Tag: Islamophobia

Living in the PS Outokumpu bubble – beware of Muslims even if there are hardly any foreigners

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There is one matter that bonds all the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs in parliament: They use migrants, especially Muslims and asylum seekers, to get votes. Their ads and rhetoric reflect well their racist disposition.

Take, for instance, the ad below that promises that she will make “Finnish well being and security” priorities.

Some of her pet topics are Muslims even if in her small, far-flung town of Outokumpu (6,803 inhabitants), there are hardly any foreigners, never mind Muslims.

Ouokumpu is located in such a far-flung place that it would be a miracle if a foreigner, never mind a Muslim, would find it on the map. Source: Wikipedia.

In Outokumpu – are you ready for this – there are 177 people (2.6% of the total town population) who are not Finnish citizens, 231 (3.39%) who were born elsewhere than Finland, and 239 (3.51%) who do not speak Finnish, Swedish or Sami as their mother tongue.

Despite their minimal numbers, Antikainen does not miss a chance to label Muslims as rapists and terrorists.

That is why she is obsessed with the message: prioritizing white Finns’ well-being and security.

Perussuomalaiset MP Sanna Antikainen campaign slogan and promises to defend the “well-being and security of Finns’ priorities.”

Antikainen’s Islamophobic worldview raises a lot of questions.

One of these is how she graduated as a registered nurse and what kind of an oath she took. The Hippocratic oath of nurses is also based on the Nightingale Pledge, named in honor of Florence Nightingale,

In the United States, nurses vow to treat patients equally: “Discrimination in any form is harmful to society as a whole and in opposition to the values and ethical code of the nursing profession, which directs the nurse to ‘…respect the inherent dignity, worth, unique attributes, and human rights of all individuals.’” (American Nursing Association, 2015, p.17).

Below are a Finnish nurse’s views about human rights and how to deal with people she does not like.

The PS likes Trump and his racist policies that are against migrants. Don’t be surprised if MP Antikainen would want to build a wall about her small town. Source: Twitter.
This claim that “Europeans do not have the money for their social security,” is an old Islamophobic excuse to not help asylum seekers. We are a rich continent and we DO have a lot of money. Source: Twitter.

I sent MP Antikainen Thursday the following questions:

  • What do you mean when you state that you are “on the side of Finns?”
  • What about if a person was born in another country but is a Finnish citizen? Are you on his or her side as well?
  • What about if the person was born in Finland and is black?
  • Do you defend the interests of all people in Finland irrespective of their backgrounds?

I never expect to get an answer from Antikainen. Even so, the fact that she didn’t answer is already an answer that reveals a lot about herself and her party.

If the PS ever could change the laws of Finland, that would be a sad day for Finnish democracy and the rule of law.

It would be a very sad day indeed because it would be based on racism and far-right populism.

We won’t allow it to happen and, in the meantime, we will give parties like the PS and MPs like Antikainen a run for their money.

Kokoomus’ perilous path, caving into far-right populism and xenophobia

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Conservative parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) are on a dangerous path putting in peril human rights and the rule of law. The latest suggestion by Kokoomus parliamentary group leader, Kai Mykkänen, to pass legislation so Finland could suspend asylum applications like Greece is worrying.

The Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party clutched political power in the last decade with the help of anti-Muslim racism. Only white EU citizens were spared from their hateful rhetoric as long as they kept quiet.

Anyone from outside the EU with different skin color or religion was targetted and victimized by their hateful rhetoric.

Since the historic victory of the PS in the 2011 parliamentary election, when they won 39 seats from 5 seats previously, the party’s message has steered further to the far right.

Even if it was only a time when the PS would show it real far-right colors, it is disappointing to watch how Kokoomus has climbed into bed with the PS.

Kokoomus parliamentary group leader Kai Mykkänen stated after Greece decided to suspend asylum applications for a month that Finland should pass legislation to do the same.

Even if politics makes strange bedfellows as in the case of the PS and Kokoomus, it is worrying how much alike they are in their xenophobic knee-jerk reactions. Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

“Finland must be prepared, if necessary if we were exposed to pressure from a large number of [asylum] applications coming towards Finland,” he was quoted as saying in Yle and added that the country should be able to do what Greece did under exceptional circumstances.

Somebody should tell Mykkänen and his party that it is a human right, specifically Article 14, guarantees the right to seek asylum. It does not read that such a human right can be suspended under any circumstances.

With such arguments, we could put on hold our democratic system whenever a political party in power deems.

Kokoomus, never mind the PS, are placing Finland on a dangerous path.

Our incapacity to feel for others, our indifference to their suffering is what is causing our moral downfall in the EU

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some studies claim that vote share for Eurosceptic parties has more than doubled in two decades, according to the Guardian. This problem has many answers. One of these is that Europeans have not done enough to root out all forms of racism.

Our colonial legacy still hangs as an onerous shadow that encourages us to delay and deny our history and who we are today.

Alan Kurdi who washed ashore after drowning in 2015. During 2014-2019 there were a total of 18,328 people (2019 410, 2018 2,299, 2017 3,139, 2016 5,143, 2015 5,054, 2014 3,283) who died attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Millions of Europeans emigrated in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century to other shores. Ever asked why? Social inequality, nationalism, ethnonationalism, and war.

Let’s return for a moment another factor that characterizes the Marine Le Pens, Matteo Salvinis, Boris Johnsons, Viktor Orbáns, Geert Wilders, Jussi Halla-ahos and a long list of others.

Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert, the US Army psychologist at the Nuremberg trials (1945-46), said what the Nazi war criminals on trial had an incapacity to feel with their fellow men. That fellow men and women are today Muslims, among other groups.

“Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy,” he said.

Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah: Returning to Finland’s Black February 2012

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: The story below was one that was published in February 2012 about “Black February,” when three Muslims died and a Finn committed suicide after killing one Muslim and wounding another. As with the Pakistani who was viciously attacked in February 2018, there were a lot of question marks about how the police carried out the investigations.

Today we talk openly about instigating civil war and about politicians admitting they are fascists. The party? Guess.

This artricle below is to raise our consciousness about how Islamophobia is a cancer spreading in our society at this moment.

______________________________________________________________________________

Remember Black February? Over about three weeks we read about the deaths of three Muslims , a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of these victims in cold blood. On Monday Migrant Tales had the opportunity to meet the father and a family friend of one of the victims, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah. 

The first thing that you notice when you meet Abdisalam’s father is his grief.  Anguish inhabits all of  Mursal Abdulah: It’s in his eyes, in his face, in his posture, in his voice,  in his persona.

The death of his eighteen-year-old son was such a strong blow that he is still recovering from the shock when two policemen broke the tragic news to him and his wife on a Friday February 17 at 10am.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said returning to that terrible moment of his life. “My wife fainted.”

See also:

Abdisalam’s father and wife were in the first group of Somali refugees that came to Finland in August 1990 by train from the former Soviet Union. Their son was born in Finland. Abdisalam was a good athlete,  student, and son, according to his father.

“He [Abdisalam] planned to study medicine,” he continued. “I was ready to send him abroad so he could become a doctor.”

Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi was a Manchester United fan. In August he would have turned nineteen.

The last time that Abdisalam’s father saw his son was on Thursday night. “His last words were that he was going to take a shower, go to a [high school] party and return,” he said. “He never did.”

Abdulah isn’t at all happy with how the police have handled the case.  Apart from not expressing any empathy for the parents’ grief, it was difficult to get any information from them about the crime.

“We were treated coldly and felt like we were the criminals,” he said. “The police appeared to be more concerned about keeping the case under wraps because they feared a revenge attack by Somalis.”

Abdulah says that if a crime were committed by a Somali it would have received a lot of  media attention.

“The thing that struck us the most was when we went to the police station,” he said. “The same information that they wouldn’t give us, we then read in the tabloids right after we left the police station. How is it possible that the papers knew more about Abdisalam’s death than us?”

Abdisalam’s death happened between midnight and 7am.  The suspect and the victim were school acquaintances.  Abdulahi says that his son died from a mortal blow to the head.  The suspect’s father was present at the crime scene as well.

I asked Abdulahi if he feels that justice will be done? “I don’t know,” he said trying to be diplomatic. “I’m not sure that I trust the police.”

One of the matters that the father has a big question mark is the complicity of the father in the whole affair. He doesn’t believe the police that the father was not an accomplice in the crime. “Abdisalam was big and physical compared with the attacker,” Abdulah said. “There must have been somebody else helping him [that could have been the father].”

A friend of the family present at the interview speaks.

“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the  fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”

Abdulah concludes: “Those Somalis that went to Australia and Canada are living better lives than I in Finland. All I have to show for over twenty years in Finland is a cold country with long winters and the death of my son.”

Migrant Tales expresses to the parents, relatives and friends its condolences for Abdisalam.

Disingenuous Jussi Halla-aho, disingenuous fascist-spirited Perussuomalaiset

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is justified to consider the Nürnberg trials a farce. Guilt was decided in advance, and the justifications for the sentences were absurd.[1]

Perussuomalaiset* (PS) chairperson Jussi Halla-aho (2010)

Isn’t it incredible how PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen put himself in the eye of a political storm when he admitted over the weekend that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist?”

Not only admitted these words in public is one matter but doing it with his Finnish fascist black shirt and blue tie adds more light to the hypocrisy of the Finnish political system and specifically on the PS.

Halla-aho was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that the PS doesn’t tolerate nazism or fascism. These assurances are as empty as Halla-aho admitting that the PS isn’t a racist party.

A 2011 campaign ad of Wille Rydman of the National Coalition Party. In some ads like this one he appears for some strange reason with photoshopped dark skin and in others with white skin. Rydman believes that his party should work closer with the PS. It is for this reason, and many others, why he is known as the Halla-aho of the National Coalition Party.

Jalonen used MP Juha Mäenpää, who is suspected for ethnic agitation over his invasive species remark of asylum seekers, as an example of why it would be injust to sack him from the party.

“I understand that if the party sacks me, but I do not see it as just if you look at what others have said [publicly] in the party,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat, pointing the finger at Mäenpää.

What makes the whole we’re-going-to-possibly-sack Jalonen farce by the PS leadership is itself and its track record. Jalonen’s case shows that it is fine being a fascist in the party as long as you don’t say it too loudly in public.

Halla-aho was, for example, convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion. He was also suspended a year earlier from the party for two weeks for supporting a military regime in Greece.

“What is needed in Greece right now is a military junta, which would not need public approval and could use tanks against strikers and demonstrators,” he wrote on Facebook.[2]

The PS has, under the leadership of Halla-aho, become more radicalized. Racist concepts like ethnonationalism, ethnic replacement, fascism, and other ones are today the norm.

The same challenges former PS leader Timo Soini had with the racists in the party, which was nothing more than a power fight between him and Halla-aho, is now taking place in the party but with fascists and ethnonationalists.

Let’s not fall for the hypocrisy of the PS, but continue to focus on challenging a party that wants to turn Finland into a country like Victor Orbán’s Hungary.

[1] For an example Alber Speer (an architect) got a long sentence since he knew about the holocaust but didn’t try to prevent it. As if a person living in a dictatorship should fight against the dictatorship even if it costs his life. Source: Wikiquote (Hommaforum).

[2] Wikiquote

PS Youth vice president: “I am an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Toni Jalonen, who is the second vice president of the Perussuomalaiset* (PS) Youth and member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu, states openly in a speech below that “I am an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist [clapping].”

Yes, you heard, right. Politically matters appear spinning rapidly out of control in the PS and some are living in an alternate reality.

Recently, PS MP Ano Turtiainen called on his followers to civil war never mind PS MP Juha Mäenpää, who said in summer that asylum seekers are “an invasive species” that had to be eliminated.

Just like former PS leader Timo Soini had a tough time keeping the racist outbursts of his party in line, Jussi Halla-aho is seeing the same problem. Even if he is on the same ideological wavelength, open fascism, and ethnonationalism are eating the party from within.

On the left is Toni Jalonen, PS Youth vice president admitting that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.” The Lapua Movement was a fascist organization that failed to overthrow the elected government of Finland in 1932 after which the the Patriotic People’s Movement (Isänmaalinen kansanliike, IKL) was formed. The Lapua Movement-IKL did not use brown shirts but a black one with a dark blue tie. Is it a coincidence that Jalonen is wearing a Lapua Movement outfit? Source: Twitter and Good Reads.

PS Youth substitute board member for Lapland, Johannes Sipola, has said a lot of terrible things like condoning and blaming the Christhurch killings in March on multiculturalism.

It’s clear that he is one of the first to defend Jalonen like in the tweet below.

From the second paragraph it reads: “Jalonen represents the [PS’] youth association and yes, the youth association is openly fascist. This line is supported as well by the members. That is why Jalenen was voted to his post.” Source: Twitter.

Where will all this lead?

It will not end well, I am afraid. It is only a question of time when something will snap, and we will – hopefully not – see something tragic like we are seeing today in different parts of Europe.

MP Ano Turtiainen: A shovelful of PS violence and rage

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country.

PS MP Ano Turtiainen

The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP with a curious first name, “Ano,” [1] Turtiainen is another dangerous example of how the Islamophobic party fuels the hostile environment against migrants and minorities like Muslims.

Recently we saw a deadly killing in Hanau, Germany, at the hands of a far-right German who turned words into bullets. Considering that lawmakers like Turtiainen and others are encouraging people to acts of violence, the horrific events in Hanau sends chills up our spines.

Turtiainen was quoted as saying in Mikkeli-based Länsi-Savo last year that he has no regrets about publishing in December 2015 a post where he asks people to burn asylum reception centers run by the Red Cross.

In another interview with the Mikkeli daily, he stated the conviction for inciting people to commit a crime was a” feather in his cap.”

What kind of a lawmaker is Turtiainen who directly incites (see posting below) white Finns to rise up in arms?

See also

One of his writings in Uusi Suomi was taken down recently. In the opinion piece, he called people to incite a civil war:

“I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country. We cannot, however, avoid such an eventuality if we continue this silent unsuspecting observation from the side when the enemy among us takes more power.

Use your voice and [say it] loudly! “

Ano Turtiainen: “member of parliament, father, town councilperson, entrepreneur, weightlifting world champion, weightlifting record holder.”

[1] “Ano” is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. In Spanish, “ano” means anus.

MP Mauri Peltokangas is an example of the PS’ far-right rage and hateful narrative

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Mauri Peltokangas is an MP for the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. In the hostile video below, the PS MP with close ties to neo-Nazi groups, uses the following terms to cry us a river about bringing to Finland 175 children from the Lesvos refugee camp.

If his invective monologue below lasts 2:36 minutes, it means that around every 20 seconds you hear the following swear words:

  • Shit (paska): 2 times
  • Fucked (perseestä): 2 times
  • What the hell, hell (mitä helevetti, helevetti): 2
  • The devil (perkele): 2

Are these the “lawmakers” that are supposed to look after our interests and bring security?

Source: Facebook.

Writes Al-Jazeera about the humanitarian crisis in Lesvos: “More than 18,300 asylum seekers currently live in and around Moria camp, a facility built to accommodate 2,200, according to the UNHCR. Tents and ad hoc structures are stacked close by on the hillsides, forming a makeshift city whose population is now the second largest on the island, after the capital Mytilini.”

Migrant Tales recently published a story of a refugee family in Lesvos.

Peltokangas spreads fake news.

“The toilets are a kilometer from their tent, and the journey there is dangerous because it is downhill and slippery when it rains,” said a relative of the family that now lives on Lesvos. “If you get to the toilet, you’ll find long lines with families with ten children waiting for their turn.”

But Peltokangas is defiant. He states in the video that there is no reason to bring 175 children from Lesbos because Greece “is a warm and secure EU country.”

Believe it or not, Peltokangas is a very popular politician in Finland, a country that tries to prize itself as a champion of human rights, social equality, and one of the best education systems in the world.

Helsingin Sanomat plays down the far-right, claims it is “an essential part of democracy”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

After almost a year after the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* almost pulled off the parliamentary elections of April, Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, treats the Islamophobic far-right party.

A story by Tommi Nieminen correctly points out that the violence called by some PS MPs is unacceptable but then blows his speak-out-against-the-far-right-with-one-hand-and-support-it-with-another with this statement:

Political protest movement – in which the Perussuomalaiset could be included – is an essential part of democracy.”

This sentence by Finland’s largest daily is the reason why Helsingin Sanomat plays down the threat of the PS in politics and society.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

How can a party like the PS, which wants Finland to trash its international agreements so that no Muslims and other people of color can enter the country, be good for democracy?

How can a party that believes in pseudosciences like eugenics support ethnonationalism?

How can a party that claims to be a group of lawmakers support its MPs who thank god for burning down a refugee center, dehumanizes asylum seekers as “an invasive species,” or incite people to criminal action by attacking such centers?

Instead of writing wishy-washy articles that play down the far right, why doesn’t Helsingin Sanomat write an editorial denouncing violence against migrants, minorities, women, and our Nordic way of life?

This is one of the big unanswered questions that Nieminen analysis exposes as well as the following: Why write now – almost 10 months after the parliamentary election – about this topic?

His answer? A Hollywood ending to our far-right and racism social ills will come when both sides will kiss and make up.

Migrant Tales has always understood the threat that parties like the PS pose on our society.

After the April 2011 election, when the PS scored their historic victory, raising the number of MPs from 5 to 39, we wrote: “Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland.” 

Back then, our blog got cited by Time Magazine. The above quote was a response to PS chairman Timo Soini’s statement: “We [the PS] are not extremists so you can sleep safely.” Has Finland slept politically safely since 2011? I don’t think so.

Back before the 2011 election, Migrant Tales was one of the few blogs that openly questioned and warned about the rise of the PS in Finnish politics.

MEP Henna Virkkunen: Kokoomus, EU and Finnish refugee policy in crisis

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some Finnish politicians condemn racist acts with one hand but with another encourage them.

National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MEP Henna Virkkunen stated in a tweet lofty European values after an MP of the same party said Saturday that it would be easier for Kokoomus to work with the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party than with the Greens and left-wing parties.

She tweeted below: “The values that #kokoomus wants to build in Finland and Europe are education, tolerance, encouragement, caring, equal opportunities. Kokoomus wants an open, free, and internationally-minded community [and] this is distant from what the Perussuomalaiset represents.”

While her tweet is welcome, it reveals the ideological battle going in that party. One faction of Kokoomus is liberal and pro-EU while the other nationalistic, and xenophobic represented by politicians such as MP Wille Rydman, Jukka Kopra, Pia Kauma, Elina Lepomäki, Kai Mykkänen, and others.

Is Virkkunen’s tweet disingenuous?

In October, Virkkunen voted with Petri Sarvamaa, who is a member of the same party, with Laura Huhtasaari of the PS to not step-up search and rescue operations for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.

Virkkunen is also one of the 36.3% (85/234) MEP candidates who either “strongly disagreed,” “disagreed” or were “neutral” in an  Alma Media’s election compass that asked: “Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”

Virkkunen answered “disagreed.”

Is letting people drown or turning a blind tye to their fates in the Mediterranean European and Finnish values?

Over 27,000 people have drowned crossing the Mediterranean since 1993.