US President Joe Biden warned in a recent speech that his country’s democracy is in peril. He pointed the finger at former President Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again or Make Attorneys Get Attorneys) followers.
We asked in a recent posting if Biden labeled MAGA Republicans “semi-fascists,” why couldn’t we call the far-right Perussuonalaiset (PS)* the same?
Even if the PS’ and other radical-right followers have not yet stormed Parliament like on January 6 at the Capitol, the party’s far-right brand of rhetoric has caused a lot of harm to our democratic institutions. The hate speech they spread against migrants and minorities is one of many examples.
True, the PS wants to sanitize its hateful rhetoric because they want to form part of a next government after the April parliamentary election.
Source: Yle
Who is Mäenpää? He’s the PS MP who called asylum seekers “invasive species” and did not face an ethnic agitation charges since his parliamentary immunity was not lifted.
I have often wondered why racism some people in Finland are not moved by racism. Racism is a traumatic experience that remains inside of you. Some don’t react or care because they have never been a victim of such a social ill.
When racism jabs or throws a violent punch and your colleague or friend doesn’t react, it is the worst insult. Even worse is if the person denies completely racism or claims that you are overreacting.
Racism is such a profitable disorder that politicians use it to gain power and attention. Even so, the worst racists are the ones who do nothing, remain silent, and keep the structures of institutional racism intact.
An excellent book worth reading.
Racism is a monster that you learn to live with but constantly plan on slaying it.
Institutional racism is a social ill that Finland has done too little to challenge. One of the areas where it happens mainly uncontested is in the labor market. IYou face many challenges ahead if you are lucky enough to get a job interview with your so-called foreign-sounding name.
Once you get through the door, the question is if you will be treated equally like the white Finnish employees.
Hamiid Hussein is a Finnish citizen who has lived in the country for a long time. He approached Migrant Tales as well as other representatives of the media about a far-right Perussuomalaiset* candidate running for office in the municipal elections who wanted a picture of his family.
Denmark, the Nordic region’s most Islamophobic country, plans to tighten (again) its immigration laws by deporting all foreigners who are handed prison sentences, according to DR of Denmark.
DR writes that the government wants to introduce changes in the law so that any foreigner slapped with an unconditional prison sentence will be deported. “Today, a foreigner can avoid deportation despite being handed a prison sentence,” said Denmark’s Social Democratic minister for immigration and integration, Kaare Dybvad Bek.
While some idealize the Nordic welfare system because it is supposed to promote social equality, nothing could be further from the truth than Denmark, which some have correctly called a xenophobic country on steroids.
Politicians and parties expel a lot of blah blah. Ask this question: Will matters improve for Finland’s racialized communities if the PS and Kokoomus partner in a government? There’s your answer with no blah blah.
A recent story by MTV, a private television channel with a streak of Fox News, published a story about what some National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) leaders thought about forming a government with the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)*.
Finland will hold parliamentary elections in April, and considering that Kokoomus and the PS are the biggest opposition parties, with the former leading in opinion polls, future cooperation in a Kokoomus-led government is naturally a topic of speculation.
For some, a government led by Kokoomus and the PS would bring a lot of social hardship, especially to migrants and minorities. Read the full story (in Finnish) here.
Even so, the MTV story reveals many ugly truths about how the Finnish media treats its ever-growing culturally diverse communities with disregard. It is an example of whitewash journalism that avoids asking essential questions.
Even if MTV did not care to bring up what a partnership between Kokoomus and the PS would have on our racialized communities in Finland, Migrant Tales is obliged to do so. Moreover, the television station did not even attempt to answer what extreme cost-saving measures would affect people’s lives.
While the story only mentions labor migrants twice, it sidelines the topic effectively and brushes it under the rug.
Although without the same obsessive zeal, Kokoomus is also inflicted by racism. In its black-and-white world, there are “undesirable” migrants, asylum seekers, Muslims, people of color, and “desirable” ones like cheap, obedient, easily exploitable labor.
Let’s look at some of Purra’s quotes and ask after reading them why MTV did not even bother to bring them up:
“If it were up to me, the Perussuomalaiset will never form part of a government that does not successfully [and] significantly tighten Finnish immigration policy;”
Aims to scrap dual citizenship rights and raise citizenship requirements from five to 10 years;
Total rejection of Muslim asylum seekers to Finland even at the cost of ditching international agreements and human rights obligations;
Constant attacks against cultural diversity by labeling Others as incompatible, irreparable, and hopeless problems;
Much whing about “multiculturalism” but little on solutions.
Two inebriated white Finns start to harass a non-white boy in a racist manner. The boy yells something back at them and speeds away with his bike.
A white Finnish couple says something at the men about their behavior toward the boy. They approach the couple, and the thirty-year-old man hits and kicks one of the suspects who yelled at the boy.
The man, claims that he attacked the inebriated men after they got about a meter from him. The man said he attacked them because he feared they might have a knife.
The court did not accept the defendant’s claim and was fined 1,300 euros for assault and threatening a person unlawfully.
A court of appeal had turned down a request to overturn the original ruling.
Up to here, we can sort of understand the case. However, an important piece is missing: racist harassment of a child by two white Finnish adults. Did the police attempt to find the child and bring charges against the two men?
The story reads as if racist harassment is unimportant and has no bearing on the case.
In Finland, some parties are openly racist, and others are more subtle about it. Both are dangerous to our community. The more we know about them, the better prepared we are to challenge such a menace.
Large opposition parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) have one matter in common: they loathe asylum seekers from outside the EU but rarely name the ethnic group directly.
In all respects, they are nothing more than cowardly bullies for treating vulnerable people like asylum seekers with such contempt.
Parties that profit politically off asylum seekers are such cowards that they usually speak in code. The term “asylum seeker” is used usually to signify Muslim as well as “person of migrant background,” when he’s not an asylum seeker.
Ever wonder why both these parties usually refuse to use the word “Muslim” or “Arab?” True, the PS no longer does but uses Afghans (and previously Somalis) in some of its postings like the one below, where it claims that keeping such people out of Finland and putting them in refugee camps in a neighboring country helps 50 refugees.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party hates migrants from Muslim countries. It hates these people so much that it rarely utters the word “Muslim” and “African.”
PS tweet below states:
Do we want to help – or do we want more migrants?
The best way to help them is in neighboring [countries].
One Afghan to Finland costs as much as [helping] 50 people in bordering countries.
Source: Twitter
Ask the PS the following questions:
1. How many Afghan refugees are living in refugee camps?
2. Is living in a refugee camp similar to living at a five-star hotel?
3. Why are we taking a fraction of the refugees in Europe compares to countries like Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and others?
In the world’s happiest country, the ugly face of racism can show itself. This post by a young woman called Laura Elisabeth of the Romany minority is shameful and should never happen in our country.
I hope the perpetrators get caught and feel the full weight of the law fall on them.
“I have already reported the matter to the police, but I want to share it here too. I am a 19-year-old girl from Lapua [in the western Finnish region of Southern Ostrobothnia], and I am shocked that this can happen in my neighborhood. Last night, between Friday and Saturday last week, I was walking home from the train station with my luggage. A large group of young boys drove towards me [menacingly] at such a high speed that I almost got run over. I had to get out of the way [of the approaching car] and leave my luggage there. They then surrounded me with their vehicles and robbed me. They followed me to my front yard and continued to harass me further by coming under my balcony in the middle of the night, beeping [their horns], shouting [derrogatory names like Gypsy, etc.], and throwing rubbish. It was also a nuisance to the elderly people living in the same block of flats. I have also lived in big cities, and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I hope parents who recognize their children’s cars from the picture will come forward and contact me. What happened should not happen. Everyone has the right to walk down the street feeling safe regardless of ethnic background.
Helsingin Sanomatraised an important question: There are a record amount of asylum seekers from Ukraine, but nobody is crying murder like when mostly Iraqis and Afghans came to Finland in large numbers in 2015.
In a statement Monday, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) said that there are over 37,000 Ukrainians registered in the Finnish asylum reception system, more than the over 32,000 asylum seekers that arrived in the country in 2015.
Finland’s largest daily asks a good question that should expose our double standards: Why do Ukraininens get preferential treatment against the hostile reception asylum seekers from outside Europe received seven years ago?
