Racism Archives - Page 99 of 208

Defining white Finnish privilege #24: Becoming a heartless accomplice in wars and people’s suffering

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

During the so-called “war on terror” launched by former President George W. Bush and his cronies like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Condoleezza Rice and many, many others, made up new terms to justify their wars in Iraq and the death of hundreds of thousand of people.

Do you remember the term enhanced interrogation, which meant torture? What about collateral damage for civilian deaths, and regime change that meant coup in the old CIA tradition?

Remember synonyms for torture techniques like waterboarding, walling and rectal feeding?

: White privilege can lead to wars as was the case in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Source: Wikipdia.

In the same way that the Bush administration used to justify its crimes by invading foreign countries, new terms are being used today by politicians and the media to justify our inaction to what is happening to refugees fleeing war-torn countries like Syria.

How many columnists and editorialists connect the present refugee crisis in Syria with the invasion of Iraq in 2003? If your answer is too few then we must investigate deeper to understand why.

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UPDATE (August 21): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

August 20

Sarasvuo HSTV:ssä: Suomalaista kulttuuria uskallettava suojella islamilta (HSTV)

What’s wrong with this story? A lot.For one, the guests who speak about Islam and refugees to Europe appear not to have the faintest idea about what they are talking about never mind how cultural diversity works. In their small worlds immigration translates to Islam and people coming by boat to Europe. Former businessman Jari Sarasvuo, for example, claimed that Finnish culture must dare to protect itself from Islam. The other guest, Jari Ehrnrooth, believed that people from Islamic countries could never adapt to our Western way of life because they “live a thousand years” behind us in time. What did the host do during the show? He gave them the opportunity to spread their ignorance and prejudices to the viewers. If you’re guessing why Finland and the Nordic region is being threatened by populist anti-immigration parties, this show is a good example.

Perussuomalaiset label fleeing refugees to Europe as economic migrants and welfare shoppers

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

PS party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo said today on Suomen Uutiset, a PS publication, that four out of five people that flee to Europe from Northern Africa and the Middle East aren’t refugees but economic migrants and welfare shoppers.

Considering that Slunga-Poutsalo, who is a member of extremist MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s anti-immigration wing of the PS, uses such words to describe people fleeing from war-torn countries like Syria begs a serious question:

Why should the government allow such language to be used by one of its coalition partners?

What else did Slunga-Poutsalo say?

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Migrant Tales’ D4R: Estonians can be just as racist as some Finns

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Just because you are a migrant doesn’t mean that you can’t be a racist jerk.

Our faithful reader and friend D4R called me up Thursday and told me about a racist incident with two Estonian men on the train. One of them asks D4R in a hostile tone where he purchased such good clothes and if he was living off social welfare.

“Social welfare pays you guys for everything,” one of the Estonian men continued. “Why don’t you move back to Africa?”

D4R couldn’t hold back his feelings and responded.

“This isn’t Estonia,” he said. “I have lived longer in this country than you, I work and pay taxes.”

One of men started to act aggressively and placed his face close to D4R’s.

“Fortunately his friend had more sense than him and they both left,” he said. “I called 112 to inform them that I felt threatened.”

D4R said he did not want to pick a fight with the person because, as has happened in the past, he felt he’d be arrested by the police for starting the fight.

Why do some dark-skinned children in Finland fear the sun?

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

There are many ways to measure how racism works on a day-by-day level and structurally in our society. Umayya Abu-Hanna wrote a while back how Finland’s middle class ensures that migrants and minorities can never compete economically, politically and culturally on an equal level with white Finns.

Instead of prime ministers and government officials stating how much they are against racism, why don’t they actually challenge this social ill in earnest?

The reason why they don’t may surprise some: They don’t consider racism a serious enough problem.

Source: www.beeanddaddoo.com

Racism in Finland starts from early childhood. Children are bullied at school because of their ethnic background, even some like Rebecka Holm are harassed in public by total strangers.

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Finland Bridge: What threatens us?

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Everything that puts Europe in harm’s way today is in some cases more challenging to Finland: geopolitical uncertainty in Russia ranks high on the list as does populism, anti-immigration sentiment, near-flat economic growth, high unemployment, rising poverty and nationalism.

It’s clear that when you have enough of the latter, people are going to get pretty edgy and angry. But since I’m an optimist that believes in Finland and the Finns, I’m hopeful that things won’t get too much out of hand politically and force us to commit the same mistakes of the past.

Time is still on our side.

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The PS of Finland declares war against the media, researchers, and politicians

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party strongman Matti Putkonen said that the populist anti-immigration party with far right leanings will hire a lawyer and threatened to take people to court for claiming that PS MP Olli Immmonen and the party has links with Nazi groups, according to Ilta-Sanomat.

“Those who use the Nazi-fascist card, politicians, researchers, professors, the media, editors-in-chiefs, journalists can come to prove to us if we have any links with the Nazis or not,” he warned.

PS MP Immonen posed in June with members of the neo-Nazi Suomen vastarintaliike (SVL).

Members of the PS have in the past applied for membership in the SVL.

The SVL is a violent association. In 2013 it attacked a book presentation in Jyväskylä, where one person was stabbed. Most recently the SVL took part in a demonstration that turned violent and led to the detention of 32 people by the police.

Immonen’s pet topics are xenophobic like the supposed invasion of Europe by Muslims. The PS MP, who was a security guard before being elected to parliament in 2011, wrote in April about a nationalist revolution in Finland.

His most recent declaration of war came in July against the “nightmare of multiculturalism.” That led to a demonstration on July 28 where some 15,000 people showed their opposition to what the PS MP wrote.

This picture was taken with PS MP Immonen and members of the neo-Nazi SVL. Putkonen claims that posing in the same picture with members of the SVL didn’t make Immonen a Nazi.

It would be naive to believe that Putkonen and the PS aren’t seeking political profit with their latest attack against the media and their enemies.

The strategy of the PS is the same as before: It threatens, whines and acts like the victim.

If it actually sued the media and went on a witch hunt against researchers, individual editors-in-chief, columnists and blogs like Migrant Tales, it wouldn’t surprise many even if that is the way dictators silence and deal with the opposition.

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PS party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo claims racism to be “a matter of interpretation”

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Migrant Tales

In one of the most incredible statements yet by Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party secretary was quoted as saying on MTV3 that the term racism should be defined more clearly since it can mean many things to different people.

“Today it feels that way [that there is no clear definition of racism],” she said. “It’s even hard to get a [clear] definition from Wikipedia [sic]. We have to define it [racism] again like monoculturalism and other [similar concepts]. Is racism a matter of interpretation?”

Slunga-Poutsalo’s statement is another example of how the PS aims to encourage and make racism and bigotry more acceptable in Finland. In her statement white Finnish privilege is exposed as well.

If something is clearer to the PS, it is its anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity message that has become more open and hostile.

The PS is trying its hardest to change people’s perceptions of social ills like racism and fascism. The PS’ view of racism is similar to how dictatorships view human rights violations. In both cases the best way to deny social ills like racism and human rights violations is to redefine and change their real meaning.

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Finland: White teenage girls attack physically a 10-year-old and name him “n-word” and “rapist”

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Isn’t it surprising how our country, where racism is supposed to be an insignificant problem, is making headlines and encouraging Finns to challenge this social ill. The latest scandal comes from a playground in Helsinki, where a ten-year-old black boy was harassed in a racist manner by teenage girls, who kicked him and called him n-word and rapist, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

Yes, right, you read it correctly: A group of under-fifteen-year-old teenage white girls attack a ten-year-old boy at a playground, kicked him repeatedly and named him n-word and rapist.

The first question that arises is where did these white teenagers learn this type of anti-social behavior? What motivated and emboldened them to attack such a child?

The evidence is quite incriminating in today’s Finland. Anti-cultural diversity sentiment is so thick in this country that you could cut and slice it and send it to political parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, to silent politicians, our too often toothless media that is in many cases a rubber stamp of the racist things politicians say, and to the countless families and teachers at schools that should know better.

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Media researcher claims Finnish politicians don’t challenge racism strongly enough because they fear losing voters

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Media researcher Anu Koivunen believes that Finnish politicians don’t challenge racism because they fear losing voters, reports MTV3. Koivunen said that reaction would have been stronger in Sweden if the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen scandal would have happened in that neighboring country.

Organizing a 15,000-strong demonstration at the end of June as a reaction to Immonen’s declaration of war against multiculturalism shows that Finns have the potential to react just as strongly as their neighbors in Sweden.

Koivunen reinforces what Migrant Tales has been saying for a long time: There is a lack of leadership among politicians to challenge racism in Finland. This explains why a party like the PS can rise from near-obscurity to become the second-biggest force in parliament with the help of xenophobic and anti-EU rhetoric.

While some politicians may fear challenging racism because it could end their careers, it’s clear that their complacent silence is more an indication of support for the xenophobic rhetoric of parties like the PS.

While Koivunen speaks of politicians, she should also mention the Finnish media, which has been part of the problem with its too often toothless reporting and by giving a voice to racist politicians from parties like the PS.

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