Last week I received a couple questions, one was from my friend, and the other was from a news agency. These questions were about the sexual harassment that happened during the celebrations on New Year’s Eve .
The moment I heard what had happened I felt really embarrassed, ashamed, and sad. I was shocked when I heard some of these actions might have been committed by immigrants as this is not the moral that we are brought up on, and especially not toward people who hhave been very kind and respected us and given us a chance to be in a safe place.
There is no doubt most immigrants face abnormal conditions due to several reasons. The war and the political crisis in our world destroy many things in our societies, for instance a new culture and values of close minded thinking have appeared among people with low educational level.
For example, since the war in 2003 in Iraq, women are more restricted in their behaviors because they are afraid of being kidnapped, also it is not allowed to be outside their homes unail late in the night.
In addition, we live in conservative societies and there are some boundaries between men and women, so misunderstandings of behaviors may happen between two different cultures. One of them is open and the other one is closed. For example, in our culture when a woman dances with a man, it means that she flirts with him.
I think we need to make the new immigrants aware about Finnish law, Finnish society and traditions to make them understand the Finnish people and leran how to coexist in the Finnish society.
However, there are some bad people among the immigrants and for sure we must trust the Finnish police and all the security workers who know their job very well. I hope to find solutions for this phenomenon.
Please feel free to ask me if you have any question. I will try to clarify what is going exactly from the immigrants point of view.
Thanks to all who commented on my previous blog posts. Due to some technical issues they were not visible to me until yesterday. I really liked all your opinions and responses. I will try to answer all the questions in the near future. I wish all the best to you.
One of immigrants,
Ammar Al-Kaysi
Ammar Al-Kaysi knows what it's like to live in a Finnish camp for refugees. He blogs about his experiences and about what it is like to start from zero in a new country. He was recently given a residence permit.
This blog is in English.
Hello Ammar,
Thank you for building bridges between ou cultures. Thank you for letting us, who don’t know any immigrant, know you and your thoughts. You seem very open minded and intelligent, I think that with some hard work, you will do well in Finland. Unfortunately there are racists here, they are stupid and scared, please do ignore them, and focus on the nice people instead. Good luck with your new life!
Thanks for your advice and I will try to look on bright side of life.
Linda is mixing up some facts and by pointing out somebody with an different opinion as stupid is really stupid.
There is a lot of people (majority?) who are against this massinvasion of refugees but has never been or are racists.
To connect the protestmovement against uncontrolled massinvasion to racism is just a cheep trick – we call it it for Goodwin Law (check that up).
You shure get lot of supporting words, and thats good, but its wise to listen to people without any links to left or right or anywhere e.g. common people, who is not standing in the corridor of political correctness; Mainstream media, some politicians, people who can earn money in this matter (refugeecamp owners, all kind of different volunteer organsiations, finnish industry to get cheap labour in future , etc).
I hope you have the guts to publish this comment too – otherwise Your blog will turn to a ”Ammar fan-club” and i dont think thats your purpose….right?
I respect your opinion, thanks for your comment.
Dont you think that the good immigrants have the responsibilty to help the police? In our society we trust authorities, but maybe they don’t so much. Also other people must explain things and make right choices
I think they know their job well and if they need any help from the good immigrants they will ask.
Ammar,
True that the cultural misunderstanding and the trauma most immigrant has gone through contribute to their current actions. However, every society have its own evil. For sure, the media plays its own negative role and people want to talk when an act is committed by an immigrant. This morning for example, I was reading an article about Finnish ladies buying sex from underage asylum-seekers in Helsinki. Raised up in this `civilized` world, isn’t it the worst thing that can happen and should be condemned?
Regardless of our background, we have individuals not belonging to this generation. Harassment, abuse, racist comments should be condemned. We have to see everyone as a human being and being an Arab or African doesn’t make less human. Similarly, being Finnish doesn’t make a better person.
Hope you settle well and be happy in Finland
Thank you for your comment. It was nice. I agree with you the humanity is the most valued thing in the life.
I understand that there is s small group of people among asylum seekers who want to harass women even though they know it is wrong. Some Finns are like that as well. Do the rest of the people in the camp know who these people are? Do they try to stop the criminals, talk to them? After all, they all suffer from these actions.
For sure, the rest of the people if they know them, they will talk to them.
Hey Ammar,
It’s very interesting to read about your experiences. As a fellow immigrant (from western Europe), it’s interesting to read about your experiences in contrast to mine, and I hope you continue to blog in the future.
Thank you very much for your comment and I will do my best to continue writing blogs.