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.
I really do recommend that you edit that last sentence Ricky. 😀
What a blooper, no? Thank you JusticeDemon and Kati for the heads up!
I second the changing of the last line!!!
Enrique
– What happened in Oulu has everything to do with immigrants and the social ills like violence facing our society
Can you please clarify a bit? Maybe I have missed something or maybe you have some inside information of the case, but for my understand police has stated that this wasn’t a hate crime and had nothing to do with the fact the victim was an immigrant. Sadly this kind of crimes happens, but I wouldn’t blame the racism for it if there is not facts to back it up.
If you meant that this is something what should be reported just because the victim was an immigrant and had nothing to do with the racism, that I can understand, but from your text it sounds like you are certain this was a racist attack. I rather believe in confirmed facts that speculations. Same thing goes to people who believe the Somalian was a drug dealer or something other garbage like that.
Jaakko, a good explanation of your point of view is that you are “colorblind.” If you are a host and if you think this victim is your guest, I would be outraged. It’s totally anti-social behavior.
A question: Why would you write about a death of a Finn in Southern Spain just because that person is a Finn? You are making your own conclusions.
I personally think it is important that there are voices like Migrant Tales that bring out the violence and discrimination that some face in this country. Why? Because it is our democratic right and because it is the right thing to do.
I would edit the ’caused his death’.
Enrique
– A question: Why would you write about a death of a Finn in Southern Spain just because that person is a Finn? You are making your own conclusions.
I didn’t quite get what this has to do with this case? The death of a Finn in Southern Spain might interest people because the person is a Finn and Finns might be interested what happens to their fellow countrymen – that simple. I didn’t say that you can’t write about this case in Oulu, but I found it weird that you assume automatically that it happened because of the victim’s nationality. Are you sure that you are not blinded by your feelings in this case? You always condemn the idea of “us” and “them”, but now you are actually just increasing it.
– I personally think it is important that there are voices like Migrant Tales that bring out the violence and discrimination that some face in this country. Why? Because it is our democratic right and because it is the right thing to do.
Yes, I do agree and I like the idea of Migrant Tales (even the topics seems to be little bit one-sided), but as I said there are no facts that this was a racist attack. Let’s take an example: there has been discussion about this little girl who has pushed in a tram(?) and called as a “monkey”. That I would call a racist assault. But not everything bad what happens to immigrants in Finland is because of racism.
Jaakko, when we write about tragic cases like in Oulu or elsewhere, we are NOT claiming that all Finns are racists. On the contrary, there are many good examples of people that act in an exemplary manner. I know many who have helped me out and I am eternally grateful to them.
If you think of it, we here on Migrant Tales are passionate about Finnish values like social equality. I feel that the issue concerning immigrants is that it should apply to everyone.
In other words: We think Finland is a good country to live in. Let’s keep it that way by condemning things like what happened in Oulu or other similar cases.
Jaakko, as you have noticed, we have more people who are telling their stories on Migrant Tales. We welcome different opinions and don’t want to censor them and become a site like Hommaforum where 99.9% of the people think the same thing about immigrants.
If you think that we are “a little one-sided,” why not write a blog entry for us on a topic that you think could expand the topic? I would welcome such a contribution from you if you wish.
There is a long-standing criticism of Enrique that he jumps on any story that seems to cry of ‘racism’ in Finland. The people making those criticisms on the whole are also people that deny pushing an 8-year old girl off a train and calling her an ape is also racist. Why should we take their criticism seriously? Of course, the truth in any propoganda war is that throw a bit of shit often enough and some of it will stick eventually. Sadly, this is the case here. The arguments were about teh fucking ‘tags’ on the story, not anything written in the story themselves. That’s how much this is ‘clutching at straws’.
Having said that, it must have crossed many people’s minds what the hell is going on when three Finns break into a Somali’s flat and he falls from the balcony to his death trying to escape from them.
My other worry about this case though is that one of the key witnesses is dead. What’s to be said about that?
Thank you Mark. This story has been a learning process and strengthened my convictions about the role of racism in Finland and how it must be addressed.
What some are saying is: Oops, the guy (an immigrant) died but DON’T write about it because we don’t know if it is a hate crime.
This approach is the same as remaining silent and accepting what happened. I believe the big problem in Finland is too much silence and apathy for these types of crimes. What happened in Oulu IS a crime and disgraceful.
Mark, Enrique would not have written a row if the piece of news would have been this:
http://www.ts.fi/online/kotimaa/305503.html
But he is fixated on skin color, a fetish on ethnic diversity. Enriques hell is dark and he has to feel the color of skin on people.
Mark – all I am saying the case of the 8-year old is as much of a fabricated story as all of Migrant Tales stories are. Maybe something happened – but we do not know what. Of course Finland-haters writhed screaming “racism”. So I say there is no racism, and you can writhe in agony not getting your orgasm.
Allan, here is a good example of how you label people and groups. Sad. With such simple explanations why do we need psychologists and social scientists. Just turn to Allan, he’ll tell you everything in 1+1=2 language. He can even see through walls.
So Enrique, you claim straight faced you would have written of this case if there had not been any mention of ethnicity or nationality in the news?
Allan, why are you so hypersensitive about criticism? Chill out.
Allan
Why would he? This is a blog relating to migrants. And what’s so wrong about that? Do doctors’ journals go hunting for stories about agriculture? No, they write about stories relating to medicine and doctors.
Migrant Tales writes about stories that involve migrants. Surprise surprise.
Ironic isn’t it, that the racists and anti-immigrationists visiting this blog are so quick to remind migrants that if there is something they don’t like about Finland, then they can feck off home (regardless of whether this is their home, from birth). But when visiting Migrant Tales, all of a sudden, it’s a different logic they want to peddle. Now why would that be?
Enrique
– Jaakko, when we write about tragic cases like in Oulu or elsewhere, we are NOT claiming that all Finns are racists.
I didn’t think that either when I was reading your text and sorry if I made that kind of impression that I would think like that. There are people who are actually racist in Finland, even most of the Finns are not. I was just wondering (out loud) what makes you think in this case that it was a racist motivated assault. Police is still investigating the case so we don’t have the full details yet, but at the moment the facts don’t support the idea of hate crime. It wasn’t either any random assault, all of the people associated to this case knew each others.
– If you think that we are “a little one-sided,” why not write a blog entry for us on a topic that you think could expand the topic? I would welcome such a contribution from you if you wish.
Thank you for this opportunity, but I’m afraid that I’m not much of a writer. I rather read the topics and reply to them if I have something in my mind. What I meant by “one-sided” was that you do elaborate the news stories when the victim is an immigrant, but I haven’t see any topics about when immigrant assaults a native Finn. Why is that? As some have said in Migrant Tales (I guess even you) that not only white people are racist, but also minorities can be as well, so shouldn’t we also discuss about it? For my understand Migrant Tales’s main topics are racism in Finland, not just racism towards minorities, am I correct?
–For my understand Migrant Tales’s main topics are racism in Finland, not just racism towards minorities, am I correct?
Certainly and we have mentioned this before. That is why we speak and encourage MUTUAL acceptance and MUTUAL respect. But let’s not get colorblind when it comes to racism. There is a difference if racism is used as a tool to exclude other groups from gaining political and economic power compared with being pissed of and hating ALL Finns. Even so, racism is something that should be discouraged. Proactive positive examples should be stressed and shown by everyone.
–For my understand Migrant Tales’s main topics are racism in Finland, not just racism towards minorities, am I correct?
Certainly and we have mentioned this before. That is why we speak and encourage MUTUAL acceptance and MUTUAL respect. But let’s not get colorblind when it comes to racism. There is a difference if racism is used as a tool to exclude other groups from gaining political and economic power compared with being pissed of and hating ALL Finns. Even so, racism is something that should be discouraged. Proactive positive examples should be stressed and shown by everyone.
Mark
– There is a long-standing criticism of Enrique that he jumps on any story that seems to cry of ‘racism’ in Finland. The people making those criticisms on the whole are also people that deny pushing an 8-year old girl off a train and calling her an ape is also racist.
If that was addressed to me because of my criticism towards Enrique’s text, I don’t quite understand. As I said previously, I think this pushing an immigrant girl off a train was a racist assault, especially because she was called as a monkey. But I believe if there are no facts which support the theory of a hate crime and you still claim it is, it is more based on your feelings.
“What I meant by “one-sided” was that you do elaborate the news stories when the victim is an immigrant, but I haven’t see any topics about when immigrant assaults a native Finn. Why is that?”
Because immigrants are all innocent victims and Finland is a racist xenophobia. When a girl gets raped by an immigrant thats just an individual acting badly. When a somali jumps out of a window its neonazi racism and police are institutional.
Jaakko
Sorry to but in on your conversation Jaakko, but what you say is interesting for me too. I think it would be interesting to look at violence or racism by minorities in Finland, if only to put this in perspective. The difficulty with this debate is that those having the debate are generally in ‘entrenched’ positions, so it’s not about getting at the truth, which inevitably is a complex picture. Rather, even single piece of information is used as a kind of propoganda.
In that propoganda war, one of the main political points in regard to immigration is the ‘ethnicising’ of the debate. What I mean by this is that that the debate is not focused around human rights, or plain economic discussions about immigration, or integration. It’s not focused on solutions or problems, in the sense of identifying problems so as to find solutions. In the political debate, the whole issue turns on whether ‘immigrants’ fit in in Finland, and ethnicity is offered up as the coup de grace for those arguing that they don’t fit, dont’ want to fit and shouldn’t be allowed to fit into Finnish society.
The problem has been around in European politics for 20 years or more, and the traditional strategy was non-engagement by the maintstream. The thinking is that the more you engage this idiots, the more you appear to legitimise their so-called grievances and offer a higher profile public platform for them to propogate negative propoganda about immigrants. On the whole, politicians have steered clear of ‘cultural’ questions in politics, it is for the people to decide what they want to do in the way of cultural expression. But the ‘ethnicisation’ of the debate makes ‘culture’ a political weapon.
It’s a difficult task challenging the propoganda of parties that are specifically geared to couching the debate in emotive ways so as to tap into collective discontent. The problem is that when you get involved in that, you are then playing by their rules, and they have so much more experience at it, generally. It’s not like normal political debates, where it’s as much about administrative procedures, or values about the role of wealth, wealth creation or wealth distribution. Once you are into the realms of ‘ethnicity’, then ignorance can play a huge role.
However, I for one would be happy to tackle the issues. It is my firm conviction that the so-called problems of multiculturalism are almost specifically problems of ‘culturalism’, i.e. related to poverty, opportunity, education and discrimination. In fact, keeping ‘ethnicity’ out of it is as much as possible is better. However, the ‘link’ between ethnicity and things like employment, crime, cultural freedoms is a real one for the simple reason that many anti-immigrationists are continuously trying to link these data (always the negative data) to ethnicity.
You don’t need to be a great writer to start an interesting debate, Jaakko. You already have made a key contribution by just asking about an issue that you feel is being neglected.
Jaakko
Nope, it wasn’t. It was offering some context to the criticisms.
Allan
Thanks Allan, you just illustrated my points above beautifully. Happy days. (how’s that therapy coming along by the way? Have you mentioned to your therapist yet that you have no empathy with the pain of children? It might be down to the link between children and situations of powerlessness, like you when you were mugged. Just a thought!)
You are the hypersensitive one Enrique, some weird fetish with skin color you have.
If there was a hell, your hell would be dark so you would have to feel peoples skin color.
Allan, “fetish?” That’s as bad as “green commie.” Debate like a man not like somebody who is kicking below the belt. You don’t help your argument when you use dumb adjectives and nouns like “fetish.”
Dumb? I am not the one with a fixation to “diversity” am I?
I agree with Jaako.
I agree that this is an interesting story and should be written about. But what I notice, Mr. Enrique-who-knows-bettter, you omit completely any information about the victim. Who was he, what was he doing, what kind of work or study, did he have a criminal record, what kind of personality did he have, according to neighbors and mates? Was he smart, dumb, lazy, hardworking, friendly, quiet, outgoing, good-looking, popular, a loner, sloppy, smart-dresser, thin, fat, athletic, musically-gifted, a great reader, a good cook, watched a lot of TV?
All YOU care about this individual is that he is a member of a group, and that group has to be dark for you to care about him. So in this case the group is black from Somalia, and that is ALL we get to hear about this running-and-falling-from-a-rooftop victim.
You ASSUME racism is involved, when it could have been a simple act of revenge for stolen goods, hate crimes against one of three Finns (such as verbal insults or harassment), or even violence against one of them. These Finns were angry very specifically against one man, and yet you don’t even try to hold back the Finns-are-racist argument permeating your filthy-racist mind, and ask the simple question of every beginner cop: what was the MOTIVE? Why weren’t they just pushing any old Somali in front of a Metro train? They were upset with this man in particular, so who was he and what had he done?
If the man RAN away from them, he knew who they were and WHY they were angry. He didn’t quietly ask, “Hey, what’s the matter, are you just racist or what?” No, he KNEW that they were angry or he wouldn’t have run and slipped (or jumped). I suspect some crime is behind this, and the boy/man had until then escaped any kind of justice. So the Finns took matters into their own hands, alas for them, as THEY will go to jail.
Yes, in Finnish jail, they can get to know MORE SOMALIS!!!
Or would it be racist to say that Somalis are often in Finnish jails, when I know they are?
Maybe they didn’t like the way he drove the bus, Mary. Wouldn’t you agree that if your driving style scares my grannie, then I have the right to round up a couple of thugs to smash down your door and ensure that you receive justice?
I am so much of surprised how these non-Finns (and otherwise claiming to be immigrants) know so well the inside stories, situations etc. I am happy that in other threads some of these guys are already “dismantled” as constructing stories. And trying to look like updated, acknowledged etc. Using different names to be convicing “as source”.
Do you guys, Allan, Laputis, MaryMekko and others, really think we are stupid. Well, maybe you don’t like your own face or smell, but look in the mirror for a while and start wondering the “poo-smell” in your house.