THIS POEM WAS UPDATED
Where is your heart, Riikka Purra?
Did you throw it away in a trash can?
Or did you hungrily devour it
after you saw your first refugee
The bricks that line your political path
will turn red hot and melt your shoe soles;
even if you can only be tall for now
by forcing others on their knees,
your days are counted and you will lose
because the people you kick around today
will kick back, and hard.
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED
While some reporters are hoping for the downfall of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government, they are also rooting for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, whom they see as a shoo-in to lead or be a member of Finland’s next government after the 2023 parliamentary elections.
If you look at the reporting of the PS, it’s easy to discern the Finnish media’s important role in the growth of this radical-right and xenophobic party.
Moreover, the growth of the PS could be seen as Finland’s racism problem’s coming of age and that all the media had to do was give it a platform at the right.
Even if racism was always present in Finland, it had no opportunity to grow since there were hardly any foreigners until the 1990s, especially from 1995 when we joined the EU in 1995.
The first question: Is the new PS leadership under Riikka Purra capable of turning Finland into a worse country for migrants and minorities? Will the PS leadership succeed at penalizing people even more for not being a white Finn?
If we look at the new PS leaders elected on Saturday, the answer is no. I have written that the worst enemy of the party is its radical-right and racist views.
Let’s briefly look at the PS leadership and why they will fail to transform Finland into a country that loathes diversity.
Statements about tightening immigration policy by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* elected chairperson, Riikka Purra, exposes her cowardice and the complacency of the Finnish media.
The cowardice comes from bullying people who are powerless to challenge her hostility. The complacency of the Finnish media comes from seeing no wrong in Purra’s and the PS’ hatred of migrants and minorities.
Purra, an ethnonationalist who fears brown and black Finns taking over the country, reiterated today at her victory speech that she is ready to lead the country as prime minister and would not enter a coalition government unless it takes a hard line on immigration.
“If a party is not ready to tighten immigration policy, then that’s game over, and we don’t have a possibility of co-operating [with them],” she was quoted as saying in Yle News.
There is so much poppycock and hypocrisy in Purra’s statement that it implodes with ease.
Just because Purra is doing her Ph.D. studies does not mean anything if you lack empathy for others.
Many Nazi German leaders had Ph.D. degrees like Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels that did not stop him from murdering his six children and becoming one of the architects of the Holocaust.
While some Nazis had one PhD.degree, others, like Emil Otto Rasch, had two doctorate degrees in law and political economy. Rasch, like others that led the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front had Ph.D. degrees and were responsible for murdering two million Jews and other enemies of the regime.
Have politicians like Purra ever stopped to think that migration has always walked side by side with human history? Even Finland, saw over 1.2 million Finns emigrate during 1860-1999.
Continue reading “Riikka Purra and the PS: Grow up! Stop bullying migrants and minorities!”The annual of the xenophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in Seinäjoki will elect Saturday the party’s next chairperson after Jussi Halla-aho announced in June that he would not seek a new term.
While it is a foregone conclusion that the PS’ first vice president Riikka Purra will be the party’s new chairperson, it is also clear that the party’s main selling point will be xenophobia.
Purra is one of the most vociferous Islamophobes of the PS. She is also an ethnonationalist who believes that brown and black people will take over white Finns. Conclusive evidence of this is a tweet below, where a person with a master’s degree from a Finnish university doing her Ph.D. claims that she can intuitively spot who a Finn is.
Her racist and ethnocentric comment, which supposedly does not include brown or black Finns, is as big of a mystery as the PS. How is it possible that a country with one of the best education systems in the world has created fertile ground for the growth of Finland’s biggest opposition party that is openly racist?
Each country hides a big lie, which enables those in power to perpetuate their power.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr., who wrote an insightful bibliography of one of the US’ greatest social thinkers, James Baldwin, considered the “lie” to be a “broad and powerful architecture of false assumptions” by which the value gap is maintained.
In the same light as Baldwin exposed and spoke candidly about the “lie,” Finland also houses and defends its lie.
The lie permits most of the media to treat the PS with kid gloves and help them gain more power through uncritical opinion pieces and editorials.
One of the biggest enablers of the PS is the Finnish media, which gave it a platform to transform itself from a small party to one of the biggest in Finland.
The lie has also blinded us from our bigotry and exceptionalist sandbox. It has also emboldened racists to attack and create a hostile environment for migrants and minorities.
How many migrants and minorities believe that they are equal before the law even if this is one of our inalienable rights?
Whoever is elected to lead the PS today will continue its stranglehold on Finland’s lie.
The PS is a lie.
Riikka Purra, the favorite to win the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* leadership at the party’s annual meeting over the weekend, said Wednesday at Yle’s A-Studio was one of the many steps she took wants to tighten citizenship laws.
This summer, the first vice president of the PS said that the party would not join any government that would not tighten “significantly” immigration policy.
The present chairperson of the party, Jussi Halla-aho made a surprise announcement in June that he would step down as party chairperson.
Even if Purra did not mention how she would tighten citizenship laws, members of the PS have spoken of raising the requirement for citizenship from five years to as much as ten years.
Purra also victimized as usual low-wage migrants and how family reunification laws should also be tightened further.
She claimed that Finland’s family reunification laws are not as tight as Sweden’s. Factcheck?
Some see these proposed changes in the immigration law and limiting social welfare to migrants and even Finns as the neo-conservative fact of the party.
Few will argue that if the PS is in government, it will severely undermine the rights of migrants, workers, and groups like single mothers.
Even if there is a lot of hostility and bravado, especially in Purra’s comments, it is clear that it will be difficult to recognize Finland if the next prime minister of Finland is from an Islamophobic party like the PS.
For the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, Helsingin Sanomat gives the country’s largest opposition party the kid-glove treatment. Are fear, agreement, or hopeful naivety the driving forces behind Helsingin Sanomat’s recent articles about the PS?
Over the weekend, the daily published in its Kuukausiliite a big story about PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari, who is trying to make a political name for herself by becoming Finland’s Nigel Farage.
The journalist Jenni Virtanen, who wrote the story, described the PS’ membership in the ID Group of the European Parliament in the following terms:
As a non-white Finn, I would have expected that the Helsingin Sanomat article would tell people like me how both candidates will continue to make life difficult for members of our ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse community. Moreover, 16% of Helsinki residents speak another language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue.
Why didn’t Virtanen use the term far-right in describing the ID Group? Some of the distinguished members of that EU parliamentary group include the National Rally (Marine Le Pen), Lega (Matteo Salvini), and other far-right parties like FPÖ of Austria, Alternative for Germany, Danish People’s Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom, among four others including the PS.
On Monday, Helsingin Sanomat readers got another chance to continue to see the daily’s biased journalism. Joona Aaltonen wrote:
In the story, which looked at the main policy differences between the two leading contenders for chairperson of the PS, not a word is mentioned if Sakari Puisto and Riikka Purra still believe in the great replacement theory and how much they would tighten immigration policy.
We know how much Purra has warned white Finns about how they will become a minority in the future. She even went as far as to state that she “could intuitionally” spot a Finn in public.
From the article, we don’t know if Purra and Puisto continue to push ethnonationalism and how much white Finnish supremacy malarkey they believe in.
The article states that both candidates are ideologically close to Halla-aho and thereby suggests that both are also white Finnish supremacists.
What if most of the anti-immigration talking points spread by politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, Riikka Purra, and most of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party are just outright lies and urban legends? What if those false arguments put Finland in economic and social peril because they are untrue?
An interesting paper titled, The 14 Most Common Arguments against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong, published by the Cato Institute, dispels common myths.
Even if the Cato Institute list applies to the United States, it sits very well with Finland. The same arguments are made against immigrants in the United States are made in Finland.
Continue reading “Exposing white Finnish privilege #79: Spreading lies at our economic peril”
Ara Malikian is a musician that awakens the magic from his violin. Isn’t it surprising when we can travel easily from one country to the next, there are still people who don’t accept that we can build many homes during our lifetime in many countries? We can be from one, two, or many places simultaneously.
What would you call those who discriminate against you based on being from many cultures? In my opinion, such people are in the same league as the worst racists. Like the racist, they too are denying your rights based on your background.
If the Tweet below is anything to go by, Ara Malikian must feel the same way.
He Tweets: “In Lebanon didn’t consider me to be fully “Lebanese” because of my Armenian origin; the Armenians didn’t consider me to be fully “Armenian” because I was born in Lebanon. When I established myself in Europe, they didn’t consider me “European” because I wasn’t born in Europe; it took years to be at peace with myself, accept who I am, and accept being an “eternal” foreigner. I have lived in Spain for 20 years and have Spanish citizenship. They disqualified me from the Latin Grammys for not being sufficiently Latin, considering that I was nominated for one of those Grammys four years ago and had performed at the inauguration gala for three years. Does someone understand this?”
Remember the real estate agent from Espoo who asked for a client’s personal information by disregarding the non-discrimination act? The person in question was a candidate for the Perussuomalaiset* party in the June municipal election. He did not get elected.
Below, it one message that the real estate agent sent Husein Hamiid, who has lived in Finland for over 20 years.
Hamiid has filed charges against the real estate agent to the police about the incident and got in touch with the Federation of Real Estate Agency that sent (30.7) the following email message:
“Hi.
The Federation of Real Estate Agency neither gives advice nor handles complaints or disputes by brokerage firms…Moreover, the guide to good rental practices addresses discrimination. The guidelines state that rental brokerage agreements [between parties] must abide by non-discrimination legislation. The landlord and the broker are free to evaluate and select the [potential] tenant, but this cannot happen on discriminatory grounds. Acceptable criteria include, for example, the future tenant’s financial solvency as well as other factors related to the fulfillment of tenancy obligations. The selection of a tenant cannot hinge – for example – on origin, nationality, religion, or disability. If the applicant meets the requirements, the apartment cannot be left unleased due only to their foreign background. The real estate intermediary is obliged to inform the client of the prohibition of discriminatory practices and refuse to accept such an order based on discriminatory terms.
Best regards,
The Federation of Real Estate Agency
Below, is a reminder of how the Finnish constitution defines non-discrimination:
Will Hamiid see justice, and will his efforts pay off?
The outcome will reveal a lot about how the Finnish authorities treat discrimination.
Is non-discrimination a toothless fancy word, or is it taken seriously?
Muistatko kun espoolainen kiinteistönvälittäjä pyysi henkilökohtaista tietoa asiakasta piittamatta yhdenvertaisuutta? Hän oli myös perussuomalaisten kuntavaali ehdokas kesäkuussa eikä tullut valituksi.
Tässä on viesti joka kiinteistönvälittäjä lähetti Husein Hamiidille, joka on asunut Suomessa yli 20 vuotta.
Hamiid on jo tehnyt rikosilmoituksen asiasta ja ottanut yhteyttää Kiinteistönvälitysalan Keskusliittoon, joka lähetti (30.7.2021) hänelle seuraavan sähköpostiviesti:
“Hei.
Kiinteistönvälitysalan Keskusliitto ei tarjoa neuvontaa tai käsittele välitysliikkeitä koskevia valituksia tai riita-asioita…Lisäksi Hyvän vuokravälitystavan ohjeessa todetaan yhdenvertaisuudesta. Ohjeen mukaan vuokravälityksessä on otettava huomioon yhdenvertaisuuslainsäädäntö. Vuokranantaja sekä välittäjä voivat vapaasti arvioida ja valita vuokralaisen, mutta eivät syrjivin perustein. Hyväksyttäviä arviointiperusteita ovat esimerkiksi vuokralaisen maksukyky ja muut vuokrasuhteen velvoitteiden täyttämiseen liittyvät perusteet. Vuokralaisvalintaa ei kuitenkaan saa perustaa esimerkiksi vuokralaisehdokkaan alkuperään, kansalaisuuteen, uskontoon tai vammaisuuteen liittyvään syyhyn. Esimerkiksi asuntoa ei voi jättää vuokraamatta asunnonhakijalle pelkästään hänen ulkomaalaistaustansa vuoksi, jos hän täyttää muut valintakriteerit. Välittäjän velvollisuutena on tiedottaa myös toimeksiantajaa syrjinnänkiellosta ja viime kädessä kieltäytyä vastaanottamasta toimeksiantoa, jossa on syrjiviä ehtoja.
Ystävällisin terveisin
Kiinteistönvälitysalan Keskusliiton toimisto
[email protected]“