MTV3: Linja-autoliikennöitsijät: Rasismi ei ole lisääntynyt

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Here is an excellent example below what is wrong in Finland with the ongoing debate on racism. The story below is apparently a rebuttal to another one published in Savon Sanomat, where Riita Wärn of the Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK), warns that growing racism in Finland could hinder its image and scare off skilled immigrants from moving to this country. 

While it is a good matter that a predominantly white Finnish lobby group is making such a statement, another white Finnish person, general manager Janne Vihavainen of bus company Veolia Transport affirms that racism isn’t growing in Finland. “We cannot state that racism has grown significantly in Finland,” he said.

What worries me  about these types of debates like between Wärn and Vihavainen is that there are no immigrants or visible minorities giving their opinion on the matter. Even though I side with the woman from EK and commend that association for speaking out against such a social ill, there are still no immigrants giving their opinion.

Are immigrants or their associations too afraid to speak out? Do reporters shy from asking them if there is racism in Finland because they feel uncomfortable about what they may hear and have to write?

We don’t have to use a real immigrant such a question. Why not ask a Multicultural Finn if there is racism in this country?

The question is why we don’t ask these groups this important question.

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Viljami Vuorento

Pääkaupunkiseudun linja-autoliikennöitsijät eivät allekirjoita Elinkeinoelämän Keskusliiton Savon Sanomille kertomaa näkemystä rasismin lisääntymisestä. EK:n työvoima- ja maahanmuuttopolitiikan asiantuntijan Riitta Wärnin mukaan maahanmuuttajiin on alettu viime vuoden aikana suhtautua aiempaa penseämmin. Erityisen huolissaan EK on maahanmuuttajavaltaisten alojen työvoimapulasta.

Read whole story.

Savon Sanomat: Rasismi uhkaa Suomen mainetta

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Comment: The Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) is concerned about racism in Finland and how it could tarnish the country’s good image and scare off skilled immigrants.”Before drunkards would yell (at immigrants) at night,” said EK’s Riita Wärn. “Harassment now happens at day. This is very worrying.”

While it is a positive sign that more pressure groups and common Finns are speaking out against racism, I am pretty certain that the election victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in April already tarnished the country’s image.  The PS doesn’t have to worry about skilled labor coming to Finland because there are more attractive and friendlier countries to move to in Europe.

Even if racism and discrimination is raising its head in Finland, the most probable thing is that it always existed but never had a reason to come out in such force as today.

Do you agree?

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Jukka Patrakka

Elinkeinoelämän keskusliitto (EK) on huolissaan ulkomaalaisten lisääntyneestä häirinnästä. EK:n mukaan asenteet ovat koventuneet selvästi viimeisen vuoden aikana. Varsinkin turvapaikanhakijoihin ja romanikerjäläisiin, mutta myös muihin maahanmuuttajiin on alettu suhtautua penseästi.

Read whole story.

Finland: To isolate or not to isolate ourselves from the world

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By Enrique Tessieri

If there is a post-Finlandization period in this country it manifests itself today through fear and suspicion of the outside world. As the April election result showed, a large minority of Finns don’t have a problem about returning to the days when Finland was near-isolated geopolitically from the outside world thanks to its special relationship with the former Soviet Union.

A Helsingin Sanomat poll published Wednesday showed that 40% of Finns are not very enthused about Europe and would not would not run under any circumstances to the aid of countries like Greece. Finland’s polarized society exposed itself in April, when a surprising 19.1% voted for the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

If the Helsingin Sanomat poll showed that 40% of Finns would be ready to turn their backs on Europe and the world, the PS victory in spring has turned that will into a strong political message. Even if the PS is a mixed bag of ideologies, it bases its support on anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim sentiment.

The Helsingin Sanomat poll and the election result show how polarized Finland is today. On the one hand you have a large minority that wants Finland to effectively isolate itself from the world while the majority has a different opinion.

One of the matters that has impressed me a lot about the Finns is how this society can leap through history with Superman aspirations and with little debate.  A case in point is our ever-growing cultural diversity as a society after promoting ethnic and cultural homogeneity during the last century. The same is true when looking at Finland’s geopolitical near-isolation during the cold war era (1945-1991).

How difficult can it be for a country like Finland, which had seen its foreign population plummet to a mere 7,000 people in 1970 from 24,451 in 1920, to leap from a near-homogeneous society to one that is today tolerant and culturally diverse? A similar watershed was crossed in 1995, when we became a European Union member.

Fortunately the majority of Finns have been able to keep up with these breath-taking transitions. The Helsingin Sanomat poll shows that over half agreed at least to some degree that Finland should help eurozone countries.  Even if the PS scored a historic victory in April, 81% of Finns did voted for the traditional parties.

Debate in Finland is picking up as our society becomes more diverse ethnically and culturally. Our conceptions of ourselves as a unified ethnic and cultural block are changing but are still reinforced at school whenever  Finns are pitted against the outside world as is the case with the lessons of the Winter War (1939-40). Even though we are grateful to those who sacrificed their lives, glorifying these types of wars only serve to strengthen our sense of “us” and “them.”

It is a bit absurd that in 2011 we continue to place so much emphasis on the Winter and Continuation War (1941-44) taking into account that Russia is our neighbor and that the largest national and linguistic group living in Finland are Russians.

Finland needs today a much richer and varied debate on where our country is heading in this century.This debate is vital so we don’t end up living inside a nationalistic and xenophobic bubble.  It is as well the only effective way to challenge the threat posed by parties like the PS.

The whole issue can be summed up by an editorial of Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat: “Finland’s greatest danger isn’t terrorism (in light of 9/11) but isolating itself (from the world).”

MTV3: Rasistin raitiovaunusta poistanut Pekka Sauri: Välinpitämättömyys ärsyttää

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Comment:  Changing the laws is not enough to tackle a social ill like racism but leadership like Deputy Mayor Pekka Sauri of the Green Party showed on a tram in Helsinki helps a lot. A black family had entered the tram. This prompted a middle-aged man, who was apparently inebriated and drinking beer, to harass the family. Sauri reacted and asked the man to get off the tram, which he did. 

Sauri said that the incident, which was first reported by tabloid Iltalehti, shows that the world has become a dangerous place and that people should react and speak out when something like this happens.

“I have got a lot of reaction, 98% positive, after the story was published ,” he said. “I have got feedback from a few racists (as well).”

Despite the leadership shown by Sauri, the deputy mayor said that what concerned him most about the incident was the silence of the  passengers.

He said that people should just say “Stop!” loudly enough if such an incident occurred again. “The harassment could stop (as a result),” he said.

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Pauliina Pietilä

Helsingin apulaiskaupunginjohtaja Pekka Sauri kertoo saaneensa paljon kiitosta puututtuaan rasistiseen tilanteeseen eilen Helsingissä. Sauri istui eilen illalla tuttujensa kanssa raitiovaunu 10:ssä, kun Kansaneläkelaitoksen pysäkin kohdalla sisään nousi afrikkalaistaustainen perhe.

Read whole story.

Thank you for making Migrant Tales what it is today

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

My personal gratitude goes to all the bloggers that have made Migrant Tales “a voice for those immigrants and minorities whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.”

Our latest recognition comes from Aleksandr Shatravka, who we met thanks to this blog. Thanks to that meeting, I was able to publish in Apu magazine one of Finland’s first-ever comprehensive stories about what happened to Soviet refugees when they were caught by Finnish Border Guards and returned to the USSR.

I had waited over 25 years to meet one of these former Soviet refugees.

Shatravka has now published a book in which he cites Migrant Tales.

Migrant Tales has been mentioned elsewhere as well: Here is a link to Dunia Magazine that published a column by yours truly. Migrant Tales has got attention from some important news publications. In the spring I got a call from a journalist from “Deutschlandradio”, the National German Radio, it was mentioned on Time Magazine right after the April 17 election, and recently I got a call from the BBC. is another Twitter publication that picks up our blog entries as well as other ones like The Finns Daily.

I am very pleased that what we write on Migrant Tales gets noticed in and out of Finland.

Our success would not have been possible without you!

Spiegel Online International: How 9/11 Triggered America’s Decline

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Comment:  The impact of 9/11 can be clearly seen after ten years of that devastating attack that made the United States lose its way in the so-called war on terror declared by former President George W. Bush.

Contrary to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who said right after the mass killings by Anders Breivik that Norway’s answer would be more openness and more democracy, Bush went on a $3-trillion foreign policy crusade that has cost the United States dearly.

Writes Speigel Online International:  “For a short time after the attacks, the country seemed united. Americans embraced each other. Even the cold city of New York suddenly seemed warm. But instead of cultivating public spirit, President Bush sought to find a pretext — any pretext — to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. This is his most tragic legacy, the fact that America can no longer even mourn its victims properly — because Americans have long been not just victims, but also perpetrators.”

If there is one party in Finland that can thank Bush it is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The US’ war against the Muslim world gave rise to Islamophobists like Jussi Halla-aho and a long list of others. Without their anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric the PS could have never won 39 seats in the April election. 

In 2003 I published an opinion-piece on Suomen Kuvalehti on the US invasion of Iraq and how it would have catastrophic consequences for the credibility of that country. At least for me, the Iraq invasion was a strong whiff of deja vu since it was the way Washington handled its big-stick policy in Latin America.

“Latin America was a region where coups – oops! régime change — occurred on a grand scale. If experience of how the U.S. influenced Latin America in the last century is anything to go by, the people of the Middle East are in big trouble,” I wrote back in 2003.

Probably the saddest matter of 9/11 is that the United States under Bush started to believe its own spin and invincibility.

Where were you on 9/11 and how to do you think that attack, which should be seen as a crime and not as a declaration of war against all Muslims, changed the world?

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The events of Sept. 11, 2001 led to a wave of solidarity with the US. But the superpower has lost that goodwill over the course of the wars it subsequently waged. Now America is mainly seen not as the victim of terrorism, but as a perpetrator of violence itself.

Read whole story.

HS.fi: Salon irtisanottu talonmies palaa töihin

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Comment: The fired building superintendent, who got laid off because clients complained of his ethnic background, has been rehired by his former employer Salon Omakotiyhdistys ry, according to HS.fi quoting Finnish News Agency (STT).

The moral of the incident? If you expose discrimination and racism things may change.

Keeping quiet if you are a victim of discrimination and racism is as bad as working in the black. In both cases you forfeit your rights and leave your future to chance.

Another encouraging matter about the incident shows that things can change for the better in Finland but there is one key requirement: Silence is a definite no-no.

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STT

Turku. Salossa irtisanottu ulkomaalaistaustainen talonmies palaa takaisin töihin. Salon omakotiyhdistys pyysi aiemmin miestä palaamaan, ja hän kertoi perjantaina tulevansa takaisin.

Read whole story.

Community Village blog: What makes us what we are

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: I was kind of shocked to hear last week the views on immigration of a prominent member of the community and a member of a large political party: “Finland must close its borders to immigrants,” he said. What surprised me most about his argument was that he considered Finns as some endangered human group in Europe that once hunted mammoths. The “colonizers” were modern-day immigrants who would wipe out the Finns as Christopher Columbus did with the Amerindians when he landed on the island of Hispanola in 1492.

One matter to keep in mind when hearing these types of arguments is that whenever a person speaks of Finns as a tribe he or she is flirting with racism. If there is one matter that awakens the racist spirit in Finns it is classifying ourselves as a tribe or, worse, as an endangered group of people.

Actor Edward James Olmos in the youtube clip below puts the whole perspective of race and/or ethnicity in perspective. In the US people like to use the term “race” whereas in Europe we use “ethnicity” to mean the same thing. Even so, the US used to classify blacks and Asians as a race but European immigrants as ethnic groups. 

According to Olmos, it is incredible that we use race as a cultural determinant. “To this date you should never invited me here,” he told a group at the UN. “Because I detest what we have done to ourselves. Out of a need to make ourselves different from one another we made the term race a way of expressing culture…There is only one race and that is the human race.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFDrOxWCXY&feature=player_embedded]

Why are some Finns obsessed about ethnicity? Is it because it is an effective way of controlling and excluding others from society and its resources?

What do you think?

Thank you @getgln for the heads up!

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Ethnicity is amorphous, and only a small fraction of what makes us who we are. “There are no races, there are only clines,”  according to antrhopologist Frank Livingstone.

Helsinki Times: Finnish insurer to pay damages to Congolese families

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Comment: It is a positive sign that more cases of racial discrimination are becoming public. One of these below was by Lähivakutus, an insurance company, which refused  to pay damages to a dozen Congolese families in Kajaani because they weren’t Finnish citizens. The insurer admitted its mistake and accepted to pay damages to the families only after the case was taken to the Ombudsman for Minorities. 

These cases, like the building superintendent in Salo who was fired because of his ethnic origin, are unfortunately the tip of the iceberg of a probably much widespread problem in Finland. Unfortunately, many immigrants who are victims of discrimination refuse to take action on their own. 

It is very important that when we are victims of discrimination we file a complaint. This is not only important for us but to our children and grandchildren so they may live one day in a country where these types of practices are the exception.

In the 1980s I applied for an oil company Esso credit card but was refused on the grounds that I wasn’t a Finnish citizen. When I got my Finnish citizenship I applied for a credit card from the same company again. They said they would grant me the credit card but I now refused to accept it. 

A good starting point to report discrimination is the Ombudsman for Minorities.

You can reach them from Monday to Friday 10-12 at 071 878 8666.

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Finnish property and casualty insurer Lähivakuutus is to pay damages to a dozen Congolese families for discrimination, the Finnish minority ombudsman’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

Read whole story.

Here is the statement (in Finnish)  by the Ombudsman for Minorities.

YLE: Poliisi yllättynyt rasistisista asenteista

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Comment: I just love whenever I read that the police is “surprised” by the rise of racist attitudes in Finland. In an interview given to YLE, Etelä-Karjala region police chief Jyrki Wasastjernan said it was a surprise that such attitudes are rising even though the number of hate crimes reported to the authorities continue to be small.

Migrant Tales has assisted some immigrants in reporting hate crimes to the police. Reporting such a crime is easier said than done.

A serious journalist should do a bit more digging and find out why so few hate crimes are reported to the police and why racist attitudes towards Russians are gaining strength in cities like Imatra. Probably one answer is that the police and authorities don’t want to admit that hate crimes are a major problem facing our society and therefore rely too much on statistics for the truth.

I am certain that a hand-on-heart chat with some random Russian residents of Imatra could reveal a lot more than statistical information.

Just because hate crimes against immigrants in Etelä-Karjala is small could reveal just the opposite: racism, which undermines trust and credibility, is seen as such a big problem by some immigrants that they don’t bother to report it. It’s a bit like living in a dictatorship. You don’t report human rights violations because you fear you could become a victim.

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Poliisin näkökulmasta rasististen asenteiden kasvaminen Etelä-Karjalassa on yllätys. Rasistisia piirteitä sisältäneitä rikoksia on kuitenkin tullut esiin vain muutamia vuosittain.

Read whole story.