Helena Eronen announced Monday on Uusi Suomi her resignation as Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s aide. Eronen suggested in a controversial blog entry in April that foreigners should start wearing sleeve badges to help police hunt criminals.
Even if Eronen claimed that her controversial blog entry was satire and not intended to insult anyone, it did just the opposite.
There is some unconfirmed speculation that one factor behind Eronen’s resignation was an affair with Hirvisaari, which the latter’s wife wasn’t too happy about.
Hirvisaari got suspended for five months by the PS parliamentary group for not sacking his aide.
Even if Eronen isn’t a member of the PS, she used to advertise on Uusi Suomi as belonging to Muutos 2011, a far-right anti-immigration party.
While the PS has not said a word about Eronen’s resignation, it’s clear that the party is releived because she was a liability.
While the choice of hiring aides by some PS MPs raises some questions, Ulla Pyysalo is another aide that is still working at parliament after her name appeared on a Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) membership list. SKV is a neo-Nazi association.
Hirvisaari was fined in December for inciting ethnic hatred.
Medium-sized, long-tailed Muroidean rodent hastily disembarking from a large buoyant marine vessel that is taking on water beyond the point at which its weight exceeds the upthrust exerted by the water in which it is increasingly submerging.
Whole eronen case is quite clear example how you people are ready to intentionally misunderstand the person if she is PS politician to benefit out of it.
I didn’t misunderstand her Yossie, I found her comment to be crass and generally insulting towards immigrants, not because I thought she was serious, but because she thinks it’s okay for a parliamentary aide to make holocaust jokes.
Also, you seem to forget that she was, by implication, defending a police policy of targeting foreigners for stop and search, even while such a policy of discrimination almost certainly would be breaking Finnish Constitutional laws.
Mark
Yes, that is not the issue if you disagree with that. The problem is that it made scandal because people kept stating she in fact truly wants immigrants to wear sleeve badges. Even now enrique uses that tactic to keep reinforcing the idea that she really wanted them to wear sleeve badges when its not true at all.
Yossie
What does this mean? It’s a bit confusing.
Not sure that you can argue that. It was public knowledge in a very short space of time that she intended it to be ‘satirical’, but it didn’t stop the criticism or the calls for her resignation.
In fact, the PS parliamentary party went ahead and demanded that she be sacked – and that from a party that is quite happy to have convicted racists within its ranks. Care to explain that, Yossie?
Yossie
And even now you are still trying to twist this story to fit your own victim narrative, even while Enrique uses the word ‘suggested’ and follows it up in the very next sentence with:
So, where was Enrique hiding the fact that it was intended to be satire?
Mark
“What does this mean? It’s a bit confusing”
Right, I wrote it a bit weirdly I admit. What I meant was that it is ok to argue if it is good or bad taste to use sleeve badges in joke or argue against her view of police policy.
“Not sure that you can argue that. It was public knowledge in a very short space of time that she intended it to be ‘satirical’, but it didn’t stop the criticism or the calls for her resignation.”
The story got out like it did and people made their mind on it then. Ofcourse the PS haters were more keen to accept the news how it was and just ignored the later clarifications.
“In fact, the PS parliamentary party went ahead and demanded that she be sacked ”
Forced by the scandal made by intentional misunderstanding. Maybe reporters like Enrique might be happy since it fits his agenda, for other, maybe not so honest outcome.
“even while Enrique uses the word ‘suggested’ and follows it up in the very next sentence with”
Lets look closer what he said:
“Eronen SUGGESTED in a controversial blog entry in April that foreigners should start wearing sleeve badges to help police hunt criminals.
Even if Eronen CLAIMED that her controversial blog entry was satire …”
Enrique makes with careful placement of words to make it look like that wearing sleeve badges is in fact suggested and its only HER CLAIM that is was satire.
Yossie
Well, it certainly was a suggestion, no getting away from that, whether in satire or not. And stating that she claimed it was satire is also a clear representation of the facts. The problem with using the word ‘satire’ is that it appears to make it acceptable.
Anyhow, I still don’t think you have answered the key question of why PS acted on the Eronen case but have not acted to expel or even condemn convicted racists within its ranks, for which there has been an equal backlash and condemnation within the press.
My guess is that PS don’t mind the racists, but they don’t like the obvious associations with Nazism that would be made against it. Maybe Eronen’s comment was too close to the bone in that context. It didn’t help that she was seen in Facebook wearing an infamous Nazi army regiment emblem on her cap. It didn’t help that she was the aide to a convicted racist.
In that sense, people are within their rights to question her political colours.