6.52.16

Read original posting here.

Populist Finns Party members lead the way in fanning flames of hate against immigrants and other minorities in Finland. They slam immigrants and refugees and portray Muslims as villains. MPs like James Hirvisaari and Jussi Halla-aho have been convicted by Finnish courts for inciting hatred, but they remain defiant. Another notorious MP from the populist right-wing Finns Party, Teuvo Hakkarainen, more recently wrote a controversial blog post in which he described Muslims in Turku as the “worst Jihadists”. It’s worthy to remember that Hakkarainen used the n-word to describe people of African descent in a video interview on his first day in parliament.

From writings and utterances of Finns Party lawmakers (who also happen to be lawbreakers), you would think that immigration is the most serious problem in Finland.

In my view, there are bigger fishes to fry in Finnish society.

Numerous women and children have been killed in Finland as a result of domestic and family violence and the authorities have not done enough to arrest the problem.

According to Helsingin Sanomat, 55 people – including 48 children have been killed since 2003 as a result of family murders and the authorities have not acted adequately. For example, verbal threats of violence are usually not taken seriously. Helsingin Sanomat gathered 11 cases of family murders since 2011 – the most recent being a twin murder in Jyväskylä in August 2013.

The list of family murders doesn’t include the 1 September 2013 case where a Finnish man killed his immigrant wife and seriously wounded her three-year-old daughter with a handgun, nor the 15 June 2013 killing of an Estonian woman in broad daylight by her Finnish partner in a parking lot in Helsinki’s west harbor.

By my rough count, there have been three cases of family-related murders in less than three months this year – resulting in death of three women. This, in my assessment, is a more serious societal problem than immigration.

Finns Party MPs and other proponent of extreme views shared by Norway’s mass murderer Anders Breivik shouldn’t waste durable time in parliament taking cheap shots at immigrants and refugees. They should focus on tackling crippling societal problems like alcoholism, domestic violence and family killings.

A disturbing report revealed that a homicide is committed in Finland every third day. Majority of the perpetrators are discriminated, unemployed and alcoholic men. According to the report, more homicides are committed in Finland than in any other Nordic country.

MPs like Hakkarainen, Hirvisaari and Halla-aho focus on inciting hatred and shy away from discussing life-threatening problems that plague their constituencies. Perhaps, given their track record, the MPs would address the issues if perpetrators were mostly Muslims, immigrants, Roma or other minorities.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.

Immigrants in Finland feel like safe outsiders

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There’s an interesting news story on MTV3 that claims that immigrants in Finland feel physically secure in this country but see themselves as outsiders. This is the first story I’ve read in this country that addresses a big issue in Finland, which is common in other countries as well. 

One of the reason why some immigrants feel like outsiders in this society is because their communities are small, fragmented and struggling to survive.

Kuvankaappaus 2013-9-5 kello 21.05.31

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

The MTV3 story, which cited a poll, claimed that foreigners felt more like outsiders in Helsinki than immigrants in Turku, Stockholm, Tallinn and Riga.

If people feel that they are outsiders, the obvious question we should ask is why. As we try to find an answer to the question, we slowly begin to identify the issues and find effective tools to challenge them. The social ills are the usual culprits: social exclusion, prejudice, racism, and a wide gamut of others related to the latter.

If we shine more light on social exclusion, certainly we’ll find inequality and poverty fenced by culprits like intolerance and hatred.

As long as the immigrant population in Finland is small like now, comprising of only 3.4% of the population, there will be little outcry to social exclusion. According to the Population Register Center, our immigrant population numbers 195,511. It is still too small to be taken seriously by the majority population.

If there are some 50,000 people of the age of 15-29 that are marginalized from our society, the chance of being socially excluded is much higher if you are a person with an immigrant background.

When will immigrants, or Finland’s “Other” have a voice in this country? Probably when our immigrant and visible minority population grows and comes of age.

By 2030 our immigrant population will pass that half a million mark.

Will that be a large enough community to have a say in this country’s affairs remains to be seen.

 

 

Why we call the Finns Party the Perussuomalaiset

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some may wonder why we don’t call on Migrant Tales the Perussuomalaiset (PS) by their official English name, the Finns Party. When I speak to people in English and mention the PS, they answer back by naming it the Perussuomalaiset.  

There was a lively discussion on Migrant Tales in 2010 on whether the correct translation of the PS was True, Basic or Elementary Finns.

When the PS decided to officially change its English name in August 2011 from True Finns to the Finns Party, that’s when I threw in the towel and had enough of the party’s populism. That’s why we call them the Perussuomalaiset on Migrant Tales.

And it is a good matter that we did not jump on their populist bandwagon.

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Far right attire? Read again: Suomi (Finland) is spelled Soumi. On the back of the shirt it reads: Winter War, 1939-1940, never forget. Source: www.varusteleka.fi

How many parties in Europe use names to exclude other ethnic groups?* One that comes immediately to mind is the far right British National Party and the Finns Party, which means the party of Finland’s ethnic majority, or white Finnish-speaking Finns.

The question I’d like to ask the National Coalition Party, Center Party, Social Democrats and others except the PS, is how they have permitted the PS to hijack a name like “the Finns Party” all for themselves?

If you are a white Finnish-speaking Finn, how can I be against a party that calls itself the Finns Party?

The same dangerous game has been played with success by other far right and populist groups, the PS included, which show off our national symbols and icons as if they were their personal property.

 

*For more reading on this topic, see Nationalism threatens racism, not war.