Facts expose lies, but bigotry and racism help resurrect them.
It shouldn’t surprise us that during an economic recession that some expose their racist views. Add to the latter weak politicians, a complacent media, and a party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in government, which base their popularity on xenophobia and populist nationalism, and you end up with a perpetuating brew of hate.
Especially since fall, the narrative coming from the police service, politicians, and the media is that asylum seekers bring crime and rape our women.
Every time they label an asylum seeker “a rapist criminal” a familiar “us” and “them” positioning emerges: We’re good, they’re suspect.
But the bigotry of such Finns got questioned in January when the police administration said that only a small amount of suspected rape cases involved asylum seekers.
The police service of Ostrobothnia reinforced Monday what the police administration stated in January. It said that during March 7-13 only 0.1% of all calls they got to investigate involved asylum seekers, reports Talouselämä.
How long will it take this country to understand that most asylum seekers that came here are traumatized people fleeing the worst kind of war and terror that involves poverty as well? Why are we then making up urban tales about them?
Read full story (in Finnish) here.
While the police service may prove with statistics that asylum seekers aren’t a threat to Finland’s security, it’s people’s bigotry and racism that permits such urban legends to see another day.
A source of that bigotry can be found in a recent poll that revealed that close to 80% of all police surveyed believe that asylum seekers pose the biggest threat to security in Finland.
The poll reveals as well that the police has issues with bigotry and prejudice that won’t go away as long as 99% of them are white Finns and vote overwhelmingly for the conservative National Coalition Party and PS.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.