I’m always surprised by the aha moment of the mainstream media when it comes to the hostile and polarizing message of the Perussuomalaiset (PS).* After PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen was caught with her hand in the cookie jar by attempting to favor Christians over Muslims in the quota-refugee scheme, Finland’s biggest daily reported that between 2015-2022 the PS led all other parties by a long shot by addressing in parliament the term Islam.
Of the 199 times Islam was addressed in a parliamentary session, the PS brought it up 66.3% of the total followed by the Christian Democrats, which mentioned it 7.5% of the total.
Another favorite terms of the PS are “Muslim,” “Africa” and “Somalia,” which were brought up by the party 58.9%, 95.3% and 61.7% of the total, respectively.
Is it surprising that the non-discrimination ombudswoman findings on discrimination of Muslims over Christians in the quota refugees slammed the PS as “openly Islamophobic?”
Not at all.
Sources (left): Helsingin Sanomat, and (right) MTV.
If it’s common knowledge that the main driving force of the PS is spreading hostile anti-immigration sentiment, why does Helsingin Sanomat now tells us something we’ve always known?
In a report we took part in 2017 that was funded. by the European Network Against Racism, the largest anti-racism NGO in the EU, we pointed out the connection.
We wrote:
As the past
has demonstrated, the radical-right Finns Party (PS) had lured voters through news
stories involving migrants and asylum seekers committing crimes in the 2011, 2015,
and 2019 parliamentary elections. One of the many big “migrant scandals” the PS
wants to exploit for the April [2023] election is the threat of “youth gangs.”
One way of undermining the radical right and anti-immigration parties is by challenging their fake claims and news. In Finland, and as the Helsingin Sanomat article shows, the main culprit is the PS.
If we are serious about preserving the rule of law and our Nordic way of life, the media has to play hard ball with those parties that peddle hatred and racism.
