Enrique Tessieri
|
Valokuvanäyttely kertoo Suomessa asuvien maahanmuuttajien unelmista ja toiveista uudessa kotimaassaan.
Avoinna arkisin ma–pe 9–20, la 9–16.
Enrique Tessieri’s photography exhibition of some of the dreams and hopes that immigrants may have in their new homeland.
Open Mon–Fri from 9 am to 8 pm, Sat from 9 am to 4 pm.
Fotografiutställning av Enrique Tessieri om några invandrares drömmar och önskemål beträffande sitt nya hemland.
Öppet vardagar må-fr 9–20, lö 9–16.
By Enrique Tessieri
The biggest shock on April 17 was that Finns woke up to the reality that a large minority (19.1%) had radical views on issues like the EU, immigration and nationalism. A poll published on Friday showed that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party continues to be the biggest in Finland. What does it say about the present state of Finland?
The PS, or that closed and angry group of people clenching their fists and yelling damn the devil/everything (!), or perkele saatanas (PS), are a belated fruition of decades of living under the shadow of the Soviet Union during the cold war. That period fuelled if anything our sense of isolation and mistrust of the outside world.
The PS are as well a reminder to us of the deep state of denial Finns have lived in when looking at our history. By erasing our cultural and ideological diversity we ended up creating a very narrow and deaf view of ourselves. Even if the Winter and Continuation War ended in 1940 and 1944, respectively, we are still fighting in those trenches with our nationalism and suspicion of the outside world.
In light of this, it should not come to any surprise that the PS’ reaction to the economic crisis in Europe is fear. The prescription is simple: blame the “elitist” EU, immigrants, in particular Muslims, for our problems and bring back the good old times of black-and-white television sets and when analyzing the world was a simple mathematical formula: 1 + 1 = 2.
The fear-mongering spread by the PS appears to have no limits. Just like some people thought back in the fifteenth century that the world was flat, too many have the same perception of society and other groups today. Even if the Internet opened up the world to us, it has done little to question our prejudices but found a large audience and a home for them.
One of the most “society-is-flat” statements I heard was last month by a prominent PS politician of Mikkeli, who claimed on a letter to the editor to Länsi-Savo that if the EU ever became a federation, the Finns, Finnish culture and langauge would disappear from the face of the map.
“The (implementation) and the development of the EU into a federation will in time mean the death of the Finnish people (as a group), language and culture in the same way that happened to other Finnish-speaking groups (in Russia) like the Mari, Vatjas and Veps,” the PS politician writes. “I value my fatherland and my culture so much that I don’t want the same to happen (to us).”
What is incredible about this affirmation is that it was not only published by the local paper after what happened in Norway, but that the writer compares small Fenno-Ugric groups in Russia and Latvia with the over five-million Finns that live in Finland. In a later letter to the editor, the PS politician bestows more of his “foresight” on us by claiming that higher birth rates among Muslims are a threat because they will force white Europeans to become a minority in their continent.
The apocolyptic-like prediction of a “Muslim takeover” is very similar to what far-right groups in the US have been predicting a long time. The American Nazi Party, for example, sees an all-out “race war” taking place because whites are becoming a minority in their own country.
Finland and the rest of Europe are embarking on a perilous path if they allows fear to get the best of them. Parties like the PS show sadly that that is the path Finland and Europe should take.
The big test for Europe will, however, come in the years ahead. It will hinge on how we react to the financial crisis and who we blame for our problems.
Comment: Anders Behring Brevik imagined the defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 as an important date to mark the war that Europe will wage in the twenty-first century against the Muslim takeover.
Writes the New York Review of Books: “It is unsurprising that what Breivik has to say about European history is trivial. The plagiarism of his manifesto recalls Hannah Arendt’s point that those who do great evil may themselves be incapable of cultural creation. The superficiality of his worldview recalls her notion that the greatest of evils has no roots, and therefore has no bounds.”
There is no such thing as selective hatred or xenophobia. That is only a pipe dream. If you are on the war path against one group, everyone is involved. One of the big issues and challenges in Europe as it races into the depths of the new century is accepting and learning to live with its cultural diversity.
“One twentieth-century solution, exemplified by Nazi Germany, was to attempt to build state power by eliminating the diversity,” writes The New York Review of Books “. This involved racist mass murder, and it also brought failure; failure that Breivik’s mass murder recalls both in its barbarity and in its self-destructiveness.”
If denial of who we are gets the best of us, what will it imply for Europe? Economic decline? Ever-growing social problems? The rise of the far right? Loss of civil rights? War?
_____________
Timothy Snyder
In Anders Breivik’s manifesto, the ostensibly Christian defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 is the central historical event. He imagines a European rebirth in 2083, four hundred years later, and names the Polish king Jan Sobieski, whose troops were crucial to raising the Ottoman siege, as one of his heroes: “John III Sobieski and the Holy League successfully defended Europe against an army of more than 150,000 Muslims.” Breivik thinks Europe today is again under siege from Muslims, and that Europeans must resort to “atrocious, but necessary” violence to defend it.
By Enrique Tessieri
While the term multiculturalism means many things to many people and groups, Finland is not officially a multicultural country. Nowhere in our laws will you find that magic adjective, multicultural. But taking that big leap from the perception of being a monolithic ethnic society from one that is multicultural like Canada is a tall order for any country. Even so, Finland needs today best practice models and values that promote and encourage inclusion and acceptance of our ever-growing cultural diversity.
For far-right Couner-Jihadists like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho and his followers, multiculturalism is a left-wing policy that facilitates the entry of Muslims and non-European immigrants like Africans to this continent. For Migrant Tales, multiculturalism is a Canadian social policy to integrate immigrants.
There are only three countries in the world that are officially multicultural, according to Peter Kivisto. These are: Canada, Australia and Britain.
A good synonym for multiculturalism is cultural diversity.
When looking at Finland in the twenty-first century, one of the biggest challenges facing us now is how to make cultural diversity work and how to raise that magic word, acceptance, to the same level of importance as equality (tasa-arvo).
While there are a lot of good intentions and real efforts in Finland to foster greater acceptance of our growing cultural diversity, many are still much in the fog about the big picture. The PS, which uses the Nuiva manifesto as its benchmark for immigration policy, is in my opinion the furthest from a successful integration policy because it is based on assimilation.
Defined in the simplest way possible, assimilation is one-way integration. Another reason why the Nuiva manifesto would be a failure if ever implemented is that it only expresses the subjective views of a small group of people, who are anti-immigration to start with, on how they’d want immigrants to adapt to Finland.
Since the world has changed radically from 1917, when Finland became an independent nation, langauge, surname as well as physiological features played key roles in forging the Finnish prototype.
No matter what your background was after independence, everyone was essentially accepted as a Finn as long as that person was white, practiced an accepted religion like the Lutheran faith, spoke one or two of the official languages and had a Finnish, Swedish or Germanic surname. Acceptance happened by erasing one’s foreigness.
Historical circumstances, however, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II and the Cold War discouraged newcomers from moving to Finland. This forced the foreign population to drop to 7,000 by around 1970.
Can the same model that was used in the 1920s and 1930s to mold Finns work in the 2010s? I don’t think so and if ever applied it would have a limited impact.
One good model that could work would be based on three premises: mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.
Acceptance means accepting a group’s or individual’s right to lead the lifestyle he or she prefers. One of the greatest matters about our society, and which we have fought for so long, are civil liberties and equality.
Chapter 2 Section 6 of the Constitution sums it up well: No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person. Children shall be treated equally and as individuals and they shall be allowed to influence matters pertaining to themselves to a degree corresponding to their level of development.
In many respects, and in line with the spirit of our laws, society should be like a clothing store. Instead of purchasing clothes we can try out and use different lifestyles that suit us the best at that moment in life.
Mutual acceptance is a key factor for that clothing store to succeed and respect further icing on the cake of acceptance. For the latter to occur we must have equal opportunities to access employment and education in order to make our dreams/lifestyles possible.
If we want in Finland to get a view of the big picture of immigration, it must look way past petty debates like if immigration is good or bad. We have to implement models that foster “us” as opposed to “them.”
The society that will do that successfully is based on mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.
Comment: Here is an analysis of a popular website, Hommaforum, which has come under police scrutiny especially after the tragic events that hit Norway on July 22. Contrary to Migrant Tales, which is open to a wide range of views, Hommaforum is seen as a closed group where bloggers feed off each other and “easily morph into hermetically-sealed echo chambers of like-minded individuals, leaving no oxygen for debate.”
HS continues: “The development is a dangerous one, since it facilitates and accelerates the formation of cliques and blocs within society and actually weakens the dialogue between people who are of differing opinions.”
Apart from Hommaforum, another popular anti-immigration blog is Scripta run by Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Jussi Halla-aho.
_______________
By Joonas Laitinen
The shocking mass murder in Norway on July 22nd has prompted a great deal of discussion within Finland about the Internet and about the hate-speech that emanates from some quarters of it.
By Enrique Tessieri
Ever wonder why immigrants and minorities are seen as outsiders in Finland with no history? Why do the majority of Finns, when speaking of these groups, usually talk in the present and future tense but rarely in the past tense? What are they really saying when they deny that racism isn’t a major problem in Finland?
Some like Perussuomalaiset Party (PS) MP Reijo Tossavainen, one of PS MP Jussi Halla-aho’s staunch defenders, are a good example of how Finland’s most anti-immigration party deals with the “foreign question.”
In his latest blog entry on Uusi Suomi, Tossavainen disagrees with President Tarja Halonen that racism is one of the biggest challenges together with the economy for the government.
Tossavainen, who suggested earlier this year that Finland should effectively shut its borders to asylum-seekers, sees Halonen’s words as an attack voting judgement of a half a million of Finns.
I am always amazed in Finland on how some PS politicians like Tossavainen, who are white and come from small towns like Savitaipale, are the first ones who claim that racism isn’t a major problem in this country.
Stating that racism isn’t a major problem in light of what happened in Norway is as ridiculous as affirming that alcoholism isn’t a major issue in Finland. Certainly racism isn’t a major problem for Tossavainen because he is white and a Finn.
Even so, Tossavainen’s affirmation is more revealing than what meets the eye. By denying that racism is a major problem he is effectively saying that we have so few immigrants and minorities in this country that we don’t have to deal with them. Since they don’t effectively exist, they cannot place any demand on us.
That is Tossavainen’s message in the raw: there is no problem I deny you exist.
By Enrique Tessieri
President Tarja Halonen was quoted as saying on YLE that the government is facing two challenges after it returns from its summer holiday: the economy and racism. Her advice was calm, patience and not allowing hate speech to overtake our worst fears.
“If the economic situation remains difficult and even worsens, then we will need the kind of patience that is able to use democratic means to combat the kind of populist responses that cannot produce results — but which create anger and bitterness,” said Halonen.
If the president of Finland expresses concern about the rise of hate speech in this country, then matters must be pretty serious. More than ever before, immigrants, minorities and Finns must stand united against hate speech.
Social Democratic Party secretary Mikael Junger is one such politicians who has recently challenged Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP like Jussi Halla-aho’s provocative statements about cultural diversity, the Nuremberg Trials, and Social Democrats.
Remembering how the announcement of Portugal’s default just a week before the April 17 election was an important boost for the PS, some supporters believe that as matters get worse in Europe financially the better the right-wing populist party’s standing in the polls.
It is no secret that during dire economic times, the first ones to get blamed are immigrants and minorities.
According to Halonen, the combination of poor economic times, loss of jobs and scapegoats feed populism and probably hate speech.
There is a good blog entry in English on the rise of hate speech in Finland on On the Road of Succcess by Zuzeeko.
Comment: As we have seen in a post-22/7 Europe, far-right groups that fuelled their popularity with provocative statements against immigrants, minorities and Muslims are on the defensive today. After the tragic events that gripped Norway, there are a lot of people who are rightfully concerned about the same type of hate speech and ideology that inspired Norway’s killer being spread by websites in Finland.
PS MP Jussi Halla-aho, who appears to have no clue about why some are questioning his provocative anti-immigration language, are asking questions that should have been asked before he was chosen to chair the administration committee, whose responsibilities include immigration policy.
Weekly magazine Apu columnist Yrjö Rautio writes why Halla-aho has come under increased scrutiny: “It is certainly grotesque that the parliamentary administration committee is chaired by a person whose political merits are so-called (being a) critic of immigration and immigrants by stigmatizing (them) as rapists, criminals, or the “dregs of the Horn of Africa.”
Halla-aho was fined 330 euros last year by a lower court for “disturbing religious worship.” Prosecutors previously charged the PS MP with defaming Islam and inciting racial hatred.
”We have people in political and civil circles who have attacked free speech for years and this (Norway) has just given them a new stick,” he was quoted on YLE citing AFP.
When Halla-aho speaks about being a victim of a witch hunt and that “the eilists” are trying to shut him up, he appears to forget that his questionable blog entries written over the years were published by him without censorship.
Whenever people like Halla-aho run to the sanctuary argument of “freedom of speech,” it would be interesting to ponder what kind of free-speech world we’d live in if his far-right ideology would rule this country. His supporters would most likely act like his followers on his blog Scripta cyberattacking those they did not agree with.
Claiming that Halla-aho is part of a witch hunt is ludicrous. Thanks to free speech, we do have the right to place anyone’s writings and ideology under greater scrutiny.
_______________
True Finns Party MP Jussi Halla-aho says that he feels that a witch-hunt has started against him and free speech after the Norway tragedy. In an interview with AFP, he said that things are completely out of control.
By Enrique Tessieri
As Migrant Tales correctly predicted shortly after the mass killings in Norway, the impact on the sabre-rattling European chorus warning us of the danger of Islam is now on the defensive and on the run. “Fjordman,” Anders Behring Breivik’s mentor, said he would go underground for his own safety and never publish again with the infamous pseudonym, according to tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.
Fjordman, whose real name is Peder Jansen, 36, is or was the voice of anti-Islam in Norway. Just a quick look at his former blog, fjordman, gives you a taste of his writings: “Muhammed was a brilliant intuitive leader/general, and he and his companions devised a near perfect closed system of war against the rest of humanity.”
Jensen said that he was shocked to know that his writings had inspired Breivik.
Jensen said that Breivik sent him a handful of emails in 2009-10. Even though Breivik wanted to meet him, Jensen declined.
“I don’t know why he wanted to meet me,” he said. “I didn’t want to meet him because of his views but because he didn’t seem that interesting. He was like a vacuum cleaner salesman.”
Jensen said that he spoke to the police to clear his name. He said that the police had confiscated his computer and had tried to make him guilty.
“I don’t want to be connected with Breivik and his horrible actions,” he said, adding that he would go underground for his own safety.
Comment: Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Olli Immonen belongs to the Counter-Jihadists behind PS MP Jussi Halla-aho. In a story on tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, Immonen warns of a “race war” in Europe due to multiculturalism.
“Due to the present trend of multiculturalism, I believe we will see in the future of Europe a number of terrorist strikes and civil war in which the other warring adversary will be notably the representatives of Islam,” he was quoted as saying on Ilta-Sanomat from a 2009 blog entry.
When contacted by the tabloid, the MP said that he still stands by what he wrote two years ago.
Immonen, who is a member of ultra-nationalistic associations like Suomalaisuuden liitto and Suomen Sisu, which believe that marriage between Finns and foreigners should be discouraged, is another PS MP who sees Islam taking over Europe.
One of the matters that always surprises me about people like Immonen is the message behind their total rejection of multiculturalism. It is the same thing that PS MP Jussi Halla-aho said on July 24 on his Facebook page: “…because bad immigration is bad and multiculturalism sucks ass irrespective of what Breivik did.”
In other words, what Immonen and Halla-aho are saying in effect by “bad immigration” and “suck-ass multiculturalism” is that they don’t want Muslims in Finland and the future of those that live here of that religion will have to endure their wrath.
Immonen remind me of the American Nazi Party and how it’s been getting ready for a race war against non-whites and Jews. You can Google a number of these type of hate sites on the Internet. I did not want to link them on this blog because they are offensive.
In Europe, far-right parties and Counter-Jihadists like Immonen, the enemy aren’t blacks and Jews but Muslims. It is the same sad broken record played in the 1930s by the Nazi regime and many others in the last century. Counter-Jihadists, however, have tried to distance themselves from that baggage by being pro-Zionist and against Nazis.
Strange ideological world, no?
__________
Perussuomalaisten kansanedustaja Olli Immonen uskoo monikultturisen kehityksen Euroopassa johtavan tulevaisuudessa väkivaltaan.