“I do not consider [Prime Minister] Petteri Orpo to be a racist. But the fact is that as Prime Minister he enables, legitimizes, and in a way I think incites that thinking in this coalition in Finland. Is that civilized? In my opinion, it is not.“
Kirsi Piha, a former National Coalition Party (NCP) MP and candidate for Helsinki mayor, announced her resignation from the NCP due to its bond with the radical-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. “I think [the government] policies are inward-looking,” she said. “They are based on prejudice and hatred, it is based on zero-sum game thinking, and therefore pure racism.”
PS Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio, who has expressed an affinity for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Poland and Hungary, was the latest scandal to chip another chip off Finland’s international image.
Tavio unilaterally decided Finland would not join an international gender-equality alliance to rebuild Ukraine. Such an alliance promotes sexual and gender minorities, which are red flags for Tavio’s homophobic political worldview.
Tavio’s decision, which would put Finland in the same league as Poland and Hungary on sexual minority issues, according to University of Helsinki researcher Johanna Vuorelma, got a swift reaction from President Alexander Stubb.
“I hope that in the future we will not see similar mistakes from the ministry for foreign affairs, that the president will not be informed of matters that belong to the minister for foreign trade and development cooperation, but are related to our foreign and security policy,” said Stubb.
Obsessed by conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, Tavio never responded to a rebuttal I wrote in Helsinki Times.
Considering how racism has shed its roots in Finland thanks to Orpo’s government, PS MP Jenni Simula ridicules Social Democratic chairperson Antti Lindtman by shouting, “can we get that in Arabic too,” after he says a few words in Swedish, Finland’s official language.
Simula is a member of the far-right Suomen Sisu association and the former secretary of ex-MP Olli Immonen, a former chairperson of Suomen Sisu.
Another example of how Finland has lost its moral compass was the naming of Henna Virkkunen as EU executive vice-president for tech-sovereignty, security and democracy.
Virkkunen, who is an NCP MEP, would not care less for the fate of those crossing and drowning in the Mediterranean.
In the 2019 MEP election, she responded in the Alma Meter election compass in the affirmative to question 13 (1): “The EU must save all those migrants who are at risk of drowning attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.”
Virkkunen “disagreed” that the EU must save those migrants crossing the Mediterranean from drowning.
Virkkunen is in “good” company. The five MEPs would not care if people died after being pushed back at the border. Three are the ruling National Coalition Party, the Perussuomalaiset*, and the opposition Center Party.
