Thanks to Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” we can now get a terrific glimpse of the suffering of asylum seekers who were used as political pawns by Belarus and Poland. Since it would have been impossible to film the movie in Belarus or Poland, Holland created a movie with actors to debict these people’s suffering.
Writes the Guardian: “Green Border, a feature film by the celebrated director Agnieszka Holland, won the special jury prize in Venice last month. It tells the story of a Syrian family trying to get to Europe via the Belarus-Poland border in 2021, and the brutal treatment they receive at the hands of Polish border guards.”
The movie also exposes the hypocrisy and racism of Europe towards such people.
“The end of the film makes the explicit comparison between the two refugee crises,” the daily continued, “and the different receptions granted to Ukrainians and to the much smaller number of darker-skinned refugees from Africa and the Middle East received at the border.”
In Finland, Perussuomalaiset* Interior Minister Mari Rantanen announced a tightening of asylum procedures in Finland by speeding up the process to four weeks. The asylum seeker will wait for the decision at the border.
If there is a big divide and mistrust between the media and the Muslim community it was exposed by a scoop the tabloid ilta-Sanomaton a secret “mosque” in a Helsinki nursery. Throughout the years, some Muslim imams and other members of the community have expressed apprehension of the Finnish media.
For those who may not know, Finland has only one mosque built in the 1940s located in Järvenpää, a short drive north of Helsinki. All the rest of these mosques without a minaret are, in fact, prayer rooms.
Finland’s only mosque with a minaret is located in Järvenpää and was built in the 1940s. Source: Helsingin Sanomat.
True, some Muslims call prayer rooms mosques.
While many will disagree with Suomen Muslimifoorumi’s Aladin Maher about his views on gay marriage and the great replacement conspiracy theory, the underlying message of the stories written about the “mosque” reveals a deep-seated mistrust of Muslims that is amplified by politicians from parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*and National Coalition Party.
The story about the mosque awoke Finland’s Islamophobic hardliners like Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Justice Minister Leena Meri, Minister Wille Rydman, MPs like Atte Kaleva, Joakim Vigelius, never mind the thousands of hostile comments on social media.
All of these politicians and ministers had something bad to say about the mosque and Maher and exposed their hypocrisy.
We shouldn’t be surprised the these hostile comments came mostly from the Islamophobic PS and National Coalition Party.
If the ongoing hostile comments are anything to go by, it shows that any meaningful dialogue between some sectors of Finnish society and the Muslim community is light years away.
Rejection by the media and certain politicians of Muslims ensures that nothing will change.
Monen mielestä hallitsematon maahanmuutto alkoi vietnamilaisten venepakolaisten saapuessa 1970 luvun lopussa. Vielä enemmän säikähdettiin, kun ensimmäiset somalipakolaiset tulivat v. 1990.
Hallitsematon maahanmuutto lisääntyi nopeasti 2000-luvulla. Päivittäiseksi ongelmaksi asia nousi Jussi Halla-ahon myötä n. vuodesta 2006 lähtien.
Vuonna 2008 hallitsematon maahanmuutto oli jo täysin sekoittanut Helsingin asuntomarkkinat.
Jytkyvaalit 2011 olivat jo mennä täysin persujen piikkiin. Lupaavat kokoomusnuoret sentään keräilivät osan hallitsemattomasta maahanmuutosta Kokoomukselle. 14.3.2011
Timo Soini on yksi taitavimmista hallitsemattoman maahanmuuton käyttäjistä. Jos joltakulta puoluekaverilta siinä sivussa ihan vahingossa lipsahtaa kiihottaminen kansanryhmää vastaan, Timo on aina päässyt pälkähästä lauseella: ”Itse en sanoisi noin.” 12.10.2015
Sauli Niinistö on puheissaan jatkuvasti hyödyntänyt hallitsematonta maahanmuuttoa, vaikka ei haluakaan leimautua sen enempää kokoomuslaisiin kuin perussuomalaisiin kannattajiinsa. 3.2.2016
The Finnish Swimming Teaching and Lifesaving Federation (SUH), in collaboration with a representative from the University of Jyväskylä and the Finnish National Agency for Education, conducted a nationwide swimming proficiency study in 2022 (SUH, 2023). The study revealed that a staggering 45% of sixth-graders either lacked sufficient swimming skills or couldn’t swim at all. Reports submitted to the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) indicated that children’s insufficient swimming skills led to serious water-related incidents and accidents.
Finland has witnessed several cases related to racism and anti-immigrant sentiments in swimming pools and other public spaces. These incidents underscore the need to combat such behavior and provide better training and guidance to staff to effectively address hate speech and racism. Promoting water safety and ensuring the safety of all residents in aquatic environments is crucial, considering Finland’s strong cultural focus on lakes, seashores, and saunas.
In the summer of 2023, Liikkukaa – Sports For All Ry conducted a case study related to swimming pools. The study is part of a larger research project undertaken by the EU Erasmus+ Monitora program. The research consists of 20 interviews and 2 case studies in each partner country, coordinated and evaluated by the
The impact of National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government (Perussuomalaiset PS*, Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrats) on Finland will be devastating. It will be a regression into the darkest corners of nationalism, xenophobia, chest-thumping, and bravado.
With the help of these social ills, there are plans to displace Finland’s liberal roots that gained force after it became an EU member in 1995. A lot of good laws were drafted at the end of the 1990s such as the new constitution, which guarantees that everyone, irrespective of their background, are equal before the law.
PS Interioir Minister Mari Rantanen speaking at A-studio, where she wants to give police rights in certain neighborhoods to stop and frisk people even if they are not suspected of crime. The proposal has raised concern about its legal problems. Rantanen states that such a model is being copied from Denmark, which is considered by some the most Islamophobic countries in Europe.
Plans to turn migrants legally into second-class members of society is one of the many threats by the government like paying foreigners less social welfare. There is a concerted plan to disenfranchise migrants.
Apart from the latter, Finland’s most right-wing government since the 1930s will do all it can to erect monuments to forgetting racism and worsening social inequality.
The racism scandals of summer are a case in point. They give us clear insight on how the government white-cleans its past.
A seven-point guide on how to create a new image and appear as a “normal” politician despite your racist background:
To part is to die a little, What you love dies: You leave a little of yourself At any time and in any place.
Edmund Haraucourt (1856-1941)
In Your Eyes is a documentary about migrants in Europe by Sandra Alloush, a Syrian refugee, journalist and documentarist, in collaboration with Enrique Tessieri, editor of Migrant Tales, a community blogfounded in 2007.
The documentary is funded by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) as a part of the #makeracismhisotry campaign in collaboration with New Women Connectors and Migrant Tales.
The documentary’s first screening will be in Utrecht, Holland, on 15 October and will be followed by different screening events in Europe.
In Your Eyes not only aims to be a powerful and honest documentary exposing racism in Europe, but how migrants and refugees survive in an ever-hositle continent. All the people in the documentary are true survivors. Europe needs more inclusion, not less.
Sandra Alloush
Sandra is a Syrian refugee who has lived in Strasbourg, France, since 2015. She makes documentaries and news reports about migrants and refugees in Europe and has won international awards for her work. Her journey from Syria to France was marked by danger and uncertainty. “After a very brief wedding, we left Syria in a bullet-proof car,” she said.
Apart from the suffering of refugees and migrants, one of the most difficult matters for Sandra is parting and witnessing how the family fragments to pieces when you become a refugee.
It is concerning for migrants and minorities in Finland that we have a government that is openly hostile to them. As in Juha Sipilä’s (2015-2019) government, there was an agreement that migration policy would be handled by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party in exchange for the National Coalition Party (NCP) and Center Partry dictating economic policy.
It is the same situation now: The NCP remains silent on migration policy and the PS is silent on austerity measures in exchange for dictating migration policy.
Looking at the PS’ track record and its use of conspiracy theories to drive home its xenophobic message, one wonders if just erasing previous racist posts is enough to restore credibility in ministers like Mari Rantanen.
“Are you on our side or the other side’s,” asks PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen. Source Ville Ranta, Iltalehti.
The question is not far-fetched. The PS is historically the first major contemporary Finnish party to have profited politically by promoting the polarization between different groups by claiming that Muslims, Africans, and other non-EU nationals, as less valuable.
Many of Rantanen’s social media posts before the 4 April election, which were deleted and whitewashed after the elections, were based on conspiracy theories, such as the great replacement. “We shouldn’t be so blue-eyed that soon we won’t be blue-eyed?” is one of his more unusual quotes.
In Finnish, being “blue-eyed” means being naive.
Moreover, even if these types of posts do not increase credulity, how can one even attempt to find a solution to the youth problem in society if Rantanen and her party blame social problems like pinning youth gang violence on ‘harmful migration?
How is it possible that we do not hear a word from the government about three suspects tried on terrorism charges in Lahti. Helsingin Sanomat published an editorial Tuesday about the threat of far-right violence in Finland.
Writes Helsingin Sanomat: “However, the case is a fresh reminder that the extreme right is a real threat to Finland’s security. The assessment made by the Finnish Security Police (SUPO) a couple of years ago is correct; in addition to the terrorist threat from radical Islamists, the terrorist threat from the far right has increased.”
As if trying to divert attention from far-right terrorism, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen has preferred to talk about migrant youth gang violence and new questionable methods to give the police more search- and-seizure powers.
For many years, groups like Migrant Tales, historian Oula Silvenoinen, and columnist Saku Timonen have warned about the ties of the radical-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and far-right groups. Is it a surprise that one of the main suspects in the terrorist trial in Lahti is a former PS member Viljam Nyman?
Finnish prosecutors have charged four men in the Lahti terrorism trial that are believed to be able to produce semiautomatic weapons using a 3D printer and attacking critical infrastructure, politicians, anti-racism activists and NGOs. One of the targets was believed to be former prime minister, Sanna Marin.
Finnish news server YLE reported that the four suspects follow neo-Nazi ideology linked to accelerationism, which claims that fundamental societal transformations can be achieved only by accelerating different processes in society.
Hannu Järvinen is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilperson from the city of Espoo. One of his big pastimes is speaking badly of immigrants. Like many of his party, xenophobic and especially Islamophobic opinions are his pet topics.
His advice will scare away people from Finland than keep them here.
Järvinen’s solution for migrants: “When you move to live in Finland, you have to learn the language, respect our ways of life and values as well as work for the good of Finland. When you move to Finland, you have to become like a Finn.
While such requests appear outrageous because they have nothing to do with Finland’s official integration program, too many like Järvinen think like him.
In Finland, over 1.2 million people emigrated mainly to North America and Sweden before and after World War 2, respectively, during 1860-1999.
My tweet to Järvinen: “Your point of view shows me that you don’t know anything about immigration. Did you mean that we are supposed to throw away our culture? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Finns that have moved away from this country.
Here is a good video that shows what Järvinen means and how it is supposed to happen in real life. In the movie Pane e Cioccolata, an Italian migrant becomes Swiss by dying his hair and rooting for the team that is playing against Italy.
“Walking, walking, walking I go looking for freedom, hopefully I will find my way, so I can keep on walking.”
Victor Jara (1932-73), Caminando, caminando
September 11 marks the 50th anniversary of the bloody coup that overthrew Chile’s democratically elected President, Salvador Allende. Finland’s small but active Chilean community has organized a number of events this year to commemorate the day that awakens in many mixed memories.
Angel Barrientos, one of the 182 refugees who came to Finland from Chile in January 10, 1974, is the first friend I made of this group in the early 1980s. His sister, Silvana, who lives in Coquimbo, Chile, is on the front cover of the book, “Whistling under the snow,” published recently about the Chilean diaspora of Finland.
The Chilean community of Finland is remembering the 50th anniversary of the terrible coup that was made possibly by Henry Kissinger and the Nixon Administration. The book, “Whistling under the snow, edited by Adrián Soto, commemorates those difficult years. It is the first one published on the Chilean refugees in Finland.
How do 50 years change a person’s life in a new home country?
“Adapting to my new home country was a long process marked with different phases,” he said. “After all these years, I feel more at home in Finland than in Chile.”
Angel admits that when he visits Chile, he feels a bit out of place.
“I have difficulty understanding what young people are saying,” he continued. “The language changes rapidly and there are new slang words. I speak to youths, and they just look at me perplexed. trying to understand what I am saying.”
First years in Finland
Just like any person who has been torn violently from his home country, the first years of adaption are rarely easy. For example, Angel says that when he arrived in Finland, it was in winter with -15 °C compared with +26-27°C in Chile, where it was summer.
“Our countries are so different,” Angel said. “At first, the food was a shock and the language was difficult. Even so, I felt human warmth at demonstrations by young people where the Chilean flag waved. There was a lot of solidarity for our cause.”
While the following anecdote isn’t mentioned in the book, cultural misunderstandings could be comical. Finland is well known for its “Ykkösolut,” a low-alcohol beer. A group of Chileans at a bar thought it was the strongest because it had the number “one.”
“They drank and drank that beer, but there was no affect,” said Angel many years ago.
Angel Barrientos during younger days at the Turku Museum Center. Photos: Adolfo Vera.
“Finland gave me a lot. I was able to form a family, have four children, and study to become an interior architect. One of the most important things that this country gave me was peace and a safe space. In Chile, there is always that doubt that they would have probably even killed me like they did to so many. My father and sister were arrested by the authorities.”
Angel mentioned that in November 1973 he snuck into the Finnish embassy in Santiago, where there were 24 others seeking refuge. Tapani Brotherus , a hero for many Chileans, was Finnish ambassador to Chile (1971-76).
“Getting into the Finnish embassy grounds was difficult and easy,” Angel continued. “Some of the guards [Carabineros] at the embassy chose to look the other way while other guards were monsters.
He mentioned that those guards that looked the other way probably wanted to help them.
Homesickness
For many, dealing with homesickness forms part of the process of adapting to a new homeland. How hard homesickness hits one depends on the person.
“The first 10-15 years I thought about returning to Chile,” said Angel. “After ten years, such a move is difficult because you have established a family and children are anchors. I went back and stayed six months in Chile, but it was impossible.”
Finding work that paid enough to live off was one factor that shattered Angel’s hopes of living in Chile.
Even if the over 180 Chileans that fled the dictatorship were a heterogeneous group with different political ideologies, Angel admits that everyone attempted to live in harmony.
Kati Vera is one of Angel’s four children. Having lived the first years of her life in Finland, she later ended up in Canada where she studied to become a graphic artist.
“I am very proud of my father and all the Chileans that became refugees [due to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship],” she said. “Being multicultural is a gift that permits you to see the world through different perspectives. For that, I am grateful to my father and mother.”
