In English, we have an expression, a horse’s ass. A horse’s ass is a person who is stupid andlooks like a horse’s ass after their statement. Sometimes, a comment that makes you look like a horse’s ass may appear to be months later.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is Finland’s party that adores former President Donald Trump. Not only that, but they like the autocratic politics of Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki.
PS parliamentary group leader Ville Tavio went as far as to declare his love for the undemocratic regimes of Poland and Hungary.
Source: TwitterTweets Halla-aho in November: “Trump is the best thing that happened in a long time to the United States and to the west. Tweets MP Niikko: “Trump’s campaign is similar to what the PS does. Trump has spiritual superiority. And then Russian premier Vladimir Putin: “Trump is a very qualified leader. His vitality enables him to do away with viruses.” Source: Mannerheim-projekti.
Startling revelations – that make the PS leadership look like a horse’s ass – were uncovered in a few books that wrote about the chaotic last days of Trump’s administration.
Without Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party backing, Finland would have never had to read about MP Ano Turtiainen. From spreading racism, Turtiainen is now a staunch anti-vaxxer who believes that the Coronavirus pandemic is a hoax.
From “Pink Floyd” to his accusations to fellow MPs of traitor and committing genocide against the Finns, Turtiainen has come full circle.
Source: Migrant Tales. Turtiainen tweets: “I believe that it isn’t due to misinformation, but are a part of this corona hoax and also responsible for being a traitor and committing genocide as well.”
One may ask how and who made it possible for Turtiainen to become an MP.
The answer is the PS. The PS gave him the platform. His racist views were ok and a feather in his political cap. The party didn’t even care that Turtianen was being charged and convicted for incting acts of violence against Red Cross-managed asylum reception centers.
PS MP Juha Mäenpää appears to admier Ano Turtiainen on his Facebook page. The picture was taken down. The PS has close ties with other far-right groups and activists. Source: Migrant Tales.
The PS is a party that finds strength by spreading racism and romantic nationalism that never existed. In many respects, they are like the cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs commercial below. Instead of Cocoa Puffs, they go cuckoo for migrants.
Who is Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party heir-apparent Riikka Purra’s mentor? Is it far-right leader Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally or UK home secretary hardliner Priti Patel?
Purra got her anti-immigration inspiration from Jussi Halla-aho’s racist blog postings. “If it’s up to me, the Perussuomalaiset will never form part of a government that won’t tighten significantly Finnish immigration policy,” she was quoted as saying inHelsingin Sanomat.
Even if she plans to stop Muslim and non-EU asylum seekers from entering Finland, it is doubtful that she will succeed.
Her Islamophobic views are only meant for voter consumption and to provoke others.
What arrogance and bullying on her part. Let’s pick on the most vulnerable people in our society like asylum seekers and push and shove them around like trash so they’ll remain on their knees.
Do Marine Le Pen and Riikka Purra dye their hair blonde to emphasize their whiteness? Priti Patel would look ridiculous as a blonde.
Even if I know Purra will never succeed in molding Finland into her closed and Islamophobic world, I want to send her greetings from the late Toni Morrison, who asks what you would be without racism.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin (1924-87)
In Finland, we read a lot of studies about racism and discrimination. One recent article by Raster gives a comprehensive view of the issues fueling migrant discrimination and unemployment. Who can forget researcher Akhlaq Ahmad’s study in 2019 showed that Finnish labor markets are racialized and segregated once again?
Write the authors of the Raster essay, Jawaria Khan, Olivia Maury, and Quivine Ndomo: “To conclude, Finland is not a fairyland of equal job opportunities. Instead, as we have argued, there exists a multiplicity of skilled and educated foreigners in Finland who face extensive challenges finding suitable work and means to legally remain in the country. In place of advocating for more, better, brighter talents, we should continue scrutinizing why knowledgeable people already in Finland do not seem to qualify for this pool of expertise. Is the objective to actually import ‘global talent,’ or is it so that only certain predefined figures with the right kind of social, ethnic and geographical background fit the category of ‘talent?'”
Many others don’t dispute that discrimination reinforced by institutional racism continues to be a major challenge. Some sources worth mentioning are: a report by the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman published last year; and the European Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) study that revealed that of 12 EU countries surveyed, people of African descent experienced in Finland the highest amount of racist harassment.
Moreover, several comprehensive shadow reports published by the European Network Against Racism and the European Islamophobia Report highlight anti-Muslim racism in the country.
Aminkeng A. Alemanji, a Cameroonian researcher who defended successfully in October 2016 his doctoral dissertation on anti-racism education, is the closest you will get to critical race theory in Finland.
Even if some link critical race theory to movements like BLM, it has been around for about 40 years.
Critical race theory, like anti-racism education, is vital since we live in an ever-growing diverse society and must consider and give public space through history to other groups.
The lack of anti-racism education has made Finland focus on one group – white middle-class society – at the cost of excluding other groups. Those other groups could even be the Saami and Romany minority.
The rise and normalization of racism in Finland is the best indicator of how starved our education system acknowledges cultural and ethnic diversity.
For me, it means that we live together, and diversity is encouraged, not suppressed and shamed as today.
Apart from giving us a much wider view of our place in Finland, anti-racism education should teach respect for difference and the right of minorities to embrace this country on their own terms.
When we teach our children myths and fables of our history, which usually include the achievements of one group, history is not only the past but the present and future, according to Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale University.
See full interview here with Timothy Snyder and Basil Smikle.
“If what our classrooms give us is the stuff that makes us feel good,” he was quoted as saying in a recent TV interview, “we are being groomed for authoriatarism.”
It would be naive to believe that somehow Finland would not be vulnerable to such autocratic impulses. It is already happening here before our eyes. Even if Finland claims to have the best education system that caters to white middle-class Finns, it has seen the rise of a xenophobic, far-right, and populist party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS).*
The contradictions on how we promote social equality and equity also tell us that we need anti-racism education in Finland.
Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) published his groundbreaking study on the United States’ racism problem in 1944. While Myrdal was a controversial figure and Sweden was into measuring the skulls of the Saami due to a pseudoscience called eugenics, his study leaves us with food for thought.
One of these is denial of a serious social problem like the endemic injustice and poverty of the black man in the United States. You did not need to, however, to arrive at the same conclusions as Myrdal if you took a long good look at US society back then – and even today.
The central thesis of Myrdal’s study was that the United States, or particularly white USAmericans, was a conflict with the USAmerican creed founded on freedom, justice, and opportunity on the one hand but carried out systemic violations of the blacks through social exclusion and disenfranchisement.
How is it possible that the world’s happiest country is suffering from a severe labor crunch? Here are some facts: the number of over-65-year-olds per 100 working-age people will rise from 39.2% to 47.3% in 2030; to plug its pensions deficit, Finland needs to double the level of migrants to 20,000-30,000 annually.
In Europe’s most homogenous country – by historical choice – other factors don’t attract skilled labor and talent to Finland.
One has only to read the country’s biggest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, and the media in general to see their value priorities.
One of these is certainly not social equality, fairness, and equity of all people living in Finland.
France 24 pinpoints it to the tee: “But anti-immigrant sentiment and a reluctance to employ outsiders are also widespread in Western Europe’s most homogenous society, and the opposition far-right Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset*) regularly draws substantial support during elections.”
To add to the latter’s problem, it appears that the Finnish state is challenging head-on labor discrimination and racism in society. Due justice takes years in racism cases to resolve, and few politicians are ready to speak out against such social ills.
Parliament voted Wednesday to lift some of the restrictions it imposed in 2016 during the government of Juha Sipilä, which, among other matters, lowered the deadline for appeals and legal assistance to asylum seekers., according to the Refugee Advice Council.
One of these includes the deadlines for appeals originally reduced to 21 days from 30 days in the second instance. The deadline for appeals is now restored to 30 days.
Moreover, asylum seekers’ cases will face greater scrutiny to avoid the return of people wrongfully. One complaint that the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) had was that it did not carefully check asylum seekers’ cases and thus put people in harm’s way.
While these matters will improve the legal situation of asylum seekers, there are several laws from 2016 that hinder family reunification and the offering of residence on humanitarian grounds.
It is an important first step but there are many more that must be taken.
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Jussi Halla-aho’s heir-apparent appears to be the party’s first vice-president, Riikka Purra. While Halla-aho has swung the party to the far-right and encouraging xenophobia, Purra has parroted the PS leader’s racist soundbites but with questionable results.
Like Halla-aho, Purra loathes Muslims and people of color. So much so, in fact, that she warned about ethnic replacement hogwash and how Finland’s population was becoming more diverse. In her book, brown, Afro Finns and other visible minorities are a threat to white Finland.
You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge on politics to understand that most of the catchphrases used by the PS have their origin from other xenophobic groups in Europe. One of these used in the last municipal elections was “take Finland back.”
Is it a coincidence that the PS copies xenophobic catchphrases from other EU countries and parties? Source: CityA.M.
Writes the Finnish Security Police (Supo) in its last-year report: “One of the most noteworthy ideological motives of far-right terrorists is known as the Great Replacement conspiracy theory based on the idea of a fundamental threat posed by immigration and multiculturalism to the white population of Western countries. Views reflecting the idea of a Great Replacement have been highlighted in several far-right terrorist attacks.”
Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho announced Monday that he will not seek reelection as the party’s head at the annual meeting in August, according to Yle News. While some party members expressed sadness about the news, Halla-aho will not be missed by many.
No reason was given for his departure. There is, however, some speculation that Halla-aho was never enthusiastic about leading the party. Moreover, his exit may be a new step in making the Islamophobic party appear “more normal.”
Even if the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) has said that it could form a government with the PS, Halla-aho remains a controversial person due to his racist views and writings.
