Tag: Mikkeli

How can we challenge racism if it isn’t a problem?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As long as we don’t see racism as a big enough problem in our society, our response to it will be inefficient. Just like any illness, we must first diagnose it and then prescribe a cure.  

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It’s disappointing to read how some people can insult others in a racist manner.

Yesterday’s news story published on Migrant Tales about a single mother and her son, who moved to Helsinki from Mikkeli because they were harassed in a racist manner, sheds light on a social illness inflicting our society today and which we must challenge.

The comments to the story on Iltalehti and Hommaforum could reveal the extent of the problem in Finland.

The Migrant Tales blog entry was mentioned on Länsi-Savo, Itä-Savo and Perusopetus.fi.

Sara kertoo kuinka hänen poikansa joutui rasistisen kiusauksen kohteeksi Mikkeliläisessä koulussa

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Mitä ajattelisit, jos kuulisit afrikkalaisesta yksinhuoltaja äidistä, joka joutui muuttamaan Helsinkiin sen vuoksi että hänen poikansa joutui kokemaan koulussa kiusaamista ja rasismia? Ottaisitko tiedon vastaan ja lakaisisit sen maton alle vakuuttamalla itsellesi ettei tätä voi tapahtua kaupungissa missä asun?

Migrant Tales  blogi otti yhteyttä äitiin Sara (nimi muutettu), joka kertoi että hänen ja pojan elämä muuttui huonommaksi kun hänen pokansa Julian (nimi muutettu) tuolloin seitsemän vuotias aloitti koulun Kattilansillan koulussa.

Migrant Tales julkaisi lokakuussa 2010 kirjoituksen saman koulun ulkoseinällä olleesta rasistisesta seinämaalauksesta joka oli siinä useita kuukausia ilman että siihen puututtiin koulun taholta.

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Sara uskoo kyllä että opettajat ja rehtori tekivät parhaansa lopettaa pojan kiusaaminen. Kuitenkin eräs koulun opettaja v.2010 ei ollut kovin huolissaan rasistisesta seinä maalauksesta ja kysyi miksi ns. maahanmuuttokriittiset ryhmät kuten Muutos 2010 ja perussuomalaiset leimataan rasistisiksi jos he kyseenalaistavat maahanmuuttajien saamat suuremmat tuet verrattuna suomalaisiin. Kuitenkin kyseinen opettaja sanoi ettei seinäkirjoitus edustanut hänen arvojaan.

Sara:

“Olin kuullut että rasismi on ongelma Mikkelissä mutta se ei aikaisemmin koskenut minua tai lastani. Ongelmat alkoivat kun poikani aloitti ensimmäisen luokan paikallisessa koulussa. Olin itse valmistunut ammattiin ja yritin saada palkkatyötä Mikkelistä mutta se oli mahdotonta. Oli aina työharjoittelijana erilaisissa  työpaikoissa mutta koskaan en saanut varsinaista palkkatyötä.

Kerran poikani tuli koulusta ja kertoi luokkakaverin kiusanneen häntä ihonvärin vuoksi. Hän oli liian nuori ymmärtämään rasismia puhumattakaan että olisi ymmärtänyt syyn kiusaamiselle. Hän vain kysyi miksi olin synnyttänyt hänet mustaksi afrikkalaiseksi. Miksi hän ei voinut olla valkoinen kuten muut koulukaverit.

Pian suurin osa luokkatovereista alkoivat myös kiusaamisen. He kutsuivat poikaani mustaksi apinaksi ja että hänen on mentävä vessanpönttöön koska hän on ulosteen värinen.

Asiat alkoivat mennä huonompaan suuntaan koulussa Julianille. Koulussa oli tappelu ja kukaan ei halunnut leikkiä poikani kanssa. Eräänä päivänä hän sanoi ettei halua mennä enää kouluun koska kukaan ei tykkää hänestä.

Koulun opettajat ja rehtori olivat ymmärtäväisiä ja he puhuivat kiusaajien vanhempien kanssa. Asiat muuttuivatkin paremmaksi kunnes tilanne palasi entiselleen. Julianin luokkatoverit olivat saman ikäisiä kuin hän, mistä he ovat oppineet rasistisen käyttäytymisen mallin, kotoa, muilta lapsilta.

Poikani ei vain valittanut ystävien puutetta koulussa vaan sama koski pihapiiriäkin. Asuimme osaketalossa ja siellä hänellä oli yksi ystävä, mutta pojan äiti kielsi pokaansa leikkimästä Julianin kanssa.

Asuin Mikkelissä seitsemän vuotta ja kahtena viimeisenä vuotena sain vihapostia missä minua kehotettiin painumaan sinne mistä olin tullut.

Ottaen huomioon  Julianin koulukiusaus  ja tunne että elämämme oli mennyt huonompaan suuntaan kaikkien tapahtumien vuoksi päätimme muuttaa viime syksynä Helsinkiin.

Nyt elämämme uudessa paikassa on saanut paremman suunnan. Siellä missä asumme on enemmän afrikkalaisia ja pojallani on ystäviä koulussa. Häntä ei enää kiusata rasistisesti.

Jos olet ainut mustaihoinen lapsi koulussa sinua varmasti kiusataan, mutta jos heitä on useampia kiusaamista ei tapahdu niin helposti Sara ajattelee.

Toivon hartaasti ettei kukaan joudu kokemaan samaa mitä lapseni koki. En toivo kenellekään samanlaista tuskan kokemusta.

Vaikeneminen ei ole hyvä ratkaisu kun haasteena on suvaitsemattomuus.”

Sama kirjoitus voi lukea englanniksi.

Sara speaks out against the racist harassment her son endured at a school in Mikkeli, Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What would you do if you heard that an African single mother decided to leave Mikkeli for Helsinki because her eight-year-old child was a victim of racist harassment or bullying at school? Would you just register the news and brush it conveniently under the rug and reassure yourself that these types of things don’t happen where you live?

Migrant Tales got in touch with Sara, an African single mother that spoke on condition of anonymity, to ask what had happened to her son at school. She said that her problems began when her son Julian, then a seven-year-old boy, went to Kattilansilta School.

Migrant Tales published in October 2010 a blog entry about racist spray paintings that were on the school’s walls for months.

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While Sara believes that the teachers and principle did everything possible to stop the racist bullying of her son, a teacher in 2010 didn’t seem too concerned about the racist graffiti on the school’s wall. After the teacher admitted that the racist graffiti above had been there since spring and didn’t represent his values, he asked why anti-immigration groups like the Perussuomalaiset and Muutos 2011 are labelled racist whenever they criticize immigrants for getting more social welfare than Finns.

By Sara

I had heard before that racism is a problem in Mikkeli but my child and I were never its victims.  My problems started when I finished my studies and when my son Julian started first grade at the local school. Finding real work in Mikkeli was impossible for me. I served as an intern at different workplaces but never got a job that paid me a salary.

One day my son Julian came home and told me that a boy at school was bullying him in a racist manner. He was too young to understand why he was bullied.  He asked me why I had given birth to him as a black African and why he wasn’t white like the rest of the children at school.

Soon the majority of his classmates started bullying him. They named him a black monkey and told him to go to the toilet bowl because the color of his skin was like the color of feces. (Sara stops for a moment to contain her tears. She succeeds).

Matters got worse for Julian as the months passed at school. There were fights and nobody wanted to play with him. One day he said he didn’t want to go to school because nobody liked him.

The teachers and the principle were understanding and they spoke to the classmates’ parents. Things got better but for Julian for a while but then things returned to “normal” and the bullying started again. Julian’s classmates are the same age as he so what they know about racism is what they learned from their parents and other children.

Not only did my son complain that he didn’t have friends at school, but he didn’t have anyone to play with after school either. At the apartment block where we lived in Mikkeli, he did have a friend who wanted to play with him but the boy’s mother forbade it.

Last year for the first time in my seven years in Mikkeli, I got two hate mails telling me to go back to where I came from.

Taking into account what was happening at school to Julian and the feeling that things had changed for the worse in Mikkeli for us, I decided to move to Helsinki last fall.

Since then my life has changed for the better. There are more Africans where I live and my son is no longer bullied at school.

It’s incredible, but if you are the only black child at school like Julian was, you’ll get bullied. If there are more black children, bullying doesn’t happen that easily.

I sincerely hope that what happened to me and my son won’t happen to anyone.   I don’t wish such pain to befall anyone.

Silence is not the way to challenge intolerance.

Read story in Finnish here.  

 

An interesting discussion with some PS members about Finnish identity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I had an interesting discussion on Saturday with a Perussuomalaiset (PS) candidate for Mikkeli city council. The woman, who claimed that her mother is Russian, stressed that the PS strives to look after everyone’s interests in Finland, including that of immigrants. 

Good news.

Even if such views are hard to find in the PS, they do exist. Migrant Tales wrote in November about Jukka Kotimäki, a PS secretary of Siilimäki near Kuopio, who said that he doesn’t want racists in the party.

Others that have voiced objections to the PS’ hardline racists is MP Pirkko Mattila.

These faint voices within the PS are a positive sign and should be applauded. Even so, they are steamrolled by the party’s inflexible Counterjihadists, populist radical right members and shameless racists.

The discussion I had with another member of the local PS party on Saturday revealed the central issue concerning the problematic view the party has of immigrants and visible minorities.

”You speak Finnish well,” the PS member said.

“But I am Finnish.”

After telling him my family history in two seconds, he stated that I’m ”half” Finnish.

”I’m not half of anything,” I responded. ”I’m Finnish.”

I continued: “There are many types of Finns these days:  Muslims, blacks, browns, Catholics.”

The discussion came to an abrupt halt.

Why do some Finns still believe that one has to be white to be Finnish? It’s incredible that a country that saw 1.2 million people emigrate between 1860 and 1999 and whose population is becoming more culturally diverse still claims that one must be white and speak the langauge perfectly to be accepted as a “full” Finn.

Is this what is taught at our schools? Is it what a model Nordic welfare society teaches and reinforces: You don’t fit the ethnic bill if you aren’t white enough?

The good news is that our view of ourselves as a group will change radically during this century.

 

 

A just ending for racist graffiti in Mikkeli in eastern Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I got an email from Zuzeeko who writes the neat On the Road to Success blog and recently launched with some other people a new magazine called Dunia. This is what he wrote: 

Wow! Glad to hear the racist graffiti are now history. I consider this a success for Kansainvälinen Mikkeli Ry and the good people of Mikkeli. Sincerely, I never thought the graffiti in the pedestrian tunnel would be removed. Congratulations! This is worthy of an update on the blog. Don’t you think?

He is absolutely right.  We wrote about the matter on Migrant Tales but nothing about how the second graffiti was removed. The fate of the second spray-painting in Mikkeli in eastern Finland was reported by Kansainvälinen Mikkeli (International Mikkeli) on Facebook on November 2.

This wall had sprayed blacks out while the other one on a school wall read “White power.” Both were painted over by city employees in early November and early October, respectively. This shows what a group of determined people can do to make Mikkeli a more pleasant place to live.

Ridding the graffiti was not only a victory for Kansainvälinen Mikkeli but for all the people of the city. It is a clear message that we take a very tough view of racism.

I was surprised, however, that even if a teacher had seen the “White power” graffiti on the wall he had done nothing about it after he had noticed it in spring.

When I approached the teacher about the matter in September, he considered it more important to tell me that whenever anti-immigration parties like the True Finns and Muutos 2011 are labelled racists whenever they criticize foreigners.

Was this the reason why he preferred to do nothing for so many months and in the process put in question the values of our world-class educational system?

Racism is a silent ogre

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I have been an exchange student living in Finland from Belgium since February. One of the matters that caught my eye in Mikkeli is racism. I have met many immigrants and foreign students who have told me about their experiences. 

Racism isn’t inherited but learned. This means that people can change. In some of us prejudice is such a problem that it bursts out as a destructive force. There are too many sad examples in Mikkeli of how this silent ogre has harassed its victims.

A young man asks a bus to stop but the driver ignores him. A woman who is sitting inside the bus speaks out and the driver responds: “I don’t take black people on my bus.”  

Another incident involves two foreign students who live in an apartment flat. A gang of alleged skinheads attacked their home in March and started knocking at their door at around midnight in a hostile fashion.  Since the two did not open the door, the attackers broke the kitchen window with a wooden club.

The police were called and they are still investigating the matter.

Why does this happen? The answer remains a mystery.

Racist violence takes place in Mikkeli and Finland too often. Society should not even tolerate one such act.

Fortunately, there are strong laws against this type of violence. The Finnish Constitution grants all people the following right: “Everyone is equal before the law. 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.”

There is hope despite these crimes in Mikkeli. People can change and given the right information matters can improve. Meeting people from other cultures could be an important first step in this direction.

Meanwhile, society should not tolerate but  take action and openly condemn this type of violence.

Uschi Neefs