Elizabeth Holmes built a 9-billion-dollar company called Theranos from scratch that promised to test blood with a single drop. One of the many deceptions she used to trick investors was her deep voice. As a woman, it gave her more authority.
Those who have watched Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho for a few years will note that his voice has changed. He usually switches to a deep voice when he is answering questions from reporters and on talk shows.
Considering that Holmes is a woman and Halla-aho’s deficiency is that he lacks charisma, does he fake his voice to make up for his dull image?
Below is Halla-aho speaking in 2013 and the video below that is from last month.
Note the difference.
Just like Holmes, Halla-aho is marketing urban legends about migrants and minorities. He does so hellbent on polarizing and stigmatizing even more migrants and minorities in this country.
Even if about half a million people voted for the PS in the parliamentary elections of 2019, Holmes succeed as well at fooling investors of hundreds of millions of dollars on fake promises and deception.
A story published Wednesday in Politico exposed the misogyny against Finland’s woman prime minister, Sanna Marin, and the women members of her cabinet. Considering that Finland’s biggest opposition party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* which is also leading in opinion polls, hate speech has raised its head for many years.
Hate speech and the PS are like a perfect couple walking in the park with a rabid dog on a short leash. The dog, which is used to impress voters, eventually bites its owners, and hard.
A report from the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence concluded that Marin’s government is “overwhelmingly” targeted by sexist online harassment.
Politico writes: “The five most targeted ministers, all female, were overwhelmingly victimized by misogynistic abuse attacking their values, demeaning their decision-making skills, and questioning their leadership abilities.”
Uusi Suomi, an online publication that played a key role before the 2011 parliamentary elections in giving the racist rhetoric of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party a platform, published today an interview with a cultural researcher, Tuija Saresma, who concluded that Jussi Halla-aho and the PS are racist.
While these types of statements are a foregone conclusion about Halla-aho and the PS, the big question is why Finnish society appears so impotent in the face of these social ills.
How do you explain the rise of a party in 2011, which won 39 seats in parliament from 5 previously, became the most successful party in parliamentary elections during the last decade?
Some factors explaining Finnish society’s racist and exclusive disposition is its near-geopolitical isolation during the Cold War. The lack of cultural and ethnic diversity, and the whitewashing of this history, have also help feed racism and white nationalism.
Any sensible person will conclude that white Finnish nationalism and racism get their power from the PS. Attacking brown and black Finns and other minorities with the intent of polarizing society creates a dilemma for the party and the country.
How can we state with a straight face that we are for social equality and human dignity when we exclude in a hostile manner, other people?
An insightful Op-Ed article in The Guardian by David Bromell on the impact of the Christchurch killings, sheds light on some of the problems that countries like Finland face in tackling hate speech.
He writes: “There will always be idiots who shoot their mouths off – but in a democratic society we need to learn to live together.”
According to Bromell, public policy should focus on the “effect of harm” and not on the emotions of hatred or offence since you cannot regulate this in an open and democratic society.
But here comes the punchline: “Stirring up and inciting discrimination, hostility or violence against members of a social group, however, is and should be a crime. This may involve speech, but incitement can also be written, mimed, memed, graffitied, cartooned or tweeted.”
The rise of a racist party like the PS in Finland entrenched in white nationalism is not only shameful but reveals how vulnerable and unprepared society and institutions are in challenging such social ills.
Events after the storming of the Capitol building in Washington on January 6 exposed white nationalist terrorism as the biggest threat facing the United States. Since the events that took place at the Capitol did not happen spontaneously, are we going to see something similar in Finland’s ever-hostile far-right groups like the PS?
As with the United States, is there a blind spot to this threat if the people spreading violence are white Finns? Does Finnish law enforcement take this threat seriously?
There is a strong indication that law enforcement is not up to the job. One of the problems is that such institutions are white and run by men. With so little participation of minorities such as brown and black Finns in the police, newsrooms, and the halls of power, it is not surprising that the anti-racism debate in this country is one-sided and dominated by whites.
The best example of Finland’s racism blind spot is the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and other far-right groups, which have become more vocal in recent years. It is amusing in a negative light that a party like the PS, where the vast majority of its municipal election candidates are white Finnish males, are dead set on denying minorities equal rights.
Even if we give recognition this week to the UN Anti-Racism Day, behind the chatter we find extraordinarily little action to challenge those institutions that give racism and white nationalism its legitimacy. We don’t do enough as a society because we don’t want to.
Center Party chairperson and minister for culture, Annika Saarikko, is the type of leadership Finland needs today unless it wants to climb out of its deep xenophobic pit spearheaded by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
Considering that her party is being targeted by the PS, which bases its support on spreading suspicion and anti-immigration sentiment, Saarikko’s was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that Finland needs 10,000 migrants a year to avert a labor shortage is bold considering the attacks by the PS and recent opinion polls.
In the face of Saarikko’s prediction, Finland will find it especially hard to get out of its xenophobic pit if politicians are silent, policymakers are silent, and the public is silent about how to make Finland a more inclusive country and to rid it of politicians who polarize society.
Too many Finns still think that turning our country into a more inclusive one means doing little or nothing.
In early March, an opinion poll published by Yle showed that the Center Party was hovering at around historic lows of 11% and trailing the PS by 5.9 percentage points.
One of the aims of PS leader Jussi Halla-aho is that the Center Party will suffer a stinging blow in the municipal elections of June 13. This would force the party to leave the government, leading to its downfall and new elections, where the PS would win and have Halla-aho as prime minister.
One matter is clear: If Finland is to shake off and challenge anti-immigration sentiment, politicians like Saarikko must say it clearly and loudly.
“Anti-immigration sentiment has spread so far that even today labor immigration is started to see in a negative light,” she was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat. “Such an attitude isn’t possible because of what Finland’s dependency ratio [labor shortage and tax base] is. Many may ask what about Finns getting employed. Yes, but when that is not enough either.”
The party that is against bringing labor immigrants to Finland is none other than the PS.
Islamophobia in all of its forms is cancer that is spreading at this moment throughout Europe. People who attempt to stand up to this social ill are intimidated and attacked. Farid Hafez, whom I know personally and edits the European Islamophobia Report, the most comprehensive report published annually on the topic, is charged for alleged terrorism.
Apart from his activism and bringing attention to Islamophobia, he is a non-resident researcher at Georgetown University, was a Fulbright Professor at UC Berkeley and a leading scholar of Islamophobia Studies.
It wasn’t too long ago when I received an email from Hafez:
“[I] write you today in a personal capacity. I am sure, most of you are following the troubling news on the increasing attacks on academia in France and elsewhere. As you are also aware of, an attack happened killing four innocent people in the streets of Vienna on 2 November 2020. Officially unrelated to this event, but in an atmosphere of having to counter-terrorism, the Austrian government raided the homes of 30 alleged terrorists one week later. It was the largest raid since 1945. Unbelievable but true, I was amongst the targeted ones.”
The video below gives a glimpse of Hafez’ case.
Without bringing any formal charges except based on suspicion and hearsay, Hafez is suspected of terrorism by the Austrian authorities. A question: Is this what happens when you can organize your words and challenge state Islamophobia?
In Argentina, where over 30,000 vanished during the so-called dirty war (1976-83), the de facto government’s methods were seen as state-sponsored terrorism.
In the same light, all types of intimidation, promotion, and spreading anti-Muslim racism by legal and official means could be classified as state Islamophobia.
The search warrant alleges that Hafez is a member of an organization intent on overthrowing the Egyptian government regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, destroying Israel and creating a global caliphate in Jerusalem, its capital.
“Would it not be serious,” said Hafez, “this would sound like a joke.”
The political scientist and one of the editors of the European Islamophobia Report, is confident that all the charges brought against him will be dropped.
“I am very convinced that no single allegation will stay,” he added.
The cost of the raid and the action of the Austrian government:
The case will take three years in the courts and cost an estimated 100,000 euros.
Hafez’ bank account and assets are frozen and cannot sell his house.
The Austrian government is drafting a law that makes “political Islam” a criminal offense, which would make it easier to criminalize every kind of Muslimness.
The latest hijab ban ruling by the Austrian Constitutional Court is seen as a signal against political Islam by its lawmakers.
Yle revealed in a story today that the far-right Kansallismielisten liittouma has distributed Green League Minister of the Interior Maria Ohisalo’s and Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen’s home address for harassment purposes.
Moreover, Kansallismielisten liittouma chairperson, Tero Ala-Tuuhonen, has been in touch with “a Helsinki police sergeant” who has advised the far-right organization on how to hide weapons and how to beat up asylum seekers without getting caught by the police.
According to Yle, Ala-Tuuhonen had the following conversation with the Helsinki police sergeant:
Ala-Tuuhonen:Jyväskylässä on matujengi alkanut uhittelemaan katupartoijille. Käydään lauantai iltana etsimässä niitä isommalla porukalla [kieliasu alkuperäinen].
Ala-Tuuhonen: “In Jyväskylä, an asylum seeker gang [uses the derogatory term matu] has started to threaten street patrols [they should be called vigilante group]. Let’s go search for them with a bigger group [of vigilantes].”
After over twenty years in journalism and writing for some of the world’s most prestigious publications and having worked as a foreign correspondent in countries like Finland, Italy, Colombia, and others, I have learned a thing or two about journalistic style and correctness.
On top of my journalistic experience, I am a sociologist who has researched immigration topics like Finnish immigration to Argentina.
I have written about immigration and minority topics for almost 14 years in Migrant Tales. In those years, Migrant Tales has published 4,990 posts, which is an average of one posting per day.
Below is a list of terms and observations together with recommendations for journalists and others that write about this topic, which I plan to update in the future:
Maahanmuuttajat is the term in Finnish for migrants. By using the term, we perpetuate stereotypes about this vastly diverse group. We generalize and, with it, fall into the trap of perpetuating stereotypes.
When a reporter interviews an Islamophobic politician and uses the term maahanmuuttajat liberally, he gives such a politician a free pass. If we dig deeper and try to decipher what the term means, it is a code word for non-EU nationals who are Muslims and come from Africa.
If you disagree, ask yourself if Swedes and other EU nationals are called maahanmuuttajat.
Using such a term to speak about “foreigners” is the same as grouping all Europeans into one category, which would be absurd. This is misleading and wrong.
The use of terms such as maahanmuuttajat is not only enabling an anti-immigration party to continue labeling and victimizing non-EU citizens, it also helps us to cover up and deny the racism in our society.
Maahanmuuttajataustainen, a person of foreign origin, is a sinister word used by anti-immigration politicians and public officials to intentionally or non-intentionally exclude first-generation Finns.
Here is a question: What would happen if we would drop the concept label “person of foreign origin” from our vocabulary? In my opinion, it would fast-forward inclusion.
One of the biggest question marks that first-generation Finns and minorities have is their exclusion and how their background does not make them “a real” Finn.
Using such terms encourages exclusion and a sense of outsiderness of such people who are equal members of this society on their own terms.
By using “person of foreign origin” on children born here and who speak Finnish as their main language, we strengthen white Finnish privilege. We tell such brown and black Finns that they are outsiders and that white people are the only cultural standard.
There is a sense of déjà vu as the municipal elections in Finland near on April 18. Once again, the media is not questioning or challenging the toxic message of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, but showing its usual tacit approval.
The most notable examples of this type of approval demonstrated by the media are silence and inaction.
As Muslim activist Julie Pascoet stated, silence is not only a political statement but perpetuating white privilege and inequality. .
Source: Twitter (2018)
State-owned news outlets like Yle continue fueling the PS stranglehold on the country by stating that they will make significant gains in the municipal elections.
Opinion polls may indicate this to be the case, but where is the critical journalism?
Hate speech, hate crime, and racism appear to rank low on police’s priority list. Many people who have turned to the police to report such a crime are usually surprised by the following fact: slow responseand reaction; your case may never see the light of a day in court.
A shameful case is that of Fares Al-Obaidi, a young Muslim who was attacked in June by a group of enraged townspeople of Teuva, located in Western Finland.
Nine months have gone by that terrible incident that changed Al-Obaidi’s life, and no charges have been brought against anyone.
“What happened to me changed my life,” he said. “I have to take sleeping pills and for stress and depression.”
Al-Obaidi said in December: “The fact that I know nothing about my case [and the charges] gives me the impression that what happened to me isn’t important to the police. Those who attacked me are walking freely with no consequences.”
“Helsinki City Councilor Fatima Diarra states in one of the tweets below that whenever she is racially harassed, since 2007, she has always filed a complaint to the police since they go nowhere.
She continues in the second tweet: “I got information from the police last Friday that one of these cases will be dropped. With this type of [racist] harassment, [the perpetrators] try to scare you or silence brown and black people. But dear ones, we are not going anywhere. Finland is our home.”
