Tag: Racism

Challenging urban tales about migrants and ourselves should be our first and foremost priority

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After contributing regularly for Migrant Tales and reading and answering some of the over 30,000 comments we have received in the past seven years, a bigger picture emerges. This has been reinforced by my work at a folk high school, where the majority of the students on campus aren’t white Finns.

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As Don Flynn of Migrants’ Right Network wrote, it’s crucial especially today that migrant community groups start working together to challenge the urban tales spread by opportunistic politicians in order to make a positive case for migration.

One such campaign he mentions is #MigrantsContribute!

He writes: ”[The group is] a social media-style name for a campaign that aims to bust into the mainstream with its core message that, far from being the unwelcome border crossers looking for a free ride so often presented by unscrupulous politicians and headline writers, migrants come to the UK full of hope and expectation that they will have the opportunity to contribute fully as fully rounded people in British society, and not merely exist as dehumanized factors of economic production.”

In order to get into the mindset of the far-right populist and those that spread anti-immigration rhetoric, it’s important to spot the red herring(s).

Since some politicians of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* of Finland, an anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party, built their political careers on a message of intolerance, it’s clear that they seek today to find some kind of legitimacy.

An effective way of doing this is by giving a more mainstream image of the party and of oneself.

While such political parties and politicians may want to forge a new image of themselves, the context hasn’t changed at all.

They use underhanded and cheap-trick arguments to achieve a mainstream facelift. These arguments change constantly because they are based mostly on hearsay. If they stayed put, they’d be exposed as lies in many cases.

One typical argument used today by anti-immigration politicians is the following: We aren’t against immigration.”

The problem with this odd affirmation is that they are against immigration. It’s like the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. A white migrant Prince Charming appears, kisses the native Sleeping Beauty, she awakens and they live happily ever after in their white society.

If we dig a bit deeper into this claim by some anti-immigration parties and politicians, we’ll find another layer that is highly revealing. By wanting only white, or the right migrants, our real aim is to keep our society white. Thus anti-immigration groups are against non-white migrants because they loathe cultural diversity.

Another important matter that Migrant Tales has taught me is to be especially careful with those that offer simplistic answer to complex questions like integration.

One of the most common simplistic arguments used in Finland – in my opinion – is learn Finnish or Swedish and problem solved: You’re integrated!

Learning the local language is crucial and plays an important part in the migrants adaption to his or her new homeland, but it isn’t, however, a panacea to integration.

By giving into simplistic arguments like “just learn the language,” we forget other equally important issues like why integration should be the rule but too often everyone expects you to assimilate. There are many other factors we lose sight of as well: acceptance, inclusion, respect for cultural diversity, identifying pitfalls like poor performance of third-culture children at school, ethnic profiling, high migrant unemployment, poverty, health and social exclusion.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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. 

 

What would you see if you looked in Jussi Halla-aho’s eyes?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Plans to give the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* a facelift and turn it into a mainstream party took another step in that direction when the new chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformist (ECR) group of the European parliament, MEP Syed Kamall, was satisfied with PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s explanation for his conviction for ethnic agitation.

What else could Kamall say after the PS and far-right Danish People’s Party, which have two “MEPs with criminal records,” joined the ECR?

If Kamall looked Halla-aho in the eye, what feelings would it raise among those migrants in Finland that the PS politician has insulted? What about Finland’s Somali community? What about the regular Immigrant Joe who works hard and pays his taxes in Finland but has to deal with the daily suspicion and discrimination that is reinforced by politicians like him?

Should they look him in the eye too and ask when this cat-and-mouse racism will stop.

If I looked in Halla-aho’s eyes I would probably see a troubled politician who is trying his hardest to justify the racism he wrote about in the past. His balancing act it living with the ghost of his past.

Here’s another big gamble that the PS and Halla-aho are talking in light of recent events. By trying to appear more mainstream, it’s the voters who will decide at the end of the day if they like the changes no matter how many times anyone looks Halla-aho and the party in the eye.

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Read full story here on YLE in English.

In Halla-aho’s words about the ECR: “They wondered a little bit about how something like this [writing he got sentenced for] could have brought a conviction.”

In Kamall’s words: “I sat down with him when I saw that issue reported, I looked him in the eye and I said ‘tell me about this…I’m satisfied by his explanation. Once again we are looking to parties that are looking to reform, we are looking for people…we don’t look at the past, we want to look at where we’re moving forward.”

Kamall said that if the Finns Party want to be a mainstream party and he’d be happy to help them with such a task.

Kamall is the same politician who justified the Danish People’s Party (DPP) membership into the ECR. He was quoted as saying on the Financial Times:

“The Danish People’s party is on a political journey. It now has a policy of controlled immigration and disagrees with those on the left who would allow uncontrolled immigration and benefit tourism.There is a clear distinction that the left-wing media often fails to make between a party that wants to control immigration and one that seeks to demonize immigrants. The DPP is the former.”

Possibly the MEP and head of the ECR should ask those migrants, Danes married with foreigners, and Muslims if the DPP doesn’t demonize migrants. The answers he’d receive could be highly revealing.

These types of statements by a Conservative Party MEP shouldn’t surprise us since they generally agree with the anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances of parties like the PS and DPP.

Thanks to the rise of an anti-EU and anti-immigration party, the UKIP, the Tories have preferred to mimic Nigel Farage’s message instead of challenging it. It’s the same story that happened in Finland before the PS’ historic election victory in 2011.

The United Kingdom has under Tory Prime Minister David Cameron become a more hostile place for immigrants in the form of giving space to intolerance through Go Home campaign and fear-mongering about hordes of Romanians swarming to the United Kingdom.

If you want to find out why Cameron has become so anti-EU and anti-immigration, all you have to do is look at Nigel Farage’s UKIP, which became the first party apart from the Tories and Labor to win an election since the early twentieth century.

The Tories are not a friendly party to migrants, which explains why the ECR has no problems with admitting xenophobic parties like the PS and DPP to its ranks.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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.  

MP Olli Immonen reinforces that the PS is a xenophobic and racist party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After the EU election victories of the National Front of France, UKIP and the Danish People’s Party, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen lashes out against Muslims on a blog entry, claiming that Europe is being overtaken by Muslims. 

This latest attack by Immonen against Muslims, migrants and non-white Finns, is a good example that the PS is a xenophobic party with deep far-right roots that loathes cultural diversity. Immonen’s stance is no different from the ethnic war drums that politicians like Marine Le Pen’s National Front and Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom are beating.

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While Immonen’s racist rants don’t surprise us, the silence of the PS, who claims not to be a racist party, the media and politicians is equally worrying.

There is very little value in what Immonen writes except that it exposes that racism is the same ogre in Finland as elsewhere in Europe.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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. 

Defining white Finnish privilege #2: Third culture children versus “pupil with immigrant background”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In many respects white privilege, or specifically white Finnish privilege, is a good way to understand some of the challenges that migrants and especially non-white Finns face in this country. Migrant Tales invites its readers to share their thoughts on the social ill.

Please send your comments on the topic to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

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Do you live or kill time?
Are the days of white Finnish privilege counted or extended?

Understanding what white privilege is essential if we want to challenge intolerance in Finland. It’s pretty clear that the way white privilege works in the United States or in the United Kingdom shouldn’t differ greatly from white Finnish privilege.

Let’s look at some definitions of this social ill below.

Harry Brod states the following: “It [white privilege] is something that society gives me, and unless I change the institutions which give it to me, they will continue to give it, and I will continue to have it, however noble and equalitarian my intentions.”

Francis E. Kendall defines white privilege:

Privileges are bestowed on us by the institution with which we interact solely because of our race, not because we are deserving as individuals. While each of us is always a member of a race or races, we are sometimes granted opportunities because we, as individuals, deserve them; often we are granted them because we, as individuals, belong to one or more of the favored groups in our society.

Urban Dictionary defines it the following words:

The racist idea that simply being white benefits people in some unexplainable way, and that discriminating against white people is not only okay, but enlightened and necessary. The excuse some extremists use to justify pretty much any level of racism, as long as it is coming from people of color. A young American woman died because in college she was brainwashed into believing that her white privilege would protect her from being run over by a bulldozer.

And Time Wise says:

White privilege refers to any advantage, opportunity, benefit, head start, or general protection from negative societal mistreatment, which persons deemed white will typically enjoy, but which others will generally not enjoy.

If white privilege is detrimental to non-whites, the only way to challenge it is to expose and challenge it. This won’t be easy since who in their right minds wants to give up their privileges?

One way to start is to show the negative impact that white privilege not only has on minorities but on all of society.

A good question to ask if “since when was racism and prejudice good for society?”

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Definition #2

Why are third-culture children being called openly at Finnish schools pupils “with immigrant backgrounds,” or maahanmuuttajataustainen in Finnish? Is it to strengthen their identity and self-esteem or to let them know at an early age that they lost out in Finland because they’re the wrong ethnicity and background? Are our schools teaching them to challenge labels such as maahanmuuttajataustainen and white Finnish privilege when they grow up?

With the power white ethnic Finns have over migrants and minorities, it’s clear that we are educating such youngsters to be complacent and apathetic second- and third-class citizens.

See also:

 

Jussi Halla-aho: “Do not tolerate the intolerant one”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

 

Migrant Tales insight: We get a lot of email and tip-offs from our readers. The latest one we got is of three blog entry translations in English of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation. This last one, Do not tolerate the intolerant one, was published in Scripta on December 20, 2007. 

Apart from understanding how racism in Finland thrives and which arguments are used to spread hatred of other groups, one matter is clear from all three writings: They are repulsive and we apologize if anyone is offended by them. The writings have nothing to do with a PhD’s critical thinking; they are simply urban tales and prejudices that have been piled high and deep. 

Another important aspect that we must acknowledge about these writings is that they are hostile towards migrants and intended for gullible Finns. They are hateful writings that fuel prejudice, which in turn fuels social exclusion. 

Acceptance of these two anti-immigration parties this week in the ECR with “MEPs with criminal records,” proves that shoplifting is a worse offense for a politician today than being sentenced for ethnic agitation. It sadly exposes as well why racism has grown in Europe and why mainstream politicians and the media have helped fuel such intolerance. 

Our only motive for publishing these blog entries is so that other Europeans who don’t speak Finnish can read what kind of politician Halla-aho is. 

For more insight into the PS, take a look Far-right and anti-immigration quotes in English by the PS.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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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Quotes within the text taken from the summaries of EU legislation, “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia.”

Through the Gates of Vienna- blog I came across a proposition made in the EU concerning legal actions in the combat against racism and xenophobia. The EU has never interested me very much. Maybe it should.

“The purpose of this framework decision is to ensure that racism and xenophobia are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties in the European Union (EU).”

The beginning is already a promising one. Because racism, being a perception of the existence of different races, perhaps of their differences and of their relative value hierarchy, is an opinion and xenophobia an emotional state, I can’t quite figure out what the case might be here, other than attempting to legislate one’s thoughts.

Nonetheless, all depends on the definitions of “racism” and “xenophobia”:

“Public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined on the basis of race, colour, descent, religion or belief, or national or ethnic origin.”

Is it, therefore, intended to criminalize the feelings of repugnance?

“Certain forms of conduct as outlined below, which are committed for a racist or xenophobic purpose, are punishable as criminal offences:

    – public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined on the basis of race, colour, descent, religion or belief, or national or ethnic origin;

    – public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material containing expressions of racism and xenophobia;

    – public condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (Articles 6, 7 and 8) and crimes defined in Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, when the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred against such a group or a member of such a group.

Instigating, aiding or abetting in the commission of the above offences is also punishable.”

Crimes matching the descriptions above surely take place in Europe. For example, the leftists in Sweden have publicly incited to assault skinheads (conviction), Muslims have on separate occasions incited to kill infidels (conviction) and Jews (religion and ethnicity), and have either denied the holocaust and the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, or in turn glorified them. Audio materials have been handed out in the mosques of Britain and Germany, in which all these deeds are being perpetrated.

But perhaps these aren’t the sort of crimes that the EU signifies.

Speaking seriously, the first two types of crimes are interesting. Incitement to violence or intimidation is easy to define. For instance, if I were to urge the killing of Muslims or threatened to do so myself, I would be the perpetrator of these acts. But what is public incitement to hatred or a public insult? Is the insult defined by one’s false and negative argument towards another, or rather by a true one that – although true – happens to violate the target?

Muslims are offended if Islam is called a violent, pedophile religion that oppresses women. Are these claims insulting, in the sense that the EU means them to be? With the mouths of the most highly learned, Islam calls to a holy war and to conquest the world. A significant proportion of Muslims are either ready for religious violence or silently condone it. Those highest learned ones in Islam refer to women as creatures lower to man, who are to be struck unless they otherwise obey, and to be raped unless they are dressed modestly. In almost all Islamic countries little girls are married off to older men, and there are no influential schools of thought to call these practices into question. Even the founder of the religion was a pedophile in the current sense of the word.

Since all criticism made towards Muslims or Islam violates the Muslim people, taking their offense into account and making it a yardstick of some sort only leads to a situation where the Muslim people and Islam, unlike any other, are not to be criticized. Surely a situation such as this can not be tolerable.

I understand that there are also deliberate violations of Islam. For example, rolling the Koran around in pig’s shit and uploading it to YouTube as performance art would obviously be a deliberate insult. But would the purpose of prohibiting such an act be equal treatment for all, or would it be intended to protect only the Muslim people?

In October [2007], Swedish neo-Nazis in Lund destroyed works of art in the History of Sex- exhibition using axes and iron pipes. They were motivated by the desire to prevent presentation of “perverted art”. One of the pieces was called “Piss Christ”, a statue of Jesus on the cross submerged in a container of the artist Anders Serrano’s urine.

The museum’s director considered this to be an attack on democracy and freedom of expression. Maybe it was, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Piss Christ had no other function than to offend Christians. The art crowds themselves would probably call it deconstruction, de-dramatization and so forth, but is the EU going to allow the analogous de-dramatization and deconstruction of Islam as well? When the Swedish Democrats Party published Danish cartoons on its website, security forces in accordance with instructions handed from a ministerial level, and in violation of the law, closed the site.

I do not remember the art crowds being all that concerned on an attack on democracy and freedom of expression. Although these cartoons, after all, contained a political message that was both clear and topical, as opposed to (at least in my opinion) Piss Christ.

Let it be noted that when an organization called Suomen Sisu published the same drawings on their website, the Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja condemned the act and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen called for forgiveness from the Muslims burning the world. Finally the case ended up with the state prosecutor. And even here, I do not recall anyone to have been very concerned about democracy and freedom of speech.

Therefore, in the EU of the future, does the framework only concern those who have the intelligence to be offended? Does it also conclude the de-dramatization of Christianity?

What is meant by incitement to hatred? For I can not decide what kind of sensations some of my writings, for instance on the delinquency of immigrants, evoke in the reader. I admit, of course, that my intention is to stir up anti-immigration attitudes. This results from the fact that immigration is, in its current form, fatal to those things which I consider important, and there isn’t going to be a shift in the immigration policy unless people’s (=voters) attitudes change. I can not criticize immigration without criticizing the doings and beings of immigrants. Criticizing them, needless to say, is likely to increase the negative feelings towards the more relevant groups of immigrants. This is inevitable.

If, therefore, I were to argue that the Somali immigration and their emigration are a disaster for Finland, would it be considered hate-mongering towards the Somalis? In a way, yes, but mostly not. For I am not judging them by their color, what God they believe in or what kind of food they eat, but rather by what their presence means to Finland. If their actions and the way they carry themselves are due to the fact that they are Somalis, I can not help it.

The anti-immigrant and anti-immigration attitudes stem from the fact that certain groups of immigrants are living like pigs in a field. It is natural that knowledge of what these groups are doing is only adding to the negative attitudes, even hatred, towards said groups. By EU’s definition, therefore, knowledge alone can be incitement to hatred that is punishable. But can facts – and presenting them – be criminalized? Well, they can of course, but is that what they want to do?

It is interesting that the one of the subjects under protection includes “belief”, a.k.a. opinion. However, the definition of the crime will ultimately lead into being permitted to have only one and the same view of immigrants and immigration. Any criticism of Islam or the immigrants could be interpreted as offensive or hate-mongering. What sort of “beliefs” are this legislation meant to protect? Is hate-mongering against anti-immigrants or nationalists a punishable crime?

And what about the penalties? Proposals include such strong echoes from the Soviet Union, that it creeps the back of my spine:

* For public incitement to “racial hatred”, terms of imprisonment for a minimum amount no shorter than two years

* Alternative penalty of community service or participation in training

* Confiscation of all material used in the crime

* Denial of public assistance for legal entities

The latter mentioned might contain the possibility to withhold political party subsidies from organizations that criticize immigration.

The EU is busy imprisoning and organizing re-educative camps to those who express the wrong opinion. Perhaps the day when the mail delivers bad news or the door bell rings at night is not as far away as I thought. I’ve always laughed at the paranoia that is so common amongst the nationalist circles, but then again two internet writers have just been summoned to Districts for incitement. In addition, we know that the ex-Commissioner on National Minorities Mikko Puumalainen, before moving on to other tasks, frantically produced requests for investigating hate-mongers, so who’s to know what more is to come from consultation?

With these sentiments, I would like to say something to all my fellow-writers who are concerned about their future: You shouldn’t take your own life too seriously. On behalf of your convictions, you should go to jail or get shot. Everything we can accomplish by crawling or repenting vanishes, when our time is up. Rather soon, that is. Instead the consequences of our choices live on. We remember Andrej Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn because they did not give up for their personal good, but we do not remember the millions of Ivan Ivanovs, who apologized for what they said and carried out thorough self-criticism. If they had not given up, the end of the Soviet Union might have become a little more swiftly.

Totalitarianism is to be forced to control by violence, as it will reveal itself. If it manages to rule simply by fear, silencing wrong-thinkers one at a time, people think they are living in freedom and the cancer menacing our society grows undisturbed.

 

Remiel: Is Finland suffering from an identity crisis?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Remiel* 

Since social media is out there today and everybody is connecting with everybody all over the world, is Finland afraid of losing its identity to other cultures? Is this why there is so much hatred and prejudice towards immigrants in this country?

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Remiel asks if Finland is suffering from an identity crisis. Is this the reason why there is so much racism in Finland?

 

I remember when I lived in a neighborhood of Helsinki. My immigrant friends’ apartment kept getting harassed by thugs, who sprayed on the door swastikas and the n-word. They even yelled at him when he was going back home from school.

I have to say there’s no future in a welfare country where the government is giving its inhabitants cash that people don’t appreciate. The whole situation feeds low self-esteem. If you have a child you’re not going to give him or her candy everyday, right?

Finland is suffering from a new economic crisis in 2014 and we’re going to be 90 billion euros in debt. This is easy money, it’s lent money. When I was younger, I was taught that I had to earn money if I wanted to have it. In my opinion this is still true. Finland needs change but who’s going to save you from yourself?

Nokia went down and Finland needs urgently an atmosphere and culture that supports entrepreneurs. The “candy” money and good education we get for free, and which pampered my generation, isn’t going to do it.

Back in the days when I grew up in the 1990s, people in Finland had principles back then. Our youth doesn’t have any or the courage. This country needs actions not words if it wants save itself  from its economic crisis and ever-growing debt. People need to start to change.

We Finnish citizens need to change as well. As citizens we need to be united and we can start from our apartment building where we live. In Finland, there is a culture of code of silence and too much reminiscing of the past. We don’t talk openly many times about the underlying issues.

Finland as a beautiful nation, which rose up from practically nothing after World War 2 and still managed to pay their debt to the United States before that, didn’t lose back then its independence even if we lent money from abroad.

We shouldn’t forget this important lesson and where you came from. You people begin to appreciate your past and your marvelous unique history for what is and what made you who you are today.

As a nation, we need to stop dwelling on those past scars and show the world what we’re made of. Rising from the poorest countries in Europe to  one of the best in Europe with the best educational system is quite a feat.

I personally don’t know of any country that can beat that.

* Remiel is a Finnish citizen with an immigrant background. He needs to write anonymously because, according to him, there is discrimination in Finland.  

Jussi Halla-aho: Of human value

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales insight: We get a lot of email and tip-offs from our readers. The latest one we got is of three blog entry translations in English of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted for ethnic agitation. This first one, Of human value, was published in Scripta on April 13, 2005.

Apart from understanding how racism in Finland thrives and which arguments are used to spread hatred of other groups, one matter is clear from all three writings: They are repulsive and we apologize if anyone is offended by them. The writings have nothing to do with a PhD’s critical thinking; they are simply urban tales and prejudices that have been piled high and deep. 

Another important aspect that we must acknowledge about these writings is that they are hostile towards migrants and intended for gullible Finns. They are hateful writings that fuel prejudice, which in turn fuels social exclusion. 

Acceptance of these two anti-immigration parties this week in the ECR with “MEPs with criminal records,” proves that shoplifting is a worse offense for a politician today than being sentenced for ethnic agitation. It sadly exposes as well why racism has grown in Europe and why mainstream politicians and the media have helped fuel such intolerance. 

Our only motive for publishing these blog entries is so that other Europeans who don’t speak Finnish can read what kind of a politician Halla-aho is. 

For more insight into the PS, take a look Far-right and anti-immigration quotes in English by the PS.

Migrant Tales will publish Sunday France the football giant (2006) and on Monday, Do not tolerate the intolerant one (2007).

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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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An axiom is a claim that is so obviously true that it doesn’t need to be backed up. It’s probably axiomatical (pun intended), that when granting a claim the status of an axiom, we should be especially careful. The claim should preferably be such, that it can be proven to be and have been true everywhere and always.

One of our modern axioms is that all people share a human value, and said human value is of equal size for every person. Even the worst racists and anti-egalitarians try to fit the human value axiom into their own theoretical formulas. Denial of the axiom is altogether politically incorrect.

If we claim that everyone is of equal worth, we also claim that we know the value of a human being and that it can be measured. If it cannot be measured, we cannot prove how much each individual has it. Human value can’t be anything that comes from outside us (from Heaven), or at least it can’t be proven as such, because it’s not written in the stars, waters or rocks. Actually, nothing points to equal human value (or human value in general) being anything else but a convention and a statement typical for our age, like past axioms: ”The Sun revolves around the Earth” ”The Pope is infallible”, ”A woman has no soul”, or ”Masturbation leads to near-sightedness”. They used to be believed in as blindly as human equality is believed in now. There’s been as much measurable evidence to support them as there is for human equality. Because they couldn’t be proven, they were declared axioms that didn’t have to be proven.

The only human value that can be measured and therefore exists beyond all doubt is the instrumental value of an individual. Individuals can be set to a hierarchy based how much the community would weaken were their abilities and functions removed. A farmer, a breeder of edible animals and a construction engineer are more valuable than others, because without them the community would die of starvation and cold. On the other hand, they would survive even if everyone else were removed. An individual using a weapon is the next most valuable member of society, because he protects the food supply and houses from beasts and enemies and keeps community members from responding to their primitive urges and annihilating each other.

An artesan (and his modern variations) is valuable in the sense that his products and inventions make life easier for everyone hierarchically above and below him. Natural scientists (especially physicists and chemists) are valuable, because they produce knowledge, which both the artesan, soldier, construction engineer and food producer put into practice. It’s possible to survive without basic research, but it’s uncomfortable. A doctor is valuable, because he makes our lives last longer and increases our quality of life. Necessary he of course isn’t, because the large majority of people would survive to breeding age without him. Breeding is the primary function of all species that everything else leads to.

The people listed above pretty much materially produce the society in which we live. These professions make free time and the existential thoughts that follow it possible, which includes most of astronomical and even more so all humanistic sciences. They separate us from monkeys, but are in no way necessary. Although it has to be said, that behavioral sciences have perhaps made us less likely to kill each other. Then again, wartime increases cohesion within groups and almost always leads to technological breakthroughs.

Artists, priests and politicians are basically worthless. Any community would perform its functions well enough without them, and everything that they do is possible only because of the actions of others. Artists especially are plagued by bitterness towards science, but no painting would be painted without the chemical industry, which is natural science in effect. The meaninglessness of these professions to the rest of the community is manifested by them surviving on alms and handouts alone (which are called state grants).

Intelligence, when it is not used for something necessary, is of subjective value, but a few will deny that reading a good book or listening to someone talking sense stimulates the intellect and puts you in a good mood. I consider it absolutely bizarre and insulting to think that Esko Valtaoja wouldn’t be more valuable than Juha Valjakkala, Helena Lindgren or an immigrant leaning on a wall at the Helsinki railway station.

Based on what I’ve said above and until someone explains me proper how come everyone is of equal worth, I am of the opinion that difference means difference of worth and everyone is of unequal value. However, unlike egalitarians imagine, unequal value doesn’t lead to gassing of those of lesser worth, unless there is no other valid reason for said gassing. I consider myself more valuable than a mouse carcass lying on a forest path, but I won’t tear the carcass to pieces because of that. I enjoy the world more with art and linguistic studies in it (I’m not all that certain about religions and the Parliament). But if the boat starts leaking, I consider it clear that the less valuable cargo goes overboard first, in this case artists and linguists.

Egalitarian nonsense is brought about by having too many people with enormous energy but nothing sensible to do. Karmela Liebkind, Rosa Meriläinen and Mikko Puumalainen as Finnish examples. Like people from any era, we are also blind to ourselves and our thoughts being just a momentary flash, soon to disappear in the endless tide of time. Upcoming generations will spit on our graves and guffaw and fart at what we consider meaningful. There is no reason to believe that ”equality”, ”tolerance”, and other things important to us will end up in the long list of nonsense from a bygone world. Alongside the Sun revolving around the Earth, infallibility of the Pope, the soullessness of a woman and near-sightedness as a result of masturbation.

 

The PS of Finland makes its post-election debut in the European media with labels like “xenophobic,” “far right” and “MEPs with criminal records”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

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 join the European Conservatives and Reformists group of the European parliament because the party is xenophobic.

To add to the PS’ image problem, the Financial Times headlined the following story on Wednesday: “MEPs with criminal records join Tories’ euroceptic group.”

The two MEPs with criminal records are PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho and Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People’s Party, who was convicted in 2002 for claiming that cultural diversity was linked to rape, violence and forced marriages.

The membership of the PS and DPP in the ECR reveals that UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his fellow conservative apparently consider shoplifting a worst crime to have on your political record than ethnic agitation.

Certainly the PS, which has tried its hardest to change its anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam image, wasn’t too happy about what the foreign media wrote and launched on Friday a witch-hunt to find the anonymous senior official that was quoted on the Financial Times.

PS party secretary, Riikka Slunga-Pitsalo, gave an ultimatum in a statement: “We expect an answer and clarification [from the ministry for foreign affairs] by Monday. We’ll consider what steps will take after that. The smear campaign of Finland’s third-largest party by the foreign media must end.”

Intended for mass consumption and portray the party once again as being unfairly victimized by the media, it’s clear that the anonymous source that the PS wants to lynch in public will never be uncovered.

Another interesting matter to watch after the EU elections is whether Marine Le Pen’s National Front will succeed in forming a new group in the European parliament. For that, the National Front needs at least 25 MEPs from 7 countries.

Members of the far right are, however, optimistic that they’ll succeed at forming a new far right anti-EU group, the European Alliance for Freedom.

“We hope to get more than seven member parties,” a source was quoted anonymously by EurActive.com. “This would reduce the pressure, for instance, if one party leaves. We’re soliciting the same MEPs or parties as the Europe for Freedom and Democracy [EFD] and even the European Conservatives and Reformists group.”

Another interesting group to watch from the anti-immigration and anti-EU perspective is if UKIP can get enough members to form the EFD.

 

Näyttökuva 2014-6-7 kello 11.05.07

The former home of the PS, the EFD, looks like a sinking ship with former members defecting to the ECR or EAF camp. Read full story here.

 

Even if the PS has tried to make itself appear more “mainstream” by toning down its anti-immigration rhetoric, voters should not forget that it was anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam rhetoric that the party used shamelessly to lure voters.

We don’t have to waste our time accusing individual politicians of being racists. What should be done is never to forget the racist comments they’ve made in the past. That is evidence that will follow and haunt them throughout their lives.

Another matter we shouldn’t forget is that the PS can, like the UKIP did in the EU elections, metamorphose into a ever-hostile anti-immigration party. Considering their ability to ditch their campaign promises depending on the political winds that are blowing at the time, it would be wishful thinking to believe that the party wouldn’t ratchet its anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric to secure votes.

In my opinion, it is the disgraceful political record and the PS’ chicanery that has estranged many voters from politics.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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. 

 

Der Spiegel International interviews National Front leader Marine Le Pen

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Der Spiegel International published an interview with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right  National Front. While her views on the EU and cultural diversity don’t surprise us, what she says should concern us. One matter shines through in Le Pen’s message: France must leave the EU and stop immigration to realize her greatness as a nation. 

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 Read full interview here.

The same logic that Le Pen uses was used by many autocratic nations like Nazi Germany, which blamed the Jews and other minorities that lived in the country for keeping Germans from becoming the “super race.”

While in a different context, Le Pen is basically saying the same thing: France has been destroyed by the EU, immigration and minorities.

One has only to look at Berlin in April-May 1945 to understand the destruction and terror that the Nazi regime brought on Europe came back like a boomerang to its doorsteps. In today’s world, you don’t build greatness with racism and nativist nationalism. You do it with global integration and values that promote cultural diversity through mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.

Some of her answers dodge the question completely, like the one when the reporter asks her about xenophobia. Her answer: “Xenophobia is the hatred of foreigners. I don’t hate anyone.”

If you read some of the statements she’s made against Muslims and migrants, we could easily argue the contrary. She’s no friend of Muslims, migrants and minorities like gays.

As you read the interview, pay special attention if she offers viable solutions to issues like unemployment, competitiveness and global-EU integration. What you’ll see is a lot of scapegoating without any credible solutions except for leave the EU and stop immigration to France.

It’s too bad that the reporter didn’t ask Le Pen what she’d do with the millions of migrants and visible minorities living in France. Would she make a similar promise like Geert Wilders did in spring, when the Dutch politician said he’d reduce the number of Moroccans in Holland?

Read full interview here.

Counterpoint: How to compare European populist parties

Posted on by Migrant Tales

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 contribution to healthy debate is questionable and it’s unclear if they’ll become more radicalized in the future.

A good example of radicalization is the UKIP, which apart from being more anti-EU before, took a strong anti-immigration stand in the European parliamentary elections. In Finland, there is concern that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* may take a more vocal stand against immigrants as next year’s parliamentary elections near.

Migrant Tales disagrees with Counterpoint’s classification of the PS as a party with “low danger of racism.” While the party leadership may not make racist comments, they are rife among its members. Read racist quotes by the PS here.

If you are going to challenge intolerance, it’s a good matter that you know those who spread racism and prejudice.

Näyttökuva 2014-6-1 kello 9.15.18

 

Read full Counterpoint report here.

While the Finnish media hardly ever calls the PS a far-right party, the populist party was placed on such a list this week by the Huffington Post, Simon Wiesenthal Center and PolicyMic.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names 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.