Tag: Racism
Do ethnic agitation charges against Teuvo Hakkarainen give us a whiff of the rot spreading in government and our society?
MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who is facing ethnic agitation charges, and the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party are deplorable examples of how low our society has stooped in the dubious racism and bigotry league.
The PS isn’t just any party but a member of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government comprised of the Center Party and National Coalition Party (NCP).
The silence of the PS in the face of Hakkarainen’s racist and bigoted statements in the PS’ Suomen Uutiset publication not only speak volumes about how racism is encouraged and spread in Finland at the highest levels of government and parliament.
We will translate most of Hakkarainen’s comments in Suomen Uutiset so that politicians and institutions around Europe can get a glimpse of the social illness inflicting Finland today.
According to Suomen Uutiset and Teuvo Hakkarainen, racism and bigotry are fine as long as it’s done by white Finns. Funding for the publication comes from tax-payers. Read full interview (in Finnish) here.
The asylum refugee center in Saarijärvi, a central Finnish town of 10,000 inhabitants that Hakkarainen represents, will close at the end of April.
SUPO, the Finnish Immigration Service and the police service reveal that we are today a country that even fears its own shadow
One of the matters that surprised me a lot when I visited my grandparents in Finland when I lived in Southern California was how he related to black people. The way my grandfather saw black people over forty years ago was so negative and shocking to me that I still remember his reaction.
It must have been in 1968 because my sister and I showed him a picture of starving black children in Biafra, an eastern state of Nigeria that declared independence and plunged the country into a bloody civil war. His reaction was so strong that we made fun of his reaction and taped a picture of a starving black child by his bed, which he immediately took away.
I don’t remember exactly the picture that I showed my grandfather of starving Biafran children, but it was something like the picture above. Source: Modern Ghana.
The way my grandfather related to blacks in the 1960s reveals a lot about how some Finns continue to see diversity as a threat that must be contained at all costs by denying it oxygen and living space.
You don’t have to be a star journalist to understand that the Finnish Intelligence Security Service (SUPO), the Finnish Immigration Service and the police service spread fear about asylum seekers and our ever-growing culturally diverse society.
A naturalized Finn who returned to a “safe” country like Afghanistan and was killed last month
The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) announced in May that countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia are “safe” to return refugees who get their asylum applications rejected. Migrant Tales documented two deaths and one shooting of Iraqi asylum seekers that returned recently to Iraq.
When asked about such cases, Migri tweets the following: “Good morning Marianne. Without confirmation we cannot comment on the fate of those [asylum seekers] that have been refused to stay [in Finland].”
We would like to introduce Reza Hasani, a naturalized Finn originally from Afghanistan, who got shot and killed on September 19, or seven days after he got married in the capital Kabul.
The Finnish Immigration Service, with the blessings of the government, aims to separate migrant parents from their children
In August, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) is reported to have given asylum reception center instructions that only their children can stay at the reception center if the parents have their asylum application turned down and won’t leave the country, according to MTV.
The Red Cross has already said that it won’t comply with Migri’s instructions because they breach the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Finland has ratified, and the association’s values to treat asylum seekers in a humane manner.
“We don’t want to worsen with our actions their vulnerability,” Red Cross legal advisor Jani Leino was quoted as saying.
Migrant Tales confirms that the Red Cross told asylum seekers at some camps that they won’t be abandoned by the association. “You will not be neglected or kicked out of the reception center,” an asylum seeker told us over the phone. “We are here to support you.”
While the Red Cross will not comply to Migri’s instructions, it would be interesting to see if private companies like Luona and Mehiläinen feel the same way about offering support and not abandoning those that they now serve.
Read the full story here.
Finland’s government, which is one of the most hostile and anti-immigration seen in a long time, believes that the only way to deal with asylum seekers and migrants in Finland is to prohibit and pass inhumane laws like the tightening of family reunification guidelines.
Case Villa Meri: Is the job of an asylum reception center to promote the well-being or suffering of those they serve?
“Silence is beautiful” is a saying that most people in this country will appreciate but if the authorities don’t act and keep the public in suspense, that silence can turn into poison in a country like Finland where there are interest groups that make it their business to spread hatred, victimize and destroy the good name of migrants.
There are many examples we could cite of this “silence,” or inaction that encourages apathy.
Silence also fuels speculation, which in turn greases the wheels of those that spread racism, bigotry, and hatred.
Good examples of that social gangrene are MV and Nykysuomi and others that rob, spin and spoonfeed to their readers their daily dose of racism with lies and exaggerations about migrants.
The existence of these types of publications, which have a readership and are supported by some politicians of anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, show that many are trying to cash in on xenophobia because such a social ill brings attention and power.
The Villa Meri asylum reception center, run by a private company that profits from people’s suffering, is at the center of a scandal fed by silence due to the rape of a 15-year-old.
Read the full complaint here.
While not all asylum reception centers are managed poorly, there are others that do a good job. One important matter that a well-functioning center requires is good management that is available to the people they serve and offer shelter.
The new Other face of Finland is beautiful
Every story that I read about the new faces of Finland, which is much older than anyone would care to admit, I get excited and inspired. In a flash, I see everything and understand who I am. For a fleeting moment, my thoughts are in perfect balance with my gut feelings and who I am: I belong here, always have and always will.
An interview in Ylioppilaslehti below is a wonderful example of how not only Finland has changed from a country that believed incorrectly it was monocultural to one that is today ever-culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse.
It is the job of the Other Finns to spearhead Finland to a new Finnish identity in the new century.
And the person in the article below, an attractive young woman, states the following at the end of the story:
“It’s absurd that a Finn in the year 2016 is forced to fight for his own identity and whether he belongs to that imagined community called Finland. We cannot build Finland, defend it by excluding a large number of people because they’re not like the rest and because they came from somewhere else.
Many don’t understand that Finnish identity is changing. It has already changed. It’s high time that we grow accustomed to this.”
Read the full story here.
In the 1970s when I visited my grandparents every summer from Southern California, some people didn’t believe that I was from Argentina because nobody from such a distant country visited Finland.
Continue reading “The new Other face of Finland is beautiful”
Finland’s Foreign Minister Timo Soini considers new gender and social equality guidelines as “rampant humbug”
Finland is a great country when it comes to good laws that promote social equality. The latest non-discrimination act, which came into force in 2015, is a case in point. Such laws are important in the face of ever-growing social inequality and polarization of society.
Migrant Tales has written recently how the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä has failed in containing ever-growing racism, bigotry and hate speech in Finland.
Instead of challenging such social ills, the government comprised of the anti-immigration populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, Center Party and National Coalition Party, it has passed laws that fuel greater social inequality. One worth mentioning is the tightening of family reunification guidelines.
So what are some important points of the new non-discrimination act and how does it differ from the previous one?
The new non-discrimination act also offers improvements in the monitoring and challenging discrimination at the workplace. The definition of discrimination has been broadened in the new act and also applies as well to religious, sexual minorities, transgender groups as opposed to only ethnic minorities. Companies with over 30 staffers have to draft their own non-discrimination plan.
Read the full story here.
The new act has encouraged the National Board of Education (OPH) to pass new guidelines on how to promote greater gender equality. According to the OPH, the new guidelines do not only concern gender but migrants and minorities at school as well.
Council of Europe wants Finland to step up efforts to combat hate speech and xenophobia
The Finnish government needs to take steps to combat hate speech, protect Samí rights and the Swedish language, according to the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
Apart from stepping up and taking concrete steps to challenge xenophobia in Finnish society, the police should increase recruitment of minorities in the police service, the advisory committee recommended.
Read the full statement here.
States the Council of Europe: “The Finnish government said in a comment, that a program to educate kindergarten teachers in Samí languages will be launched at the University of Oulu, receiving special funding by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The government also wrote that a training program on hate crime prevention for police officers is scheduled before end 2016.”
Finnish government party Perussuomalaiset MEP claims ethnic profiling needed to fight terrorism
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who hungers for public attention, tries to surprise us with the following suggestion: The police should be allowed to ethnically profile Middle Easterners, North African and Central Asian people irrespective if it is in infringement of these people’s fundamental rights and human rights.
It’s clearly evident from Halla-aho’s comment that his own racist and bigoted statements blind his sensible judgment.
Doesn’t a lot of ethnic profiling happen in Europe today?
Halla-aho makes these types of statements because he has to feed his own bigotry and craves headlines.
But the only headlines Halla-aho makes is soiling the name of Prime Minsiter Juha Sipilä’s government and that of Finland’s image.
A cartoon by Ville Ranta after the Paris attacks of November 2015 showing that Islamophobes were the first to capitalize on the death of victims.
Ethnic appearance has little to do with what people think. That is a racist idea from the days of eugenics, a pseudo-science that fell from grace after the horrors of World War 2 Nazi-run death camps were exposed to the world.