MP Aimo Turtiainen’s ignorance and 1 + 1 = 2 views permit his foot to end up in his mouth

“The inhabitants of Juva are quiet about [MP] Ano Turtianen.* It is a sign that there is a lot of shame.”

A Juva resident

Ano Turtianen is an MP from the town of Juva (pop. 6,500) in Eastern Finland. Anyone who has visited Juva will most likely note a lot of pensioners walking with rollators. Just like the village’s demographic woes, Turtiainen has made a lot of enemies.

One of these, who spoke on condition of anonymity, considered Turtiainen an image problem for the town.

“Even if he got over 426 votes from Juva [out of a total of 3,265], it shows that there are a lot of people set in their ways,” the Juva resident said. “No matter what you do, their opinions will not change.”

If what the village resident says is true, then Turtiainen is how some of the residents of the town see the world.

Some believe that he is more interested in being in Helsinki than Juva.

“He has a lot of contacts there and I believe what is going to happen evntually is that he will forget Juva for Helsinki,” the resident said.

The most recent outburst by Turtiainen, that Ebola in Africa is nature’s way of keeping overpopulation in check, shows ignorance, and a total lack of respect for human dignity and human rights.

Certainly a person like Turtianen has got in trouble with the law. He has a conviction for inciting people to burn asylum reception centers managed by the Red Cross. His comments about migrants and refugees are as well an example that white supremacy has a strong following in Juva.

Further reading:

• A Perussuomalaiset lawmaker who shows no regrets in breaking the law
• PS MP Ano Turtiainen flirting with another feather in his cap

When Iltalehti asked Turtainen if he understood that the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second worst in history, he placed the blame on overpopulation.

“If it is in your opinion the second worst epidemic, my opinion is that the biggest problem is that there are too many people,” he was quoted as saying to Iltalehti.“That’s the biggest problem, the biggest epidemic. These kinds of things happen as a result.”

While it is clear we have not heard the last of Turtiinen’s racist outbursts, his behavior as an MP offers other political parties a reminder that doing business with the PS is making a pact with the devil.

In the same way, the former PS chairperson, Timo Soini, made a pact with far-right extremists and Islamophobes and, as a result, got his fingers burned badly, the same danger looms for the present head of the PS, Jussi Halla-aho.

*”Ano” is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. The translation of “ano” in Spanish is the anus.

[1] * The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform was wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.