Tag: xenophobia

Irish Examiner: Anti-immigrant or racist political rhetoric ‘must not go unchecked’

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Compared with Finland, Ireland appears like a distant world when it comes to anti-immigration groups and their hate rhetoric.  

Both countries have seen a lot of emigration since the nineteenth century. In Finland over a million people emigrated to other parts of the world during 1860-1999. A study in 1978 showed that since 1820 over 4.723 million people emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland alone. 

Apart from such similarities, there is one big difference: Ireland lacks an anti-immigration party whereas Finland has the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which became the third-biggest party in the April election.  

There may be many reasons why Ireland doesn’t have an anti-immigration party. One of these could be tolerance. In Ireland such anti-social behavior isn’t seen favorably by politicians and the public while in Finland it is. 

How many politicians would be forced to resign in Finland if they followed Ireland’s example? The Irish Examiner writes: “Last November, Mr [Darren]  Scully was forced to resign as mayor of Naas, after saying he would no longer deal with, as he described them, bad-mannered, aggressive, black Africans. The party has not taken any decisive action.” 

If we cited the comments made by many Finns concerning the death of a Somali in Oulu this week, we could conclude that too many think that racism is acceptable.

To show how serious the problem is in Finland, a Finnish-language teacher I spoke with on Saturday from Kouvola said that no politician would ever carry a sign in public stating that we should give more financial support to refugees and immigrants. 

One important lesson that we could learn from Ireland is that racism must be seen as something unacceptable in our society. 

Why? Because it is a direct threat to our society, our values and our common sense of decency. 

Racist political rhetoric must not go unchecked. 

___________

By Jennifer Hough

An example needs to be made of politicians who make negative comments about immigrants if Ireland is to avoid going down a route of an “accepted rhetoric or racism”, Integration Ireland has warned.

Read whole story.

Why write about a Somali immigrant who died in Oulu, Finland?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that has surprised after Migrant Tales scooped more information about the tragic death of a Somali national in Oulu Monday is the total lack of empathy for the victim.  Finland and the Nordic region have not been the same after the April election and when Anders Breivik went on the rampage in Norway in July killing 77 victims. 

In both cases above, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric were the smoking guns.

One gets the impression by some of the threads on Migrant Tales and My Finland is International that we should not give much importance to what happened in Oulu since it will not be seen as a hate crime by the police.

Some have gone as far as to claim that what happened in Oulu has nothing to do with immigration or ethnic issues.

I beg your pardon!?

What happened in Oulu has everything to do with immigrants and social ills like violence threatening our society. Somebody must speak out for the victim and we are very proud of being one of those voices.

Add to what happened in Oulu the horrific events in Norway in summer and Finland’s ever-worsening atmosphere for immigrants and minorities, it is only natural that we react to a crime involving an immigrant, especially one where three Finns break into his home by force and perpetrate his death.

Migrant Tales will continue to report crimes against immigrants and hopes it will have the opportunity to do so in the future.

Somali victim of Oulu, Finland: The tragedy that brings us closer to the problem

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The reaction and threads concerning the tragic death of a Somali national in Oulu, Finland, Tuesday after three white Finnish suspects barged into his home reveals the strong divide between “us” and “them.”We still have a long ways to go as a society to deal with social ills like discrimination. Paradoxically, tragedies like what happened in Oulu bring us ever-closer to the issue. 

While we should give the Finnish police the benefit of doubt and trust their professionalism, there are many cases that show the opposite and undermine the credibility of law enforcement officials. Some that come to mind immediately are the decade-long coverup by the German police of hate crimes by neo-Nazi groups, and the infamous L.A. riots, when three policemen were acquitted in 1992 after being videotaped beating a black motorist.

The L.A. riots caused the death of 53 people and as many as 2,000 were injured. The cost of the riots was between $800 million and $1 billion.

While the work of the police should reveal fairness and abiding duty to the cause of justice, factors like politics and prejudice do unfortunately get in the way.

If there are police credibility issues among Finland’s immigrant community, the police should find ways to increase trust.

While we believe in the professionalism of our law officers, we at Migrant Tales are concerned about the ever-worsening atmosphere for immigrants in Finland.  What happened in Oulu Monday night does not assure us that matters are getting better.

We do not have to venture far from Migrant Tales to grasp what is wrong with Finland today when it comes to the attitudes of some Finns. Here is one thread by Allan that is especially worrying: “Now if it so happens to be some gluesniffers on bad acid after drinking kärpässienikilju, where exactly are you blaming *them* ? No, you are blaming all Finns for having that as their social norm.”

Another blogger, Depressed N Worried Immigrant, writes: “I went to read iltalehti chatting room and i was shocked literally, there is no one single person condemning the death of this young man theye’re giving all kind of excuses…”

The police is one important source in resolving the tragedy that took place in Oulu Monday night.

It is the second incident so far in Oulu in a month where a person has fled perceived danger by jumping off the balcony. You can read the story (in Finnish) here.

 

Let’s wait for their verdict.

Adolescent says visible minorities get attacked "several times a week" in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Rebecka Holm, the fourteen-year-old who rallied enough courage to write a letter to  HBL, asks in an interview on Monday on the Swedish-speaking daily an important question: “If Finland is now the most secure and stable country [in the world], why do people of [different] ethnic backgrounds get attacked every day?”

Holm said that she wrote the letter to the editor because her friends and herself were being harassed too often in public.  When asked how often by HBL, she responds: ” I see it happen several times a week and it happens to me personally.  I am subjected to [those types of] attacks maybe once a week.”

Like many others in Finland, even an adolescent understands that there is too little debated publicly in society about racism.

We have heard it too often from the you-know-whom politicians: Racism isn’t a problem in Finland. It’s a media fabrication.

As long as adolescents, children and adults get harassed openly in public in Finland because of their ethnic background, the further we will venture from those values that make us proud of those noble values that unite us as a society. In those values racism and prejudice have no place.

Even if they are a minority carrying out these attacks, it is the the apathy and silence of the majority that gives them a tap on the back and whispers: Go ahead.

LiveScience: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Before you jump to any conclusions, the story does not claim that liberals are smart and conservative-minded people lack intelligence. What the findings of the study claim is that low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate towards conservative ideologies. 

Here is a link to another blog entry in February 2011 that showed a correlation between low self-esteem and racism. 

If there is a link between low IQ and prejudice, what would we call a politician, who appears to have a head on his or her shoulder,  but uses racism to get more votes and popularity?  

“Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice,” lead researcher Gordon Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience. “Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood.” 

 Here is an important point that should be highlighted from the story: “People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people of other races [in Europe we call them ethnic groups].”

Finding the causes of racism are important because such a social ill is the cause of a lot of hardship and is one of the main culprits behind most if not all wars. Hodson said that many anti-prejudice programs encourage participants to see the world from another group’s view. 

“That mental exercise may be too taxing for people of low IQ,” he said.

__________________

Stephanie Pappas

There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy. The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. 

Read whole story.

Finland's growing image abroad now hinges on racism and intolerance

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The lead story in Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat is about how racism and intolerance at home have tarnished Finland’s image abroad, according to a survey of Finnish expats living in different countries. Even if the daily blames the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party for our country’s questionable image, the real culprits are none other than us.

What Helsingin Sanomat forgets to tell its readers is that such a negative international image will cost us dearly, especially during a time when we need more skilled immigrants and foreign investment in our country.

The economic damage caused to Finland by our near-silence and the vacillating stance of our media and too many politicians to racism and populism is a big one. The longer we remain quiet on this front and flirt with our silence with parties like the PS, the more we will continue to destroy our good image abroad.

Before Finland’s entry into the European Union in 1995, the foreign ministry worked hard to improve our negative international image caused by Finlandization. While our refugee policy and draconian treatment of immigrants before 1983, when Finland’s first Aliens’ Act came into force, officials ran the Aliens’ Office like a state within a state.

Issues like racism took backstage in the international media because of Finlandization and due to the size of our underwhelming immigrant population, which totaled about 7,000 in the 1970s. Most of these “foreigners” were native Finns who were naturalized citizens of other countries.

The experiment by 19.1% of the population in the April election to seek the help of a populist, anti-EU, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party to lead us in this decade is proving to be a mistake.

There are positive signs, however, that voters have had enough of the PS’ political shenanigans as the presidential election showed.

Apart from voters giving the thumbs down to anti-EU presidential hopefuls like Center Party’s Paavo Väyrynen and PS’ Timo Soini, the party has been damaged by numerous scandals in the media that have exposed the racism, homophobia and anti-democratic credentials of some of its MPs.

How big of a blow was the presidential election of Finland to Soini and the PS?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Does the defeat of two anti-EU politicians, Center Party’s Paavo Väyrynen and Timo Soini of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, on Sunday suggest a shift from  last year’s parliamentary election that was fueled by anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment? Even if the municipal election in October will offer us a good answer to that question, yesterday’s election result does show a major shift. 

Even if veteran politician Väyrynen lost a neck-and-neck race to Pekka Haavisto of the Green Party for second spot, his good showing must be a source of  concern for the PS, which relied heavily in April on protest votes from the Center Party.

Sunday’s election result shows as well that voters are losing interest in the PS’ anti-EU and anti-immigration stand. Soini’s poor showing (9.4%) and Väyrynen’s better showing (17.5%) confirm the latter.

A worst-case scenario would have been Soini clinching second place and giving Niinistö a run for his money in the runoff on February 5. Fortunately that did not happen.

For many Finnish voters, especially those with immigrant backgrounds and visible minorities, yesterday’s election result was a long-overdue breath of fresh political oxygen after constantly reading in the media scandals by the PS that exposed the racism, homophobia and anti-democratic credentials of some of their MPs.

Let’s not forget as well the hacked membership directory of the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta, which revealed two PS members on such lists and who are still members of the party.

How long can an ideologically convoluted political party like the PS maintain voter interest in their anti-EU, anti-immigration and pro-conservative views?

A lot of water will have to run under the bridge before the next big test for Soini’s party will be weighed in the municipal election of October 28.

If the last nine months are anything to go by, there is a good chance that the PS’ momentum may suffer  its biggest blow yet this coming fall.

Let's keep Finland a good country to live in

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

When I grew up in Finland during part of my childhood and adolescence one matter became clear: I wanted to move here permanently when I became an adult. How did I succeed at making a living in Finland back in the 1980s and beyond? 

Adapting to a country like Finland felt sometimes like sojourning on a long and winding path. Despite the many curves and uncertainties, the right people appeared at the right time. Without them, I would be most likely writing this blog entry from California.

When I moved back to Finland in December 1978, one of the matters that struck me wasn’t the freezing temperatures but how few foreigners lived in the country. At the time there were under 10,000. Many of them weren’t what we’d call “real” foreigners since they were native Finns who had become naturalized citizens of another country.

I had many personal reasons for moving back. One of these was to live in a country that was at peace with itself and wasn’t waging war against other nations. My country of birth, Argentina, wasn’t a very promising prospect to build a home and family since it was ruled at the time by a ruthless military regime that had no respect for human rights. Probably the most important reason of all for moving back here was those wonderful summers I spent in Eastern Finland with my grandparents.

Those two-and-a-half months I spent with my grandparents were like entering a totally different world compared with the mad rush of Los Angeles and Buenos Aires. In summertime near Mikkeli, time nearly stopped amid those dreamy lazy summertime landscapes.

While I could not place my finger on it, there was something that bothered and concerned me about my new home. Many years later I figured out what it was.  It was the near-total disregard by some Finns, the authorities and laws for my fragmented Finnish ancestry. The law determined that only the children of Finnish fathers had citizenship rights.

You could have probably guessed that my first big disappointment took place at the Finnish Immigration Service, which was then called the Aliens’ Office. A cantankerous official snapped back at me for asking her why I had to go through so much red tape to get a residence permit if my mother was Finnish.

“In our opinion, you are not a Finn,” she said with all the weight of the law. “We are not interested if you are engaged to a Finnish woman. What counts is your mother, who is a Finnish citizen.”

It was a devastating knock-out blow by the official that not only left me in pieces but raised questions about my Finnish identity. Was I a Finn?

Even if things have changed for the better, there are some important questions that remain unanswered:  Are those critical pathways to acceptance that encourage integration closing or widening today?

Compared with the past, immigrants, Finns with international backgrounds and most importantly common Finns have shown through Facebook sites like My Finland is International that they are a growing force to be reckoned with.

Finland is a good country to live in but we must defend our good country every day. Despite much of the rhetoric and fear-mongering out there, what threatens our society does not come from abroad but from within.

We must strive to build and most importantly defend a society based on mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities for all those that live here.

 

The "Winter War" that visible minorities face in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Even if we speak proudly about the heroism of the men and women who fought against a formidable foe in the Winter (1939-40) and questionable Continuation War (1941-44), many Finns with culturally diverse backgrounds are facing today a different yet similar kind of war on a daily basis. One of these “veterans” is fourteen-year-old Rebecka Holm, who published her moving story on Swedish-language daily HBL.

If Migrant Tales could, it would offer an award highlighting the adolescent’s bravery to speak out against racism. She doesn’t speak out for herself but for many others who are the silent daily victims of such harassment.

The racist bullying that Holm has faced publicly is a shameful realty and unacceptable. It still happens too often because too many of us approve this type of anti-social behavior willingly or unwillingly with our silence.

In many respects those that go around insulting Finns who are visible minorities and immigrants are no worse than autocratic governments that trample on people’s rights. They carry out their abuse and hostility because they  can do it with impunity.

Holm writes: “I did not want to change schools [in Helsinki] when I started third grade we moved [to another neighborhood]…It was then [on the Helsinki metro to the Herttoniemi Station] that the racist comments and attacks began. I could sit quietly in the metro when some stranger would tell me that I should go back to where I came from. After that, I have been called many things, including mutanaama (mud face), n-word, monkey. And the worst thing of all has always been the silence of the adult passengers when I was verbally attacked.”

Like the costly wars that our country fought in World War 2, many visible minorities are veterans of a very different yet similarly sinister war.

Like these wars it was all about survival but most importantly for acceptance and respect.

Who remembers Ulla Pyysalo and her links to the neo-Nazi PVL?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

By Enrique Tessieri

Remember Ulla Pyysalo, Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP Juho Eerola’s aide? She’s the one who got her fingers burned when her name appeared on a hacked membership list of the neo-Nazi Pohjoismaisen vastarintaliike (PVL).  Pyysalo said that she would resign if she found a new job by the end of last year. Well, folks, surprise, surprise… My sources in parliament tell me that Pyysalo is still working for Eerola.

The Pyysalo affair demonstrates beyond any doubt that it is perfectly fine to be a PS member and belong to a neo-Nazi association like PVL as long as you were drunk while applying for membership or didn’t quite know what you were doing but thought it was a patriotic act.

What is not acceptable to the PS, however, is to threaten people’s lives.  Hemmo Koskiniemi was informed by Soini that he did not want the Rovaniemi city councilman to run for the party in the October 28 municipal election.

Prior to the death threat, Soini appears not to be worried at all by the racism and xenophobia spread in Koskiniemi’s writings.

Migrant Tales had got in touch with Uusi Suomi, the City of Rovaniemi and Council for Mass Media in Finland (JSN) about a blog Koskiniemi blog entry published on June 7, 2011.

Thus if you are a PS member, it is perfectly fine to get fined for hate speech, spread urban myths about immigrants, pile racist rhetoric deep and high, belong to a neo-Nazi association as long as you are drunk  but don’t threaten people’s lives!