If there’s one politician who has successfully made a career by spreading racism and victimizing a group like Somalis in Finland, that politician is Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho, who is running for MEP. Apart from playing on people’s fears about migration and cultural diversity, the PS MP is a very unthankful person.
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Those people that Halla-aho commonly victimizes in Finland, like African Muslims from Somalia, are the ones who gave him for the time being a political career.
Just like many far-right anti-immigration politicians, Halla-aho actually believes that he can say anything he wishes, rewrite history and contrive arguments that are nothing more than hearsay and storms in teacups.
While Halla-aho’s party does well in opinion polls, the presidential and municipal elections were a far cry from the historic result that the right-wing populist party gained in the 2011 parliamentary elections.
Even if Halla-aho and the PS want to show that they are unbeatable and immortal, the truth is that they are very vulnerable and know that returning back to the minor political leagues is always a scenario.
Just like when calling a pyromaniac to put out a fire, Halla-aho visited Lieksa on Saturday, which was in the national media spotlight again in December when a councilman of the same party as the PS MP said he wanted to meet in a “Somali-free” room.
One of the big lies that Halla-aho has spread in Finland is that migration is negative because those coming here are only Africans, Muslims and from Somalia.
He forgets to point out that the majority of migrants in Finland work and that the groups he victimizes are a small minority.
“Problems don’t arise from someone making imprudent statements about immigrants and speaking badly of them,” he was quoted as saying Saturday on Karjalainen. “The problem lies in some immigration groups that have given a negative picture of themselves with their own actions.”
The claim by Halla-aho is ludicrous because it is a common debating tactic used by politicians like him to shift the blame on the victim.
His statement is similar to blaming Jews in Nazi Germany for the Holocaust.
- There was very good coverage of Halla-aho’s visit to Lieksa by MTV3.