Väkivallan ja suvaitsemattomuuden retoriikka kuuluu sananvapauteen. Kauan se sinänsä eläköön. Sananvapaudessa on myös varjopuolensa. Se passivoittaa kuullunymmärtämistä siinä missä Wahlroosin pankkiiriystävien saamat yhteiskuntatuet.
Virtuaalimaailman asiantuntijat valistavat vähemmän valistuneita piirtämällä mustia pilviä taivaalle. Iskulauseilla, populismilla, satiirilla ja helppoheikkimäisillä viesteillä on luotu kuva yhteisestä vihollisesta. Islami-invaasio on oven takana. Homot huohottaa. Lesbot lepattaa. Media mokaa. Mamut maksattaa.
Nyt nekin muka tietävät, jotka eivät aiemmin ymmärtäneet tietää. Sallittu suvaitsemattomuus on myös arkipäivää politiikassa. Pelottavat peikot, puolitotuudet ja disinformaatio ei haittaa tahtia eikä vauhtia niin kauan kun se tuo lisää vähemmän asioista perillä olevia kannattajia. Moraalisesta vastuusta ei sen monimutkaisuuden takia tarvitse murehtia. Kyllä kansa muka tietää.
Tänään saimme lukea blogi-kirjoituksen 10 v tytöstä, jonka elämänhalu koulukiusaamisen takia on mennyttä. Se on lapsen hätähuuto koulusta, joka opiskelurauhan ja ilon sijasta tarjoaa helvetin. Edelleen on lupa lyödä ilman seuraamuksia. Näinhän me aikuiset sananvapausvaatimuksillamme opetamme. Sananvapautta kai tuo koulukiusaaminenkin on. Se on kiusatun tyhmyyttä jos hän ei ymmärrä satiiria ja huonoja vitsejä.
* Thomas Elfgren on Keskusrikospoliisin rikosylikomisario. Hän on tullut tunnetuksi psykologisen profiloinnin asiantuntijana, järjestäytyneen rikollisuuden torjuntayksikön päällikkönä sekä sotarikos- ja joukkotuhontatapausten tutkinnanjohtajana.
Translation by Justice Demon offered in good faith:
Thomas Elfgren*
The rhetoric of violence and intolerance is part of freedom of expression. And long may this continue, such as it is. Freedom of expression also has a dark side, deadening comprehension just as much as the subsidies enjoyed by the top banking fraternity.
The gurus of the virtual world are enlightening us ordinary mortals by drawing great dark clouds in the sky, fashioning the image of a common enemy through slogans, populism, satire and all the gimmicks of the snake-oil salesman. The Moslem hordes are at the gates. Gays are breathing down our necks. Lesbians are fluttering all around. The media are screwing things up. Immigrants are costing us money…
Even those formerly lacking in comprehension are supposed to know this now. Licensed intolerance is now part and parcel of politics, and we are not to be distracted or diverted by bogeymen, half-truths or disinformation, as long as they rally more ill-informed supporters to the cause. Nor should we concern ourselves with the complexities of moral responsibility, as we can trust in the wisdom of the people.
Today we were pleased to read a blog entry about a ten year-old girl whose zest for life has been destroyed by bullying at school. It was a child’s cry for help from a school where joy and scholarly serenity have given way to a hellish existence. It is still acceptable to strike without consequence or sanction: this is what we adults are imparting to our children through our demands for freedom of expression. Because, after all, school bullying is merely free expression. Lacking the brains to appreciate satire and sick jokes is merely another of the victim’s many faults.
* Thomas Elfgren is a detective chief inspector at the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation. He is well known as a specialist in psychological profiling, as director of the organised crime prevention unit, and for leading investigations of war crimes and genocide.
Hi Thomas Elfgren,
Hi Mt again and again
Salute to the freedom of speech
This is exactly what the situation is, every ordinary Pekka and Päivi are racist and prejudice these days, it’s hardly to find a friendly people at any where.
D4R Miten sinä ratkaisisit tämän ongelman. Pitäisikö värillisten hoitaa oma reviiri ekana. Mehän olemme käsittämättömän hajanainen joukko ihmisiä jotka kykenevät tappelemaan keskenään aika hyvin. Mitä yhteistä kiinalaisella tai somalilla oikeasti on jos ei lasketa heidän ikuista ulkoista statusta.
http://mellowyellow-aotearoa.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-reasons-why-people-of-color-need.html
Onko anarkismi tie. Voisiko sepasratistinen malcolm X olla tie vai onko Kinging maltillinen ja rauhallinen integroituminen ratkaisu.
Olis kiva kuulla mielipiteitä värillisiltä (Värillinen on henkilö joka sosiaalisesto ei ole luokiteltu valkoiseksi. Arabit ja keski-aasialaiset ovat teknisesti valkoisia, mutta heitä ei aina kohdella niin)
siis rasismi ongelman
Sasu, mä luulen että me kaiki voidaan rakentaa yhdessä tämän maan rotu riipumatta, mutta kantaasukkailta pitää olla halua muuten ei siitä tule mitään. Rotu separetismiin en ole perehtynyt. Mitä rasimi ongelmiin tulee niin kantasukkailta pitää olla halua seisoa rasismin vastaan muuten meitä odottaa pitkä taival.
Hyym oleppa sinä positiivinen. Katoisko linkini.
Itse sanoisin By Any Mean Necessary. Kaikki rauhanomaiset keinot on käytettävä. Jos kanta-asutkaat ovat haluttomia taistella rasismia vastaan niin sitten rakennamme oman Suomen. Jos intergoituminen onnistuu ihan oikeasti niin sitten sitä kautta.
The freedom of speech is for all
There r many things that we can talk about here on MT, here is a door, an open door for all of us
Am saying
An open door in Finland, oh thats difficult, there is not any, no no no
And am asking why? Why there is not an open door for me a foreigner?
U dont want me, why u accepted me here, why?
Why?
Who is responsib for?
Who, which person in Finland?
But if there is not even one person for answer to me, then where am i living?
Oh sorry sorry, sooooooo sorry sorry
Where? Where is here?
wow sorry sorry, sooooooo sorry sorry
I want answer, not insult
I want answer not bite
I want answer no harsh words
Not anger
I want answer not attack
Hey racsit, am not afraid of u
Hey racist u r not better than me
Hey racist dont u think about ur blood pressure?
Hey racist relax realx
U r not the mean of life
u r just a point
U r a darkness of bad time
I am Mikä on sinun ratkaisu. Kannattaa vilkaista linkki.
Hugs dear Sasu
Hyym
Mr Elfgren seems to be too enraged to realize that it’s exactly the dreaded, old-fashioned and contemptible freedom of speech that makes possible to express the wrong and unjustified in the daily lives of schoolchildren.
Instead of blaming it in a passive-aggressive way as a root of evil, mr Elfgren should embrace this cornerstone of open society and democracy. His point of view is fundamentally distorted and makes me worry once again whether this fashionable high-profile antiracism and its legal initiatives are leading us to totalitarianism, where no one will ever hear the opinion of 10 yo. girl for sure.
Freedom of speech _is_ the most serious matter of all. What this society for sure does not need is even more authorities to whom freedom of speech is a nuisance that should be reduced yet a bit more, yet a bit more, once again a bit more, as the tendency has been during 2000’s, until we are once again living the days of oppression just like 110 years ago. I don’t know about you, but I’d dare to call that kind of progress reactionary.
This is not to say that these questions were easy.
Tekno-Kekko, thank you for pointing out your concern over free speech. What is it and what is it not?
Contrarily, one could argue that people spreading hate speech and urban tales about immigrants is equally dangerous. Think about how much damage a party like the PS has brought on Finland and how they have poisoned the air with their simplistic arguments and views.
Welcome to Migrant Tales.
Feel free to explain once again how restricting civil rights will strengthen civil rights.
In blogs and forums like this, writers are wondering why average people don’t want to participate in discussion of immigrant policy. Simple. They have nothing to gain but everything to lose as citizens. As proved by opinion by a police authority on this page. This is the damage done, by the existence of this immigrant issue.
“Dangerousness” of PS is a hollow hype purposed to make the opposite feel themselves necessary. And vice versa. I have never ever really sensed any difference between likes of Jussi Halla-aho and Tuija Brax. Both are ready to rip constitution for fashionable purposes. Best choice is to reject both.
–I have never ever really sensed any difference between likes of Jussi Halla-aho and Tuija Brax.
Are you absolving Jussi Halla-aho by squaring him off with Tuija Brax? Has Brax ever given provocative opinions on Somalis, immigrants, Nuremberg Trials being a farce and other hotly contested topics like Halla-aho?
Halla-aho and his PS crowd bash and victimize certain immigrant groups because it is a cheap way to get votes.
There are a lot of immigrants, Finns with international backgrounds and Finns who are pretty upset by Halla-aho. The PS is a menace to Finland and the way they will get their in the end is at the ballot box in October 28 and in 2015.
Tekno-Kekko
We no longer have the criminal offence of julkisen viranomaisen halventaminen (formerly RL 16:24), and Finlandisierung self-censorship is (largely) a thing of the past, so what motivates you to suggest that freedom of expression has been curtailed? What do you think happened to those who openly expressed criticism of the USSR in Finland back in the 1970s? Or even to those who dared to discuss the YYA-sopimus in detail at that time?
I accept that the ban on ethnic agitation is a handicap to inveterate racists, but we have been assured that there are no racists in Finland, so that can hardly be a severe restriction on freedom of expression.
Among the people I know our honorable ex-minister of injustice Brax is probably the second most hated politician in Finland today. Most hated is naturally Päivi Räsänen.
Provocative opinions are really not important. But when a minister appears to be suspiciously ignorant on issues concerning her own office, it is alarming. Just to note a few examples: http://www.effi.org/blog/2008-12-06-Ville-Oksanen.html
Some months ago office of justice minister received a strong notice from the office of the chancellor of justice. It appears Ministry of Justice has charged money for telephone help against the law that strictly says these services must be free of charge. This brand new law has been valid only since 2004, so it is understandable that ministry hasn’t noticed it yet as they are so busy with obviously more important matters (than equality).
Fortunately there are very dim positive signals for those of us who have already given up the hope that Greens would have any interest in civil liberties at all: http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/sananvapauskirje/ Unfortunately it seemed to have no effect of any kind.
Justicedemon: Good old freedom of speech indeed guarantees that racists can enjoy that right too as they should. It also makes possible, and it is the only thing in the world that makes it possible, that they will receive counter-arguments as well. It is not disturbing. What really is disturbing, is a popular tendency to force people to shut up by force instead of challenging their message. Did somebody mention a word “cheap”?