Tag: Anders Breivik

Migrant Tales (July 22, 2012): What have we learned after Norway’s 22/7

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What goes around comes around.

Exactly a year ago (2012) Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?

In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that day.

In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.

Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xjVD0ztWaKA

In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.

Everything changed, however, after July 22.

The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, theDanish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.

Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.

In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.

A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party.  Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.

The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself  after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.

Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.

The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.

In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?

Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.

But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.

Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?

If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain:  We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.

Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are  copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.

Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.

That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.

Migrant Tales (July 22, 2012): What have we learned after Norway’s 22/7 and the Boston bombings?

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Comment: As the manhunt for one of the two suspects continues in Boston, what should our reaction be to the two Chechen killers? This blog entry written on the first anniversary of the horrific killings in Norway by Anders Breivik could shed light on that question.

____________________

What goes around comes around.

Exactly a year ago Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?

In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that  day.

In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won ahistoric election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.

Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xjVD0ztWaKA

In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.

Everything changed, however, after July 22.

The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, theDanish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.

Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.

In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.

A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party.  Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.

The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself  after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.

Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.

The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.

In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?

Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.

But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.

Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?

If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain:  We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.

Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are  copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.

Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.

That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.

The Boston bombings reveal a deadlier blowback

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I was shocked to hear about the twin bombs in Boston and my heart goes to the victims. Two days after the incident, however, speculation has been rife about the probable ethnicity of the perpetrator. The eerie silence of the killer suggests that this was probably carried out individually.  

Kuvankaappaus 2013-4-17 kello 10.16.30

The latest story on the Boston Globe reveals no clues on who the killers could be.

Anupreet Sandhu Bhamra, a Canadian journalist who has published on Migrant Tales, read the following tweet after the bombings: ”Oh God, please, let it not be a Muslim.”

The sense of dread that was mentioned in the tweet was felt by the small visible immigrant community in Finland after we learned about the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme on February 28, 1986.

I too hoped that the assassin that killed Palme isn’t an immigrant.

Not only was anti-immigration sentiment in Finland a fact of life back then, it was alive and kicking despite the fact that only 0.3% of the population (17,039 people) were immigrants.

Initial media coverage of the Boston tragedy revealed that US authorities suspected the killer to be a man who spoke with an accent. That man turned out to be a Saudi Arabian man who was later released by officials.

While the bombings were a cowardly act, the blowback from it proves even more devastating by revealing our prejudices and hatred of other groups.

You may have initially asked who could commit such a heinous crime in the US? It couldn’t be a white man, right?

The bombings raise an important question: If labeling, victimizing and generalizing of different groups are wrong, why do we persist in doing so?

The answer to that question should reveal the role that racism plays in our society and why the battle against this social ill is halfhearted.

Bhamra writes: ”The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack in downtown Oklahoma on April 19, 1995. Initial news stories were quick to wrongly suggest Islamic terrorists were behind the attack. As a result, Muslims and people of Arab descent were attacked. Later, when the suggestions turned out to be incorrect and the suspect turned out to be a White man, the racial framework was quickly and conveniently dropped.”

On July 22, 2011, we suffered a similar tragedy when Anders Breivik went on the rampage in Norway and killed in cold blood 77 innocent victims. In the same way that initial coverage in Oklahoma pointed the finger at Muslims, some thought that the killer in Norway to be a Middle Easterner as well.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg showed exceptional leadership as Norway was mourning its victims. Contrary to Washington’s reaction to 9/11, the Norwegian prime minister said that his country’s response to the mass killings will be more openness and more democracy. According to him, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.

Another tragedy that we are witnessing after 22/7 is how the media, politicians and public are collectively forgetting what Breivik did never mind its causes, which haver their roots in Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment.

While racism is an effective tool to divide and conquer other groups, we should never forget that it is a rabid dog on a short leash that can bite back and hard at its master.

Migrant Tales Literary: The racist and his rabid dog

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By Leo Honka 

The racist shows off

his rabid dog

on a short leash

footsteps and gleaming eyes

speak of  satisfaction

on the pavement and media attention

thanks to his rabid dog.

Like flies on flypaper

struggling to survive

the racist too owns a rabid dog.

On a short leash he walks, walks

but doesn’t know

the true nature of the beast

that knows no master

and can bite back, hard

like Anders Breivik.

What should we do!?

A racist and his rabid dog

in our midst and on our streets!

Send them both to the municipal racist pound!

Give them a shot of tolerance,  a possible cure!

So the racist

will no longer show off his rabid dog

on a short leash.

 

Finland’s response to extremism should be more openess and democracy

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An editorial on Thursday’s Helsingin Sanomat comments about Anjem Choudary’s visit to Finland last week. It points out correctly that hate speech should be condemned irrespective who makes it. Living in a culturally diverse society requires more mutual acceptance, not less acceptance and respect.

Some of the controversial statements made by the cleric was that it was only a question of time when the flag of Islam would be waving on our parliament building. It was an interesting coincidence that on the same day of Choudary’s visit, Image magazine exposed a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman from Vaasa who gave a clock with Adolf Hitler and swastikas to a neo-Nazi club in that city.

Which of the two are the greatest danger to our democracy? Choudary or the Vaasa councilman who appears fascinated by a dictator who dragged Europe into World War 2, unleashing mass war that claimed an estimated 60 million lives?

How seriously should we take Choudary’s threats? If we react to them violently by censoring them, or as PS youth leader Simon Elo suggested that the cleric should be banned from coming to Finland, we’d do a favor to their causes.

It’s unfortunate that too many editorials like the one in today’s Helsingin Sanomat sideline the big picture: Why does radical Islam exist? If we look at the West’s colonial history with the Arab World as well as in other parts of the world, there are a lot of arguments and grievances to justify radicalism. Even so, our democratic system offers us the opportunity to challenge and correct those past and present injustices.

Just like radical Islam, we have to look at the causes of far right and right-wing populist anti-immigration sentiment in Europe these days. On this front, we have a lot of historical and sociological information on their causes. One of the most frightening of examples is the rise and fall of Nazi Germany.

We were horrified by 9/11 but some of us were even more alarmed by our reaction to it.  Former President George W. Bush’s so-called war on terror fueled greater radicalization among Muslims. If anything, the attack on the WTC Twin Towers showed the United States as a perpetrator of violence and not as a victim of terrorism.

Our reaction to terrorism and radicalism should be the total opposite to Bush’s. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg showed the way after Norway was mourning 77 victims murdered in cold blood by Anders Breivik. Contrary to Washington’s reaction after 9/11, the Norwegian prime minister said that his country’s response to the mass killings will be more openness and more democracy.

We must be on our guard against those politicians and groups that demand less democracy during these difficult times, when far right anti-immigration radicalism is raising its head throughout Europe.  What is especially worrying is that such opinions are being echoed by the mainstream media as well.

Could Finland and the Nordic region see Golden Dawn-like fanatics in the future?

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The news from Greece is getting more distressing as Golden Dawn neo-Nazi thugs continue to terrorize sensible Greeks, immigrants and other minorities with the collusion of the police. An investigative report by The Guardian exposes how bad things are in Greece at present and why matters will get far worse. Could we see something similar happening in Finland and the Nordic rgion? 

Kuvankaappaus 2013-4-1 kello 23.52.15 A policeman wearing a Golden Dawn t-shirt under his uniform. See original post here.

Writes the Independent of London: “Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities, and world governments appear frighteningly relaxed about it as long as the Greek people continue to pay off the debts of the European elite.”

For a person who saw military dictatorships come and go in Latin America in the 1970s like I did, the ever-worsening situation in Greece  is a cause for concern.

The fact that up to 50% of the police is some districts of Greece voted for Golden Dawn, shows how volatile and dangerous the situation is in that country. Taking into account that many Greeks have lost confidence in their rulers and democracy, a blow to the credibility of the police is another straw on the camel’s fragile back.

Migrant Tales wrote in September about the round up of 16,836 foreign nationals were brought for questioning  during the first month that Xenios Zeus was instigated. Xenios Zeus means “god of hospitality” in Greek.

Here’s one recent case of those many beatings taking place in Greece daily by Golden Dawn thugs and the police on I can’t relax in Greece blog.

Just like the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the same is going in many parts of Europe and especially in Greece. Apart from Jews, refugees, immigrants, gays and Muslims are the new scapegoats.

While we erroneously believe in scapegoating the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society because they have no political and economic power, we will end up the losers. How? By watering down and putting into cold storage our civil rights to deal first with imagined menace x and then menace y.

The political culture in the Nordic region is different from Greece. Even so, it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have our own Nikolaos Michaloliakos running amuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4AXJx3IzdY

While some far-right politicians may not speak like Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos, they hold the same thoughts on immigration, minorities and anything too foreign or non-European for their tastes.

Without a doubt, one of Michaloliakos’ political soul mates in a Nordic context is Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish People’s Party (DDP). Other ones include the Suomen Sisu faction of the Perussuomalaiset (PS): Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola and other hardliners, who are openly neo-fascists or flirt with neo-fascism.

Taking into account the election successes of anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region before, there was one person that stopped them on their heels for the time being: Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 victims on his crusade to save Europe from Muslims.

With the economic crisis worsening and the election victories of anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region before 22/7, parties like the DDP, Progress Party of Norway, Sweden Democrats and the PS would have been riding the crest of a wave of popularity.

Without Breivik, they would today reveal their same racist arrogance in the same way as the Golden Dawn does in Greece.

The attack by neo-Nazis of a book event on the far right in Jyväskylä in January, the rise in hate crimes in 2011, police indifference to racism, the political rise of the Perussuomalaiset in the 2011 election are just a few signs that matters are heating up in this part of Europe as well.

 

Sweden convicts Peter Mangs for Malmö immigrant murders

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A Malmö District Court convicted Peter Mangs, 40, of two counts of murder and four attempted murders, according to the Guardian. The man, who is a Swede of Finnish descent, killed his first victim in 2003 and terrorized Malmö during 2009-10. All of his victims were immigrants.

Mangs will undergo psychiatric evaluation before his sentencing in early September.

Writes the New York Times in May: “And although the scale of the accusations are nothing like the charges against Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian on trial in Oslo for the systematic killings of 77 people last year in a crusade against multiculturalism, the parallels have not been lost on residents here in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city and one of its most diverse.”

Prosecutor Solveig Wollstad was quoted as saying on Iltalehti that Mangs destroyed many people’s lives.

“He carried out his crimes in a cold-hearted manner without feelings [for the victims],” he said. “His aim was to shoot immigrants.”

Migrant Tales (July 25, 2011): Living in post-22/7 Europe

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It is ironic that those right-wing populist and far-right parties that have gone out of their way to warn us about the threat of multiculturalism and religions like Islam have become the threat and Trojan Horses in our societies. In one horrific blow, Anders Behring Breivik did not only strike at Norway’s liberal democracy, but tore a hole in the argument of the anti-immigrant populists and fanatics.

In the Nordic region, living in a post-22/7 Europe and Nordic region means a serious loss of public face for those groups that have been the breeding ground for hatred towards immigrants and minorities. We know as well that Islamists are not the only ones who commit acts of terrorism, as the Guardian of London pointed out.

When these groups warn us today of the “threat of multiculturalism” and how it is acceptable to treat minorities with contempt, a killer called Anders Behring Breivik will haunt us in the back of our minds.

Every time these individuals and groups spread their usual rhetoric of hatred, we will stop to think and see Breivik’s eerie arguments and logic that drove him to become a mass killer.

When people go to the polls the next time in this part of Europe, some will see gruesome images of Breivik shooting down young members of the Labor Party. People will think twice whether to cast their vote for the Progress Party of Norway, Finland’s PS, Danish People’s Party and  Sweden Democrats.

They will ask if supporting a party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric is feeding future homegrown terrorism.

Possibly what happened on 22/7 will be a wake-up call for these parties to think about the impact their provocative claims not only have on immigrants but on deranged people like Breivik.

Matters have changed a lot in post-22/7 Europe.

See original story here. 

Pepper spay attack against gay-pride event in Oulu, Finland

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What kind of worlds live inside the heads of people who make political statements by attacking an event like North Pride, a sexual-diversity festival organized through Sunday in the northern Finnish city of Oulu?  

Writes YLE in English: “A discussion event in Oulu on the situation of gay asylum seekers was the target of a pepper spray attack that led one speaker to be hospitalized on Thursday evening.”

The hospitalized speaker was Left Alliance blogger and city councillor hopeful Dan Koviulaakso, who was rushed to hospital after an attacker pepper sprayed his face.

“It was no doubt a strategic attack against us as we oppose the persecution of gay, bi and transgender people. We’re against far-right extremists and racists,” said Left Alliance Oulu city councillor Juha Tapio,  adding that security would need to be stepped up in the coming days.

Apart from condemning such an attack, it is a sad example of how intolerance roams freely our streets and mocks at our civil liberties and democratic institutions. The consequences of the attack become more ominous if we consider that on Sunday it’ll be a year after Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway.

Two tragic deaths of Muslims took place in Oulu this year as well.

Far-right anti-immigration/anti-minority groups should know that intolerance has no master. Nobody can control it if you let it out of the cage. It can bite back hard as we saw happen in Norway on July 22.

Finnish MPs, Jani Toivola (Green Party) and Silvia Modig (Left Alliance), are the official patrons of the event.

 

What is the fine line that separates Anders Breivik and PS MP Olli Immonen?

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This week we heard Anders Breivik’s closing statements in his defense for killing 77 innocent victims. In his final tirade of how multiculturalism is responsible for fuelling the Islamization of Europe, the mass killer showed no remorse.

“The attacks on July 22 were preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people,” he said. “I therefore demand to be acquitted.”

In a recent column, Perussuomalaiset party MP Olli Immonen writes at the same time as the Breivik trial is ongoing:  “…it is clear that current developments [concerning Islamization] will lead to a situation where our Western way of life in Finland and elsewhere in Europe will be threatened. The confrontation between Islamic and Western culture is one of the megatrends of this century.”

Shivers went up my spine when I read both quotes. While they convey the same message, there is a  difference: Breivik went on a killing rampage while Immonen didn’t.

The Norwegian mass killer uses Islamization to justify what he did; Immonen uses the same arguments but to attract media attention and, crucial to his political career, future votes. One is being tried in a courtroom for mass murder while the other is in parliament spreading Breivik’s Counter-Jihadist views.

In many respects, the debate revolving around whether Breivik is insane or not when he carried out the killings speaks volumes about how we want to continue seeing ourselves as a people and society irrespective of 22/7.

The question is an exceptionally tough one: Are Breivik’s thoughts “sane” but what he did “insane?” In other words, is it ok to spread hatred, racism and prejudice of other groups as long as you don’t take the law in your hands and start killing people?

If Breivik were Immonen and Immonen, Breivik, the verdict would be clear: Breivik would be “sane” and Immonen “insane.”

In light of what happened, we should ask some serious questions. One of these is what kind of society do we want to live in. Is it one where we consider racism “sane” but becomes “insane” if you are a racist that murders other people? Or one where all forms of racism and prejudice by anyone or any group are unacceptable?

Shouldn’t both cases, the sane and the insane racist, be equally condemned by society?