Posts Tagged: Cultural diversity in Finland

KOTOUTUMINEN #14: Disseminate and vanish

Remember back in the 1990s when Finland brought Vietnamese refugees and dispersed them like pepper throughout Finland? It appeared back then that the main goal of the migration authorities was to disseminate newcomers and make them vanish. One matter that this type of coercive assimilation aimed at doing was to ensure that these Vietnamese boat

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Racism in Finland? You ain’t seen nothing yet!

When I came to live permanently in Finland over 40 years ago, people like me were seen as an ethnic anomaly. Sometimes having a different skin color or looking “foreign” meant receiving microaggressions like people shoving your child with a lighted cigarette that burns them, or hearing a perfect stranger saying something racist to you

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Cultural diversity: The key question that should have been asked on YLE’s A-Studio talk show

YLE A-Studio had an interesting debate with Perussuomalaisiet (PS) MPs Olli Immonen, Jussi Halla-aho, Left Alliance Helsinki city councilman Dan Koivulaakso and Swedish-language daily HBL journalist Marianne Lydén. Despite assurances by Immonen, Suomen Sisu’s new president, that  the extremist anti-immigration association is against racism, they should their same colors by reinforcing over and over again their

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Halla-aho scandal in Finland: Leadership is now needed more than ever

Finland’s political parties,  including the Perussuomalaiset (PS), have a golden opportunity to show leadership and make a clear break from Jussi Halla-aho and his Suomen Sisu association followers. We’ll be back, however, to square one if Halla-aho’s heir-apparent, Juho Eerola, becomes the new chairman of the administration committee of parliament.  Suomen Sisu is an extremist

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An immigrant call to change and Finnish society

Some wrongfully accuse those of speaking up for cultural diversity in Finland of “whining” and being “ingrates.” Apart from exercising one’s democratic right of free speech, bigger steps will have to be taken by minorities in Finland to drive home their message of equality and fair treatment.

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