In April, I had the opportunity to interview Yaron Nadbornik, the president of the Jewish Community of Helsinki. One of the matters that struck me of the interview was that in 2018-2019 the authorities started to recognize anti-Semitism as a problem.
Today the police took into custody two far-right activists charged for the attempted murder of Pekka Kataja, a Perussuomnalaiset (PS) councilor of Jämsänkoski, who was brutally attacked by two suspects.
Teemu Torssonen (left) is a municipal politician from Jyväskylä, who was sacked from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party last year. Tero Ala-Tuuhonen has a murkier far-right record with ties to far-right groups like Kansallismielisten liittouma,of which he is the chairperson, Soldiers of Odin, neo-Nazi Kohti vapautta!, among others. PS MP Mauri Peltokangas is one of many politicians of the same party that participates in events organized by the far right. Note the Kansallismielisten liittouma logo on the lower left of the snapshot above. The group’s chairperson Ala-Tuuhonen was detained today on suspected attempted murder charges.
Even if Kataja suspected one of these two as a “person of Arabic origin,” he later changed his story and blamed the attackers for being members of the far-right.
While it is a good matter that Kataja’s attackers were apprehended by the police, it does raise a lot of questions about the rise of the far-right, Islamophobia, and racism and what the authorities are doing to counter these types of threats to our society.
A study by Ognjen Obu?ina and Ilari Ilmakunnas and cited by Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat concluded the following: poverty and housing overcrowding was more prevalent among immigrant children compared with white Finnish children.
The study showed that 60% of migrant children had experienced poverty for at least a year during the first five years of their lives. Moreover, 45% of the latter group experienced overcrowding. The corresponding figure for white Finnish children was 25%.
Ilmakunnas was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that renting is one factor that explains overcrowding. “Rents have gone up especially in [urban] growth centers,” he said.
While these types of studies are essential and shed light on our ever-growing culturally diverse communities, the problem is that they lack political action and will.
One factor that has dampened such political will is that Finland has since the 2011 parliamentary election a hostile and racist party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS).* Their presence and the popularity of their anti-immigration message and their success in the elections is enough to discourage many.
One of Trump’s biggest fans in Finland are Jussi Halla-aho and the PS. In the tweet above, he states that he digs Trump and believes that the US president is the best thing that happened to the United States and the Western World. Source: Twitter.
Statistics Finland researcher Pekka Myrskylä is one of many who has shown how disadvantaged migrant groups in this country. In 2014, he wrote. “Generous social welfare benefits to migrants appear to be an urban legend. Since migrants make a quarter less than natives, welfare benefits are smaller since they hinge on earnings-related subsidies.”
I wonder how many have read Pasi Suakkonen’s study, Maahanmuuttajen kotoutuminen Helsingissä (2016)? The study points out that migrants make annually on average nationally 27.3% less (21,479 euros versus 29,550 euros by Finns), and in Helsinki 38.5% less (22,286 euros versus 36,239 euros) than Finns.
Finland has never experienced a Black Lives Matter social movement like in the United States. But if we continue to drag our heels and do little to make migrants and minorities feel at home and enjoy the same rights as white Finns, it will only be a matter of time when such a movement will appear.
A 2020 survey showed that 91% trusted the police, down from 95% in 2018, according to the Police University College. Other studies have pointed out that trust in the police is high, even among migrants.
Despite the high amount of trust, the police service has not been immune to scandals.
The latest one involved a senior police constable, who was sentenced by the district court of the Päijät-Häme region for aggravated assault and breach of duty, according to Yle News.
The fact that this case became public is a step in the right direction that should strengthen and not erode confidence in the police.
Even so, many matters do erode confidence. One of these is an alleged case of aggressive and dehumanizing treatment of a black father and his son by the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) and the police, according to the Helsinki Times.
Even if the passengers did not have a valid ticket, one could ask if this is how such an incident ends: humiliation, security guards, and the police.
How many white Finns end up in this situation if they don’t have a valid AB-zone ticket, which costs 2.80 euros!
Let’s assume that there is no ethnic profiling involved and that white Finns receive the same treatment as a black person.
Even so, this type of news does more to destroy the credibility of the police and the HSL ticket inspectors than anything else.
Other big trust busters are ethnic profiling and institutional racism.
“Since leaving the White House in 1981, Rosalynn and I have strived to advance human rights in countries around the world. In this quest, we have seen that silence can be as deadly as violence.”
Jimmy Carter
Some sectors of the media and other people like teachers believe that silence is the best response to racism spread by politicians.
One former journalist of the Mikkeli-based Länsi-Savo believed a few years ago that the best way to challenge racism was not to notice it.
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho offers us many examples of the racism spread by politicians in Finland. His comments on migrants, especially asylum seekers, reveal a pathological obsession with the topic.
A new case of aggressive and dehumanizing treatment of a black father and his son by a Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) train ticket inspector and later on by the police, according to Helsinki Times. The reason: Not having a valid train ticket.
Both the father, David Gill, and his teenage son Max were returning from a basketball tournament in Tampere.
The event, which was a traumatic incident that won’t be forgotten for a long time by the father and son, reveals a system and problem on HSL’s transport.
In the last three months, the cases of aggressive and unprofessional treatment by HSL train inspectors or security guards became public on social media in June and July. The latest incident took place on August 5.
The first incident that received wide coverage on social media involved an East African nursing student removed aggressively from the train. In contrast, the following month involved a minor, also black, who was manhandled by the security guards for not having a valid ticket.
In all three cases the victims are black and on HSL-run trains.
In one of the videos below, the father, David Gill, asks the police what they are doing as they detain him. “Why are you searching me? What did I do? I didn’t do anything! I called the police as well!”
The statement by the father that he called the police as well as a sad reminder of what happens when foreigners ask for help. You call for help, and you get detained because the police give the benefit of the doubt to the security guards.
Below is a Helsinki Times account of how the incident developed:
Ylepublished Saturday, a study that tells us something we have known: The fear of losing one’s economic status is fuel for the rise of populist parties like the Perussuomnalaiset (PS). Hanna Wss, the researcher, states that the rise of populism in countries like Sweden, the United Kingdom (Brexit), and the election of President Donald Trump are similar examples.
No where in the story, however, is the word racism and scapegoating mentioned and how these social ills are fueled by social inequality.
A question: Does the fall in our economic status turn us into supporters of populist parties? Some will vote for such parties while others won’t irrespective of their socioeconomic situation.
Similarly, does civil war and the deterioration of one’s economic situation in another country makes me carry out acts of terrorism? For some, it may be the case but for the great number of people, it is not.
Why doesn’t the study tell us how populist parties deceive voters and don’t offer credible solutions to resolving economic inequality unless you believe that “immigration” or “asylum seekers” are at the root of the problem? The study is an example of populist political correct views.
Why doesn’t Wass’ study, or even the Yle article, point out that even if lower-class USAmericans vote for Trump, he has only worsened their situation by fueling greater inequality and by giving billionaires big tax breaks?
Matias Turkkila, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* newspaper’s editor, is well known for his shenanigans and the way he spins the news. If there is one person who, like Iljas Janitskin, has furthered the spread of racism in Finland, that person is Turkkila.
Juha Kärkkäinen is the owner of a company that bears his name. Kärkkäinen has shopping centers in Ylivieska, Lahti, and Oulu. Apart from his stores, the owner has earned a dubious reputation for being one of the most prominent anti-Semites in Finland.
In a critical tweet about a Yle story that discusses Kärkkäinen’s moral compass, who was convicted for ethnic agitation, Turkkila alleges that Yle is part of a plan to destroy his businesses.
The radio program talks as well about companies like Fiskars, Finlayson, Otava, Tammi, and Makia that have stopped their cooperation with Kärkkäinen. Others like Fazer continue to supply their products to Kärkkäinen’s shopping centers.
Don’t businesses have certain ethic standards that they abide by? Is it ok to sell your products in a company that is openly racist and anti-semitic?
An appeals court in 2014 upheld a Ylivieska-Raahe court ethnic agitation ruling against Kärkkäinen for publishing anti-Semitic opinion pieces in Magneettimedia, reported YLE. Kärkkäinen was fined the previous year 45,000 euros for publishing anti-Semitic writings of Adrian Salbuch, Ted Pike, David Duke, and others as well as cartoons that bear a striking resemblance to the former Nazi tabloid, Der Strümer (1923-45).
Despite these facts, Turkkila likes to dabble in conspiracy theories which have helped him make a shady name for himself. Turkkila defends Kärkkäinen because his worldview is the same.
Turkkila claims that the “fierce” attack made by Yle against Kärkkäinen is part of a plan to destroy Juha Kärkkäinen’s businesses. He claims that one of the journalists that did the radio program is a member of the Left Alliance. Turkkila asks in the tweet: “@yleuutiset why do you allow a Left Alliance activist to use your platform to aim [at Kärkkäinen]?” He adds that Yle should follow its own rules and not publish material to advance the world view of others. Source: Twitter.Continue reading “PS’ Turkkila defends anti-semites and xenophobes like Juha Kärkkäinen”
Perussuomalaiset MP Veikko Vallin tweeted an apology for the “mistake” of publishing pictures of children and workers at a nursery school. Even if he is sorry, he stated that his “critical opinion” of women using a chador at nursery schools has not changed.
Vallin’s action of taking pictures of children and workers at a nursing home was unbecoming of an MP. The images not only exposed his racist side, but it also showed how much some politicians, especially from the PS, do to crave their need for media attention.
The PS MP states in the original tweet that the black chador used by a Muslim woman scares him because it reminds him of Isis, which have been pictured in refugee camps in Syria wearing the niqab.
Source: eurodebates.tv
A grown man who is afraid of women wearing a chador?
Give me a break! This Trmp-imitating politician must be even afraid of mosquitos.
Vallin and the PS pulled one of the oldest tricks used by racist politicians:
Make a racist statement or claim;
Say you are sorry or remain quiet if a reporter proves what you said was a lie;
Despite all the commotion, your base will love you for what you said;
The aim is to get media attention and communicate with your base, who does not care if what you said was racist or immoral.
One of the most surprising matters about the story is not what Vallin did, but the deafening silence of other politicians and the media.
Only the tabloids, MTV and a handful of others covered the story.
Few of us will forget the 2011 parliamentary election when an Islamophobic and no-holes-barred racist party saw the number of MPs rise to 39 from 5 in 2007.
Even if the result was a wake-up call for Finland, the reaction to the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) as a major political force. Some shrugged off the election as an anomaly and it would only be a matter of time when the PS would implode, like the Rural Party (SMP) in the 1970s.
It’s been near a decade since 2010 and the PS hasn’t imploded, disappeared but strengthened and influaneced its racist message on other parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus).
Some analysts saw the rise of the PS as a direct answer to mounting social and economic inequality.
It could be a factor, but does growing social inequality turn you into a scapegoating racist?
Certainly not unless you had such issues before.
The most successful party of the 2011 (39 MPs), 2015 (38 MPs), and 2019 (39 MPs) parliamentary elections has been the PS. Even if suffered a hiccup in June 2017, when the party split into two factions, the PS, it has survived and lived to see another day.
When some Finns and parties talk about returning to the “good old days,” they are saying that they’d like to return to the days when foreigners had practically no rights and where racism was king.It was also a time of appeasement to the former Soviet Union, media self-censorship, impunity, and human rights abuses.
One of the most quaint matters about those who want to take Finland back to the good old days is that they weren’t even born during those troubled times.
The treatment of asylum seekers and watching over their rights brings stark memories of the good old days. Take back Finland? Source: Twitter
What kinds of laws were in force back then? The list below is by no means exhaustive:
Finland did not have any immigration act until 1983, or about 66 years after independence;
The Aliens’ Office granted residence permits on a one-by-one basis;
The Aliens’ Office under Eila Kännö functioned like a state within a state;
Even if Finnish women were the first to get the right to vote in Europe in 1906, they could not pass on Finnish citizenship to their born child until 1984;
Foreigners did not have the right to appeal if deported;
Police surveillance of foreigners by the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) was standard;
Supo had a register of foreigners that showed which demonstrations the person had taken part in and if he or she supported human rights;
Human rights abuses of asylum seekers were the rule;
Soviet citizens were denied asylum in Finland even if they requested it;
Finland returned tens of thousands of Ingrians and Estonians at Moscow’s request;
There were so few foreigners in the 1970s (under 12,000) that the biggest national groups were Finns who were naturalized Swedes;
Racialization was the rule and carved in stone;
Foreigners could not own or publish newspapers;
The Finnish media portrayed asylum seekers from countries like Somalia in an overtly racist manner;
Journalists, except for editors, were not allowed to write about Finland’s special relationship with the former USSR;
Finland was ruled by a strongman, Urho Kekkonen, from 1955 to 1982;
Under the Restricting Act of 1939 (219/1939), which became redundant in 1992, foreigners were not allowed to acquire a majority stake in a Finnish company;
Ownership limits of Finnish firms were 20% normally and 40% under special permission;
Foreigners could not own shares in sectors such as forestry, securities trading, transportation, mining, real estate, and shipping;
Foreigners could not own land;
Most Finns never heard of pizza;
Food markets had very few if any foreign produce.
Does any democratic-loving person who respects human rights want to return to the good old days of above?
