Article written by Omar Abdi Nuh
When a person with an immigrant background commits a crime, his or her background is emphasized, as if it were related to the crime that was committed. If a person with an immigrant background succeeds, he or she will be addressed in the media as Finn. For example, when a person with a foreign background from the Finnish national football team scores a goal, his foreign roots are not even mentioned.
People working in the media should have good morals and be responsible. I don’t want to generalize, but it seems that whenever nasty news, such as crime articles, involves a person with a foreign background, it’s emphasized. As if all immigrants and people with a foreign background born in Finland had a collective responsibility, which is emphasized in the news. I understand the need for the media to sell news and press it into people’s minds but at whose expense?
Omar Abdi Nuh
Photo Credit: Facebook
The Finnish media often attacks vulnerable people. Where is equality, equality and individual responsibility? In Finland, the responsibility for the things we do belongs to everyone, so why in the nasty news about people with an immigrant background is the responsibility divided between the offender and other people with an immigrant background?
I am particularly interested in the crimes committed by young people and their coverage. When a native Finnish young person commits a crime, we look for external causes, upbringing, environment, traumas just to name a few, unlike when a third generation foreign Finnish young person commits a crime, he or she is profiled with an immigrant background and the reasons remain. Why, when the same third-generation young Finns abroad are part of a functioning Finnish society and carry their cards to the pile, they are suddenly just ordinary Finns. The question is, is the condition of Finnishness only success and doing good?
The media acts as the lens through which we look at the world today. We blindly believe most of the news, even today many believe that crimes committed by immigrant backgrounds are due to their immigrant background.
Recently, crimes committed by young people with an immigrant background have once again made headlines, I want to announce, they are individuals, they are Finnish and similar criminals to the native Finnish perpetrators. This kind of news coverage increases the fear of racism as well as discrimination and the longer on the loser part of our society.
Omar Abdi Nuh posted the article on his Facebook page. It was translated from Finnish to English
