This brought me back to the days of my reckless youth when I arrived in Finland in the early 70s to study at university. At that time a foreign citizen was not allowed by law to hold any kind of “virka” i.e. permanent public job. A foreign citizen was also not even allowed to marry a Finn. There were also a host of private sector and community jobs a foreigner could not hold like newspaper editor, city counselor, shop steward and board member in a company or association.
Read on »Posts Tagged: cold war
Mike Hofman: Media censorship in Finland during the Cold War
The thesis below published in 2014 by Mike Hofman. It is a comprehensive report on how censorship and self-censorship happened in Finland during the Cold War. It is surprising how Finland has sidestepped this issue and thrown it in the dustbin of history. As the old saying states, if we don’t know or deny our
Read on »QUOTE OF THE DAY: Päävo Väyrynen is Finland’s cold war foreign minister
If there is one politician in Finland that gives some heartburn, that politician is without a doubt Paavo Väyrynen. It is unfortunate that the Finnish media doesn’t return to the cold war era and look into Väyrynen’s record when he was the foreign minister most of the time from 1977 to 1993. During that period there were
Read on »Finland rolls back the clock and flirts with the cold war when every foreigner was seen as a potential threat
In another move to punish former migrants who are naturalized Finns, the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, which shares power with the National Coalition Party and anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset,* plans to introduce a new law to parliament within weeks that will prohibit dual citizens from holding certain jobs that involve national security, according to Seijnäjoki-based daily Ilkka, which cites Finnish News Agency (STT).
Read on »Is Finland on the path of becoming an isolationist, nationalistic and xenophobic country?
Finland hasn’t been itself for a number of years, especially after a populist Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, rose to the political major leagues in the 2011 elections.
Read on »The violent and hostile language of Finnish populists against Others
For those that sighed with momentary relief and claimed that the new government’s immigration policy won’t be as bad as they expected haven’t seen anything yet. Behind the populist and nationalistic rhetoric coming from people like Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini, there’s nothing but suspicion and hostility against Finland’s migrant and ever-culturally diverse community. What
Read on »Finlandization was very bad for refugees, especially Soviet asylum seekers
A story in Thursday’s Helsingin Sanomat shows that the shadow of Finlandization continues to hang deep on Finland even if the demise of the former Soviet Union ocurred in 1991. Even if the Helsingin Sanomat story writes about Finland’s first-ever airplane hijacking case in 1977 involving two Soviet citizens on an Aeroflot flight, it sheds an
Read on »Foreign Student editorial (February 1981): On immigrants living in Finland
The Foreign Student was a short-lived but courageous newsletter of the Foreign Student Club of Helsinki. The humble publication appeared from January 1981 to January 1982 and lasted 11 issues. Much of the things the newsletter wrote about 35 years ago are still valid today. Surprisingly those that opposed what we wrote weren’t officials or Finns, but
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- Asylum seeker minors can be detained in Finland.
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