xenophobia Archives - Page 44 of 92

The Finnish Ku Klux Klan impersonator was really Timo Soini’s and the Perussuomalaiset’s ogre

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri photoshop Hamid Alsaameere

When racism lifts its head in Finland Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman and foreign minister, Timo Soini, usually gives us a lesson in denial: “We’re not racists.”

The historic victory of the populist party in 2011 was only possible thanks to its anti-immigration and Islamophobic message. Without polarizing “them” against “us” the PS wouldn’t exist or would be a very small party today.

But thanks to Soini’s leadership he has given a voice to racist politicians like the late Tony Halme, Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Laura Huhtasaari, Juho Eerola and many others like Olli Immonen.

The person who was dressed like a Ku Klux Klan member was a 19-year-old man from the region of Päijäthäme but I disagree. He was Timo Soini’s and his populist anti-immigration party’s ogre.

Soini should know that racism is like an angry rabid dog. Xenophobic politicians like him walk these dogs on short leashes. The dog attracts a lot of attention but it’s unpredictable because it can bite its owner, and hard.

We saw that in Norway four years ago when Anders Breivik murdered 77 people and last Friday in Lahti when a Ku Klux Klan impersonator appeared and his picture was top news in many newspapers around the globe.

Racism is an unpredictable ogre that always surprises you.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Lue juttu suomenkielellä tästä.

Facebook: PS speaker of parliament blames the media for Finland’s KKK image

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Maria Lohela is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* speaker of the parliament who has real issues with Islam and cultural diversity. Last week a man dressed in Ku Klux Klan sheet and mask protested in Lahti against the arrival of refugees to that city. His picture was published in many newspapers abroad.

The only party that continues to have an especially ambivalent stand on the KKK Finn and racism is the PS. The foreign minister, Timo Soini, was more worried about the KKK impersonator carrying a Finnish flag than wearing something that represented white supremacists in the United States.

Lohela doesn’t even condemn on her Facebook the attacks against refugees and refugee centers in Lahti, Kouvola or in other parts of Finland but blames the media for Finland’s poor image abroad. If the Finnish media lacks teeth then it will be the foreign media that will name and shame us into action against racism.

Lohela writes at the end of her Facebook posting about what a great country Finland is but for whom? For white Islamophobic Finns like her?

Finland’s poor image abroad is being caused by the PS and the likes of her who are totally indifferent to the suffering of others and denying our ever-growing cultural and ethnically diverse society. That diverse society is here to stay irrespective if people like Lohela are upset by it.

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Naming and shaming Finland into action

Posted on September 26, 2015 by Migrant Tales

Parties that use racism and xenophobia to attract voters play a dangerous game. It’s like having a rapid dog on a short leash that everyone notices. What those parties don’t want to know is that that rapid dog can bite back at its supposed owner, and hard.

Anders Brevik is one of many examples of how unpredictable and lethal that rabid racist dog is.

In Finland the government, the opposition, even President Sauli Niinistö never mind the media give mixed signals about what we’re supposed to do about racism in our society. In English we have a good terms for it: doubletalk, wishy-washy, snow job etc.

Politicians say one thing and then send a message usually in code stating another. They do this because they are white Finns with ethnic privilege and because they fear losing votes and support. Migrants and minorities matter at the end of the day little to them.

But what can you expect? For decades politicians from all parties have turned a blind eye to this social ill until one, the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* figured out that they could become one of the biggest parties in Finland by exploiting people’s racism.

Since no party has promised to rid Finland of Somalis and Muslims, among other minorities, the PS told their future voters that they would “solve” the problem.

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The Finnish government’s wishy-washy and surreal stand on racism

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The leadership of Center Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, Finance Minister Alexsander Stubb of the National Coalition Party never mind Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Foreign Minister Timo Soini is disgraceful and will go down as one of the low points in Finland’s history.

The language and stand of the government against ever-rising xenophobia in Finland vacillates from sensible to surreal statements.

A good example of the latter was Thursday, when Prime Minister Sipilä said in parliament that people should not immediately label people racists.

“When debating we should be sensible and calm so we don’t label these people racists that express their own concerns,” he said. “In my opinion, we have to hear what they want to say as well.”

Stubb took a more surreal approach after agreeing with what Sipilä said. “We have to be tolerant in every direction,” he said. “In this country we don’t approve of racism or hate speech…”

Said Prime Minister Juha Sipilä in parliament Thursday: (Top sentence) “When debating we should be sensible and calm so we don’t label these people racists that express their own concerns. In my opinion, we have to hear what they want to say as well.” (Middle sentence) A man is protesting at a refugee center in Lahti dressed as a Ku Klux Klan clansman. (Lower sentence) “Can we now call this person a racist, Juha Sipilä?”

One of the problems when following the government’s record on refugee and migration policy is how wishy-washy they are. They say one thing but then erase it with another statement. Back to square one.

In my opinion, the most outrageous statement made Thursday was by Minister of Social Welfare and Health Hanna Mäntylä, who responded to Swedish People’s Party MP Eva Biaudet’s concern about ever-growing xenophobia in Finland.

Mäntylä is one of the closest supporters of PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation.

Continue reading “The Finnish government’s wishy-washy and surreal stand on racism”

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

Posted on September 22, 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.

September 21

Iraqis on Facebook warn compatriots against coming to Finland – (YLE in English)

Why is this story an example of opinionated journalism? It’s clear that for some Finns, and especially for political parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, that the humanitarian crisis has brought out the worst in them. There is no respect for human rights and people are seen as numbers with price tags. Anti-immigration sentiment is strong in this country as well. Immigration is seen by too many as a problem, not as an opportunity. That’s why you see the present debate on asylum seekers shifting in the media from people fleeing war and poverty to “human trafficking.” The YLE story shows three ungrateful Iraqis that came here and now want to return back to their country. What do such thankless persons in the story signal to the reader? Is it that the three asylum seekers, as well as many others, that are coming to Finland from Iraq aren’t real refugees? Why would a person who’s seen war, members of his family killed and sold everything to move here, would want to return to Iraq? Why doesn’t the reporter write about the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who are fleeing war but cannot return to their former homes? The wish of the Iraqis to return to their country must be the same that the reporter has for them: Go back to where you came from!

Read full story here.

Thank you Claudio Saavedra for the heads-up!

Perussuomalaiset party wants Finland to turn back asylum seekers from Sweden

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Migrant Tales

The populist anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party’s parliamentary group wants to turn back asylum seekers that are entering the country from Sweden to the northern city of Tornio, reports YLE in English. The PS are the only party in Finland making such a demand.

“It is time to recognise the facts and get to work,” Sampo Terho, who chairs the PS parliamentary group, in a statement. “We must turn back those asylum-seekers trying to enter Finland through Sweden and advise them to seek asylum in the Schengen Area country they first came to.”

Terho said that that joint immigration policy in the EU has been left floating “because the Dublin Regulation is no longer upheld in Europe”

Legal experts were quoted on YLE saying that an asylum seeker can be sent back to the first EU country if the person was registered there. Moreover, human rights and the fair treatment of refugees by EU countries like Finland should be the priority, not tight interpretations of the Dublin Regulation, according to Helsinki University European legal expert Juha Raitio.

Read full story here.

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A Finnish father teaches his child to hit and hate refugees

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Migrant Tales

If you want a lesson on how racism and hatred is passed on to the next generation, watch the video clip (in Finnish) below of supposedly a father or guardian telling his daughter to hit a monkey teddy bear, which is supposed to be a refugee.

The child doesn’t appear to be too happy at the end of the video for hitting the monkey teddy bear.

“What is this,” the father says. “Who is this?”

“Refugee,” the child responds.

“What shall we do to it? Look, like this,” the father continues hitting the monkey teddy bear’s head.

“Iitu, Iitu what do we do to refugees?”he asks. “With both hands, Iitu. Show me. Let’s give the refugee a punch. Iitu. Give it a hard punch like this one,” the father continues hitting the monkey teddy bear’s head hard.

“What is this?” the father asks the child again.

“Refugee,” the child responds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKyE0Z5aNQM&feature=youtu.be

Thank you Christian Thibault for the heads-up!

Saido Mohamed: How much good will is there in Finland for asylum seekers?

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Migrant Tales

In the early 1990s Finland was in the midst of one of its worst recessions in a century, when unemployment rocketed to about 20%. The number of migrants back then was relatively small totaling in 1992 a mere 37,642 and accounting for only 0.7% of the total population.

Today Finland has been in a recession for four consecutive years and the migrant population was 301,524 at the end of 2013, accounting for 3.8% of the total population. Unemployment in July was 8.4%.

During 1990 and 1995 the Somali community in Finland rose from 44 to 4,044. While these numbers may appear small, they were significant taking into account the country’s foreign population.

The mix of recession and asylum seekers brought out the worst in some Finns. All one had to do at the time was to read the tabloid billboards or look at Kari’s cartoons in Helsingin Sanomat, which would never be published today because of their racist nature.

The first time I got death threats by phone as a journalist was when I published in the early 1990s a two-page spread for Apu magazine about a refugee center in Mikkeli that had Somalis.

One of those Somalis that came to Finland in the early 1990s is Saido Mohamed, who chairs the Finnish Somalia Network.

Saido Mohammed.

Continue reading “Saido Mohamed: How much good will is there in Finland for asylum seekers?”

The PS puts a price tag on refugees without putting one on themselves

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Migrant Tales

In their never-ending search to prove that immigration and refugees are bad for Finland the Perussuomalaiset (PS) have now a price tag for the cost of each refugee. Not even Hungary, where refugees are kicked at by camerawomen or thrown food at like animals, has published such a cost estimate.

According to calculations by the PS, and with the blessings of Minister of Social Welfare and Health Hanna Mäntylä, the message that the government is giving is that Finland should accept as few as possible refugees because they are costly.

Mäntylä is no friend of Finland’s ever-growing culturally diverse community and justifies xenophobia because “white Finns are having it bad.”

The table below is not only disgraceful but another ploy by the PS to save face with their voters after so many turncoat decisions and broken election promises.

One of the biggest question marks about the table is that it assumes a lot of things. And when you assume you end up making an “ass” our of “u” and “me.”

These are estimates made by the PS on how much a refugee costs Finland. According to the anti-immigration party, one person costs 13,200 euros a year, 30,000 persons 396 million and so on.

For one the table assumes that refugees that get asylum in Finland are only a cost. Don’t these people consume? Don’t they go to class to learn Finnish? Aren’t they going to be employed in the future and pay taxes?

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The PS of Finland: Can you teach a bigot new tricks?

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Migrant Tales

When the national media gave the racist narrative of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* the benefit of the doubt, Migrant Tales never did and never will. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? If you are naive you probably think you can.

Time magazine quoted Migrant Tales a day after at the 2011 parliamentary elections because we were one of the few who wrote critically about the PS. Time writes in its global briefing page for April 18, 2011:

“We are not extremists so you can sleep safely,” says the head the country’s ascendant ‘True Finns’ party (yes, that’s their real name). Of course, not everybody agrees: Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland, writes Enrique Tessieri.”

Nothing has changed since April 17, 2011 except that the PS has today more power than ever before since it forms part of the government with the Center Party and National Coalition Party.

I stand firmly by what I wrote in 2011: The PS is and will continue to be an illness inflicting Finland that has already impoverished the country economically, socially and politically.

Some naively believe that the PS can be transformed into a “normal” party by getting rid of its worst racists like PS MP Olli Immonen, MEP Jussi Halla-aho and many others.

Not a chance. The PS grew from near-obscurity to become the second-biggest party in parliament thanks to its xenophobic rhetoric and promises.

Becoming a “normal” party would be synonymous to committing political hara-kiri for the PS.

Read quotes of the day here.

Continue reading “The PS of Finland: Can you teach a bigot new tricks?”