After a couple of months of campaigning, the municipal elections in Finland took place yesterday. The main outcome of this democratic exercise was a general shift to the right in this country, where both the centre-right and populist right parties won more seats in municipal councils across the nation.
Especially the wins by the Perussuomalaiset, or True Finns, are rather troubling for a guy like me, as many of their candidates have openly expressed racist attitudes. I might sound a little paranoid, but I believe in this country, I’ve invested in it and I cannot bear the thought that 1 out of 10 people in the bus or the mall would like to kick me out of this country just because I look different, even if I’ve contributed to this society too. Sad.
cual es el blog de Ulrica?
mandame un mail a agoran_1 arroba hotmail.com
Hey, I read this post just now. I'm not sure if this guy (Halla-aho) is really a racist – maybe more just concerned about the poor immigration politics we have here. Well, he seems to be way too fixed with just this one issue and also seems to blindly dislike the whole Islam religion. But still he does seem to have a few valid points as well.
I think that instead of flying refugees from Somalia, for example, to a whole different culture, we should try to use the resources to help those people nearer to their home country. Here too many of them, despite the fact that their lives have just been saved, seem to be unable to behave as they are expected to. I've read some shocking statistics about the amount of crimes that for example Somalis have made in Finland. I just can't understand why should we potentially lower our security just in order to help a very small portion of their people here.
I'm worried about where our country is going as well. The situation these days seems to have split most of the Finnish people in half: the other half blindly judges many immigrants beforehand (at least the ones coming from Muslim countries) and use the word "multiculturalism" in a negative sense (and I really hate that since the word "culture" has always meant something nice to me). And some of them are just blind racists. Then there are people who call "racist" anyone who questions the immigration politics, people who irrationally and continuously refuse to see the immigration issue from a Finnish point of view (even though most of them ARE Finns). Both viewpoints eventually do damage to people like you – who this country desperately needs.
Luckily there are still people like you and me, who just want to know what the hell is going on… People who want things to get fixed so that everyone could be more happy with each other, and give opportunities to good people.
But, as for you, I really don't think you have anything to be afraid of. It would be much harder to be a good black guy in Finland. For example, you might find it very difficult, if not impossible, to get a cab anywhere.