Harri Tauriainen, a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* councilman of the northern city of Kemi, is a good example of how racism and fascism have found fertile ground in the PS. Taurianen was elected by the region of Lappi as a PS candidate for the April 2015 parliamentary elections, according to Rovaniemi-based daily Lapin Kansa.
Tauriainen, a councilman of Kemi, got more votes than any other candidate in his city in the October 2012 municipal elections.
An interesting pattern emerges after having followed for some time the political antics of an anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party like the PS: Say outrageously racist things, fear-monger with gusto, get elected, and then start to appear mainstream but don’t forget to speak in code to your followers.
The PS has done a half-ass job with Tauriainen’s political facelift. He took some white power and “save our race” pictures down from his Facebook page below after the municipal elections. True, we haven’t heard him lash out at migrants like before. We haven’t heard him state:
“…it’s odd that we can’t put in line in Finland this colored human trash. Just put a stamp on their ass and deport them for good from Finland.”
In one picture greeting PS MPs this year in Kemi, Tauriainen has a White Guard emblem on the left of his coat.
While one of the aims of the White Guards was to contain the spread of communism and socialism in Finland, it was disbanded after Finland signed an armistice ending hostilities with the former Soviet Union in September 1944.
Those who wear White Guard emblems these days are considered far-right activists that long for the days of fascism of the 1930s.
Tauriainen”likes” the far-right Suomalaisuuden liitto association.
He denies that he’s a fascist but calls himself instead a nationalist.
Tauriainen’s Facebook page in October 2012.
Taurianen’s Facebook picture album today.
The PS facelift to make the councilman more mainstream only required taking down two pictures and some racist posts. There is, however, a second drawing in the first row that isn’t apparently considered racist by the PS. That picture states that Finland should guard its borders from foreign ogres like the one pictured in the drawing.
Despite the facelifts to become more mainstream, the PS has lagged behind its historic parliamentary election victory of 2011 in the presidential, municipal and euro elections.
If the PS attract around 12% of the vote in next year’s parliamentary elections, it means that about half of its 38 MPs won’t get elected.
This is good news for Finland but bad news for an anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party like the PS.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.
Yes white quard was racist, they stopped something between 500 000 and million immigrants.