Migrant Tales insight: Even if the op-ed was published about 10 years ago, too many politicians and officials continue to falsely believe that “super immigrants” will save the country from its low birth rates, aging population, and ever-present racism.
See also: The world’s happiest country faces a labor and talent crunch
THIS OP-ED PIECE WAS UPDATED.
Is it possible that in 2012 we have politicians who are totally against immigration? We actually have quite a few of them in Finland. While all political parties have these types of politicians, none of them have so many as the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*.
Certainly, these types of politicians won’t tell you directly that they are against immigration to Finland. That would sound too radical and make them vulnerable and force them to lose votes.
What they will tell you, however, is totally a different story. With poker faces, they will state that they are not against immigration but against immigration they consider harmful to Finland.
These politicians sound like they are reading to you the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, when Prince Charming wakes the beautiful princess with a kiss from her deep sleep. Anti-immigration politicians and parties don’t speak of Sleeping Beauty per se, but about super immigrants.
Sleeping Beauty (anti-immigration view of Finland) , Prince Charming (super immigrant) and other pro- and anti-immigration forces. In this famous Walt Disney fairy tale, everyone is white except for the evil witch, who is almost white.
Who are these super immigrants?
- They function perfectly as a group even if humans are far from perfect
- They are white northern Europeans, some Far East Asia groups like the Chinese (white Russians are excluded)
- They commonly belong to the Christian faith
- They are heterosexuals
- They are skilled professionals and well-behaved
- They adapt quickly and without problems to our way of life
- They are never unemployed (they are against social welfare and handouts)
- They are paid less than Finnish employees
- They don’t mind wearing sleeve badges to help police ethnically profile more effectively
- They never practice their culture in public spaces
- Their children only speak their parents’ language at home
- Their parents speak near-perfect Finnish
- Cultural difference and slight Finnish accents are fine because they allow us to distinguish who is “us” and “them”
Let’s stop kidding ourselves about these so-called super immigrants. They may exist but not in the numbers that a party like the PS or other anti-immigrant groups would like to see moving to Finland.
If you are waiting for these types of people to inhabit Finland in the near future, you might as well turn into Sleeping Beauty.
A column about super immigrants will appear next week in Savon Sanomat, Kainuun Sanomat and Karjalainen.
Against immigration…
Yesterday there was a report published on what kind of immigration FINNS want, apparently Migrant Tales missed it.
If somebody had asked year 2002 (or 2000) this question he would have been labeled as racist. Now it is year 2012 and Finland will soon be forced to do the right immigration.
Marco
The implication being that the majority view is naturally the right view? If a majority of Finns are racist, and some previous reports have shown over 70% of Finns would describe themselves as at least slightly racist, then would it therefore be right that Finland would construct an immigration policy that reflected that ‘acceptance’ of racism?
Also, the issue in regard to immigration is also an issue of minority rights, as the immigration debate extends well beyond the question of simply HOW MANY immigrants should be allowed in each year. The question of integration, work opportunities and equality are also important, and if an integration policy reflects a basically racist attitude towards immigrants, then immigrants are likely to suffer as a minority, simply for being a minority. Just because a majority (the ruling majority) are happy about that doesn’t make it right.
As usual, you are extremely vague in expressing your prejudices, probably because you are a coward at heart. But by this, I imagine you mean that Finland will accept immigrants who are professionals, who have had their education paid for by someone else, and who can come here and immediately start paying taxes and being productive in a way that profits Finnish firms. By right immigration, I imagine you mean that there would be next to no immigration from developing countries or conflict zones, as these kinds of immigrants require a lot of more support in order to adjust to life in Finland. By right immigration, I imagine you mean not Muslims.
This position is morally bankrupt. Why? Because it says that immigrants shouldn’t come to Finland if they are going to require money to help them integrate, and yet you are more than happy to ‘steal’ economic immigrants from other countries, and to undermine those countries’ investments in education and skills. The approach is strictly selfish and strictly denies the role for humanitarian protection. Such an approach undermines the values of the Western world and is more likely to add to the problems of globalisation.
This approach is not only morally bankrupt, it clearly threatens the human rights work that has been done in Finland and Europe in the last 30-40 years, because it sets out economic concerns as being absolutely the primary concern. For a party (PS) that opposes EU membership, it is ironic that they nevertheless adopt exactly the same philosophy of giving primacy to economic priorities above social priorities, something the EU has been criticised for constantly by those opposed to it.
The only way to describe your approach Marco is to say that it is myopic.
Enrique
I smiled when I saw you mention they would not ‘mind wearing sleeve badges to help police capture criminals’.
I think that you are perhaps undermining an important debate here by falling into the habit of referring to this issue in this way, i.e. via sleeve badges.
I think the real issue is racial profiling, that foreign-looking individuals would be stopped by police because they want to catch more criminals. This may well lead to more foreign ‘criminals’ being caught on the street for traffic violations or illegal entry simply because the police are focusing on this population and therefore they gain a higher representation within statistics, thus offering further justification for the practice. It is an extremely dangerous policy to follow and should be opposed as a fundamental discrimination, and any justification for it should be vigorously challenged, as it’s often built on erroneous and racist arguments.
All these points that I mentioned, even wearing sleeve badges, was mentioned facetiously.
You forgot the facts again Mark, I suppose you did not bother to find out what Finns think and want.
How many immigrants does Finland need per year in order to maintain the balanace between wording and non-working people?
-after the demographic decline (came) nothing whatsover has been done to fix this problem
how many immigrants per year could let entering per year for Humanitarian immigration, that Finland could handle?
-this question was asked repeatadly during the past ten years without answer
So, concluding. Now we are in a situation where people given refugee status in 2009 ARE still waiting to be moved out of the asylum centers in year 2012.
As MT discussed earlier we are 2 years beind in attracting labor to Finland. This ”trend” is irreversible since nothing has been done so far.
We are facing a thousand years of darkness..
Marco
And you couldn’t be bothered to actually write a comment with any substance, leaving us to read between the lines as to what you mean or even what your source is. Get over yourself, Hannu!
And yet the kind of immigration that people like you object to so much has nothing to do with working or non-working people, it’s to do with family reunification and humanitarian refugees.
Exactly!!! Look, you know as well as I do that the answer to that depends on how many resources Finland wants to put into the project, how well prepared it is to meet that influx of refugees and also on the prospects for successful integration. Historically, Finland has done very little in terms of humanitarian immigration compared to other European countries, and this has little to do with colonial issues but more its geographical location and status in Europe (on the periphery). As Finland has become more involved, it has also somewhat reluctantly, one thinks, taken more immigrants.
But you cannot behave like the chauvinist husband who fucks up the dinner deliberately so that he won’t be asked to cook again because, well, he cannot cook, can he? This is the modern world Hannu, and that kind of response to refugee issues doesn’t wash with your international partners. If Finland applies the right strategies and resources, then Finland could increase its immigration population quite significantly. But the question is one of political and social will.
So, the answer is simple, how many do you want? If you want 20,000 a year, then Finland could easily facilitate that level of intake.
And the smell of the burning casserole can be smelt all the way to Timbuktu!
No, that is your racism speaking!
Enrique
I understand that, but there is a real danger that the ‘tongue in cheek’ is what you become known for rather than the serious argument that lies behind it.
PS. It was a good article. I enjoyed reading it.
there are succesful multicultural societies like the US. If Finland would apply the immigration policy of the US, these people advocating this would be called ”facists” or other form of extremists.
If all European countries would have applied this model like the US does there would probably be a completely another world in Europe 2day.
You have not realized yet Mark what has happened. I will tell you, Finland and nearly all of Europe has sank deep in the ditch. The welfare states are gone, for many many years to come.
The truth might be hard to take but can not be denied. Denying the fact that our politicians have not been able to react on the problems occuring is quite sad…
Marco
Rhetorical bullshit from you as usual. Care to put some flesh on that anaemic corpse of an opinion? The Nordic states continue to follow the Welfare state model, though benefit levels have dropped since the recession of the early 90s, which had NOTHING to do with immigration.
You are such a waste of space when it comes to rational debate. I guess you have bought into the ‘end of the world is nigh’ discourse of those who suddenly think Europe is under siege from Islamic peoples, eh?
benefits have risen Mark, remember the reform for 2012?
Unemployment rising, industry moves East, the relation between working and non-working people worsens drastically, municipal economies as well as state economy are in debt crisis. EMU-crisis…Bailout money straight in the trash bin…
It is not rocket science Mark. It is not even rocket science to know where this is going.
You can meet the trends in the society how you want, why fight against the truth? Usually it is easier to live if you accept life, right? You can’t get out of your skin can you?
Marco
I see, so that list of so-called indicators spells utter gloom. Unemployment fluctuates and always will. Industry has been moving East for some decades. Relations between workers and non-working? Are you joking? Is that an indicator? Municipal and state economies are in reasonable health considering. The recession of the 90s was far worse and Finland found its way back to growth. Europe is still the largest market in the world by GDP. We have yet to see if the bailouts prove sufficient. There are many economic problems in Europe, but none of them are focused on immigration, they are to do with trying to get very different performing economies to work in unison. Likewise, it’s getting very difficult for countries in the EU to grow their way out of recession, and recession is by definition a vicious circle. But let’s see – ultimately the EU cannot be allowed to fail and so it will be down to Germany to approve a common bond market at some point to properly reassure the markets.
The truth? That’s an often-abused word, Hannu.
And what you are doing, out of body travel? Too many drugs, Hannu, too many drugs!
Is Enrique’s point that immigration is always good? We should just welcome every single person who wants to come here with open arms? We shouldn’t even bother asking if they have a job waiting, or are at least planning to get one and thus contribute to the society? Nope, let’s just give everyone full welfare and wait for good things to happen. Who cares about the fact that we don’t even have enough money to take care of all the people who were born here. Our primary aim must be full on immigration since it’s for some reason such an awesome thing. Let’s turn Finland into one gigantic paradise like Rosengård in Malmö. Otherwise, we are bad bad racists.
No, that is not Enrique’s point.
The rest of your comment is a conversation with yourself concerning a straw man that you dreamed up reading ignorant claptrap on hommaforum.
To begin your basic grounding on current immigration policy in Finland, I suggest that you start by reading the 1997 report of the Immigration and Refugee Policy Commission: Hallittu maahanmuutto ja tehokas kotoutuminen: ehdotus hallituksen maahanmuutto- ja pakolaispoliittiseksi ohjelmaksi and government bill no. 28 of 2003.
Were you absent when your school English teacher explained the importance of organising your ideas, separating your discourse into paragraphs and using question marks correctly? Try it sometime.
Thumbs up for starting your reply with an ad hominem. Anyway, I don’t visit homma, I’m merely being a voice of reason here. Talking about straw men, I wasn’t aware that wearing sleeve badges was some kind of official demand of PS. In fact, I recall reading that it was a “humorous” (bad one I agree) suggestion of an assistant of some PS MP. This is just one out of many straw men that Enrique introduced for super immigrants. You can of course attempt to prove me wrong and provide references to demands being made concerning e.g. religion, sexual orientation, or color of skin of immigrants.
P.S. If you honestly had a hard time comprehending my post, perhaps you should attend a few more English classes. But I suppose that was not the point of your closing statement. No, it was just another ad hominem. Well done!
honrigue
It seems you don’t know the meaning of ad hominem.
There is nothing reasoned in your arguments, honrigue.
You started by trying to present Enrique’s view as an absolute (‘always good’), which inevitably creates a straw man argument. You follow that up sarcastically with another straw man about ‘welcoming everyone with open arms’.
Next sentence you imply that immigrants should have jobs before they come, which would actually contravene EU rules in terms of EU-based migrants, who are perfectly at liberty to come to Finland looking for work.
You then follow that up with yet another absolute (‘everyone gets welfare’).
You then offer a completely spurious argument about Finland not being able to afford to pay its own citizens, which is complete tosh. If you are eligible for benefit, you will get it, or did your last benefit cheque bounce?
Next sentence another straw men, suggesting what we want is ‘full on immigration’.
Followed up again by more hyperbole about an immigrant ghetto being a paradise (aka Rosengård, Sweden).
In the final sentence you sum the whole debate into completely polarised positions of ‘total immigration’ and anyone who isn’t in favour, who you refer to with total sarcasm as being ‘a bad bad racist’. Clearly you are anticipating a key criticism of immigration skeptics, and rather than look at whether the point is valid, you simply attempt to dismiss the point through sarcastic humour.
So, not one bit of reasoned argument in the entire ‘paragraph’. It’s pricks like you who really get on my wick, with your aggressive, sarcastic and completely rhetoric-based bullshit about immigration! A voice of reason? How about the voice of sarcasm, the voice of exaggeration and absolutism, the voice of endless straw men, the voice that defends racists!?
My guess is that you ARE a raving racist who has every trick in the book to try and cover it up and try to make it all about the immigrants – i.e. denigrate them in every breath! Go snivel about immigration over on Homma, you’ll get a warm welcome there.
Nope, it’s you. Now, how about you start addressing the points I’ve made?
honrigue
You haven’t made any points, you simply tried to caricaturise the debate, which will not be tolerated by the moderators, as it is obvious trolling. I cannot see you lasting long on here if you take that attitude, mate.
honrigue
Well well, we have another Farang on our hands.
Lock&load.
You wrote:
The reply in question began as follows:
So where is the alleged ad hominem?
Incidentally, your original comment had started:
You also wrote:
My closing remark was this:
Evidently you are too proud to acknowledge these obvious defects of expression in your comment submitted on 2012/08/20 at 8:07 pm. That is your problem. However, you might like to explain how my closing remark can possibly be an ad hominem when it does not even implicitly take the form of an argument.
I can now strengthen my conclusion: you obviously don’t know the meaning of ad hominem.
Ever watched the news? Are you aware how the poor elderly, due to lack of money, are being treated? Perhaps check the following links for starters:
http://www.studio55.fi/oikeusjakohtuus/artikkeli.shtml/1449859/tallaista-on-vanhustenhoito-hoitajan-silmin-toivon-etten-itse-joudu-hoidettavaksi
http://www.studio55.fi/oikeusjakohtuus/artikkeli.shtml/1449888/tuijan-aidin-kaksi-viimeista-elinvuotta-likaisissa-vaipoissa-sangyssa–paleli-pakkasessa-ennen-kuolemaa
http://www.studio55.fi/oikeusjakohtuus/artikkeli.shtml/1446304/lukijat-kertovat-vanhus-pestiin-wc-ponton-paalla-toinen-potilas-tappoi-isan-mummo-sidottiin-vuodeksi-sankyyn
But yeah, let’s not care about them. After all, they’re just people who were born here. We have much more important things to do, like e.g. get as many as possible people to move here, because for some reason that’s just so super awesome, just ask the residents of Malmö. You’d love to see the same thing in Vuosaari in 15 years?
Look, I have nothing against work-based immigration. I fully support e.g. getting foreign qualified nurses here. But apparently, according to Enrique, this is bad. I’m apparently just absolutely anti-immigration and not only that but also a homophobic racist and whatnot.
I disagree with a blog post, thus I must be a racist. Maybe you should go to Homma? As far as I’ve understood, their argumentation is often on your level.
honrigue
Home care and hospital can both be improved with more resources, but the problems identified in these links are complex, and relate to training, Finland’s rural/urban divides, to co-ordination of home care and hosptital discharge practices, to ward monitoring, to nursing training etc. These issues are constantly being addressed and debated, and the entire service and government agencies are working to improve the situation. But problems are not easy to solve, and simply throwing money at it will not help. But go ahead, try and hijack the debate to justify your hatred of immigration.
If you cared about these people, you would make more of an attempt to understand the problems touched on rather than hijacking the debate to further your hatred of immigration. You offered no solutions whatsoever, except the implied view that somehow ‘more money’ is the obvious answer, and that money spent on immigrants is the money that should be used. Money does not solve the problem of older people trying to maintain independent living in Finland’s regional areas where services are difficult to maintain at today’s high levels, while their children have moved to the cities in search of work and excitement, putting a greater burden on the home care system.
It is not an ‘either/or’ discussion, either you choose to defend the rights of immigrants or you choose to develop Finland’s services for the elderly. Both go on perfectly independently of each other. It is totally dishonest of you to present it as this kind of choice.
Is this the only possible outcome for immigration? This is a well-worn example now of the potential problems, but is this the norm for Sweden and all areas in Sweden that have received immigrants? Absolutely not. It is one deprived area, rather famous for its problems, while Sweden has literally thousands of towns and cities that have received immigrants and have been able to adapt and thrive. But you don’t mention any of those examples? Putting immigrants into deprived areas and then later blaming them for that deprivation is just sick, mate.
Once again, you present only one possible form of immigration, ‘getting as many people as possible to move here’. No-one has that view. That is not how the Finnish system currently works.
Straw man arguments are easy. You present a view that is obviously ridiculous but which no-one actually holds. You pretend that this is the opinion and approach of the people whose opinions you find threatening, and then you ‘destroy’ the arguments you have created with ease, as it is easy to criticise arguments that are built on absolute positions. The sun always shines. No it doesn’t. Everyone should move to Finland. No they shouldn’t.
And yet another straw man. You can disagree with the article and it doesn’t mean you are a racist. But you are a racist. No question in my mind. Only a racist would try to use the empty arguments you are using to justify an extreme anti-immigration stance. That or mental illness.
You are not producing argumentation, and don’t fool yourself into thinking you are, Elven archer.
My hatred of immigration? Ah yes, everybody who doesn’t exactly agree with you and your view is a racist and hates immigration. Maybe you should tell my foreign-born wife?
No? It sure looks to me like every time a person dares to criticize any aspect of immigration, then instantly, according to this blog and its circle jerking commentators, that person is a bad bad racist.
My extreme anti-immigration stance? What’s so extreme about my stance? I think you’re a racist. You hate the Finnish elderly. You call defending their right to decent lives an empty argument. Why such extreme anti-elderly stance? Let’s face it, you’re a racist elderly hating nazi. That or mental illness.
honrigue
It really is impossible for you, isn’t it. Yet another absolute and yet another straw man. Not everyone who disagrees with me is in my view a racist. That’s those taken care of.
I feel really really sorry for your ‘foreign-born’ wife if this is your approach to an immigration debate. I can only assume that she is white, university-educated and from a Western country, and so has a ‘get out of jail free’ card on this issue in your eyes. God help her though, because what happens I wonder when she starts to tell you that perhaps Finland is a bit racist! I wonder how much you would listen to her. The way that you approach an argument, I dread to think what kind of communication problems will develop in your relationship. Good luck, you are going to need it.
And there is the absolute and the straw men, once again! 😀
You are here doing the circle jerk. From the word go, you have provided nothing except straw men, sarcasm, absolutes, and negative comments about ‘pro-immigrationists’, as well as obvious ‘prick tendencies’, and each time you have spewed your crap over the page, you have been met with some kind of counter-argument to your implied absolutes. You are not responding to any of the actual arguments that are made to you. And you introduced the term ‘bad bad racist’, no-one else.
I cannot see the moderators tolerating a troll like you for much longer, to be honest.
I think you answered your own question.
No, I call trying to make this an either/or argument involving the elderly in Finland as an empty argument. It’s emotive and completely dishonest, and I know that because I work in the field that researches this topic. In fact, it is the increasing number of practical nurses of immigrant background that are helping to provide those services you pretend to care about.
And yet another straw man.
In the following sentence.
Its whole point was to attack me, the person, instead of the context of my post. Thus, an ad hominem.
Honrigue
Is it possible for you to say something that is not a straw man or does not contain an absolute? Seems not.
As it is, it is clear you do NOT know what an ad hominem is. It should run thus, you are a total prick so therefore your argument must be false. That is an ad hominem. If I was to call you a total prick, whilst observing your obvious deficiencies in logic, decency and argumentation, then I am merely verbally abusing you. Whether that is justified is a matter of opinion.
And what on earth do you mean ‘the context of my post’? You mean the arguments that you think you made, which were not in fact arguments at all, but a series of statements expressing sarcasm, absolutes and a whole load of straw men. In fact, JD was entirely correct in pointing out that you were having a discussion with yourself, because no-one here holds the views that you are so eager to suggest belong to us.
You are like a child in the way you approach debate, and because of that, I really cannot force myself to assume that there is anything more to your opinions than prejudice covered up by hubris and bluster. Somewhere in amongst it, there may be a more serious argument to address, but you certainly haven’t articulated it yet, and I’m not going to waste my time doing it for you.
honrigue
How does the sentence that you just quoted attack you in any way? It indirectly asks you to explain how a remark that is not even implicitly an argument can possibly be an ad hominem. This is a natural question, given that the latter expression is merely an abridged form of the expression “ad hominem argument”. Is it your view that all simple queries asking you to explain yourself constitute arguments, and can therefore be ad hominem arguments, or is there something special about this particular simple query?
We do have another Farang on our hands here. Willful ignorance of the first order.
Without speculating too much on what might be going on in your thought processes, I might ask if you can distinguish the concepts of personal attack and ad hominem. What is the difference between them? A punch in the mouth is clearly a personal attack, but is it an ad hominem? A proposal seeking to promote friendly and constructive community relations might be rejected out of hand on ad hominem grounds when it comes from the convicted racist criminal Hahaa-lol, but (discounting the ability of this person to take offence at the slightest discomfit) does this rejection automatically constitute a personal attack? Similarly your views on Finnish immigration policy are quite evidently based on ignorance, but is any rejection of those views, in and of itself, an ad hominem?
I stand by my point: you clearly do not understand the meaning of ad hominem.
Mark, facts can not be denied.
You are unable to handle the reality-you must detest life!!!
Marco
I see.
We need more than facts. We need an adequate and reasonable explanation of those facts. Simply saying that unemployment is rising, so immigration must be bad, is not serving the facts. What kind of unemployment is it, does it affect specific sectors, will it affect the projected job-market demands that are expected to develop over the next twenty years? Is the unemployment phenomenon temporary, or are the long-term unemployment figures going up drastically? Is it a case of taking immigrants when we are doing well, but kicking them out when we start go into a recession?
There is no coherence or sensible debate coming from you, Marco. You just make this stupid claim about us not listening to ‘facts’, as if you have an automatic monopoly on truth. All I’ve seen is the typical cultural pessimism of your of common-and-garden racist who is in denial!
Gosh, not another one. You numpties really get off on this, don’t you? Sad.
I’ve having a great day, by the way! 😀