A group of anti-immigration True Finns members published over the weekend their recipe to correct Finland’s “wayward” immigration policy. As I wrote on June 20, their new immigration policy stance will not surprise anyone since their negative and hard-line stances are well known.
Some of the recommendations in the so-called Nuiva Manifesto are full of contradictions that reveal that the True Finns are very much in the dark about how a successful immigration policy should be managed.
Let’s look at some of the manifesto’s main points:
1. Finland should abandon its multicultural policy copied from Sweden.
I never knew that Sweden was officially a multicultural country. It is a country with many immigrants but it is not officially a multicultural nation. There are only three countries in the world that are officially multicultural: Canada, Australia and England. We do not know whether they refer to multiculturalism as the Canadian social policy or that it is a demographic phenomenon.
2. But they give a quasi-definition of multiculturalism. They state that abandoning multiculturalism means that the state should not finance immigrant groups’ culture, language, identity and religion.
What does this mean in practice? First-, second- and third-generation immigrants do not have any financial support and recognition by the state to maintain their cultural heritage. The manifest does not conveniently mention if the state should end all financial support to the Swedish-speaking minority, Sami and Roma.
This part of the True Finns’ manifest is an excellent example of the double-talk on how they plans to breach and/or water down the Constitution and Non-Discrimination Act by treating minorities unequally.
They naturally deny this and state, emphatically, that they favor a society based on equality for all.
The manifest is full of these types of contradictory political statements that make no sense and are meant to give you a generous snow job.
3. One of my favorites is the manifest’s prescription on how to keep neighborhoods from becoming ghettos. If the True Finns had their way, they would prohibit immigrants/refugees from moving to neighborhoods where the state or municipality finances their rent.
They don’t explain if these immigrants/refugees should live in tents or tepees instead.
4. One of the terms that the True Finns love to use is “uncontrolled” immigration and talk about the Winter War. All of these True Finns that signed the manifest haven’t seen a day of war and were brought up thanks to the social welfare state.
They recommend that social aid to new immigrants should last a year maximum on moving to the country.
They don’t mention if their should be social-welfare-benefit limits to Finns. This is another excellent example of the inequality that the True Finns want but do not state aloud.
5. Those immigrants/refuges that break the law constantly will be deported from Finland irrespective of the human rights situation of their country of origin. Immigrants who have been granted a residence permit on humanitarian grounds will have their permit revoked if they go on holiday or fight in their home country.
Don’t people have the human right of freedom of movement if they HAVE a residence permit?
6. The xenophobia of this group shines through when they propose that citizenship should be granted on a conditional basis for ten years. Conditional citizenship would grant all rights to the person but it could be revoked.
Again they do not mention which types of “crimes” a person would have to be sentenced for citizenship to be revoked.
7. The True Finns top it off by stating that Finland wants immigrants that will not be “negative” to society. It supports immigrants whose impact on society will be “neutral or positive.”
What does “negative” mean and which group/institution decides to give the thumbs up or down concerning the latter?
After reading the manifest and your comments I have few things I’d like to point out.
3:
I’m not sure this is exactly what they wrote. What I understood is that, instead of allowing refugees and immigrants living mainly on welfare to join for the housing queue for a city of their choice, state would instead place them somewhere where rents are generally not as high and there is not a shortage of affordable housing.
I assume they meant somewhere outside Greater Helsinki area.
(Doesn’t really make sense anyhow. How could a person in question commute to work if he can’t live anywhere near where the jobs are?)
4:
They mention U.S. immigration policy as an example for limited benefits. I don’t know if they’re just throwing bs around, and appreciate if someone would enlighten me on that, but I assume that the limits would only apply to those without full citizenship.
7:
Though they don’t strictly define what kind of people “negative” immigrants are, you get a pretty good picture from their definition of “neutral” and “positive” immigration. “Immigrants who integrate and provide for themselves.”
All that said, I don’t support that manifest at all but I wish they had added an English translation there for people who don’t speak Finnish.
After not following the news on this front for months I’m interested what kind of discussion this will bring forth. I don’t see any educated person approving that policy but I bet some people are drawn to it like moth to a flame.
You would be surprised Tuomas. Everyone intelligent can count.
1 unintegrating immigrant/refugee + no useful skills = expenses paid through taxes.
1 unintegrating immigrant/refugee + family reunion = more expenses paid through taxes.
Unintegrating immigrants/refugees + cultural conflit = crime problems = again more expenses paid through taxes.
Who pays the taxes? Those who work and live from money they make through their own work.
As for issue of making refugees/immigrants who want to live in welfare housing… How many of them actually work? So damn few that placing them in the arse end of nowhere would be only economically beneficial. There is no lost work if people do not have skills to work!
Those who work can pay their own damn rent.
And to Enrique:
“Don’t people have the human right of freedom of movement if they HAVE a residence permit?”
Their residence permit should be revoked. If currently impossible, it should be made possible.
Overall I do not very much like PS-party, but I am warming up to idea of voting them just to give rest of parties wake up-call and tell them that enough is enough.
“As for issue of making refugees/immigrants who want to live in welfare housing… How many of them actually work? So damn few that placing them in the arse end of nowhere would be only economically beneficial. There is no lost work if people do not have skills to work!”
There’s a few reasons, from an economic viewpoint, why moving such housing far away is a bad idea.
As I mentioned before, living too far away from jobs and opportunities will effectively discourage people from seeking and taking those jobs, and make even more people resort to welfare instead.
There is also another reason why people tend to move to urban areas. Everyone needs certain services and inside cities those services will be more efficient and cheaper to provide for everyone.
I did not venture into social or ethical issues here but these should give a good idea why the suggestion is not, economically speaking, a guaranteed win.
-“As I mentioned before, living too far away from jobs and opportunities will effectively discourage people from seeking and taking those jobs, and make even more people resort to welfare instead.”
So why are they on welfare if they sought and took jobs?
Because they do not qualify for jobs or are not seeking jobs! Instead living on welfare funded housing in the most expensive parts of the country!
-“There is also another reason why people tend to move to urban areas. Everyone needs certain services and inside cities those services will be more efficient and cheaper to provide for everyone.”
Efficiency comes from having people around. If welfare bums were moved to areas which are cheaper to inhabit, we would produce business there. Encouraging growth (thus income) in areas where it is absent, while paying less for upkeep of these welfare bums.
We are not talking about tossing them in the middle of forest, but cities, or towns if that is preferable term, far away from triangle Turku-Tampere-Helsinki.
Say… Pori. Kajaani. Imatra. Established towns with existing services but FAR lower costs for housing.