A preliminary note: in his article below, Sludge mentions the Orwellian renaming of immigrants as “clients” within Finnish government parlance. Tundra Tabloids has more on that topic for anyone who is interested. KGS includes a translation from Uutiskynnys:
Migration and European Affairs Minister, Astrid Thors, wants to slacken the immigration ministry’s unnecessary strict measures. In order to do so, she is introducing a new vocabulary which will center around the word client. An immigrant will no longer be known as an immigrant, refugee, asylum seeker etc. He is just a client.
To control the populace, first you must control the language.
And now for Sludge’s report on the progress of Multiculturalism in Finland.
First, from Verkkouutiset:- - - - - - - - -
Finnish Ministry of Domestic Affairs turns the tide: From border watching to assimilation and multiculturalism
The Ministry of Domestic Affairs is changing its politics in Finland. Finland is said to be in desperate need of foreign employees. That’s why the ministry changed its name from the “Ministry of Internal Security and Immigration”. The plan is to build a secure, responsible, and caring Finland by promoting a multicultural society and immigration. The new key words are: multiculturalism and assimilation.
According to the ministry’s new vision, Finland will be the most secure and “multi-valued” land in Europe and its competitiveness will be supported by an active immigration policy.
Minister of Immigration and European Matters Astrid Thors (Swedish party) points out that Finland cannot be like the USA, which says: come here and assimilate. According to her, Finland needs a modern immigration policy quickly. This policy means a system in which government will actively develop immigration by means of clients (note: new term for immigrants!) and by making policies for granting permission much easier.
The year 2007 was a new record year for immigration, since 26,000 immigrants moved to Finland (Finland has only 5+ million inhabitants), so we’re catching up pretty quickly!
The second news item is from the newspaper Turun Sanomat. It says that there’s a huge crime wave in the city of Turku (the second largest city in Finland) caused by immigrants. The 6% immigrant minority commits 13% of all crimes. But that’s not the worst: they commit 34% of sexual crimes, 21% of assaults, and 37% of robberies and blackmail.
The percentages are even bigger if you consider only crimes committed by young people between the ages of 15 and 20. And the trend is going upwards: for example, assaults committed by the foreign-born jumped 80% in comparison with 2006.
Police are in need of swift action by the government to make the situation better. The chief officer of the Turku police department, Tapio Huttunen, says that the situation is alarming, and that assimilation hasn’t succeeded in all areas.
17 comments:
Finland was a very great country at one time. I have read a history of the Winter War, and it is one of the most impressive victories a small nation ever won against a much larger one.
It's very hard from here in the USA to understand much of what is going on in Europe. It appears the collective will has been lost. Perhaps it is the relatively short history of democracy. Finland in particular was in the Soviet blcok, or at least aligned with them not that long ago.
So perhaps they have not developed the institutions of vibrant free press, and oppositional political parties that are needed to counter the EU-ization, multi-cultural nightmare that the political class are creating for them.
One imagines that it would be relatively easy to look at France, Holland and Belgium and say "We don't want that". And of course the example of the Nordic cousins in Sweden should be even more obvious.
Yet, it appears, there is no organized opposition.
If the Finnish government wants the people of Finland to live in a multicultural setting and desires the lives of Finns to be controlled by foreigners, why won't the Finnish government petition to be annexed by Russia? Vladimir Putin may oblige such a request.
Hi Zeke,
Finland was never in the Soviet block, and though being nuetral, being aligned with the Soviets may not be to far from the truth. I believe that it was the late Jean Kilpatrick who coined the phrase "Finlandization of Europe, which of course meant a creeping European appeasement to Soviet demands.
But what is also true is the virtual take over of the Finnish media by the very hard Left. Like in Sweden, the Finnish media was heavily influenced by international socialism, and in spite of Finland having a Centrist president for decades, one Urho Kekkonen, the parliament was for the most part under the control of the Leftists.
Finnish YLE news agency & television programming is seriously over run with the loony Left. The stories I could tell about that could fill a book.
The irony in all this is, not all is what is seems. Like I stated at the counter-jihad conference in Brussels, Finland is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, at least for outsiders.
Only because Finns have a recent memory of being under Russian rule and fighting the Soviets during WWII, they still have a strong cultural identity. It is only that factor alone that keeps Finnish politicians from being as keen and as open about flooding Finland with immigrants as other states' politicians.
I plan on using Alexis' logic about flooding Finland with Russian immigrants, nothing like a recent reminder of our past to sharpen the senses.
Question for Sludge: How many of the recent immigrants to Finland are Muslims and how many are from the Baltic States and the recent Eastern European entries into the EU? Do you have a problem with other European immigrants entering Finland to do the jobs that affluent Finns won't do?
Finland is always following to bigger ones, including Sweden. One reason for this is that time as a soviet autonomy (18xx-1917)and the strangle by USSR during the cold war. Nowadays we think we are finally free and may openly consider ourselves western Europeans. And we seem to be stupid enough to follow them in everything...
About media: You know how Finnish media tells us about riots in Paris (both 2005 and 2007)? They use words: "French youth has been rioting..." Youth!! It's bit like during the cold war, when most of people knew what USSR was about, but it couldn't be said. Nowadays most know what this multiculturalism is causing, but it isn't politically correct to say it. So I quess our elite has a good experience/tradition in silencing the public? :)
Answer for The Poster Formerly...: I'm sorry but I don't have exact numbers of percentage of muslim immigrants compared to total immigrants. But it's not far reaching to say that most of the foreign-born crimes reported in media are not done by Polish, Estonians etc. But we do have labor force from eastern Europe for example on construction sites, which in some cases has caused "gray economy"...so I don't think there's too much trouble in getting labor force from EU, but still we seem to need masses of immigrants outside Europe too...
The Poster Formerly Known as Gordon , I'm one of those Eastern Europeans. My mother believes that grandfather died because of insufficient care in the hospital where the surgeons were sucked dry by West European countries. And now even in Poland and the Czech Republic mass immigration is proposed by governments corrupted by greedy employers.
Hey, what about to pay living wage for the jobs Finns with feeling of dignity do not want to do? Instead of launching human trade schemes?
Lamedon said
"Hey, what about to pay living wage for the jobs Finns with feeling of dignity do not want to do? Instead of launching human trade schemes?"
Bingo. I have been saying for years that I would have no problem spending extra $$ for a service or product knowing that it was because American citizens were being paid a living wage. It all boils down to one simple word. Greed. Low pay gets horrible employees and worse service. Just look at "customer service" in the last 10 years. It has become an oxymoron.
Zeke
I have an unpleasant feeling that americans are going to understand us eurpeans much much better in the short future.
If Obama gets elected,I think you'll find out how easily the "collektive will" and "the vibrant press" can be corupted when it happens in an apparently good cause. It seems obvious to me that he represents a much more european mind-set ,no matter how many times he uses the words "america" and "americans"
You see ,thats EXACTLY how it startet in europe , with smooth-talking politicians who actualy BELIEVED in the multicultural fairytales.
This was today's bad news. I thought that Finland had a more sensible politics than the other Mordic countries, but apparently, that is starting to change. To start a multicultural porject NOW, when we know what disasters it has led to in England, France, Benelux and for that matter in Sweden just across the Baltic is just stupid beyond belief. I really hope that the Finnish voters vote for the right immigration policy in the next election, for Helsinki is one of the few really nice European cities left...
I think 'customer' would be a better translation than 'client'. Goverment bureaucrats have never really understood what it means to run a business. However, they are eager to adopt concepts from the private sector without really understanding their meaning.
Of course, Finnish taxpayer continues to pay the bills of the new 'Miniluv'. However, the would-be immigrants are the customers and not the Finnish taxpayer or Finnish citizens.
I remember reading several years ago about a new concept in the Finnish military. Finland has a compulsory military service and the military was supposed to treat the conscripts as customers. This idea was widely ridiculed at the time and silently abandoned.
I will have to disagree with Vasarahammer on the exact translation of the Finnish word "asiakas" into English.
The word customer describes a person who purchases something, client however, indicates that a service is being done on the behalf of the person.
Formerly-Gordon: according to the population register data for 31.12.06, at that moment there were 16748 people from Somalia, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Bosnia, which makes them 13.8% of the foreigners. 34896 speak Somali, Arabic, Kurdish, Albanian, Turkish and Persian as their native languages, which makes them 22% of people whose native language is not one of Finland's 3 languages, and 0.66% of the population of Finland.
This does not reflect the number of Muslim immigrants quite accurately, because some immigrants from those countries are members of religious minorities, and because there is a little immigration from other Muslim countries, but this gives a fairly good idea of the approximate numbers.
Thors is a dangerous enemy of modern society and previously Finland has not been very attractive (or even widely known) to refugees or immigrants.
I liked it that way.
Also, I can't believe I just wrote several hundreds words and bled my heart out and pressed "publish" just to see that blogger was unable to complete my request. No back button, no nothing.
I think that further explanation of the meaning of the word "asiakas" is needed.
The finnish word "asiakas" can be
translated to Englis both as "customer" and as "client", depending on the context it was used.
Of course in this context, since the immigrants do not pay for the services they get from the government, the correct translation would be by definition "client".
However i think that the use of the word "client" alone does not fully reflect the original thought behind the use of the word "asiakas".
Think of it this way...
People working in customers service in businesses that serve paying customers sometimes use the phrase "asiakas on aina oikeassa" ("The customer is always right" in english) as their motto.
By replacing the word 'immigrant' with the word "asiakas" Astrid Thors is infact trying to impose that kind of thinking into the Bureau of Immigration and also to the rest of Finland, despite the fact that these immigrants are not our paying customers.
Well of course, like I told above, the finnish word "asiakas" does have other meanings than just paying customer. Sometimes even the finnish policemen use the word "asiakas" to refer to people they are dealing with or arresting.
But still, despite all that, I think that 90% of the times the word "asiakas" is used, it is used to refer to a customer who purchases something and pays for it. At least that is the first thing that would come to my mind if I hear the word "asiakas" without any context that would further explain in what meaning it was used.
I wish the best for Finland, and I say that not only because I enjoy Laika and the Cosmonauts.
The adoption of the word 'asiakas' was adopted throughout the public administration and reflected the idea that the public administration was there to 'serve'. The thing that customers and clients have in common is this 'service'. Paid or unpaid is irrelevant. Not many people can afford a heart transplant out of their back pocket, and so it is paid for out of common insurance, as are all public services. Children receive services and do not pay, because they are recognised as requiring time to enter the labour market as productive citizens.
There was nothing sinister in this use of asiakas, and certainly nothing to do with the government trying to instill a 'the immigrant is always right' mentality. That's a pretty far-fetched association. You might as well talk about business as the endeavour to screw your customers of as much profit as you can. It still doesn't necessarily reflect the values inherent in the service.
Finland is indeed a great country, but it faces exactly the same challenges as any other country - a disaffected rural youth that is typically unemployed and restless. Migrants are just an easy target for this disaffection. One in 4 youths in the countryside are unemployed in Finland. Social problems are not unique to immigrants.
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