xenophobia Archives - Page 68 of 92

Finland, the PS and far right: How long before the chickens come home to roost?

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Migrant Tales

I’ve lived and worked in countries like Colombia and Argentina during the dirty war (1976-83), where people were and still are killed for what they write. Never would I have imagined that I’d receive my first death threats twenty years ago in this country, Finland. The threats and harassment haven’t stopped.

When I read about this serious problem affecting university researchers who study a social ill like racism and even journalists, I not only wonder how we have got here but how long it will take before something snaps.

Unions representing university researchers brought up the issue in mid-February, stating that threats to their members at the University of Eastern Finland have been on the rise. A new story on MTV3 today reveals the same problem on a much wider scale.

Another sad example was Jyväskylä, were a group of neo-Nazi thugs disrupted a book event on the far right in Finland.

It’s clear that those who harass and threaten people for what they do or write, have little respect for our democratic institutions. They are like lawless vigilantes full of bravado but turn to cowards when their identity is exposed.

Racism and hatred are sexy for some people. Some politicians fall in love with them because it brings them to the public light and feeds their low self-esteem, narcissism and bizarre ego trips. What they don’t know – or don’t want to know – is that racism and hatred know no master. It can bite back, and hard.

Anders Breivik is a good example. He’s the dog on the short leash that turned into a mass murderer. The smoking gun were the hate sites he visited and that fed his twisted world where, like in a fairy tale, you can rewrite history to suit your ignorance.

What is Perussuomalaiset (PS) leader Timo Soini going to do about the extremists in the PS like MP Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola and others?

Nothing because he can’t and because he has already let the ogre out of the cage. Living on an overdose of wishful thinking, the PS leader believes he has control over the violence that his party has sown but well understands that he is now a hostage.

That monster that lurks in our society spreading hatred is the same one that is threatening university researchers, journalists and writers that challenge it.

Like a cancer, we must isolate and neutralize it.

Or maybe we should continue covering our eyes and leave everything to chance.

Finland’s biggest threat is itself

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Migrant Tales

As Finland awakens to the reality that it is a culturally diverse society, one of the biggest threats and challenges we face doesn’t come from abroad but from our backyard. When the Civil Rights Movement ended in the United States in 1968, the first matter that we learned we should stop doing is generalizing about blacks and other groups.

It’s sad to admit that some prejudices in Finland are so old that people believe them to be scientific fact. Prejudice is a powerful political force that was capitalized by the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset party in the April 2011 election.

Finns are even prejudiced against themselves. Some believe that Hämäläinens in southern Finland are “slow” and that people from Savo in eastern Finland are “crooked.”

Racism has powerful roots in Finland. One could even see it on a Suomen Kuvalehti article published in 1940 that attempted to show how superior the Finnish white soldier was to blacks.

Blacks are no longer found on racist ads but other ethnic groups like Latinos. This picture was taken at the Pieksämäki train station in July 2007. The owners of the café no longer use this sign outside their premises.

Giving up one’s prejudices isn’t easy but not impossible.

We fortunately have great laws that are based on social equality (tasa-arvo) and respect. Our successful society would be nothing today without these laws. Instead of building bridges of acceptance, respect and tolerance, we’d be destroying those bridges with intolerance.

How, then, is it possible that such an exemplary society like ours could breed people with so much hatred and prejudice against other groups?

While there are many people who understand the importance of cultural diversity in this country, there are still too many who are reactive to it.

Despite the spirit of our present laws, they mean little and are robbed of their power if they are caged by prejudice, racism and above all by our silence.

Blaming our history on some of our intolerance is a too simple but it is one answer that sheds light on the present problem.

Few young people in Finland know that we used to be a very closed country only thirty years ago and our laws reflected this situation as well.

Foreigners were not only barred from investing in the country but the Aliens’ Office made everything possible to ensure you didn’t move here.

If is shameful that a country that saw over 1.2 million emigrate between 1860 and 1999, treated immigrants in Finland like stateless persons who didn’t even have the right to habeas corpus. Immigrants were seen at the time as a threat to national security.

Prior to our first Aliens’ Act of 1983, which came into force sixty-five years after independence, foreigners could be arrested at will by the police, held indefinitely in jail and deported without the right to appeal.

During the Great Depression, Finland enacted the Restricting Act of 1939 that kept foreigners and outside investment to a minimum. The act prohibited foreigners from owning real estate and acquiring a majority stake in Finnish companies – limiting this to 20% normally and 40% under special permission.

The act stipulated that foreigners could not own shares in sectors such as forestry, securities trading, transportation, mining, real estate and shipping.

To maintain this climate of suspicion against foreigners, the school played an important role in teaching young Finns myths in order to be prejudiced against other groups.

At schools, Finnish children were taught at an early age that “n” stands for the n-word.

Fortunately times are changing!

Ethnic agitation charges will be brought against another PS politician

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Charges of ethnic agitation will be brought by deputy state prosecutor Jorma Kalske against Kontiolahti councilman Mika Hiltunen, reports YLE. Hiltunen claimed on his Facebook page in January that refugees and asylum seekers “are social-welfare bums and rapists.”

JusticeDemon asks an interesting question about the case: “… this particular statute [Section 10 of chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code] has evidently become Lex Persu. Is it my imagination, or can we say that ALL convictions for this particular offense in the last 5 years have been more or less closely associated with this specific political faction?”‘

Another important question we can ask concerning Hiltunen is why doesn’t the PS sack the councilman? Remember the answer PS chairman Timo Soini gave on HARDtalk when he was asked about sacking MP Teuvo Hakkarainan for calling black people the n-word?

Soini’s answed: “Why should I?”

It’s pretty certain that Soini won’t sack Hiltunen.

The reason why the PS chairman denies racism to be a problem is obvious: The party cannot rid itself of its racists because it would commit political hara-kiri.

Timo Soini’s fast one: “Only one or two [racist] outbursts”

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, claimed on BBC’s HARDtalk that his party doesn’t have a strand of racism because there were only “one or two [racist] outbursts” in the past. Only one or two?! Try a long and disgraceful list of racist outbursts, criminal convictions and shameful denials Mr. Soini.

The HARDtalk interview with Stephen Sackur doesn’t leave us without doubt: Soini and the PS are a breeding ground for intolerance and racism.

The PS chairman has made similar denials in the past: In December 2011 he said there are only “one, two or three” racists in the party. In April 2011, he claimed to journalists with a poker face there were no racists in the PS.

How can Soini claim the above and get away with it in Finland? For how long can he continue to play the good-cop role of the PS?

The rise of the PS doesn’t say anything pretty about ourselves as a society. Some factors that helped the PS to become one of Finland’s largest parties were the complacency of other political parties and of ours as well to the anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam party as a social phenomenon.

Another reason why Soini can get away with his ludicrous claims and denials is because most of us don’t want to believe them. How can a small and noble country that defended itself against the former Soviet Union in the Winter War, house so much prejudice, racism and hatred to become a political force?

Here’s a sobering fact: If we don’t challenge the cancer of intolerance presently taking root in Finland, it will end up consuming us. Remaining silent about this social ill is giving it the green light to continue spreading in our society.

The HARDtalk interview reinforced what Migrant Tales has been saying all along: Intolerance in general, our approval of prejudice and of the PS in particular, are poisoning Finland.

Don’t expect Soini and the PS to change. They won’t rid the party of their racists and populist-radical nationalists because it would be synonymous to committing political hara-kiri.

Soini’s answers on HARDtalk told us that.

BBC’s HARDtalk grills Timo Soini on racism

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Finally Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, has met his match Wednesday on the BBC’s HARDtalk. The Finnish media should take notes on how BBC journalist Stephen Sackur doesn’t let Soini off the hook when it comes to racism. In a short part of the interview, Saucker reveals Soini and the PS for what they are: a sham and a party that treats racism with kid gloves.

The last time that Soini got thrown a good question was not by Finnish journalists but by high school students in Järvenpää during the presidential election.

Here is the link.

My favorite question by Sackur to Soini: “Is there a strand of racism inside your party?”

Soini: “No. I’m a Catholic Christian by definition, I cannot be a racist.”

Sackur: “I’m not sure that would convince everyone listening to this interview. Is there a strand of racism inside your party?”

Soini: “No I don’t hate anybody, nobody is hated by the Finns Party…Of course there are one or two outbursts but we have 19% out of people voting for us…If there are some individuals or even some MPs you cannot personally be in charge.”

Sackur: “You’re a leader. That’s your job. ”

Soini: “That is my job I’m not a kindergarten [teacher]…”

Sackur: “You have 39 MPs and you are saying it’s simply impossible to ensure that none come up with a racist statement?”

And a little later on Saucker brings up PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen and his use of the n-word in Finland which is “completely unacceptable and racist.”

Soini: “I said [to Hakkarainen] don’t use that kind of [racist] language.”

Sackur: “Why didn’t you fire him?”

Soini: “Why should I?”

Saucker: “Because if people use that sort of completely derogatory word towards people of a different race it suggests that they are racist.”

Soini: “Yes, but he hasn’t said he’s a racist and I don’t believe he is a racist.”

Sackur: “So if you use that kind of language, inflammatory language, then deny you’re a racist, that’s ok.”

Soini: “That’s not ok . You should be improving in your behavior.”

BBC’s HARDtalk: Soini defends decision to not sack Halla-aho

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, said on BBC’s HARDTalk that the five-year ordeal that lead to a Supreme Court ruling against PS MP Jussi Halla-aho for inciting ethnic hatred was enough punishment, according to YLE. Soini had promised previously to sack any member of the party if they were sentenced by a court for hate speech.

“He’s been in purgatory for five years,” Soini said of Halla-aho. “In my opinion it’s hard-enough punishment.”

Certainly Soini doesn’t want to get rid of Halla-aho because that would be costly for the party. Since the PS MP was voted to parliament thanks to hate speech, he can now move to phase two: put into action his plans, which include spreading suspicion and making life as difficult as possible for immigrants in Finland.

The BBC asked if Soini believed he had passed the peak of his popularity.

”Everything is possible,” he said. “I’ve been in parliament for ten years. In that respect, I’m a pretty tough guy because I do what I believe in.”

According to YLE, Soini was asked about the Slovak National Party, which belongs, like the PS, to the xenophobic and right-wing populist Europe of Freedom & Democracy group in the European Parliament. It’s leader, Jan Slota, stated that “The Hungarians are a cancer in the body of the Slovak nation” and that the only homosexual he’d accept is one in the closet.

In Soini’s usual style, he didn’t answer the question. He said that when the party won the election in 2011, the Swedish media had called the PS leader “the plague.”

“How does that stand for Swedish values?” he said.

The HARDTalk show can only be viewed in the U.K.

On the BBC website, it introduces Soini in the following manner: writes: “Europe’s prolonged economic crisis has prompted a populist backlash against the powers that be. In Finland, the EU’s prosperous northern outpost, the big beneficiary has been Timo Soini, leader of the Eurosceptic, nationalist party long known as the True Finns. He wants to see the Eurozone dismantled, immigration curbed, traditional values restored. Critics have labelled the party xenophobic – is this the angry politics of European disintegration?”

Here’s another interview that Soini gave to CNBC on Finland’s membership in the European Union.

If you’re anti-gay you’re probably anti-immigration (or don’t understand what is at stake)

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Migrant Tales

It is surprising that a country like Finland, which claims to be a Nordic democracy, we see so much opposition to gays not only from anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), but from other ones as well like the National Coalition Party.

PS MP Mika Niikko, a fierce opponent of gay rights, echoed on Helsingin Sanomat what other PS politicians think about homosexuality.

”I made a question that if homosexuality was as normal as people want us to understand, why must this fact be hidden from the employer…” he said.

For some reason, Niikko believes that employers should know their worker’s sexual preference.

It’s nothing surprising that an anti-immigration party like the PS houses anti-gay sentiment as we have seen from MP James Hirvisaari and MP Pentti Oinonen, who refused to go to the annual December 6 independence day reception because there were gay couples.

Even if Christian Democrat (KD) Interior Minister P’ivi Räsänen may appear to voice the greatest objection in government to gays rights and marriage by claiming on a TV show that homosexuality to be a sin, she’s not alone.

One of the conditions for the KD to be in government was that gay marriage would not be brought up or promoted.

MP Anne Holmlund of the National Coalition Party and former interior minister appears to be against gay rights as well. She has reportedly sabotaged a petition as chairman of the legal committee to debate and legalize gay marriage.

It’s important to note that these types of MPs and their parties that oppose gay marriage are a reflection of the general intolerance that is raising its head and gripping Finland. Approving gay marriage would not only benefit such couples but have a positive effect on all minorities.

Advancing tolerance is good for ALL minorities. Promoting or maintaining intolerance is a bad matter for minorities.

MPs that opposes gay marriage are most likely to oppose the rights of immigrants and are most likely against cultural diversity.

Our Finnish modern-day eugenicists are no different from the past

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Who are those modern-day eugenicists breathing life back into this disgraced pseudo-science whose aim was to create a master white race by wiping out other ones? If we look at Europe and the Nordic region today, we can find many politicians with the same nineteenth-century agenda but in a different context.

Some may rightfully argue that eugenics is long dead. True, but what hasn’t died is racism that manifests itself in new forms.

In Finland, you will find them in groups like Suomen Sisu, Suomalaisuuden liitto, neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, in parliament and city councils as well as in all walks of life in Finland.

Suomalaisuuden liitto, or the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, is one of many eugenicist-spirited associations in Finland that want to keep Finland white.

They are present as well in anti-immigration right-wing populist parties like the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats and Progress Party of Norway. While these types of modern-day eugenicists can be found throughout Europe in parties like Golden Dawn of Greece, Hungary’s Jobbik and the National Front of France, their message is the same: We must keep our country white.

What these anti-immigration and xenophobic groups haven’t told us yet is how they plan to keep their countries’ white. Is it only a matter of time when they’ll begin drafting legislation to deport Muslims and other visible minorities to where they came from? Think of the consequences to our democracy and way of life if we permit this type of hatred to get the better of us.

When I moved to Finland permanently in December 1978, the first matter that surprised me was prejudice. It seemed that the only contact some Finns had with blacks was through Archie Bunker’s TV series. Finns were not only prejudiced to outsiders but placed labels on themselves as well.

If Finns housed such views of themselves, one can only imagine how they saw non-Finns like blacks and Southern Europeans.

The same idea, that we are being invaded by criminals, was evident in Finland’s immigration policy. Finland got its first Aliens Act in 1983, about 66 years after independence. Immigrants had no rights before the Act and could be held indefinitely and deported by the police without a fair trial.

The answer to how some Finns saw foreigners can be found in popular culture and in Irwin Mutakuono ja lakupelle (Mudfaces and n-clowns). The lyrics were written by Veikko Salmi.

Another racist hit by Irwin Goodman was Marcello Macaroni. The song was sung as well by Esa Pakarinen, a Finnish movie star.

If you check out former song on YouTube, it has over 1.2 million hits.

Continue reading “Our Finnish modern-day eugenicists are no different from the past”

Creating political Frankensteins with the help of social media and prejudice

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Migrant Tales

In Saami mythology there’s a large-but-not-too-bright monster called Staalo, which was made from a log, lichen and a few incantations. If we look at the recent rise of intolerance in Finland and Europe, social media has breathed life back to many Staalo-like political Frankensteins.

Staalo is a monster found in Saami mythology. Source: Tajukangas.

In the case of Finland, you need a political party with some credibility among voters, like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), to ensure success that your Frankenstein will work.

One political Frankenstein creation of social media is PS MP James Hirvisaari, who is so hard up for publicity these days that he seeks publicity in the tabloids by raising issues like fecal skid marks found on the toilet bowls of parliament.

Another social media creation is PS MP Juho Eerola, who admits liking fascism and claimed the recent Jyväskylä attack by neo-Nazis as a publicity stunt by the Left Alliance.

Letting off the hook other parties in Finland by blaming only the PS would be too simple. You can find these types of political Frankensteins in all of the parties. None probably have so many as the PS.

Dutch football master Edgar Davids wrote about racism in a recent column. He compared such people to sheep without backbone.

Racism exists because still too many people don’t take it seriously. Such people rarely see matters from the victims’ point of view but from their white comfort zones.

Writes Davids: ”How can you know what racism is like if you have never experienced it? It’s very difficult to imagine.”

When more people start raising their voices by saying no to this social illness, matters will begin to change.

Dan Koivulaakso, one of the three authors Äärioikesto Suomessa’s (Far right in Finland), asks on a Kymen Sanomat column why Eerola reacted the way he did concerning Jyväskyä.

The answer is simple: Intolerance and society’s indifference to the far right and racism help keep alive these political Frankensteins.

University of Eastern Finland concerned over threats to their racism researchers

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Unions representing racism and multiculturalism researchers at the University of Eastern Finland, expressed concern Wednesday over the threats they are receiving, reports YLE in English.

In a joint statement, the unions said that such threats to its researchers should be a cause for concern, especially in a region where intolerance is on the rise.

“Our researchers into racism and multiculturalism have been subjected to threats,” said Antero Puhakka of the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals (JUKO). “Anonymous threatening letters have been posted to their homes and researchers have faced abuse on Facebook. Complaints regarding the activities of researchers and teachers have been filed with the vice-chancellor or to a higher authority.”

The JUPO representatives added that their must be zero tolerance for such harassment and intimidation.

We should never give in to racists, who have no regard for our democratic way of life and who believe they can intimidate people they disagree with. If we permit intimidation and fear to overtake our good judgement, the threat to ourselves and our society will become much worse.

Migrant Tales has been a target of death threats in the past and of harassment.