Former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth deputy chairperson Toni Jalonen and Johannes Sipola, the former chairperson Johannes Sipola were sentenced by a Pirkanmaa District Court fines for ethnic agitation, according to YLE News.
Jalonen, who announced in February that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist,” was slapped with a 50-day fine (300 euros) for ethnic agitation. Likewise, Sipola, who blamed the Christchurch, New Zealand killings of Muslims in March 2019 on multiculturalism, was given a 40-day fine (240 euros) for ethnic agitation.
The convictions came after images were published on social media. One of them had a picture of a black couple looking at their baby lovingly, with the text: “Vote for the Perussuomalaiset so that Finland’s future won’t look like this.”
The other racist ad was a picture of two women wearing niqabs with a warning: “Do you want our country to look like this? Don’t stay sleeping. Vote.”
If we want to give a massive blow to racism in Finland and parties that promote this social ill, we need to change the language we use when speaking of all those that live here. One label that I have always disliked is “person with migrant or foreign background.”
In many respects, it is a hostile term whose main purpose is to exclude and distinguish people who are so-called “real” Finns and those who are not. How can a person with a foreign background, even if he or she was born here, compete if you are from nowhere?
It’s encouraging that Green League politicians like Maria Ohisalo, the minister of the interior, brought this up in a session of parliament. In an interview, she reiterated her message: “Many youths have asked me how long them must be a person of migrant origin before they can be Finnish citizens.”
Placing people in such categories offers racist amunition. Racist and Islamophobic politicians from parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have a narrative to protect.
Fortunately, there are people who are challenging these racist categories. AfroFinns, brown Finns and any other types of Finns come to mind.
FINNISH WHITE PRIVILEGE #75
If we want to give racism a blow, we need to change the language we use when speaking of Other cultural and ethnic groups in Finland.
The labels and langauge we use must inspire inclusion, not exclusion.
Even if Finland is a highly racialized country with some circles obsessed by its whiteness, I am confident that this will change in time and that classifictions used by Statistics Finland will become history.
Statistics Finland has some doozies for ethnic classification like (a) person of Finnish origin born in Finland; (b) person of Finnis origin born abroad; (c) person of foreign background born abroad; (d) person of foreign background born in Finland; (e) unknown.
What does Lari Malmgerg’s column on youth crime remind us of? In 2014, Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Tom Packalén wrote a similar story about how brown Finns were terrorizing white Finns in East Helsinki.
At the end of the day, Packalén could not prove his claims, and the whole issue was forgotten even if he succeeded at labeling and reinforcing prejudices about brown Finns.
Wrote Packalén in Uusi Suomi: “The youngest member of the gang is 10 years old. Publically about 70 have been abused [by these gangs]. After twenty years as a police officer, I believe that the real number of attacks and robberies are many times bigger [than officially cited].”
THE COLUMN BELOW IS UNSUBSTANTIATED AND MISLEADING
Read the original story (in Finnish) here. WARNING: THE COLUMN IS UNSUBSTANTIATEDAND MISLEADING.
Six years later, Kuokkanen’s headline in Helsingin Sanomissa reads: “Over one hundred possibly dangerous youths with migrant backgrounds roam about downtown Helsinki – according to experts, this is a new migrant phenomenon.”
What do these two stories have in common? They are both incomplete and based on personal opinion.
Even if Packalén and lately Kuokkanen labeled in a hostile manner so-called “youths of migrant background,” Police Commissioner Jari Taponen shot down what the reporter claimed.
Writes Yle: “According to Taponen, suspects apprehended by the police come from broken homes. The media have labeled them as persons of migrant origin. Even so, the police emphasize that all of them were born in Finland. Part of them have parents who are of foreign origin.”
While it is a positive sign that the police refuted with facts the careless and even judgemental writing of some reporters, the damage caused by Kuokkanen was done. Prejudices have been reinforced, and the story is still out there, even if it has been proven false and misleading.
Helsingin Sanomat’s Lari Malmberg claims that the fuss the article raised was that we have problems debating a difficult topic like cultural diversity. He also states that the media must bring these topics to the public light.
True, but I would not want Malmberg to lead the discussion.
The column he wrote sounds more like a flimsy excuse for publishing an opinionated and poorly researched story by Katja Kuokkanen.
Malmberg revealed in the same column two days later how the original story should have been read.
He stated that the original story did not imply that all youths with migrant backgrounds, or brown Finns, are criminals;
Such youths are not in special danger of becoming criminals;
Even if some youths break the law, it does not mean that the absolute number of crimes has grown;
Youth crime in Helsinki has gone down;
Finland is not in danger of having the same problems as Sweden with migrants;
A very small number of these groups appear to act aggressively.
Which groups did Helsingin Sanomat’s story serve?
The answer is clear: It gave ammunition to populists, their xenophobic narrative, and reinforced our prejudices.
Katja Kuokkanen, the reporter who wrote a provocative story about youth crime committed by non-white youths with the following headline: “Over one hundred possibly dangerous youths with migrant backgrounds roam about downtown Helsinki – according to experts, this is a new migrant phenomenon.”
The headline in Finland’s biggest daily could not be more disturbing since it automatically ends up labeling all youths with migrant backgrounds as criminals.
The claim made by the Helsingin Sanomat headline, which was later retracted with new stories and a Helsingin Sanomatcolumn, is very similar to how sexual assaults are treated in the media and especially by Islamophobic parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS).*
After the commotion had hit the fan, Malmberg points out in a column two days later that the story did not mean to label all brown Finns as criminals and that youth crime had gone down in Helsinki.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with Malmberg. He claims that the strong reaction to his opinionated and poorly researched story showed that we still don’t know how to debate these types of topics in Finland.
Finland’s biggest dailywith the main headlines of the day: “Brown youths are dangerous. Source: a hunch.”Source: Twitter.
The problem isn’t that Finns don’t know how to debate sensibly about migrant topics, but we still live in deep denial about society’s and our own racism and prejudices of people of color.
One rule of thumb is to avoid simple answers to complex social questions.
The headline of a Helsingin Sanomatarticle sparked fear on Tuesday: “Over one hundred dangerous youths wander in downtown Helsinki – according to experts, this is a new phenomenon caused by migration.”
When the Helsingin Sanomat story was published, it spread fear and with it xenophobia.
Is the newspaper article true?
In the first place, the police reported that after the article was published, crimes committed by minors have decreased between January and September, according to Superintendent Katja Nissinen.
Writes Yle News: “The paper reported that the young people had a tendency to settle conflicts with violence and to get into scuffles with kids their own age. They also used the Snapchat app to network. Later on Tuesday Helsinki police said that a small proportion of city youths got themselves into trouble committing criminal offenses. These groups included both ethnic Finnish and foreign background youngsters.”
One of the matters that the Helsingin Sanomat story reinforces is not only poorly researched journalism, but that xenophobia is alive and kicking in Finland.
The story by Finland’s largest daily was also a present to the Islamophobic PS and their spiteful politicians, which spread the narrative that Finland’s “harmful migration” is turning our country into a Sweden, where migrants riot and burn cars.
We saw this with the Oulu sexual assault cases last year. The reaction that the suspected crimes caused and the media’s reaction caused hysteria. Yle alone reported 77 stories on the topic, 13 on one day, about the sexual assault cases during November 27-February 13. During that period under review, the Oulu police published 13 statements on the topic.
Thus, if the spark “migrant” is linked to a crime, that is enough to ignite hysteria among the population and media.
Finland’s media should learn that you do not need a bazooka to kill an ant. In this case, the bazooka is the media and the ant “migrant” youths.
This type of journalism does nothing more than eat away at credibility and gives populist Islamophobic ammunition to parties like the PS.
I’m not surprised that Riikka Purra, a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP obsessed with slandering Muslims, gives misleading statements about female genital cutting (FGC), also referred to as female genital mutilation (FGM).
The term FGC is in my opinion less judgemental and value-laden than FGM.
Without offering advice and assistance to women who have undergone FGC and protecting others from this practice, it is clear that the PS has a clear agenda. They would care less about these women because their hatred for Muslims blinds them.
Finland’s hostile environment against Muslims, especially spearheaded by the PS, is further proof of the latter. Once again as well we are seeing how the PS paints Muslims with a single brush.
A tweet below by Purra proves my point. She mentions that a separate law on “mutilation” has been in force in Sweden for a long time. “Convictions are a couple, and all the problems of honor culture [honor killings], forced marriages, and mutilation is present.”
She puts the icing on her racist tweet: “The problem only revolves around migrants who come from certain countries.”
What does Purra mean? Being an Islamophobe, she means Muslims.
One interesting matter about how Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politicians spread racism is how they try to hide it in sheep’s clothing. The trick, from the PS perspective, is to spread in code as much as possible your racist views.
An interview on Saturday in Yle’s Ykkösaamu with PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho showed just that, the wolf sheep’s clothing searching out his victims inside parliament.
I sent the host four questions that I’d hope Yle’s Ykkösaamu would ask Halla-aho:
Do you want to stop asylum seekers from coming to Finland?
As in your past writings, do you still consider the Holocaust an exaggeration and the Nuremberg Trials a farce?
Do you believe that we should ditch human rights (UN and EU declarations)?
Are you an anti-Semite? What about being an Islamophobe?
Observing the PS for several years, it is interesting to note how their use of language has changed and how they speak in code. They rarely label Muslims directly but prefer to call them asylum seekers or people from the Middle East.
Another matter put into the mix of their hateful rhetoric is justifying by redefining what is racism. This became evidently clear on Yle’s Ykkösaamu when Halla-aho was asked about such a social ill.
The US presidential election’s long-anticipated result bore fruit on Saturday with Joe Biden projected as Pennsylvania’s winner and getting him over the 270 electoral threshold defeating incumbent Donald Trump. Four years of political capriciousness and reckless buffoonery by Trump came to an end.
It has been a terrible and exhausting four years following a man who is the epitome of privilege and power. In all respects, Donald Trump is the embodiment of a modern autocrat and fascist.
Autocrats are usually shortsighted. Once they believe that they are invincible, like Trump did, that is when their downward slide begins.
Even if it would be naive to think that President-elect Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, will change the United States during their administration, they may have slowed or averted for the time being a colossal train wreck for the country.
Trump’s reelection would not only have been a hammer blow to the US’ democratic institutions but dragged the country into a racial civil war.
A sixteen-year-old Muslim teenager was approached by her teacher and asked her why do Muslims kill people as we saw in France?
I am certain that the question must have surprised and shocked the teenager. Why did the teacher ask her such a question about such an outlandish incident?
Certainly, irrespective of his or her cultural, ethnic, or religious background, any sensible person would not support the killing of other people.
The incident with the teenager also exposes anti-Muslim racism and the misperception that all Muslims are one solid block. If a Muslim kills a white European in an act of terrorism, somehow all Muslims are responsible for what happened and should give an explanation.
Attacking Finland’s Muslim community is not hard for the likes of Jussi Halla-aho and the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. It is, however, a different story when anti-Semitic rhetoric comes to play.
Halla-aho’s racism and, in particular, his anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Afrophobia are well known. Of these three, anti-Semitism is the biggest threat to his political future.
The PS chairperson’s racism has long roots, and therefore we should do everything possible to prevent a politician who built his political career on racism and becoming prime minister.
The Jews have political power and resources to counter anti-Semitism. This is not the case for Muslims and people of color. It explains why Halla-aho prefers to be quiet about his anti-Semitic writings.
About two weeks ago, Halla-aho was confronted about his anti-Semitic writings. The PS head naturally denied being an anti-Semite and dismissed the claim by Lauri Nurmi, who recently published an unofficial biography of him and made such an observation. He called it a publicity stunt.
Gideon Bolotowsky had a straightforward opinion about Halla-aho’s anti-Semitic writings. The well-known representative of Finland’s Jewish community was quoted as saying in Uusi Suomi: “Based on these [Halla-aho’s] texts, he is definitely an anti-Semite and an anti-Judaist.”
