Is there a connection between what happened in July with Pekka Kataja and his attempted murder by the far right and the latest case involving at least one police officer and a group of far-right extremists to carry out a serious crime against the life or health of others?
Expo, the Swedish anti-racism NGO, states that such acts of violence may not be isolated events since raids against far-right groups were recently uncovered in Finland and Spain, and Austria.
If there is one matter that US President Donald Trump’s self-coup has evidenced, it is the fragility of our democracy. This is also the case in Finland with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a pro-Trump radical right party that openly supports Trump.
Some factors unite Finland with the United States. Finns have – incorrectly – said in the past that they are the most USAmerican country in Europe.
Last Friday, we got a taste of how radical- and far-right populism have emboldened such groups to plan attacks against anti-racism activists.
Even if we don’t have Republicans in power, we do have the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which openly supports Trump and his divisive policies. We have a copy of the Proud Boys as well called the Soldiers of Odin, a far-right vigilante group with neo-Nazi ties that has threatened to use – and uses – violence to drive home its point.
The message coming out of PS leader Jussi Halla-aho and Trump are strikingly based on similar worldviews. Both politicians and parties are trying to claw on to their white privilege by disenfranchising other goups.
In the United States, they are black and brown USAmericans. In Finland, too, we have an ever-growing number of black and brown Finns.
I am sometimes amazed by the racism of both of our societies. The fastest way to gain power and attention is to spread racism and incredulous alternative truths.
Even if the grip of Halla-aho’s Finland and Trump’s USAmerica is loosening, they will do anything – even destroying our democracy – to retain power.
I have no doubt that, like Trump in the US now, the PS would be ready to water down our Nordic welfare state democracy and turn Finland into a Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Continue reading “A danger to democracy”Muukalaispelkoa ja siitä kehkeytynyttä vihaa lienee aina ollut ja tulee aina olemaan. Mutta milloin siitä tuli hyväksytty tapa tehdä politiikkaa? Milloin pakolaisesta tuli paholainen?
1990-luvulla vaihtaessani työpaikkaa esimieheni sihteeri kertoi, että uusilta työntekijöiltä kysytään heti, mitä mieltä he ovat pakolaisista. Arvaatte varmastikin, mitä mieltä olisi pitänyt olla. Minulle tuota kysymystä ei ollut esitetty ja olin tuon kuullessani niin ällikällä lyöty, että en edes osannut kunnolla reagoida asiaan. Vuoden 2011 vaalien jälkeen ahdistus oli suuri, kun huomasimme, kuinka suureksi viha oli noussut.
Meillä on jo kauan elänyt joukkio, jonka pelkoja ja ennakkoluuloja on onnistuttu kiihottamaan ja jotka ovat valmiit äänestämään ketä tahansa, joka lupaa pitää Suomen valkoisena. Siis rasistinen äänestäjäkunta äänestämässä rasistisia poliitikkoja.
Siinä joukossa ja sen liepeillä on väkeä, joka ei oikein malttaisi odottaa, että kiihottaminen pakolaisia vastaan johtaisi yksinkertaiseen enemmistöön eduskunnassa ja päästäisiin tositoimiin. Jo kymmenen vuotta sitten löydettiin äärioikeiston keräämä lista kansanpettureista, joihin toimenpiteet kohdennettaisiin. Me nettikeskusteluun ahkerasti osallistuvat lienemme kaikki saaneet myös suoraan meille osoitettuja viestejä: ”Sinä tulet olemaan ensimmäisten joukossa”.
Eilen kuulimme, että poliisilla on jälleen tutkinnassa törkeän henkeen ja terveyteen kohdistuvan rikoksen valmistelu. ”Ajatusrikoksia”, huutavat palstoilla äärioikeiston tukijat. Monet ”tolkun ihmisetkin” ovat sitä mieltä, että tyhjästä nostetaan meteli, eiväthän ne toteuttamaan pysty. Jos olisi ollut kysymys muusta kuin oikeiston suunnitelmista, poliisia jo kiiteltäisiin terroristisen teon ehkäisystä.
Kun puolueen tai siksi pyrkivien agenda on niin heikko, että sen tukemiseksi tarvitaan tuollaista kielenkäyttöä ja edes ajatuksia siitä, että muita pitäisi vähän murhata, että päästäisiin elämään herroiksi, on yhteiskunnan syytä reagoida. Olisi tullut tehdä jotain kauan sitten. Rasistien nostaminen tasavertaisiksi kumppaneiksi poliittiseen keskusteluun oli suuri virhe. Eduskunnan häpäisy jatkuvilla rasistisilla puheilla samoin. Suomen kansa ansaitsee demokratiansa. Sen horjuttajia ei pidä kunnioittaa.
Continue reading “Reija Härkönen: Milloin kunnialliset puolueet ryhtyvät toimeen?”Remember Fares Al-Obaidi, 19, who was chased and violently attacked on Saturday, June 6, by a gang of angry residents of Teuva, a town in Western Finland? Six months have passed since that terrible incident, and no charges have been brought yet against the alleged attackers.
“The fact that I know nothing about my case [and the charges],” said Al-Obaidi, “gives me the impression that what happened to me isn’t important to the police. Those who attacked me are walking freely with no consequences.”
Fares admits that his life changed by the events of early June.
“I no longer feel safe when going outside,” he continued. “I moved to another city [to Espoo from Kristiinankaupunki]. I have to take sleeping pills because I suffer from sleep disorders and have a tough time concentrating at school.”
Fares came to Finland in 2015 like tens of thousands of others fleeing war. He speaks Finnish fluently and attends high school. Even if he left is home country, a former home that is at war with itself for a long time, he never thought he’d experience what he did in Finland.
His ordeal began on a Saturday. Fares was first insulted by a group of residents from the town of Teuva and then chased by two cars on the road. Two other cars blocked the road ahead of him and had no choice but to drive the car into a ditch.
Fares tried to run away from his attackers, but it was to no avail. He was beaten so badly by them that he ended up being taken by an ambulance to a hospital in Seinäjoki.
“I don’t know what will happen to me in the future, but I am waiting for justice,” he concluded.
The Soldiers of Odin are a white supremacist vigilante group founded in the northern Finnish city of Kemi in 2015. The founder, Mika Ranta, a declared neo-Nazi.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a USAmerican anti-Semitism and anti-bigotry group founded in 1913, wrote about the Soldiers of Odin under the subtitle of “From Finland with Hate.”
The ADL writes: “Though the Finnish group has proclaimed that it has no ideology or racist orientation, European journalists looking at its membership soon found that its individual members certainly did, with
many of them linked to various white supremacist and other far right groups—and a number of them possessing criminal backgrounds.”
Even if the tweet raises some questions, it should not surprise us since the police have had an ambiguous relationship with the far-right group.
By looking at the tweet and the picture below of Soldiers of Odin’s leader Mika Ranta, it isn’t hard to figure out why far-right xenophobic groups and parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have grown.
THIS POST WAS UPDATED
Much of Finland’s history is whitewashed. One of its victims was Rosa Emilia Clay (1875-1959), Finland’s first African-born Finn who received Finnish citizenship in 1899. The naming of Rosa Emilia Clay square in Tampere is a watershed: Finland is slowly but surely awakening to its rich cultural and ethnic background.
Even if Rosa Emilia Clay was born in Namibia, then German Southwest Africa, she represents all non-white Finns in the country. She is a reminder that such people not only have history but a right to it.
Considering that Rosa Emilia Clay’s name could not be found anywhere on the Finnish municipal map, such a distinction was granted and long overdue after 145 years after her birth and 61 years after her death.
Better late than never.
As with others, I have also lobbied for a street named after Rosa Emilia Clay. In 2019, I contacted academic researcher Anna Rastas, who is an expert on Rosa Emilia Clay.
Continue reading “Rosa Emilia Clay finally gets recognition when Tampere names a square after her”You would think that Finland, which claims to have one of the world’s best education systems, knows how to deal with racism and bullying. If we look at the last decade and the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, it appears that Finland has failed miserably in the task.
The PS is today the second biggest party in parliament and the biggest opposition party. One of their favorite political pastimes is to spread racist statements about migrants.
We can agree that racism is a viler form of bullying than found in school.
Certain ways to fail at tackling bullying at school is by ignoring it and allowing it to continue unchecked.
Racism spewed by PS and other politicians can shed its poisonous roots if we do not change the toxic soil (prejudice) from which racism feeds and grows.
Green League minister of the interior, Maria Ohisalo, showed us leadership on this front on how we can change that soil.
“Moreover, the Perussuomalaiset’s logic is racist,” she tweeted, “it is harmful to low-income migrants as to native Finns. To those people in a difficult [socio-economic] situation who need help the most.”
Finland needs more leadership examples against racism unless we do not want our country to turn into Hungary, Poland, or the Trump-led United States.
Perussuomalaiset toivottivat 6.12. kaikille “suomalaisille” hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää. Noin kaksi vuottaa sitten, Johannes Sipola perussuomalaisista toivosi kaikille “valkoisille iseille” hyvää isänpäivää.
Onko näissä kahdessa toivomuksissa eroa?
Ei ole, koska ne ovat tarkoitettu valkoiselle suomalaisille, ei vähemmistölle, eli vaikkapa ruskeille suomalaisille. Heidän viestinsä on selvää: itsenäisyysjuhla kuuluu vain valkoisille suomalaisille.
Jos kysyt perussuomalaisista, onko tämä rasistista, he varmasti kysyvät mitä on rasismia.
A neo-Nazi online publication called Partisaani is a good example of how far-right groups feed and fool readers. After close examination, the Partisaani publication’s layout has a striking similarity to Yle’s, the Finnish Broadcasting Company website.
Even the typeset and layout of the stories are a copy of Yle.
Check the two examples below. The only way you distinguish them is by the stories.
The reception center of Mänttä-Vilpula is closing at the end of 2020. All asylum seekers at the reception center were told that they will be relocating/ transferring to reception centers in other cities.
Some of the asylum seekers are currently studying at Mänttä school and are permitted to stay and continue their studies in the city. They were relocated to new living quarters a week ago. This means that 75€ from their monthly social benefits of 315€ will go to only paying rent.
The payment for rent is withdrawn from their bank account in advance.
But the agreement with the asylum seekers to live elsewhere was canceled without prior notice by the manager of the reception center. Two Afghan asylum seekers went to their new flat after school on Thursday and noted that they could not open the door because it was locked from the inside. Some employees of the reception center were inside their flat. The asylum seekers were told to come back in an hour.
When they returned, three security guards were inside the flat. Both asylum seekers were shocked and panicked because all their belongings were packed and ordered to get ready and move to another city!
One of the asylum seekers had a panic attack and collapsed on the floor. All the employees, include three security guards, witnessed what happened and called the police instead of an ambulance!
The police came and tied the hand of the asylum seeker but noticed shortly that he had panic and could not move at all. An ambulance came but they rejected to do anything and left the flat. After one hour, another ambulance took the asylum seeker to the first-aid center.
Some of the asylum seeker’s friends were there and the nurses told them that they he should leve the center because there is nothing they can do for him even if the Afghan suspected he had suffered a stroke.
Fortunately, he was taken to a hospital and the nurses suggested that he’d be checked in a psychiatric clinic next week.
Both afghan asylums include others as well who are studying at school in Mänttä city and paying such a high amount of their monthly aid for rent.
This is the story told to me by 3 persons. There are some tough questions that must be asked to the manager of the reception center!