Author: Migrant Tales

Today Finland will see one of its biggest-ever demonstrations against racism. The last time this Rosa Parks moment, which could be christened the Jimi Joonas Karttunen moment, to respect his bravery to stand up against far-right racist ideology, was in July 2015.

Write the Stop this Game! organizers on Facebook:

We have a violent Neo-Natzi organization active in Finland currently, that calls itself Suomen vastarintaliike (SVL) a.k.a. The Finnish Resistance Movement. It has been allowed to commit violent crimes. The reluctance to condemn or take action by the politicians has encouraged them and other such movements.

Two government ministers, Center Party Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and National Coalition Party chairman and minister of finance, Petteri Orpo, confirmed their attendance at the happening, we mustn’t forget that it’s their tightening of immigration laws and near-silence to the rise of racism and xenophobia in Finland that is being protested at the demonstration.

See original posting here.

Orpo, when he was the minister of the interior, was largely responsible for introducing tighter family reunification laws that are an insult to our human rights and sense of justice and fairness towards others.

If Orpo has succeeded at pushing for tighter laws against asylum seekers, which fuel the country’s ever-growing xenophobic atmosphere, Sipilä has supported such measures.

The prime minister’s chicanery couldn’t be better evidenced when in September he promised asylum seekers his home in December and then shut the door in these people’s faces.

One of Sipilä’s jobs as prime minister is to ensure that everyone in Finland, irrespective of his or her background, feels protected and safe.

That is definitely not the case today when talking about the government’s lame stance on racism and xenophobia.

The speaker of parliament, Maria Lohela, is an Islamophobe as is Juho Eerola, who was appointed as the chair of the administration committee.

Eerola is a xenophobe with Neo-Nazi sympathies who wrote a while back about how he likes Mussolini’s fascism.

What to do to improve the climate?

Get rid of the anti-immigration populist Perussuomalaiset that promote that maintain a climate of hatred against our ever-growing culturally diverse community and in Finland. Playing ball with a racist party that has ties to the far right and other anti-immigration extremist groups sends a wrong message and makes a mockery of the values of our Nordic welfare state.

Make those anti-immigration laws like stricter family reunification guidelines redundant, which have been stamped and approved by Prime Minister Sipilä’s government.

There is a connection with the violence and hatred in our society and such laws and government silence.

I would have loved to be at the demonstration today but I’m in Brussels at a European Network Against Racism (ENAR) board meeting working out proactive strategies to challenge the illness of violence and hatred that has spread to Finland as well.

* 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.”