Should we be surprised that Perussuomalaiset (PS)* first vice president Riikka Purra announced her candidacy for chairperson of the Islamophobic party? Since she is the favorite to win the title, what will change, if anything, after its present chairperson Jussi Halla-aho steps down at next month’s annual meeting?
Purra, does not hide her Islamophobic views, she was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that the main purpose of the PS is tightening immigration policy.
“If it’s up to me, the Perussuomalaiset will never form part of a government that won’t tighten significantly Finnish immigration policy,” she said.
While her affirmation overflows with populist bravado, the intransigent stance of the PS on immigration and the EU will bring it down in the end. How can it tighten immigration policy as Finland faces an ever-growing labor crunch?
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin (1924-87)
In Finland, we read a lot of studies about racism and discrimination. One recent article by Raster gives a comprehensive view of the issues fueling migrant discrimination and unemployment. Who can forget researcher Akhlaq Ahmad’s study in 2019 showed that Finnish labor markets are racialized and segregated once again?
Write the authors of the Raster essay, Jawaria Khan, Olivia Maury, and Quivine Ndomo: “To conclude, Finland is not a fairyland of equal job opportunities. Instead, as we have argued, there exists a multiplicity of skilled and educated foreigners in Finland who face extensive challenges finding suitable work and means to legally remain in the country. In place of advocating for more, better, brighter talents, we should continue scrutinizing why knowledgeable people already in Finland do not seem to qualify for this pool of expertise. Is the objective to actually import ‘global talent,’ or is it so that only certain predefined figures with the right kind of social, ethnic and geographical background fit the category of ‘talent?'”
Many others don’t dispute that discrimination reinforced by institutional racism continues to be a major challenge. Some sources worth mentioning are: a report by the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman published last year; and the European Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) study that revealed that of 12 EU countries surveyed, people of African descent experienced in Finland the highest amount of racist harassment.
Moreover, several comprehensive shadow reports published by the European Network Against Racism and the European Islamophobia Report highlight anti-Muslim racism in the country.
Aminkeng A. Alemanji, a Cameroonian researcher who defended successfully in October 2016 his doctoral dissertation on anti-racism education, is the closest you will get to critical race theory in Finland.
Even if some link critical race theory to movements like BLM, it has been around for about 40 years.
Critical race theory, like anti-racism education, is vital since we live in an ever-growing diverse society and must consider and give public space through history to other groups.
The lack of anti-racism education has made Finland focus on one group – white middle-class society – at the cost of excluding other groups. Those other groups could even be the Saami and Romany minority.
The rise and normalization of racism in Finland is the best indicator of how starved our education system acknowledges cultural and ethnic diversity.
For me, it means that we live together, and diversity is encouraged, not suppressed and shamed as today.
Apart from giving us a much wider view of our place in Finland, anti-racism education should teach respect for difference and the right of minorities to embrace this country on their own terms.
When we teach our children myths and fables of our history, which usually include the achievements of one group, history is not only the past but the present and future, according to Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale University.
See full interview here with Timothy Snyder and Basil Smikle.
“If what our classrooms give us is the stuff that makes us feel good,” he was quoted as saying in a recent TV interview, “we are being groomed for authoriatarism.”
It would be naive to believe that somehow Finland would not be vulnerable to such autocratic impulses. It is already happening here before our eyes. Even if Finland claims to have the best education system that caters to white middle-class Finns, it has seen the rise of a xenophobic, far-right, and populist party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS).*
The contradictions on how we promote social equality and equity also tell us that we need anti-racism education in Finland.
In English, a snow job means a grand deception. Snow jobs happen year-round in Finland, irrespective of the season. The different excuses, arguments, and counterarguments to justify institutional racism are so common that we do not see them even if they are right under our noses.
A good snow-job spotter and when red lights should start flashing in your head:
Only white people are present at a meeting discussing the importance of ethnic diversity.
Only white people are present at a meeting discussing the importance of cultural diversity.
If there are minorities present at the meeting, they are usually in order not to incite white fragility.
In other words, minorities are bullied into silence.
When the meeting is over, there are no concrete steps to give cultural and ethnic diversity space to grow.
The object of the meeting is to reinforce exceptionalism and compliment each other on how “open” and “important” diversity is without raising a finger.
In other words, nothing changes. Nada. The same structures of institutional racism live to see another day.
On June 19th of 2021, Brazil reached the absurd number of 500.000 deaths caused by Covid-19. These lives are not disposable. They have given names and surnames. This is a performance and installation in memory of the ones that went away because of the pandemic of the new Coronavirus.
The performance and installation will happen in two moments. You don’t need to participate in both. It would be nice, of course, if you can.
When? The first movement will take place on July 3 at 10 am in front of the Brazilian Embassy in Helsinki, Itäinen Puistotie 4 B 1, 00140 Helsinki.
What will happen? We’ll write 500+ names on 500+ masks. 2ND MOMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE: Location to be confirmed ASAP. We’re going to place the 500+ masks creating an installation together. It will be a memory for those who went away.
Thank you for your time and participation in this project. Our deceased won’t be forgotten. For more info, check the Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/LGW39wtq Also Danilo’s website: www.danilocangucu.com and he’s Instagram: @danilocangucu
Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) published his groundbreaking study on the United States’ racism problem in 1944. While Myrdal was a controversial figure and Sweden was into measuring the skulls of the Saami due to a pseudoscience called eugenics, his study leaves us with food for thought.
One of these is denial of a serious social problem like the endemic injustice and poverty of the black man in the United States. You did not need to, however, to arrive at the same conclusions as Myrdal if you took a long good look at US society back then – and even today.
The central thesis of Myrdal’s study was that the United States, or particularly white USAmericans, was a conflict with the USAmerican creed founded on freedom, justice, and opportunity on the one hand but carried out systemic violations of the blacks through social exclusion and disenfranchisement.
How is it possible that the world’s happiest country is suffering from a severe labor crunch? Here are some facts: the number of over-65-year-olds per 100 working-age people will rise from 39.2% to 47.3% in 2030; to plug its pensions deficit, Finland needs to double the level of migrants to 20,000-30,000 annually.
In Europe’s most homogenous country – by historical choice – other factors don’t attract skilled labor and talent to Finland.
One has only to read the country’s biggest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, and the media in general to see their value priorities.
One of these is certainly not social equality, fairness, and equity of all people living in Finland.
France 24 pinpoints it to the tee: “But anti-immigrant sentiment and a reluctance to employ outsiders are also widespread in Western Europe’s most homogenous society, and the opposition far-right Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset*) regularly draws substantial support during elections.”
To add to the latter’s problem, it appears that the Finnish state is challenging head-on labor discrimination and racism in society. Due justice takes years in racism cases to resolve, and few politicians are ready to speak out against such social ills.
Parliament voted Wednesday to lift some of the restrictions it imposed in 2016 during the government of Juha Sipilä, which, among other matters, lowered the deadline for appeals and legal assistance to asylum seekers., according to the Refugee Advice Council.
One of these includes the deadlines for appeals originally reduced to 21 days from 30 days in the second instance. The deadline for appeals is now restored to 30 days.
Moreover, asylum seekers’ cases will face greater scrutiny to avoid the return of people wrongfully. One complaint that the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) had was that it did not carefully check asylum seekers’ cases and thus put people in harm’s way.
While these matters will improve the legal situation of asylum seekers, there are several laws from 2016 that hinder family reunification and the offering of residence on humanitarian grounds.
It is an important first step but there are many more that must be taken.
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Jussi Halla-aho’s heir-apparent appears to be the party’s first vice-president, Riikka Purra. While Halla-aho has swung the party to the far-right and encouraging xenophobia, Purra has parroted the PS leader’s racist soundbites but with questionable results.
Like Halla-aho, Purra loathes Muslims and people of color. So much so, in fact, that she warned about ethnic replacement hogwash and how Finland’s population was becoming more diverse. In her book, brown, Afro Finns and other visible minorities are a threat to white Finland.
You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge on politics to understand that most of the catchphrases used by the PS have their origin from other xenophobic groups in Europe. One of these used in the last municipal elections was “take Finland back.”
Is it a coincidence that the PS copies xenophobic catchphrases from other EU countries and parties? Source: CityA.M.
Writes the Finnish Security Police (Supo) in its last-year report: “One of the most noteworthy ideological motives of far-right terrorists is known as the Great Replacement conspiracy theory based on the idea of a fundamental threat posed by immigration and multiculturalism to the white population of Western countries. Views reflecting the idea of a Great Replacement have been highlighted in several far-right terrorist attacks.”
