El País: La ultraderecha finlandesa despega en las legislativas

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: This story published on Saturday in El País of Madrid warns that the Eurozone faces a new threat from a “periferic populist and nationalistic party” in tomorrow’s election. 

Adrián Soto, who has lived in Finland since the 1970s, is a seasoned journalist. He states the party comprises of racists and those who olocaust deniers. The headline of the story labels the True Finns as a “far-right” party.

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Adrián Soto

Una nueva amenaza se cierne sobre la eurozona. Esta vez la alarma proviene de Finlandia, donde un partido periférico, de corte populista, nacionalista y euroescéptico irrumpe con fuerza en las elecciones legilsativas del próximo domingo.Se trata de Auténticos Finlandeses, al que las encuestas dan un 18% de intención de voto. Hace apenas cuatro años, en los anteriores comicios parlamentarios, el grupo había logrado un 4% de los votos y cinco de los 200 escaños. Ahora, con una expectativa de 30 escaños, el partido podría tener la llave de un futuro Gobierno de coalición.

Para seguir leyendo pinche aquí.

Gracias a @kiquedc por facilitarme el link a esta nota.

Finland election: Flirting with isolationism and xenophobia

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

In our neck of the woods in the Nordic region, ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic parties have made their mark in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and most likely now in Finland on Sunday when the True Finns are expected to score a historic victory. Will the election embolden other xenophobic parties in this region and Europe? Will it send shock ripples in the EU?

It’s pretty doubtful that parties like the True Finns have any answer to those questions because they base much of their rhetoric on populism and denial. Since Finns are the biggest per-capita coffee drinkers in the world, a good example of our populism would be adding salt to sour coffee in order to make it taste better.

Instead of solving our problems, a large group of voters have preferred to sprinkle the salt of isolationism and xenophobia on our reality.

Depending on the scale of the True Finns’ victory, the next thing we may see after Sunday’s election will be a stream of far-right party leaders flocking to Finland from the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats, British National Party, Jobbik of Hungary and none other than Geert Wilders of the Isalmophobic Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.

Are we afraid of these twenty-first century fanatics? Not at all because their example have shown us that xenophobia and racism have not been nipped in the bud in Europe.

Even though the True Finns may score a big victory on Sunday, they will not be a majority. That majority comprises of sensible Finns who are not lured by xenophobia, isolationism and corny political soundbites from True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini.

Xenophobia and ignorance are curable social diseases.

The original link was taken down.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOgc5WH0yW4]

However, here’s the latest one:

I apologize for the racist and provocative content of this campaign ad by Jussi Halla-aho and Teemu Lahtinen, both of which are running for the True Finns and are members of the far-right Suomen Sisu association. Apart from being xenophobic, the turban worn by the potato appears to be Indian. Is this against Indian IT-immigrants or some legal loophole? Both Halla-aho and Lahtinen reveal their shameful ignorance on a grand scale. Here is a video showing Lahtinen at a far-right march in France.

BBC: True Finns’ nationalism colours Finland election

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: The BBC is one of many media in Europe that will be covering the April 17 election.  It writes: “The True Finns saw political potential among the neglected people in society. Their political message is two-fold: social-democratic welfare combined with nationalism and xenophobia.”

The BBC continues by stating that Finland is officially a bilingual country but Timo Soini’s party has no room for Swedish: “It excludes Swedish as something unfamiliar to Finnish culture.”

I’ll never forget an analyst in the early 1990s who pointed out that devaluating the Finnish markka was like pissing in one’s pants in winter. At first it feels good but later on the sensation changes.

Could this be a good description of the election and especially for all those who believe that the True Finns are a sensible answer to the challenges the country presently faces?

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An anti-immigration party in Finland – the True Finns – has surged in popularity and could produce a surprise in Sunday’s general election, opinion polls suggest.

Read whole story.

Thank you for this link @Mastersson

Should Finland thank Halla-aho?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The chairman of the True Finns, Timo Soini, said on Thursday’s election debate that we should be thankful to Jussi Halla-aho for tightening our immigration policy and, strangely enough, for the ongoing debate on Finland’s cultural diversity.

The head of the True Finns plays with fire whenever he attempts to justify the open hostility of some of his party members towards minorities. An attack on a specific group should be treated as an attack on all minorities.

The ongoing debate in Finland concerning the role of the Swedish-speaking minority is a direct outcome of the type of hatred and discord that has been fuelled by Halla-aho and his far-right ideological followers.

The obsession of some politicians against certain immigrant groups like the Somalis is disgraceful. It is even more shameful considering that they do so for short-term electoral gains.

One of the most incredible about-turns in Soini’s stand came this week when he told a group of German journalists that he stood behind the government immigration policy. After fanning the flames of xenophobia in Finland, he now states that the True Finns were bluffing all along.

Should we then thank Halla-aho as Soini suggests?

Yes, for showing the worst side of ourselves as a society.

STT: Pakolaisneuvonta: Väärät tiedot perheenyhdistämisistä ruokkivat rasismia

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Migrant Tales has reported on how official institutions like the Finnish Immigration Service and the National Border Guard sometimes reinforce stereotype and racism in Finland by intentionally spreading misinformation. Such fear-mongering has been especially present concerning public discussion on the number of family reunification applicants.

According to an STT story below, an average of 239 people annually get into Finland under such schemes .

Those that are warning us about the “alarming rise” of family reunification applicants are the ones who like to use pocket calculators to predict the future. They believe that family reunification from continents like Africa is a Trojan Horse that will lead to the destruction of “white” Europe.  Sounds a bit dramatic, no?

What is missing from the debate is the role that family reunification plays in helping the newcomer to establish social networks in his new home country.

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Pakolaisten perheenyhdistämisissä on saapunut Suomeen vuosittain keskimäärin 329 ihmistä, ilmenee sisäministeriön tilastoista. Tieto koskee viimeisten 12 vuoden ajanjaksoa.

Read whole story.

HS: Soini antoi tukensa hallituksen ulkomaalaispolitiikalle

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Timo Soini, the chairman of the True Finns party, appears to be backtracking on his party’s promise of a tougher stand on immigration policy by telling a group of  German journalists that he surprisingly supports the government’s present line.

Possibly the correct question that should be now asked of the chairman of the True Finns is what does he really think of those in his party that have been spreading xenophobia wholesale. Is his endorsement of government immigration policy a thumbs down to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of  the True Finns?

One of the most worrying aspects of the True Finns’ message is that it had been based on a systematic smear campaign of immigrants, immigration policy and the integration program, which was ranked fourth in a Mipex survey after Sweden, Portugal and Canada.

One of the challenges that Soini will have to live with after April 17 is keeping his party in line. This will not be an easy task. Soini won’t get off the hook so easy because he will have to live with the unstable political monster he’s created. If anyone has read Saami mythology,  the Stallo monster is a good comparison of that True Finns monster.

Meanwhile, Helsingin Sanomat published on Tuesday a poll that showed that support for the True Finns had retreated by a hefty 1.5% to 16.9%. Kokoomus got 20.3% followed by the Social Democrats (18.0%) and the Center Party (17.9%).

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Jaakko Hautamäki

Perussuomalaisten puheenjohtaja Timo Soini ei nähnyt mitään ongelmaa Suomen hallituksen ulkomaalaispolitiikassa, kun hän antoi haastattelun saksalaisille toimittajille Sanomatalossa tiistaina. Soini antoi täyden tukensa hallituksen ulkomaalaispolitiikalle ja puolittain suutahti, kun toimittajat kyselivät hänen mahdollisesta muukalaisvihamielisyydestään.

Read whole story.

MNR: Why do migrants leave Scotland?

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Comment: This story, published by Migrants’ Rights Network, caught my attention due to the ongoing debate in Finland concerning immigrants and immigration. What about if we turned the question around and asked why do migrants leave Finland or do not want to move here?

Our country has one of the lowest number of immigrants with respect to the whole population. In 2010 it totalled 2.9% or a mere 155,705 newcomers. This, I believe, isn’t a coincidence. If we look at the ongoing debate on immigrants and public opinion concerning immigrants and refugees in Finland, part of the question is answered.

Taulant Guma, a PhD student at Glasgow University, gives an explanation why Central and Eastern European (CEE) immigrants are leaving instead of staying: “Certainly, migrants, wherever they are, often experience difficulties in terms of finding better jobs and moving up the career ladder. It seems, however, that these difficulties and challenges are more pronounced in the Scottish labour market, which means that the risk of CEE migrants ‘getting stuck’ in unskilled and low paid work is significantly higher than in the UK.”

In my opinion one of the biggest challenges Finland has is attracting skilled labor to move and remain here. With present negative attitudes and the rise of parties like the True Finns, it’s pretty clear that matters are going to get worse before they improve.

This is really unfair to Finland because there are many people who do not agree with the views of some anti-immigration politicians and other people who don’t even know the difference between an immigrant and a refugee.

Do you agree?

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The current immigration debates in the UK seem to be increasingly narrowed down to questions such as ‘Why do migrants come to the UK?’, ‘What do migrants costs the UK taxpayer?’ etc, often raised with a tone of disapproval or of mistrust regarding the contributions, motives, and plans of migrants. Interestingly, during various meetings and seminars on migration issues I attended in Scotland over the last year, a different set of questions seemed to take more centre stage: ‘Why do migrants leave Scotland?’ or ‘What can be done to keep them here?’

Read whole story.

Karjalainen: Koko suomalaisuus on lainaa vain

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Comment: Below is a story that was published in the Joensuu-based daily Karjalainen, which questions the myths surrounding Finnish identity. Even if parties that base part of their image on maintaining the country “white” by depriving people who come from different backgrounds, the nationalist-populist True Finns’ television ad is based on an Italian song by Toto Cutugno, L’italiano.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the True Finns are one party capitalizing on our national myths. Certainly other parties do it but they are more careful. At least they understand the dangers of arguing for nineteenth century myths of the world and cultures in 2011.

One of the most interesting matters to study about Finnish history and national identity is where and why it came about. Even though some want to give us the impression that Finns are a homogenous group, nothing could be further from the truth.  Much of our identity as a nation is based on threat of the outside world and erasing or forgetting our history.

Migrant Tales has written about this before. See An insult to over a million Finns.

People who suffer from such amnesia readily forget that over one million Finns emigrated from this country in the last two centuries.  Many of us who emigrated from this country come today from diverse cultural backgrounds. We still call ourselves Finns.

If I had a complaint about the way some view our history and national identity, it is narrow-mindedness. When we play around with myths like national identity too seriously we run the danger of excluding others who have a rightful claim to this country.

The acceptance of “others” as members of this society is vital because our future as a dynamic and successful nation depends on it.

Monoculturalism is only an excuse used by some to exclude.

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Terhi Nevalainen

Ihan hätkäytti, kun perussuomalaisten televisiomainos sattui silmiin – tai itse asiassa korviin. Mainoksessa ääni laulaa sanan perussuomalainen täsmälleen samalla nuotilla kuin laulussa Olen suomalainen.

To keep on reading click here.

New World Finn: My Finnish identity is fine

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A reader recently surprised me on my blog, Migrant Tales, affirming that Finnish Americans are not Finns. “They weren’t born, raised in Finland nor do they speak Finnish; some of them have never visited Finland,” he wrote. “I wonder how many could point to Finland on a map.”

His comment was not only rude but was full of holes. I challenged the blogger to visit a future FinnFest festival and make such a provocative statement publicly. I recommended that he’d take, just in case, a few body guards along.

It was the last time he brought up the subject.

Even if most Finnish Americans are legally from the United States, many of us still retain strong cultural, spiritual and family bonds to Finland. What identity we choose to use depends on ourselves. We are the only ones who decide what identity we feel comfortable with.

No matter how you express your Finnish identity, we all come from the same family because we are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants.

From Hollywood to Finland

When I was thirteen, my multicultural background was too difficult for me to grasp since the three cultures that claimed me, Argentinean, Finnish and Californian, demanded all of my attention.

I wrote about my cultural predicament in a book published in Finland in 1994: “Belonging to three cultures is like having three hungry children to feed. All three of them have expensive tastes. I must have spent a fortune on plane tickets during my lifetime. I am certain that I would be a millionaire today if I could turn the hours I’ve spent pampering these children into dollars.”

Using hindsight, my mistake back then was seeing these three cultures as separate when, in fact, they were all one.

Even if Argentina, Finland and California appeared like distant worlds, I never felt like an outsider in any of them. When I visited my grandparents in Finland, I felt perfectly at home in my world and identity.

Being in Finland was like “switching on a culture” and then turning it off when I returned to Los Angeles in fall. For two to three months and without Southern Californian life and culture constantly bombarding me, I was momentarily a child of the rural landscapes of eastern Finland.

One of my favorite pastimes during those times was to explore with my vintage World War 2 bike and a topographic map the woods near our summerhouse. If I did this in Hollywood, people would think that I was crazy. It would have been dangerous as well for a youngster to speak to strangers let alone enter their homes in Los Angeles.

This wasn’t the case in Finland. Some of the people I met during those short travels into the woods became lifelong friends.

I still long occasionally for those lazy late-afternoon summer days and those short travels with my vintage bike, which was not really a bike but a crude eastern Finnish version of Aladdin’s magic lamp. Instead of rubbing I peddled. The more I peddled the greater chance I had of encountering new adventures.

The adventures I took part in were not like James Bond movies but humble aspirations like visiting the woods, lakes and inhabitants of that region of Finland. I was especially fascinated by lakes. They were like islands or enclaves on land. They brought me great joy when I discovered new ones of different sizes and shapes tucked deep in the woods.

I was especially fond of ponds. For me they had more magic than lakes, which were vulnerable to human encroachment and appeared more conceited due to their size.

Eden’s fate

My presence in the woods was paradoxically a prelude to the end of those old-growth forests. Edward O. Wilson describes eloquently in his book, The Future of Life, how destructive humans are. Wherever we lay our feet, nature and biodiversity are eventually put on the defensive.

According to the biologist, there was no such thing as the “noble savage;” Eden occupied was a slaughterhouse and paradise found by humans is paradise lost. Wilson was, unfortunately, right. Sadness fills me today when I imagine those near-untouched forests I visited over three decades ago. Even the forest that stood on our land has been clear-cut beyond recognition.

Fortunately there are other modes of travel to revisit such places of beauty. I can still travel spiritually and in time to those forests. They still stand there in my mind and heart with a few magic trails leading me deeper into their unforgettable humbleness and generosity.

This column was published in the Sprin 2011 issue of New World Finn

Iltalehti: Perussuomalaisten ehdokas: Holokaustia on liioiteltu

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Comment: Here is a story confirming what some have known about some True Finns’ candidates like Freddy van Wonterghem, who claimed in Iltalehti that even though excesses happened during World War II, the Holocaust was an “exaggerated” fabrication by the former Soviet Union.

By his incredible affirmation, it is clear that van Wonterghem‘s forte isn’t history. For a matter of fact his world view is extremely selective like his opinion on immigration.

To claim that the Soviets had exaggerated the figure is outright ludicrous.  Germans like Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commandant of Auschwitz  during 1941-43 who cited figures given to him by Adolf Eichmann on the “many millions who died under the Nazi regime,” revealed how the death camps worked. Different estimates have placed the death toll at Auschwitz alone between 1.1 million and 4 million.

Eichman (1906-62), who was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust,  is quoted as saying in Richard Overy’s Interrogations – The Nazi elite in Allied hands, 1945 (pp. 192-193): “I laugh when I jump into the grave because of the feeling that I have killed five million Jews. That gives me great satisfaction.”

One of the defenses that the Nazis tried to use at Nuremberg was that it was simply impossible to exterminate systematically six million people. Hoes, however, who never showed any remorse for his crimes, proved them wrong with his testimony.

Even though this type of denial by van Wonterghem shows the real face of some True Finns’ candidates, what is even more worrying is the presence of  far-right Suomen Sisu members in the party’s anti-immigration camp. Suomen Sisu is a neo-fascist organization that believes that Finland should not encourage its citizens to marry non-Finns.

One such candidate of the True Finns is long-time Suomen Sisu member Teemu Lahtinen. In this video clip we see him marching at a far-right event in France marching with the Finnish and IKL flag. IKL was a fascist organization in the 1920s that got much of its inspiration from Benito Mussolini.

In the video clip we hear an IKL member’s advice: “All those that don’t have work and who are not tourists and aren’t Finnish citizens leave Finland,” said Matti Harjujärvi.

Another well-known Suomen Sisu and candidate of the True Finns is Jussi Halla-aho. He is speculated to be Suomen Sisu’s international contacts head. Some far-right parties that Suomen Sisu and the True Finns are reported to have good relations with include the DPP of Denmark, Party of Freedom of the Netherlands, Sweden Democrats and others.

Some analysts believe that soon after the April 17 election Timo Soini, who represents the former rural SMP wing of the True Finns, and those that back Suomen Sisu will go at each other’s throat in a power struggle that will cause the party to implode.

If we look at the True Finns’ message and the worrying far-right elements inside of it,  a big victory for Soini’s party would permit the rude face of xenophobia and its many forms to raise its head higher in this country.

This is the reason why some see these elections as an important watershed.

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Katja Boxberg

Eduskuntaan pyrkii holokaustin kyseenalaistaja ja rotujen sekoittumista vastustava. Kansanedustajuutta tavoittelee useita perussuomalaisia ehdokkaita, jotka ovat allekirjoittaneet maahanmuuttovastaisen ns. nuivan manifestin. Osalla ehdokkaista on läheiset suhteet äärikansalliseen Suomen Sisuun.

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