By Leo Honka
Water, sky and land.
on fire
a day that refuses to die.
Water…
…sky…
…land.
Immigrants and visible minorities would be the biggest losers if Supo gets greater online surveillance powers
Is it a coincidence or just bad timing that the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) wants greater online surveillance powers? It was only last week when Edward Snowden revealed to the world how the NSA accessed private information of billions of people without their knowledge never mind their permission.
Read original story here.
Who would be the biggest losers if Supo and the police were given greater powers?
Not only would Finnish society lose, especially immigrants and visible minorities, who would be the targets of increased surveillance by Supo and the police.
In a live interview on The Guardian, Edward Snowden explained what was wrong with costly and out-of-control National Security Agency (NSA):
“Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.”
In the late-1980s, there was little to no oversight of Supo. Friends of a Supo agent could easily access sensitive Interpol files on a person with the help of a phone call. Surveillance of foreigners back then was finding out if they participated in demonstrations, supported human rights as well as other “normal” information about what people do in a democratic society.
The track record of the police and its attitude of immigrants and visible minorities reinforce a worst-case scenario.
Apart from no black or visible minorities in the Finnish police force, the treatment of Finland’s first suspected terrorism case is another example that should keep us on our toes.
The father of our Western democratic system, Baron de Montesquieu, should never be forgotten. Since power corrupts, an effective checks and balance system ensures that matters don’t get too out of hand.
National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero gave his support to the Supo initiative.
Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman, Reijo Aarnio, correctly poited out that a new set of problems would arise if the police expand their surveillance rights.
“When expanded police powers are proposed, there should always be an evaluation of what the effects will be,” he said. “That includes a determination of whether an envisaged threat has changed so much that these powers are genuinely needed.”
The media should stop stereotyping immigrants!
Black is beautiful, but I have a question: Why is it that whenever there is a story about immigrants or refugees in the Finnish media, the picture that is published with the story is usually of a black man or Muslim woman? Publishing pictures that feed the public a stereotypical image of immigrants does nothing more than reinforce prejudice and racism.
The media should do a better job and they can. The question is why don’t they?
Like in too many parts of Europe, the whole debate on immigrants, refugees, immigration and cultural diversity is distorted. The best proof of this aren’t the opinion pieces we read about immigrants in the media but the pictures that are published with them.
Why do we do this persistently even if immigrants from Africa and Muslims represent a minority, according to the Population Registration Center (Väestörekisterikeskus).
Of the 195,511 non-Finns living in our country, the majority are Europeans and non-Muslims. Somalis, for example, accounted for 0.26% of the country’s total population last year. Moreover, the overwhelming majority (77.3%) of people in Finland are Lutherans compared with 1.47% who belonged to “other” religions.
So why does the media picture immigrants and refugees as blacks and Muslims?
Ignorance, outright prejudice or both?
A recent story on Taloussanomat uses a black man to portray immigrants.
This picture on Helsingin Sanomat shows a foreign-looking man with a women who could be a Muslim.
Julian Abagond: Calling out racism
By Julian Abagond
Calling out racism is where you point out that something is racist. It might not seem like a big deal, but it is an important part of fighting racism. It can even stop genocide, as crazy as that sounds.
Genocide: Genocides unfold in eight stages. Stopping it at any one stage, stops the genocide from going forward. The second to last stage before the mass killings is this:
Polarization: The first people killed in any genocide are not the pariahs themselves but those in the mainstream who speak up for them. The voices in the middle are silenced through threats, arrests or even killings. Now the message of hate goes unchallenged.
What applies to genocide applies to racism more generally. Racism grows and feeds off a culture of silence. The point of calling out racism is to break down that silence. It does not matter if you persuade anyone, it does not matter if you “win the argument”. It is very unlikely you will. What matters is that you were heard and planted that seed in people’s minds of, “Hey, maybe this is not right.”
Elizabeth Eckford was one of the first nine black students to go to Little Rock Central High School in the American South. That school was a racist hell for her – because the 90% who were not giving her hell would not stand up to the 10% who were. She could not even enter the school till the president of the nation grew a pair and stood up to the governor of the state.
The American civil rights movement succeeded when people stopped being cowed by fear of standing up to racists.
White people calling out racism: One of the best thing white people can do at the personal level to fight racism is to call it out when they see it. If not to the racist person’s face, then to family and friends. If not to family and friends, then at least inside their own head. Anything is better than nothing.
In America calling out racism matters more when it comes from whites. That is because of the Rules of Racial Standing – that thing where white people think others whites are way more objective and neutral about racism than blacks. The Tim Wise Effect.
Black people calling out racism: White Americans discount what blacks say, it is part of their cultural conditioning, but they still hear it. They hear what they say and, just as important, what they do not say. If something racist goes down and blacks say nothing, whites will assume that it is “okay” or “not so bad”. Especially since many whites assume blacks are “oversensitive”.
That is part of why I post on, say, Quvenzhané Wallis, but not Don Imus or the racist outcry over the Cheerios ad – because those two were roundly condemned even by white people.
Warning: Calling out racism does require judgement and sometimes courage. This post is not about that.
Read original story here.
This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.
Center Party politician’s home attacked the third time in Helsinki
Abdirahim “Husu” Hussein, a Center Party politician who hosts the Ali and Husu talk show on YLE, found a rude message at 4 am in the front of his apartment building door: a shattered beer bottle. It’s not the first time his family has been targeted in such a manner at their Helsinki home.
The police have questioned the suspect, who is Husu’s neighbor.
“This is the third time it’s happened and there seems to be a pattern,” he told Migrant Tales. “Somebody wrote ‘Binladen was here‘ on our door, the second time there was a drawing on my children’s bedroom window of a bomb that blew up and now this.”
Husu said he’s going to Canada for six weeks and is worried about his family’s safety.
Glass from a shattered beer bottle greeted Husu’s family at 4am. Source: Abdirahim Husu Hussein’s Facebook page.
It’s clear that such hostile behavior against a member of our society is unacceptable, especially if the motive was the person’s ethnic background.
Finland is slowly but surly standing up to the ogre of intolerance. A good recent example is the outcry of Swedish-speaking Finnish journalists who had received death threats by email. It’s common for university researchers, feminists and activists to receive death threats as well.
Migrant Tales has been the target of such threats as well.
The only way to deal with intolerance is by challenging it head on. Justifying it with the help of lame excuses in order to do nothing is to encourage it to live another day.
This picture was taken in April.
Racism Review: Interracial Cheerios – What We’re Still Ignoring
MT Comment: What would happen if such a commercial were aired in Finland and in other parts of Europe?
________________
A recap for those of you who haven’t been following the cereal saga. On May 28 General Mills aired a YouTube Cheerios ad featuring a Black father, White mother and their young biracial daughter.
The 30-second clip was immediately bombarded with racist remarks referencing Nazis, “troglodytes” and “racial genocide.” It got so many negative reactions the comment section was taken down a day later. It is now impossible to verify any of the racist vitriol that was submitted there. But that wasn’t the end of it anyway. Commenters on the cereal’s Facebook page said they found the commercial “disgusting” and it made them “want to vomit.” One viewer expressed shock that a Black father would stay with this family writing the mother was, “More like single parent in the making. Black dad will dip out soon.” Simultaneously a Reddit stream on the ad turned into a debate about the accuracy or likelihood of the mixed-race family comprising a Black man and White woman, rather than a Black woman and White man. The negative responses drew explosive and infuriated attention across the Internet and then media. The result was an overwhelming and massive outpouring of support. America rushed to defend the bi-racial family en masse. Now, if you Google “Cheerios ad,” there will be no end to the pages and pages of results you find. Indeed as I write, the commercial has received close to 3.5 million views. The comments section is still disabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYofm5d5Xdw
A couple weeks later, the saga seems to be coming to a close. Americans are still a little shaken but ultimately appeased by the final tally (i.e. the dramatic outnumbering of positive to negative responses). To date however the discussion never really included an examination of some critical points that could have propelled us forward. And so we may continue to tread water. First, we have been greatly influenced here by a history we like to forget and neglect. We have long feared interracial unions particularly between Black men and White women because they presumably pose the greatest “threat” to White male control. Remember, 18th and 19th century opposition to race mixing aimed to protect White male interests in an era of colonial expansion. While Black women’s lives were tragically treated as inconsequential, male freedom to choose a White partner made access to White women a barometer of power. For instance, when White men, who held the highest position of privilege, crossed the racial border in having consentual and nonconsentual relationships with Black women, they were seldom penalized. But Black men who crossed, or who were even suspected of crossing the racial divide by having relations with White women, were severely beaten or killed. These social politics rooted themselves in stereotypes that still profoundly affect us:
Black men are thought to lust after white women; white men are thought to be envious of black male sexuality; black women are supposed to be more sexually satisfying than white women; and white women are dehumanized as trophies in competition between men…The system of racial apartheid and oppression that defined the early years of this country’s racial history remains in force today. Racial and sexual stereotypes are still very powerful, and double standards still abound. White men were ever vigilant about black men’s sexual access to white women – and they still are.1
Second, I think it’s worth asking which character really had us up in arms. The mother, the father, or the CHILD?? I suggest it was the body/appearance/phenotype of a young multiracial child who centrally sparked this race controversy. Her character represented living proof of sex between a Black man and White woman, fanning an age-old fear of Black male virility and the dismantling of White supremacy. The Cheerios child also embodied a commitment to longevity on the part of her parents. This was not a tale of dangerous romance swept up on wild winds, but the story of a steadfast family living their every day life. The message being, we’re not going anywhere; a direct challenge and deconstruction of what has long been the dominant American family prototype (i.e. White heterosexual parents and their White children, a dog and house with white picket fence).
What’s perhaps even more important to note here however is the way a multiracial body again became a platform for race deconstruction while its voice and experience went largely unnoticed and unacknowledged. And how we continue to avoid having race conversations with mixed children and perhaps most children in general. Much of the Cheerios debate has been dichotomous and adultcentric, focusing on interracial partnership/marriage and the Black/White divide. But we need to ask ourselves, how does the divide translate for the mixed race child? Does she herself feel divided when she sees she is poised precariously on a tight rope in “the middle”? These are the children of the future and they are being asked to represent race redefinition without the privilege of weighing in. Case in point, when MSNBC interviewed the child actress, Grace Colbert, and her real-life parents, her Black father was asked most of the race questions. His daughter meanwhile bore silent witness while sitting attentively at his side. And when Grace’s White mother, sitting on her other side, was asked if the backlash had “pushed sensitive conversations at home” with the kids, mom answered, “Not really. Um our kids are very open. And you know they – I inquired about, to my daughter, about it and she actually just thought the attention was because she had a great smile. So. She really had no idea.” This answer was given within obvious close hearing range of Grace’s fully capable ears. Grace just wordlessly continued to flash her great smile. But we are left to wonder – what was she really thinking?…
~ Sharon Chang blogs at MultiAsianFamilies
Note 1. See Root, Maria P. P. Love’s Revolution: Interracial Marriage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. Print.
Read original blog entry here.
This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.
Ariela Patterson: The right to be me on my terms
One of the biggest challenges facing Finland in the new century is to come to terms with its ever-growing cultural diversity. While some Finns have no problems with this, others oppose it. Finland’s cultural diversity is, however, something that nobody can stop. There are today tens of thousands of Finns with multicultural backgrounds.
Ariela Patterson, 23, is one of them. Her father is from the United States and her mother is Finnish. How does she see Finland’s new face and what challenges await it today and tomorrow?
Migrant Tales: How did you feel about your Finnish identity when you were growing up in Finland?
Ariela Patterson: Since I haven’t travelled abroad a lot I can’t really compare because I am Finnish. I know I have as much of a right to be here as any person.
MT: What was the most important decision you made to come to terms with your identity?
AP: The most important decision I made was to accept who I am. It happened through an internet forum that touched briefly on race/ethnicities. I can’t remember what the person wrote, but it shook me to my core. It was something like,”don’t let others define you as a person. We are all individuals, human beings. Someone will love you because of who you are, not because of your skin color or the ethnicity you represent.”
MT: How old were you then?
AP: I was eighteen. I had trouble with my identity before I made that discovery about myself that changed my life. I felt before that I didn’t belong to either my African-American or Caucasian side. I was raised by my Finnish mother in Finland so it was difficult to identify with my African American side, especially because of the way the media portrayed, and still does to some extent, African-Americans.
MT: Did you fit in easily before?
AP: I was always the ”American girl” in Finland. So when I went to visit my relatives in the US, I thought I’d feel right at home. I did until my cousin introduced me to her friends as her ”Finnish cousin.” I now found myself in the same situation as in Finland but reversed. The feeling of not belonging anywhere was slowly eating away at me from the inside and I felt like my mother didn’t understand either because she’d never been in my situation.
MT: What happened then?
AP: So one evening, when I was 18, I decided that I won’t live up to stereotypes imposed by others. All I wanted is to just be me. It hasn’t been easy for me after this revelation since I’m still in the process of fully accepting who I am. Even so, I can now look back and look at myself in the mirror with pride because I am “me.”
MT: Another important decision you made was to extend your hand to those who don’t accept you.
AP: The majority of people, or all I’d say, who don’t accept me have never taken the time to know me. They have their prejudices that fence them in even before I’ve managed to blink an eye in their direction. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with others and that’s why they generalize and stereotype people. They may have other reasons as well. I bet if they’d sit down and got to know me they’d walk out with a totally different view.
MT: What kind of pressure do you feel for being different from the majority?
AP: I feel that I represent every person who looks ”foreign” in this country. If I act badly, I feel I help them to judge every foreign-looking person in the future in a negative manner. This is a very stressful situation to be in considering that I was born and lived here all my life.
MT: What is racism to you?
AP: Racism is to me a worldwide disease that spreads. It’s a mixture of prejudice, ignorance, envy, anger and fear. In my opinion, only a fool will willingly pass it along to their children. I don’t know if racism will ever fully disappear but I hope that we can live one day in a post racist world.
MT: What does Finnishness mean to you?
AP: Being tolerant, acceptant and respecting other people.
MT: Do you feel that Finnish society is more open of its cultural diversity?
AP: Some people are more acceptant than others. But I’ve noticed that the darker your skin tone is, the more skeptical people are towards you.
MT: Do you think Finland will become a more tolerant society in the future?
AP: I think it will change for the better. But I also think there will always be an opposing group that will pin the blame for their problems on others.
OECD study states that immigration boosted Finnish economy
An OECD study claims that immigration boosted the Finnish economy by 0.16% in 2011 including pensions. This revelation is a blow to anti-immigration pundits, who commonly claim that immigration drains social welfare resources and offers no economic benefits.
As Migrant Tales has shown over and over again the red herrings, urban tales and outright racism of anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland, it’s nothing more than a storm in a tea-cup and a way to feed their opportunistic political careers by attracting voters with the help of fear.
The study showed that the economies of countries like Luxembourg, Switzerland and Italy benefited the most from immigration while Germany, France and Poland showed the contrary.
Due to the deep global recession after 2008, migration into OECD countries rose by 2% to almost 4 million more n 2011 versus the previous year. Migration to the EU rose by 15% after declining by almost 40% during 2009-11.
While matters may appear to have improved, the job market has worsened sharply for immigrants rising by 5 percentage points to over 4 million unemployed in 2008-12 compared with a 3 point jump for natives. One out of two immigrants have been out of work for over 12 months.
Immigrant youth and low-skilled migrants from Latin America and North Africa have been the hardest hit.
“More jobs for immigrants would create big economic benefits for them and their host countries,” the OECD states. “Raising the employment level of high educated and immigrant women to the level of natives would create major fiscal gains for countries such as France, Belgium and Sweden with large long-standing immigrant populations. ”
The OCED says fighting discrimination is vital: “The report assesses the level of discrimination across countries and finds its extent much higher than previously thought. Generally, a person with an immigrant-sounding name, for example, has to send at least twice as many applications to get a job interview than one with a non-immigrant name.”
Sounds familiar, no?
Aspergers and Ableism Part 1: Introductions
The following is part of a personal statement I originally wrote to apply for the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) last year, before I came to study in Finland and eventually settle in the Nordic countries. I plan to discuss the culture and challenges of the Autism/Asperger’s community, and how I believe the issue of the disabled is treated in the Nordics, over the course of the summer here on Migrant Tales. This will be the first part of a series, dealing with social issues related to neurodevelopmental disabilities and eventually introducing the concept of neurodiversity to a Finnish audience.
I am a third-year history student at Virginia Commonwealth University. I am applying for a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to fund my study-abroad to Germany this fall. I hope that this funding will aid me in my exploration of a culture that is totally apart from my own. I have developed a desire to walk on strange soil, meet with new people, and live in a country with an interesting history to be learned. I believe that the Gilman scholarship will offer me some financial security as I set out to do this—and will not take opportunity for granted should I be accepted.
My future plans, following my graduation in [Finland/Sweden], include starting parallel careers in scriptwriting for films and speechwriting for politics. I feel that my education in history, gained during my time both at VCU and at the two community colleges I attended beforehand, would serve me well in both professions. Historical knowledge could help me create scripts serving as allegories surrounding a person, an event, or an issue. Historical knowledge could also help me navigate cultural attitudes surrounding a particular topic, and engineer an effective political campaign.
I consider myself as coming from a diverse background—not because of a difference in race or nationality, but in mind. I have Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism which affects how I neurologically register the emotions of myself and others. Several awkward encounters involving my disorder remind me of awkward encounters that happen between people of differing cultural backgrounds all the time. But despite my social mishaps, I have learned how to act around new people and handle myself in new environments; I feel that I could reasonably get along well at an international site.
I have experience interacting with foreign people, namely exchange students who have come to VCU either through ISEP or inter-collegiate partnerships. For the 2010-2011 academic year, I participated in VCU’s “buddy” program and was paired with a British biology student. This year, I have been paired with a German student studying urban planning. I guided them through American culture in several interactive ways, and my efforts were met with great appreciation by both the exchange students and the faculty members running VCU’s international office.
My immediate goal for integrating into my host country is to acquaint myself with its history and culture. I have read travel books, have taken history courses, and have gleaned information from news outlets in the host countries I am considering; by doing this, I aim to know which topics I can discuss with members of the host culture, which topics to avoid, and which topics related to America that might interest them. Another goal is to learn the dominant language(s) of the host country, which I am currently practicing for by taking classes in German at VCU.
I feel that my experience with Asperger’s Syndrome and with the exchange students at VCU has trained me for daily life in an unfamiliar place. My empathy and my patience with others have been made more resolute by my experiences, and I feel more mature for it. Once I am abroad, I plan on gaining the best knowledge from my experience in the most resolute posture possible. I am also going out of my way to learn about where I’m going and not come across as another “ignorant American” wherever I end up. I hope I am given a chance to prove that with the financial help I may receive through the Gilman scholarship.
Migrant Tales Literary: What Color is the Finnish Government?
By Dana
There is a fist on earth, saying stop this crime oh human
There is a fist on parliament, shouting stop the lie oh liar men
Unresponsive Helsinki, there is a city in Saami -land
Has a shame building in it, there is a city in Finnish – land
Sham parliament, raw members oh they are fake – players
Pig fam, weak fam, narcissism fam oh they are racists
There is a fist for my thoughts, with five fingers for my rights
There is a heart in my sores, full of raining warning words
I see Räsänen fight me, what do you want of me Päivi?
You made war against me , I rest your case in pilvi*
They are not one, two and three, they are angry bees
They call themselves ministers, they are paranoid filled with fear
There is a fist on this gang, this is my fist and my wand
There is a wind on this wall, storm is hungry to hunt
What color is Finnish law?
What color is Finnish government?
What color is ur spirit ?
* pilvi = clouds, sky