Enrique Tessieri
The growing face of far-right Finland exposed itself Monday when some hackers succeeded at breaking into www.patriootti.com’s membership-request list. One of the red faces to appear was Tuomas Okkonen, a Perussuomalaiset (PS) party board vice president in Oulu.
Okkonen states on Facebook that he was “drunk” when he sought membership in the neo-Nazi association.
While the PS’ favorite excuses for their gaffes has been misinterpreted “satire” or “humor,” Okkonen has taken such excuses to a new level: “I was drunk.”
Okkonen got caught lying: He said on his Facebook he sent his membership application a year ago when if fact it happened in summer.
UPDATE: Ulla Pyysalo, far-right PS MP Juho Eerola’s aide, was on the Suomen vastarintaliike (SVL) membership list as well, according to Ilta-Sanomat. Pyysalo apologized in July after making a racist and homophobic joke about Green MP Jani Toivola.
Eerola, who is vice president of the PS, how shown his far-right colors on a number of occasions. The Suomen Sisu association member has praised Benito Mussolini’s economic model because there was no unemployment.
This is what Okkonen wrote to the far-right association, SVL: “I am a city council member of the Perussuomalaiset party and I understand your ideology. You have my support!!!…After you hear what we (Perussuomalaiset?) have planned, (you’ll see that) we are both fighting for the same thing…I sent you my contact information. Please do not distribute it if you are fighting for the fatherland.”
Even though SKV is seen by some as a marginal extremist group, far-right extremism should never be underestimated.
Ossi Mäntylahti writes an interesting blog about the list that hackers got from www.patriootti.com. He reveals (in Finnish) the messages that these would-be members sent to SVL.
SKV is like many neo-Nazi ogranizations in Europe, who live in a delusional world about racial purity that date back to Germany and Europe of the 1930s.