By Enrique Tessieri
The Perussuomlaiset (PS) party parliamentary group decided today that Helena Eronen, PS MP James Hirvisaari’s aide should be sacked immediately for writing about foreigners wearing armbands to help police differentiate the nationality of the person, according to YLE.
After the meeting, Hirvisaari told reporters that nothing had been decided about Eronen.
PS parliamentary leader Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner, who stepped out of the meeting after Hirvisaari, gave a totally different version. She said that the majority of the PS MPs decided to recommend to Hirvisaari that he’d “immediately sack his aide [Eronen].”
Ruohonen-Lerner said that this type of writing by Hirvisaari’s aide hurts the party and the parliamentary group.
She said that the parliamentary group cannot give the boot to Eronen. That was Hirvisaari’s job.
Category: Enrique
I have little faith that this will end any different to how the Ulla Pyysalo affair ended and after seeing Hirvisaari’s comment after the meeting on YLE tv news about journalists needing to wear a band to show what party they are aligned with, it shows that he still doesn’t get it. MTV3 didn’t include his comments in their report.
The way the media has behaved in this case is indeed inferior. The should be for the truth, not against it. They seem to care nothing about legal rights of a person. I hope Eronen will make a complaint to JSN about how this case has been handled in the media. There are several parties to be complained about, at least Turun Sanomat and MTV3. I did not see YLE news about this so I don’t know if they remembered the basics of journalist ethics better than their colleagues.
And I don’t appreciate this blog’s “journalism” by Enrique any better.
I ask you, BlandaUpp, did you read the original blog writing by Eronen? As you seem to have opinions about the issue, you should have.
Arto
Of course I have read it and I found it disgusting, especially as someone married to foreigner and who has young children. Interesting how hardliners like yourself still insist that she did nothing wrong while the PS committee decided that Eronen’s action was in bad taste and that it doesn’t suit the party or the PS parliamentary delegation and that they’ve asked for her to be sacked.
Arto
The media are being the media – they help to maintain at least some kind of standard in public life. Should they report that it was humouristic? I think they only have an obligation to do that if it was stated in her blog entry that it was humour. If she has failed to make that very important distinction, then she has laid herself completely wide open to criticism.
What was her point, anyway, Arto? In all this huff and puff, I still really don’t get it? Police are profiling foreigners – and people are complaining because of the ‘human rights violations’. Rather than try and understand those violations, she gets sarcastic about ‘making their job easier’, and then using all the wonderful vocabulary of fascism to belittle the whole idea that racial profiling was somehow wrong.
Later in the article, she mused about the fact that the police were only targeting foreigners because they were looking for illegal immigrants and deportation dodgers, AS IF THAT MAKES IT OKAY! She really misses the point about why racial profiling is at all wrong.
I think that her alternative jokey proposal at the end for Finns to wear an emblem (the lion) was not really saving any kind of grace either. It still sets up foreigners as the outgroup, whether it’s the Finns wearing the badge of membership or the foreigners wearing the badge of non-membership.
She hasn’t said a single thing in support of foreigners. Basically she’s saying, let the police carry on with their racial profiling, because hey, it could be a lot worse, in fact it could be fascism instead of discrimination. Nice choice!
“The media are being the media – they help to maintain at least some kind of standard in public life.”
Yeah, it’s like living under a gutter. It just pours filthy water into your head.
“Police are profiling foreigners”
If you try to catch illegal immigrants do you think they should profile natives instead? Sounds very efficient? Or do you think they should not try to catch people who are illegally here at all?
“and people are complaining because of the ‘human rights violations’”
Yeah, as if asking papers is a human rights violation. Who or what got hurt? The feelings? Well buhuu. Cry me a river. I don’t think it a major problem because I don’t think most of the immigrants to be whiners. Do you, Mark? Although there obviously are some individuals who always victimize themselves (immigrants or natives) but who cares. They just bitch bitch bitch about everything. If asking papers is a human rights violation, if that’s too much for someone, one can imagine what kind of horrors they are escaping when they came here in the first place.
Eleven
There are an estimated 4000 illegal aliens in Finland, so Toni mentioned in another thread. As they cannot claim benefits, one assumes they have to work on the black market in order to maintain some self-sufficiency. In that sense, they are not dependent on welfare, so I assume this is a plus in their favour. Also, in the big scheme of things, is it a ‘crime’ that is worth stigmatizing the entire immigrant community in order to pursue?
Assuming they are stopping as many foreigners as possible and also investigating on the spot various other elements, I’m assuming that this will increase the likelihood of immigrants being convicted of other crimes than being an illegal alien. A bit like if you target red-heads, sooner or later it will appear in the statistics as if the red-heads are doing more crime, thus justifying even more profiling. It’s a vicious circle that completely negates the whole idea of equality before the law.
My opinion is that police can do residency tests on people when they for some other reason come to the police’s attention, as well as relying on employers to be honest in employing only residents and citizens of Finland. That should be enough.
Let’s see now, there were about half a million penalties imposed on Finns by the courts in 2010. Assuming this is only a proportion of the crime that is being committed, you want to focus on 4000 immigrants who may or may not be committing other offences than having an ‘illegal status’.
The negatives far outweigh the positives in my view in terms of racial profiling.
This is your typical response to human rights violations, you ridicule any genuine sense of outrage and you also trivialise the matter, ‘it’s no big deal’. Well, equality is a big deal, and when a minority are being deliberately targeted by the police, the relationship between that minority and trust in the police are likely to be negatively affected, unsurprisingly. Throw that into a basket of other disriminations and social problems stemming from similar prejudiced attitudes to your own, and you have the potential for more serious problems to develop, exactly those problems that seem to get you hot under the collar.
In other words, if you want the horse that is immigration to perform better, then you have feed it and treat it humanely.
“Rather than try and understand those violations, she gets sarcastic about ‘making their job easier’, and then using all the wonderful vocabulary of fascism to belittle the whole idea that racial profiling was somehow wrong.”
Be honest, Mark. If you are trying to catch illegal immigrants in Finland, who are your first suspects? The people who look like native Finns (as the probabilities suggest they do)? The people who don’t look like native Finns?
It is not actually even racial. It’s statistical. For example, a some time ago an RKP worker and his friends complained big time about the customs stopping only this black guy (if there’s more politically correct word here, please insert it here instead, I don’t mean to offend anybody) and not his white friends. Well, it just happened that the customs were looking an illegal immigrant originated from Africa suspected to be coming from Sweden to Finland in that ship. And they got him later. Obviously they have no resources to stop and question everybody, so they pondered the probabilities. The colour of skin was totally irrelevant in itself, it could have been a very big nose instead or something like that. So it’s not actually racial, about race, it’s about distinctive features and probabilities.
And talking about fascism. I think this “one mind, one right opinion” -thing you so eagerly support is closer to it than the right to support “racial” profiling meaning sometimes (it’s not like the police is harassing people) asking papers from people who look a little more than someone else that he or she could be from somewhere else. People who look a little more (for whatever reason) that they could be more out of place here.
“Also, in the big scheme of things, is it a ‘crime’ that is worth stigmatizing the entire immigrant community in order to pursue?”
It is not stigmatizing. I have being stopped and asked my papers when just walking the streets alone thinking the evil things in my head that I think. They were looking for someone who somehow resembled me. Did I feel stigmatized because I look the way I do? No, of course not.
It’s the same thing here. It’s no reason to get all upset. How often that even happens to you? A once in a decade, maybe? And when it’s about papers it’s even better, because there’s nothing to fear if you have your legal status to be in the country in order.
I have been followed in the stores by guards. That happens a lot, actually. I haven’t stolen anything ever. But hey, I look suspicious so I get followed A LOT. So what? I just laught at the store guards hiding behind the shelves trying to look discreet. So don’t wave at me that victim card. And actually this kind of thing is way more offending, because in the other case it’s just about looking like a foreigner so they check your papers. Nobody thinks you look like a criminal like in this profiling which I often get. So please don’t play a victim in every single time, it’s so tiring to hear.
Elven
I know the argument, Elven, I made it already today on another thread. It doesn’t justify it. Let me put it to you another way – if you are trying to investigate tax fraud, then you know that this is a crime only committed by taxpayers, i.e. citizens. So, let’s randomly investigate the tax records of all Finnish citizens, on the basis that we know that some of them are cooking the books!
Bollocks! It’s a political decision to tell the police to focus on illegal immigration as a priority. We all accept that as drivers, we will likely be breathalysed every year in an effort to make the roads safer for everybody. But imagine if you were being breathalised every week, simply on the basis that we know that more we do it, the more we will catch? First, people would get fed up with the constant stopping. Second, it takes resources away from other more serious crime investigation. Third, if these statistics were used constantly to lambast and stigmatize all drivers, people would soon protest!
You just have to try to see this from the other side for a moment Elven, if you are capable of that.
Well, I’m sure we can all sleep safer in our beds knowing he’s in custody. Look, I have no problem with police acting on specific intelligence, and while in this case, the ‘black skin’ was just part of that intelligence, I don’t think that is the same thing as random racial profiling that I find disturbing, and for good reason.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy about crime and immigrants and it also stigmatizes a whole group of people, especially and particulary young people whom it seems to affect disproportionately. You say it’s no big inconvenience, but you dismiss the right of individuals to be treated equally by police services. Where is the serving of the immigrant community there if the police approach is actually to consider the community basically more criminal? Focusing on this community leads to more crime detection in that community which further skews the statistics thus ‘justifying’ this institutional racism and the single-minded attention given to immigrants and immigrant communities or crime! Can you really not see the problem with this? Really? I mean, it’s staring you right in the face, Elven. It’s not complicated. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy with often drastic and tragic consequences. You know, those things you are supposed to be opposed to – ghettos.
Elven
Your ignorance and your defence of it truly is mind-boggling. People want equality before the law. This kind of profiling leads to distinct and pernicious inequality. It is indefensible. It is not merely about being inconvenienced. Are you trying to tell me that Somalis in Finland don’t feel stigmatized and that random police stop and search do not further enhance that stigma and poor relations? Are you really really that ignorant of what actually happens, either in Finland but also especially in those countries that have seen a breakdown in relations between the police and ethnic communities. You’re ignorance is all the worse because the arguments are being presented to you and you choose simply to dismiss them in total arrogance, without for a second considering there may be anything in them.
Elven, you cannot be taken seriously until you start to understand that some people’s experience is just different to yours, and, God forbid you don’t combust from lack of self-confidence, that they might know more about social realities and especially immigration and marginalisation than you do.
You are ignorant and you celebrate your ignorance. You are to be condemned, put and simple, as a god-damn fool.
“This is your typical response to human rights violations, you ridicule any genuine sense of outrage and you also trivialise the matter, ‘it’s no big deal’. ”
It’s the opposite. I take human rights violations more seriously than most. I just have a different value hierarchy. I prefer freedom of speech over asking papers. I prefer the equal rights of women more than someone’s religious beliefs. And so on.
“Your ignorance and your defence of it truly is mind-boggling.”
Your argumentantion and manners are not.
Elven
Bullshitter. Show me what you have done personally for women’s rights? You know, the problem I have is that your ‘human rights hiararchy’ doesn’t correspond to any human rights framework I’ve ever come across. Your stance on immigrants flatly contradicts all the world’s major human rights’s organisations stance on treatment of immigrants. Something doesn’t add up, Elven!
“In other words, if you want the horse that is immigration to perform better, then you have feed it and treat it humanely.”
I do. I respect immigrants so much that I don’t treat them differently. I don’t patronize them. I don’t treat their feelings like they were children althought you do your best to make them look like that (but I don’t hold it against them, just you). I expect and demand from them the same as from everybody else.
“Bullshitter. Show me what you have done personally for women’s rights?”
I speak against inequality even when it comes in a form of religion. That is what you called bigoting and fascism. So what is what you do when you say there’s nothing wrong about women’s rights in a certain very religious culture? What do you defend? 😉
Elven
I see, but you are just happy for the police to treat them differently! Elven, something is horribly inconsistent here.
By turning issues of equality into issues of emotional management, you manifestly fail to understand the topic under discussion.
No, I call that hiding your religious bigotry under a carpet of human rights, or specifically gender rights. So that’s it, you only talk about gender when it comes to bashing Islam and other developing world cultures?
Well, I certainly don’t defend bigotry in the name of religion, or bigotry in the name of nationalism. However, I doubt that will force you to take me out of that stupid box you have me in in your head.
“You are to be condemned, pure and simple, as a god-damn fool.”
While you are clearly a well behaving cilivized man with a knack for good argumentation.
Elven
You ignore argumentation and are quite happy to make personal attacks on the commentators, and our comment history shows quite clearly the style we both prefer.
The idea that members of visible minorities should be disproportionately stopped while going about their daily business in order to catch illegal aliens makes no sense whatsoever in terms of intelligent policing priorities. The specific offence of remaining in Finland without the required permission is classified as a misdemeanour, contrary to section 185 of the Aliens Act (ulkomaalaisrikkomus), for which the associated fine varies between about 10 and 15 days. This is roughly the same as the fine for pilfering (näpistys) contrary to section 3 of chapter 28 of the Finnish Penal Code.
This suggests that the police would be equally well employed on Friday afternoons searching clerical workers for pilfered office supplies as they clock off for the weekend. More particularly, it suggests that store detectives are an unnecessary addition to the payroll of retail businesses, which should instead insist on a regular police presence targeting their customers (who, after all, have clearly satisfied the most important element in the profile of a shoplifter merely by entering the shop).
The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens in Finland at any time are visa (or visa-exempt) overstayers, and their typical profile is likely to match that of a visitor, not an immigrant. Mark’s reference to detecting deportation dodgers is a red herring in terms of “profile-assisted random sweeping”, as an expulsion order always specifies a particular individual and must always be linked to a description of that individual as opposed to a general profile. If stopped on the grounds that I resemble someone, I would most certainly keep a careful record of the time and place of the incident and of the police officer involved, and then pursue the paper trail to decide for myself whether the alleged resemblance was reasonable. That should be as obvious as checking the receipt if you think you’ve been overcharged or consulting the collective agreement if you think you are underpaid.
On a side note, I find it amusing to hear our overzealous PS-minded contributors regularly claiming that they are “often” stopped by the police or followed by store detectives. We might already surmise that this is part of their group profile. That would not surprise me in the least.
JD
The ‘deportation dodgers’ was a reference to Helena’s article.
“I see, but you are just happy for the police to treat them differently!”
But they are not. If the police investigates robbery they look more closely at the people who appear to fit the descriptions. If they are looking for a red car used in the crime, they stop more reds cars than the black ones because it’s statistically more probable that you can find the red car amongst the cars which resemble it in some way. That doesn’t mean they imply every driver in a red car is a criminal. You call that treating people differently? It the same for us all. It’s just that the Finns seldom are illegal immigrants in Finland, obviously. Some types of crime investigating targets different people. If you are out of work, you don’t need be worrying about police questioning you about work-related crimes and so on. It’s the same for us all. We are all targets of profiling.
“By turning issues of equality into issues of emotional management, you manifestly fail to understand the topic under discussion.”
That’s funny. I thought you were the one asking “please, somesome to think about the feelings of the immigrants” here? Actually this blog constantly calls for emotional management, whatever that is. All the time I read from here that you have to respect the feelings the immigrants are feeling.
“No, I call that hiding your religious bigotry under a carpet of human rights, or specifically gender rights. So that’s it, you only talk about gender when it comes to bashing Islam and other developing world cultures?”
What if I called defending certain religious beliefs about women (it’s funny I’m the religious bigot here and not… say for example… islamists) hiding the inequality againgst women? What if, Mark? 😉
Only? What an earth you are talking about? I talk it all the time but I just pointed out the part which is the most relevant here based on the history of our discussion.
“Well, I certainly don’t defend bigotry in the name of religion, or bigotry in the name of nationalism. However, I doubt that will force you to take me out of that stupid box you have me in in your head.
Yeah, so just showing the polls about certain peoples own stated beliefs is bigotry? And their beliefs, whatever they are, are not bigotry, they can’t be? So, you think for example that Islam promotes the equality of women? Of course you do because you are not a bigot. Right, Mark? And there’s nothing wrong in the Islamic world regarding the issue? Yeah, there can’t be if you don’t want to be a religious bigot based on your standards.
“You ignore argumentation and are quite happy to make personal attacks on the commentators, and our comment history shows quite clearly the style we both prefer.”
Ignore? I’m moving on chronologically. Is there something wrong with that? I answer your messages in order. The previous first, then I went out to take the trash and now I’m back answering your well though not at all personal arguments.
And yes, this “god-damn fool fascist bigot” (in other words me, the former were your words) is clearly the one making personal attacks. Yes, Mark. Whatever you say. Your mother raised you so well.
“On a side note, I find it amusing to hear our overzealous PS-minded contributors regularly claiming that they are “often” stopped by the police or followed by store detectives.”
How come? You guys certainly don’t hide your opinitions of us being trash. So why should
we not be closely followed?
And I have not often been stopped by the police, only maybe twice in my life. But neither are immigrants. The store guards, they are an another story. I look mean and suspicious. Is it so hard to believe after all Mark has stated that I’m a bigoting liar who can’t be trusted and I’m also full of hate and I’m a fool and so on. Certainly it is plausible with my attributes to be followed closely? 😉
I’m not a whiner. Is that the difference? I don’t whine like a little girl about everything although I’m quite in touch of my feminine side and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m getting profiled too, but buhuu, the immigrants have it so bad in here. Racism, PS, everything is wrong. Yeah yeah, heard that before.
Elf
You seem willing to be judged by the content of your character, which you describe as superficially mean and suspicious, but we are here talking about judging people by the colour of their skin. Do you think that you should be judged on such a basis? After all, you fit the ethnic profile of a serial child rapist in Thailand.
Judging? Please show me the judging? I’m being profiled because of my looks. Some people are being profiled by the colour of their skin which means their looks. The same thing. The exact same thing. Where’s the judging part? Asking to show papers hardly is judging and far from doing any harm? It is not even offending like being followed in a store because a guard thinks you look like a shoplifter, a criminal. It’s just that you look like a foreigner. Is it a big deal? Really? It is offending? If someone thinks it is, isn’t that someone implying that being foreigner is something bad? Maybe I just don’t see the wrongness in being a foreigner like some?
“After all, you fit the ethnic profile of a serial child rapist in Thailand.”
Interesting. Do you have any statistics to prove that? If so, so be it. Let them profile. It’s their right. I don’t have to even go to Thailand if that bothers me.
Elf
Statistics? Well let’s see. There are about 1,000 Finnish immigrants in Thailand. Although most of them are elderly retirees, a quick review of the local press reveals that it is not at all unusual for Finnish citizens to be arrested for serial child rape.
The 445 child rapes committed by Jouko Petri Jaatinen over the fifteen-year period from 1989 to 2004 would have a major statistical impact already.
Then there were the similar adventures of Mikka Pitkanen in Pattaya and the case of Ilkka Ylikolola (aka Mr Hero) in 2007. There was also this splendid specimen of Finnish manhood less than two years ago. Doesn’t he look pleased with himself?
There are easily enough instances of serial child rape to show serious cause for assigning police spies to watch every one of those Finnish immigrants 24/7.
Before responding to this, you might like to try to imagine how those immigrants would feel if the Royal Thai Police implemented such a policy. I realise that this requires empathy, but you just said that you were in touch with your feminine side, so perhaps now is the time to discover whether the femininity in question is that of Florence Nightingale or Lucrezia Borgia.
More specifically, is it your view that such a profiling practice – motivated by the desire to stop crime – would be an intelligent allocation of police resources in Thailand? If not, then specifically why not, and how is profiling of immigrants in Finland any different in principle?
You said that the reason for profiling was an effort to catch illegal aliens. Are you now suggesting that the police are able to apply profiling without making judgements? Even deciding that an individual fits a profile is making a judgement. Without such judging the profile is meaningless: like asking a blind person to identify a suspect from a series of photographs.
OK… This analogy about Finns being the leading paedophiles in Thailand keeps coming up here. For what it’s worth:
If this is true, I think it would be absolutely reasonable for Thai policemen to follow Finnish tourists and spot check their IDs. Of course! I think that paedophilia can lead to major crimes and I understand the officials might resort to profiling.
As a Finn, I might not like it that much, I might choose to holiday in another country but I would not blame the police for resorting to this method to stop serious crime!
I would blame my fellow Finns for their atrocious crimes,
Joku
LOLOLOL I have to admire your desire to achieve consistency in your beliefs. If it’s okay for Finnish police to use ‘racial/ethnic profiling’, it must also be true for other police forces around the world, even if that means that it’s Finns abroad that are causing the problems. You even go so far as to project what you think should be the appropriate response of foreigners here in Finland onto your own hypothetical situation, and ‘blame my fellow Finns for their atrocious crimes’, thus preserving your racist views about how immigrants should be treated in Finland.
However, the fact that you’ve only had to do a little philosophical gymnastics to remain well within your comfort zone shows how little this philosophical bending is really worth. For example, you can make the decision to simply not holiday in that country and so never ever have to suffer the real results and stigma that might come with this kind of racial profiling.
Convenient.
However, for many foreigners subject to the same kind of profiling (think Somali rapists), the same freedom to simply choose to avoid the country where said profiling takes place is not open to them, unless you want to say ‘hey, if you don’t like our racism in Finland, you can always leave’. Yep, great choice.
Well done for trying Joku.
PS MP James Hirvisaari decided today against the parliamentary group to not sack Helena Eronen from her job. Here is the link.
Will this be harmful to the party? It certainly will. It shows that the PS is a wild card and a ticking time bomb.
Eleven
This is a fudge.
If the police fall upon a specific profile for a criminal, then yes, you might expect them to use that information to narrow down their suspect.
But let’s not get confused here: watching a red car leaving a bank robbery and putting all cops on the alert for a red car is not the same as saying, let’s put all the cops on alert for black people because we know that there are here in Finland illegal aliens. This example is not comparable.
Everything else you offer is the usual bluff and buff.
Eleven, this is your ignorance showing. It is quite a different thing to ask people to respect other individuals as equal members of a) the human race, b) the society in which we live, and c) the moment in which we encounter them, than to say that when people are racially abused that they just have to accept it because really, it’s only a big deal if you think it’s a big deal. That kind of cognitive reassessment will never, ever make up for the lack of rights that leads to that abuse. On this point, Eleven, you are extremely naive and immature. After all, this is your rights I’m trying to protect here in this debate, not just the rights of immigrants.
What if? I would say that it’s a reality. People do use ‘religious’, or more specifically, local interpretations of religion to ‘hide’ inequality against women. But, hey, Eleven, let me let you in on something….you won’t make any headway in developing the rights of women if at the same time you are working incessantly to undermine the rights of immigrants. Don’t you see that there is a huge contradiction in your stated purpose here?
This straw man comes back again and again. I understand why. If you were to accept for real that I really do oppose bigotry not simply in the ‘guilt-ridden’ western world, but also in the ‘down-trodden and oppressed’ developing world, then you would have to make a serious shift in regard to the ‘box’ that you have me in. And that would almost certainly make you uncomfortable – how can an ally also be such a vociferous critic?
Like I said…that’s a fine box you have me in.
My mother is dead, thank you!. Please respect the dead. Unless you really do want to be banned!
Yep, that about sums it up. Look, Elven, there was plenty of argumentation made in the comments here during your absence. However, on your entry into the discussion, these were your first comments:
This was pretty much your first comment on this debate. It highlights graphically why you are a loose cannon in society, Elven. This kind of approach to the experiences of other people is exactly the kind of INSENSITIVITY that leads to an escalation of problems. Let’s assume for a second that society’s problems are the micro-level problems magnified into a macro-level scale. It is exactly these kinds of one-on-one reactions that responses of one member of society to another member of society that accumulate to form the basis for substantial and ingrained social problems. In other words, if you constantly insist on disrespecting immigrants in this way, then don’t be surprised when immigrants bash you on the nose. That is not in any way to condone violence or racial tension. No. It is to recognise the root cause of it. You have a choice, if you want to engage in this debate – and there is absolutely no reason why you have to – you do it by choice, and so if you choose to meet the ‘feelings’ or grievances of immigrants in this offhand and absolutely completely disrespectful way, then you have to accept the consequences when immigrants understandably say, “fuck you, you are the enemy”, and all the events that follow.
Because one thing in this world is certain, if you constantly disprespect people, then you can expect some kind of backlash, and the greater the insensitiivety, the greater the backlash. I don’t condone this. On the contrary, I see this as masculine bullshit. But I do see it’s course and pattern very clearly. And you are playing this game. You, and I imagine, many like you. Are you going to back down? I doubt it. At what point do you realise the effects of your insensitivity? Maybe on your death bed (hoping of course that you live a long and prosperous life!).
It’s so simple. The more you go on insulting people, the more you remain part of the problem and not part of the solution.
MT
And didn’t I predict as much?!
Joku
And also absolutely reasonable for the police to follow the 1,000 mainly elderly Finnish immigrants in Thailand, perhaps checking their identity papers every few days?
No doubt foreign visitors to Finland are similarly put off and choose never to holiday in Finland ever again. Interrail backpackers used to stop at Stockholm back in the 1970s and early 1980s, due largely to the reputation of Finnish frontier guards for intrusive behaviour. No doubt these visitors also told their friends and acquaintances about their negative experiences in Finland. All to the great dismay of the Finnish Tourist Board (MEK), I might add, and also to the dismay of the associations and cities that invest so much in trying and failing to attract major sporting and cultural events. Perhaps the associated loss of foreign currency that might otherwise be generated from tourism can be recovered by making you pay even higher taxes. None of this matters, of course, as long as you are willing to pay the price for racist thinking.
However, I specifically asked about the impact of racial profiling on immigrants, not tourists. Try to imagine that you have retired, sold up and moved to Thailand, but now you cannot plan a trip to the shops without figuring in the risk that you will be stopped and required to present papers. What are you going to do then?
Is it your view that a misdemeanour under the Aliens Act (punishable by a smaller fine than you would get for pilfering a pencil from your employer’s stationery cupboard) constitutes serious crime?
“It’s so simple.”
It is simple. I can be offended as much as anybody likes. I don’t care. I bite back, verbally of course, but nobody has nothing to worry from me. That’s what the civilized people do. They are not to be afraid. I don’t hurt anybody. Never have, never will. I don’t accept hurting anybody. That’s why I say the things I say. You can disagree with my methods, but questioning my motives is just silly and paranoid. It’s labeling. You think that writing on Hommaforum defines me. You are so wrong.
You just don’t get it but who cares, I don’t put much emphasis on your opinions. And for what it is worth I think you are the one creating friction. I have never ever met anybody who thinks this blog’s stories are balanced and fair. My immigrant friends agree with me.
Enough about me. You implied that there are people that don’t have this much self control? Or is it my beer talking already? Anyways, let’s assume that. The cure for it is to just get them to deal with it and not shut up because of fear of their reactions. This is a western nation. We talk. We say things somebody finds hurtful. There is always someone feeling hurt if you say anything meaningful. You have to deal with it. If one can’t then this is not one’s place. There are cultures which would suit better such a person.
If you give up, if you shut your mouth because of fear then it’s a clear message that the power tactics work. It’s a signal to do it again, because it worked so wonderfully the last time. So no, I won’t shut up. I hate bullies. If I find a flaw in a religion, I will tell the world. No matter how politically correct it is to say that the religion is just fine even thought you can see it in your own eyes in effect in the world affecting billions of people.
I can not agree with this at all. It is about intentionally misspresenting what she wrote. Nothing at all in the TS article revealed that the blog entry was an attempt at humour, so that the readers of TS could have made their judgement based on facts (ie. decide if it was bad taste to try to write a satire about such a subject). The article made it seem like Eronen had seriously suggested badges for foreigners, and there’s no way a professional writer could have made that mistake. I usually prefer to explain such things as incompetence of mistakes rather than as malice, but I have to draw the line somewhere. A professional fisherman won’t mistake a squirrel for a salmon, not even in a bad day.
It was not that Eronen failed to make the distinction, but the journalist willingly missunderstanding it. “A representative’s assistant makes a lame attempt at satire writing about badges for foreigners” would not just make such a nice headline.
–Nothing at all in the TS article revealed that the blog entry was an attempt at humour, so that the readers of TS could have made their judgement based on facts (ie. decide if it was bad taste to try to write a satire about such a subject).
KHR, in the first place it wasn’t humorous. If it was satire, it was in extremely poor taste. It was offensive, for example, to the millions of Jews that were sent to the gas chambers by Germany when that country was ruled by the Nazis.
Furthermore if Eronen works in an important institution like parliament, she should know what was acceptable and not acceptable. What she wrote is not satire in my opinion but ignorance about our laws and values, which are defended in parliament.
Her aim was to attack the office of the Ombudsman for Minorities. A member of an anti-immigration party like the Muutos2011 working for an MP who is a member of a Nazi-spirited association like Suomen Sisu, would be overjoyed if the Ombudsman for Minorities would be abolished.
An important question: Why did she publish this column in the first place?
And finally another important point: If you are white and try to be “sarcastic” about other nationalities, work for a right-wing populist party like the PS and your boss is none other than James Hirvisaari, you are going to get in hot water. She forgot as well those whom she was being sarcastic about, the immigrants, and if this may be offensive to some groups like the Jews.
“If you are white and try to be “sarcastic” about other nationalities, work for a right-wing populist party like the PS and your boss is none other than James Hirvisaari, you are going to get in hot water.”
Sounds very racist.
–Sounds very racist.
Do you know what racist is and have you ever been a victim?
How would I define what I wrote? I’d say it was spot on but you cannot call it racist.
To judge an individual based on that.
Migrant Tales: I did not, and won’t claim it managed to be humorous. You can fault her for writing a blog entry that is insensitive, bad taste, and fails to be funny, but that was not what TS wrote in the article. I oppose vehemently crusifying her for something she didn’t do. There’s enough of what can be criticized while staying with facts.