Tag: Russia

Our Finnish national identity in the new century

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Glancing through a pile of documents and certificates my late grandfather (1892-1979) had is like entering a time machine. Two certificates catch my attention: a Finnish-language test in 1925 and another one when he changed his surname from Hantwargh to Harvo.  Both documents offer us a glimpse of how a social construct like Finnish national identity was forged in the last century.

Taking into account how some Finns define it today an ever- globalized world, it’s easy to see that their definition of a Finn has its roots in those two documents.

Being a Finn had little to do with your place of birth but is due to jus sanguinis, right of blood. Your citizenship is not determined by place of birth but by having one or both parents as citizens of that country.

The first document proving that my grandfather spoke perfect Finnish is understandable in the jus sanguinis context. The second one, which was from 1931, states at the following:

In light of the petition made by military instructor Harald Vilhelm Handtwargh, the governor of the province of Mikkeli grants his family permission to change their  surname to Harvo; this is backed by statements from the vicar [of the Lutheran church], Suomen Sukututkimusseura [Finnish Genealogical Society] and the Suomalaisuuden Liitto [Association of Finnish Culture and Identity]…

Taking on a new national identity was relatively  easy in the last century as long as you were white, nationalistic and didn’t make too public your foreign roots. In the case of my grandfather it was his Jewish background.

Today there are totally new demands placed on our society with respect to inclusion and “us.”  How we included and excluded people and groups in the last century is, I believe, what is causing us to fall flat on our faces and hindering us from seeing the bigger picture of what Finnish identity is in the new century.

Since we are a young nation with a young identity there is time to make it more inclusive. But for that change to happen it requires us to see the world in a radically different way than today.  A good example is some of our feelings towards the Russians and that fear of being a small nation constantly under threat.

It’s clear that in order to build a more inclusive and culturally dynamic society, we have to break away from our past hatreds, prejudices and myths.

But let’s not fool ourselves, breaking free from them will be a long process that will take a concerted effort and generations.

This document gave my grandfather the right to change his surname from Handtwargh to Harvo in 1931. 

One good way to become a more inclusive society today would be to change Section 5 of the Constitution from jus sanguinis to jus solis, right of the soil, nationality or citizenship granted to a person born in country.

The whole idea of jus sanguinis is deeply rooted in how ethnicity and nationality were defined in the nineteenth and greater part of the twentieth century.

While I am happy that Finland is an independent country today, we cannot escape the fact that it was built on nationalism and racism that was ever-present in Europe before and even today.  Thus our independence was in many respects an ethnic thing. We didn’t like the Russians never mind Russification.

The racism and nationalism that existed in Europe in the nineteenth century had a clear role: It justified the colonization and exploitation of other people in Africa and Asia. It was very ethnocentric as well. We thought that we were the epitome of civilization and therefore it was our right to  exploit others because they were less “advanced.”

As we know, World War I exposed the barbarism of our “civilized ways” and was pretty good reality check.

Hopefully our culturally diverse identity will not resemble an excerpt from Heikki Waris’ “An introduction to Finnish history” on page two:

“A fourth aspect is the high degree of homogeneity of Finnish society. Racial homogeneity particularly characterizes the Finnish people who have practically no racial minorities, the less than three thousand Lapps in the northernmost arctic communities making up the largest racial minority group. Consequently, racial prejudice and discrimination are nonexistent.”

Apart from avoiding mention of the Roma of Finland and Finnish expats and those with international backgrounds, Waris’ affirmation are quite humorous from today’s perspective.

Eronen asked for trouble when she wrote her column about armbands

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Finland has been inflicted for a number of years by people who think they can say and write anything they please about immigrants and visible minorities in Finland. It’s only natural that when you let out racism and prejudice to roam freely in society unchecked, things will eventually snap as we saw in Norway in July. What did Helena Eronen, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s aide, do wrong?

Eronen blames the scandal on her own ignorance, according to an interview she gave to YLE. “The strong reactions to it [blog entry] were to be expected,” she said.

Reactions to what she wrote about sleeve emblems for foreigners to help the police in Finland have been published in Sweden and now throughout Russia and former IVY countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Eronen blew it to put it lightly. If you are white and try to be “sarcastic” about other nationalities, work for a right-wing populist party like the PS and your boss is none other than Hirvisaari, you are going to get in hot water. She forgot as well those whom she was being sarcastic about, the immigrants, and if this may be offensive to some groups.

Who are the losers and winners of the scandal?

The biggest loser shouldn’t be difficult to figure out. That’s Eronen and the negative debating atmosphere in Finland concerning immigrants and visible immigrants.

Do I think that Eronen’s column was in bad taste? Certainly. But there may be a silver lining revealing that matters may have changed in Finland since Jussi Halla-aho and his xenophobic band roamed the net with near-impunity.

Some, like MP Hirvisaari, who was fined for hate speech in December, still don’t get it. They live somewhere deep in the previous decade when defaming and insulting immigrant groups and cultures was a free-for-all social media lynching job.

Hirvisaari added more damage and salt to Eronen’s wound Wednesday by republishing his own blog the column that was taken off Uusi Suomi. He went as far as to claim that the scandal is an example of the rot that inflicts the media in Finland.

The biggest winner could be the PS. Eronen could give them a scapegoat opportunity to wash their hands of all the racism and prejudice they have spread in Finland since last year’s election, according to a column by Jussi Jalonen. Such a sacrificial object looks especially inviting for the PS with the municipal election nearing in October.

Finland, and I am certain Eronen as well, have learned a valuable lesson: When you write about immigrants and visible minorities you should be extra careful and try to see the world from their perspective when dressing a column up in sarcasm.

If you have that ability, probably one of the first things you’d do is drop the whole topic and write about something else.

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from June 14, 1993

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.

The billboard below reinforces some Finns’ perceptions that anything that comes from Russia is bad. If you go there, for example, bad things can happen to you like when 70 Finnish tourists were hijacked by the Russian mafia.

In the early 1980s before Finland’s first alien act came to force in 1983, the police justified their tough immigration policy stance by stating that its aim was to keep criminals out of Finland. Another researcher that advised the interior ministry told me that its aim was to “keep the trash out.”

In 1993 only 14,409 immigrants lived in Finland, accounting for 0.3% of the population.

*MIgration Institute archive.

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from March 9, 1995

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Migrant Tales will begin to publish Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic and racist views.  

The billboard below shows Finland’s surprise at the new brave world that emerged after the demise of the former Soviet Union.  In an exclusive scoop, Ilta-Sanomat reveals to its readers how a Russian millionaire lives in Finland.

Seventeen years later in Finland such a story would probably not receive such attention by the tabloids.

A warning to those that push urban tales and stereotypes of immigrants and minorities today: You may end up looking as ridiculous as some of these ads. 

*Migration Institute archive. 

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from December 28, 1992

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales will begin to publish Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how they reflected some people’s xenophobic and racist views.  

We apologize to readers for the racist and xenophobic content of the material. Our intention is not to spread these social ills but to exposed it.

One of the good things that former President Mauno Koivisto did during his term (1982-92) was the long-overdue recognition of the Ingrians as part of the Finnish ethnic family.  The first question that many asked at the time was who are the Ingrians? They are Finnish-speakers who were settled in the St Petersberg area and surroundings when Finland was a part of the Swedish Empire (1150-1809).

The cold war had buried these people from our collective memory.

During World War 2, or the Continuation War (1941-44), many Ingrians fought in the Finnish army against the Soviet Union. After the war ended, Finland was required to return an estimated 55,000 Ingrians back to the former Soviet Union.  Some of these ended up in Siberia.

Despite the wrongdoings of history, Ilta-Sanomat showed how some were making money off the Ingrians at 1,000-mark daily rates for dwellings offered to the newly arrived immigrants.

While I did not have access to the story, JusticeDemon and Joku cleared the matter up for me. Thank you.

*Migration Institute archive. 

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from October 24, 1992

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales will begin to publish Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how they reflected some people’s xenophobic and racist views.  

We apologize to readers for the racist and xenophobic content of the material. Our intention is not to spread these social ills but to exposed it.

The tabloid ad below has a picture of Liisa Kulhia, a populist MP (1983-87) who defected from the Center Party. In the ad below, the politician vows to discipline the Russian mafia and Somalis. Supposedly this type of populist baloney aimed at further victimizing Somalis by suggesting they were in the same league as the Russian mafia.

At the time, the term refugee, never mind Somali refugee, had a very negative meaning. Some Finns saw immigrants as refugees.

As a social illness, xenophobia and racism leave open wounds and scars on society. We don’t have to search far to find them because they exist right under our noses. Xenophobia and racism leave lots of witnesses. The only question is if we want to hear their evidence in society’s witness box.

*Migration Institute archive. 

Coming out of the stuffy Finnish cultural closet

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I would like to thank those bloggers for reading my previous blog entry in which I wrote about the international background of  my Finnish family. I must confess, however, that I thought about writing such a blog entry for months but could not find the right approach to tackle the topic. The answer appeared when I decided to come out.

Coming out of that closet has not been easy because the pressure to remain there has been sometimes immense. So imposing, in fact, that coming out in the previous century could have banished you from that small national group we created in the last century.

In order to be a part of that exclusive white Finnish national identity club, you had to renounce your “Other” and embrace without any questions asked your new identity.  You had to be white as well. That new identity was strongly peppered with nationalism and right-wing ideology and values. After the Winter War (1939-40), the losers of Finland’s Civil War of 1918, were included as well.

Considering that we had a marked class society especially in the first half of the last century, there were strong social and economic differences that determined where you stood in that exclusive club.

Since there were few immigrants in Finland in the 1920s, and their numbers declined up to the 1970s to a mere 7,000 souls (many if not most were expat Finns), the molding of our national identity was relatively easy process. But by defining in such narrow terms our identity we automatically excluded the Romany, Saami and other minorities. We even made it virtually impossible for outsiders to be accepted as equal members of society. The latter is one of the big obstacles that hinders acceptance of new immigrant groups in Finland today.

My great aunts Lally (left) and Irma Handwargh seated with Hannu (surname unknown). Written in French on the back side of the picture: the writer says humorously that Lally would like to have a mustache, which was drawn with a pen on Hannu, would make her look very feminine. The picture is dated “Miekkoniemi (located next door to Savonlinna), July 11, 1920.”

My grandfather, whose father was Jewish, is a case in point how Finns embraced their new national identity and erased their past. A captain in the Finnish army and like many of his generation, he too had learned to loathe the Russians. That suspicion he housed permitted him to erase, or bury deep in his subconscious, his background and even hope that Nazi Germany would be victorious against the Red Army.

He probably knew but refused to face that a terrible fate awaited him and other if Adolf Hitler’s forces would have been victorious in World War 2. Like many others in Finland with Jewish backgrounds, my grandfather and his family would have ended up at concentration camps as part of the Final Solution.

Those who claim that Finns are closely related to a tribe flirt with racism.  Much of our history and our national identity, a social construct, is based on racism. Certainly we can keep the positive matters about such myths, like our desire to be an independent and free nation, but we must banish those matters that continue to fuel our mistrust and suspicions of others, especially the Russians.

As long as we continue to foster such ideas from our history, it will be difficult if not impossible to accept other groups as equal members of our society.

Unless you believe that the Garden of Eden was in Finland, all it takes is a rapid view of our ancestors to understand that we came from somewhere else before they moved to Finland.

Humans have always built roads because they never believed in isolation. Claiming the contrary is nothing more than an exercise in national self-deceit and the fuel that feeds our racism and xenophobia.

Our Finnish national identity in the new century

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

For some anti-immigration groups, my background as a Finn must be a nightmare. The bad dream these groups dread to see is nothing more than the present and future staring back at them. It is the new Finland of the twenty-first century looking, together with others from our ever-culturally diverse society, confidently at the future. 

Some anti-immigration groups and even some white Finns dread us because we are the long-overdue Finland that has been swept under the rug for so long with the help of nationalism and concocted myths.  

The bad news for those who cling to these views about ourselves is that war, which is glorified by such groups as an important quality about our Finnishness, will play a lesser role in our identity. The history of those days, which only served to underline who are enemies are, will be undermined by our more open and diverse view of ourselves and the world.

This new way of looking at ourselves will seek effective solutions not constantly remind us and keep us from never leaving that ditch of the wrongs of history. We survived those times and now we must build a new reality because our survival in this century depends on it.    

 My great great grandfather David Nykänen and his grandchildren Alexander and Ira Cherkassky. Alexander, who was born in Boston, and his sister visited their grandparents of Mikkeli every summer. The picture was taken in the mid-1920s in Mikkeli (Vuorikatu 13). In the background the Naisvuori Observation Tower. (Tessieri family collection)

You may ask, dear reader, what made me so different from you in the previous century?  Let’s answer that question from my mother’s side. 

My great great great grandfather was Jacob Weikain (1758-1848), the first Jew to be granted permanent residence in Finland in 1832. His grandchild, Karl Jakob Hantwargh, a goldsmith, raised with his wife Anna Johanna a big family of eight children in Sääminki, located next door to Savonlinna in Eastern Finland.

Even if my relatives of Savonlinna lived in a very rural part of the country at the time, they were very international. Some of them worked in St Petersburg before the October 1917 Revolution and naturally spoke fluent Russian, French among other languages. 

My great aunt Irma married a U.S. diplomat, who worked in countries like the former Soviet Union, China, Afghanistan and Kenya.

Angus Ward and my aunt Irma speaking with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip in Nairobi, Kenya. Irma had come a long way from those rural landscapes of Savonlinna in Eastern Finland.

 My aunt Irma (standing right) with her husband Angus Ward chatting with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in Nairobi, Kenya. Irma had come a long way from those rural landscapes of Savonlinna where she grew up.  (Tessieri family collection)

Another great aunt called Lally wed Eero Tammisalo, a Helsinki University professor, was the personal dentist of the first presidents of Finland up to Marshal Carl Mannerheim.

My grandmother Aino was born and brought up in Mikkeli, a town located about 100km west of Savonlinna. She was very international as well and fluent in Finnish, Swedish, Russian, English and even spoke some French. Her first marriage was with Paul Cherkassky. He was already a celebrated violin virtuoso in his teens.

Like many at the time, Paul had fled the Russian Revolution and moved to Finland, where he served as concertmaster of the Helsinki City Orchestra during 1919-23. As a violin soloist, he gave the premiere performances of the Six Impromptus of Jean Sibelius at the composer’s request. In 1923 he was invited to become a member of the first violin section of the Boston Symphony.

Even if my family was never afraid to explore the world outside Finland like hundreds of thousands of Finns who emigrated between 1860 and 1999, I am especially concerned about those Finns who still speak of our ethnicity in the same terms as some political leaders in the 1930s. 

I can say with confidence that if we don’t allow these antiquated views about our national identity to get the best of us, the future will be ours as a unified nation bonded by our diversity. A key value that will strengthen our society will be mutual acceptance and respect.  

There never was, is nor be such a thing as a “typical” Finn. The so-called typical Finn is only a social construct.  

If my ancestors from five generations who made their lives in Finland could speak to us today, I am pretty certain that they would wholeheartedly agree with what I am saying. 

HRHN: In Norway, one ”illegal” immigrant’s case stand for thousands

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Comment: Here is a touching story published on Human Rights House Norway (HRHN) about a Russian from the troubled Caucasus who, after being refused asylum Finland and then in Norway, became an illegal alien with her parents from the age of 12. She is now 26.  After publishing a book about her life, she was arrested and detained.

Her detention and outraged some Norwegians and has sparked protests over her possible deportation.

What does her plight say about the thousands of illegal aliens in Norway?

_____________

“A police crackdown on a lone woman in the shelter of the dark: Is this the kind of Norway that we want?” asks Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General of Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

Asylum rejected

Maria Amelie, left, was taken on the run from the Caucasus by her parents when she was 12 years old. After having been refused asylum in Finland, they fled to Norway and sought asylum here when Amelie was 16 years. After the rejection from the Norwegian authorities the parents decided to stay paperless.

On 12 January Amelie was arrested by eight plainclothes police officers outside the Nansen Academy for violation of the Norwegian Immigration Act. Now she stands in danger of being forced to return to Russia.

“Maria Amelie has never been given an opportunity to explain herself in her case before the Norwegian immigration authorities, something we find tp be in violation of her human rights,” said Engesland. –Not as a child when she was rejected by her parents’ case, and not now, when as an adult she has asked for a reconsideration of her case. Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution”.

Engesland says it is difficult to see how a child who was taken to Norway by its parents may be held liable for violations of the immigration law on an equal footing with adults.

According to Secretary of State Pål Lønseth, a new negative decision was made by the Immigration Appeals Board on 12 January. Maria Amelie was arrested without either having been offered an interview or be notified of the decision. Police Immigration Service would not provide information about the arrest of Maria Amelie lawyer.

Maria is not illegal

Amnesty International Norway demands Maria’s release and that Norwegian authorities consider her case on the basis that the offense she committed was not her own adult choice and that she has a strong connection to Norway.

Against all odds, Maria has gone through higher education in Norway, and made an extraordinary effort to become a part of Norwegian community. Maria has also chosen to give the so-called illegal a face through her book and various appearances in the public sphere in Norway.

Amnesty International Norway believes the government should give her credit for this. Instead, her courage and work for others, perhaps several thousand people, who live like her to be visible and taken seriously resulted in a frightening arrest and confinement.

In Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s opinion, as a 25-year old, Maria has contributed more to the Norwegian public debate than most Norwegian will make in the course of a life.

She has been open and readily available to meet the Norwegian immigration authorities, if they had wanted it. Instead, the Minsitry of Justice decided that the police should take action in a way that brings the thoughts to societies where protection of the rights of the individual is a lot weaker than in Norway.

Deportation
“We are also concerned about Maria’s dispatch to Russia now. It is very difficult for a person from the Caucasus, who was small and without registering when leaving the country, to have valid papers for settlement in Russia,” said Engesland.

From a political and moral point of view, the arrest of Maria Amelie is a reprehensible act. She traveled from Russia to Finland when she was 12 years old, because her parents took her with them. During the last eight years she has been in Norway, she has in every way tried to live as an upstanding citizen – except the fact that she has lived in Norway without a legal residence.

-Responsible politicians in the Parliament should make it crystal clear that this is unnecessary use of force and an unacceptable practice towards peaceful, accessible and cooperative people,” said secretary general John Peder Egenæs and continues:

– Secretary of State Pål Lønseth has stated that it is not that important to discuss what we in Norway do with the so-called illegal people living here. The reason for this is that there is no crisis in the system. Norway has neither the immigration crisis in the administration or in the black labour market, so the government could also provide safe care of the people concerned.

New rules needed
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee says it’s time to get a new set of rules that provides long stay undocumented, especially for those who come to Norway as children and become established in the country, and take into account the amount of time a person has been in the country illegally.

According to the Amnesty International Norway, there must be an upper limit on how long children can live in Norway categorised as illegal before they are automatically granted legal residence.

– We believe that Amelie meets this requirement even though some of her childhood on the run was spent in Finland. She grew up in Norway, partly in childhood and partly in adulthood. She must stay here,” said Irene Khan.

Protests
A court in Oslo went along late 13 January afternoon with a request by the police agency charged with enforcing immigration law that Amelie be held in custody until she can be sent back to Russia. Amelie is now being held in an asylum center near Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen after her arrest on 12 January.

Her detention unleashed massive protests, Amnesty International Norway, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and other human rightrs organisations, from politicians for a wide range of parties, and from thousands of ordinary citizens including those who marched on the state government complex in Oslo.

On 13 January evening the protesters demanded her release and permission for her to remain in Norway.

Campaign
Amnesty International is one of several organizations participating in the campaign “No one is illegal”.

The Norway based, ‘No One Is Illegal’ campaign, launched by a wide partnership of human rights groups inside the country, is driving actions now to help undocumented immigrant women and their children find asylum.

According to ‘No One Is Illegal’ some undocumented immigrants have lived as long as 17 years in Norway without access to basic rights, as they are often subjected to suffering and exploitation.

The campaign aims to establish a legal limit on the number of years a person can be classified as ‘illegal’ in Norway. Along with this, the campaign is working to help secure an automatic permit allowance for children and their families who have lived in Norway for a minimum of four years. Director Kari Helene Partapuoli, of The Norwegian Center against Racism and Discrimination, believes this legislation is achievable.

In 2008, the data research group Statistics Norway (SSB), estimated that 18,136 out of Norway’s almost five million inhabitants are undocumented immigrants. Although the exact number is not available, many undocumented immigrants are women. 1,344 of undocumented immigrants in 2008 were children.

Find out more about Maria’s case and other “illegal Norwegians” here.

If you want to visit Maria Amelie’s blog (in Norwegian) click here.

Are parties like the True Finns a threat to national security?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As the April election approaches, parties like the True Finns and other ones like Muutos 2011 are going to increase their nationalistic and xenophobic rhetoric to new heights. Would it be fair to ask that the land-ownership row in Russia could have a connection with the rise of the True Finns in the polls and demands by some groups that Karelia should be returned to Finland?

(I want to take the opportunity to thank JusticeDemon for bringing this story angle to my attention. After some thought, he does have a point: xenophobia and nationalism could undermine relations with Moscow.)

When Russia announced the ban on the sale of land close to the Finnish border by foreigners, the saber-rattling we heard in Finland was from the True Finns.

Do you think populist parties like the True Finns are a threat to national security?

See what the Anti-Fascist Committee of Finland thinks about the matter.