According to Helsingin Sanomat, former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-ago is expected to replace Mika Nikko, the chairperson of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Niikko resigned Tuesday evening after he suggested in a tweet that the West should assure Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will not join Nato.
While Niikko is a loose canon, Halla-aho isn’t any better. He wrote in 2011, on Facebook that Greece should have a military junta to crush protests. He was temporarily banned from the party’s parliamentary group for the comment.
No media in Finland has mentioned how inappropriate Halla-aho would be as chairperson of the foreign affairs committee for suggesting, among other matters, a military coup in Greece.
In 2011, he was temporarily banned from the party’s parliamentary group after he wrote on Facebook that the military junta could best solve the crisis in Greece by crushing protestors.
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP and head of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Mika Nikko, resigned today after he tweeted that come Western leader should assure Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine must not join Nato.
The tweet, which was in conflict with Finland’s foreign policy, was deleted. Even so, it had created quite a stir and it was in the evening when Niikko announced that he’d resign as chair of the foreign affairs committee.
Surprised?
Not at all. Nikko, who has made a name for himself from his homophobic and Islamophobic stances, was never cut for the job. There is speculation that former PS leader Jussi Halla-aho named him as a joke to the foreign affairs committee chair.
Apart from his close relations with China that pay his visits, Nikko recently created headlines when he contracted Corona and used parasiticides as medication.
However, today’s inappropriate Nato tweet was the stick that broke the camel’s back and reinforces that he is a loose canon.
The Chinese government has paid a number of trips to the country raising a number of conflict of interest questions. Sources: Iltalehti and Suomen Kuvalehti
The PS will decide on Thursday who will replace Nikko. Some possible candidates are PS chairperson Riikka Purra, MP Sakari Puisto, and Halla-aho.
Of all the newspapers that write about migrants and cultural diversity, tabloid Iltalehtipublished Sanna Ukkola’s column on how “antiracism is the new racism.”
With a headline like that, we could also put together provocative headlines like how “feminism is modern misogyny,” “anti-fascism is the new fascism,” and “how promoting same-sex marriage is the new homophobia.”
Nonsensical, right?
Ukkola, who is a white Finn with an alt-right view of things, is married to far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* editor Matias Turkkila, who belongs to Finland’s Islamophobic network, according to the European Islamophobic Report 2020.
She, of all people, is coaching us about the evils of antiracism.
Dr. Leonardo Custódio offered a good tweet concerning Ukkola’s conclusions.
Source: Twitter
Ukkola goes further in the column and cites four “people with migrant backgrounds” to back her preposterous claim.
Convenience? Just because her sources aren’t white doesn’t mean that they are “experts” on racism.
Of all the four that Ukkola cites, Arman Alizad quotes conservative apologist and critic of the Black Lives Matter movement, Robert Woodson, “antiracism has become the new racism.”
Throughout the years, Alizad has vacillated on racism in Finland. In early 2011, he criticized and made fun of foreigners on Tuomas Enbuske’s show who were social welfare recipients and victims of racism.
Tweets Outi Länsman: “Finnish journalism. The year is 2017.” Read the full story here.
Binga Tupamäki is a National Coalition Party city councilor of Helsinki. She claims that “a lot” of people see anti-racism as a bad way of dealing with societal problems. She adds: “One reason, for example, is to bring out the ‘races.’ Personally, I would like to remove the talk of ‘races’ when there are no such things in humanity.”
Tupamäki’s observation is a good example of colorblind racism, which is nothing more than a convenient way to brush the problem of ethnicity or race under the carpet.
Do I have to say anything about Kamal Jafi and Seida Sohrabi?
Both of the above persons make a name for themselves by parroting the most toxic views about migrants that are the foundation for bigotry and racism in this country.
Antiracism is a good concept if any to tackle inequalities in society. NGOs like the European Network Against Racism have done a lot of work on this front.
Did any of you watch A-Talk with two government representatives, Iris Suomela of the Green League, Center Party Finance Minister Annika Saarikko, and two opposition representatives, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* head Riikka Purra, and National Coalition Party MP Antti Häkkänen?
One matter stood out: Purra’s aggressive style and talking out of turn when Suomela spoke. Her facial expressions and body movements reinforced her disdain for the Green League MP.
After her party suffered a big setback in the regional elections and saw its support in a Yle opinion poll plummet by three percentage points to 15%, it is clear that Purra is a bit on edge.
Apart from being a poor leader, which is coming to bite her party, she sounds like a broken record scapegoating migrants, especially asylum seekers, mostly Muslims.
From left to right: Annika Saarikko, Iris Suomela, Riikka Purra, and Antti Häkkänen. Source: Yle.
Purra is a person who has shown beyond any doubt her Islamophobic colors. In one debate, during the regional elections, she suggested that foreigners living in Finland should not get social welfare. While her suggestion is unconstitutional and her party’s wet dream, not a single reporter asked if she took her comment seriously.
There’s good news and bad news. Depending on your perspective, bad news can be good news and vice-versa. In the latest opinion poll published by Yle, the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party saw its support nosedive by three percentage points to 15%.
While it would be simplistic only to blame the regional election, other factors like PS chairperson Riikka Purra’s poor leadership, living in large and small populist bubbles, and brainless nationalism are just a few factors that contributed to the fall in popularity.
But above all, I have to thank the PS team that put together the last campaign strategy, namely MP Mauri “Perkele” Peltokangas, party secretary Arto Luukkanen, and Purra, who gave their blessing to such populist malarkey.
Imagine the party raised the issue of petrol prices at the pumps and so-called harmful migration as their main campaign message in the regional election, which will decide on health care and emergency services.
Regional councils cannot decide on petrol prices or immigration policy.
If we look at the many stories of job discrimination that we have published in Migrant Tales, one factor links them: despair and the police, which too often look the other way.
Considering the underwhelming effort the police have made in challenging human trafficking, labor discrimination, hate speech, and other social ills, why would a victim trust the police?
There are too many cases involing the latter social ills and too little done by the authorities. If the situation is dire, and employers can get away relatively easily with exploitation of workers and human trafficking, imagine when more labor migrants come to Finland. Will the police continue to bury its head in the sand and will the media take labor discrimination and exploitation seriously apart from an occasional story?
Migrant Tales has written scores of stories about an ongoing problem: slow due justice.
After the disastrous showing of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in Sunday’s regional election, the far-right party aims to win next year’s parliamentary election and have its chairperson, Riikka Purra, as prime minister.
Good luck with that, especially after the big election setback.
Even if the regional election will turn out to be a watershed for the PS, why would Finland want to have a prime minister from a party that openly promotes and spreads racism?
In one of the debates, Purra went as far as to say that Finland should exclude foreigners from getting social welfare. While most people know this would be unconstitutional, none of the media reported the comment by Purra.
PS Chairperson states in a nutshell: “Shouldn’t we little by little start to believe that mixing people, religions and cultures in the West is SINGULARLY A GOOD MATTER? Mass migration from developing countries and hostile cultures IS A PROBLEM. Beheading is only one expression.”
The regional election result must have sent shivers up the PS’ spine. Near-fool proof campaign Islamohpbic and xenophobic themes did not help the party.
The National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) won Finland’s first regional elections after capturing 21.6% of the votes, according to Yle. Apart from the low 47.5% voter turnout, there were two big surprises: the good showing of the Center Party and the abysmal result by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*.
During the past decade, much of the PS’ success hinges on Islamophobia and racist soundbites.
Even if the regional election was supposed to be about health care and emergency services, the PS campaigned on high petrol prices at the pumps and anti-Muslim racism.
The party’s poor showing is a big blow to Riikka Purra, her first as chairperson, and raises an important question of whterther the hostile racism of the party has finally lost its appeal among voters.
SDP leader Sanna Marin said that the good result of the Kokoomus, her party, and the Center Party marked a return to the ‘big three’ in Finnish politics after the PS’ good showing during the last decade.
“In my opinion the forecast shows that this election was a return of the big three and the return of traditional politics,” Marin was quoted as saying in Yle News.
Another factor contributing to the PS’s poor showing was Purra’s lack of charisma and racist talking points.
The National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) got 21.6% of the votes with the Social Democrats and Center Party getting 19.3% apiece, respectively. If the good showing of the Center Party was a surprise, so was the poor showing of the Perussuomalaiset, which captured a disappointing 11.1%. The second table is of the seats that each party won. Source: Yle
I do, and very vividly. Jari Sillantie was the deputy manager of the northern Finland Kolari asylum reception center that sacked him after some 140 asylum seekers protested his management style.
Even if his management style and Facebook “likes” did not reveal his attraction to the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, they did speak volumes about his anti-immigration views (see picture below).
After all of the asylum seekers at the reception center demonstrated on May 4 and forced the Red Cross, which managed the reception center, to sack Sillantie was deemed “unsuitable for the job.”
We learned more things about Sillantie: His heart is with the Islamophobic PS party, and he was convicted for tax fraud in 2018. He owes 666,000 euros in back taxes to the state.
Jari Sillantie, who was sacked as deputy manager of the Kolari asylum reception center in 2016, was not suited for the job. His “likes” on Facebook, which have now been deleted, are an assortment of far-right associations and politicianslike Laura Huhtasaari.
Sillanpää is a good example of the hypocrisy of the PS. He states in his campaign message all the racist talking points of the party. Migrants should follow the law but Sillantie and the PS have special privileges.
Sillantie’s message comes in loud and clear in his campaign poster: Vote for Finns first!
Thanks to the asylum seekers of the former Kolari asylum reception center, the media, and our work, we were able to expose Sillantie for what he was: a questionable person who wanted to make the lives of asylum seekers as difficult as possible.
Guess which party has the highest number of candidates charged with a crime? Correct, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. According to Helsingin Sanomat, 6.3% (8.2% in the 2021 municipal elections) of PS candidates in January’s regional election have been charged for crimes during 2017-2021.
That was followed by the Left Alliance (3.0%/4.1%), Christian Democrats (2.2%/2.4%), National Coalition Party (2.1%/3.2%), Center Party (2.0%/2.5%), Social Democrats (1.2%/2.7%), Green League (0.8%/2.0%), and Swedish People’s Party (0.7%/2.1%).
Two one-MP parties, Power Belongs to the People (VKK) and Movement Now, had 6.1% and 7.4%, respectively, of their candidates in the regional election charged with a crime.
Apart from demonizing migrants, especially Muslims, the PS always finds ways to exclude Others.
Their latest prank is “Finns first.”
The Perussuomaliset campaigns for public services for everyone but claims that Finns should come first. When Pentti Karhunen, a candidate in Etelä-Savo was asked what he meant by “Finns,” he said anyone who has a Finnish citizenship. He was against offering services to unemployed foreigners. Source: Facebook
What the PS means by who is a Finn is a question for interpretation. Some PS politicians claim that even if a person becomes a naturalized Finn, he will never be a Finn.
The dehumanization and fear-mongering of people like Muslims explain the PS’ close ideological ties with a Nazi-spirited association called Suomen Sisu. At least five PS MPs are members of Suomen Sisu, which openly campaign for PS candidates.
