July 2023 - Migrant tales

Petteri Orpo’s government of Finland loathes migrants: Is it an overestimation or underestimation?

Posted on July 30, 2023July 30, 2023 by Migrant Tales

By now, after numerous scandals, Prime Minister Petteri Opro may be thinking that getting into bed with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* was a huge mistake that will have far-reaching consequences for the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and even end up costing him his job.

If Orpo and PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra had a crystal ball to look into the future, what would they have done differently? Quite a lot, I think.

Prime Minister Orpo got the first sour taste of scandals to hit his government with Vilhelm Junnila, who resigned almost s soon he was appointed as minister of foreign trade.

It could be summed up in two words: overestimate and underestimate.

It’s pretty clear that Orpo and Purra underestimated the Wilhelm Junnila debacle. Or maybe the correct term should be wishful thinking, believing that Junnila’s racist, far-right, and anti-Semitic writings would not raise any questions.

One matter that Purra and her party overestimated was the lure of racism and xenophobia. Like a magic button, the PS can turn to its magic racism button to get votes, and lots of them, and media complacency.

But has this now changed? Are we now seeing, as what PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen called a paradigm shift migration policy, a change in our perception and acceptance of racism?

Time will tell if my comment was an overestimation or an underestimation of the situation.

Ahti Tolvanen: Hallitukselle RE: “Nollatoleranssi syrjinnälle ja rasismille”

Posted on July 29, 2023July 31, 2023 by Migrant Tales

Koska eduskunnalta pyydetään hallituksella luottamusta, vaikka tämä samalla sijoittaisi vaikutusvaltaiseen asemaan rasismia tai valkoisen rodun ylivaltaa vuosia sanoilla ja teoillaan eri tavoin edistäneitä henkilöitä kuten Purra, Rantanen ja Rydman, on pyyntö harvinaisen ongelmallinen.
Eduskuntaa pyydetään samalla hyväksymään ohjelmaehdotuksen, jonka tavoitteena on pääministeri Orpon ilmoittama ”nollatoleranssi syrjinnälle ja rasismille.”

Orpon hallitukseen kohdistuu ennennäkemätön haaste, selvästi vaatien hyvin poikkeuksellisia toimia. Osa
hallituksen jäsenistä vastustavat maan perustuslakiin kirjattuja perusoikeuksia tai kyseenalaistavat
hallitusohjelman mm. maahanmuuttoa koskevia tavoitteita ja kansainvälisten sopimuksien sitovuutta.
Ratkaisun pitäisi sisältää ainakin eräiden henkilöiden täyskielto hallituskaudeksi internetin käyttöön koska
tämän kauttahan he ovat levittäneet ja levittävät rasistista ja syrjivää sanomaansa. Toimenpide näin ollen
olisi aivan kohtuullinen ja tarpeellinen jos nollatoleranssille halutaan jonkinlaista uskottavuutta.

Puhuvathan he ministereinä monessa yhteydessä kaikkien kansalaisten puolesta ja kansan mainetta
varsinkin ulkomaille tulisi suojella kuin silmäterää eikä päästää huonomaineisia henkilöitä levittämään
maailmalle syrjiviä tai rasistisia ajatuksiaan. Varsinkin internetissä.

Tämä ehto olisi syytä asettaa myös eduskunnassa puhemies Jussi Halla-aholle, joka on syyllistynyt viha-
puherikoksiin toistamiseen.

Syrjintään ja rasismiin taipuvaisille hallituksen jäsenille voitaisiin myös määrätä heidän sijaintinsa osoittavat jalkapannat sen jälkeen, kun heille on määrätty lähestymiskielto kaikkiin kiellettyjen järjestöjen ja ylipäänsä kaikkiin rasistisiin tai natsismia lietsoviin kokouksiin ja henkilöihin, kuten esim. Halla-ahoon ja MEP Teuvo Hakkaraiseen.

Esimerkki löytyy Ruotsista, josta olemme ennenkin saaneet hyviä ideoita hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan
kehittämiseksi. Jalkapantaratkaisuhan liittyy siellä vireillä olevaan lakiesitykseen jengirikollisuuden
ehkäisemiseksi, jolla pyritään rajoittamaan epäiltyjen henkilöiden yhteiskunnalle aiheutuvaa vahinkoa.
Rajoitus asetettaisiin syyttäjän luvalla ilman oikeuden päätöstä.

Koko hallituksella tulisi samalla vaatia rasisminvastainen koulutus OPM:n ”Ole Antirasisti”- verkkosivun
oppien mukaisesti. Koulutuksessa tulisi korostua aktiivinen puuttuminen työkavereiden rasistisiin puheisiin työpaikoilla, hyssyttelyn ja hiljaisen sivuuttamisen sijaan. Hallitus voisi hyvin toimia eräänlaisena
pilottihankkeena.

Hallituksen jäsenet, jotka ovat syyllistyneet rasistisiin puheisiin ja tekoihin määrättäisiin, sanktioiden lisäksi tai sijasta-teon vakavuudesta riippuen- yhteiskunnalliseen työhön esimerkiksi vastaanottokeskuksiin tai toimimaan asunnottomien maahanmuuttajien kotimajoittajina. Ojennusohjelman lopussa tulisi rasismiin syyllistyneille tehdä asiantuntijoiden toimesta ”tehokkaan katumisen” arvio.

Tehokkaat sanktiot, kuten painavat sakot ja säilöönotto, ovat perusteltuja varsinkin silloin kun nämä
koskisivat ministeritason henkilöitä, jotka esimerkkinsä ja vaikutusvaltansa kautta voisivat aiheuttaa
yhteiskunnallemme ja kansainvälisille suhteillemme paljonkin suurempaa haittaa kuin tavalliset
rikosepäillyt rivikansalaiset- jos ja kun eduskunta antaa heille luottamuksensa kansan nimissä.
Tiedän että yllämainittujen aikaansaaminen on lähes kokonaan toiveajattelua, niin kuin on tämän
hallituksen ”nollatolarennsi”- ohjelmakin. Olisikohan nyt se hetki jolloin ne kansaa edustavat jotka uskovat persuslakiin kirjattuihin oikeusiinme ja kansainvälisten sopimuksien sitovuuteen, unohtaisivat
päivänpoliittiset erimielisyytensä ja tekisivät tilanteen vaativan oikean ratkaisun?

Tämän hallitusremontin johtoajatuksen voisi ehkä lainata Shakespearelta: ”Epätoivoiset sairaudet
epätoivoisin keinoin parannetaan- jos ollenkaan.”

Spain’s snap election result is bad news for Finland’s conservative-radical right government

Posted on July 28, 2023July 28, 2023 by Migrant Tales

Instead of only congratulating the National Coalition Party’s (NCP) sister party, Partido Popular, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo should pay close attention to the election result in Spain. True, the conservative Partido Popular, won the election, but the result was disappointing and insufficient to give it a majority.

Social Democratic (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ snap election gamble paid off handsomely. The PSOE defied all expectations and gave it 31.7% of the vote, the best result in percentage terms since 2008. More importantly, the result broke with Europe’s shift to the radical right.

Source: The Guardian.

The biggest loser of Spain’s election was the far-right Vox, a sister party of the Finnish Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. Support for Vox plummeted to 12% from 15% in 2019, causing it to lose 19 seats to end up with 33 seats in parliament.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat

If Spain can beat conservative and radical right parties in an election, countries like Finland should be encouraged by the result in Spain.

Finland’s government gets ready for another scandal. This time it’s Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman. The party? You guessed it.

Posted on July 28, 2023July 28, 2023 by Migrant Tales

It is ironic that when Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra published Wednesday a blog playing down her racist and violent postings of 2008, another scandal erupted when Helsingin Sanomat revealed a number of racist messages of PS Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman. The messages were written in 2016 between him and his former girlfriend.

Rydman’s anti-immigration views were so well known in his former party, the National Coalition Party (NCP), that he was known as “NCP’s Halla-aho.”

Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of parliament, is known as the “father of Finnish racism” due to his blog writings on Scripta.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat

In those messages, Rydman called asylum seekers who came in 2015 “desert monkeys” and used other racist words for blacks, Muslims, and Jews. He wrote that a certain flower, the lilly of the valley, spreads and multiplies like Somalis. Rydman said he’d be ready to forbid the person wearing the hijab instead of the veil.

The incident is the sixth scandal involving five PS ministers and the speaker of the parliament.

Rydman ran into problems last year when Helsingin Sanomat published an investigative story where a number of young women, some of whom were minors, claimed they were harassed by him.

The scandal caused Rydman to be suspended from the party. He joined the PS in January.

Riikka Purra plays the victim and plays down her racist blog writings of 2008

Posted on July 27, 2023July 27, 2023 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s defense rests on playing the victim and underplaying her racist and hostile blog postings she wrote on Scripta in 2008, where she used the n-word, Turkish monkey, threatened to kill youths of migrant origin on a commuter train, among other anti-social postings.

On the right, a self-confident Riikka Purra. After the scandal broke, her image changed (left).

Scripta is a blog written by Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion. Halla-aho was appointed in June speaker of parliament.

You can access some quotes from Halla-aho’s blog here.

A warning: Scripta is littered with Islamophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and misogynist writings.

A good example of how an Islamophobic party like the PS covers its hatred for Muslims. In the top picture, the PS claims that Muslim women are oppressed because they wear certain Muslim attire. In the second cartoon below, the PS gives its real opinion: “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? That dress has no place in Finland.” Purra made a comment in 2019 of a woman with a “black sack” which she hasn’t apologized.

One of Purra’s main defenses of her racist, homophobic, and hostile writings is that they were written 15 years ago and eight years before she entered politics. She wrote that the writings were “15-year-old comments made on the Internet 15 years ago.”

If I had to break down her defense:
One third playing the victim
One third blaming others like the media
One third defiance

Even if Purra doesn’t mention it in her blog, she was 31 years old in 2008 and a university researcher.

Her second defense argument is that her racist postings were done as “insider humor and sarcasm.”

Radical Right Interior Minister Mari Rantanen tries to erase her racist past

Posted on July 26, 2023July 26, 2023 by Migrant Tales

Radical right politicians like Mari Rantanen, the new interior minister of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government, claimed with a poker face in an Uusi Suomi interview that she does not see any racism or far-right issues in her party. “I don’t know then what we are supposed to renounce,” she added.

For those who have not been following the government crisis due to the Perussuomalaiset’s (PS) links with the far right and racist postings, National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Orpo has promised to set strong guidelines against racism and commitment to equality and non-discrimination.

To many who have observed Rantanen in the opposition, some may conclude that her views of migrants are racist and based on conspiracy theories. Before the April election, she posted (now taken down) on her website the great replacement theory: “We mustn’t be so naive [naive in Finnish means being ‘blue-eyed’] that soon we won’t be blue-eyed.”

Other PS politicians who have spread this conspiracy theory are Riikka Purra (finance minister and deputy prime minister), Leena Meri (justice minister), and Wille Rydman (minister for foreign trade).

Interior Minister Mari Rantanen. Source: Uusi Suomi.

Apart from hoping in a comment that asylum seekers would drown in Greek waters before reaching safety, her racist views, like on the great replacement, are littered throughout her Internet history.

22/7: A day of infamy we must never forget but returns

Posted on July 22, 2023July 26, 2023 by Migrant Tales

It is a creepy coincidence that during another 22/7 anniversary when a mass murderer in Norway killed in cold blood 77 victims in 2011, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are ruled by governments that are hostile to people from outside the EU.

In Finland, we have two far-right terrorist investigations suspected of planning attacks against migrants.

Source: Yle

The same language that the Norwegian killer used to justify his actions was used in Finland by Riika Purra, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* finance minister and deputy prime minister, to denigrate migrants. Like the Norwegian killer, who warned about Muslims taking over Europe, Purra lashes out in her Scripta writings against Muslims, gays, the Romany minority, and Africans.

Apart from spitting on beggars, Purra threatened to use a gun on a commuter train to kill youths of migrant backgrounds.

Two images of PS Finance minister Riikka Purra: Confident and beaten after the revelations of her racist and violent blog posts of 2008 came to public light. Sources: BBC and Iltalehti.

Scripta is an Islamophobic, xenophobic, and homophobic blog written by Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion and is the speaker of parliament.

All you have to do is look at Orpo’s government to understand Finland’s shameful racism problem now threatening our democracy

Posted on July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by Migrant Tales

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is a weak leader and part of Finland’s racism problem.

National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government, which has been christened as the Chamber of Horrors by Munich-based daily, Süddeutsche Zeitun, is a disappointing example of how you should not confront racism in this country. Many are rightfully worried about how racism, through the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and NCP, is threatening our democracy.

A headline for a Helsingin Sanomat story. “Orpo leads with his eyes closed,” explains ideally what is wrong with the prime minister’s leadership and the government.

Another ludicrous claim s the so-called “good” government program praised by Orpo and others in the government, even if it disenfranchises and discriminates against migrants and minorities.

The government has lost credibility due to the numerous scandals dealing with racism and links to the far right. Without credibility, it is clear that the only way to regain it is by letting go of the PS and forming a new government. If nothing changes, all efforts by Orpo to restore confidence will look like wild goose chases.

Another problem is the constant denial of racism and the PS. A recent example was when Orpo was asked on A-studio if he thought a 2019 description by PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra of a Muslim wearing “a black sack” was acceptable.

A good example of how an Islamophobic party like the PS covers its hatred for Muslims. In the top picture, the PS claims that Muslim women are oppressed because they wear certain Muslim attire. In the second cartoon below, the PS gives its real opinion: Why don’t you go back to where you came from? That dress has no place in Finland.”

Orpo responded that it was unacceptable.

Let’s test your level of naivety: Is Finland finally awakening to its “r” problem?

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Migrant Tales

It would be wrong to just blame the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* for Finland’s racism problem. The rise of the PS after the 2011 election would not have been possible without the direct and indirect support of other political parties, the media, and the public.

When results of the 2011 election started to appear on television screens, which placed the PS in the major political leagues after 39 MPs were elected versus five previously, a perilous watershed was crossed. Back then, Migrant Tales was one of the few voices in Finland warning about the rise of the PS.

My concern was even heard by Time Magazine.

But let’s go to the original question in the headline: Are we waking up to our country’s racism problem?

As mentioned, it would be misleading to just blame the PS for the growth of this problem.

Finland’s racism problem, which is a pretty serious social ill, has grown thanks to denial and playing down the problem. If Riikka Purra’s writing was concerning, they will be small fries when compared with the hostility our culturally diverse communities will endure when we grow bigger and demand our rights and public spaces, which rightfully belong to us, too.

Finland’s Prime Minister Orpo’s Pyrrhic victory

Posted on July 12, 2023April 22, 2024 by Migrant Tales

The only matter that Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s embattled government will gain if it does not go under after its chaotic start on 20 June, is a Pyrrhic victory. In today’s press conference with journalists, Orpo defended Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s apology for her violent and racist comments made in 2008 when she was a 31-year-old researcher at Turku University.

The long-overdue meeting with the media was to clear up Purra’s apology for her past writings where she commonly used the n-word, spoke of Africans as subhuman and even threatened to kill migrants.

One of these was written on 25 September 2008 about young people of migrant origin on a train: “If they gave me a gun, there’d be bodies on a commuter train, you see.”

Apart from the Vilhelm Junnila resignation and scandal, far-right conspiracy theories and views of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ministers like that of Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Justice Minister Leena Meri, Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio, Foreign Trade Minister Wille Rydman and Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of the parliament, the government has proved to be a liability to Finland and its international image.

At the press conference, Prime Minister Orpo continued to sound like a broken record assuring us that the government is committed to social equality and against racism. On Monday, it went as far as to put out a joint statement to this effect.

Helsingin Sanomat columnist Jussi Pullinen asks a good question that rips wide open the official façade of the government:

“The [scandalous] chain of events led to a government statement reaffirming its commitment to universal human rights principles and renouncing racism. For a Western [European] government to have to make such an assurance is highly exceptional and raises many questions.”

Incredible, no? The government, a Finnish government, has to put out a statement that it supports human rights and is against all forms of racism and discrimination.

Purra tweets: “Or are the activities of the Perussuomalaiset based on extremism, racism, or incitement of hatred, but on promoting the interests of Finns and Finns themselves? Our immigration policy is legitimate and legal and there is nothing wrong or suspicious about it.”

Purra’s defence of the government’s severe immigration policy is preposterous. Andrew Stroehlein, Human Rights Watch European media director, offers below Purra a stinging rebuke: