The biggest supporters of immigrants and visible minorities in Finland aren’t groups lobbying for their rights per se, but their enemies. Instead of tapping ourselves on the back for challenging a social ill like racism, we should thank Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini for exposing in this country bigotry and isolationism in the raw.
Without Soni, how would we have ever learned of politicians and aides like James Hirvisaari, Jussi Halla-aho, Jussi Niinistö, Ulla Pyysalo, Helena Eronen, Tommi Rautio, Teuvo Hakkarainen, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola and a long list of others?
Instead of bringing out the worst in our society, these politicians and aides have empowered and brought the best in some of us. Migrant Tales is one of many examples of groups that have been energized by the present situation.
Our reaction as a society to racism, isolationism, hate speech and far-right extremism has been slow but encouraging.
When some spread with their extremist ideology their message of hate, they do a great service to our cause. Taking into account how racism and isolationism boosted the PS to victory in April 2011, it’s clear that things have changed considerably since then.
How can you fumble a golden political opportunity that the PS had after the election and see it disintegrate before your eyes? For this we must thank the PS and MPs like Teuvo Hakkarainen from day one.
The real threat to Finland are those politicians and groups that want to divide our society with the help of racism, prejudice and hate speech.
We are not being attacked and overrun by immigrants and refugees, the real threat comes from our backyard in the form of Soini, Hirvisari, Niinistö, Pyysalo, Ratio and many others.
Elven Archer will like this story, Enrique. This was his key point about the story of Rautio.
Hyym Näiden henkilöiden suurin ongelma on suhteellisuuden tajun puute. Suomen maahanmuutto “ongelma” on pientä verrattuna Espanjaa, Ranskaa tai Italiaa. Meillä ei ole ghettoja tai slummeja.
Sasu
Interesting point. And yet even if we had ghettos or slums, that isn’t in itself a sign of failed immigration, but rather of failed social policies. By bringing ethnicity into the mix and blaming immigration or immigrants, the true nature of the problems are disguised, whether that is poor investment in the area or failed government policies in dealing with some of societies most vulnerable and poor populations.
It is typical of those that do not favour government sponsored schemes to regenerate areas like this to make it an individual issue, a question of ‘why don’t all poor people loot and riot? – there must be something wrong with these people’. Of course, what they are saying is that poor people are not allowed to protest. Sometimes, as with Toxteth in the UK, a riot is what gets the attention of the politicians.
Interestingly in regard to Toxteth and its problems, several of Margaret Thatcher’s senior government allies recommended she abandon the place to ruin, but Tarzan (Heseltine) persuaded her to follow a programme of regeneration. He rejected the idea that these people be treated as criminals, but rather that they needed more than to establish law and order, that they needed to get ‘under the skin of the problem’.
Jussi Halla Aho says in todays news that Somalians do not need protection and so they should be sent back. I can’t believe that this sick guy is in the parliament just to attack or strip our humanrights from us.
D4R
You can find the written parliamentary question here. Aside from the offensive expression elintasopakolaisuus used at the very end, there is nothing particularly objectionable about it in my view.
I would only stress that applications for international humanitarian protection are always individual matters that must be decided on their own specific merits. The question of whether Somalia is a safe place for someone to return to permanently will depend on the specific circumstances of the person in question, whether as an applicant for protection or as a candidate deportee. Questions of human rights will be decided and reviewed at this specific point.
I think it is at least amusing that after spending a year as Chairman of the Administration Committee of Parliament and several years writing opinions on these questions, the convicted racist criminal Hahaa-lol still does not know which government minister is responsible for formally deciding whether individuals are in need of international humanitarian protection. Thus the question seeks a response on this subject from “the competent minister”, as if there could be any doubt about which branch of the executive deals with such matters.
One important element of a need for international humanitarian protection is the lack of effective national protection in the country of origin. If the government of that country is unable to protect its nationals against violence perpetrated by other nationals, then this is also a factor to be considered when weighing the need for international humanitarian protection. Even after civil hostilities have ended, the lack of a functioning domestic security organisation in Somalia is a continuing concern. This remains a country where life is cheap and old scores can be settled without much fear of official consequences. There may be regions where it is safe for a child to play on the beach, simply because the territory is no longer disputed between warring factions, but this does not make the whole country safe for individuals who have a history of alignment with one faction or another. As noted above, the need for protection must be assessed individually in each case.
Which is what we already do.
I suppose Hahaa-lol could demonstrate his point by writing his blog from a regular residence in Mogadishu for six months, and if anybody mistakenly takes offence at an innocent expression such as “Afrikan sarven ihmissaasta”, then he can dial 112 and a Musta Maija will appear at his door within minutes to ensure that a civil tone is maintained in the conversation.
A cursory review of Finnish statistics on decisions to grant humanitarian protection is enough to show that it is by no means unusual to recognise the need for such protection, even when the individual concerned has not arrived from a war zone. Finland admitted 54 citizens of the Russian Federation as displaced persons last year, thereby evidently accepting that these individuals could not turn to the Russian government for protection, even though they were not specifically persecuted by the Russian government.
D4R
Perhaps one other point is worth making about the parliamentary question from Hahaa-lol. It includes this little gem of obviously deliberate misrepresentation:
The average Hompanzee will assume that this is a brand new twice weekly service that is specifically intended to connect Helsinki and Mogadishu. As if TK had only begun serving Finland this year for the specific purpose of transferring passengers to Somalia and the landing in Istanbul is simply for refuelling.
Finnair has a similar connection from Delhi to Murmansk, obviously because Indians are so keen to take the nuclear icebreaker trip to the North Pole. After all, the connection would not be available three times a week if it wasn’t profitable…
Do you think we have some correlation here:
In Finland we have rather small amount of immigrants -> we have no problems with immigrants
In Sweden and Denmark there are lots of immigrants -> they have problems with immigrants
Could you stop and think for awhile and give a honest answer: Could there be correlation with the problems and amount of immigrants? So that big amount of immigrants equals with problems? I think that’s what Perussuomalaiset wants to stop. They don’t want the amount of immigrants to become so big that eventually we would have same problems as those countries which have lots of immigrants.
And before you want to say that there are no problems in Sweden and Denmark, please check this one: http://www.aamulehti.fi/Ulkomaat/1194763489088/artikkeli/ramadanin+rajut+paatosjuhlat+tanaan+vakivaltaisuuksia+jos+poliisi+ei+tottele.html
–In Finland we have rather small amount of immigrants -> we have no problems with immigrants
Wow, TP1, you’re a genius. Why don’t we get rid of everyone and then we won’t have any problems?
You feel that immigrants must be perfect and exemplary but forget that humans are imperfect. The same is the case for societies. There are no perfect societies irrespective if they are natives, nomads, immigrants or whatever.
tp1
There were very few cars on the road in Finland before 1950 and both car theft and road accidents were virtually unknown. Nowadays there are almost as many cars as people, and both car theft and road accidents have become commonplace.
Do you think we have some correlation here?
Could you stop and think for a while and give an honest answer? Could there be correlation between the problems of car theft and road accidents and the number of cars? So that a large number of cars equates with these problems?
So being racist to immigrant and treating them wrong will minimize immigrants in your country huh? the method you guys are doing is wrong and it’s giving bad example about Finland and Finns. Now Finland is is such a scary place for immigrant to live, a place where the future is dark and not sure what tomorrow is going to bring.
tp1
As usual, you are very simplistic and narrow minded in your analysis. I can’t spend too much time on such nonsense argument but I can at least ask: could there be a correlation between the popularity of Soini’s Perus party and the amount of racist attacks against immigrants? So that popularity of the Perus results in more racist attacks against minority immigrants? You must think that in attacking immigrants the way they do, they are merely trying to protect Finns and Finland. I can’t believe you share such a dark, racist approach to problem solving.
D4R, don’t you see any controversy in the fact that a Person X from Somalia has an asylum in Finland but still goes on vacation to Somalia?
If Somalia is so safe place that this person willingly goes there for vacation, how can you honestly say that he should be eligible for asylum in Finland? Please answer this question.
–D4R, don’t you see any controversy in the fact that a Person X from Somalia has an asylum in Finland but still goes on vacation to Somalia?
Sorry tp1, person x has Finnish citizenship.
Enrique
I don’t think you can compare immigrants to cars. And still that analogy is not proper, because cars can’t be the ones causing car thefts, it’s only the people who can commit those crimes.
Or are you implying that where ever they have problems with immigrants, it always the cause of natives?
Please read the link I provided. In that case there were no natives even included, both sides of the rioting were immigrants.
tp1
The structure of your argument was incorrect. This is why you have to focus on a semantic aspect in order to rescue it when I expose the structural error. However if you had expressed that semantic aspect explicitly in the original argument, then it would rightly be exposed as prejudice.
Your original argument did not state that the unspecified “problems” were due to any willful actions taken by immigrants. The mere presence of immigrants was enough to establish your correlation, which would arise even if immigrants were always and only entirely passive victims of those “problems”. That is also the specific structure of my response.
This calls to mind the story of the South American dictator who ordered that all donkeys should be put down, as he had noticed a correlation between donkeys and poverty.
One example of such a “problem” is the need to invest resources in a system for managing immigration and immigrant integration. This “problem” does not arise if there are no immigrants. Equally there is no need to invest resources in a system for managing motorised road transport if there are no cars.
Can you now tell us what “problems” you were talking about without resorting to prejudice? As you identify those “problems”, you might like to ask whether and to what extent they arise for people who “immigrate” by being born in Finland. Thus everyone, regardless of origin, has to learn languages one way or another. Everyone, regardless of origin, has to be fed, clothed, housed and educated to the point at which they can contribute in some way to the collective good. It may also curb your enthusiasm and tendency to prejudice if you consider whether the alleged “problem” applies equally to Finnish immigrants elsewhere in the world.
No he doesn’t. Some somalis have, but not all of them. Neither all who are travelling to Somalia on vacation, has Finnish citizenship. And that was my example about, so once again: Person X doesnt have finnish citizenship.
–No he doesn’t. Some somalis have, but not all of them. Neither all who are travelling to Somalia on vacation, has Finnish citizenship. And that was my example about, so once again: Person X doesnt have finnish citizenship.
Who cares if Person X has citizenship or not. Finland is his country of residence. He lives here legally.
Take a look at the Ilta-Sanomat billboard of August 1996. It says pretty clearly that the Somalis are here to stay.
What do you know about them Somalis besode the bull you read in Hommaforum? i bet you know zero Somalis personally but you think you know about their situation just by reading gossips wich arent true.
Yet they will likely have residence permits, and likewise the full legal right to travel to any country that they so wish in the world.
I’m not one bit surprised that they would travel to their former homeland. It’s also quite likely that when the situation finally becomes stable in Somalia, which it currently isn’t, then some of those will choose to return permanently. But that is their decision to make.
Allah-oho is once again stirring the racist pot! Surprise surprise.
Mark
As, indeed, happened with many of the Chilean refugees who came to Finland in the early 1970s. The same phenomenon arose with the diaspora created by the Spanish Civil War. On our own doorstep we have seen an inflow of second and third-generation Estonian émigrés over the last 20 years.
JusticeDemon
Easy, I give you couple of examples:
– In Sweden jews are being attacked by muslim immigrants and they have to move away from areas which are populated by muslims.
– In Sweden immigrants attack against police, ambulance, firemen if they come to the are where they live.
– In Denmark muslim immigrants attacked in hospital and caused disturbance and danger to patients. Their intentions was to harm another immigrant, which they believed was in the hospital.
In all the above examples, the cause of the problems is 100 % the immigrants. In none of those problems there are any causes by the natives.
tp1
Interesting examples. This is typical of the Hompanzees who swallow a small piece of information, fail to question it in any way, and thereby give them reason to draw massively unbalanced conclusions that satisfy only their preconceived prejudices.
For example:
– In Sweden [some] jews have been attacked by [some] muslim immigrants, with some Jews choosing to move away from specific areas to avoid further problems. Not only does the anti-semiticism come from some Muslim quarters of Malmo, but also from the Neo-Nazi fringe. Tensions at the grassroots level in Sweden were noticeably increased following the Second Intifada. Anti-seimitic views were according to Henrik Bachner and Jonas Ring (2004) twice as likely among Muslims than among the population as a whole. They also point out the direct links between increases in anti-Semitic publications n Arab countries and parallel increases in such materials in Sweden. These problems of insular belief systems are made worse by exclusion and discrimination of Muslims within Swedish society. Severl community level and national level groups have been working to create interfaith dialogue, including the Children of Abraham initiative. At community level, Jewish Muslim leaders have co-operated on issues such as circumcision and ritual slaughter.
– In Sweden [there have been some isolated cases of gangs of immigrant kids throwing stones at police, ambulance, firemen if they come to the are where they live, which was at its worst around 2009, but has improved in recent years. One response to this that has shown recent success has been a European Social Fund sponsored scheme to enlist more ethnic firefighters, though it still currently stands at less than 3%. When the kids are addressed in their own language by a firefighter who shares the same ethnicity, it has had a marked effect on these stone-throwing incidents and has improved the safety of firefighers.
– In Denmark a patient was attacked in hospital causing a disturbance also to other patients. The patient was involved in a dispute with a member of their local community.
In the latter example, ethnicity can be said to be completley irrelevant, as incidents of this kind happen from time to time in all communities. In the case of the previous examples, you said nothing about the real causes of those problems or the attempts to find solutions, or the success of those attempts. That says everything about how you are using the available data.
tp1
All I can see here are tensions between various communities. These tensions are by no means the sole preserve of immigrants.
Incidents arising between Jews and Moslems generally have to be understood in the broader context. If your sister and your neighbour’s brother both live in another country and the latter rapes the former in a drunken rage, then you might respond when your neighbour suggests that the victim deserved what she got. To the extent that Israel is identified as a Jewish State that demands and deserves the unreflective support and allegiance of all Jews, it is inevitable that Jews will face difficulties wherever they come into contact with members of other communities that suffer oppression at the hands of that State. None of this is justified, of course, but the context is important and relevant when assessing and resolving those difficulties. It is not easy being viewed as the representative of an oppressive regime, especially if you have enjoyed advantages from not actively opposing that oppression.
Tension between communities and public services are not the sole preserve of immigrants. We have seen religious and other communities of all kinds closing ranks and resisting police investigations (banking and finance is notorious for this, with a general view that it is better to absorb damage caused by illegal practice than to risk the disaster than can arise from a loss of public confidence). It is easy to fall into precisely the kind of siege mentality that the convicted racist criminal Hahaa-lol is so keen to encourage in Finland. Again this has to be viewed in context. There are solid reasons why immigrant communities tend to display a lack of confidence in the police and judiciary, and this can increase the appeal of vigilante justice systems in those communities. I should add that this is also not exclusively an immigrant experience. There are sections of society that prefer to sort out their own problems without involving public authorities, and in many cases that policy is a response to unhappy outcomes when official channels were used.
The only effective way to combat these tensions and modify the way that they are expressed is by encouraging frank debate and addressing legitimate concerns. Polarising positions and apportioning blame is no solution, nor is isolationism an intelligent policy option in a globalising world.
I can naturally multiply examples of apparently senseless violence and rough justice, both in Finland and abroad, involving individuals who are at least ostensibly as Finnish as you can get, but would it make sense to argue that the solution is for those individuals to migrate? This returns to the basic point that there is nothing in the act of crossing an international border that, in and of itself, changes the character of a person. What matters is the reception that those newcomers experience and the associated pressure to close the community and develop a siege mentality.
Mark, if there are problems, then there are problems. Problems don’t magically disappear no matter what you want to find behind the problems.
And tell me one case where group of natives have attacked hospitals in Scandinavia?
tp1
You are being totally dishonest if you think that problems are unique to one population group. Yes, political problems often have a unique flavour, but political problems are in no way unique.
Likewise, the MOST important thing when reporting on ethnic and immigration problems is to identify the scale of the problem, possible causes of the problem and likewise, attempts to address those problems. Anything less is bad reporting, bad politics and bad morality. There is a duty of care on all of us to avoid feeding the fires of prejudice, and this kind of reporting that you are doing is frankly utterly lazy.
As for assaults in hospitals, then I would suggest a good place to start in terms of the native populations is assaults on the elderly within institutional settings in Finland. A google search should throw up some stuff. Over the years, I’ve read several reports on the matter, but I can’t lay my hand to one just now. The next place to look would be at assaults taking place within psychiatric facilities, assaults on both staff and other patients, for example. Do you think Finland is unique in the world in not seeing these kinds of assaults?
Here’s some reading for you:
http://www.ttl.fi/en/press/Pages/pressrelease51_2010.aspx
And really, why don’t you stop to think before you start regurgitating here the nonsense you read on Homma. You know you will get pulled for it, and you make yourself look like a pansy! Surely you are better than that?
Mark
People working in Finnish health services have a higher than average risk of encountering violence or the threat of violence at work. A 1999 survey by the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals suggested that a third of all professionals trained in social work and health care had been victims of physical violence (typically kicks, punches and shoves) or the threat of physical violence while working in the health care sector. Two-thirds had been subjected to verbal abuse. These findings have been borne out in other studies as well.
Mark, the relevant question here was if immigrants cause problems or not. And I gave you examples about problems that are totally caused by immigrants, with no contribution at all from native people.
Still you try to explain that away with your nonsense. Could you even once be honest and admit that there actually exists problems which are causes by immigrants?
My comment did not deny problems, but rather gave more context to examples you gave. Honesty begins when you ask yourself whether your critics make a valid point. Your point is valid if it asks what can be done to help the situation of immigrants. It’s not valid if you use what are inevitable consequences of human life as a way to denigrate or bad-mouth population or ethnic group. That is generally called racism.
Mark you are unbelievable. How can you say it’s an inevitable consequence of human life to try to kill another human being simply because he belongs to certain group of people?
And yet you want to ask how should help that kind of people?
Can’t you see what you are talking about here? In reverse situation, where the criminals would be white Finns instead of muslim immigrant, you would condemn those people immediately, no questions asked. But when the criminal is a muslim immigrant, you start to seek for mysterious reasons how white europeans / natives could be blamed for their crimes and even how should we help these criminals. That’s a very good example of hypocracy and your racism against white europeans. And it’s the worst form, since (correct if I’m wrong) you are white european yourself.
That’s one way to promote one self above others. Like when a finn says that finns are bad racists, including silent exclusion of himself. That way he raises himself above “rest of the finns” trying to make himself appear a better person than other finns, who are bad racists.
What is this nonsense you are writing?
tp1
He didn’t. You just did.
Ricky has already stressed this point. The fascists insist that immigrants must be perfect, and then they seize on any individual imperfection as proof that all immigrants must be fundamentally corrupt as a group. That may work for the epähiket on hommaforum, but it gets short shrift here.
The question is, Farang, why are you now writing like a fascist? Can this be the same Farang who claimed never to generalise? As you asked above:
Not some immigrants, but immigrants in general, and only a yes or no answer is accepted (“whether or not“). You are asking an absolute question about an absolute class of individuals defined only by a fact of their history: that they have moved their homes across an international border at some point in their lives. That is a dishonest question, Farang. The kind of question that fascists ask because they are seeking to exploit the answer to cause suffering for others.
Immigrants are people, Farang. They come in all shapes and sizes. They have no specific character that arises purely from the historical fact that they have in common.
Now why don’t you answer the equally dishonest question of whether Finns cause problems or not? Yes or no, Farang. What will the answer be worth?
If you want to stop sounding like a fascist, Farang, then it may help to avoid using the term problem as a characteristic of a population group. Or perhaps you would like to suggest a [final] solution to the Finnish problem.
tp1
Well, humans do try to kill each other. That is merely an observation. But where did the ‘because he belongs to a certain group of people’ bit come from? Not from anything I wrote, sunshine!
Ugh, yes, as a matter of fact, I think it’s very important to help those kinds of people, especially before they do commit a horrible crime, but even afterwards too, assuming that we don’t want to see such people re-offend once they are released again.
Pardon? Is this your creative writing workshop homework? Complete fiction, mate.
Well I guess it would be if it were true!
And what about the Finn that says that some Finns ARE bad bad racists because it’s what they have seen and heard other Finns do and say? Is he/she doing it merely to ‘raise himself above the rest’? Is that the only possibility here? What about the Finns that just don’t want to be racist and are appalled when he/she sees other Finns being racist? What have you to say about them? Are they doing it just for their ego to feel superior too? Is that the only possible motivation for condemning the racism in their fellow citizens?
You obviously don’t concentrate. That was a fact from the real life situation in Denmark. The muslim immigrants tried to kill that other muslim immigrant because he belong to certain group of muslims.
And what you did was that you claimed that this is just business as usual and happens every now and then.
tp1
Are you trying to pick a fight with me? 😀
Well, this was a fact that you conveniently forgot to mention until now. And so it’s some stretch of the imagination to think that without that information that I would be able to know that. Or do you expect me to be psychic?
You originally wrote:
See, no mention that it was because he was from a different Muslim sect. By the way, that wouldn’t make it racism, but religious bigotry. And I would bet my house that this is not the end of the story.
When you said this:
it looks like an accusation and not an explanation.
So who isn’t concentrating? Who is withholding key information, and then using that to call people dishonest and racist because they react to what you WROTE, and not to what you withheld?
And this also misrepresents my point entirely, as I’m sure you are aware. My point was that this is not DIFFERENT behaviour from what goes on in all human groups. You presented it as a special reason to consider immigration as a ‘special’ problem, solved only by removing immigrants. This point has been well dealt with by JD’s point about there not being any traffic accidents if there were no cars. Maybe this is a difficult point for you to grasp?
Well, that doesn’t sound like me. It is my habit to provide a proper explanation if I disagree with something. If you are not happy with my explanation, I can expand on it. I do disagree with Allah-oho and I’ve made the reasons for that disagreement very clear in across many comments. The way that Allah-oho treats Somalis should be condemned by all of us, and it would be a good thing if you understood why, but I doubt you’ll do the work necessary, especially as you’ve already pinned your colours to the Master’s mast.
Again, I don’t recognise myself in this statement. I also try to understand the underlying causes of racism too. I have written several things on this blog that explores this, here’s just one example.
Likewise, I have on many occasions made it quite clear that I condemn racism and bigotry regardless of who practices it, whether Muslims, Christians, Atheists, immigrants or natives or any others who practice bigotry. I have not said that when it comes to immigrants committing crime, it isn’t their fault. Never. However, understanding the background to Muslim/Jewish relations is probably useful if you are going to understand why there is a problem between their communities in Sweden, no?
So, having assigned a great deal of opinions to me that are clearly not true, acccused me of being dishonest and a racist, is there any chance of an apology? 🙂
Just for the record, tp1, if I accuse someone of racism or bigotry, I will do so based on arguments they have made, and things they have said, not on things that are clearly untrue. If someone corrects me on an opinion that I have assigned to them, I will apologise, and I have, on several occasions. I have absolutely no desire to misrepresent other people’s opinions.
Now, I suppose that having been on the receiving end of my ire several times on here, you wish to try to turn the tables, no? The only problem is that you have to invent opinions that I clearly don’t hold and create traps by only giving part of the truth, in other words, being dishonest.
The key thing here is honesty and fairness. There are standards here on Migrant Tales and I’m pretty sure that the moderators will not tolerate this kind of stuff from you ad infinitum.
So, if you really want to comment, and you are free to do so, stick to the truth (and try to give the whole truth) and be fair in representing other people’s opinions. In return, I shall try to do the same.
All I need is to read how you comment about Jussi Halla-aho and other perussuomalaiset. That is the proof that it is not fiction. The way Halla-aho & co. behave towards certain immigration groups gets your condemnation, always, no question asked. But when muslim immigrants to the same, it somehow gets your sympathy and you try to find what ever explanation that it’s not their fault.
See my reply above.
That was all clearly explained in the link I provided. This whole Denmark case I’m talking about is described there. Didn’t you even bothered to read that? Still you are eager to comment on that.
First of all that was in the link I provided and I expected that you would read it, because it feels kind of weird that you would even comment on a case that you haven’t even heard about.
Secondly, how come you have not heard about that incident? It’s been all over the papers this week. Why do I get the feeling that you purposely ignore all news which tells negative facts about immigrants so that you could uphold an illusion that those things don’t happen.
And here is one more example of problems caused by muslim immigrants. This is also very severe, as they are threatening the people who gave them home. Sick, I would say.
http://www.examiner.com/article/muslims-demand-breakaway-islamic-nation-norway-or-another-9-11-threatened?cid=db_articles
tp1
There was no link in the comment I replied to. In the comment where you do provide a link, you only mention immigrant problems and not anything about the man in the hospital being attacked, so it was not obvious that the two comments were linked.
Second, having now read that Aamulehti story, I didn’t see anywhere a reference to the fact the man in the hospital was attacked because he belonged to a different Muslim grouping, only that there had been a fight involving a gange of about 20-40 people, some with face masks and that it was linked to celebrations of the end of Ramadam. In fact, it is totally unclear whether the man in the hospital was a Muslim or whether the fighting in the street was between Muslims, but I accept that that maybe I failed to see those points in the Finnish.
I am always eager to comment when you use media stories to try to misrepresent a group of people tp1.
Maybe because it’s what you want to believe? I have no illusions that problems exist in society, and I am under no illusion that some problems are unique to immigrant populations. Why would I want to hide from such an obvious fact about society?
I’m a busy man. I have not been following the papers this week.
As for the new link, I still think that you are providing a knee-jerk reaction that fuels discrimination and bigotry. Simple question for you: how representative is it of Muslims in Norway?
The group mentioned is not even based in Norway, but in Iraq, and to date, has not had active operations outside of Iraq and one incident in Gaza. There is a lot of rubbish posted on the Net, and it’s not even clear if this is genuine.
And you end your reaction to the piece with the words ‘they are threatening the people who gave them a home’, which implies that this is an issue of immigration, rather an issue of perhaps two or three or even a dozen or more immigrants.
Without proper facts that establish the significance of this story, this is purely propoganda. And that’s it in a nutshell, tp1. This is how you are using these media stories, as propoganda.
Fair point here. The confusion and lack of information is caused by Finnish media by censoring and leaving out the backgrounds of the people. So it might be that depending on what Finnish source you read the article from, they can propably have left out the fact that all the people who were fighting were muslims and the fight was between two different “clans” (i’m not sure about the correct word).
I know it’s only the minority of muslims, but it only takes few to do a terrorist attack. And this was about the examples of the problems immigration is causing. Even if 99% of the immigrants were peaceful people, that 1% might cause severe problems. We can’t ignore that and say there are no problems.
tp1
How about much less than 1%? There are over 80,000 muslims in Norway. This group may involve only a dozen people. That would be 0,015% tp1. Yes, it only takes a few nutters to find a reason to plant a bomb or commit a massacre. Did you know that over 95% of terrorist-related deaths and injuries in Europe in the last ten years had nothing to do with Islam. They were related to separatist quarrels. That includes the Breivik massacre, committed by a native Norwegian. As there is a 6.4% immigrant population in Europe, they are under-represented in the statistics.
How many times are you going to peddle this particular straw man? How many times are you going to ignore the sentences that say that problems exist within immigration population? The question is one of scale and context. It is these fundamental aspects that you fail to provide time and again when you set out to discuss the problems within immigration groups.
tp1
Question, tp1. In Finland every year there are about 80 deaths related to drink driving.
Are you actively campaigning to raise awareness of this substantial threat in Finland from drink driving? Are you proposing ways to punish drinkers and drink drivers? Are you seeking to make people aware of the vast negative social consequences of Finland’s love affair with the drink?
Are you writing in forums on a daily basis about the dangers of drinking and about responsible consumption?
And it doesn’t end there. These are just the drink-related traffic deaths.
In 2010 there were 1,962 deaths from alcohol-related diseases, in ONE YEAR. It is consistently around the 2000 deaths a year mark. Think about that for a second.
In the fifteen years from 1995-2009, there were 2,002 homicides in Finland, many of them drink related.
Hard to grasp? Put together with deaths from alcohol-related diseases and alcohol-related traffic accidents, and in the last 15 years in Finland, you have some 35,000 utterly senseless deaths.
So, how many Finns have died at the hands of Muslim terrorists in the same 15 year period? I’ll tell you. ZERO!
And yet what are you worried about? Drinking problems in Finland over the last 15 years? Ugh…No! Immigration over the last 15 years and the threat of Islamic terrorism? Yes, with a capital Y!
Says it all, mate!
tp1
Perhaps they leave this out because it is not relevant to the news item in question. Do you get, say, a speeding fine because you are Finnish?
Anyway, Farang, aren’t you always telling us that the offender’s background is irrelevant to the offence?
The Finnish media are barred by their own code of ethics from reporting irrelevant detail concerning the ethnic or national origin of individuals. Item 26 of the Code of Ethics adopted by the Council for Mass Media in Finland reads as follows:
CMM offers the following, slightly inaccurate* translation:
So unless you can show that the Danish hospital incident was specifically about religion (as opposed to, say, vigilante justice in a working class community), then there is no justification of relevance for mentioning religion in the news item. Religion is conspicuously absent as a suggested cause of assaults on staff in Finnish social work and health care.
* In the context of a code of ethics asiaankuulumaton must have a more concrete meaning than inappropriate. In the first place a code of ethics is supposed to provide ethical guidance, and in the second place if the aim was merely to express an ethical tautology, then the Finnish expression would have been sopimaton or epäasianmukainen. “Irrelevant” is therefore a closer equivalent than “inappropriate”. It is also not quite clear why the translation says disparaging instead of the more obvious and common term “defamatory”.
As a matter of fact I am. I am just doing it in different forums, because Migrant Tales is not a forum about drinking.
If you want to hear my opinion, I am suggesting that for driving under influence one should always be sentenced to jail.
tp1
I would like the name of the forum and your username please!
So no treatment for addiction, no treatment for heart-disease, no treatment for stroke, no treatment for lung and other cancers, no treatment for type II diabetes, as these are all shown to be lifestyle related deseases, i.e. ‘self-caused’.
Well, you are no more intelligent or morally grounded when it comes to health related debates, clearly.
Oh, MY, GOD! Words fail me! Absolutely unbelievable statement, even by your standards.
You don’t understand my attitude, full stop. And you never will until you start paying attention and not believing what you want to believe because it’s convenient to do so. I gave you a reason to be worried about a facet of Finnish culture that involves the senseless death of 35,000 Finns over a 15-year period, and you want to tell me that the problem of immigration is more important.
And conversely, the benefits are greater too. You haven’t said anything that is remotely clever. All you have said is that the bigger the population, the more problems there will be. Ugh…yes!
I accept there are problems, complex ones. In some parts of Europe the pace of immigration has outstripped local resources, or where governments have failed to take seriously the need for proper integration services, or worse, where governments have herded immigrants and refugees into poor and deprived areas of major cities. I saw this with my own eyes in London. None of these in themselves are permanent problems and none of them are necessarily the fault of immigrants. Many immigrants I knew in London were striving to improve their circumstances, as well as learning English.
In other words, there is room for progress that will see better integration and easier adjustment, less dangers of exclusion and marginalisation, and subsequently, too, less dangers of religious radicalisation, your personal hobby horse. In the meantime, you are busy radicalising yourself on the Right! Good luck with that.
Why? Explain the mechanism to me?
Where do I insist on making mistakes? In fact, I urge Finland to avoid making mistakes, and it starts by stomping out discrimination and avoiding stigmatizing immigrants. The solution that I cannot accept has any viability is saying that we must not have immigrants or to demand that immigrants must be perfect or to say that immigrants must be like Finns, as if that magically means they will have no more problems as a population. It’s pure fantasy, mate.
There are lessons that come with immigration policies. No question. Not that I’ve seen those lessons implemented by a single PS politician. First, immigration must be properly resourced. Second, efforts must be made to avoid stigmatizing immigrants and to reduce discrimination against immigrants. Third, Finland should have a clear goal in terms of its future labour market in terms of the numbers of immigrants it thinks it will need.
It is clear that immigrants don’t merely take up the jobs that Finns don’t want to do or that there are not enough Finns to do, immigrants also create the need for more jobs in other areas of the economy, because immigrants must eat and live too. A short-term policy to bring in young immigrants to look after older Finns will backfire 30 or 40 years down the line when that generation is also reaching old age. Clearly it’s not simply about having a bigger population. What society needs to understand is the proportion of population serving different needs, and the proportions working in care and other services will need to increase, but there is no obvious way to pay for that redistribution in the labour market. There are problems in recruitment and problems implementation of services. Immigrants can help in terms of willing recruitment, but state resources must focus on maintaining independent living, and that requires adequate homecare and other support services.
Also, it is not good to follow a policy like Spain that encouraged immigration during the growth times, and then scapegoats immigrants during a recession because they swell the unemployment ranks as they were ‘first out the door’ when the economy started to shrink. That is not fair and its childish to expect that kind of system to work. Society should exercise more solidarity, and recognise that immigrants carry the greatest work insecurity and then they are kicked for being vulnerable. My grandmother would say that that is not the right way to treat ‘guests’.
Political parties like PS are criticised for being unscrupulous in exploiting these social tensions and poor social planning. In fairness to mainstream politicians, the margins and scope for radical reforms in social structures becomes narrower as the decades pass. Trying to anticipate the effects of demographic changes brings a whole nest of problems to our door, including rural flight, white flight, capital flight and globalisation. Given the size and complexity of the problems, and the fact it affects the whole of society directly and indirectly, it frustrates the hell out of my that idiots like yourself try to make it all about the immigrants.
What do you think the cost is to the Finnish taxpayer of 35,000 deaths every 15 years, not to mention the costs from social problems, work absences, need for state services, lost income, etc. And all due to alcohol.
One realises that if Finland can get itself sober and healthy (to be metaphorical for a moment), that alone would give it enormous competitive advantage in the world, meaning that surpluses that could finance more services for older people would not be so much of a problem.
But YOU want to talk about a problem [Islamic extremism] that isn’t a significant problem [zero deaths] and take credit for it not being a problem [as if PS has done anything], while all the while creating a real problem [stigmatization of immigrants]. You witless muppet!
Mark
Not much chance of getting them quickly. It takes time and effort to cover a lie like that.
Despite the general lack of attention paid to formulating immigration policy in Finland before the mid-1990s, this principle was recognised as long ago as 1970 with an explicit rejection of the German guest worker scheme. It was a strong theme of Migration Commission reports and other policy documents from those times that foreign workers should not be viewed as a labour reserve to be admitted during periods of rapid growth and then forced out when the economic climate deteriorates. Although actual practice did not always manage to reflect this policy ideal, the principle was always clear and now underpins the current legislative framework that governs the reception and integration of migrant workers, which has finally and decisively outlawed the idea that a migrant worker can be “permanently temporary”.
Thanks JD. It’s nice to know that Finland does in fact follow a largely sensible policy when it comes to immigration, for all the huff and puff that the Allah-ohos bring to the discussion.
Mark
It was a fair criticism until at least 1997 that Finland did not really have any coherent immigration policy. What we did have was a collection of various more or less haphazard practices that had developed over several years and been very roughly codified at a late stage in legislation that was notoriously vague (1984, 1991). This is not to say that questions of policy had not been debated – especially following the arrival of refugees from Chile in the early 1970s – but there was an obvious disconnect between the conclusions of those early debates and the legislative framework governing the status of individual immigrants. The disconnect occurred at least partly because the main policy debating forum was in the Ministry of Labour, whereas the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for drafting and implementing legislation.
We now have the beginnings of a valuable acquis in the field of immigration and integration policy, and it is at least irritating for those of us who have been involved in the debate for decades to see these neofascist tyros spouting so much rubbish on the subject. I am reminded of a customer who can barely find reverse gear standing in the repair shop and lecturing the mechanic on how to fix the engine.
If someone causes his own death, I have nothing against it. But I am totally against treating those self-caused diseases on expense of tax payers.
See comment above this.
You just don’t get it, do you? That’s exactly how Perussuomalaiset want’s to keep the situation. They want to keep that figure as zero. That’s why they want to keep things under control so it won’t become a problem.
I really don’t understand the attitude like yours that we should not worry about something BEFORE it becomes a problem. People with normal common sense should understand that it’s more sensible to prevent problems instead of reacting to them only after the problems becomes reality.
And this brings us back to the initial question I presented. As we can see (A FACT) that in other european countries, where the amount of immigrants is big, there are lots of problems because of that. In Finland we don’t have those problems yet, but as we can see from around europe, Finland will have those same problems if the amount of immigrant raise to the same level as in elsewhere in europe.
Why do you insist that we must make the same mistake? Why can’t you understand that Perussuomalaiset wants to prevent this happening in Finland? It’s very naive to assume that Finland could somehow prevent the same problems that every other country have faced.
tp1
Coming on the day that Breivik was sent down, this is a splendid argument for installing a monitoring device in your home (or in your head), Farang. That’s one way of ensuring that the rate of terrorist attacks by Austrian conspiracy theory enthusiasts remains at zero.
Obviously every PS sympathiser must be monitored continuously to keep our children safe.
We should also take steps to ensure that online gamers are controlled. Online gamers have caused no deaths in Finland, but you can’t be too careful! Just to make sure that the fatality rate remains at zero, we must introduce a licensing system at once.
And so on.
The limits of the possible lethal threats that might arise in our society are the limits of your imagination, Farang, and the mere fact that these threats have not materialised is no reason for not taking immediate and decisive action to ensure that they never do. As a PS supporter you are obviously dangerous and must be watched closely, but who knows what tiddlywinks players might be planning in secret?
This really follows the usual pattern with Mark and JusticeDemon.
Both of you have absolutely no arguments about the problem I presented.
Yet you both spend enormous amount of time to write everything else, you present different problems and talk everything except the actual problem. It’s pretty difficult to get any healthy results from a debate where the other party refuses to talk about actual issue.
It’s like you have decided the end result in advance and then you just try to adjust everything so that the result remains untouched 🙂 Sensible person would first discuss the matters and check the fact and then come to a result.
tp1
This, once again, is just plain dishonest. The ‘problem’ you presented was that immigrants present problems. A great deal of the rest of the comments I have made to you on this page deal with those problems, the perception of those problems, and their significance in relation to other problems in Finland.
If you cannot be bothered to process what has been written, then clearly you are not worth the effort of replying to.
So, what do you think is the ‘actual issue’, seeing as the direction of the discussion is not to your liking?
Okay, I respect that. However, I think it is still reasonable to ask you to verify this claim that you in fact do contribute on a daily bases to blogs discussing the alcohol problems in Finland.
Please give a bullet list in brief that sums up, ooh, let’s say, the last ten posts you made on the topic, just to give me an idea of how deeply involved in the debate you are.
No chance to the them at all. I like to keep my anonymity like you do.
Still, interesting you even comment that, because that has nothing to do with the case we are discussing here.
You both have written enormous amount of text but still you both haven’t give a single argument about the problem which I presented. You only comment other things and write about other problems, like somehow problem A goes away if there are also problem B, which has nothing to do with A.
tp1
Mark was right to call you out on your claim be actively campaigning against alcohol abuse in Finland. He asked you this question:
This was your response:
You cannot substantiate this claim about yourself in any way, and your appeal to anonymity is irrelevant. As a keyboard warrior, you will be just as anonymous on those “different forums” (different from what?) as you are here. We have absolutely no reason to believe your claim to be in any way concerned about alcohol abuse. You clearly spend many hours here arguing that immigration is somehow bad for Finnish society when its overall impact is miniscule compared to that of alcohol abuse. Where is the evidence that you do likewise in relation to this much more serious social issue? You have offered none whatsoever, because it is an obvious lie.
Lies of this kind lower the tone of this discussion. Anyone could log in here and claim anonymously that they are a relative or personal acquaintance of the convicted racist criminal Hahaa-lol, who has privately admitted that he got involved in politics because his academic career was boring and taking him nowhere, and that he has chosen his political views to secure the votes of easily led fools in precisely the manner illustrated here:
The value of such a claim in the discussion is precisely nothing without substantiation.
You cannot substantiate your claim to be concerned about alcohol abuse and we are entirely justified in calling this out as a blatant falsehood that you invented in order to save face.
You have been caught lying to us before.
You said it yourself in your previous incarnation:
Spot on.
That question by Mark was totally irrelevant to this discussion but still I answered it. And the fact that you are here demanding some proof for that only proves your agenda on trying to side rail this discussion.
What does is matter whether or not I participate in alcohol discussions? Absolutely zero.
tp1
Obviously it doesn’t matter in any respect other than the point that you fraudulently claimed to do so in order to deflect attention from the fact that you are a one-issue obsessionist keyboard warrior. Your only interest in social problems of any kind is as a stick to beat immigrants. You can’t use alcohol abuse for this purpose, so the issue does not concern you, even though alcohol-related issues are an infinitely more serious public policy challenge in Finland than immigration could ever possibly become.
We’ve got your number, Farang. You are nothing more than Seppo Lehto with a spelling dictionary.
This is by the way very good example how you treat people. You immediately claim someone a liar even if you have absolutely no information about the situation.
You are doing exactly the same as what you are accusing other people of doing. Like when that immigrant girl wrote about how she was treated badly and some people then said that she was propably lying, you immediately accused these people of making such assumption. Now you are doing exactly that same yourself.
That is not a way do discuss.
You should first acknowledge the problem. And by that I mean that you could even comment whether or not the problem is real or not. That would be a start. But no, you just have to get the discussion in side rails so that you can avoid the discussion about the problem.
Substantiate your claim or admit that it is just another of your lies.
It seems that now that it is evident that Mark and JD are losing the debate, Enrique started deleting all my messages where I commented and cleared those comments.
Way to go Enrique!
OK, now my comments are visible again. If it was due to technical problems, my apologies to Enrique.
tp1
Well, because you claimed that you are involved in daily blogs writing about alcohol problems. You didn’t have to say that, but you did, and I really would like some verification, without necessarily giving your identity away.
The question is which is more important, a topic that has resulted in at least 35,000 unnecessary deaths in the last 15 years in Finland, or a topic that has resulted in zero deaths. I know which one you focus on daily.
The implication is that you are interested in immigration because you are interested in Finland’s welfare. I just told you about a very serious problem in Finland that actually results in a very significant number of deaths. The question is whether you can back up your claim or whether you are shooting out of your arse and only pretending to be interested in Finland’s welfare because it’s a convenient shield to hide your racism behind.
So, put up or shut up, mate!
Answer is easy. It’s the one that we can do something about.
And we can’t ignore the possible problem only because it hasn’t yet become a problem. We can see from other countries how things evolve and we should handle the issues BEFORE they become similar problems as which already are reality in other countries.
I already explained this, so could you please try to comment this: Why do you think we should not try to prevent a problem, but instead wait until it actually becomes a problem?
tp1
And this means what? Alcohol or immigration – which is the one that you can do something about?
I take it you mean, immigration, because you then went on to talk about it. Which really begs the question. Finland is not known for immigration problems, and it has a sensible policy and an evolving integration service, and yet for some reason, you imagine all sorts of nasties.
So, what is it that you want to focus on: 35,000 senseless deaths of Finns in 15 years or kids throwing stones at fire engines, irate people storming into a A&E unit in a rage after a shooting, an internet threat of very questionable authenticity, and tensions between Jews and Muslims with a Middle East background. Which is is that so fills Farang with passion and fire?
You haven’t explained anything, by the way, and you certainly haven’t addressed my perfectly valid point that these are ‘snapshots’ of immigrant problems, that life and society don’t stand still, and that people find a way forward past these kinds of problems.
35,000 actual preventable deaths of Finns vs. preventing a problem that might be a problem because we see some problems in other countries, but which isn’t actually a problem in Finland and shows no signs of becoming one?
You are a bloody imbecile if you think that immigration poses a greater problem to Finnish society and Finnish lawmakers than alcohol.
Did I ever, I repeat ever, make such a claim? I never said immigration would be bigger problem than alcholol.
I am desperately trying to make you understand that you can’t tell me not to talk about immigration because there are other problems. We have tons of problems, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t discuss about some less important problem if there are bigger problems. With that logic we could concentrate on one problem only (the biggest) and only after it is solved, we could move to next etc. That doesn’t make sense.
tp1
No you didn’t, you said this:
I’m not sure which is worse, the flippant way in which you say the answer is easy, or the fact that the answer you appear to give is that you focus on immigration. So, it’s not about how big the problem is, but what you think can be done about it. And you think nothing can be done about drinking deaths, but something can be done about the problems that Finland does not have in regard to immigration, but which you are happy to scour the internet?
I actually agree with you, and that really wasn’t the point. But as the reply box in this blog appears like two very wide barn doors to you, I’m not surprised that you don’t get the point.
The point was to bring perspective to this debate. One of the key things I tried but failed to immediately get through to you way up there at the top of the discussion was the responsibility to talk about immigration problems in the proper context, and that means getting the media stories and problems into the right context in regard to all of society’s other problems. Not so that we ignore them, but because it’s important to establish the actual scale and significance of the problems that we are dealing with.
The problem I see in your approach and arguments is that it’s all doom and gloom, and yet when you compare immigration to just ONE of Finland’s main social problems, that of drinking, we immediately see they are just not in the same ball park/solar system/universe. You just cannot compare 45,000 deaths with the minuscule problems that immigration has brought to the Finnish state in the last 15 years. And yet what do you spend your days and evenings doing? Finding reasons to bash on immigrants.
Of course, there are people like yourself who are steeped in prejudice and who cannot or simply refuse to adjust to the modern world and so imagine that all these foreigners in Finland means that for some unexplained reason, you suddenly won’t feel so Finnish anymore. ‘Finnish identity is at stake. It’s a cultural war. They want to turn Finland into a third world country.’
It’s all hot air. And Finland’s real social problems simply pass you by. I’m not one bit surprised you didn’t want to talk about the alcohol problems. This is a topic I have studied for 10 years in Finland, and I’m pretty sure that I would see through any pretense that you would put up to understanding the issue.
Like you said, it’s not an either/or. It’s not either we solve drinking problems or we solve immigration. It’s about perspective, Farang. That small ingredient that can change everything!
In this particular case the background was relevant information, because ethnic background was the reason for the crime.
tp1
How do you know this? The Aamulehti coverage says nothing of this kind. The linked Ekstra Bladet article suggests that the hospitalised individual could be a member of the street gang AK 81, which I understand is a non-motorised Hells Angels support group. Despite all of the unhelpful rhetoric from politicians, the linked Politiken article does not say that the offence in question is due to ethnic background.
At most we may surmise that this is vigilante behaviour that may form part of a turf war between criminal gangs. We have seen similar violent confrontations in Finland between members of Hells Angels and Bandidos. I hope you are not suggesting that these were also a matter of ethnic background.
Could it be that you have a double standard here? When Osman Nuri Dogan was killed by an AK81 member in 2008 was this because of his ethnic background or his (perhaps assumed) membership of a rival gang? Are “ethnic reasons” only involved in such incidents when the people involved belong to different ethnic groups?
I don’t recall reading about any senior Danish politicians lecturing Danish motorcycle gangs on whether they wanted to be members of Danish society. Perhaps you can unearth some examples. Good luck with that.