Is there such a thing as “age racism?”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Pro union chairman Antti Rinne branded as “age racism” (ikärasismia) a proposal by Juhana Vartianen, director general of the Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT), to lower salaries for workers approaching retirement age, reports YLE. Is there such a thing as age racism? Shouldn’t the correct term be age discrimination (ikäsyrjintä)?

Kuva 105

Read English-language YLE story here.

Even if Rinne wants to emphasize age discrimination by calling it a dirty name like “age racism,”  the usage of the term in such a manner is not only wrong but demeaning to those who suffer from ethnic discrimination.

Like many sociologists who study racism, this social ill exists because it permits one ethnic group to empower itself at the expense of another.  Racism is a far worse pathological disorder and goes beyond individual prejudice.

Migrant Tales wrote recently: “It’s clear that a lot is lost when you water down a term like racism and redefine it as ”age racism.” It’s like taking the term Holocaust and applying to something minor than the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War 2.”

Just like the Winter War (1939-40) stands out as an important historical milestone for Finns, racism plays the same role for immigrants and visible minorities. It’s a part of their history.

To use the term racism incorrectly in any language is to defile its true meaning and blunt and divide our attention to such a menace.

New World Finn: Different modes of travel*

Posted on by Migrant Tales

 The first thing we see as we travel round the world is our own filth thrown into the face of mankind.                                                                                                                   Claude Lévy-Strauss ( 1908-2009)

The late French anthropologist raises an interesting question. Why is it when we travel to different countries we rarely see those images we find on tourist brochures?

In Lévy-Strauss philosophical style, could we claim that people travel because it is a subconscious attempt to stop time? When we visit different lands, does time stay at point zero for as long as we start to become familiar with the new landscapes?

Having traveled all my life since I was eleven months old and lived and worked in many countries, I have noticed that there are four ways of conducting a journey: geographically, spiritually, culturally and with the help of history.

summer

With our imagination we can even travel and become caterpillars for a precious moment.

Traveling with the help of geography is the most simple no-brainer way of acquainting oneself with a foreign destination. In this mode of travel, all one has to do is sit back and let the eyes and brain do the walking.

Another form of travel is spiritual, which happens when we yearn to be in other places. We can travel to such places with engines that are nothing more than semi-daydream trances. This form of travel is also one of the swifetest. We can reach speeds of speed of light in thought and, with the help of imagination, picture known and unknown lands and plants.

Even though we can reach the outer reaches of space with the blink of an eye, this form of travel can encourage you to to visit new and unknown lands. When I was twelve years old, I loved to read National Geographic maps. Once I found one of the Northwest Territories and Yukon. I was fascinated by their hugeness and desolateness.

Northwest Territories in northern Canada was about the size of Europe in the 1960s and had a population of  25,000 inhabitants! How could so few people live in such an empty place? Could it be like Finland? I never stopped traveling spiritually to northern Canada throughout the years. About forty years later, in 2006, I visited the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Even though I have never traveled with the help of geography to this part of Canada, I felt as if I had returned home. But how can I return “home” in a land that had never felt the weight of my footsteps? The only conclusion I could arrive at is that spiritual travel exists.

Taking into account that traveling with the help of geography is easy, the final phase of this type of travel is with culture.  A good example of this type of travel is having the ability to transgress and form part of a cultural situation.

Whenever I want to travel culturally, I pay a rural hamlet or town in eastern Finland a visit. Korpikoski is one of them, located near the city of Mikkeli. The hamlet has a small coffee shop, country store, gas station and a restaurant that is open during summer. The forest and a semi-asleep asphalt road that hug and connect Korpikoski with the outside world are added spices to the folklore of the area.

There is nothing fascinating about the hamlet except that it is beautifully commonplace. Even though this may have been the case, it was behind its ordinary appearance where its beauty rested and where you wanted to remain for a long time.

In a similar fashion, the cultural traveler could also feel perfectly in place while enjoying an afternoon tea at one of the finest hotels in London. Instead of humble walls and the candid folklore of Korpikoski, you are now being patronized by impeccable service amid architecture and decorations that are truly astonishing and luxurious.

The real enjoyment of cultural travel is that one can enjoy Korpikoski in the same as the London Dorchester Hotel. The diversity and folklore of both places is an exhilirating experience. The trick is to enjoy and fit in both places.

Traveling with the help of history is the final form of sojourning I will talk about. Since we are unfamiliar with places we never visited because they are tucked deep in time, we must turn to history to be our seeing-eye dogs in such travels.

I once traveled decades in time and met my grandmother Aino in the eastern Finnish town of Mikkeli right after the war. It was an odd dream because I hadn’t been born yet. Nobody told me the exact date, but I gathered it to be a few months after September 19, 1944, when Finland signed a difficult armistice with Moscow.

Even if the people in the journey spoke and hovered around silence, the night, candles, buildings and expressions on their faces told you that a nation was busily healing from the wounds of war. The lights that exposed years of carnage had begun to turn themselves off; the rage and metal, which roamed and searched for flesh, took a breather over the war-torn landscapes of Finland and Europe.

Even though I was happy to see my grandmother again, it was a relief to know that I visited 1944  as a tourist.

*This column was originally published in the summer 2009 issue of New World Finn.  

The Finnish media and their PS darling

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Did anyone watch Thursday’s Pressiklubi show with Li Andersson of the Left Wing Alliance, Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini and Helsingin Sanomat politics and business editor, Marko Junkkari? Apart from Soini’s usual political blah-blah (sound colorful but don’t say anything), Junkkari’s comment about how the Finnish media saw the PS as their darling before the 2011 election was quite revealing. 

Kuva 104

 

View Pressiklubi talk show here.

It’s already known as Junkkari admitted that the media was a major factor that helped the PS rise from being a minor party in Finnish politics to one of the biggest today.

Migrant Tales has asked on a number of occasions how come a populist anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party could literally sweep the media off its feet?

The only answer I can find to that question is that too much of the Finnish media, which should know better, was dazzled by the PS because too many identified with its insular, racist and ethnocentric message.

Just like all of the major newspapers in the U.S. except for one – New York Review of Books – jumped eagerly on President George W. Bush’s invade-Iraq bandwagon, how much did the Finnish media question the rise of the PS and their anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam message?

Some editors like Helsingin Sanomat’s Saska Saarikoski went beyond the call of duty by giving PS MP Jussi Halla-aho greater coverage and recognition.  They incorrectly believed that the issue was freedom of expression.

A recent human interest story about Halla-aho and his wife Hilla in Me Naiset is a good example of how some journalists and the Finnish media still don’t get it.

Writes Jos Schuurmans:  “Yet the article doesn’t go into details concerning his political actions or agenda. The closest writer Essi Myllyoja and photographer Milka Alanen come to touching upon his controversial track record is this:

(…) Jussi is a man who evokes emotions – even fears. His radical opinions and provocative blog articles have taken him even to court. But when Kerttu jumps onto Jussi’s lap and drowns her father in kisses, what springs to mind is that there is surely also a softer side to the man. (…)”

One odd argument I have heard on a number of occasions, and which was asked to Soini on Pressiklubi as well, is if it’s a good matter that right-wing extremist politicians like Halla-aho and the likes have found a home in the PS.

In other words, mainstream parties like the PS have become a sort of camp for troubled and dangerous politicians. It’s a good matter that they are members of the PS because we’d be in trouble if they were out on their own.

Naturally, Soini did not answer the question.

As with many television debates about visible minorities, immigrants and immigration, there are only white people who are taking part in the debate, even though Andersson did an excellent job at cutting Soini’s usual baloney into thin slices.

 

Monitori: Migrant Tales – vähemmistöjen ääni verkossa

Posted on by Migrant Tales

”Meidän täytyy muuttaa jatkuva epäsuotuisa keskustelu maahanmuuttajia ja näkyviä vähemmistöjä vastaan Suomessa. Se voidaan päättää antamalla hiljaisuudellemme ääni ja kiitosta niille, joilla on rohkeutta puhua rasismia ja ennakkoluuloja vastaan.”

Kuva 103

Näin kirjoittaa suomalainen toimittaja, tutkija ja Migrant Tales -blogisivuston perustajaEnrique Tessieri. Hän on elänyt monissa eri kulttuureissa, mukaan lukien Argentiinassa, Iso-Britanniassa, Italiassa, Espanjassa, Kolumbiassa ja Yhdysvalloissa.

Suomalaisen äitinsä kautta hän on ollut aina kytköksissä myös Suomeen – turvalliseen maahan, josta hän muodosti ihanteellisen kuvan viettäessään lapsena kesiä isovanhempiensa luona, ja jonne hän päätti muuttaa vuonna 1978. Nykyään kuva Suomesta on toinen, sillä Tessieri on huolissaan nationalistisesta liikehdinnästä ja sen aiheuttamasta uhkasta hyvinvointiyhteiskunnallemme.

Toimittajan työn jatkaminen Suomessa

Toimittajan työn jatkaminen uudessa asuinmaassa voi olla haasteellista, varsinkin jos äidinkieli on eri kuin paikallisen valtaväestön kieli ja verkostot on muodostettava tyhjästä. Tessieri on kuitenkin käyttänyt Suomessa hyväksi vahvaa englannin kielen taitoaan, journalistista taustaansa sekä Suomen tuntemustaan. Hän on toiminut ulkomaankirjeenvaihtajana useille ulkomaisille lehdille, mukaan lukien the Financial Timesille.

– Minulla on aina ollut kaksi suurta rakkautta, jotka ovat maahanmuuttoasiat ja kirjoittaminen – erityisesti pääkirjoitusten ja pakinoiden kirjoittaminen, Tessieri toteaa alustaessaan Migrant Tales -blogin syntyä.

Käänteentekevä kirjoitus

Kuusi vuotta sitten Tessieri halusi kantaa kortensa kekoon Suomessa vellovassa maahanmuuttoa ja kansallista identiteettiä koskevassa keskustelussa, ja alkoi päivittää 70-luvulta peräisin olevaa koulutustaan ja verkostojaan.

Kun Tessierin tausta toimittajana ja antropologina yhdistyi Argentiinassa hankitun uutistoimituskokemuksen myötä nopean kirjoittamisen taitoon, syntyi vuonna 2007 Migrant Tales -blogi.

Aluksi blogissa oli hyvin vähän liikennettä, ja Tessieri oli jo lopettamassa sen, kunnes hän julkaisi käänteentekevän kirjoituksen otsikolla Are you a target of racism in Finland?

– Siinä missä lukijoita oli ollut aiemmin kymmeniä, yhtäkkiä heitä kertyi kahdeksansataa parissa tunnissa. Blogiteksti toimii kuin virveli – sitä heitellään järveen ja joskus nappaa, Tessieri vertaa.

Sittemmin kiinnostus blogiin on kasvanut tasaisesti, erityisesti tänä vuonna. Nyt lukijoita on vajaa 20 000 kuukaudessa. Migrant Talesin moottorina on tekijöidensä intohimo aihetta kohtaan, eikä blogilla ole ulkopuolista rahoitusta.

– Sanoma on niin tärkeä, että uhraan sille mielelläni vapaa-aikaani, Tessieri painottaa.

”Syrjinnän ilmiöt ovat universaaleja”

Tessieri toivoo Migrant Talesin toimivan foorumina asioille, joille valtamediassa ei riitä tilaa. Hän pyrkii hyvään tutkivaan journalismiin, joka esittää kovia kysymyksiä ja paljastaa puheenaiheiden taustalla piilevien asioiden oikean laidan.

– Esimerkiksi perheenyhdistämisestä puhutaan ongelmana ja ajetaan lakien kiristämistä. Harvoin kuitenkaan kerrotaan asian toista puolta – henkilökohtaisella tasolla ihmiselle on todellinen tragedia olla vuosia erossa perheestään ja jopa lapsistaan.

Vaikka blogin tekstit pyörivät usein Suomeen suuntautuvan maahanmuuton ympärillä, Tessieri pyrkii laajentamaan keskustelua myös muihin maihin.

– Olen tutkinut siirtolaisuutta Argentiinassa, joka on Kanadan ja Yhdysvaltojen tapaan siirtolaisten rakentama maa. Syrjinnän ilmiöt ovat universaaleja, ja Suomessa näkyvät ongelmat esiintyvät myös muualla – samantapaisin syin, mutta ehkä eri kontekstissa, hän sanoo.

Ei huutelulle

Blogissa puidaan myös suomalaista identiteettiä, sillä Tessieri haluaa tuoda esiin toisen ja kolmannen polven suomalaiset ja heidän näkemyksensä.

– Heidät usein unohdetaan keskusteluissa. Monesti muistetaan vain kantasuomalaiset ja maahanmuuttajat, ja valkoisen suomalaisen näkemys Suomesta, hän huomauttaa.

Jossain vaiheessa blogin sisällä käytiin tiivistä keskustelua siitä, mikä kommenttien tarkoitus on.

– Kommentteja tuli jopa kaksisataa päivässä, ja niiden tyylissä paistoi kiihkeä vastakkainasettelu. Kun viime toukokuussa siirsimme blogin uudelle sivustolle, päädyimme ratkaisuun, jossa kommentointi edellyttää rekisteröitymistä. Emme ole kiinnostuneita rasistisesta huutelusta. Kävijämäärä on pudonnut, mutta kommenttien laatu on nykyään parempi, Tessieri kertoo.

Teksti: Otavamedia

Kuva: Paula Myöhänen

Alkuperäisen kirjoituksen voi lukea tästä.

Taming the beast of right-wing extremism in the EU and Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Our reaction to racism should be first and foremost a reaction. 

A comprehensive report published recently by the Institute for Strategic Studies in Sweden not only exposes far-right or right-wing extremism in ten European Union countries, but its historical roots as well. While these extremist groups may have different names in different countries, they are all bonded by one overriding factor: intolerance. 

Image1-44_edited-1“Multiculturalism is hazardous to your children and grandchildren,” reads a flyer of the Neo-Nazi  Suomen Kansalinen Vastarintaliike. They have become so bold that they openly spread their far-rght ideology in public and in people’s mail boxes.  This is possible thanks to the rise of parties like the Perussuomalaiset, which are the birthsite for right-wing extremism.

How is it possible that a region like the European Union, never mind a country like Finland which has one of the best educational systems in the world, can become the breeding ground for right-wing extremism and intolerance?

Some culprits could be our own national myths and the global recession, which has caused unemployment to soar.

If anything, the present threat by extremist parties to Europe and Finland should be a wake up call for us on how little work we have done in the past to challenge intolerance.

Setting aside countries like Hungary, where anti-Semitism and racism are the order of the day, Finland is probably a good candidate that could follow the same route if we don’t react soon enough.

The 19.1% victory of the anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in 2011 is a good example of how extremists have regrouped and organized effectively within existing political parties that enjoy popular legitimacy.

What should be clear is that their brand of popular legitimacy is far from mainstream or anything that is close to our way of life and values. It is a Trojan Horse with a politically volatile and hostile brew packed with intolerance, populism, extremism, fascism, racism and Counterjihadism.

The deception of intolerance to its avid and silent followers is that you can control it by keeping it on a short leash. Apart from impoverishing our society in many ways, nobody can control racism because it knows no master.

If you disagree, why not ask Anders Breivik.

OECD: Progress is being made to integrate immigrants in the EU but more work needs to be done

Posted on by Migrant Tales

While OECD countries have made  progress over the last decade in helping immigrants to adapt to their new home countries, there’s still much room for improvement most notably in helping children to excel at school and employ more immigrant women, according to an OECD report. 

The proportion of  highly educated immigrants in Finland had plummeted during the last decade by about 10%.  The fall is far greater than in other Nordic countries.

One explanation for the large drop is that in 2000 the proportion of refugees was higher than immigrants in Finland, Ministry of Employment and the Economy Kristina Stenman was quoted as saying on Uusi Suomi.

In 2000, Finland’s foreign population totaled 91,074 (1.8% of the total population) compared with 183,133 (3.4%) in 2011-12, according to the Population Register Center.

Kuva 99

The OECD report highlights the importance of immigrant children starting school early in their new homeland. Governments need to encourage immigrants who plan to settle to bring their families early.

Considering that Finland and some European countries have tightened family reunification rules, it’s clear that the integration of some children is being compromised

“Many offspring of immigrants find themselves marginalized in the labour market and are overrepresented among those not in education, employment or training [the so-called NEET group], particularly in Spain, Belgium, Austria and France,” the report states.

Countries hard hit by the global economic crisis have seen job rates fall among immigrants.  In the United States from 70% to 67% and in Spain from 62% to 57%.

 

 

 

 

 

Institute for Strategic Studies: Preventing and Countering Far-Right Extremism – European Cooperation

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Here’s a good country-by-country report on the history and modern growth of right-wing extremism in ten European Union countries  (Sweden, UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic).  

Kuva 101

Read full report here.

As Migrant Tales has correctly reported time and again, the biggest sources of right-wing extremism in Finland are the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, Suomen Sisu, Hommaforum, Suomalaisuuden liitto and others.

The aim of these groups is to make right-wing extremist ideology, which always comprises of racism and xenophobia, as natural as Finnish blueberry pie.

Here are some of the main points of the report by Anne-Cahtherine Jungar:

  • Right-wing extremism has, with some exceptions, tended to develop in the form of parliamentary political parties, and has therefore probably been less prone to extra-parliamentary violence than the phenomenon in other European countries;
  • One third of the 39 True Finns parliamentarians have a background online, both with Hommaforum and Suomen Sisu. These representatives have been particularly influential in radicalizing the True Finns’ immigration policies.
  • Historically, right-wing extremism was spearheaded by the Academic Karelia Society (Akateeminen Karjala Seura) during 1922-44, the Laupa Movement (Lapua liike) during 1929-32, and Patriotic People’s Movment (Isänmaallinen Kansanliike) during 1932-44. The peace treaty with Moscow banned fascist organizations in Finland;
  • Those right-wing extremist groups which did mobilize in the late 1990s are better organised, more internationally connected, and aim for more political influence than the skinhead groups in the late 1980s;
  • According to SUPO (the Finnish security police unorganized right-wing extremism decreased towards the beginning of the 21st Century; it has recently resurged again. SUPO estimates that there are 1000 to 2000 individuals involved in the Finnish right-wing extremist environment today;
  • The Internet has been a key tool for spreading far-right ideology. The best known platforms are Hommaforum, Tundratabloids, Scripta and Varashammer. Right-wing extremism in Finland comes in the form of counterjihadism;
  • A more successful route for the extreme right milieu has been to engage with existing political parties that enjoy popular legitimacy, as Suomen Sisu has done with the True Finns.

 

 

UPDATE: Former Finnish PS councilman slapped with 120-euro fine for inciting ethnic hatred

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Tommi Rautio, the former city councillor of Köyliö in western Finland, who suggested giving a medal to a killer after he shot and killed a Muslim at an Oulu pizzeria in February, was convicted and fined 120 euros Wednesday by a Satakunta regional court for inciting ethnic hatred, reports Uusi Pori. 

Rautio, who said he was not guilty of the charges, is unemployed and depends on student aid for his livelihood.

Kuva 100

 

The former city councilman said that his writings on Facebook were done ironically.

Rautio wrote on his Facebook page:  ”If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal…there is already a war going on and in every war [soldiers] are decorated.”

Rautio was sacked in March from the PS.

The former councilman ran again for councilman but was not reelected. He got nine votes.

Former Finnish PS councilman to be charged for inciting ethnic hatred

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Tommi Rautio, the former city councillor of Köyliö in western Finland, who suggested giving a medal to a killer after he shot and killed a Muslim at an Oulu pizzeria in February, will be charged for inciting ethnic hatred, reports YLE. 

Kuva 97

YLE reported that the Satakunta region prosecutor wants to slap Rautio with “a heavy fine” for threatening, defamatory and abusive language against immigrants.

Rautio wrote on his Facebook page:  “If Janne is the one [who shot the foreigners at the pizzeria] then we should give Janne a medal…there is already a war going on and in every war [soldiers] are decorated.”

The cold-blooded killing in Oulu, was one of four Muslim deaths reported during a tragic four-week period in January-February.

Rautio was sacked in March from the PS.

The former councilman ran again for councilman but was not reelected. He got nine votes.

One of the matters that raised some eyebrows after the Rautio affair was being covered nationally by the media, were plans by the police to not investigate the case.

The police announced three days later that it would, however, carry out an investigation whether Rautio incited racial hatred with his statements.

 

 

 

Common Ground News Service: Spreading “anti-rumours” about immigrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By María-Paz López

Barcelona, Spain –“They are invading us”, “They don’t respect the rules”, “They don’t pay taxes”, “They don’t want to integrate”, “They get special subsidies to open businesses”, are just a few of the often repeated accusations against immigrant communities in Spain.

To deal with rising prejudices, Barcelona City Council is now beginning its second training season of volunteer citizens, nicknamed anti-rumour patrols, whose job it will be to counter rumours or stereotypes about immigrants.

The volunteers take free courses to acquire skills to tackle prejudice. For example, in everyday situations at work, in the neighbourhood, in the supermarket or at the gym, an anti-rumour agent who might overhear someone saying, “You know, Moroccan immigrants are collapsing the Health system, they are always queuing for a doctor, with their many kids …,” could step in and counter with fact. “You know, actually, according to the authorities, immigrants go to the doctor 50 per cent less than natives, and their healthcare costs are only 4.6 per cent of the total in Spain”.

According to 2012 census data, the largest national minority groups in Barcelona are Pakistanis (23,281 individuals), Italians (22,909), Chinese (15,875) and Ecuadorians (15,551), in a city with some 1,630,000 inhabitants.

The promoters of the programme, which began two years ago, could have opted for an ideological, philosophical or human rights’ approach. Instead, they have chosen a down-to-earth, factual one.

“It is more effective” says Miquel Esteve, Town Hall commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue. “The programme strategy always uses accurate and objective information to deactivate false perceptions such as the belief that immigrants monopolise social aid, do not pay taxes, get subsidies to start businesses, collapse emergency rooms or abuse the health system.”

Using factual data and statistics, the anti-rumour agent seeks to invalidate the rumour right in front of the person who is disseminating it.

Last spring, 436 citizens received the free Town Hall trainings. A new course starting this month includes workshops that analyse how rumours, stereotypes and prejudice are created and divulged, and how they contribute to constructing an overwhelmingly negative opinion within the host community of what diversity means.

Citizens enrolled in the courses also learn to deal with their own prejudices, something that, as the trainers say, they never think they have.

Among the most frequently repeated rumours that affect the whole foreign population, the most dreadful one may be “They are invading us”. To fight it, anti-rumour agents respond: “It is actually the opposite. The foreign population in Barcelona remains very stable. Foreign residents as of 1 January 2012 totalled 282,178, or 17.4 per cent of residents, and that number in January 2011 was 278,320, 17.3 per cent of total residents. That is not fast growing”.

Another typical stereotype about immigrants – “They don’t respect the rules” – can be invalidated by saying, “You know, from 2006 to 2010, only 18 per cent of fines due to violations of the local Ordinance of Civility were for foreigners residing in Barcelona”.

Even if the economic crisis in Spain is causing municipalities to drastically cut budgets, not one Town Hall official in Barcelona – now led by a conservative nationalist mayor – has suggested cancelling this programme.

There is wide consensus of its importance for social cohesion in the city. “When we started…we discovered that false rumours about immigrants were something pretty widespread, that they harmed conviviality, and that it was something we definitely had to address”, explains Daniel de Torres, who was the Town Hall commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue when the programme started.

Good “rumours” are spreading about its success in the region. Other municipalities in the Barcelona metropolitan area have shown an interest in establishing similar programmes, and they are getting the advice and materials to do so.

It’s a powerful way for civil society to become involved in improving respect for diversity in an urban context, and it’s an idea that can travel.

###

* Barcelona-based author Maria-Paz Lopez is Senior Religion Writer at the Spanish daily La Vanguardia and chairs the steering committee of the International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ). This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 04 December 2012, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Read original blog entry here.

This piece was reprinted by Migrant Tales with permission.