Posts Tagged: Bigotry

Racism is an ugly monster that can and must be slayed and banished from our society

Do you remember five years ago a young brave fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she endured regularly when going to school changed her life.
Do you remember five years ago a young brave fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she endured regularly when going to school changed her life.

Do you remember five years ago a young brave fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she endured regularly when going to school changed her life.

Do you remember five years ago a young brave fourteen-year-old called Rebecka Holm? A letter to the editor about the racist harassment she endured regularly when going to school changed her life.

Read on »

Finland finally gets some teeth and bans the neo-Nazi PVL

In a historic decision on Thursday, the Pirkanmaa District Court banned the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (Pohjoismainen vastarintaliike, PVL) with links to far-right groups in the Nordic region, according to YLE in English. PVL is a racist hate group that aims to do away with Nordic democracy and replace it with national socialism.  The district

Read on »

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Finland’s ever-racist and ever-injust society

Where Finland thought it could find strength in nationalism is today its greatest stumbling block. Finland is such a white society today that it has a serious blind spot for detecting fascism, racism, and bigotry. Our impaired view and lack of leadership are creating an ever-racist and ever-injust society.  The signs about our society’s issues with racism

Read on »

Timo Soini’s fall from grace and the legacy of planting the political seeds of bigotry and racism in Finland

One lesson we could learn from former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini is that the right balance between flattery and speaking in code will get you everywhere, well, almost everywhere. You can win big elections like in 2011 and ride, albeit momentarily, the crest of the popularity wave until you hit the wall in disgrace with your fingers badly burned. 

Read on »

The words and silence of politicians have dire consequences in Finland for us

After the stabbing of ten people in Turku on Friday, politicians like President Sauli Niinistö, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, Interior Minister Paula Risikko, the national media, which echoes far-right opinions of Jussi Halla-aho, the chairman of the Perussuomalaiset* who was convicted for hate speech, appear to be carried away by their own prejudices and hostility towards asylum seekers, which does impact our culturally diverse community.

Read on »

US President Donald Trump’s Finnish “tolkun” moment and his mixed response to far-right violence

Three people died in the wake of a demonstration by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed Saturday with anti-racism activists when the white nationalists planned a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The demonstration saw a car being deliberately driven into a crowd of people who killed one person and left at least 19 others injured.  

Read on »

Disingenuous Timo Soini should take a long look in the mirror

If there is a power-hungry politician who will do almost anything to gain power and lose it in an instant, that politician is Timo Soini. Apart from being a disingenuous politician who saw his populist creation inflate and implode, he is a sore loser as well. In an interview in Tampere-based daily Aamulehti, he claims

Read on »

Finland should stop capitulating to racist far-right groups like Finland First and others

The police service informed the #RighttoLive camp, which has been demonstrating against the Finnish Immigration Service’s unfair asylum policies and deportations since February, to disband from the Central Railway Square by 7 pm Friday. The order was given five days after the far-right Suomi ensin (Finland First) demonstration was obliged to leave the Central Railway Square on Monday.

Read on »

Marianne Kiukkunen is no “Amazon” but a sad example of how low the police service has lowered the bar

Finland’s fascination with hardline nationalists and bigots continues unabated. Police official Marianne Kiukkunen was interviewed on the Enbuske, Veitola and Salminen (EVS-ohjelma) talk show and introduced by the host as an “Amazon” superwoman, the very embodiment of white privilege. Her appearance on the show and her comments are examples of how low the police has lowered the bar.

Read on »

Being FUCKING INSANE in today’s Europe

Following the high court decision in France that ruled to suspend the anti-burkini decree in southern France, it looks like the row will not die down, according to The Guardian. Imagine how “offended” people like former president Nicolas Sarkozy and others are and who now want a nationwide prohibition of the burkini in France.

Read on »

Racism in Finland and elsewhere 101

Racism and other social ills like bigotry are made to appear complex by those that perpetrate them. Making discrimination look complex is nothing more than a way of giving it shelter through a lie called denial.

Read on »

If we are against racism, bigotry and homophobia why do we continue to be Facebook friends?

Some may rightly ask why it took over a year to charge former PS substitute councilman Olli Sademies for stating that African men should be sterilized, Here’s another question: Why are there so few light-slap-on-the-hand sentences for hate speech in Finland? In 2009-14 there were only 27 people who were sentenced for ethnic agitation, according to MTV, which cites Statistics Finland.

Read on »

The Finnish Perussuomalaiset and their poker-face-racist remarks

Why would a television station like MTV3 invite a person like Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth leader Sebastian Tynkkynen to a talk show about the racist and bigoted statements he’s made about Muslims and migrants? Why would a journalist, who appears to be in the dark about what racism is, treat such a politician with a degree of understanding?

Read on »

Authorities should look at factors like social exclusion, third culture and school bullying for what happened in Munich

As the dust settles over what happened in Munich on Friday, when Ali Sonboly took the lives of nine people and injured tens of others, there are a lot of questions that are taking our eyes off the ball. Instead of talking about “Islamic terrorism,” why are we not talking about some other motives that could have played important roles in the tragedy?

Read on »

Brexit proves (again) that Europe’s biggest threat was and still is nationalism and xenophobia

We speak of external threats like globalization and others like asylum seekers as threats challenging this great Post-World War 2 experiment called the European Project. While the achievements of the European Union are formidable taking into account that we’re not going after each other’s throats after 1945, there is one threat that is the greatest of them all and one we should pay more attention to: nationalism and xenophobia.

Read on »

UPDATE (November 20): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link. November 20 Aukeavatko suvakin silmät? – (Tamperelainen) What’s wrong with this community paper editorial? Community papers like Helsingin Uutiset and Vantaa Sanomat are just as bad as other

Read on »

Finland and the PS: The face of racism becomes uglier as it ages

The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in general and specifically MPs like Juho Eerola, Olli Immonen and Teuvo Hakkarainen are, together with MEP Jussi Halla-aho, examples of the worst kind of extremism and racism we can find in Finland today in the halls of our parliament. They are permitted to spread their racist and bigoted views because they have

Read on »

Islamophobia is rampant in the PS and they like it

Or should the headline read: Islamophobia is rampant in the PS and they LOVE it? Two members of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) Salo city board said in a statement that the Muslim religion is incompatible with our Nordic welfare state values. The statement by the PS of Salo, a city located 114km west of the capital

Read on »

Those who loathe you are your supporters

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.  

Read on »

Defending religious bigotry – a case study!

This article is the final narrative of an exchange I had recently with a Migrant Tales’ commentator who goes under the handle of Elven the Archer. If you have read his very many comments on the Migrant Tales article “Why are Finland’s politicians still so silent?”, I think you will already be aware of his

Read on »

We must fight for greater cultural diversity representation in our democracy and society

When I grew up in the United States, most if not all of our most popular television series kept us doped in a fantasy world where the only people that counted were white Europeans who spoke English. We read history as well but there was too little about the “other” USAmerican: immigrants, Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans and a long list of other groups that built the United States.

Read on »

The role of the Finnish social welfare state and newcomers

It is surprising that one can hear these days in private conversation from some teachers and people working with immigrants and refugees that some national groups should never be brought to this country because they will never adapt to our way of life. “Why do they continue to bring them here?” some say.

Read on »