Tag: xenophobia

Anti-immigration Facebook group: “One small step for Finland one giant leap for Lieksa”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The rise of right-wing anti-immigration populist parties and Counter-Jihadist groups mushrooming from the undercurrent of nationalism and prejudice show how we have failed on many fronts as a society. Is there anything we can do challenge this threat?

The small city of Lieksa located in eastern Finland is a good example of how a community can regain lost ground in the fight against racism and xenophobia. This battle cannot be left to a few brave inhabitants but should become a top priority for the whole community.

Lieksa is a small city with 12,800 inhabitants and about 250 immigrants mostly from Somalia.

The law and its interpretation play crucial roles as we saw Thursday, when a court in Pohjois-Karjala sentenced a man from Lieksa for his comments on Facebook to 60 days imprisonment. Five other people from the same city were fined between 150 and 500 euros for taking part in the same Facebook group.

Charges against two others were dropped.

The Facebook group, called “Mamu keskustelu ilman sensuuria (Lieksa),” or “Immigrant debate without censorship (Lieksa),” was deactivated as well. This is good news and encouraging. It shows that racism can be challenged and beaten where it flourishes.

It demonstrates as well that those that  spread racism sow the seeds of the destruction of their cause. Mamu keskustelu ilman sensuuria (Lieksa) was subsequently deactivated because a member of that groups had published without permission the bank statement of a Somali resident of Lieksa.  The police are investigating the matter and the woman who made public the bank statement could be charged with invasion of privacy.

Those who claim that these type of discussion groups are not harmful to our society, immigrants and visible minorities should think twice. They are the social-media platforms where old hatreds survive to see another day and where new suspicions grow and impact people’s lives. They are the monkey wrenches thrown constantly in the gears of many immigrants’ integration process.

Prejudice, racism and all type of hatred that divide groups are extremely hazardous to a society’s health.  It is costly as well for tax payers like you and I.

 

Anti-immigration groups in Finland care less about immigrants and visible minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Behind all the rhetoric spread by anti-immigration groups in Finland and elsewhere a fact emerges: they are out to destroy the lives of as many immigrants as possible with their prejudice and racism. When a Justice Ministry official hands over rape statistics on various immigrant groups he gives a power weapon to slander and victimize people from various countries.

Such statistics have little value apart from hindering the integration of hard-working immigrants and those that want to make and build their future in this country.

Risto Laakkonen said on YLE’s Historiansarjoja: Raggarit, rasismi ja suomalaiset program how Swedish newspapers stopped linking crimes to national origin in 1970. The Finnish Embassy in Stockholm was instrumental in reaching an agreement with the editors-in-chief of Sweden’s major newspapers, who agreed not to publish the nationality of individuals committing a crime.

Things had gotten so bad in Sweden that the media had a common saying whenever a Finn was involved in a crime: En finne igen, or Yet another Finn.

Racist perceptions of different groups in Finland is more widespread than people would like to think, and the media have played a key role in spreading racism and prejudices among the population.

The fact that a political group openly spreads and distorts crime statistics about another national group is the worst form of chicanery.

If anti-immigration groups like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party are honestly interested in promoting the integration of various cultures in our society, why do they commonly single out immigrants and never suggest the same things for Finns?

A case in point of the latter can be found in a good opinion-piece by Hussein Muhammed.  PS MP Jussi Halla-aho has suggested that unemployed immigrants should be put to work, even if this means digging and refilling holes.  Muhammed asks: “…why must this kind of work only apply to “newcomers?” Shouldn’t it apply equally to “natives” or to the majority population that are unemployed?”

Why do anti-immigration groups apply two standards? One of these are for “newcomers” and the other for “natives?” Why are they so eager to use crime statistics and point the accusing finger at the whole group?

The answer to that question is simple. It is prejudice with a capital P, and racism with a fat R.

Migrant Tales to celebrate its fifth anniversary in May

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Migrant Tales will celebrate its fifth year in existence on May 30. By then we’ll have passed the 1,000 posts mark and have received and responded to well over 30,000 comments, the lion’s share of which we have got in the past two years.  Migrant Tales is a community of writers: JusticeDemon, Mark, Peter, eyeopener, Jonas, D4R, Sasu, BlandaUpp, Foreigner and many, many others.

What more wonderful occasion than our fifth year in existence to launch our new website http://migranttales.net?

I first used Migrant Tales in 1999, when syndicating columns for a number of English-language Finnish American publications in the United States and Canada.

Whenever a migrant moves to a new country he not only returns back to his former home a changed person, but has many tales to tell about his travels.

Those tales, which come from a large community of voices, can be read daily on our blog.

Our passion for social justice and our struggle against all forms of discrimination is our shield against the many vicious and hostile attacks that our blog and community has endured in Finland. The election victory of an anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS), is a clear challenge.

Our success as a blog would have never been possible without the support of many bloggers and publications. Migrant Tales has been contacted by Deutschlandradio, the National German Radio, Die Welt, BBC, TV channel 4 of St. Petersburg and others.

Here is a link to Dunia Magazine that published one of our columns. Migrant Tales earned a mention in Time Magazine right after the elections of 17 April 2011.  and The Finns Daily are Twitter publications that pick up our blog entries. We have also been mentioned on YLE’s Suora linja and on numerous blogs, such as the Community Activist and popular Facebook pages like My Finland is international.

Traffic to our blog has soared. We expect the number of visits for the whole of 2011 to be surpassed in June. Despite our growth and successes, Migrant Tales ‘ main reason for existence is to challenge an ever-growing social ill in Finland.

We seek nothing more than to be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.

Apart from mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities, our aim is inclusion of all people in Finnish society irrespective of background.

Thank you for your support and don’t be afraid to get involved!

Migrant Tales May 16, 2011: Xenophobia and racism are the poverty of Finland today

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Some people claim that ever-growing poverty and social inequality in Finland were the reasons why the Perussuomalaiset (PS) scored such a big election victory last year. We read in the media about lengthening bread lines and how it has become more difficult for some people to make ends meet. Even so, does this justify growing xenophobia and racism in our society?

Some cast their only vote last year in the belief that our most pressing problems in this country would be solved by supporting an anti-immigration candidate.

Voting for such a person, however, is like calling a pyromaniac to turn off a raging fire. You need qualified firemen to deal with such a situation in the same way that Finland today needs leaders and politicians who have political experience and a strong background in economics, globalization and sociology.

Poverty is unacceptable in any society. In some parts of the world it means living on $1 a day, or even less. It means making hard decisions like choosing not to eat today in order to feed my children.

I remember a documentary I saw in university a long time ago about a poor family in the U.S. Appalachia Mountains. “In the same way that some rich folks may be proud of being rich,” the young father said standing next to his wife, “I’m also proud of being poor.”

The couple didn’t have enough money to buy milk so they fed their baby gravy from a bottle.

I am certain that when Finnish politicians and policymakers speak of poverty they don’t mean living on $1 a day or having to feed your baby gravy (läskisoosi).

Poverty means different things in affluent countries like Finland and in the developing world. Poverty teaches some of us two important lessons: our vulnerability in society and that nothing is permanent. If there is some wisdom we can learn from it, probably it is treating people with respect even during good times, because we never know when we’ll need their help.

The rise of racism and right-wing populism in Finland and Europe are proof that these lessons are not even being acknowledged by some. Moreover, the arrogance of some politicians is like adding salt to the open wound of Finland’s polarized society.

The more we boast our racism and suspicion of minorities in public and in private, the more our society will continue to slip into a more profound type of poverty. We will not throw extra weight overboard to slow our downward spiral, but instead stand by our most inalienable values like social equality for all.

Xenophobia and racism are the real poverty facing Finland today.

Lieksa Facebook court case begins today in Pohjois-Karjala, Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

A court case involving eight suspects accused of inciting ethnic hatred in Lieksa via the Facebook page, “Mamu keskustelu ilman sensuuria (lieksa),” or “Immigrant debate without censorship (Lieksa),” began today. The deputy state prosecutor is calling for two of the accused to serve four-month prison terms, with lesser sentences and fines for the rest. 

Traffic on the Facebook site has now come to a near-halt, but racist jokes about groups like Somalis and Roma can be still found on the site’s wall.

The Facebook group is a good example of  the good name of a town and community can be ruined by a handful of people. Lieksa is a city of 12,800 inhabitants with roughly 200 immigrants.

There are many ways to shake off a bad reputation. When it comes to racism, the only way is through community action and the law. In both cases the message must be crystal clear: racism is unacceptable.

The face of racism, when it dares to show itself in public, is not only shameful but can threaten the community it claims to be defending. All the noble values that we consider dear, like social justice and equality, are destroyed in an instant.

There is much more at stake in the ongoing trial of eight defendants accused of inciting ethnic hatred than meets the eye.

What is at stake is who we are as culturally diverse Finns.

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, prejudiced, racist or anti-Russian views.

A common stereotype about Russia at the time — and still is — that it’s rife with Mafia criminal gangs. The billboard below claims that the mafia apprehended 70 Finns.

Instilling fear in the population, that the outside world and especially Russia are dangerous places, was and still is the main message of xenophobic groups in Finland. Around 1989, Keijo Korhonen became a household name by warning that the fall of the Soviet Union could bring hordes of refugees.

The argument used once by Korhonen is the same one used by the anti-immigration wing of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, which warn us of “Islamization.” The same high-birthrate argument was used against the Jews in Finland in the nineteenth century. Today, Finland’s Jewish population numbers, however, a mere 2,000 people.

*Migration Institute archive.

YLE poll: The Perussuomalaiset party suffers a new blow in the polls

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The many problems of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party worsened today after a poll published by YLE showed the popularity of the party further slipping by 1.7 percentage points to 14.1%. The biggest party was Kokoomus (22.6%), followed by the Social Democrats (up 1.8% to 19.1%) and the Center Party (16.4%).

The plunge in the polls is quite significant, taking into account that the PS’ popularity once stood as high as 23%. The party won 19.1% of the votes in last year’s election.

Without a doubt it’s been a scandal-rich year for the major tabloids, thanks to the numerous PS racist gaffes, foot-in-mouth displays, declarations of wars against immigrants and the media, members joining neo-Nazi parties, satirically suggesting Holocaust-style armbands to help police in ethnic profiling, decorating cold-blooded killers and recent internal bickering.

In the meantime keep your seatbelts fastened. This is only the first year and we still have three more to go. What kind of a country will Finland look like after four years of the PS in Parliament? Will we recognize it? How much damage will be done to the credibility of our institutions, never mind our international image?

The people who lifted the PS from a minor to a major party last year are now sending it back to where it came from.  There is no sympathy from the major parties, never mind the media, which has grown some teeth after initially treating the PS as some kind of sensation before the election.

Migrant Tales has constantly warned about the PS and the damage it is capable of inflicting on Finland.  Our editorial line, and the fact that we got it right, explain why our blog has seen unprecedented growth in the past year.

Migrant Tales wrote shortly after the election:  “Another factor that spurred the PS to new heights was a watershed statement in March 2010 by Kokoomus chairman Jyrki Katainen, who stated that being critical and debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist. After that green light to racism was given, the Social Democratic leadership gave the PS another pat on the back with their infamous saying, maassa maan tavalla.”

Supporting the PS is not just being anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-establishment but supporting a party that aims to change Finland into something that it isn’t quite sure of.  Some PS MPs want to take it back to the 1950s while others are fascinated by the fascism that mushroomed in the 1930s.

There is no room for dissent in the narrow-minded world of the PS.  All you have to do is repeat patronizingly after every other word fatherland, fatherland and fatherland.

Like Migrant Tales, Sweden got it right a year ago.

Immediately after the PS election victory the New York Times wrote: “In the European news media, particularly in Sweden, the True Finns have come under fire as right-wing racists. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and others have defended Mr. Soini from such accusations, though other members of his party hold more radical views on immigration.”

Even Social Democrat Lasse Lehtinen tried to assure Europeans that they have nothing to fear. “Timo Soini is actually a very civilized guy,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “He reads a lot. He thinks a lot.”

If the leaders of the major parties and the majority of Finns had been visible immigrants for a day before the election, then they would have seen Soini and the threat of the PS much more clearly, as they do today.

PS anti-immigration wing: “a new [Cadillac] model every year”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Helena Eronen, the parliamentary aide who suggested armbands for foreigners, is what Malcolm X once said about racism and Cadillacs:  “They make a new model every year.”* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s far-right anti-immigration wing led by MP Jussi Halla-aho have a new model: Helena Eronen.

Hirvisaari was fined in December for hate speech, which explains why he chose Eronen as his aide to write and be his ideological alter ego.

Taking into account the outright rejection by the media especially after the election of the Counter-Jihadist writings of Halla-aho, Olli Immonen and Juho Eerola, it’s pretty clear that this group needs a fresh new face, and a new writing style to get across the same anti-immigration message. That person is none other than Eronen.

Even if Eronen claims no political affiliation, she used to advertise her affiliation to the far-right Muutos2011 on her Uusi Suomi blog. Many of her blog entries confirm her anti-immigration views, such as the last one published in Uusi Suomi and headlined, “What on Earth would you do about exotic- [skin-] colored rapists.”

Hirvisaari shines through in the text, and Eronen also mentions MP Olli Immonen, who inquired in Parliament about rapes committed by immigrants.

Eronen fails to share one absolute figure with the reader about how many rape cases have occurred. This is for obvious reasons, because we are talking about tens of cases and not discussing the white Finnish males who commit the lion’s share of rapes in Finland.

At the end of her blog entry she warns that two dailies, Turun Sanomat and Karjalainen of Joensuu, may not quote the text unless they want to pay a 100,000-euro fine. This shows how little Eronen understands and her utter ignorance of the media. It’s a pretty ludicrous warning: how can you write a public blog and forbid someone from quoting you?

We mustn’t forget that PS MPs Hirvisaari, Halla-aho and Immonen – and Eerola herself – are all social media creations.

Noting how much their racist writings and victimization of certain immigrant groups brought them money and a ticket to Parliament, it’s clear that they will not abandon social media as a platform for getting their anti-immigration message across to their followers.

*Thank you Sasu Xinkang Ölander.

The answer to our prejudices and racism in Finland lie in our emigrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

It’s clear that as Finland becomes more culturally diverse this century, it will one day make a startling discovery: we are culturally rich and diverse. Some of those historians and social scientists that have kept us in the dark for now should reread their history over and over again until they get it right. 

One of the most interesting questions about why we don’t acknowledge our cultural diversity enough in Finland is the question itself. Why hasn’t it been acknowledged? In which groups’ interest has it been to not stir things too much on this front?

As a person with a culturally diverse background who is a Finn, I have always been amazed by the simplistic and fictitious ethnic and national view we have of ourselves as Finns.

Today there are officially over 50,000 couples in this country that are bicultural, according to the Population Research Institute (Väestöliitto).

But like all far-reaching discoveries you will most likely find the answer under your nose.

All of those Finnish emigrants that left this country in large numbers from the 1880s not only faced a brave new world but a culturally diverse one as well.  What role did their whiteness play in integration and in shaping attitudes of other groups?

What did the Finns think of blacks in the United States and what were their attitudes towards Amerindians? What did they think about marrying outside the group? What did some members of their community say if their spouse was black?

All these questions that were relevant well over a century ago are topical today in Finland. The only problem, however, is that for some reason we have avoided looking into this question.

It’s clear that some immigrant parents not only want their children to retain their customs but marry within the group. This was an important goal for some parents but became less important for the children never mind grandchildren.

One of the discoveries I made while doing fieldwork on a Finnish colony in Argentina from 1977 was their view of other ethnicities like blacks from Brazil and mestizos, a term used to describe people who have mixed European and Amerindian ancestry.  The darker the person, usually implied greater rejection from the community.

The way they rejected such bicultural marriages was with the help of prejudice and racism. Some actually believed that marrying a mestizo would condemn you to a life of poverty.  All the bad qualities of the white Finnish colonizer were the fault of the mestizo spouse.

Some of these racist attitudes and prejudices that some colonizers had of other groups were not only learned in Argentina but came from Europe.

I have a lot of data gathered through long interviews of how some Finns viewed other groups that were ethnically different. If I have such information I am certain that this type of information can be found among Finns that emigrated to North America, Africa and other parts of the world.

If researchers are serious about studying racism in Finland, they should look under their noses. The information is there waiting to be uncovered.

PS MP Hakkarainen instigates social-media lynch mob from Singapore

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Scandal-ridden Perussuomalaliset (PS) party MP, Teuvo Hakkarainen, has stuck his foot in his mouth again. This time  he has taken the law in his hands and instigated a social-media lynch mob against two minors found guilty of rape, according to Keskisuomalainen. The Jyväskylä-based daily reports that Hakkarainen published on his Facebook page a link to court documents that give the accused names, identification numbers, addresses and even their parents’ names.

“The court case can be found by anyone,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s not a problem. The link is there and that’s that. I don’t protect rapists. If someone wants to protect them it’s their business but I don’t protect them.”

A person apparently belonging to a far-right association tried to post the full text of the court case on Migrant Tales, which acted promptly to take them down thanks to our associate editors JusticeDemon and Mark.

Hakkarainen writes on his Facebook page, where all the posts on his wall have been now removed, the following from Singapore:  …I pleasantly  found out [in Singapore] that first and foremost immigrants that come to live here work and respect the local culture and people. It’s unfortunate that not everyone that goes there [to Finland] doesn’t share the same positive attitude, especially those in this case [below he shows a link to the court documents] of gross lack of respect…”

In his shortlived Facebook statement, Hakkarainen defends what he did by publishing the court documents because the media doesn’t do its job. Part of the court documents have been made secret until 2072. In Finland, the names of those that have been accused of crimes that carry over two-year prison sentences are not published by the media.

While a crime like rape must be strongly condemned by society, it is equally unacceptable that a public official like an MP takes justice in his hands.

Hakkarainen’s social-media call to lynch the sentenced minors reveals two disturbing matters: The PS MP from Viitasaari is unrepentant about his many former racist gaffes; by scapegoating people with non-white Finnish backgrounds he tries to absolve his past problematic behavior.

Migrant Tales wrote the previous month how anti-immigration groups like the PS plan a vicious campaign against immigrants and minorities in order to boost their sagging popularity. The Helena Eronen-James Hirvisaari scandal is one recent example as is the present ploy by Hakkarainen to publish hitherto-secret court documents.

Another case is far-right hardline anti-immigration PS MP Olli Immonen, who suggested that East European Roma beggars should be deported from Finland in the same way that the fascist Lapuan liike movement (1929-32) did to its enemies to the former Soviet Union.

Taking into account the recent and present scandals that are rocking the PS, one could ask if its chairman Timo Soini has lost control over the party and what we are seeing in fact is a power struggle between two rival groups: the Rural Party and far-right anti-immigration wing.

A column published by Yrjö Rautio on Apu magazine makes the same conclusion as Migrant Tales. That is exactly what is taking place at this moment.