Comment: Here is another story by the BBC on today’s election.
The end of the story puts the election result in context: “Whether the True Finns will really [emerge] as champions of the elections is still uncertain but I think we will clearly get a more nationalistic, more conservative, less European-oriented government in Finland,” ING senior economist Carsten Brzeski told Reuters news agency.”
If the True Finns election result turns out to be lower than what some opinion polls suggested it will fuel a lot of debate on the role of such polls in Finnish elections. Unfortunately, the media and the public have accepted the results of these opinion polls as the final result of the election. We all know that the ballot boxes have the final say.
If the True Finns get less than 20 seats it will be an upset for Timo Soini’s party.
What do you think?
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Finns have gone to the polls to elect a new parliament in a vote that may affect future EU bail-outs if a rising nationalist party does well.
Today Finnish voters will head to the polls. What their collective message may be for the direction Finland will take in the following four years remains to be seen. One of the most tragic aspects of the campaigning to April 17 is how some, like the True Finns and individual members of all the parties in this country, have used fear-mongering of immigrants and refugees to further their political careers.
This type of chicanery is unacceptable in a country where IT-technology is king and where its students enjoy one of the best educational systems in the world.
If xenophobia gets the best of us after the polling stations close today at 8pm local time, then all the Nokias and Pisa exams will have little meaning. We must now begin to invest in stereotypes, ethnic myths, intolerance and see our society consisting of “us” (good guys) and “them” (evil people).
Another matter that has surprised me is the sheer ignorance of some of the candidates who should know better. Even if there are politicians who have been quite outspoken on racism and xenophobia, there are PhDs who speak of other cultures in the same level as elementary school dropouts. They are the children of Rolf Nordenstreng’s teachings in a twenty-first century context.
Contrary to the nineteenth century racist, its twenty-first century counterpart is more astute and hides his fanatism by carefully chosing his/her words to avoid being sued for incitement against a religious or ethnic group.
These types of candidates masquerade behind soundbites like “guardians of freedom of speech and western values” while they bash and send other groups to the twenty-first century gas chambers of hatred, where one survives but is imprisoned by walls of hostility.
If we allow the new fanatism to get the best of us, we will be setting the groundwork for future wars. Wasn’t that the whole idea of the European Union when it was founded in the 1950s?
Good trade and business relations will keep our countries busy in more productive things than spreading hatred and war.
Resolving and winning the challenges we face as a region will be the icing on that cake.
Comment: This story published on Saturday in El País of Madrid warns that the Eurozone faces a new threat from a “periferic populist and nationalistic party” in tomorrow’s election.
Adrián Soto, who has lived in Finland since the 1970s, is a seasoned journalist. He states the party comprises of racists and those who olocaust deniers. The headline of the story labels the True Finns as a “far-right” party.
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Adrián Soto
Una nueva amenaza se cierne sobre la eurozona. Esta vez la alarma proviene de Finlandia, donde un partido periférico, de corte populista, nacionalista y euroescéptico irrumpe con fuerza en las elecciones legilsativas del próximo domingo.Se trata de Auténticos Finlandeses, al que las encuestas dan un 18% de intención de voto. Hace apenas cuatro años, en los anteriores comicios parlamentarios, el grupo había logrado un 4% de los votos y cinco de los 200 escaños. Ahora, con una expectativa de 30 escaños, el partido podría tener la llave de un futuro Gobierno de coalición.
In our neck of the woods in the Nordic region, ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic parties have made their mark in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and most likely now in Finland on Sunday when the True Finns are expected to score a historic victory. Will the election embolden other xenophobic parties in this region and Europe? Will it send shock ripples in the EU?
It’s pretty doubtful that parties like the True Finns have any answer to those questions because they base much of their rhetoric on populism and denial. Since Finns are the biggest per-capita coffee drinkers in the world, a good example of our populism would be adding salt to sour coffee in order to make it taste better.
Instead of solving our problems, a large group of voters have preferred to sprinkle the salt of isolationism and xenophobia on our reality.
Depending on the scale of the True Finns’ victory, the next thing we may see after Sunday’s election will be a stream of far-right party leaders flocking to Finland from the Danish People’s Party, Sweden Democrats, British National Party, Jobbik of Hungary and none other than Geert Wilders of the Isalmophobic Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
Are we afraid of these twenty-first century fanatics? Not at all because their example have shown us that xenophobia and racism have not been nipped in the bud in Europe.
Even though the True Finns may score a big victory on Sunday, they will not be a majority. That majority comprises of sensible Finns who are not lured by xenophobia, isolationism and corny political soundbites from True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini.
Xenophobia and ignorance are curable social diseases.
I apologize for the racist and provocative content of this campaign ad by Jussi Halla-aho and Teemu Lahtinen, both of which are running for the True Finns and are members of the far-right Suomen Sisu association. Apart from being xenophobic, the turban worn by the potato appears to be Indian. Is this against Indian IT-immigrants or some legal loophole? Both Halla-aho and Lahtinen reveal their shameful ignorance on a grand scale. Here is a video showing Lahtinen at a far-right march in France.
Comment: The BBC is one of many media in Europe that will be covering the April 17 election. It writes: “The True Finns saw political potential among the neglected people in society. Their political message is two-fold: social-democratic welfare combined with nationalism and xenophobia.”
The BBC continues by stating that Finland is officially a bilingual country but Timo Soini’s party has no room for Swedish: “It excludes Swedish as something unfamiliar to Finnish culture.”
I’ll never forget an analyst in the early 1990s who pointed out that devaluating the Finnish markka was like pissing in one’s pants in winter. At first it feels good but later on the sensation changes.
Could this be a good description of the election and especially for all those who believe that the True Finns are a sensible answer to the challenges the country presently faces?
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An anti-immigration party in Finland – the True Finns – has surged in popularity and could produce a surprise in Sunday’s general election, opinion polls suggest.
The chairman of the True Finns, Timo Soini, said on Thursday’s election debate that we should be thankful to Jussi Halla-aho for tightening our immigration policy and, strangely enough, for the ongoing debate on Finland’s cultural diversity.
The head of the True Finns plays with fire whenever he attempts to justify the open hostility of some of his party members towards minorities. An attack on a specific group should be treated as an attack on all minorities.
The ongoing debate in Finland concerning the role of the Swedish-speaking minority is a direct outcome of the type of hatred and discord that has been fuelled by Halla-aho and his far-right ideological followers.
The obsession of some politicians against certain immigrant groups like the Somalis is disgraceful. It is even more shameful considering that they do so for short-term electoral gains.
One of the most incredible about-turns in Soini’s stand came this week when he told a group of German journalists that he stood behind the government immigration policy. After fanning the flames of xenophobia in Finland, he now states that the True Finns were bluffing all along.
Should we then thank Halla-aho as Soini suggests?
Yes, for showing the worst side of ourselves as a society.
Comment: Migrant Tales has reported on how official institutions like the Finnish Immigration Service and the National Border Guard sometimes reinforce stereotype and racism in Finland by intentionally spreading misinformation. Such fear-mongering has been especially present concerning public discussion on the number of family reunification applicants.
According to an STT story below, an average of 239 people annually get into Finland under such schemes .
Those that are warning us about the “alarming rise” of family reunification applicants are the ones who like to use pocket calculators to predict the future. They believe that family reunification from continents like Africa is a Trojan Horse that will lead to the destruction of “white” Europe. Sounds a bit dramatic, no?
What is missing from the debate is the role that family reunification plays in helping the newcomer to establish social networks in his new home country.
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Pakolaisten perheenyhdistämisissä on saapunut Suomeen vuosittain keskimäärin 329 ihmistä, ilmenee sisäministeriön tilastoista. Tieto koskee viimeisten 12 vuoden ajanjaksoa.
Comment: Timo Soini, the chairman of the True Finns party, appears to be backtracking on his party’s promise of a tougher stand on immigration policy by telling a group of German journalists that he surprisingly supports the government’s present line.
Possibly the correct question that should be now asked of the chairman of the True Finns is what does he really think of those in his party that have been spreading xenophobia wholesale. Is his endorsement of government immigration policy a thumbs down to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the True Finns?
One of the most worrying aspects of the True Finns’ message is that it had been based on a systematic smear campaign of immigrants, immigration policy and the integration program, which was ranked fourth in a Mipex survey after Sweden, Portugal and Canada.
One of the challenges that Soini will have to live with after April 17 is keeping his party in line. This will not be an easy task. Soini won’t get off the hook so easy because he will have to live with the unstable political monster he’s created. If anyone has read Saami mythology, the Stallo monster is a good comparison of that True Finns monster.
Meanwhile, Helsingin Sanomat published on Tuesday a poll that showed that support for the True Finns had retreated by a hefty 1.5% to 16.9%. Kokoomus got 20.3% followed by the Social Democrats (18.0%) and the Center Party (17.9%).
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Jaakko Hautamäki
Perussuomalaisten puheenjohtaja Timo Soini ei nähnyt mitään ongelmaa Suomen hallituksen ulkomaalaispolitiikassa, kun hän antoi haastattelun saksalaisille toimittajille Sanomatalossa tiistaina. Soini antoi täyden tukensa hallituksen ulkomaalaispolitiikalle ja puolittain suutahti, kun toimittajat kyselivät hänen mahdollisesta muukalaisvihamielisyydestään.
Comment: This story, published by Migrants’ Rights Network, caught my attention due to the ongoing debate in Finland concerning immigrants and immigration. What about if we turned the question around and asked why do migrants leave Finland or do not want to move here?
Our country has one of the lowest number of immigrants with respect to the whole population. In 2010 it totalled 2.9% or a mere 155,705 newcomers. This, I believe, isn’t a coincidence. If we look at the ongoing debate on immigrants and public opinion concerning immigrants and refugees in Finland, part of the question is answered.
Taulant Guma, a PhD student at Glasgow University, gives an explanation why Central and Eastern European (CEE) immigrants are leaving instead of staying: “Certainly, migrants, wherever they are, often experience difficulties in terms of finding better jobs and moving up the career ladder. It seems, however, that these difficulties and challenges are more pronounced in the Scottish labour market, which means that the risk of CEE migrants ‘getting stuck’ in unskilled and low paid work is significantly higher than in the UK.”
In my opinion one of the biggest challenges Finland has is attracting skilled labor to move and remain here. With present negative attitudes and the rise of parties like the True Finns, it’s pretty clear that matters are going to get worse before they improve.
This is really unfair to Finland because there are many people who do not agree with the views of some anti-immigration politicians and other people who don’t even know the difference between an immigrant and a refugee.
Do you agree?
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The current immigration debates in the UK seem to be increasingly narrowed down to questions such as ‘Why do migrants come to the UK?’, ‘What do migrants costs the UK taxpayer?’ etc, often raised with a tone of disapproval or of mistrust regarding the contributions, motives, and plans of migrants. Interestingly, during various meetings and seminars on migration issues I attended in Scotland over the last year, a different set of questions seemed to take more centre stage: ‘Why do migrants leave Scotland?’ or ‘What can be done to keep them here?’
Comment: Below is a story that was published in the Joensuu-based daily Karjalainen, which questions the myths surrounding Finnish identity. Even if parties that base part of their image on maintaining the country “white” by depriving people who come from different backgrounds, the nationalist-populist True Finns’ television ad is based on an Italian song by Toto Cutugno, L’italiano.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the True Finns are one party capitalizing on our national myths. Certainly other parties do it but they are more careful. At least they understand the dangers of arguing for nineteenth century myths of the world and cultures in 2011.
One of the most interesting matters to study about Finnish history and national identity is where and why it came about. Even though some want to give us the impression that Finns are a homogenous group, nothing could be further from the truth. Much of our identity as a nation is based on threat of the outside world and erasing or forgetting our history.
People who suffer from such amnesia readily forget that over one million Finns emigrated from this country in the last two centuries. Many of us who emigrated from this country come today from diverse cultural backgrounds. We still call ourselves Finns.
If I had a complaint about the way some view our history and national identity, it is narrow-mindedness. When we play around with myths like national identity too seriously we run the danger of excluding others who have a rightful claim to this country.
The acceptance of “others” as members of this society is vital because our future as a dynamic and successful nation depends on it.
Monoculturalism is only an excuse used by some to exclude.
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Terhi Nevalainen
Ihan hätkäytti, kun perussuomalaisten televisiomainos sattui silmiin – tai itse asiassa korviin. Mainoksessa ääni laulaa sanan perussuomalainen täsmälleen samalla nuotilla kuin laulussa Olen suomalainen.
