[Leica] OT: Some square snaps

[jorg.willems at pp.inet.fi (Jörg Willems)]

Hi Daniel,

Why do you say that Finland has the least liberal refugee policy?  Moving
back to Finland after 25 years things have changed quite drastically.
Nowadays I see people of all different skin colors even in relatively small
cities like Kajaani and Valkeakoski.  20 years ago I visited Kajaani with a
black friend and people starred at us because they knew black people only
from TV and movies.  I am sure they are not all refugees in the correct
political sense but I have my doubts that people from Africa, Asia and
southern Europe are moving to Finland because of the climate.

Mind you, Finland has just over 5 million people and still we have received
from 1992 to 1997 over 385 000 foreigners.  All of these people are
receiving full state funded medical insurance and other generous support
from the state.

J?rg


-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+jorg.willems=pp.inet.fi@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+jorg.willems=pp.inet.fi@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Daniel Ridings
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 4:04 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Some square snaps

Graham,
Foreigners are not really welcome here. Tolerated, but not welcome. The
fewer, the better. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I feel I have to since
Scandinavia has tended to have a liberal stamp on it. The various
countries react differently. I suspect that Sweden has the most liberal
refugee policy, Finland the least, Denmark, a small country, has been over
saturated and Norway is somewhere inbetween. Probably closer to Finland
than anything else.

Norway does have a lot of public money, oil money. So it can afford to
have civil servants on duty who really don't have to pull much weight.
They can act offended if you show up and expecting them to perform their
duties. (I've had a run-in with a few of them, so my background
information might be tainted :-) ). It doesn't really matter if they do
anything or not. The country and afford them. The bureaucracy is of
Byzantine proportions.

So you have these furners. You make them report to the police station (one
single police station in all of Oslo, the capital city, mind you, not just
your local station) between 8 and 10? possibly 11. Anyway, at the end of
the short time frame they close. Doesn't matter that you've been waiting
there since 8 am, they close. Sorry. Come back tomorrow.

So all these poor souls start queuing up at around 7 am. This particular
day it was -15 degrees and the wind was raging off the fjord, the harbour.
Cold. Very cold. Most of these people come from temperate zones ...
Africa, Pakistan, India etc. 15 degrees is cold for many of them.

At 8 o'clock ... make that 8:05 if the police really feel like screwing
with you, they unlock the door. Now at that point, you don't retain your
queue place, but you have to rush to a number machine and get a queue
number.

Some of these will not get served on today. The one station is Oslo is not
open long enough to take care of them.

Maybe they'll get tired of it and decide to move home?

http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80729.html

Excuse my cynical humor today. I had a run-in with the customs people at
the border last night. Norway is a member of Schengen so they're not
allowed to do controls of people, only of goods. I think they're trying to
drum up business for the train line to Gothenburg they now have but can't
get to take off (they raised the price 100%) so they're making sure all
other forms of transportation are so miserable to use that people with opt
for the useless train instead (it's a milk-run. Stops at every farm
between Gothenburg and Oslo).

Something like that ...

Daniel


> Hi Daniel,
>
> I particularly like these two:
> http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80727.html
>
> http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80728.html
>
> and I am curious about the reference to 'foreigners dose of humiliation'
>
> --Graham
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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>
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