Comment: A popular website visited by one of Finland’s most notorious anti-immigration crowd was closed Sunday until 10 pm due to the tragedy that hit Norway, reports HS.fi.
When one reads the views of people who speak against immigration and cultural diversity in Finland like Hommaforum administrator Matias Turkkila or a Persussuomalaiset party MPs like James Hirvisaari, the gist of their message must be read between the lines of the text.
“We wanted to calm debate,” Turkkila was quoted ast saying on HS.fi. “I am certain that it won’t calm down (the debate) but we wanted to make it clear that we in no way accept what happened in Norway.”
One of the matters that Anders Behring Breivik’s killing rampage exposed in the raw in other Nordic countries like Finland was the relationship it had with the hate speech commonly found on Hommaforum and blog entries by PS MP’s like Jussi Halla-aho and his followers.
While Turkkila showed the needed respect that any sensible person should show in the face of such a tragedy that took place in Norway, it doesn’t speak too highly of the bloggers that visit Hommaforum. This link will give you some idea (in Finnish) what bloggers at Hommaforum think about what happened in Norway.
JusticeDemon, who gave the heads up of this story, wrote: “Suddenly they are concerned at how foreigners feel, but this begs the question as to why this particular discussion forum should identify so closely with this particular incident.”
Hirvisaari, who is Halla-aho’s faithful follower in parliament and who has become infamous for his hate speech on his blogs, reveals what he really thinks about what happened in Norway: “With a sound immigration policy we could cool tensions and prevent many problems like such atrocities (that took place in Norway).”
Even though Hirvisaari condemns terrorism and acts of violence, he somehow wants to blame immigration policy when, in fact, he should look the other way at what he and others write provocatively about immigrants and Muslims.
The political fallout of what happened in Norway has impacted Finland and especially the loud and offensively vocal anti-immigration crowd. Norway has torn their arguments wide open and put them on the stand where I am certain Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto would be a chief piece of evidence. In it he mentions how he agrees with Halla-aho’s writings in 2006.
See Ossi Mäntylahti blog on Uusi Suomi.
The monster that Halla-aho and his followers have sown has bit them hard.
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Maahanmuuttokriittinen keskustelupalsta Hommaforum suljettiin sunnuntaina. Sulkemisen syynä oli Norjan terrori-iskuista käyty kiivas keskustelu. Hommaforum aukeaa sunnuntai-iltana kymmeneltä.
I hate to criticise sources solely on basis of the writer, but you might want to check where you link to. That has to be the scariest blog I have ever read in Finnish. Nowhere else I have seen such praise of violence and disregard of human rights.
Somehow, the blog manages to give worse image of muslims than any anti-islamist website ever could. When an outsider claims to know what muslims think it is easy to brush off as bias, but what about when someone who actually claims to be a muslim matches the worst stereotypes? I’d rather prefer to think the writer is someone just pretending. Even though that kind of driving a wedge between peoples would be unacceptable, it would at least mean the writer was not serious in his opinions.
That particular entry by itself is not too bad, and I can find the quoted comments in homma forum (I just had to go check, after reading some of the other blog entries and their comments). The impression given about the time line is not entirely wrong. Heavily biased certainly, and it would be possible to come up with a different description (For example, like someone points out in the comments of that blog, the speculation that the attacker could be a native Norwegian starts at the very first page of the discussion; also several participants maintained their integrity well and told the others not to condemn anyone prematurely). Biased, but not without truth. Shame to those homma writers who let their prejudices cloud their thinking.
Hi khr, welcome to Migrant Tales. I sometimes visit Hommaforum but don’t stay there too long because it is biased and one-sided. In many respects it is like a public bathroom wall where people write and draw whatever they please anonymously. I think and hope that we do a better job on Migrant Tales. We have a wide range of views (immigrants, Finns, people who live in other countries) that help us grasp this huge topic.
Thank you for visiting Homma and confirming what one Uusi Suomi blogger wrote and which we sourced was basically on track.