In Finland’s parliamentary election in April, the country shifted abruptly from a left-wing government led by the charismatic Social Democratic Prime Minister Sanna Marin to a possible right-wing government. Some see the good result of the conservative National Coalition Party, and especially the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS),* as a threat to those values, social welfare, and solidarity held dear to the welfare state.
Like in neighboring Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats did well in the election and helped boost the right-wing bloc to victory through cooperation with the Moderate Party. In Finland, the National Coalition Party is ready to give the PS a ticket to become a government coalition member.
Following the PS’ election victory of 2011, which saw their MPs increase from 5 to 39, the far-right party has done exceptionally well in parliamentary elections. In the last election, the PS saw its MPs rise to 46, a record.
The PS’ claim of success lies in spreading news stories about migrant crime to lure voters with the help of the media and police.
With some PS politicians openly supporting Viktor Orbán of Hungary, former President Donald Trump, and even violent far-right groups, do populism and polarization threaten Finland’s democracy?
In an interview with the Finnish League of Human Rights, Eliza Ruynowski, a human rights lawyer from Poland, cautioned Finns to avoid accepting simplistic solutions to complex issues. She advised them to be cautious of individuals who blame specific groups of people, whether they belong to a minority or hold differing political views, as a means of resolving problems.
But let’s go back in time to uncover the dangerous political path Finland, and the rest of Europe, are on.
In reporting about Adolph Eichmann’s trial in Israel in 1961, philosopher Hannah Arendt described the war criminal responsible for transporting millions of Jews to their deaths as an ordinary bureaucrat who, in her own words, was “neither perverted nor sadistic, but “terrifyingly normal.”
Arendt called this disposition the banality of evil or the state where Eichmann performed evil deeds without evil intentions. Thus he could fulfill his tasks diligently irrespective of their horrific crimes by the inability to think from the victim’s standpoint.
At the Nuremberg trials (1945-46), US Army psychologist Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert stated that the Nazi war criminals on the dock had one matter in common: Their incapacity to feel with their fellow men and women.
The same fault that Eichmann and the Nazi war criminals had, the lack of empathy, is a characteristic of many populist anti-immigration politicians, parties, and groups. Tarring and feathering people from other cultures and scapegoating them as potential threats to society can only happen through the inability to feel for their suffering.
The Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published a groundbreaking study in 1944 on the United States’ racism problem. While Myrdal was a controversial figure, and Sweden was into measuring at the time the skulls of the Saami due to a pseudoscience called eugenics, his study leaves us with food for thought.
The central thesis of Myrdal’s study was that the United States, or mainly white Americans, lived in conflict with the American creed founded on freedom, justice, and opportunity while carrying out systemic violations of the blacks through social exclusion and disenfranchisement.
Like many developed countries, Finland suffers from the same illness that Myrdal, Arendt, and Gilbert observed about racism and discrimination. We, too, have good laws and a comprehensive social welfare state that promote social equality irrespective of one’s background. Ironically, even if we were awarded the happiest country in the world for a sixth consecutive year, a report revealed that Finland is the most racist country for people of African descent, according to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
For Nordic countries like Finland to grow and strengthen their democracies and make their countries more inclusive in the future, we need more leadership and outrage against the policies of parties that blame particular groups of people for our problems, as Eliza Ruynowski warned.
