Tag: Finland

Like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, like Timo Soini’s Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* starts to implode with third vice president Sebastian Tynkkynen demands that the populist anti-immigration party exits government, its self-destruction will not be caused by outside factors but from within. 

One guiding star of the PS is not only its inexperience but outright ignorance that shows us the ugly face of its racism.

Teuvo Hakkarainen, a PS lawmaker, said something incredible over the weekend as did Social and Health Minister Hanna Mäntylä of the same party. One said it outright while the other one said it indirectly.

Hakkarainen was quoted as saying in Oulu-based Kaleva that  international agreements and the Constitution hinder  the PS from realizing its policies.

Mäntylä, who has a fixed obsession against asylum seekers, proposed again that asylum seekers should be treated unequally before the law and should not have equal access to the law and social welfare.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Yes, you read right: Hakkarainen states that we should change the constitution and shelve international agreements to we can socially exclude and treat migrants as third-class citizens in Finland.

Continue reading “Like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, like Timo Soini’s Finland”

M. Blanc: Why immigrants are afraid to speak out in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: One of the worst things that one can do is to be intimidated by violence and threats. Such threats have become, unfortunately, a too often occurrence in Finland. Here is a rebuttal by M. Blanc. I raise my hate to him for having the courage and strength to write despite the flack he’s got. 

Read M. Blanc’s first opinion piece here. 
___________________

M. Blanc*

I wrote an piece about my experiences and stated the reasons why I have decided to leave Finland and how foreigners are treated by great number of Finns. I kept close track of how people reacted to what I wrote on Facebook and all of a sudden hundreds of foreigners were encouraged and agreed with my points and thanking me for speaking out. Of course there were those who started saying that I am the problem and I am lying to manipulate others. Some guy even compared me with Hitler!

I got a lot of messages from people that had been through the same things as I and they thanked me for sharing my experience. Last week, however, I started to get a lot of bullying and hate messages and they are still following me even though I have left Finland for good…

Now I realized why hardly any foreigner is speaking out in public because they are afraid and get so much pressure! I have received a lot of scary messages from Finns including one with a life threatening statement. I deleted all the messages from the people harassing me and soon will delete my account but I have a few screenshots in case I take legal action below.

I just don’t know what has happened to some people… Sometimes I feel life is worthless and there is no more reason to live when people are so ugly to each other like now… At least I wish I had never existed in this world for these people…

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Please explain, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, what does “Finland isn’t a racist country” mean?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Standing together with four other Nordic prime ministers, Juha Sipilä states that Finland isn’t a racist country, according to YLE in English. I’m a bit baffled by Sipilä’s statement. What does Finland “not being a racist country” actually mean? 

Is he saying that racism doesn’t exist? Does his claim mean that it’s under control? Does it mean that we have racism and the prime minister is ashamed by it?

Or is it denial that such a social ill is one of the biggest challenges we have as our society becomes ever-culturally diverse?

We don’t know because the statement doesn’t give us too many clues.

Sipilä also claimed at the press conference that all of the Nordic countries “are international, open and tolerant.”

Taking into account recent election results in Denmark and Finland, one could debate the prime minister’s claim.

The only prime minister at the press conference that could be considered “international, open and tolerant” is Stefan Lofven of Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland all have populist and anti-cultural diversity parties that could be described as “xenophobic, closed and intolerant.”

Who are they?  The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* of Finland, the Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party of Norway.

All three of these parties base their political support on anti-cultural diversity sentiment, excluding and victimizing migrants and minorities and encouraging that they be kept on short leashes.

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Read full story here.

Why have we seen in recent years the rise of populist parties in the Nordic region that are xenophobic and hostile to cultural diversity if we “are open, international and tolerant?”

Continue reading “Please explain, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, what does “Finland isn’t a racist country” mean?”

What the Finnish media leaves out in a story is an editorial line just like silence is a political decision

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Silence is a political decision. 

In journalism it works in the following manner: Silence is what you don’t report and intentionally leave out in the story. That is a policy decision, or an editorial line. 

As more asylum seekers come to Finland I try to remember what the media reported about the arrival of Somalis to Finland in the early 1990s. The reporting was disgraceful, unprofessional and outright racist.

No doubt about that.

The first time I ever got death threats in my life was in Finland, when I wrote about for Apu magazine a big story on a refugee center in Mikkeli.

When I reported this matter to the police in Helsinki, the matter that surprised me was how he played down what happened. He just wasn’t interested, He didn’t take what happened to me seriously.

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This 1994 billboard by tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reads: “Somalis got asylum by swindled the authorities.” Source: Migration Institute.

While the national media doesn’t show its racism like the billboard above, it’s reporting is below standard it is still “white” and opinionated. Too often it is a mouthpiece for racist comments by politicians and rarely does it ever challenge them.  

The most recent example of the above was YLE’s 8:30pm news Saturday. For some odd reason YLE reports the news about the demonstrations for and against asylum seekers as two extremes.

If we put that type of reporting into context and applied it to Britain you’d probably see the former Islamophobic English Defense League at one end and anarchists at the other.

In Finland the media incorrectly reports that those who are in favor or against asylum seekers are two extremes.

They’re not.

Continue reading “What the Finnish media leaves out in a story is an editorial line just like silence is a political decision”

Finnish government and the PS: Kid gloves and wishy-washy statements on asylum seekers and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There are a number of demonstrations planned today demanding that Finland shut its border to asylum seekers. What may surprise some is that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a party sharing power in government, is organizing some of these demonstrations like the one in Tornio, a town located next to the Swedish border, according to tabloid Iltalehti.

Racists have done wonders for Finland’s image abroad and these people in Tornio will reinforce that image.

As long a politicians continue to give wishy-washy statements on racism and as long as the media parrots this type of narrative the international media is our last hope. They will name and shame us into action.

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Demonstrations are becoming quite common in Finland due to the government’s wishy-washy stand on asylum seekers and racism.

If we are concerned about our international image we should take steps to challenge racism and outbursts of bigotry in this country thanks to parties like the PS.

Continue reading “Finnish government and the PS: Kid gloves and wishy-washy statements on asylum seekers and racism”

When a Finnish-language teacher loses respect for her foreign students

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What do you do if you are an asylum seeker that got a residence permit to stay in Finland and went to a Finnish-language course for a whole year? Everything is fine until you meet your first Finnish-language teacher who has no respect, never mind cultural sensitivity, for the your background and needs.

“She was not only a bad teacher but cruel,” said the Somali woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “She made me cry all the time. When I asked help from her she’d say that I had to pay more attention to her in class. I have never met such a bad teacher in Finland.”

somalit

Most of the students in the class were Muslims and as everyone knows some of them pray five times a day.

“The teacher wouldn’t allow us to step out of class to pray for five minutes,” she continues. “She said that if I stepped out to pray I’d be marked as absent from the class.”

We studied Finnish 3-5 hours a day.

Continue reading “When a Finnish-language teacher loses respect for her foreign students”

PS Ville Moisanen of Finland shows us the surreal yet ugly side of anti-Semitism and racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Can you believe this type of reasoning from a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilman from Sysmä, Ville Moisanen, who posted and removed two pictures on Facebook that insulted Jews, millions of victims of the Holocaust and a black woman posing with members of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Are you ready for his explanation? Grab on to something because you may fall flat on your backs.

Moisanen writes:

“Let’s make one matter clear. I posted a picture and other published stuff as a PRIVATE PERSON, not as a member of A PARTY, and didn’t represented anyone else. It’s totally in vain to bring in the PARTY in this matter. It’s totally a joke to mix the party in this. This can be shared. “

Hold your horses Ville Moianen. You showed pictures of Hilter about gasing Jews and Ku Klux Members about to lynch a black person…

If this is your “personal opinion” and “private stuff” it’s clear that you haven’t understood the point: What you did is utterly racist and sick irrespective if you did it as a private person or representing a party like the PS.

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The PS councilman from Sysmä now states that what he published was his private opinion and had nothing to do with the party he belongs to.

Continue reading “PS Ville Moisanen of Finland shows us the surreal yet ugly side of anti-Semitism and racism”

PS councilman of Finland posts pictures on Facebook of Hitler and Ku Klux Klan clansmen ready to lynch a black woman

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri  photoshop Hamid Alsaameere

Ville Moisanen is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilman from a small town near Lahti called Sysmä who posted anti-Semitic and racist pictures on Facebook, according to Heinola-based daily Itä-Häme. Apparently inspired by Finland’s Ku Klux Klan impersonator.

The councilman removed the pictures but not fast enough for Itä-Häme to publish a story about them the next day.

It would be wishful thinking to believe that what happened in Lahti on Friday and most recently in Sysmä were coincidences.  They were not coincidences but are the poisonous fruits that the PS and its racist cronies use to attack our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse community.

Migrant Tales wrote Monday:

“The person who was dressed like a Ku Klux Klan member was a 19-year-old man from the region of Päijäthäme but I disagree. He was Timo Soini’s and his populist anti-immigration party’s ogre.

Soini should remember that racism is like an angry rabid dog. Xenophobic politicians like him walk these dogs on short leashes. The dog attracts a lot of attention but it’s unpredictable because it can bite its owner, and hard.”

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In the picture on the right Hitler tells students at his cooking school that the first thing one must do is turn on the gas. The other picture, on the left, shows a smiling black woman smiling with three Ku Klux Klan members about to lynch a smiling black woman who says, “I came to Lahti and I immediately found white friends.”

Continue reading “PS councilman of Finland posts pictures on Facebook of Hitler and Ku Klux Klan clansmen ready to lynch a black woman”

The Finnish Ku Klux Klan impersonator was really Timo Soini’s and the Perussuomalaiset’s ogre

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri photoshop Hamid Alsaameere

When racism lifts its head in Finland Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman and foreign minister, Timo Soini, usually gives us a lesson in denial: “We’re not racists.”

The historic victory of the populist party in 2011 was only possible thanks to its anti-immigration and Islamophobic message. Without polarizing “them” against “us” the PS wouldn’t exist or would be a very small party today.

But thanks to Soini’s leadership he has given a voice to racist politicians like the late Tony Halme, Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Laura Huhtasaari, Juho Eerola and many others like Olli Immonen.

The person who was dressed like a Ku Klux Klan member was a 19-year-old man from the region of Päijäthäme but I disagree. He was Timo Soini’s and his populist anti-immigration party’s ogre.

Soini should know that racism is like an angry rabid dog. Xenophobic politicians like him walk these dogs on short leashes. The dog attracts a lot of attention but it’s unpredictable because it can bite its owner, and hard.

We saw that in Norway four years ago when Anders Breivik murdered 77 people and last Friday in Lahti when a Ku Klux Klan impersonator appeared and his picture was top news in many newspapers around the globe.

Racism is an unpredictable ogre that always surprises you.

SoiniKKK-1

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

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