The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party hates migrants from Muslim countries. It hates these people so much that it rarely utters the word “Muslim” and “African.”
PS tweet below states:
Do we want to help – or do we want more migrants?
The best way to help them is in neighboring [countries].
One Afghan to Finland costs as much as [helping] 50 people in bordering countries.
Source: Twitter
Ask the PS the following questions:
1. How many Afghan refugees are living in refugee camps?
2. Is living in a refugee camp similar to living at a five-star hotel?
3. Why are we taking a fraction of the refugees in Europe compares to countries like Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and others?
In the world’s happiest country, the ugly face of racism can show itself. This post by a young woman called Laura Elisabeth of the Romany minority is shameful and should never happen in our country.
I hope the perpetrators get caught and feel the full weight of the law fall on them.
“I have already reported the matter to the police, but I want to share it here too. I am a 19-year-old girl from Lapua [in the western Finnish region of Southern Ostrobothnia], and I am shocked that this can happen in my neighborhood. Last night, between Friday and Saturday last week, I was walking home from the train station with my luggage. A large group of young boys drove towards me [menacingly] at such a high speed that I almost got run over. I had to get out of the way [of the approaching car] and leave my luggage there. They then surrounded me with their vehicles and robbed me. They followed me to my front yard and continued to harass me further by coming under my balcony in the middle of the night, beeping [their horns], shouting [derrogatory names like Gypsy, etc.], and throwing rubbish. It was also a nuisance to the elderly people living in the same block of flats. I have also lived in big cities, and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I hope parents who recognize their children’s cars from the picture will come forward and contact me. What happened should not happen. Everyone has the right to walk down the street feeling safe regardless of ethnic background.
Helsingin Sanomatraised an important question: There are a record amount of asylum seekers from Ukraine, but nobody is crying murder like when mostly Iraqis and Afghans came to Finland in large numbers in 2015.
In a statement Monday, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) said that there are over 37,000 Ukrainians registered in the Finnish asylum reception system, more than the over 32,000 asylum seekers that arrived in the country in 2015.
Finland’s largest daily asks a good question that should expose our double standards: Why do Ukraininens get preferential treatment against the hostile reception asylum seekers from outside Europe received seven years ago?
Third culture children are those who grow up in a country other than their parents’.
I have traveled since I was a year and a half between continents and boarded airplanes throughout my life like buses and heard many times a given assumption that traveling is supposed to open your mind.
True or false?
FACT 1: While traveling may sometimes broaden your horizons about different countries, cultures, and peoples, it may have the opposite effect and reinforce your prejudices and racism toward others.
FACT 2: While traveling opens your mind to the world, your peers may not like your “open” views. It is a classic situation that may lead to bullying. Your difference becomes a source of scorn.
My eighth-grade classmates in 1968. While I hope some of these students had a pleasant journey through middle school, mine was marred by mistrust, ridicule, outsiderness, rejection, and ostracism. I survived Blessed Sacrament and became a stronger person from it. This picture has been posted on social media. I hope my former classmates don’t mind if they appear in this post.
I attended a conservative Catholic middle school in Hollywood, California. Since I had traveled so much and lived in many countries during those early teen years, my view of the world was very different from my classmates.
The situation led to bullying, even by the teachers.
One of these teachers was Vincent Orlando, who taught history. I must have been 13 or 14 years old at the time.
Silence can be very revealing. It’s not what you say but what you do not say. Your inaction and silence in the face of racism, specifically against institutional racism, speaks volumes.
This fact is one of the biggest challenges to Finland during this century.
The outspoken racist is a danger, but the worst threat is the person who remains silent and hides and uses institutional racism to protect his work. In other words, the system allows the person to eat and have his cake simultaneously.
Believe it or not, some principles and teachers working and representing culturally diverse learning institutions don’t believe in cultural sensitivity. They are the fake know-it-alls on racism. They don’t need to update their racist views because they are exceptional people.
EU Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović expressed concern about the human rights of asylum seekers after parliament amended Section 16 of the Border Guard Act. The amendment allows Finland, in emergency cases, to close the border and severely restrict the rights of asylum seekers to seek refuge.
I still don’t understand how Finland can close all the border crossings and keep one open: the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. How are refugees supposed to get to the airport? By plane?
Another big question looming over the law is what would trigger such a draconian measure and under what circumstances. How can border guards ensure that the rights of vulnerable people seeking refuge aren’t breached?
Writes Mijatović to Finland’s Minister of Interior Krista Mikkonen: “I also want to highlight the situation of people who may need to flee the Russian Federation through the Finnish border, including those who might be persecuted on grounds related to their opposition to the war in Ukraine, their sexual orientation or gender identity, their work on human rights or other grounds. It is crucial that specific attention is paid to the needs of this group, which could be particularly affected by the proposed measures.”
US Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri announced that he would vote against Finland’s and Sweden’s membership in Nato. Finnish Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Jani Mäkelä pleaded with him to change his mind. Good luck.
The January 6 hearing last week made a horse’s ass of Hawley, one of former President Donal Trump’s avid followers who believes that the Democrats stole the election. On that shameful day, he raised his fist in solidarity with the mob that Trump had sent to the Capitol on January 6.
Later, he was videotaped running away from the mob that had stormed the Capitol, which he had incited.
An example of the same cowardice and political opportunism that is parroted near-constantly by Makelä and the PS.
How can you respect a politician and party that constantly bullies vulnerable people like asylum seekers for political profit?
You can’t.
Source: YouTuve
We could look at the video in several ways. One way is that Holley is not running away from a mob in Washington but from Finns and Swedes.
An interview by Uusi Suomi of National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MP Atte Kaleva, who is part of Finland’s Islamophobic network, demonstrates a common flaw by the Finnish media that perpetuates urban tales and misconceptions spread by politicians about migrants.
Kaleva claims that implementing a quota system for “foreign” students at schools in Finland would help to tackle so-called urban segregation.
Some teachers have suggested earlier that classrooms should have quotas for the number of “foreign” pupils. It may sound like a simple solution to the problem, but it is legally impossible for several reasons:
Apart from tightening laws and plans to build a fence on parts of the Finnish-Russian border, politicians in Finland are debating shutting tourism from Russia to Finland. As I have mentioned previously, one of the biggest fears of the war in Ukraine is awakening Finland’s deep distrust and hatred of Russia.
The hatred will not only affect the Russians and our views of that country but spill over to other groups like Muslims and People of Color. If matters were shaky for these groups in Finland, they would worsen as the war drags on.
Despite all the bravado and defiance by politicians as the eye of April’s parliamentary election, some level-headed opinions are out there. One of these is Helsingin Sanomat, which wrote that the issue of visa restrictions was “not so clearcut. Restrictions must be in line with our values and goals. Sanctions should not be imposed on the basis of nationality, but according to a person’s actions or inaction.”
Hungary’s strongman denounced in a speech Saturday “mixed race” nations. While there was outrage in Europe about his racist comment, there was silence from some political circles like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, which are Orbán’s admirers.
He said in Romania over the weekend that migration had split Europe and that Europeans who mix with non-Europeans “are no longer nations: they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples.” He added: “In the Carpathian Basin [region shared by Romania and Hungary], we are not mixed race. We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become mixed race.”
When analyzing Finland’s media on reporting about Orbán’s claim, one important matter is what was left out of the story.
