Instead of only congratulating the National Coalition Party’s (NCP) sister party, Partido Popular, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo should pay close attention to the election result in Spain. True, the conservative Partido Popular, won the election, but the result was disappointing and insufficient to give it a majority.
Social Democratic (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ snap election gamble paid off handsomely. The PSOE defied all expectations and gave it 31.7% of the vote, the best result in percentage terms since 2008. More importantly, the result broke with Europe’s shift to the radical right.
The biggest loser of Spain’s election was the far-right Vox, a sister party of the Finnish Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. Support for Vox plummeted to 12% from 15% in 2019, causing it to lose 19 seats to end up with 33 seats in parliament.
It is ironic that when Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra published Wednesday a blog playing down her racist and violent postings of 2008, another scandal erupted when Helsingin Sanomat revealeda number of racist messages of PS Minister for Foreign Trade Wille Rydman. The messages were written in 2016 between him and his former girlfriend.
Rydman’s anti-immigration views were so well known in his former party, the National Coalition Party (NCP), that he was known as “NCP’s Halla-aho.”
Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of parliament, is known as the “father of Finnish racism” due to his blog writings on Scripta.
In those messages, Rydman called asylum seekers who came in 2015 “desert monkeys” and used other racist words for blacks, Muslims, and Jews. He wrote that a certain flower, the lilly of the valley, spreads and multiplies like Somalis. Rydman said he’d be ready to forbid the person wearing the hijab instead of the veil.
The incident is the sixth scandal involving five PS ministers and the speaker of the parliament.
Rydman ran into problems last year when Helsingin Sanomatpublished an investigative story where a number of young women, some of whom were minors, claimed they were harassed by him.
The scandal caused Rydman to be suspended from the party. He joined the PS in January.
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s defense rests on playing the victim and underplaying her racist and hostile blog postings she wrote on Scripta in 2008, where she used the n-word, Turkish monkey, threatened to kill youths of migrant origin on a commuter train, among other anti-social postings.
On the right, a self-confident Riikka Purra. After the scandal broke, her image changed (left).
Scripta is a blog written by Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion. Halla-aho was appointed in June speaker of parliament.
You can access some quotes from Halla-aho’s blog here.
A warning: Scripta is littered with Islamophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and misogynist writings.
A good example of how an Islamophobic party like the PS covers its hatred for Muslims. In the top picture, the PS claims that Muslim women are oppressed because they wear certain Muslim attire. In the second cartoon below, the PS gives its real opinion: “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? That dress has no place in Finland.”Purra made a comment in 2019 of a woman with a “black sack” which she hasn’t apologized.
One of Purra’s main defenses of her racist, homophobic, and hostile writings is that they were written 15 years ago and eight years before she entered politics. She wrote that the writings were “15-year-old comments made on the Internet 15 years ago.”
If I had to break down her defense: One third playing the victim One third blaming others like the media One third defiance
Even if Purra doesn’t mention it in her blog, she was 31 years old in 2008 and a university researcher.
Her second defense argument is that her racist postings were done as “insider humor and sarcasm.”
Radical right politicians like Mari Rantanen, the new interior minister of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government, claimed with a poker face in an Uusi Suomiinterview that she does not see any racism or far-right issues in her party. “I don’t know then what we are supposed to renounce,” she added.
For those who have not been following the government crisis due to the Perussuomalaiset’s (PS) links with the far right and racist postings, National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Orpo has promised to set strong guidelines against racism and commitment to equality and non-discrimination.
To many who have observed Rantanen in the opposition, some may conclude that her views of migrants are racist and based on conspiracy theories. Before the April election, she posted (now taken down) on her website the great replacement theory: “We mustn’t be so naive [naive in Finnish means being ‘blue-eyed’] that soon we won’t be blue-eyed.”
Other PS politicians who have spread this conspiracy theory are Riikka Purra (finance minister and deputy prime minister), Leena Meri (justice minister), and Wille Rydman (minister for foreign trade).
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen. Source: Uusi Suomi.
Apart from hoping in a comment that asylum seekers would drown in Greek waters before reaching safety, her racist views, like on the great replacement, are littered throughout her Internet history.
It is a creepy coincidence that during another 22/7 anniversary when a mass murderer in Norway killed in cold blood 77 victims in 2011, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are ruled by governments that are hostile to people from outside the EU.
In Finland, we have two far-right terrorist investigations suspected of planning attacks against migrants.
Source: Yle
The same language that the Norwegian killer used to justify his actions was used in Finland by Riika Purra, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* finance minister and deputy prime minister, to denigrate migrants. Like the Norwegian killer, who warned about Muslims taking over Europe, Purra lashes out in her Scripta writings against Muslims, gays, the Romany minority, and Africans.
Apart from spitting on beggars, Purra threatened to use a gun on a commuter train to kill youths of migrant backgrounds.
Two images of PS Finance minister Riikka Purra: Confident and beaten after the revelations of her racist and violent blog posts of 2008 came to public light. Sources: BBC and Iltalehti.
Scripta is an Islamophobic, xenophobic, and homophobic blog written by Jussi Halla-aho, who was convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and for breaching the sanctity of religion and is the speaker of parliament.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is a weak leader and part of Finland’s racism problem.
National Coalition Party (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government, which has been christened as the Chamber of Horrors by Munich-based daily, Süddeutsche Zeitun, is a disappointing example of how you should not confront racism in this country. Many are rightfully worried about how racism, through the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and NCP, is threatening our democracy.
A headline for a Helsingin Sanomatstory. “Orpo leads with his eyes closed,” explains ideally what is wrong with the prime minister’s leadership and the government.
Another ludicrous claim s the so-called “good” government program praised by Orpo and others in the government, even if it disenfranchises and discriminates against migrants and minorities.
The government has lost credibility due to the numerous scandals dealing with racism and links to the far right. Without credibility, it is clear that the only way to regain it is by letting go of the PS and forming a new government. If nothing changes, all efforts by Orpo to restore confidence will look like wild goose chases.
Another problem is the constant denial of racism and the PS. A recent example was when Orpo was asked on A-studio if he thought a 2019 description by PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra of a Muslim wearing “a black sack” was acceptable.
A good example of how an Islamophobic party like the PS covers its hatred for Muslims. In the top picture, the PS claims that Muslim women are oppressed because they wear certain Muslim attire. In the second cartoon below, the PS gives its real opinion: Why don’t you go back to where you came from? That dress has no place in Finland.”
It would be wrong to just blame the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* for Finland’s racism problem. The rise of the PS after the 2011 election would not have been possible without the direct and indirect support of other political parties, the media, and the public.
When results of the 2011 election started to appear on television screens, which placed the PS in the major political leagues after 39 MPs were elected versus five previously, a perilous watershed was crossed. Back then, Migrant Tales was one of the few voices in Finland warning about the rise of the PS.
But let’s go to the original question in the headline: Are we waking up to our country’s racism problem?
As mentioned, it would be misleading to just blame the PS for the growth of this problem.
Finland’s racism problem, which is a pretty serious social ill, has grown thanks to denial and playing down the problem. If Riikka Purra’s writing was concerning, they will be small fries when compared with the hostility our culturally diverse communities will endure when we grow bigger and demand our rights and public spaces, which rightfully belong to us, too.
The only matter that Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s embattled government will gain if it does not go under after its chaotic start on 20 June, is a Pyrrhic victory. In today’s press conference with journalists, Orpo defended Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s apology for her violent and racist comments made in 2008 when she was a 31-year-old researcher at Turku University.
The long-overdue meeting with the media was to clear up Purra’s apology for her past writings where she commonly used the n-word, spoke of Africans as subhuman and even threatened to kill migrants.
One of these was written on 25 September 2008 about young people of migrant origin on a train: “If they gave me a gun, there’d be bodies on a commuter train, you see.”
Apart from the Vilhelm Junnila resignation and scandal, far-right conspiracy theories and views of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ministers like that of Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Justice Minister Leena Meri, Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio, Foreign Trade Minister Wille Rydman and Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of the parliament, the government has proved to be a liability to Finland and its international image.
At the press conference, Prime Minister Orpo continued to sound like a broken record assuring us that the government is committed to social equality and against racism. On Monday, it went as far as to put out a joint statement to this effect.
Helsingin Sanomat columnist Jussi Pullinen asks a good question that rips wide open the official façade of the government:
“The [scandalous] chain of events led to a government statement reaffirming its commitment to universal human rights principles and renouncing racism. For a Western [European] government to have to make such an assurance is highly exceptional and raises many questions.”
Incredible, no? The government, a Finnish government, has to put out a statement that it supports human rights and is against all forms of racism and discrimination.
Purra tweets: “Or are the activities of the Perussuomalaiset based on extremism, racism, or incitement of hatred, but on promoting the interests of Finns and Finns themselves? Our immigration policy is legitimate and legal and there is nothing wrong or suspicious about it.”
Purra’s defence of the government’s severe immigration policy is preposterous. Andrew Stroehlein, Human Rights Watch European media director, offers below Purra a stinging rebuke:
Coverage by the international media hasn’t been rosy for Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government. Munich-based daily, Süddeutsche Zeitun, christened it the Chamber of Horrors while Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called the government’s start “a fiasco.”
Of the seven Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ministers, including the speaker of the parliament, Jussi Halla-aho, five have shady histories littered with racism, far-right conspiracy theories, sexual harassment, and neo-Nazi links and sympathies.
Even if National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government started on June 20, it has been rocked weekly by scandals and revelations. The first on the chopping block was former minister for foreign trade, Vilhelm Junnila, who had a long history concerning links to neo-Nazi and far-right groups.
Even if Junnila survived a vote of confidence in parliament, he resigned two days later.
Every week there has been a scandal that eats away at Orpo’s government.
The MPs of the PS have given Finland its “Chamber of Horrors.” Source: Eduskunta
Thanks to the leadership of Prime Minister Petteri Orban, Finland’s international image has suffered a devastating blow. In a matter of over two weeks, the country’s reputation has swung from having a forward-looking and charismatic prime minister like Sanna Marin to one that denies and wants to do business with a radical-right party.
The government has been rocked by scandals and the source of these scandals is none other than the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. Far-right conspiracy theories, ministers with shady far-right backgrounds like with the case of Vilhelm Junnila, inappropriate relations with minors, and malicious targeting of journalists by MPs, among many other issues.
The opinion piece by Helsingin Sanomat journalist brings some good points on why the media has been blind to what numerous PS politicians who publish regularly far-right and racist posts on social media. The opinion piece sheds light on the daily’s blind spot of racism and the far-right. Source: Helsingin Sanomat
The latest snub to the embattled prime minister was the naming of Wille Rydman as the replacement for Junnila, the former minister for economic cooperation.
Rydman, who has built his political career on racism and hard-right talking points, quit the National Coalition Party (NCP) and joined the PS months after Helsingin Sanomat revealed his inappropriate relationship with minors. No charges were brought against Rydman, although the case left him scarred and embittered.
If the government’s example is anything to go by, one can be named minister as was with the case with Junnila despite having a long history of posting far right, neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic posts. With Rydman, you can attack and call on social media lynch mobs to attack journalists like Ida Erämaa and the next week be appointed minister.
Not only have all these scandals and revelations made NCP Prime Minister Petteri Orpo look weak and vulnerable, they have robbed his government of the most important resource: credibility.
