Tag: xenophobia

Foreign Student front cover from April 1981

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off stuff from the past like magazine stories and Finnish tabloid ads, or lööppi in Finnish. The Foreign Student was a short-lived but courageous newsletter of the Foreign Student Club of Helsinki. The humble publication existed from January 1981 to January 1982 and lasted 11 issues. It was probably the first-ever publication in Finland that spoke out critically against Finland’s then non-existent and arbitrary immigration policy.

The editorial headlined “Self-Censorship” is critical about the then Aliens’ Office, which operates like a state within a state.

 “Many of us deep inside want to do something constructive for the cause of foreigners here in Finland. We want deep inside to see a law [Finland’s first Aliens Act of 1983] protecting us, a law which will give us security. Also, many of us feel a deep nervousness of the Aliens Office…Is our situation hopeless? Are we doomed to sit in silence for the rest of our days [in Finland]? What to do?”

Sounds like the same argument today.

The editor of the Foreign Student was officially John Arnold.  The editorials were written by Enrique Tessieri.

The front cover of the April 1981 issue represented the “ideal” foreigner, who never said anything bad nor raised a finger against the arbitrary treatment by the then Aliens Office. 

Why was Migrant Tales deactivated for about thirteen hours?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Thursday night was one of the worst I had experienced in a while: my son tells about some SKV neo-Nazi stickers put on a lamppost in front of our house  and then Migrant Tales gets deactivated a couple of hours later because “it does not comply with the WordPress.com Terms of Service or advertising policy.” What’s going on? 

Without any warning, WordPress shut us down and hate forums like Hommaforum, which is closely linked to Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho’s Scripta, are dancing on Migrant Tales’ grave.

Sorry to ruin the party, folks, but the music ended abruptly thirteen hours later after we were deactivated. I got the following message from WordPress: “Your site was flagged by our automated anti-spam controls. I have reviewed your site and have removed the suspension notice. We are very sorry for that happening and the inconvenience it caused you.” Hmmm.

An anonymous comment on Zuzeeko’s blog, On The Road to Success, reinforces a different story: “It’s offline due to Neo-Nazis making fake complaints against the blog.”

But that’s not all. The following day I get an email from a person who apparently holds a serious grudge against us. After trying to get us to pay him 3,000 euros to settle out of court for [now listen to this] for defaming an anonymous person on our blog, he actually does end up sending an email to one of my workplaces and tells the whole staff what a terrible person I am.

The person even threatened to organize a petition against me. The petition, according to him, is to force me to state in every blog entry that I do not represent all immigrants in Finland but only those on Migrant Tales.

Apparently, this person is very angry at us because we think his and Halla-aho’s points of view of immigrants are simplistic to say the least.

During the spring, Migrant Tales will move to another site where it will be virtually impossible to shut us down.

Thank you all for your support. We have grown stronger from this experience.

Trolls come in many sizes and shapes in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I read an interesting blog entry on Iowa State Daily that gave a very good suggestion to the vicious racist stuff you find in the blogsphere: “Require identification for comments and monitor, monitor, monitor the trolls,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. “The blogosphere is full of trolls, and some write the most vicious things. Keep them out of mainstream media, and ignore them whenever you can.”

Even if this suggestion seems pretty sensible, we must take it a step further and ask why we must have an effective troll detector. The answer is simple: spreading vicious urban tales that are racist are more hostile than meets the eye.

While it is difficult to measure how much racism and suspicion hate forums like Hommaforum and Scripta fuel, it’s pretty clear that they do have an impact on some Finns’ prejudices. Maintaining these prejudices is synonymous with sidestepping and maintaining some people’s racist perceptions.

After taking part and reading over 21,700 comments on Migrant Tales, I could pretty confidently say that trolls have inhibited debate and effectively taken our eye off the ball, or the real issue, which is finding solutions to the social ill.

One of the most ludicrous claims by Internet trolls is that if their hate speech is censored we will be undermining an important civil liberty like free speech. Apart from being utter baloney it is one of the trolls’ many red herrings on the Internet.

Trolls aren’t always anonymous. If Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari ever took part in a discussion on Migrant Tales, there is a good chance that he’d never make it past our troll detector.

One of the favorite strategies of the trolls is to take an issue like racism and accuse the victim of being the racist or changing the argument around.

Trolls are a strange bunch that are constantly demanding to be treated as exceptions. They label whole ethnic groups like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho did today in Parliament with Eastern European Roma, but don’t like to be labelled themselves as far-right racists.

In many respects their arguments on the rights of immigrants and visible minorities in our societies resembles what was debated in many Latin American countries in the 1970s: Should we have a military or democratic government in power?

Can we ever “debate” and compromise those civil liberties guaranteed in our Constitution? Certainly not but this is what anonymous and real-name trolls are actually lobbying for.

In the spiteful and myopic world of people like Hirvisaari, the argument is not only hostile to certain ethnic groups but horrifying: We have the right to tear off the Muslim veil off women because we are looking after their rights.

These types of arguments commonly used by Finland’s far-right anti-immigration extremists are nothing more than red herrings. If you think that these people are looking after your civil rights, think twice.

If you disagree with what I am writing, pay a visit to Hommaforum and read the far-right Counter-Jihadist baloney on Halla-aho’s blog Scripta and you will see what I mean.

JusticeDemon has said in the past that we mustn’t feed the trolls on Migrant Tales.  True but we should see them like the famous warning on a pack of cigarettes: Trolls are hazardous to your mental health and may seriously distort your view of other groups.

 

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 and racist views.

The billboard below reinforces some Finns’ perceptions that anything that comes from Russia is bad. If you go there, for example, bad things can happen to you like when 70 Finnish tourists were hijacked by the Russian mafia.

In the early 1980s before Finland’s first alien act came to force in 1983, the police justified their tough immigration policy stance by stating that its aim was to keep criminals out of Finland. Another researcher that advised the interior ministry told me that its aim was to “keep the trash out.”

In 1993 only 14,409 immigrants lived in Finland, accounting for 0.3% of the population.

*MIgration Institute archive.

Finnish PS hardcore far-right MP gives a kick in the gut to the Romany minority

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen represents the worst of the worst when it comes to the acceptance of our ever-growing culturally diverse society. Apart from predicting a war between Islam and white Christian Europe, Immonen never loses the opportunity to kick the most vulnerable members of society in the guts. 

Migrant Tales warned recently that the PS in general and its far-right anti-immigration wing in particular will begin a new round of vicious attacks against immigrants and minorities to boost their sagging popularity in the polls as the municipal election nears on October 28.

Immonen said Monday on his Facebook page that the only way to deal with Roma street beggars in Finland from Romania and Bulgaria was to make begging a crime and  forcibly deport them back to their home countries.

Pekka Tuomola of the Helsinki Deaconess Institute asked Tuesday on MTV3  if it is even legally possible to make poverty a crime.  He said that Finland cannot close its eyes to the poor. The Romany minority problem is a European issue and  solutions must be found together with other countries, said Tuomola.

PS MP Immonen from Oulu, who has been strangely quiet concerning two tragic deaths of Muslims that took place in the northern Finnish city in January and February, appears to have a passion for the fascist Lapuan liike movement (1929-32) and its predecessor, IKL (1932-44).

One of the matters that the Lapuan liike movement did during its short-lived  heyday was kidnap its enemies like communists to the Finnish-Soviet border. The fascist party once even kidnapped a former president, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (1919-25), to the border.

When speaking of Romany beggars from Eastern Europe, Immonen uses the same term, or muiluttaa, that the Lapuan liike movement used when it kidnapped, beat up and sent its enemies to the Soviet border.

A tabloid Iltalehti reporter asked Immonen why he used the same term that the fascist party used when speaking of Eastern European Roma street beggars.

“I certainly did not mean that [term used by the Lapuan liike movement],” he said. “I have myself used the term muiluttaa [forcibly transport] as a synonym of transporting [them out of the country]. Does this mean specifically that [street] beggars should be escorted with the help of the authorities from Finland, if necessary even by force.”

Immonen, like other hardcore Suomen Sisu association members of the PS like MPs Jussi Halla-aho and James Hirvisaari and Juho Eerola, all belong to the same party that chairman Timo Soini claimed “doesn’t hate anyone.”

One of the aims of Suomen Sisu is to discourage white Finns from marrying foreigners.

Hommaforum stoops to new depths by “defaming” adolescent

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Hommaforum is a forum closely linked to Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Jussi Halla-aho’s blog, Scripta, and to Suomen Sisu, a far-right extremist association. Even if Hommaforum and Scripta are only smears of hatred that stain Finland’s good name and values,  they don’t care whom they tar and feather. But to attack and defame publicly a brave fifteen-year-old girl, Rebecca Holm, who spoke out against racism shows how low they will go to make their point. 

If Holm wants to know some of the places where racial harassment against her and her friends come from, the answer is pretty clear.

According to Kansan Uutiset and Swedish-language daily HBL,  a complaint has been filed to the police for defaming Holm on Hommaforum after she was awarded on March 21 the Red Cross Award on the UN Day Against Racism.

In their usual smartalecky and cantankerous style, Hommaforum members claimed that Holm was “brainwashed” and that her harassment claims were nothing more than fabrications. Some wrote that Holm was being used by her family and friends.

“I have a feeling that if Rebecka didn’t get her daily dose of racism she would become frustrated and slip into depression,” said another Hommaforum member anonymously.

All those who commented about Holm on Hommaforum did so anonymously.

To not have the decency to speak out against an adolescent with one’s name says a lot about this forums. In my opinion, Hommaforum and Scripta are good examples of the sickness that has inflicted our society as of late.

They are like social media peep shows where little anonymous men meet. Instead of watching a naked woman or man, they get off by reading, writing and commenting about a social ogre called racism.

Hommaforum stoops to new depths by "defaming" adolescent

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Hommaforum is a forum closely linked to Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Jussi Halla-aho’s blog, Scripta, and to Suomen Sisu, a far-right extremist association. Even if Hommaforum and Scripta are only smears of hatred that stain Finland’s good name and values,  they don’t care whom they tar and feather. But to attack and defame publicly a brave fifteen-year-old girl, Rebecca Holm, who spoke out against racism shows how low they will go to make their point. 

If Holm wants to know some of the places where racial harassment against her and her friends come from, the answer is pretty clear.

According to Kansan Uutiset and Swedish-language daily HBL,  a complaint has been filed to the police for defaming Holm on Hommaforum after she was awarded on March 21 the Red Cross Award on the UN Day Against Racism.

In their usual smartalecky and cantankerous style, Hommaforum members claimed that Holm was “brainwashed” and that her harassment claims were nothing more than fabrications. Some wrote that Holm was being used by her family and friends.

“I have a feeling that if Rebecka didn’t get her daily dose of racism she would become frustrated and slip into depression,” said another Hommaforum member anonymously.

All those who commented about Holm on Hommaforum did so anonymously.

To not have the decency to speak out against an adolescent with one’s name says a lot about this forums. In my opinion, Hommaforum and Scripta are good examples of the sickness that has inflicted our society as of late.

They are like social media peep shows where little anonymous men meet. Instead of watching a naked woman or man, they get off by reading, writing and commenting about a social ogre called racism.

Anti-immigration groups in Finland plan vicious campaign as the municipal election nears in October

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

As the demonic rumors and stereotypes spread by Finland’s anti-immigration groups lose their appeal among voters, expect a new round of vicious attacks by them as the municipal election nears on October 28. The good news, however, is that using the usual crime statistics and racist arguments that gave some Perussuomalaiset (PS) candidates their ticket to parliament in the April 2011 election will be a hard sell in October. 

One of the main reasons is the PS itself, which has given us a good taste of what kind of a party it is thanks to the numerous scandals that have rocked it. Voters are wiser today about the PS than they were on April 17.

Another important reasons is Anders Breivik, who shocked Norway and the world with his outlandish mass killings on July 22.  All parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam suffered as a result significant losses in recent elections and in the polls.

Racism is like an ogre that you cannot control once you let it out of the cage and give it an opportunity to flood society with hate. It can bite back, and hard, as we saw when Breivik went on his mass-killing rampage.

On a much wider scale racism can as well lead to wars and conflicts as it has in the past, according to the U.N.

“Racism and racial discrimination have been used as weapons to engender fear and hatred,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message marking this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. “Racism undermines peace, security, justice and social progress.”

Another reason why extremist and populist anti-immigration politicians will have a difficult time selling their message in the municipal election is because it is utter baloney based on exaggerated fiction. The media, some politicians and the general public have learned after close to one year of watching PS shenanigans in Parliament the distinction between fact and populist fiction.

Jussi K. Niemelä, a writer and editor of the Vallan vahtikoira blog, told Migrant Tales that the PS has the highest number of convicted criminals among their ranks when compared with other political parties. Many of their MPs are members of the far-right Suomen Sisu association.

Niemelä has been threatened by two PS members for his critical stance against the party. The police are presently investigating the matter.

More and more Finns understand racism, like hate, is a serious threat to our society.

Finland’s cultural diversity debate: Patronizing a minority into complacency

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the big issues concerning the ongoing debate on Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity is that rarely are we asked our opinion.  A good example was Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat, which asked only white Finns whether our country understand the threat that racism poses and if such a threat is taken seriously. 

The question that we should possibly ask is why does Helsingin Sanomat and the media in general rarely take into account what the victims of racism and social exclusion think about this social ill? Is it a cultural thing (this is our country and our discussion – stay out)? Or is it patronizing behavior by the majority to a largely silent “Other” Finland?

One of the positive matters about the Helsigin Sanomat survey, however, is that 74% felt that racism isn’t taken seriously enough in Finland. Thirteen percent felt that it was while 13% had no opinion.

One of our most persistent stands on Migrant Tales has been that racism is not taken seriously enough in Finland. Politicians, the media and the general public have preferred instead to watch from the sidelines while this shameful behavior takes place in the form of institutional and colorblind racism.

Writer Kaari Utrio said on the survey: “The only way to deal with the matter is to have zero tolerance for racism. Our past reminds us the terrible consequences happen when we accept racism. If we tolerate racism, it will soon be accepted and become the way of [our everyday] thinking. Thereafter we’ll start building concentration camps and gas chambers.”

Who is to say that racism isn’t already a part of our everyday thinking? Why is it when some of us speak about this social ill, we usually end up using the conditional or future tenses? Racism is something that could impact us in the future but is not a problem today.

Excluding Finnish- and Swedish-speakers, a total of 226,220 people speak another language as their mother tongue in Finland, according to the Population Register Center.  For the sake of comparison, there were 291,153 Swedish speakers in Finland (5.42%) in 2010-11.

If we added to the former figure the children of immigrants who are bilingual but speak Finnish as their mother tongue, the number of “Other” Finns is quite significant.

Could we speak of disenfranchised groups? Certainly.

The attitude of leading dailies like Helsingin Sanomat, which did not even bother to ask immigrants never mind a Finn with international backgrounds their opinion about such an important matter, is a classic case of how  Finland deals and challenges such a social ill.

If we sit around waiting for our point of view to be heard, we might as well wait forever.  The solution? Get active and say it loudly!

Selling malarkey by the pound in Finland’s cultural diversity debate

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I am always amazed by the malarkey and bravado expressed by anti-immigration, populist and nationalist groups when they speak of war, racism and censorship. They speak of these social illnesses as if they had first-hand experience even though they have never seen or been victims of war, racism and state censorship. 

Even so, they have lots of opinions about what war, racism and state censorship are. Sometimes they even surprise us with an occasional solution, albeit impracticable, to the challenges posed by our ever-growing cultural diversity as a society.

Some of these characters make incredible claims like being the oldest people on Earth, like  Methuselah.

Here is an example: “That guy thinks it’s “his” society? Hey Enrique, where were YOUR family when WE fought against Soviet Union? Where were your family when the civil war raged here in spring of 1918 and my great grandfather barely made it alive from the prison camp?”

How old is this person anyway? 120 or older?

My answer to such a preposterous claim is the following: My grandparents fought in all of these wars.

It is clear that those that have never seen war are the first ones to glorify it. Their saber-rattling arguments not only have generous quantities of malarkey in them but are strongly peppered with bravado.

If some of them ever had the misfortune to go to war and were officers, they would be the ones that would lead their troops from behind.

Some of them make the most incredible claims on Migrant Tales as well. One of these is that racism is a minor problem in this country and the fault lies in the immigrant for not adapting. All these people have to do is sit on their behinds and watch how the world adapts to them.

And then we come to their absurd claims and hate speech that they spread wholesale on the net anonymously. Like questionable war heros they claim to be, they are the first ones who would rise and defend our right to free speech.

Hogwash.

I know what state censorship is because I lived under a dictatorship in Argentina during 1976-83. People got killed for what they published never mind what they thought. If they were lucky, they fled the country.

The most important matter I learned as a young journalist a long time ago was that words are weapons. Words can move mountains, even bring down dictatorships.

We are confident on Migrant Tales that our efforts and arguments will expose the ugliness of racism and social exclusion in our society.
We will not sell malarkey by the pound and beat our chests with arrogant bravado like those who have never seen war, racism or state censorship but claim they have!