One of the characteristics of extremist groups in Finland is that they want to convince you that they’re “mainstream and normal.” A good example of the latter is Suomen Sisu, a Finnish white supremacist association, which announced on Yle that it wants to sharpen its mission statement, which it claims leaves too much room for interpretation.
One of the reasons why Finland still hasn’t woken up fully to racism and fascism is because the media, politicians and public permit groups that represent intolerance to dictate the terminology. Suomen Sisu wants, for example, to be called a nationalistic association instead of far right, extremist never mind racist and Nazi-leaning.
One matter is expectations and another is reality. Certainly the far-right association would like to have a more mainstream image but such a task would be like taking Nazism and selling it as something “normal” to the Jews.
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What exactly does Suomen Sisu want to change in the mission statement? Does it believe that with the help of a few words and sentences it can erase its white supremacist and extremist label that it has rightfully won?
At the beginning of the 2000 and 2006 mission statements, Somen Sisu leaves no doubt what its aims are in the opening paragraph:
All people, races and cultures are in themselves valuable and their natural development must be ensured. Doing away with humankind’s natural [ethnic and cultural] diversity with the help of misleading terms [like multiculturalism] must be stopped. Different [national] groups should not be mixed and thereby destroying and replacing naturally advanced cultures with an array of global subcultures.
This is Suomen Sisu’s world view of cultural diversity.
No matter what Suomen Sisu does to change its mission statement, it’ll be the same association no matter how you slice it.
It’s the job of the critical press to ensure that the public is not fooled by these type of publicity stunts.