Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson and foreign minister, Timo Soini, brushed aside recent xenophobic and homophobic statements by MPs like Leena Meri, Laura Huhtasaari and Mika Raatikainen.
Referring to the three MPs above, Soini states in a video clip below that politicians should be careful about what they publish on Facebook and Tweet since they are 100% proof that you made such a statement. Even so, he brushed off such comments by Meri, Raatikainen, and Huhtasaari as something that shouldn’t concern anyone.
“…so if a PS MP or other party official says something funny and eccentric then they [journalists] hash over it for weeks…”
Playing down the bigotry and racism that is rife in the PS by Soini is nothing new.
PS chairman and foreign minister, Timo Soini, playing down the PS’ bigotry and racism problem.
So what did MPs Meri, Raatikainen and Huhtasaari say?
Musician James Nikander, aka Musta Barbaari, filed charges against the police for the “rude manner” and humiliation that his mother and sister suffered at the hands of plainclothes police service officials a week ago.
Musta Barbaari writes: “The plainclothes police didn’t answer [my sister’s question] but proceeded to handcuff both of them rudely and forced my mother to lie on the ground. My sister asked once again why they were being treated in such a way and what they had done but didn’t get an answer from police. My mother feared for her life and thought she was going to be beaten since the behavior of the police was very rude!”
MP Meri stated on her Facebook wall that if the singer doesn’t like living in Finland he’s welcome to go back to where he came from.
One of the problems with Meri’s bigotted response is that the singer is a native Finn from the city of Turku.
In one statement, Meri exposed issues like ethnic profiling, white Finnish privilege, and the denial of racism by the police service.
But that’s not all and there’s more.
MP Raatikainen, who like Meri was a police official before he got elected to parliament, Tweets:
Now that all homosexuals and others like them want (as always) to use the same toilets, washrooms etc.like heteros a question arises about the rights of heteros at swimming halls, locker rooms, in the army etc. Would it be, perhaps, fair for those that don’t want to be a victim of snooping homosexuals in one’s own locker room and they could go and wash and snoop freely snowehrere else?
MP Huhtasaari, who doesn’t believe in evolution and whose Islamophobic views are well-known, Tweeted the following about a Gay Pride march in Helsinki this summer.
“As we can see from the pictures, we’re talking about a prohibited under-18-year May Day march for perverts. That’s a kind of a happy event for the whole family.”
Even if Soini and parties like the PS play down and justify such hateful statements as “funny” and “eccentric,” it’s clear that Finland has a problem.
Looking at the matter from another perspective, however, these politicians and the PS have revealed something that has and continues to be denied for such a long in this country: Bigotry, racism, white privilege, and difference.
Moreover, Migrant Tales has never given the PS the benefit of the doubt. We knew years ago what kind of a Finland they were going to promote. When it comes to immigration policy and hostility towards cultural diversity, there is no doubt that the PS is a far-right party.
Writes Time Magazine after the April 2011 parliamentary elections quoting Soini, who assured Europe that, “We [the PS] are not extremists so you can sleep safely.” That was followed by a quote in Migrant Tales: “Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland.”
Finland, especially the PS’ partners in government, the Center Party, and National Coalition Party, have stooped pretty low as a government that is supposed to represent everyone in this country, even migrants, and minorities.
They can sadly stoop as low as the PS not only because they are white but because they agree with their racist and bigotted views.
* 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.”