Posts Tagged: Somalis

Nura Farah: A blooming flower with a pen that many aimed to destroy

There is an interesting interview of Nura Farah, Finland’s first Somali-born writer, who speaks openly about growing up as a black person in this country from the 1990s, when even middle-school teachers took part in the racist bullying of non-white Finns. Racist bullying and racism are white privilege weapons used by this society to destroy

Read on »

Meet the Somalis – the illustrated stories of Somalis in seven cities in Europe

The Open Society Foundations have recently published a fascinating set of seven illustrated stories, called ‘meet the Somalis‘, covering the experiences of Somalis living in cities across Europe. On November 21, this will coincide with the publishing of the Foundations’ research report “Somalis in Helsinki”. To quote the Foundation’s website: “The Somali community in Europe

Read on »

Record number of immigrants become Finnish citizens in 2012

A record number of immigrants got Finnish citizen in 2012, rising by 4,530 to 9,090 persons, according to Statistics Finland. The lion’s share of these naturalized Finns were Russians (2,480) followed by Somalis (610), Estonians (520) and Afghanis.  While citizenship grants many rights to an immigrant, it does not mean that the person will be

Read on »

FIS: Somali family reunifications plummeted to just over 500 in 2012

The number of Somali family reunification applications in 2012 plummeted to just over 500 application compared with 1,900 in the previous year and 3,900 in 2010, reports Helsingin Sanomat, citing the Finnish Immigration Service (FIS).   There were a total of 8,600 applications in 2012. The highest number were from were from citizens of the

Read on »

FRA: Hate crime a daily matter in the European Union

Two recent reports published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) confirm that hate crime happens daily throughout the European Union (EU). One of the reports reveals that 32% of Somalis interviewed by the agency that live in Finland reported being victims of hate crimes during the past 12 months. Other countries in

Read on »

Selling xenophobia and racism in Finnish tabloids in the 1990s

The early 1990s were a gruesome time for Finland for a number of reasons. Apart from suffering one of its worst-ever recessions in a century, the ugly face of racism become ever-public. Fortunately at the time, immigrants accounted for less than 1% of the total population so there weren’t too many around to blame except for Russians, Estonians, Roma, blacks and Somalis in the tabloids.

Read on »

The sad case of Somalis in Finland

Below is a good example of how a public official’s comments helps strengthen racism and stereotypes of certain ethnic groups living in Finland. One of the biggest flaws in the arguments of anti-immigrant groups is that they incorrectly believe that cultures don’t change and therefore different groups are incompatible. I hope that the same stance as these far-right groups hasn’t overtaken the Finnish Immigration Service when we speak of the Somalians.

Read on »