After an initial police investigation into alleged sexual harassment by National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MP Wille Rydman, the National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi) announced that it had opened a preliminary investigation into the MP’s activities. Rydman is a staunch anti-Muslim who is unofficially Kokoomus’ Jussi Halla-aho.
Halla-aho is the former chairperson of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS), who built his political career in the 2000s by writing Islamophobic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and sexist blog entries.
The first story published by Helsingin Sanomat broke about the MP’s alleged inappropriate behavior towards women and minors was published in June 19.
Keskusrikospoliisi stated: “A preliminary investigation has been opened because the police received new information and the police have interviewed persons who were not heard from in the previous preliminary investigation carried out in 2020. Based on the new information, there are [now] grounds to suspect the person of a crime.”
With all the noise going on in the United States due to the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, which have shown how former President Donald Trump attempted to stay in power with the help of a coup, one wonders if all that is happening is bad karma.
No matter how much exceptionalism people in the United States attempt to show Trump as an aberration, he is USAmerica that came home to roost.
The US has bloodied its hands in so many coups around the world since the nineteenth century. It never apologized publicly for them never mind offering any compensation for the social damage and deep scars they caused to society.
On Tuesday, former national security adviser to Trump, John Bolton, surprised some by admitting that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.
Jake Tapper: "One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."
John Bolton: "I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped plan coup d’etat, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work." pic.twitter.com/REyqh3KtHi
As a Latin American, Bolton’s admission that he helped plan coups in countries like Venezuela unmasks the hypocrisy of the United States. Even if some US politicians praise the importance of democracy, Washington’s track record shows how much disdain it has for promoting democracy outside of its borders.
Another matter that the US has condoned is the spread of torture. Such an outlandish method was used by military dictatorships thanks to the CIA and School of the Americas, blamed for teaching and equipping de facto dictatorships in repression techniques and human rights violations committed by former students of different Latin American armies.
Even if France offered the military regime in Argentina its know-how on torture gained from the Algerian War (1954-62), the US was responsible for training security personnel in torture.
One of many terrible military dictatorships supported by the US was Rafael Leonídas Trujillo y Molina of the Dominican Republic, who ruled the country for thirty-two years (1930-61), was also a torturer.
Writes John Gerassi in “The Great fear in Latin America:” “Trujillo’s SIM (Military Intelligence Service) used slow-shocking electric chairs, or an electrified rod known as “The Cane,” especially effective on genitals, or nail extractors, or whips, or the Pulpo (octopus), a many armed electrical device screwed into the skull. Kilometer Nine [the jail] also featured a water tank with bloodsucking leeches.”
Gerassi continues quoting a Look senior editor who visited the country: “I still shudder about Snowball, a dwarf – now jailed – whose specialty was biting off men’s genitals.”
Strange world we live in, no? The US destroys and impoverishes Latin America by not allowing it to realize its own social, political, and economic potential, and then complains about why so many Latin Americas are desperately attempting to enter the US by any means.
Europe has the same issue highlighted by the cartoon below.
Migrant Tales will launch stories about how the cold war, or Finlandization, encouraged self-censorship and censorship. My journalism career began in 1986, when I made a living from writing. As a journalist writing for the Finnish and foreign media, the foreign ministry warned me several times about questioning Finland’s foreign policy and human rights violations in the former USSR. One official said if I didn’t stop writing negative things about the Soviet Union, I’d be blacklisted by the foreign ministry. It was a shameful period that we must never repeat.
Since September 19, 1944, just after Finland signed an armistice with the USSR, which concluded the so-called Continuation War, the lights of that period of turmoil were turned off. Those who turned off the lights did so in the hope that no-one would ever find his way back into that era characterized by so much irrationality and rivers of blood.
Two years previous, in April 1942m a book on Field Marshall Carl Gustaf Mannerheim had been published by one of the country’s leading publishers, WSOY. Field Marshall Mannerheim is a leading figure in Finnish history; he was one of the main architects in keeping Finland free from the communists.
The Continuation War should not be mistaken for the Winter War (1939-40) when, for over a period of 105 grueling days, the vastly outnumbered Finns miraculously kept the Red Army in check. During the Continuation War, Finland fought side by side with Nazi Germany against a common enemy – the Soviet Union.
The recent article and editorial in Helsingin Sanomat about social segregation in Finland is a good example of how white privilege deals with growing social segregation.
Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, published an editorial Thursday about how social segregation is growing in Finland. That follows a story about how some schools in Espoo have more pupils who speak other languages than Finnish, Swedish, or Saami.
One of the most important matters in a story written by a predominantly white newsroom about migrant and minority groups is what they overlook in the story. What the story discards can be seen as a Freudian slip.
Suppose the editorial board of Helsingin Sanomat had taken the time to address the problem of social segregation from an EU perspective. In that case, they’d encounter some good solutions to challenge such a social ill. These would include the usual issues: tackling institutional racism, effective social policy, and making cities more inclusive.
Thus urban segregation is the unequal distribution of different social groups based on occupation, income, education, gender, and ethnicity, according to the EU. In recent years, the gap has widened.
Social segregation is a growing problem in Finland as in Europe. Source: Google
Why the Helsingin Sanomat editorial does not address the core issues behind urban segregation reveals volumes about the daily and its editorial board. One possible reason why they are not mentioned is a common phenomenon: denial.
Olimme yllättyneet Perussuomalaisten (Ps) nuorison kolmannen varapuheenjohtajan Lauri Laitisen kirjoituksesta,* joilla hän puolusti kansallisvaltiota ja sen etnistä ja kielelistä homogeenisuutta.
Myös yllätyimme miksi Helsingin Sanomat julkaisi kirjoituksen jossa on niin paljon epäasiallisuus. Voisinko minä julkaista esim. kirjoituksen jossa vaadin naisten paluuta hellan ääreen?
Tällaiset ajatukset eivät ole mitään uutta. Natsi-Saksan sotarikollinen Alfred Rosenberg, joka tuomittiin ja hirtettiin Nuremburgin oikeudenkäynnin jälkeen, väitti, että Saksalaisten “arjalainen-rotu” voisi saavuttaa suuruuden vasta, kun se olisi päässyt eroon vähemmistöistä, kuten juutalaisista.
Rosenbergin kirjoituksia suositellaan yhä luettavaksi Suomen Sisulla.yhä luettavaksi Suomen Sisulla.
Voidaan kysyä kuinka homogeeniset kansallisvaltiot ovat “luonnollisia” jos niitä on luotu väkivallalla ja toisten ryhmien sortamisen tai hävittämisen kautta.
Vaikka Laitisen historian tuntemus tai valikoiva muistinmenetys on ilmeistä, hänen kirjoitus paljastaa huolestuvampaa seikan: Perussuomalaisten flirttailu tai pyrkimys “homogeenisen kansallisvaltioon.”
Vaikka Ps vastustaa kiivaasti kulttuurista ja etnistä moninaisuutta, he eivät tarjoa ratkaisuja siihen, miten homogeenisuus saavutetaan. Miten Riikka Purran ja Jussi Halla-ahon puolue aikoo pysäyttää kulttuurista moninaisuutta?
Ainoa vastaus, joka minulla tulee mieleen on valeuutisten ja populismin levittäminen ja/tai muuttamalla demokraattista järjestelmää kuten olemme nähneet Unkarissa ja Republikaaninen puoluessa Yhdysvalloissa.
Enrique Tessieri
Ahti Tolvanen
Suomen viharikosvastainen yhdistys ry
* Lähetimme vastine Helsingin Sanomille (27.5.) tuloksetta.
Considering that discrimination in the labor market is well-documented in numerous studies, it is surprising how little is still being done to challenge this problemandhow migrant and minority voices are excluded from the debate. True, some stories quote migrants, but they are usually the victims and not the experts with solutions.
The lack of minority voices in the debate allows for denial and fuels bias. With so few minorities in newsrooms, it should come as any surprise why so little is written about Islamophobia and why it is still not seen as a form of racism.
There are other factors like the majority’s fear of losing power, spreading hate speech in order to acquire power, ignorance, and our lack of will to challenge institutional racism and our prejudices.
Women’s rights are topics that migrant newcomers encounter when attending integration courses. Misogyny and feminism are important topics that everyone should understand. But other ones are equally important, like anti-racism, religious freedom, living in a culturally diverse society, and how to claim and defend one’s inalienable rights.
Terminology on the topic is also confusing. The term tasa-arvo (gender equality) is commonly used by the media, politicians, and even policy-makers to mean yhdenvertaisuus (non-discrimination). When politicians talk about gender equality, do they mean non-discrimination? Do they mean women’s rights are more important than social exclusion and racism against people of color?
Migrant Tales, the oldest anti-racism blog in Finland, will celebrateits 15th anniversary on May 30.
We are planning to publish an online magazine to commemorate the event. Apart from a section with greetings from people and associations, we will publish poetry, pictures, drawings, essays from our activists and readers in Finland and abroad.You can submit your writings in the language of your choice.
The online magazine will also offer an historical timeline of our most important achievements and the impact they had.
