xenophobia Archives - Page 59 of 92

The shadow of the former USSR and its spell on Finland and source of xenophobia

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Migrant Tales

In the spring 1989 I was planning to travel to the Western African countries of Mali and Niger. Mali was cut out of my journey thanks to the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo), which revealed to the honorary consul of Mali in Helsinki, Karl Jalkanen, what was written on my secret Interpol file.

Here’s an editorial by Helsingin Sanomat about what happened to me published on April 13, 1989.

The file that was revealed to Jalkanen is supposed to be secret since it has sensitive information about your personal life.

In an apparent state of inebriation, the honorary consul of Mali was highly suspicious about my travel plans to that African country. There was nothing suspicious about my motives since my plan was to do a travel story for Apu, Finland’s largest magazine at the time.

After Jalkanen made the phone call to Supo, it took about twenty minutes for his contact to call him back. The honorary consul said that I had taken part in three demonstrations, of which one I had organized. The Interpol files revealed as well that I was interested in human rights.

Human rights didn’t apply to non-Finnish citizens, who couldn’t own land, control over 20% of a company, establish a newspaper as well as scores of other restrictions. This story was published in the 3/1989 issue of Ydin-lehti magazine.

I got in touch with the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman and wrote what happened in Apu. Pessimistic that anything would happen to the Supo agent, I heard from the data protection ombudsman that the security intelligence agent had been reprimanded.

Even if the incident is a drop in the bucket when compared with what Edward Snowden exposed in summer about massive global surveillance by the NSA, it was highly revealing since it showed how Finnish officials, like the secret police, perceived expats and immigrants.

Apart from being watched closely by Supo, another matter that the Interpol file revealed was that it had a network of immigrant informers.

Back in the Cold War days, human rights were considered in Finland as something “unpatriotic.” It was unpatriotic to speak out for human rights since it was in direct conflict with Finland’s sacrosanct foreign policy with the former Soviet Union. Since human rights were seen as a threat at the time, it has fueled the intolerance we see today. The price that Finland paid for its geopolitical isolation during the Cold War is it’s reluctance to interact today with the outside world in Finland.

Human rights was a big issue for me at the time due to the violations committed in Argentina under one of the region’s most ruthless dictatorships during 1976-83. Human rights became an important part of US foreign policy during Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977-81).

The protection and defense of human rights in Finland is a relatively new matter. It reveals why this country pursued such a draconian policy against immigrants never mind Soviet citizens that fled the country and sought asylum.

One of the culprits of Finland’s xenophobia is the Cold War and the former Soviet Union. It was the breeding ground for the intolerance we find today in Finland.

Finland’s suspicion of human rights is best exemplified by its membership in the Council of Europe. Finland became in 1989, together with the principalities of Europe, the last Western European country to join the Council. Why did it take so long for it to become a member? Because it to be to vocal about human rights violations in the Soviet bloc.

Not only were human rights considered “unpatriotic” back then, but the very officials who ran things are still in office. Their view of the outside world is still that of a hostile place where we should react with suspicion instead of trust. It explains why some Finns still see foreigners as a threat and the rise of the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in the 2011 elections.

Finland’s issues with intolerance and racism are tucked in the deep murky corners of its history. When Finland moves away from its present state of denial about its history and opens its past to critical and open scrutiny, only then we’ll know that we’ve taken a courageous step forward in accepting our ever-growing cultural diversity.

Opening up the past is our best insurance against a populist movement that wants to take us back to the times when writing these types of columns would not only get you blacklisted and part of smear campaign.

How Kirkko & kaupunki sees far-right anti-immigration PS MP playing with fire

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Ville Ranta’s cartoon below published on Helsinki Lutheran Church weekly, Kirkko & kaupunki, of Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen, is a good example of how Finland is waking up to racism and to a party that preaches intolerance. Immonen is in the same anti-immigration league as MP Jussi Halla-aho, Juho Eerola and many others who have no other agenda except to spread racism in this country.

Hate forums and racism exist wherever we can find “the silence of our friends,” as Martin Luther King Jr pointed out.

Ranta’s cartoon not only is sobering but offers hope but that more people are speaking out against intolerance with a clear voice.

It’s not surprising that for far-right white anti-immigration MP like Immonen, who wants to register people by ethnic origin and being president of an association like Suomen Sisu that discourages Finns from marrying foreigners, that he sees nothing wrong with his racist views.

The problem with racism is that those that spread it aren’t immediately affected by it in the same manner as their targeted victims.

A cartoon of PS MP Olli Immonen. His Christmas wish is for Muslims, Jews, blacks and other immigrants and visible minorities. He promises to behave especially good in 2014 so he can wish for boxcars so he can transport these people to concentration camps.

Ranta published a similar cartoon in December 2011 like the one below that had a number of prominent PS politicians wishing the country a “white Christmas.

Migrant Tales (July 21, 2012): Somali-Finn Abdulah -living in no-man’s land (Part 2)

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Migrant Tales

When Abdulah*, 30, talks to you about his twenty-two years in Finland, one of the first questions that arises is how has so much suffering escaped our attention. For Abdulah, acceptance isn’t only virtually impossible from white Finns, but can be just as hard to get from the Somali community.

“I have decided to live outside this society,” he says. “I have learned that there is no place here. Even my people have turned their backs on me.”

Abdulah says that there are two matters you must never lose if you don’t want to be abandoned by the Somali community.

“Language and religion are crucial,” he explains. “I don’t speak Somali that well anymore since I grew up in this country. I became an atheist two years ago and left the Muslim faith.”

How long will it take for minorities like the Somalis to be treated as equals in Finland?

Abdulah admits that he no longer believes in god.

“How can there be a god if people are constantly killing each other in Somalia?” he continues. “How can there be a god if there’s so much hatred and racism towards you in this country? How can god exist in such hells?”

There are many young men like Abdulah in Finland, who grew up the greater part of their lives in this country. He says that some have problems with the law.

“I don’t identify with such people anymore because I used to be one of them,” he says. “If you start drinking and taking drugs, your situation will only get worse. That’s the reason why I changed my life.”

Abdulah hasn’t forsaken hope despite the difficulties he’s faced. Two factors give him strength: his family and plans to be a gardener.

Billboards like these in the early 1990s spread prejudice about Somalis in Finland. The tabloid ad claims that Somalis had made phone calls to the tune of hundreds of thousands of marks and supposedly passed the bill to the social authorities.

“But living in Finland still feels like being in a trap,” he adds. “I want to free myself but I don’t know how.”

Abdulah discovered Migrant Tales by chance when he was searching for an alternative forum that spoke up for immigrants and visible minorities like him.

“I used to visit Suomi24, Hommaforum and even took part in Iltalehtichat forums,” he says. “They always said the same negative things about immigrants and Somalis. I felt relieved when I found Migrant Tales. It was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel that gave me hope.”

Abdulah is a very sensitive and respectful person. Despite the difficulties he’s encountered, he believes that one must be outspoken if he’s going to challenge a social ill like racism.

“We have to fight back,” he concludes. “Silence hasn’t changed my life for the better. That’s why I’m active in forums like Migrant Tales.”

*Abdulah’s name has been changed to protect his identity.

The story behind “Finland is a racist country” is in the comments

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Migrant Tales

There were quite strong reactions among some Finns and immigrants to Maryan Abdulkarim’s interview on Helsingin Sanomat. Those who strongly objected to the article, appear to want to deny Abdulkarim’s right to express herself on a touchy subject like racism.

It’s ironic, but those who want to deny Abdulkarim her right to speak out are the very people who spread hate speech and claim there’s mass censorship in this country.

You can read Abdulkarim’s full interview in English here.

White Finns, which include some white immigrants as well, control and jealously guard the high ground over the debate in the media whether there is racism in Finland or not. Some cry murder when a black woman, who is a Finn born in Somalia and is a Muslim on top of it, speaks out against racism.

One of these is from the anti-immigration camp, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen, who is president of the ultra-nationalist and and anti-immigration Suomen Sisu association. He wrote on his Facebook wall that as “a native-born Finnish citizen,” he is ashamed that the country’s largest daily published the story on Abdulkarim a day before independence day celebrations.

Note how he stresses “native-born Finnish citizen.” With such a lowly punch, Immonen tries to undermine Abdulkarim’s right to voice her narrative by trying to show that she’s not a so-called “real” Finn like him. Since she’s not a real Finn, her arguments aren’t as valid as his.

Immonen takes another punch at Abdulkarim on his Facebook wall: “The article forgets to mention the view that while over 50% of Somalis [in Finland] are unemployed and are overrepresented in crime statistics of a certain sort, they are still treated in our country in a very friendly manner and offered generous social assistance, municipal housing as well as a host of other benefits from taxpayers’ pockets.”

I get it. Abdulkarim’s arguments aren’t supposed to amount to much because she’s not a real Finn and because she belongs to a group where there is a high crime and unemployment rate, according to Immonen.

The PS MP recently blamed immigrants for Finland’s poor Pisa result.

Immonen claimed on Facebook: ”The long-term work of immigration and multicultural fanatics to make Finland more ‘diverse’ has bore fruit. Immigrants played a signifiant role in [the worse] Pisa results even if consensus politicians and officials claim the contrary. The differences in reading, science and math between immigrants and Finns in the Pisa test are mind-boggling.”

Anti-immigration politicians like Immonen, who enjoy bashing immigrants who can’t defend themselves because they aren’t white and don’t have the same political and ethnic clout as him, must be stunned and devastated by Abdulkarim.

Weren’t all those Somali women supposed to be exploited and docile servants of men?

Who should we be ashamed of? Immonen, who makes up Islamophobic tales and spreads them, which in turn fuel prejudice and social exclusion, or Abdulkarim who has the courage to speak out?

Immonen and the Finns he represents aren’t the only problem. There are white immigrants, and those who think they are white, in this country who feel the same way about blacks, Muslims and other visible minorities.

Just because they are immigrants doesn’t mean they automatically have empathy for those who are victims of racism and discrimination. Just like Immonen capitalizes on the anti-Islam message, some immigrants seek to climb the social ladder by bashing other immigrants.

Shameful but true.

Abdulkarim’s interview on Helsingin Sanomat is one matter but the most revealing aspect of her story are the reactions to it on social media.

They confirm without a doubt that what she says is true.

Isolationism, petty provincialism and nationalism: social ills with far-reaching consequences

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Migrant Tales

In the backdrop of Finland’s independence day celebrations Friday and as the world mourns Nelson Mandela’s death yesterday, our country is at a major crossroads contesting whether it wants to be a closed or open society. The historic victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in 2011 is one example how this country has taken a perilous path that brought so much disaster and suffering to this country in the last century.

For the price of cheap sound bites drenched in nationalism and intolerance of every imaginable kind, some Finns are willing to forfeit everything we gained and worked so hard for in the last century.

Nationalism and intolerance never comes cheap. It caused Europe to go down a ruinous path that brought World War 2 to our homes and where an estimated 60 million people perished. The same arguments that led us to such ruin are being used today by short-sighted and opportunistic politicians: generalizing, over-simplifying and harshly victimizing other groups.

Compare anti-Semitism in the 1930s with Islamophobia and xenophobia in the 2010s.

While the time frame and historical context are different, the discourse is the same.

Since intolerance is nothing more than an exaggerated lie, parties like the PS of Finland are constantly required to make up new arguments to hid their prejudice, stereotypes and racism.

If you believe that the PS has toned down its xenophobia and loathing towards refugees, check out what they are doing in the municipality of Kouvola. According to the local daily, Kouvolan Sanomat, the PS wants the city council to stop receiving asylum seekers and quota refugees by 2016.

While the PS blame the economic situation and cost-cutting measures by the municipality for their stance, the truth is that this is a long-term plan by the anti-immigration party to stop Finnish municipalities from receiving quota refugees.

There are two types of municipalities in Finland today: open and closed. Those municipalities that opt for the closed model will struggle in the face of ever-growing poverty, while those that are open stand a better chance of making it.

One small indicator of our openness is our ability to accept refugees in our municipality. Accepting them is an important gesture and message to others because it shows that we are open to the suffering of others.

Finland’s map of shame. Only a handful of municipalities in Finland accept quota refugees last year.

Why would a company invest or a skilled immigrant move to a municipality that is hostile to other groups like refugees?

That is why those who claim to be patriotic while they spread hatred and racism are the real menace to our society. They are impoverishing our society economically, socially and robbing it off its greatest asset: the ability to help others in need.

Imagine that the third-largest political party in parliament in Finland is doing just that by inflating our nationalism to bash immigrants, the EU, and our ever-growing cultural diversity.

But the good news is that our ever-growing cultural diversity is here to stay no matter how much some try to exclude and make it invisible.

How does Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) empower us?

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The death of Nelson Mandela, who was branded a terrorist by countries like the U.S. and Great Britain, is a sad day full of mourning but full of hope as well. His struggle and triumph over apartheid, a toxic offshoot of white European colonialism, proves that no matter how oppressive a government is, change is possible.

You don’t need an army and the latest sophisticated weapons in your struggle. You can sit in jail for 25 years and eight months and be a force of change.

Never give up your dreams of a better world. US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson summed up Nelson Mandela’s life and example in the following words: “Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.”

If there is one person that emulates this quote like a bright shining light of hope, that person is Nelson Mandela.

Even if this great man has left us in body, his example and spirit live on as long as there are oppressed people demanding justice. And there are too many of them today. Their oppression is only possible thanks to our silence, cowardice and ambivalence.

Nelson Mandela was not only a transformative force in his country and globally, but believed in reconciliation. Reconciliation shouldn’t mean that we bow our heads and accept what happened, it means we take real concrete steps to challenge and do away with social ills like racism and injustice.

As we mourn Nelson Mandela’s death, the ugly face of racism is raising its head in the continent where colonialism took its treacherous steps and enslaved millions and committed genocide.

In Finland as in Europe, no matter how much political power parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) amass, it can never succeed at making intolerance acceptable. The same goes for other likeminded parties in the Nordic region like the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party of Norway.

The stronger these parties become and the more power they amass and wield against minorities and our ever-growing cultural diversity, the more power is accumulating on our side.

If the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa are clear examples that change is possible, certainly change is possible in Finland and Europe as well.

Nelson Mandela would agree. He’d encourage us to continue our struggle, like today on the first day after passing on.

Maryan Abdulkarim: “Finland is a very racist country”

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Is there racism in Finland? In order to find the answer to that question, we’d have to ask visible migrants and minorities. Maryan Abdulkarim, 31, is a Finn who was born in Somalia, had the opportunity on Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat to answer that question. “Finland is a very racist country,” she said. “It always has been.”

She says that white Finns don’t notice racism in our society because this social ill doesn’t affect them directly. She compares the situation to with those that can’t walk. “If you have two normal-functioning legs, it never crosses your mind what it’s like to move about in a wheelchair in Helsinki,” she said.

And adds: “You have to be in a state of awareness to notice what happens around you. Some react in such a way that they believe they are a bad person if they don’t notice racism [in society]. Others again deny racism and think that acknowledging it makes them racists because they are members of this society.”

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Abdulkarim, who moved to Finland when she was seven, says that silence isn’t the answer when challenging a social ill like racism.

“We have a very vocal racist group [in Finland],” she said. “Their speech isn’t criticism but heresy, oppression and racism.”

Abdulkarim said that it’s not an isolated incident if a stranger shouts in public at a person by harassing him or her with the n-word. Behind such racism is a culture that makes it possible to use such labels because the perpetrator believes he or she is superior.

She herself has been harassed in this manner and once even spat at for speaking out against such abuse.

Migrant Tales agrees and believes that racism in Finland is a much bigger problem than some Finns, politicians and public officials want to admit.

Such a social ill will continue to find refuge and grow in our society as long as we continue to underestimate and deny its presence.

The story publihed Thursday on Helsingin Sanomat about Maryan Abdulkarim was translated on Friday into English by Helsinki Times. Read full translation here.

Sweden is right, Finland wrong in its strategy against anti-immigration parties

Posted on December 4, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt reiterated to Helsingin Sanomat the government’s plans to isolate Sweden Democrats despite the latest polls in Sweden, which show the anti-EU and anti-immigration party making gains. Even if the Sweden Democrats have tried break free from their neo-Nazi and racist image, the party led by Jimmie Åkesson has suffered a number of scandals.

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

We know from a fact that flirting with the far right, right-wing populism, isolationism and adopting a tougher anti-immigration stance can backfire badly as happened in Finland in April 2011, when the Perussuomalaiset (PS) became the country’s third-largest party in parliament.

After over two and a half years of PS opposition politics, which has been strongly characterized by racism, nationalism and neo-liberal economic ideology, what should mainstream parties have learned?

The answer to that question can be found in neighboring Sweden where mainstream parties there have isolated politically the Sweden Democrats.

Is this an effective strategy?

Yes, despite gains by the Sweden Democrats in the polls.

Time will prove Sweden did the right thing while Finland failed in the task in challenging intolerance.

If the government of Prime Minister Jyrki Kaatainen has taken an ambivalent stance on intolerance, why would PS head Timo Soini want to renounce racism in his party if it attracts votes?

It’s like asking a junkie to give up drugs.

Beating intolerance at its own game requires a reaction, leadership and a voice

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Beating intolerance at its own game is easier than you think. There are many good examples in Finland, like International Mikkeli Day (IMD), where people from a grass-root level take action and seek solutions. Since intolerance and racism are based on lies and generous quantities of ideological fools gold, truth is the light that exposes and puts intolerance on the defensive.

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

The reception that IMD got Thursday in Mikkeli, a small city with about 50,000 inhabitants, proves that there are many Finns who don’t have any issues with cultural diversity. How can they object to it if over 1.2 million Finns emigrated from this land between 1860 and 1999?

In a nutshell, IMD is an annual event where people can celebrate and embrace our cultural diversity.

The International Mikkeli Day event was arranged for the first time on February 22, 2012. Its main aim is to highlight issues concerning internationality and multiculturalism as well as fuel debate on these matters in Mikkeli. Students are strongly involved in the planning and implementation of the event.

If one is going to challenge a social ill like intolerance, one not only needs leadership but empowering others as well. The video clip below by Saara Kolari and Mia Pesonen of Otava Folk High School is one example of how the event has become a proactive forum:

This video clip not only reveals what young people think about cultural diversity, but society on a much wider scale.

Part of the discourse that anti-immigration groups use is that their intolerance is shared by the majority. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. But since their arguments are based on their prejudices, they are obliged to constantly update their exaggerated and made up stories about other groups.

One way to challenge such intolerance is by stating in a civil manner that you disagree. You’d be surprised by how many people change the tone of their arguments when challenged with a question like: “I disagree with what you say.”

When we deny intolerance living space to plant its arguments, we effectively deny the person the comfort of making such a comment and, worse, allowing him or her to believe that its ok because nobody objects.

It’s clear that this type of approach is a sure loser in the ongoing debate on immigration, immigrants and our ever-growing cultural diversity. A lot more must be done by us. The most important thing we must do is that our reaction to intolerance must be first and foremost a reaction.

UK shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, said recently when visiting the Auschwitz Nazi death camp that in the fight against antisemitism in Europe, silence was the ”coconspirator of evil.”

Silence is not only the coconspirator of evil when challenging antisemitism, but when confronting all types of intolerance.

Possibly establishing an annual international even like IMD in your community could be a proactive solution to challenge intolerance.

Matters like mutual acceptance and respect are so important in our society, that we can’t leave the floor to those who still believe the world is flat ethnically.

Silence isn’t the answer. Leadership and clear goals based on our Nordic democratic society are.

They will help us attain a prosperous future.

The PS are now hoping that Kouvola stops receiving asylum seekers and quota refugees by 2016

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Migrant Tales

If you believe that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party has toned down its xenophobia and loathing towards refugees, check out what they are doing in the municipality of Kouvola. According to the local daily, Kouvolan Sanomat, the PS wants the city council to stop receiving asylum seekers and quota refugees by 2016.

It’s nothing new that the anti-immigration party uses refugees to drive home their xenophobia. In the PS’ municipal election program, it recommended that municipalities shouldn’t accept refugees because the best way to help these needy people would be in refugee camps next to their war-torn countries.

This type of hostile campaign against refugees appears to be paying off for the PS. Annually around one out of ten municipalities accepts quota refugees, according to MTV3, quoting the ministry of employment and the economy.

Finland’s map of shame. Only a handful of municipalities in Finland accept quota refugees these days.

Every year after 2003, Finland has missed its 750-quota refugee target: 734 in 2012; 626 in 2011; 634 in 2010; 727 in 2009; 737 in 2008; 727 in 2007; 676 in 2006; 690 in 2005; and 679 in 2004, according to Finnish Immigration Service (FIS).