In the face of the humanitarian refugee crisis that we are seeing today in Europe, some leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel are offering leadership while others are frozen with indecision and indifference.
Tag: European Union
Systemic disenfranchisement of migrants and minorities in Europe
One important question that doesn’t appear to bother too many politicians is why migrant voter turnout in Europe is so low. In the 2012 municipal elections of Finland, 20% of eligible migrants voted compared with 18.6% in 2008. This is a far cry from 59.5% and 62.2% of Finnish citizens that voted in such elections,…
Death of Colombian in police custody in Finland sheds light on the desperate plight of many undocumented migrants
The tragic death* of a twenty-six-year-old Colombian should awaken us to the many dangers that some undocumented migrants face in Europe. According to the Finnish police, Sergio Camilo Becerra González, committed suicide while his parents suspect he was a victim of xenophobia, according to Caracol. Both outcomes, death by suicide or xenophobia, are harrowing reminders…
Racism tells you over and over again: don’t bite the hand that feeds you
Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. E.B. White (1899-1985), USAmerican writer Being an immigrant and Other all my life, researching and especially writing about racism regularly, or daily for the past three-and-a-half years, have taught me a thing or two about this social ill. Some may ask why…
Marine Le Pen fails to form the far-right European Alliance for Freedom
There was great news today when we read that far-right Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders failed to form a European Parliamentary group called the European Alliance for Freedom (EAF)., reports the euobserver. After the gains that the far-right made in the Euro elections of May, Migrant Tales welcomes Le Pen’s and Wilders’ failure to form…
The PS of Finland makes its post-election debut in the European media with labels like “xenophobic,” “far right” and “MEPs with criminal records”
It has been quite a rough two weeks for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party after the May 25 EU parliamentary elections: accusations of being far-right in the company of neo-Nazi parties like the Golden Dawn of Greece; and speculation by a senior Finnish official in the Financial Times that it was unlikely that the PS would…
The political record and chicanery of the PS of Finland is what has estranged so many voters from politics
While some are still scratching their heads about the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* joining the European parliament’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group this week, it shows why so many voters have become estranged from politics. Read full story here. Before the historic 2011 parliamentary elections for the PS, when 39 of its MPs got elected…
Financial Times: Finnish and Danish MEPs “with criminal records” join Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s group
While some speculated that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and the Danish People’s Party (DPP), both with MEPs with criminal records, would be given the cold shoulder by UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, the opposite happened, writes the Financial Times. The two MEPs with criminal records are PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho…
Counterpoint: How to compare European populist parties
There’s been a lot of talk as of late in the media about far-right and populist parties that were elected to the European parliament. One way to assess these parties is a chart by Counterpoint, a research group. Gathering from the chart below, European populist parties are mostly racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and sexist. Their democratic…
Migrant Tales insight on EU elections: Win some, lose some
As the political dust settles after the Euro elections last Sunday, can we claim like the media that the hard right made important gains? How did anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* of Finland fare compared with the previous elections in 2009? Apart from the UKIP and National Front of France’s impressive…