An “honest police debate” about rape with the help of an Islamophobist PS MP

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

What would you say about a policeman who wants to begin an open debate on Facebook about rape crimes committed by immigrants? He uses as one of his sources Islamophoibist Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen, who believes that it is only a question of time when there will be a “war of cultures” in Europe with Muslims. 

In order to understand this “open debate” on a grave crime like rape by policeman Marko Forss, we have to ask a few questions: Why is this type of debate important? What does it bring to the table? What is its probable aim?

Forss states that he wants an “open debate” about this hush-hush topic even though it has been a long-time favorite of the anti-immigration wing of the PS led by Jussi Halla-aho never mind Immonen.

Some police, who are known for their reticent views of certain immigrant groups in Finland, appear to sidestep some important issues whenever they bring on the table a crime like rape. They forget, for example, to ask why rape is allegedly higher among immigrants when compared with Finns? Moreover, how reliable are the rape statistics if they include foreign tourists that come to Finland?

When they speak of rape cases are they talking about actual sentenced cases? It does not become clear in the story.

In order to make such a debate fairer, what issues could we discuss? Family unification, which police authorities are happy to tighten, could be one of the causes behind rape cases. Young men have fragmented social networks in this country that are weakened by discrimination and the lack of meaningful opportunities.

What, then, is the probable aim of such an article and quoting an anti-immigration critic like PS MP Immonen?

In my opinion, it sheds light on the probable ideology of the policeman and the direction the “open discussion” should take.  The debate cards and issues are stacked in such a way that they can never permit an open and honest debate without fueling stereotypes that all foreign men that cross into Finland become gang rapists.

People like Immonen, who loathe publicly “multiculturalism,” believe that Finland should stop immigration and refugees from coming to Finland from the Arab world, Africa and other parts outside of Europe. This, I believe, is one of the underlying messages of the “open debate” by Forss.

Probably in twenty years, when there are more Multicultural Finns on the police force, these types of “debates” that label wholesale whole groups will have little merit and will serve at best to shown how not to handle a serious crime and issue like rape.

The message should not be: Let’s label all foreigners and then have a frank debate about rape.

Phantoms that haunt us from history in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

 When I moved back to Finland over thirty years ago I left behind a troubled world: the scars of the Vietnam War, Watergate, dog-eat-dog capitalism, and the dirty war of Argentina (1976-83), which wiped out a whole generation including me.  

When I came back to live in this country in December 1978, Finland was a scarred nation using its nationalism and muffled pain to cure its wounds. The country had suffered four wars since its independence in 1917 and was in the midst of a long one, the cold war.

Even if those wars had left deep scars on the people of my mother’s country of birth, I felt back in the late-1970s that Finland would still be the best country to build a home and raise a family.

Due to my naivety and romantic views injected in me by the unforgettable summers I spent with my grandparents in the woods of eastern Finland when I lived in Southern California, the culture shock I endured during those first years upon my return were harsh to say the least.

The first shock that I encountered was that I was officially  a foreigner to the authorities. There was no law (until 1983)  that regulated immigration policy at the time. Finnish citizenship was only granted to children with Finnish fathers.

In 1984 the law changed to include mothers.

During my thirty-odd years in Finland, I have led a rewarding life but I have spent most of those years as an outsider looking in.

An eerie sense of déjà-vu has, however, come to haunt me these days in Finland: McDonalds, USAmerican greediness, globalization, the streamlining of the social welfare state, polarization of our society and, worse, the rise of a right-wing populist party that has declared war on people like myself.

Should I have paid more attention to history and attempted to understand the circumstances why my great grandparents left the Old World and never returned?

If I look at the ever-growing strife and polarization in our society especially after the April 17 election, I am certain that many of the signs in the air today (in a different historical context) explain why my late relatives left Europe and never came back.

Listening to the hate speech of people like Jussi Halla-aho and his ideological cronies and extremist followers, it’s pretty clear that something is not only very wrong in Finland but in Europe as well.

Massive emigration from Europe to the Americas will not save us from ourselves as in the past.  That is why we must face the threat and challenges here unless we want to repeat the horrors of past generations.

Karjalainen: Rasistinen rikos on suuri häpeä

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Comment: Joensuu-based daily Karjalainen is a bold example of how the Finnish media should treat racism and hate crimes. It writes:  “Believe me, the one who commits a hate crime is no hero but brings great shame on you, your relatives and to the whole town.” 

Migrant Tales reported Sunday about a serious hate crime incident in the town of Lieksa in the northern Pohjois-Karjala region. A group of Finns had attacked three Somalians at dawn. One Somalian received a knife wound and was treated at the local health center. 

The daily, which states that a small group of skinheads were responsible for giving Joensuu a racist label in the 1990s, writes that wiping off such a stigma is no easy job. The community suffers because students, skilled immigrants and foreign investment rarely want to locate in a city that has such a questionable label. 

Karjalainen writes that people in Lieksa are now of the opinion that immigrants that walk at dawn in town are only looking for trouble and therefore it was ok to attack them.  No matter what explanation is given for the attack – according to the daily – one matter is for certain: it was a racist act. 

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Markku Liikamaa

 Sunnuntaiaamuinen joukkopuukkotappelu Lieksan keskustassa ei liene kenellekään enää yllätys. Rasististen vahingontekojen, uhkailujen ja uhoilujen sekä kuntapäättäjienkin rasistisiin rikoksiin syyllistyneille osoittaman ymmärryksen jälkeen voi vain sanoa, että tätähän tässä on jo odotettukin.

Read whole story.

YLE: Ruotsalaisen maahanmuuttajalähiön pahiskoulusta tuli palkittu eliittikoulu

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Comment:  Here is a good example of how a culturally diverse school in the the Stockholm neighborhood of Rinkeby has succeeded in becoming a model for the rest of the country. The principal, Börje Ehrstrand, who emigrated to Sweden in the 1980s from Finland, said that in a square meter of Rinkeby there live immigrants from a hundred countries. All the cultures of the world, ethnic groups and religions are represented at the school, according to him. 

The principal said that the challenges that the school faced before were resolved with the school staff. “We tried to figure out how the children could become winners in the labor market and we concluded that one succeeds if their interaction skills are good.”

A student must learn how to express his opinions, hopes and thoughts as well as work out an overall strategy, according to Ehrstrand.

“In the future labor markets are not Finnish or Swedish but international,” he said. “One has to have a global ability to work with all types of people (from different cultures).”

Ehrstrand places a lot of effort on the welfare of the pupils. Students shouldn’t feel that they are being discriminated and have to obey rules that they do not want to follow.

He said that taking into account the opinion of the students and parents is vital. 

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Ruotsin monikulttuurisimman lähiön koulua johtava Börje Ehrstrand kertoo Aamu-tv:n haastattelussa, kuinka ongelmakoulusta tuli palkittu opinahjo. Rehtorin mukaan menestyksen salaisuus on sama kuin ongelmakin oli: monikultturisuus.

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YLE in English: Falling interest in party politics

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:  Immigrants and Multicultural Finns living in this country have rightfully seen the victory of the Perussuaomalaiset (PS) party in April as a threat. A clear visible “enemy” if you will like the PS explains why some people have joined parties like the Greens and Left Alliance as a counterforce to the populist rhetoric spread by Timo Soini’s anti-EU and anti-immigration party.

According to YLE in English, the Greens and Left Alliance have grown in size due to the rise of the PS.   “People who have joined the Left Alliance and the Green League view the move as a countermeasure to the rise of the Finns Party,” said Juho Rahkonen, research director for the pollester Taloustutkimus. The membership of the PS has grown as well, according to YLE. 

Even if many people have not joined a political party it does not mean that they are apathetic. Political science Professor Heikki Paloheimo said that people have taken up political positions other ways than by joining a party. Some of these have taken political stands by signing positions, making consumer choices and taking part in social media. 

What party in Finland would suit immigrants and Multicultural Finns the best? 

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Interest in political party membership seems to be in decline once again. While the Green League and the Left Alliance have had success in boosting membership figures, other parties are seeing stagnation in both membership and appeal.

Read whole story.

Karjalainen: Lieksassa raju puukkotappelu – somalimiehelle pahimmat vammat

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Lieksa is a small Finnish town in northern Pohjois-Karjala region where some of its inhabitants are acting as if they’d never seen a foreigner never mind an African in their lives.  According to Joensuu-based daily Karjalainen, a groups of Finns from Lieksa attacked three Somalians with knives.  

The daily does not state how many men attacked the Somalians. 

One of the Somalians was stabbed and treated for his wounds at the Lieksa health center. 

The police believe that the attack has all the signs of a hate crime. 

If one reads the blogs on Uusi Suomi there is some interesting commentary about the attacks. One woman, Reija Hirn, gives her racist version of what happened: “The Somalians were out to rob and rape and Finns prevented it (from happening).”

Hirn’s thread got 70 likes with that thread and later on writes:  “The best thing to do is to kick out the Somalians from Lieksa to Inari (northern Lapland).”

What worries me in Finland is that when these types of hate crimes occur, some Finns appear to get an eerie enjoyment and feeling of satisfaction. In many ways they sound like Perussuomalaiset party MP James Hirvisaari, when he suggested that the mass killings in Norway was partly due to foreigners raping Norwegian women.  

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Ainakin kaksi miestä sai vammoja teräaseesta viime yönä kello 4:n aikaan Lieksan keskustassa Siltakadulla. Kahakan osapuolina oli joukko lieksalaisia miehiä ja kolme somalimiestä.

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MTV3: Maahanmuuttajat sopeutuneet Suomeen Britanniaa paremmin: “Vihaa vähemmän”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: I started to write a comment on this story below that appeared Friday on MTV3. To be frank,  I did not understand the point:  Immigrants have adapted to Finland better than in Britain. In Finland, Muslims, for example, don’t hate as much the host society as in Britain. 

Certainly we have done a lot of things right on the immigrant-integration front. Offering everyone the opportunity to get an education is one effective way of integrating newcomers. Compared with Britain, our immigration population is still small. But who is to say that second- and third-generation immigrants will not become radicalized?

What are people supposed to do if prejudice and racism exclude people from society?  Why do second- and third-generation immigrants become radicalized? The answer is simple: They see how their parents were pushed around and excluded by society and will not rightfully accept that type of behavior towards them.

It is perfectly ok to be passionate and “radical” about social rights and justice.

“A riot is the language of the unheard,” according to Martin Luther King (1929-68). 

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Jouni Sipilä

Britanniassa hallitus on huolestunut muslimimaista tulevien maahanmuuttajien radikalisoitumisesta. Toisen ja kolmannen polven maahanmuuttajat ovat omaksuneet vanhempiaan konservatiivisempia uskonnollisia näkemyksiä. Britanniassa radikalisoituminen on eräiden tutkimusten mukaan ollut nopeinta Euroopassa. Meillä Suomessa tämäntyyppistä kehitystä ei ole havaittu. Asiantuntijoiden mielestä maahanmuuttajat ovat sopeutuneet meille huomattavasti Britanniaa paremmin.

Read whole story.

The language of “keeping Finland white”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The ongoing debate on the role of immigrants in Finnish society boils down to one big issue for the right-wing populists: How to keep Finland white and curtail non-European immigration.  The view, that Finland must remain white, is as racist as a white man’s claim in the United States during the Civil Rights era that blacks don’t have a place in society. 

The language that some parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) use to hit home their racist and exclusive message is cannier: “We are against multiculturalism and certain groups like Muslims are incompatible with our culture and way of life.” 

The real message behind that line of thinking is: “Finland must remain white.”

By “remaining white” they mean there is very little room for diversity in our culture.

Those who preach an ethnically homogeneous Finland that never existed will rarely tell you the fate they wish those who aren’t white in our society. Is our place in this society eternal exclusion confined by the walls of racism and prejudice?

Due to Finland’s minuscule foreign population and Finns’ little contact with immigrants in the past have created an opportune breeding ground for spreading urban myths and racism. Only after the horrific events that hit Norway and the world on July 22 are we now beginning to awaken to the potential of racism to inflict grave harm to our society and values.

We must understand that at least a part of the PS are a serious threat to Finland. If we allow their “keep-Finland-white” ideology to get the upper hand in this country, it will end up impoverishing us as a nation. The more we fail to incorporate all the parts of our society into the mainstream the more we will blame others – the further we will sink in that abyss of our failure.

Those Norwegian Labor Party representatives and common people who died at the hands of Anders Breivik would have certainly wanted us to speak out for them.

Their message comes in loud and clear: Don’t forsake us with your silence against those who are intolerant and spiteful of others.

Finland’s belated response to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Finland lags behind the rest of Europe in some areas. Good examples are immigration and reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Is the growth of right-wing populism in Finland today only a belated response to the demise of the former Soviet Union in 1991 and Berlin Wall?

I remember clearly when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev paid his first visit to Helsinki in autumn 1989. That historic visit, which I covered for the London Financial Times, was the first big step in the thawing of cold war relations between Helsinki and Moscow.

Even if over two decades have passed since Gorbachev’s visit to Finland, it is curious that Finland has not yet begun to debate in earnest its cold war era. This is understandable since those policy makers who were junior civil servants in cold war Finland  are today senior officials on the verge of retirement.

The cold war era took too long and was too big of an event to forget or conveniently brush under the rug. Some of the matters we should look at are how the media was censored and how politicians used Finnish-Soviet relations to strengthened their grip on power.

The lack of any meaningful debate on the cold war and that era in general could explain in great part the victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in the April election. Was it a belated response to the end of the cold war?

Each European country is different and their responses to a post-Soviet Union era differs. In Finland, our initial response was to become an EU member in 1995 and to continue life in this corner pocket of Europe as normal as possible.

Finland’s past and present small immigrant population says as well a lot about the PS and today’s political situation. For one, it reveals that those that came out to celebrate the end of the cold war twenty-two years late are probably more anti-EU than anti-immigration. If this is the case, it shows why all right-wing anti-immigration populist parties in the Nordic region except for the PS have lost ground after Anders Breivik went on his mass-murder rampage in Norway on July 22.

If there is a silver lining in the PS’ election victory in April it is Finland’s slow but certain rejection of anti-immigration populism by the likes of PS MP Jussi Halla-aho and his cronies. Nobody knows for certain but it is pretty clear by the reaction of other political parties, the media and common people that we do not want to follow Denmark’s former example.

Why? Because immigration laws and attitudes have been pretty tight in Finland to begin with.

The present political situation has placed new challenges on the country’s traditional parties as well. The Center Party could be seen as the first casualty of the post-post cold war era.

It’s pretty clear that “Finland’s Spring” will get stronger in the months ahead as our economic standing weakens in the face of a financially ever-troubled Europe and anemic global markets. It would be a mistake to assume as well that the PS will be the only party to benefit from the situation.

A visible group like the PS with all of its populist rhetoric has fuelled the rise of other parties like the Greens, Left Alliance and Kokoomus.

People may flock to Kokoomus to offset the rise of the PS and others to the Greens and Left Alliance to challenge the rise of right-wing populism.

Are we all Finns?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

It is a nice idea when some people assure immigrants that “we are all Finns.” I am certain that the person who makes such a statement has the best intentions in mind. However, isn’t it our right to choose who we are on our terms?  Affirming that “we are all Finns” is as ludicrous as claiming “we are not Finns.” 

The more I encounter these types of views of how Finland’s newcomers should be accepted into Finnish society the more I believe some Finns still don’t get it.

Would it be better to state that we are all equal members of Finnish society?

One of the important matters that our Constitution and the spirit of our laws show us is the right of people to make their own lifestyle and identity choices.

I still believe what I wrote about two years ago about the importance of having such a choice: “What will our new identity be like in the present century as our society becomes more ethnically and culturally diverse? Will immigrants be clumped into one group and called New Finns, or will they prefer a hyphenated identity such as Iraqi-Finn?”

At the end of the day the only person who will decide what you are is yourself.