Not obtaining the two-thirds majority needed to change the bylaws, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth turned down a motion from the party to change its bylaws 56 votes in favor to 45 against. The vote was a definite setback to PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho.
Even if the party will make a decision in early March on how to proceed after the vote, it means that PS Youth will split from the parent party.
The only ones who appear surprised by the result is the PS leadership. Under Halla-aho, the party has promoted, even encouraged, ethnonationalism and fear-mongered about how white Finns will become a minority in their own country thanks to Muslim migrants.
PS party secretary Simo Grönroos, who is a declared ethnonationalist and a member of the fascist-spirited Suomen Sisu, confirmed after the vote that the party would establish a new youth association.
“Of course it is important that the party has its own youth organization,” he was quoted saying in Yle News, “so yes the party will found its own youth wing.”
Halla-aho is in the same quandary as former PS leader Timo Soini when internal power struggles were waged between him and the far-right Islamophobes led by Halla-aho.
Thanks to a media that is normally toothless in confronting PS politicians with tough questions, and other politicians who fear that opposing the PS’ racist policies may be counterproductive, Halla-aho and his cronies have had an easy ride in Finland.
Former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen, changed that momentarily when he admitted over the weekend at a conference in Estonia that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.”
The former interior minister and leader of the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) parliamentary leader, Kai Mykkänen, wants stricter laws to combat terrorism. What re the motives behind the tightening of such laws? Do such laws only to Islam-based terrorism?
He writes: “According to the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo), the threat of terrorism in Finland continues to be individual actors or small groups that get their motivation from radical Islamist propaganda or encouragement from terrorist organizations. Marginalization and loneliness are the fuel that feeds radicalization.”
Looking at Mykkäenen’s text, there is nothing mentioned about what could be seen as far-right terrorism from 2015 in Finland when asylum reception centers were vandalized in cities like Pori, Rauma, Kankaanpää, Siilijärvi, and others.
And what does Mykkänen have to say about far-right vigilante groups like the Soldiers of Odin?
When these far-right groups appeared, and which have close ties with neo-Nazi groups, they were treated with kid’s gloves by the police and too many politicians.
National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen stated in 2016 that vigilante gangs are fine as long as they didn’t break the law.
“It’s a positive matter that [Finnish] citizens [note: not migrants] are interested in their neighborhood’s security and take part and debate in such matters,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat.
The leader of the Soldiers of Odin, Mika Ranta, has threatened in a statement below that the vigilante group will go to the border and defend Finland if asylum seekers started coming as in 2015.
“If a 2015 invasion takes place and the defense forces are at the border [helping asylum seekers] to carry their baggage inside [as in 2015], we will with other nationalists [code for far-right and Islamophobic groups] close [by force] the Tornio border checkpoint. Finland must not make the same mistake that Sweden and our defense forces made and for this reason obliges us to take action!”
Source: Soldiers of Odin.
Fear-mongering with the help of disingenuous terrorist laws that apply to only one group but are blind to other forms of terrorism is a blow to the credibility of such legislation, and to the political party drafting them.
As in the past, Mykkänen and Kokoomus are eager to score political brownie points with voters and continue flirting with the Perussuomalaiset party.*
Migrant Tales insight:The story below was one that was published in February 2012 about “Black February,” when three Muslims died and a Finn committed suicide after killing one Muslim and wounding another. As with the Pakistani who was viciously attacked in February 2018, there were a lot of question marks about how the police carried out the investigations.
Today we talk openly about instigating civil war and about politicians admitting they are fascists. The party? Guess.
This artricle below is to raise our consciousness about how Islamophobia is a cancer spreading in our society at this moment.
Remember Black February? Over about three weeks we read about the deaths of three Muslims , a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of these victims in cold blood. On Monday Migrant Tales had the opportunity to meet the father and a family friend of one of the victims, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah.
The first thing that you notice when you meet Abdisalam’s father is his grief. Anguish inhabits all of Mursal Abdulah: It’s in his eyes, in his face, in his posture, in his voice, in his persona.
The death of his eighteen-year-old son was such a strong blow that he is still recovering from the shock when two policemen broke the tragic news to him and his wife on a Friday February 17 at 10am.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said returning to that terrible moment of his life. “My wife fainted.”
Abdisalam’s father and wife were in the first group of Somali refugees that came to Finland in August 1990 by train from the former Soviet Union. Their son was born in Finland. Abdisalam was a good athlete, student, and son, according to his father.
“He [Abdisalam] planned to study medicine,” he continued. “I was ready to send him abroad so he could become a doctor.”
Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi was a Manchester United fan. In August he would have turned nineteen.
The last time that Abdisalam’s father saw his son was on Thursday night. “His last words were that he was going to take a shower, go to a [high school] party and return,” he said. “He never did.”
Abdulah isn’t at all happy with how the police have handled the case. Apart from not expressing any empathy for the parents’ grief, it was difficult to get any information from them about the crime.
“We were treated coldly and felt like we were the criminals,” he said. “The police appeared to be more concerned about keeping the case under wraps because they feared a revenge attack by Somalis.”
Abdulah says that if a crime were committed by a Somali it would have received a lot of media attention.
“The thing that struck us the most was when we went to the police station,” he said. “The same information that they wouldn’t give us, we then read in the tabloids right after we left the police station. How is it possible that the papers knew more about Abdisalam’s death than us?”
Abdisalam’s death happened between midnight and 7am. The suspect and the victim were school acquaintances. Abdulahi says that his son died from a mortal blow to the head. The suspect’s father was present at the crime scene as well.
I asked Abdulahi if he feels that justice will be done? “I don’t know,” he said trying to be diplomatic. “I’m not sure that I trust the police.”
One of the matters that the father has a big question mark is the complicity of the father in the whole affair. He doesn’t believe the police that the father was not an accomplice in the crime. “Abdisalam was big and physical compared with the attacker,” Abdulah said. “There must have been somebody else helping him [that could have been the father].”
A friend of the family present at the interview speaks.
“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”
Abdulah concludes: “Those Somalis that went to Australia and Canada are living better lives than I in Finland. All I have to show for over twenty years in Finland is a cold country with long winters and the death of my son.”
Migrant Tales expresses to the parents, relatives and friends its condolences for Abdisalam.
Being white is ok if you are white, but when you use your whiteness to oppress others and promote ideologies like fascism, then we need to have a discussion.
On the left is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth logo, which portrays an ideal of whiteness and ethnonationalism with fascist overtones.
I have always wondered about the exceptionally white image that MEP Laura Huhtasaari portrays. Hair dyed super white, blue eyes bursting out of her eye sockets and her very white skin enhanced with the help of makeup racist myths.
These are just a few images that the PS uses to attract voters with the help . of hashtags like #ItsOKtobeWhite and #ItsOKtobeChristian
On the left is the Perussuomalaiset Youth logo and on the right MEP Laura Huhtasaari.
Despite these manifestations of ethnowhiteness, there is one quote that left me guessing with a question by none other than former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen.
Feeling sorry for himself because the world does not sympathize with his view of fascism, I wonder what Jalonen would say 10 years from now if he looked at the quote below.
I suspect he’d wonder what the hell he was saying and doing.
Some may believe that the big news from the weekend is that the former second vice president of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth, Toni Jalonen, admitted publicly to being “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.”
Reaction to what Jalonen affirmed came fast and hard after it hit social media. National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) leader Petteri Orpo stated that “Halla-aho’s circus is mixed up,” and all of the parties’ youth leagues pledged not to work with PS Youth only after they renounced ethnonationalism and fascism.
Jalonen fascist affirmation was followed over the weened by other PS outbursts from MP Ano Turtainen, who wrote that civil war was inevitable if Christian Democrat MP Päivi Räsänen is charged and convicted of ethnic agitation. European MP Laura Huhtasaari sent us to the twilight zone as well when she said in an interview that Kokoomus is a Communist Party.
Jalonen and the PS Youth’s third vice president, Tomer Souranto, resigned as well on Tuesday due to the scandal. Even if the PS tries to wash its hands of what happened, there are some unanswered questions lingering: Did Jalonen represent only himself or PS Youth) Did PS Youth pay for his and Souranto’s trip to the Etnofutur IV event in Tallinn?
If you look at the Etnofutur IV program below, Jalonen is listed as a Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu and PS Youth representative.
Former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen speaking on behalf of Suomen Sisu and Perussuomalaiset Youth. Source: Facebook. Top picture and in “good” company: Toni Jalonen (left) at the Etnofutur IV conference posing with the Estonian Minister of Finance Martin Helm of the far-right EKRE party, former PS Youth third vice president Tomer Souranto and EKRE party member Ruuben Kaalep. Bottom left photo: Kaalep and far-right French leader Marine Le Pen giving the white power sign. Bottom right: Helm and father, interior minister Mart Helm giving the white power sign in parliament. Source: Yle, ERR News, and Migrant Tales.Toni Jalonen and some PS Youth members from Satakunta showing the white power sign in a February 15, 2020 posting. Writes the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) about the white power sign: “In 2017, the ‘okay’ hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters ‘wp,’ for ‘white power.’ The ‘okay’ gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist.”Source: Facebook.
If we are fair, PS chairperson Halla-aho’s irritation with what happened isn’t what Jalonen said, but that he sees such statements by his followers as a challenge to his leadership.
We saw a lot of this when Timo Soni, the former chairperson of PS, led the party. The Halla-aho faction that made racism in the cornerstone of its political message finally succeeded at ousting Soini in disgrace.
There is one sentence in Tuesday’s Yle A-studio that reveals the latter when Halla-aho admitted that he was “surprised” by Jalonen’s statement and saw it as “a provocation.”
Where has Halla-aho’s stuck his head during the past years? How can he forget what he’s written and where he has published his far-right racist writings? Let’s not kid ourselves, fascism and other far-right nonsense are an integral part of the party’s message.
Usually, the message comes out in code, but now Jalonen decided to open up and spill the beans dressed with the colors of the 1930s Finnish fascist Patriotic People’s Movement (Isänmaalinen kansanliike): “Today I am an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist [clapping].”
Jalonen’s scandalous statement isn’t the only matter that points to the PS’ liking of fascism. Check out the PS Youth logo. It also flirts with ethnonationalism and fascism. Risto Laakkonen once said that when you start to talk about Finns as a tribe, you start to flirt with racism.
What does this PS Youth logo evoke? White Finnish traditions, ethnonationalism, and racism under the guise of fascism.
If Finland is so much against racism and fascism as mainstream politicians and policy-makers want us to believe, how do you explain the popularity of the PS?
There are two explanations, in my opinion:
About 20% of Finland’s population are hardcore racists who like or agree with fascism;
We deny what the PS is because acknowledging it would be saying something ugly about ourselves. It’s like the story of the alcoholic who has a difficult time admitting that he has a drinking problem and must go to Alcoholics Anonymous.
There is no doubt in my mind that the PS is a threat to Finnish society and our way of life. Flirting with it or being a bedfellow will not change or tame the party.
If the PS had their way, Muslims and people of color would be treated worse than in the United States at the expense of neoliberal economic policies. The borders would be shut to non-EU asylum seekers. It would mean that Finland would ditch its international agreements and become a copy of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Welcome gross human rights abuses.
The PS is a nightmare that would become real if ever in government.
It is justified to consider the Nürnberg trials a farce. Guilt was decided in advance, and the justifications for the sentences were absurd.[1]
Perussuomalaiset* (PS) chairperson Jussi Halla-aho (2010)
Isn’t it incredible how PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen put himself in the eye of a political storm when he admitted over the weekend that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist?”
Not only admitted these words in public is one matter but doing it with his Finnish fascist black shirt and blue tie adds more light to the hypocrisy of the Finnish political system and specifically on the PS.
Halla-aho was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that the PS doesn’t tolerate nazism or fascism. These assurances are as empty as Halla-aho admitting that the PS isn’t a racist party.
A 2011 campaign ad of Wille Rydman of the National Coalition Party. In some ads like this one he appears for some strange reason with photoshopped dark skin and in others with white skin. Rydman believes that his party should work closer with the PS. It is for this reason, and many others, why he is known as the Halla-aho of the National Coalition Party.
Jalonen used MP Juha Mäenpää, who is suspected for ethnic agitation over his invasive species remark of asylum seekers, as an example of why it would be injust to sack him from the party.
“I understand that if the party sacks me, but I do not see it as just if you look at what others have said [publicly] in the party,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat, pointing the finger at Mäenpää.
What makes the whole we’re-going-to-possibly-sack Jalonen farce by the PS leadership is itself and its track record. Jalonen’s case shows that it is fine being a fascist in the party as long as you don’t say it too loudly in public.
Halla-aho was, for example, convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion. He was also suspended a year earlier from the party for two weeks for supporting a military regime in Greece.
“What is needed in Greece right now is a military junta, which would not need public approval and could use tanks against strikers and demonstrators,” he wrote on Facebook.[2]
The PS has, under the leadership of Halla-aho, become more radicalized. Racist concepts like ethnonationalism, ethnic replacement, fascism, and other ones are today the norm.
The same challenges former PS leader Timo Soini had with the racists in the party, which was nothing more than a power fight between him and Halla-aho, is now taking place in the party but with fascists and ethnonationalists.
Let’s not fall for the hypocrisy of the PS, but continue to focus on challenging a party that wants to turn Finland into a country like Victor Orbán’s Hungary.
[1] For an example Alber Speer (an architect) got a long sentence since he knew about the holocaust but didn’t try to prevent it. As if a person living in a dictatorship should fight against the dictatorship even if it costs his life. Source: Wikiquote (Hommaforum).
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* first vice president and MP, Riikka Purra, is at it again. During the postal strike, she misled people by stating that 98% of early morning mail carriers were migrants.
Early morning mail carriers are a small part of the postal company’s services. According to Posti, 80% of postal workers in Finland and 70% in Helsinki and Greater Helsinki are Finns.
The latest disinformation trail that Purra and her boss, Jussi Halla-aho, want to lead us is a perfect example of how the PS turns factual news into disinformation.
In the latest disinformation campaign, Purra backs what Halla-aho claims that the vast majority of asylum seekers, especially those who are minors, are boys. Purra purposely confuses us with more percentage figures, which state that 92.6% of refugees in the Greek refugee camp (Lesvos?) are boys and 91.3% over 14 years old.
One may ask what do these figures have to do with those asylum seekers who came to Finland in 2015.
Purra’s tweet: “Not the same percentages as those cited by the UNCHR now. Those that came alone to the refugee camp in Greece (Lesvos?) are 92.6% boys and over 91.3% are over 14 years old.” Halla-aho’s tweet:”About 95% of asylum seekers who came five years ago [in 2015] were men and 95% were over 14 years old, according to Eurostat.” Source: Twitter.
As everyone knows, one of the myths upheld by Islamophobic parties like the PS is to give the impression that the vast majority of asylum seekers are men.
In an interview with Yle on Saturday, President Sauli Niinistö seemed to confirm the myth about male asylum seekers by stating that “girls weren’t present among the asylum seekers [who came here in 2015] a few years ago.”
President Niinistö’s statement is a good example of how politicians may speak out against racism with one hand but validate it with another.
So how does the disinformation playbook work in the case of what President Niinistö claimed and how it was rebuked by the researcher and human rights activist Erna Bodström?
She tweets: “Hei @Halla_aho! I didn’t mislead anyone since I spoke of all asylum seekers – those who came by themselves or with their family – who came here in 2015. Sorry that the tweet wasn’t clear. Source: Twitter. “Over half of those 0-13-year-olds who arrived in 2015 were minors. Girls in that group were almost 20%. Don’t spread information. Source: tilastot.migri.fi.” Source: Twitter.
The main steps of the PS disinformation playbook:
Take the words of a credible politician like President Sauli Niinistö and turn it around to reinforce your disinformation and fake news. In this case, Niinistö claimed wrongly that there were hardly any women asylum seekers who came to Finland in 2015.
If a credible researcher like Erna Bödström challenges misinformation, just spread more misinformation with dodgy statistics. Halla-aho talks about 2,535 asylum cases when, in fact, we should be talking about over 30,000 asylum seekers arriving in Finland in 2015.
Grumble and cry a river about how unfair researchers are and how the media is the enemy of the people. Send out a lynch mob to attack the person who questions your baloney.
Toni Jalonen, who is the second vice president of the Perussuomalaiset* (PS) Youth and member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu, states openly in a speech below that “I am an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist [clapping].”
Yes, you heard, right. Politically matters appear spinning rapidly out of control in the PS and some are living in an alternate reality.
Recently, PS MP Ano Turtiainen called on his followers to civil war never mind PS MP Juha Mäenpää, who said in summer that asylum seekers are “an invasive species” that had to be eliminated.
Just like former PS leader Timo Soini had a tough time keeping the racist outbursts of his party in line, Jussi Halla-aho is seeing the same problem. Even if he is on the same ideological wavelength, open fascism, and ethnonationalism are eating the party from within.
On the left is Toni Jalonen, PS Youth vice president admitting that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.” The Lapua Movement was a fascist organization that failed to overthrow the elected government of Finland in 1932 after which the the Patriotic People’s Movement (Isänmaalinen kansanliike, IKL) was formed. The Lapua Movement-IKL did not use brown shirts but a black one with a dark blue tie. Is it a coincidence that Jalonen is wearing a Lapua Movement outfit? Source: Twitter and Good Reads.
PS Youth substitute board member for Lapland, Johannes Sipola, has said a lot of terrible things like condoning and blaming the Christhurch killings in March on multiculturalism.
It’s clear that he is one of the first to defend Jalonen like in the tweet below.
From the second paragraph it reads: “Jalonen represents the [PS’] youth association and yes, the youth association is openly fascist. This line is supported as well by the members. That is why Jalenen was voted to his post.” Source: Twitter.
Where will all this lead?
It will not end well, I am afraid. It is only a question of time when something will snap, and we will – hopefully not – see something tragic like we are seeing today in different parts of Europe.
I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country.
PS MP Ano Turtiainen
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP with a curious first name, “Ano,” [1] Turtiainen is another dangerous example of how the Islamophobic party fuels the hostile environment against migrants and minorities like Muslims.
Recently we saw a deadly killing in Hanau, Germany, at the hands of a far-right German who turned words into bullets. Considering that lawmakers like Turtiainen and others are encouraging people to acts of violence, the horrific events in Hanau sends chills up our spines.
Turtiainen was quoted as saying in Mikkeli-based Länsi-Savo last year that he has no regrets about publishing in December 2015 a post where he asks people to burn asylum reception centers run by the Red Cross.
In another interview with the Mikkeli daily, he stated the conviction for inciting people to commit a crime was a” feather in his cap.”
What kind of a lawmaker is Turtiainen who directly incites (see posting below) white Finns to rise up in arms?
One of his writings in Uusi Suomi was taken down recently. In the opinion piece, he called people to incite a civil war:
“I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country. We cannot, however, avoid such an eventuality if we continue this silent unsuspecting observation from the side when the enemy among us takes more power.
Use your voice and [say it] loudly! “
Ano Turtiainen: “member of parliament, father, town councilperson, entrepreneur, weightlifting world champion, weightlifting record holder.”
[1] “Ano” is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. In Spanish, “ano” means anus.
Mauri Peltokangas is an MP for the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. In the hostile video below, the PS MP with close ties to neo-Nazi groups, uses the following terms to cry us a river about bringing to Finland 175 children from the Lesvos refugee camp.
If his invective monologue below lasts 2:36 minutes, it means that around every 20 seconds you hear the following swear words:
Shit (paska): 2 times
Fucked (perseestä): 2 times
What the hell, hell (mitä helevetti, helevetti): 2
The devil (perkele): 2
Are these the “lawmakers” that are supposed to look after our interests and bring security?
Source: Facebook.
Writes Al-Jazeera about the humanitarian crisis in Lesvos: “More than 18,300 asylum seekers currently live in and around Moria camp, a facility built to accommodate 2,200, according to the UNHCR. Tents and ad hoc structures are stacked close by on the hillsides, forming a makeshift city whose population is now the second largest on the island, after the capital Mytilini.”
Migrant Tales recently published a story of a refugee family in Lesvos.
“The toilets are a kilometer from their tent, and the journey there is dangerous because it is downhill and slippery when it rains,” said a relative of the family that now lives on Lesvos. “If you get to the toilet, you’ll find long lines with families with ten children waiting for their turn.”
But Peltokangas is defiant. He states in the video that there is no reason to bring 175 children from Lesbos because Greece “is a warm and secure EU country.”
Believe it or not, Peltokangas is a very popular politician in Finland, a country that tries to prize itself as a champion of human rights, social equality, and one of the best education systems in the world.
