Tag: social exclusion

Writer Nura Farah is one of the bright hopes of multicultural Finland

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Nura Farah is Finland’s first published writer with Somali roots. She moved to Finland as a refugee in the early 1990s when she was 13 years old and when one of her countries became absorbed in a costly and painful civil war that continues to date.

Her first book, Aavikon tyttäret (Daughters of the desert), published by Otava last year, gives a glimpse of the lives of women in Somalia during that country’s struggle for independence in 1940-60.

Nura Farah. Kuva: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava.

Apart from being the first “Somali” writer to publish in the Finnish language, her latest milestone as a writer was winning in December the 2015 Suomi-palkkinnon award, which is given by the ministry of education to aspiring and established artists and writers.

This year’s prize was 24,700 euros.

“I’m not the only one who’s got the award there were others [like writer and film director Hassan Blasim and artist Abdel Abidin],” said Farah with a hint of humility. “This year’s [Suomi-palkinnon] awards reflect support by the ministry of education for multiculturalism.”

Farah said that there are many challenges as Finnish society becomes ever-culturally diverse. She believes that multiculturalism can work, but it’s important that migrants and minorities don’t isolate themselves from the rest of society.

“We live in difficult times these days,” she continued. “It’s even scary and I sometimes feel that we’ve returned back to the 1990s [when racism was more public].”

According to Farah, one of the problems that Finland should acknowledge today is that social exclusion is a problem we must challenge. She said that even if you were born in this country to non-Finnish parents you’re still not accepted as an equal member of society never mind as a “real” Finn.

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Defining white Finnish privilege #25: This land is my land, this land isn’t your land

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It’s disturbing to watch in Finland journalists who maintain and promote urban tales and racism. One of these is Tuomas Enbuske who invited Lenita Airisto to his television talk show to speak about Muslims. When Aristo opens her mouth and gives her opinions about cultural diversity, it’s evident that she still lives is a provincial and stuffy time warp of pre-1990s Finland.

One of the many things she said that exposed her bigotry in a recent talk show with Enbuske was that Muslim women should show more flexible in Finland and take off their veils if they live here.

Airisto, who shamelessly patronizes the Muslim host, Maryam Askar, continuously pats her on the shoulder as if she had such a right.

The patting on the shoulder is a good example of how Airisto sees minorities like Askar as if they were children.

But then she states something that exposes her white privilege to a tee:

“You have come to my country, Finland is my country, and has taken you in with open arms…”

This affirmation, which is highly offensive because Airisto still believes that Finland and the Finns are only white.

What Airisto is doing is denying Askar the right to be different, which is the basis of racism in Finland. Racists and racism is nothing more in Finland than people who have serious issues with people who are different from them.

Näyttökuva 2015-11-19 kello 18.27.18

Host Tuomas Enbuske is no rocket scientist when it comes to debating matters like immigration and Muslims. He shows more ignorance and conservative opinionated views than sound judgement. In one of his talk shows he advertised “why Somalis rape?” His show got a warning  as a result from The Council for Mass Media for making such a racist statement.

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Why are integration programs in Finland doomed to failure?

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Here’s the billion-euro question: Why are integration programs in Finland usually doomed to failure? What can Finland and Europe learn from countries like Canada that have a more successful approach to integration? 

One matter is for certain: A big part of the problem resides in between our collective ears. Do we see migrants as a problem or an asset to our society? Certainly factors like human and financial resources play important roles in determining how successful our integration programs are.

You don’t have to search too far to understand the challenges we face in making people feel that Finland is their home and that they’ll be treated with respect and as equal members of society. Even if the answer to the problem sits under our noses the big question is if we want to do anything about it.

Like in any other country, social exclusion in Finland is not only costly to tax payers but for migrants, who are obliged to go through a slow rites of passage, or integration ritual, which doesn’t even assure them of a job after all of their efforts.

Brandy Yanchyk, a Canadian documentary film producer, recently showed her most recent documentary, Finding Edge Road, in Finland.

Näyttökuva 2015-11-6 kello 13.06.22

See Find Edge Road demo here.

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Migrant Tales (January 26, 2013): Making torture and hate acceptable

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Migrant Tales insight: It always amazes me how the United States and the media conveniently forget that torture has been used by many administrations as a means of scaring and getting information from its imagined and real enemies. Torture isn’t a recent interrogation technique used by the CIA and did not appear after 9/11.  That is why linking the American Psychological Association (APA) to the CIA in making torture a more effective tool in interrogation is vital to ensure that the United States or any government prohibit such an outlandish practice. 

Writes the Guardian: “For more than a decade, the American Psychological Association (APA) has maintained that a strict code of ethics prohibits its more than 130,000 members to aid in the torture of detainees while simultaneously permitting involvement in military and intelligence interrogations. The group has rejected media reporting on psychologists’ complicity in torture…”

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Even if the media in the United States speaks of torture as something recent, the truth is that it has been going on for a very long time. These type of barbaric interrogation techniques were widely used in the last century in regions like Latin America. The CIA and the United States trained and promoted torture and state-sponsored terrorism in places like the School of the Americas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4eLYXJIZfg

Torture is not only a part of my history, but the legacy of millions of Latin Americans, Africans and Asians who are gripped today by drug wars, violence and poverty.  Matters have got so bad in the underdeveloped world that people are ready to risk their lives to migrate and work for slave wages.

One has to connect the historical dots when looking at undocumented migrants and immigration in general. It’s the same story taking place over and over again: we colonize, enslave, pillage, support dictatorships; we reap the greatest profit by promoting poverty and underdevelopment in these regions.

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Perussuomalaiset Maria Lohela: Inte min talman, or not my speaker of parliament

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Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Maria Lohela got elected Friday as speaker of parliament. Lohela is no ordinary MP but one who doesn’t believe in religious freedom, migrant and homosexual rights. As a politician she is the antithesis of Nordic values unless you believe that those values are supposed to advance bigotry and racism.  

The picture below was found on the internet and means in English: Not my speaker of parliament.

The famous saying, Inte min talman, or you’re not my speaker of parliament, comes from Swedish MP Rossana Dinamarca of the Left Party. In the video below, Dinamarca goes to the podium and addresses the Swedish Riksdag (parliament). When Sweden Democrat deputy speaker of parliament Björn Söder tells her to address  him as “honorable speaker” she refuses and states, Inte min talman.

Näyttökuva 2015-6-1 kello 15.41.04

 

Source: Internet

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New speaker of parliament Maria Lohela: Islamophobic skeletons in the closet

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One of the surprise appointments that popped up was Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Maria Lohela, who was nominated Friday as the new speaker of parliament. Lohela is no common MP since she has taken a very strong stand against immigration in general and Muslims in particular.

Somebody who knew Lohela told Migrant Tales that she appears to be a sensible person until you slip the term Muslim in the conversation. She then turns into a Ms Hyde.

Lohela has got her anti-immigration and Islamophobic credentials through the Nuiva Manifesto, which relies heavily on one-way adaption, or assimilation. She was opposed to same-sex marriage as well.

He xenophobic writings about Muslims are like skeletons that follow her like murky shadows.

Some of the most outrageous aims of the Nuiva Manifesto include:

  • The state should not finance immigrant groups’ culture, language, identity and religion;
  • They believe that neighborhoods are turning into ghettos;
  • Deport convicted migrants from Finland;
  • Conditional citizenship for ten years;
  • Finland should stop so-called humanitarian immigration and accept as few refugees as possible.

Just like Lohela’s opinions, the Nuiva Manifesto’s aim is to disempower migrants and minorities in Finland. Even if Finland officially supports integration, or two-way adaption, the Nuiva Manifesto favors one-way adaption, or assimilation.

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New book on Somali community of Finland highlights what we’ve known for long: social hostility and blatant discrimination

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A new book called Suomen somalit  by Yusuf M. Mubarak, Eva Nilsson and Niklas Saxén reinforces what has been already known about some of the challenges that Finland’s Somali community faces: racism and social exclusion. 

“I have never felt that I am a Finn,” said Suleqo Yusuf,  23, a Somali Finn, was quoted as saying in the book. “Here you’re always an outsider and different, never a part of society.”

The feeling of being an eternal outsider in Finland is felt by many migrants and minorities as well.

Migrant Tales recently spoke to a Somali Finn who said that she does not identify with a country like Finland because of its hostility towards her.

“I am a citizen of the world,” she said. “Not a Finn. I don’t identify with this country [even if I was born and bred here].”

You don’t have to have a PhD in sociology to understand where some of the problems lie. If the Somali community has been in Finland since the early 1990s. Check the discrimination and hostility that the Romany minority, which has lived in Finland for about 500 years, has suffered at the hands of the white Finnish majority.

While matters are improving, the Roma in Finland continue to face discrimination and racism daily.

Mubarak, one of the three authors of the book, states that its clear that a lot of problems will arise if children are told that they are equal to white Finns but rapidly find out that this isn’t the case.

somalit

 

So what is the value of such a book and what does it reveal?

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UPDATE (Apr. 22): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

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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.

Apr. 22

Tapanilan joukkoraiskauksesta syytteet viidelle (YLE)

What’s wrong with this story? The news story by YLE on sentencing five youths with so-called “foreign backgrounds” is an example of how the media and society continue to perceive non-white Finns, especially those that are suspected of a crime, as eternal outsiders. The police may use an ethnic description of a suspect that is at large but to continue to label such a person while in custody is odd. Certainly there’s nothing odd about this if your aim is to stress “us” at the cost of “them.”  Migrant Tales got in touch with the policeman in charge of the Tapanila gang rape investigation. He admitted that some of the suspects were born and raised in this country and were Finnish citizens but didn’t consider these facts to be important in the investigation. Not an important fact? With one word, person with foreign background, the police labelled all migrants and gave a rude message to Finns that aren’t white: You are an outsider.

Tabloid Ilatlehti used the same term to describe a group of 8 youths aged 15-17 years who were sentenced for street robbing and attacking victims in Eastern Helsinki. The tabloid mentioned that “most of those sentenced” had “foreign backgrounds.”

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On Sunday we vote in Finland – future generations will be watching closely the result

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Finland will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday. According to the latest polls, the Center Party is well ahead with the National Coalition Party (NCP) and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* trailing in second and third place, respectively. The Social Democrats are in fourth place. 

Migrant Tales has tirelessly reported on the ongoing anti-immigration debate in Finland daily since 2011.  Since Finland is our home and will be that of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, do not vote for xenophobic candidates and parties that exclude migrants and minorities. We need them like a hole in the head.

In light of the parliamentary elections, the Red Cross asked Finland’s parties in parliament if they supported offering health care to undocumented migrants. All political parties except for two, the PS and Muutos 2011, believed that undocumented migrants should receive health care. 

While you think that the latter question only applies to undocumented migrants it says a lot about what kind of a society we are and want to be. Do we want to build a society where people are classified and treated according to their ethnic and cultural background or one that fosters mutual respect?

That I believe is the big question we should be asking when we vote on Sunday.

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Finland goes to the polls Sunday – don’t vote for these anti-immigration candidates

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finland will hold  parliamentary elections on Sunday. One of the interesting question marks is who will come in second or third place. One poll predicts the Center Party winning (no surprise) with the National Coalition Party (NCP) and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* coming in second and third, respectively. The Social Democrats are in fourth place. 

During the last four years since the 2011 parliamentary elections, Migrant Tales has written a lot about Finland’s anti-immigration politicians. Toping the list with flying colors are MPs and politicians of the PS.

One important matter to keep in mind, however, is that intolerance to Others isn’t only a PS thing but takes place in all Finnish parties. If you were a migrant or minority searching for a political party that could represent you in Finland, the way you’d go about this is by asking which party is the least racists.

One good example of a party constantly vacillating on immigration is the Social Democratic Party. It chairman Antti Rinne said in a recent debate that he would be in favor of having in force stricter language requirements on migrants. This would mean in effect that employers would be encouraged to hire white Finns in place of migrants.

The argument that Finns should receive preferential treatment over migrants in the job market is a common anti-immigration argument used by the PS as well.

In light of the parliamentary elections, the Red Cross asked Finland’s parties in parliament if they supported offering health care to undocumented migrants. All political parties except for two agreed that undocumented migrants should receive health care: the PS and Muutos 2011.

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The Red Cross asked all the parties if there were in favor of granting health care to undocumented migrants. The PS and Muutos 2011 felt that undocumented migrants weren’t entitled to receive health care.

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