The Finnish media should stop labeling minorities and oversimplifying social problems

An immigration and inclusion policy based on deep-rooted suspicion and racism always fails.

It was a very tough week in Sweden. One boy was stabbed to death in the Stockholm suburb of Älvsjö, there were also three shootings in Stockholm where a 15-year-old died and many others were treated in hospital for their wounds.

With dog whistles, parties like the Finns Party (PS) and even the National Coalition Party (NCP), cherry-pick news in Sweden to push their xenophobic agendas.

Despite the terrible news from Sweden, the media and politicians revert to their simplistic arguments: It’s all the migrants’ fault.

Migrants’ fault? What about all the social services that have been subcontracted and made redundant in Sweden?

Has anyone thought that Finland’s alleged gang “problem” is also an outcome of all the negative news spread by the media, politicians and the police about youths who aren’t white Finns?

The Media Monitoring Group of Finland revealed the latter in. a comprehensive report published in March.

While parties like the PS and NCP conveniently forget to remind us that Sweden’s economic growth was also made possible thanks to migrants, the new government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is failing miserably in dealing with Sweden’s gang violence.

Writes Aftonbladet: “Several laws have been tightened. The police have received increased funding. Nevertheless, gang crime is increasing.”

In another story by the same daily: “Instead, Ulf Kristersson’s main idea to maintain Sweden’s unity is to make it more difficult to become a citizen. In his speech, he basically linked all of the country’s problems to immigration. ”

The new Finnish government may find it easy to continue to blame all of Finland’s problems on immigration, but they will not resolve the underlying problems of our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse society.

It will fail miserably as we have seen Kristersson’s government in Sweden. Tough policies only break things, they don’t fix them.

Finland should not follow the Swedish government’s path but start to take a more inclusive and less hostile view of migrants and minorities that live in this country instead of using dog whistles and oversimplifying answers to social ills.

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