The Soldiers of Odin are a vigilante group that hate asylum seekers and are white Finnish supremacists. One Facebook post on their page outlined a while back the aim of the vigilante group: “We are a patriotic group struggling for a white Finland.”
The Soldiers of Odin have omitted such a statement from their Facebook page for obvious reasons since it’s racist.
If we look at their Facebook page today under “about” we don’t find any information about any white supremacist rhetoric. On the contrary. The vigilante group claims today “to protect people, especially women, from criminal immigrants, but also ‘to help everyone regardless of their ethnic background.’”
Whatever the group claims, it is a white Finnish supremacist vigilante group that has changed its racist rhetoric to code.
I highly doubt that there are any visible minorities, never mind asylum seekers, who walk around with them patrolling streets.
Even so, it’s incredible how much fascination the national media continues to have for this vigilante group. We’d be grateful at Migrant Tales if we got a fraction of the media attention that the vigilante group gets.
The interesting question to ask is why a white supremacist group like the Soldiers of Odin gets media attention and why we don’t.
The answer is simple: We are not the voice of white Finland but of those whose voices are heard faintly by the media, politicians, and public. We are the Other voice and very proud of it.
Read the full story (in Finnish) here.
Mika Rantanen, the founder of the Soldiers of Odin, stated recently on Facebook that he expected between 100 and 400 members of the vigilante group to march this weekend in the northern city of Kemi, where the group was originally founded.
According to Turun Sanomat, about 60 took part in the demonstration.
Definition #31
You can be an ex-convict, belong to vigilante white supremacist groups and even be or sympathize with neo-Nazi groups and still get coverage and the benefit of the doubt from the national media.
Why would the media be interested in a march with about 60 members of a white supremacist group?
How many editorials have Finnish papers written against the rise of groups like the Soldiers of Odin, fascism and other ones that scapegoat Others and which are against our Nordic values?
Sadly very few if any.
See also:
- Defining white Finnish privilege #1: I have it and you don’t
- Defining white Finnish privilege #2: Third culture children versus “pupil with immigrant background”
- Defining white Finnish privilege #3 No history, no doctrine, no heroes and no martyrs
- Defining white Finnish privilege #4 Holding the short end of the stick
- Defining white Finnish privilege #5 It’s ok to be a racist
- Defining white Finnish privilege #6 Not having a voice and the media
- Defining white Finnish privilege #7 A definitive guide
- Defining white Finnish privilege #8 Underrated and less intelligent
- Defining white Finnish privilege #9 Mohammad Ali’s insight
- Defining white Finnish privilege #10 I can victimize and make up any story I like about migrants because I’m white
- Defining white Finnish privilege #11: Case Teuvo Hakkarainen
- Defining white Finnish privilege #12: Case Tom Packalén
- Defining white Finnish privilege #13: Case Matti Putkonen
- Defining white Finnish privilege #14: Losing sight of the real issue
- Defining white Finnish privilege #15: Case Halla-ago on the PS
- Defining white Finnish privilege #16: Rosa Emilia Clay and my history versus yours
- Defining white Finnish privilege #17:The Perussuomalaiset and our civil rights
- Defining white Finnish privilege #18: Labeling others according to your prejudice
- Defining white Finnish privilege #19: My rape statistics about your group
- Defining white Finnish privilege #20: Labeling Others to strengthen “us” and “them.”
- Defining white Finnish privilege #21: Who can be a Finn?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #22: From racist, fascist to politician without memory
- Defining white Finnish privilege #23: Greater police powers to monitor migrants and minorities
- Defining white Finnish privilege #24: Becoming a heartless accomplice in wars and people’s suffering
- Defining white Finnish privilege #25: This land is my land, this isn’t your land
- Defining white Finnish privilege #26: Are you an ethnic Finn?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #27: White versus Other media
- Defining white Finnish privilege #28: Are you an ethnic Finn (Part 2)?
- Defining white Finnish privilege #29: Your family is worth less than mine
- White Finnish privilege #30: Whitewashing and racializing the news