What do politicians like Timo Soini, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, James Hirvisaari, Jussi Halla-aho, Juho Eerola, Olli Immonen, Jussi Niinistö, Maria Lohela, Tom Packalén, Olli Sademies, Freddy Van Wonterghem, Pentti Oinonen, Laura Huhtasaari, Terhi Kiemunki and many, many others have in common? They write a lot of racist and bigotted stuff. They are as well all or were members of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
PS MP Tolppanen is the latest case to get her fingers burned for pitting white Finns against migrants and minorities after her blog entry was taken down. She appears surprised and has threatened to take the matter to the police.
Without getting into all the details of what she wrote, Tolppanen misinformed social aid information that white Finns and migrants were getting. Certainly the gist of her argument was that migrants get more social aid than white Finns.
Wrong.
If you want to read more about what Tolppanen wrote, visit Saku Timonen’s blog.
What Tolppanen wrote and what so many of her dubious “colleagues” wrote is nothing new. Migrants get special treatment, migrants commit rape, migrants don’t want to integrate, migrants are lazy, migrants are social bums…
The racist insults and false claims that these politicians make will not be forgotten. The children of those very people that they target with their racist and bigotted statements won’t forget.
We will not forget.
In the future, we will look back at this wretched period and so will the whole nation as well. I wouldn’t be surprised that the president of this country or the prime minister will formally apologize on behalf of these politicians.
Read complete story here.
Taking down Tolppanen’s blog and the Finnish Immigration Service (FIS) rebuffing her false claims is a good beginning to challenge politicians like her who base their support on the racist and bigotted statements they make and write.
Candian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a wonderful examples how a country can try to mend the racism and injustices of the past. He recently apologized to the Sikh community for what happened in 1914, when a group of Sikhs were sent back to Asia after they docked at a Candian port.
Trudeau shows us leadership.
We need to see more of the same in Europe.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. The direct translation of “Perussuomalaiset” is “basic” or “fundamental Finn.”