There was good news if you are against us-and-them rhetoric, Islamophobia, and support for US President Donald Trump’s policies and persona. A poll published Thursday by Yle showed that the southward direction of the Perussuomalaiaset (PS)* party continued to head south.
Compared with a similar poll on December 9, 2019-January 8, 2020, support for the PS dove by 6.4 percentage points from 24.3%, followed by the National Coalition Party (19.3%) and Social Democrats (14.9%).
One of the reasons why support for the Social Democrats has soared is Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Her government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has met with approval from the public.
Contrarily, the PS has not offered anything better except for its usual bickering and scapegoating of migrants, especially Muslims.
Two PS MPs, Vilhelm Junnila and Veikko Vallin giving the thumbs up to former President Urho Kekkonen (1956-82). With or without disinfectant and beams of light, the PS is Finland’s most pro-Trump party. Source: Facebook
What is interesting to note is that when a sexual assault case erupts as in the parliamentary elections, the media, police, and politicians help the PS to spread their message of hate.
Racism sells. Us and them sell. Spreading and reinforcing prejudices sells. Bigotry and racism sell. Biased journalism sells. These examples sum up pretty well how tabloids like Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat make money by reinforcing old hatreds and suspicions of Others.
One of their latest stories on the far-right vigilante group, the Soldiers of Odin, is an example of their toxic journalism. It would be something like publishing a story about the lighter side of a Ku Klux Klan member and how they laugh and enjoy life like other “normal” USAmericans.
One of the criticisms of the Iltalehti story is that it gives credibility to the Soldiers of Odin, in the same league as the Ku Klux Klan, and whose leader and founder, Mika Ranta, admits being a neo-Nazi.
The article about the Soldiers of Odin does not put the vigilante group’s bigotry and racism in context. If I were writing such an article, I’d point out how Finland has exported racism through the Soldiers of Odin to other parts of the world.
Why are some people and newspapers like Iltalehti fascinated by racism and the far-right? Read the full story (in Finnish) here.
Migrant Tales has not only pointed out in the past the shortfalls of Finnish journalism when writing about groups like Muslims, but it has also traced the roots of such stories to the 1990s and beyond.
Tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti should formally apologize for all the racism and hatred they have spread about migrants and minorities.
Three racist and misleading articles by the Finnish media in 2015, 1994, and 1940. The headline on the left claimsthat “10,000 illegal refugees” are coming to Finland. The second one, in the middle, claims that Somali refugeesgot asylum by deceiving the authorities. The magazine article on the far-right argues with the help of fiction that the Europeanwhite man was superior to blacks on the battlefield. Finland would have lost the Winter War because one group ofblacks in the East Indies run amuck when faced with danger. Sources: Ilta-Sanomat and Suomen Kuvalehti.
How would we tell the events that led to the death of an eighteen-year-old Somali Finn youth last Sunday at the Kannelmäki railway station?
According to one account, supposedly the victim’s witness that experienced the whole horrific event, which has shocked many, especially Somalis and other black people.
According to one account, the victim and his friend walked down the stairs when they encountered the two suspects. The witness says that they weren’t acquaintances.
The victim was an eighteen-year old Somali Finn. Why was his life cut so short?
Something was said to the two that walked down the stairs. The witness didn’t answer back, but the suspect did. The stabbing happened so rapidly that the witness though the victim was joking when he said he was stabbed.
The blood gave away the gravity of the situation and the witness called 112.
The witness believed that the two young men were drunk. Even so, being drunk or having a criminal record does not absolve you from committing a hate crime.
Was it a hate crime? Do the suspects belong to a hate group like the Skinheads? These are some of the questions debated on social media forums right after the death of the victim.
Apart from investigating the crime like seeking the testimony of other witnesses, the police have also at their disposal CCTV cameras.
One of the questions that some Somalis and other black people are asking is if what happened was a hate crime, or that the attack and death of the Somali Finn youth were due to his ethnic background.
While such questions need to be thoroughly investigated by the police, some white Finns may not consider them to be necessary even if the opposite is true of some visible minorities and migrants. Why? Because many of them face racist harassment and microaggressions daily.
Many feel that they live in a racist society and have the psychological, some even physical wounds, to prove it. Too many believe that the police and society aren’t serious about tackling a social ill like racism.
Disagree?
What about if the crime at Kannelmäki were committed by two blacks and the victim was a white Finn? We have seen a lot of social media lynch mobs during the years, especially when sexual assault cases come to public light, as was the case recently in Oulu.
If one remembers what happened in Oulu, the police, the media, and politicians – all-white – were fueling the fires of suspicion and labeling the whole Muslim community in the process.
Since we strive to live in a society that solves problems, one matter that the police should show now is leadership by contacting the Somali community and hold a meeting to calm down fears. Present at such a meeting should be representatives of Victim Support (Riku), the police hate crime unit, sociologists, NGOs, and others.
The usual answer, “this was not a hate crime” with no further explanation will not do. It is not enough and will only increase suspicion of the police’s credibility in resolving such crimes.
One Somali Finn put it in the following words: “Is the police going to sweep the issue of racism under the rug? Are they going to conclude that the suspects had mental issues? Were they [the suspects] under the influence of alcohol or drugs? Are they hardened criminals? Or did they grow up in broken homes?”
Distrust of the police shows that such a public service still has a way to go before winning the trust of Finland’s culturally diverse communities.
The death of the Somali youth could be a good place to start.
Coronavirus infections at the Luona-managed Nihtisilta reception center in Espoo now stand at 97, according to Luona’s Business Director Suvi Salonen.That compares with two cases at the beginning of April and up to 25 during the middle of the month.
This angry asylum seeker accused Luona of “negligence” for allowing the number of infected people to rise to “more than 100 people (sic).” Luona states that the situation is under control and the total number of infected asylum seekers is 97.
“We tested 207 people [of the Nihtisilta reception center] on Monday and Tuesday and 72 tested positively [compared with 25 previously],” said Salonen.
The Luona business director said that the asylum reception center is in quarantine.
“I would like to commend the workers at the [Nihtisilta] reception centers who are on the frontline [protecting the asylum seekers and themselves],” she concluded.
Salonen said that the Vantaa Robert Huberin tien asylum reception center has two coronavirus infections.
What is the worse matter about the coronavirus pandemic? Social distancing? Or US President Donald Trump?
In my opinion, President Trump and his shoddy leadership and outright lies are far worse than the coronavirus pandemic.
His latest lie was contradicting his country’s own intelligence on the origin of the coronavirus.
Trump’s suggestion that bleaches or beams of light could kill the coronavirus suggests that something isn’t right in his head.Source: Facebook. Thank you, Alberto Coronel, for the heads-up.
Mark my words: Trump is such a sociopath that he will not think twice by waging a new World War if it means that it will get him reelected.
The US president, his family, his political, and billionaire cronies are a much greater threat to the world than the coronavirus.
