By Enrique Tessieri
The Helena Eronen scandal, Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP James Hirvisaari’s aide who suggested with bad satire that foreigners should start wearing armbands, struck back today with a new column in order not to strike out.
She has come back but with a vengeance especially against Turun Sanomat, the Turku-based daily that broke the story that then spread to Sweden, Russia and who knows where tomorrow.
After being apparently shocked by the reaction that her column caused, her boss Hirvisaari must have given her a long pep talk. Such pep talk, however, spells disaster and convolutes the PS even more, especially after the party’s parliamentary group recommended sacking Eronen.
Eronen claims that she is innocent. Her aim was to use satire to show how armbands for foreigners could help policemen distinguish between foreigners and Finns. The column was as well a pretty clear jab at the Ombudsman for Minorities.
Hirvisaari as well as his ideological comrade in arms, PS MP Olli Immonen, hold the Ombudsman for Minorities office in low regard. Immonen suggested in October that it would be a good idea to make the Ombudsman for Minorities office redundant.
There’s a lot more to what and why Eronen wrote what she did than meets the eye.
Her defiance is evident. When she published her latest blog entry, she included the one that got her in this mess in the first place and was later republished on Hirvisaari’s blog.
Uusi Suomi censored the column again as it did the first time.
Eronen offers an odd apology with her fingers crossed apparently behind her back. She does say sorry per se but only to those who were authentically offended. She does not tell us what “authentically offended” means but it becomes clear pretty soon.
After a long not-so-mea-culpa explanation she finally gets to the punch line of her column and singles out Turun Sanomat: “And so my blog entry was handled by a brilliant Turku journalist…”
There is one important matter missing in Eronen’s latest blog entry: She doesn’t tell us what she did wrong and why it has caused such an uproar.
When you are stuck in a hole: stop digging.
Helena Eronen is going to keep her job, im highly shocked, this means we got the far-right Suomen Sisu association in charge among P.S members, it’s going to be a dark age for foeigners in Finland.
Enrique just keeps lying. You can’t say that Eronen suggested sleeve badges, because that is a lie. You can’t even say that she suggested them with satire, because that is a lie.
Eronen DID NOT suggest sleeve badges, that is clear to everyone who understands Finnish. Are you really that ignorant that you don’t understand this or do you just purposely lie?
I give you an example: If I would wrote like this: “Would it be a good idea to send children to the moon?” could you honestly say that “Farang suggested to send children to the moon”? Please answer this!
And secondly. Eronen doesn’t have to say anything about doing anything wrong. That is a sick world you are wanting. In sick world everyone should apologize everything if someone is offended. If some idiot get offended about something, it’s his own problem. Only if someone offends someone on purpose, he would own an apology. But not when someone gets offended by something that wasn’t mean to offend.
People who gets offended so easily should grow a pair of balls. Everything is not mentally well with people who are so sensitive that gets offended. And that is a fact, and you know it if you just think about it:
If person A says to person B: “You are an idiot and should be sent to outer space”. If person B gets offended, it means that there is something wrong in person B’s head/brain.
Farang Hi,
How r u today?
Ha ha ha, ha
What about an IQ test???
Between A and B???
Does A knows anything about B and what kind of life B has?
Like
His Situation?
Family life?
His country, language?
Customs?culture,
Morals?
Or maybe A is a doctor, head/ brain doctor?
Huuum sensitive????
Being sensitive is not a sin or sickness Farang, we are different and we r all beautiful creatures.
But what about being cold, hard and unkind?
In just got pain from this kind of human.
Have a happy weekend Farang
D4R
Shocked, offended…perhaps you should apply for drama-school?
Farang
Please now explain to us why the PS parliamentary caucus recommended that Eronen should be sacked. Are they also so ignorant that they don’t understand or are they lying?
Do you also think that the same PS parliamentary caucus was “not mentally well” when it was offended by the Christmas card on the back page of Kirkko ja Kaupunki 47/2011 last December?
Isn’t it great when the knaves and the fools have a falling-out? 🙂
Väinämöinen: D4R
Shocked, offended…perhaps you should apply for drama-school?
Perhaps you should apply to Suomen Sisu Nazi, or other Nazi parties, if you’re not already one of them.
Väinämöinen, continue playing with the Nazi fire, you guys are awaiting bad end, just like previously in Nazi germany, this time it’s in Finland. Will see.
Justicedemon
“Please now explain to us why the PS parliamentary caucus recommended that Eronen should be sacked. Are they also so ignorant that they don’t understand or are they lying?”
Are you really that simple? The are not recommending sacking Eronen because of what she wrote. They are recommending sacking her because of the negative publicity this event has brought to PS.
–Are you really that simple? The are not recommending sacking Eronen because of what she wrote. They are recommending sacking her because of the negative publicity this event has brought to PS.
Farang, check this out: http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/2012/04/1527487/ruohonen-lerner-tallaisista-kirjoituksista-paastava-eroon
It states very clearly that the party should distance itself from the stuff that Eronen wrote.
You might like Eronen but I considered what she wrote about sleeve emblems in poor taste that revealed her ignorance, ideological colors and lack of perspective. It was also a slap in the face to the Jews especially after Hitler rose to power in 1933.
In a nutshell it was something totally out of line and then on top of it report the matter to the police about what Turun Sanomat wrote as well as to JSN. Oy vey! That adding more salt to injury.
Here is a very good editorial in today’s Helsingin Sanomat about the Eronen scandal.
I especially like the following paragraph: “Se on vain törkeää. Ihmiskunnan historiaa tunteva tietää, että rotuopit johtivat kuuden miljoonan ihmisen teolliseen teurastukseen. Kyse ei siis ole siitä, että tosikot eivät ymmärtäneet Erosen idean “satiirisuutta”.
Justicedemon
“Do you also think that the same PS parliamentary caucus was “not mentally well” when it was offended by the Christmas card on the back page of Kirkko ja Kaupunki 47/2011 last December?”
Yes.
Ricky
Finnish does not use a dummy subject, at least according to the conventional standards applied in HS leader articles. Your extract should therefore include enough background to explain what the “se” refers to at the start:
I would render this roughly as follows:
“The allusions of an MP’s assistant to the racial doctrines of Nazi Germany are not “benevolent and funny”. They are not even “poor humour”, as understood by the PS Chief Whip Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner.
They are merely repugnant. Anyone with some knowledge of human history will be aware that racial doctrines led to the industrial slaughter of six million people. This is not about any failure of the mirthless to appreciate the “satire” in Eronen’s thinking.”
The HS editorial is still online here.
Thanks for translating and clearing this up, JusticeDemon. Good editorial, no?
Enrique, Ruohonen-Lerner propably didn’t even read the original text by Eronen. In anyway it’s Ruohonen-Lerner who should be sacked from PS. She’s the worst in shitting in own nest.
Törkeys ei ole vitsi-vitsi
LOL