The government of Prime Minister Orop plans to tighten the already vulnerable situation of undocumented migrants in Finland, according to a statement by the ministry of social affairs and health. “Removing the right of illegal residents [undocumented migrants] to non-urgent health and social services and social security…”
In plain English, non-urgent health services include:
children’s health services,
pregnancy and childbirth services
health checks and vaccinations
There are an estimated 3,000 undocumented migrants in Finland, of which 300 are children.
Abdirisak Ahmed is a medic, and he is shocked by government plans.
I was surprised again to read a story in Yle about Russian army deserters crossing the Finnish border “without permission.” Without permission?! Understanding that the Russian deserters had crossed the border to ask for asylum in Finland, can we state that there is something “illegal” about this?
A ridiculous claim by a Finnish tabloid. How can a refugee be “illegal?” Source: Ilta-Sanomat
Moreover, another Cold War term used by Yle in the story is loikkari, or defector.
In the 1930s, Finns who moved to the Soviet Union were also called loikkari.
In the face of sensitive relations between Finland and the former Soviet Union, the Finnish authorities avoided back then calling during the Cold War a Soviet citizen an “asylum seeker.”
During the Cold War years, one or two Soviet citizens were granted asylum status in Finland. One of these, apparently, was asked to leave the country after getting asylum.
Migrant Tales had the opportunity to interview in 2012 one of these former Soviet citizens who was caught crossing the border and returned to the USSR despite having sought asylum.
Article 14 of the UN Human Rights Declaration, reads: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
By now, after numerous scandals, Prime Minister Petteri Opro may be thinking that getting into bed with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* was a huge mistake that will have far-reaching consequences for the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and even end up costing him his job.
If Orpo and PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra had a crystal ball to look into the future, what would they have done differently? Quite a lot, I think.
Prime Minister Orpo got the first sour taste of scandals to hit his government with Vilhelm Junnila, who resigned almost s soon he was appointed as minister of foreign trade.
It could be summed up in two words: overestimate and underestimate.
It’s pretty clear that Orpo and Purra underestimated the Wilhelm Junnila debacle. Or maybe the correct term should be wishful thinking, believing that Junnila’s racist, far-right, and anti-Semitic writings would not raise any questions.
One matter that Purra and her party overestimated was the lure of racism and xenophobia. Like a magic button, the PS can turn to its magic racism button to get votes, and lots of them, and media complacency.
But has this now changed? Are we now seeing, as what PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen called a paradigm shift migration policy, a change in our perception and acceptance of racism?
Time will tell if my comment was an overestimation or an underestimation of the situation.
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.
