Tag: current-events

What PS MP aide Helena Eronen wrote about armbands for foreigners in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri 

Every month we’ve seen some sort of scandal coming from the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. In April, which is only eleven days old, we already got another one by an aide who suggested in a blog entry that foreigners should start using armbands to help police distinguish who is an immigrant and who is a Finn. 

Eronen was hired as PS MP James Hirvisaari’s aide in January. Hirvisaari, a hard-core  anti-immigration extremist, was fined in December by a court for hate speech.

The PS MP defended in a  new blog entry on Uusi Suomi Eronen’s writing.

Eronen suggested on her blog entry today that foreigners should start using sleeve badges in order to help the police figure out rapidly who is a foreigner and who is a Finn. Her blog entry was directed at the Ombudsman for Minorities, which accused today the police of ethnic profiling.

Her opinion piece was published around midday and was deleted by Uusi Suomi in the afternoon.

She writes: “If every foreigner were required to use an armband of his/her national background, the police could immediately spot whether that ‘aha, that is a Muslim from Somalia’ or ‘aha. that is a beggar from Romania.’ Muslims could [use sleeve badges] with a half moon…Russians [with] a hammer and sickle, Kampucheans could have field mines, a burger [could be used to distinguish] USAmericans…”

Eronen  appears to like her own suggestion so much that she envisions a ceremony taking place.  “…take for example if a refugee from Kurdistan would get permanent residency [in Finland], his red half moon would be changed for a blue-white half moon when he’d become a Finnish citizen… Think about what an important moment in that Kurd’s life [if he would exchange his red half moon for a blue-white half moon at some ceremony at Immigration Service]. It would enforce integration and would make Finnish and Finnishness an important goal [for every immigrant to attain].”

The parliamentary aide suggests that potential terrorist could wear chips under their skins to monitor their movements.

One of the matters that has raised concern in Finland has been the PS’ ties with neo-Nazi groups like the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta. There has been concern as well of PS MPs like Hirvisaari who belong to extremist associations like Suomen Sisu.

If you visit Eronen’s Facebook page and go to photos, you’ll find one where she is wearing an army-looking cap with a flower emblem. The edelweiss flower was used by a mountain commando division in Hitler’s army.

Finnish police accused of ethnic profiling

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A day after the police released a Somali who was under police custody for about seven months, the Ombudsman for Minorities expressed concern about ethnic profiling by the police, according to YLE. 

Rainer Hiltunen, the Minority Ombudsman’s head of office, said that he receives calls from foreigners who say they have been repeatedly questioned in the street by police. Some of those stopped are naturalized Finns and visible minorities.

The police deny any wrongdoing.

“If a person is stopped, they’re told why,” said Helsinki police inspector Jari Taponen, who denied hearing of any cases where people were not told why they were questioned by the police.

Helena Eronen, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s new aide, suggested in a column today that a good way to help the police to distinguish immigrants from Finns would be to oblige people to wear sleeve badges.

This kind of “satire” coming especially from a Hirvisaari aide is in pretty bad taste.

Hirvisaari was fined for hate speech in December.

I remember being stopped a long time ago by the Finnish police on the freeway from Porvoo to Helsinki. We were three “foreign-looking” men inside a Skoda driving home when Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Pavel visited Finland in 1991.

One of the questions that surprised me by the policeman when we were pulled over was if I was a Finnish citizen. I refused to answer the policeman’s question because I thought it had nothing to do with whatever I was being stopped.

After a semi-long tug-of-war with the policeman, I told him that I was a Finnish citizen. He then told me that I had been pulled over because one of my headlamps was out.

If that was the reason why he stopped me, what did that have to do with me being a Finnish citizen or not?

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from February 26, 1996

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.

The billboard below is a worrying example of what employees, officials and researchers face in Finland if they work with refugees or the immigrant community. The headline of the ad states in bold letters:  “Employees who work with refugees get death threats.” Sounds eerily familiar?

One common argument used by some to justify these types of death threats is that their grandparents fought against the former Soviet Union to preserve our independence. Even if they have never seen the horrors of wars, they are willing to instill terror in others in the most cowardly fashion: anonymously.

Some even state with bravado that they are over 120 years old. They ask our newest inhabitants if their relatives fought in the Civil War of 1918, Winter and Continuation War. I am pretty certain that if those that threaten other people’s lives anonymously ever had to defend this country, they’d be the first ones out of here.

Give me a break! Threatening people’s lives is as lowly as one can stoop! Did the veterans who fought for Finland defend this country so that some people could take the law in their hands and terrorize others? Certainly not!

*Migration Institute archive. 

How seriously should we take death threats in Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

How seriously should we take a person who threatens your life for what you write? What does he or she tell us about our society and should we expose that person’s threats? Will bringing to public light such threats strengthen or weaken our Nordic democracy and society?

I have worked as a foreign correspondent in countries that have seen their fair share of armed strife: the dirty war of Argentina (1976-83) and the over fifty-year civil war of Colombia. Even so, the only country where I had gotten death threats in Finland.

Contrary to Argentina and Colombia, the death threats that I got were for the same reason: exposing the dark side of our society, or racism.

The first death threats I got were in the early 1990s for writing an extensive report in Apu magazine on the reaction that a refugee center had caused in my hometown of Mikkeli. Fortunately, my daughter, who was about seven years old at the time, did not answer the phone. My wife did and the message she got was pretty straightforward: “Tell your husband that we will kill him if continues to write about Somalis [refugees].”

Another call I got because of that same story insulted me anonymously over the phone.

The latest death threat I got came in the fall after I published an opinion piece on Savon Sanomat in November. The handwritten note, which was put in our mailbox, insinuated that the column I wrote could “be dangerous for my health.”

Another case this month was by a person who is apparently very angry at Migrant Tales for disagreeing with his simplistic views of immigrants. He appears to be a regular visitor of the anti-immigration hate site, Hommaforum.

To give you an example of the level of harassment, he wrote an email to the whole staff of an institute where I have done research telling them how bad of a person I am and how he is going to sue me for slander.

He writes in the same email: “Correct the facts in an additional article [I wrote] in Suomen Kuvalehti accompanied by an apology on Migrant Tales to all your bloggers who you [and your friend’s associates] have targeted your INSULTS on. Make it detailed and quick or I will make the correction myself.”

One of the matters that all these threats have in common is that the those making them have  no respect for other people’s right to express themselves freely in our society.

But the question we should ask is what do we gain by exposing publicly such threats and demands?

We live in very peculiar political times. The fact that we have politicians in parliament that are openly hostile to immigrants and cultural diversity is a cause for concern.

Personally, I have never seen so much open hostility against immigrants and political chicanery in Finland as today. If we permit this type of behavior to be the norm in our society, we will relinquish and leave to chance the future of our Nordic democratic institutions and the values that have made us such a successful society today.

One of the greatest values we should defend tooth and nail is social equality for all or yhdenvertaisuus.

Those that attack our values and threaten us anonymously by taking the law into their hands should be exposed. By revealing their threats and the deranged world we allow ourselves to be reminded that we cannot take our Nordic way of life and society for granted.

Trolls come in many sizes and shapes in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I read an interesting blog entry on Iowa State Daily that gave a very good suggestion to the vicious racist stuff you find in the blogsphere: “Require identification for comments and monitor, monitor, monitor the trolls,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. “The blogosphere is full of trolls, and some write the most vicious things. Keep them out of mainstream media, and ignore them whenever you can.”

Even if this suggestion seems pretty sensible, we must take it a step further and ask why we must have an effective troll detector. The answer is simple: spreading vicious urban tales that are racist are more hostile than meets the eye.

While it is difficult to measure how much racism and suspicion hate forums like Hommaforum and Scripta fuel, it’s pretty clear that they do have an impact on some Finns’ prejudices. Maintaining these prejudices is synonymous with sidestepping and maintaining some people’s racist perceptions.

After taking part and reading over 21,700 comments on Migrant Tales, I could pretty confidently say that trolls have inhibited debate and effectively taken our eye off the ball, or the real issue, which is finding solutions to the social ill.

One of the most ludicrous claims by Internet trolls is that if their hate speech is censored we will be undermining an important civil liberty like free speech. Apart from being utter baloney it is one of the trolls’ many red herrings on the Internet.

Trolls aren’t always anonymous. If Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari ever took part in a discussion on Migrant Tales, there is a good chance that he’d never make it past our troll detector.

One of the favorite strategies of the trolls is to take an issue like racism and accuse the victim of being the racist or changing the argument around.

Trolls are a strange bunch that are constantly demanding to be treated as exceptions. They label whole ethnic groups like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho did today in Parliament with Eastern European Roma, but don’t like to be labelled themselves as far-right racists.

In many respects their arguments on the rights of immigrants and visible minorities in our societies resembles what was debated in many Latin American countries in the 1970s: Should we have a military or democratic government in power?

Can we ever “debate” and compromise those civil liberties guaranteed in our Constitution? Certainly not but this is what anonymous and real-name trolls are actually lobbying for.

In the spiteful and myopic world of people like Hirvisaari, the argument is not only hostile to certain ethnic groups but horrifying: We have the right to tear off the Muslim veil off women because we are looking after their rights.

These types of arguments commonly used by Finland’s far-right anti-immigration extremists are nothing more than red herrings. If you think that these people are looking after your civil rights, think twice.

If you disagree with what I am writing, pay a visit to Hommaforum and read the far-right Counter-Jihadist baloney on Halla-aho’s blog Scripta and you will see what I mean.

JusticeDemon has said in the past that we mustn’t feed the trolls on Migrant Tales.  True but we should see them like the famous warning on a pack of cigarettes: Trolls are hazardous to your mental health and may seriously distort your view of other groups.

 

Migrant Tales is a blog that accepts who we are where we are

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I sometimes wonder where I get the strength and inspiration to write at least one blog entry a day on Migrant Tales. It’s not that I have the luxury of giving 100% of my time to this blog because I have a job and a life as well.  Migrant Tales is a powerful voice because it is a hand-on-heart operation running on the fuel of passion for social justice and equality.

I am not the only one who has turned our blog into not-such-a-humble voice of our community. JusticeDemon, Mark, PeterofFinland, Eyeopener, D4R, Sasu, Jonas and many others have played a key role.

Contrary to what people think, I am a Finn with an international background.  Finland is my home sweet home.

I personally never knew it then but when I was a child briefly growing up in Helsinki between the end-1950s and early 1960s, there was a lot of racism that would single you out irrespective of your age and sex.

In order for my neighborhood friends to accept me, I had to fight my way with my fists. If I hadn’t challenged their initial prejudice towards me I would have never been accepted.

Fighting my way to acceptance was possible if the kids were of my age. There were older children that I could not defend myself against them because they attacked me as a group and were stronger than I. From them I ran away if they physically and verbally started to harass me when I was playing on the swings by myself.

There were complete strangers as well that would ridicule me in a cinema because I looked different from them. Some children would laugh along while others would watch with their silence.

All my life I grew up with a clear unwritten message from this society: I am not from here but you can stay with us as long as you don’t claim to be from here. Classifying you as a Finn is too complicated and would upset the order of things.

You may ask why did I choose Finland out of my two other homelands, the United States and Argentina? Because Finland was the most challenging and the hardest of the three where I’d be accepted.

There were many noble exceptions, however, to that rule. In the early 1970s, when I was spending my summer holiday with my grandparents in Mikkeli, I took part in a regional high jump competition. I won but there was a problem: I wasn’t a Finn.

After meeting and discussing the problem, they made a decision: I had won the competition and was recognized as the regional high jump champion.

My life in Finland has been a constant battle between acceptance and exclusion. Sometimes I have excluded myself with the full approval of society.

When the economic chips are down, it’s clear that you will get the short end of the stick because you have no claim to historicty.

In the early 1990s, when Finland was suffering from its worst recession in a century, I had written, among other topics, a lot about racism and refugee issues from countries like the former Soviet Union.  I was seen by some foreign ministry officials as a threat to this country’s international image. Some officials even complained directly to the publication.

Will I suffer the same type of persecution I did back in the early 1990s for what I wrote and defended?   Not as long as Migrant Tales and we exist.

We are a blog where I and many others have found strength to battle a social ill that raised its head in the April election. Even so, we are confident that our efforts and arguments will expose the ugliness of racism and social exclusion in our society.

Our blog has grown thanks to you because we have finally accepted who we are where we are.

Victim pays fine to attacker of racially motivated crime

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A story published by Kuopio-based Savon Sanomat* on Monday shows us how a racially motivated crime can lead to a conviction involving the victim. Thus this shows how the victim’s population group become part of the statistical profile. Anti-immigration groups then use the information to show a group’s “abnormally high propensity to violent crime.”

JusticeDemon makes a valid point: “Offences characterised by the use of excessive force in self-defence can only occur when self-defence is possible, i.e. when the offender has been attacked. It follows that any population group with a high propensity to victimhood will also have a disproportionately higher propensity to commit such offences.”

The story reports that in Iisalmi a dark-skinned woman, a native Finn, was attacked in public with a knife by a compete stranger. Fortunately nothing happened to the victim but the both of them ended up in a brawl in which the woman punched the aggressor in the face, for which she got slapped a 100 euro fine by a court.

The same man that attacked the woman earlier, attacked a dark-skinned security guard at a camp. He racially insulted the security guard and the women, who had paid him 100 euros for damages.

The man was finally convicted and sentenced by an Iisalmi court to a seven-month prison term.

*Thank you JusticeDemon for the heads up! 

Hijacking my picture and defaming me and Migrant Tales on the Internet (Part 3)

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

It has been a very busy weekend for Migrant Tales: defamation, insults and even a death threat from a forum called Ylilauta. The administrator, Tuomas Siitonen, visited our blog yesterday and  said he is not responsible for what has happened. Even if a typical Ylilauta blogger is eighteen years old and still living with his parents letting out steam on the Internet anonymously, there is a deeper issue at stake here.

Siitonen argues that since threads on Ylilauta disappear in a few hours or in days, the administrator isn’t responsible for what is written because it is a so-called megaboard.

I apologize for the racist content of the cartoon. An Argentinean Ylilauta blogger tells a Finnish one: You have my sword. Kill him. That “him” is me.  

Moreover, Siitonen stated on a thread Sunday:  “But why do we allow people insulting others and won’t censor it? Because we don’t believe that internet is serious business.”

One of the major problems I see with Siitonen’s argument is that nobody is responsible for what he or she says, especially Ylilauta that encourages unruly social media mobs to attack people anonymously. In the freedom of expression argument, he forgets the person who is being victimized and intimidated in the vilest manner.

As far as I see it, Ylilauta has declared war on  Migrant Tales and especially against me for expressing my opinions on the net.

Did we get attacked because of what we write and stand for on Migrant Tales (immigration, minority rights, integration, anti-racism, Finnish identity in the new century and other topics)? You make the conclusion.

By attacking and insulting us, Ylilauta destroys its whole defense in a second. What it does is reveal, however, is what it is: A place where anti-social behavior and racism thrive anonymously.

Certainly I have a pretty good idea what censorship is. As a journalist who has worked in a number of countries during the past 25 years, I have defended that right whenever it has come under threat. Self-censorship, which is possible through intimidation, is another threat that has popped up in front of me on many occasions.

One matter that I have learned as well is that when censorship comes knocking at your door you have no choice but to defend that very important right.

If I did nothing in the face of what happened to Migrant Tales and me, I would be responsible for encouraging this type of slander and anti-social behavior to continue. I would be like the majority turning a blind eye to a serious and ever-growing social problem inflicting Finnish society.

Why are Finland's politicians still so silent?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Have you heard anything from any government official never mind a politician being outraged by what happened in Oulu after Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman Tommi Rautio’s  infamous suggestion to decorate a cold-blooded killer? It took thirteen days for Rautio to finally get sacked from the PS. Few appear to be moved by the deaths, at least publicly. 

Taking into account that in a span of about three weeks there were three deaths involving people with immigrant backgrounds, not even Interior Minister Päivi Rässänen offered a word of sympathy for the Somali and immigrant community about the tragedy.

While it is wrong to state that the killings didn’t impact Finns, the media acted rapidly in reporting the event and condemning it on editorials.

The silence of our government and our politicians to such violence offers a good example why racism and prejudice roam freely. Does a Finnish Breivik have to appear and spread terror in our  society before we wake up alas to the threat that racism and xenophobia pose?

Let’s hope not.

Why are Finland’s politicians still so silent?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Have you heard anything from any government official never mind a politician being outraged by what happened in Oulu after Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman Tommi Rautio’s  infamous suggestion to decorate a cold-blooded killer? It took thirteen days for Rautio to finally get sacked from the PS. Few appear to be moved by the deaths, at least publicly. 

Taking into account that in a span of about three weeks there were three deaths involving people with immigrant backgrounds, not even Interior Minister Päivi Rässänen offered a word of sympathy for the Somali and immigrant community about the tragedy.

While it is wrong to state that the killings didn’t impact Finns, the media acted rapidly in reporting the event and condemning it on editorials.

The silence of our government and our politicians to such violence offers a good example why racism and prejudice roam freely. Does a Finnish Breivik have to appear and spread terror in our  society before we wake up alas to the threat that racism and xenophobia pose?

Let’s hope not.