Finnish MEP Laura Huhtsaari of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is at it again. Huhtasaari, like her PS MEP colleague, Teuvo Hakkarainen, and all of the party’s 39 MPs are calling for disunity during a time when we need to pull together.
The world will start to be a better place, and far-right parties that spread hate, like the PS and others, will shrink in size and be exposed for what they are: a pandemic worse than COVID-19.
Why are Muslims, especially women, usually pictured covering their faces? Do these types of images in the media reinforce our stereotypes about Muslim women?
Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s leading daily, is one representative of the media that reinforces stereotypes about Muslim women.
While the article is important because it talks about forced marriages, why can’t it write about the topic without stereotypes of Muslims, which in turn reinforce anti-Muslim racism?
The depictions in the media appear to go to great lengths to racialize an issue.
After writing several opinion pieces for newspapers such as Savon Sanomat, Kainuun Sanomat, Suomen Kuvalehti, Karjalainen and others, I am sometimes disappointed with the pictures that go with my story.
The most offensive story that I have ever read in Finland depicting Muslim women was by Yle in September 2018.
It is surprising how much political mileage one gets from bullshit.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that has exposed the leadership vacuum left by US President Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence. If we go back to 2015, when, Finland saw a record number of asylum seekers entering the government, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which was in government, offered no leadership except for the usual anti-immigration rhetoric.
For this reason, Trump and Pence resemble closely Halla-aho and Purra, who base their politics on racism – like the Trump administration – and generous quantities of BS.
A good word that describes all of these four politicians is bravado, or fake bravery and being foolhardy. All four are spinners of fake news as well.
Another matter that these four politicians have in common is that they bully the most vulnerable groups of society. Usually, those who don’t have the power or the means to stand up to their racism.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc but also offering us an opportunity. One of its opportunities was to expose the lack of leadership, corruption, and greed of the Trump administration.
The only matter protecting Halla-aho and his cronies is being the opposition. Faced with a crisis and a need to lead, he and the PS party would be cut from the knees due to a vacuum left by no leadership.
Like Tump and Pence, it is only a question of time when the real Halla-aho, Purra and the PS will be unmasked.
In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.
Albert Einstein
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED
Thanks to the #coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which is relentless and spelling trouble for our societies and individuals, is also offering a unique opportunity and helping to expose our hypocrisy and double standards. The best examples of the latter is the United States, where the corruption and incompetence of the Trump administration are exposed.
The opportunity that coronavirus offers us is to reject neoliberal capitalism (deregulation, austerity and global profit) and , which is putting the lives of many people in the United States and throughout the world at risk.
Not only are the neoliberal policies and disposition of the governments in the United States and United Kingdom laid to bare, but the opportunity as well of how the COVID-19 pandemic may foster unity and our rejection of the language that promotes social inequality, hate by groups like populists and racists.
Such groups are close ideological allies of neoliberal economic policies. Apart from being hostile to difference, they want to put women in their places and anyone else who steers from their rigid norms.
The world is now at a crossroads and this is reinforced by COVID-19; our guides to this place are also neoliberal capitalism, climate change, social injustice, millions of refugees fleeing strife, perpetual wars imposed and of our own making, and the rise of populism concocting new social formulas for genocide.
If we do not accept and take these issues by the horn and work together to resolve them, and this will not be easy, we will sink deeper into our despair and our response to them will be blunted further.
We need real action against those that are destroying us and the planet with greed and endless wars.
Real action means rejecting everything that brought us to this crisis in the first place, which requires generous injections of empathy, understanding and courage from you, fellow human.
While the coronavirus has taught us to take precautions like washing our hands to avoid infection, what steps should we take to stop the spread of racism and fascism in Europe?
The knee-jerk reaction of countries like Denmark to shut down their borders for a month to most tourists should not surprise us.
As many know, Denmark has a big Islamophobia problem. They try their hardest to assimilate foreigners, especially Muslims, without understanding that they are part of the country’s racism problem.
If soap helps stop the spread of the coronavirus, what kind of “soap” would we need to stop the spread of racism and fascism in Europe?
Would washing our hearts and souls regularly with the “soap” of love and understanding help?
In Finland, we have politicians that would care less about the plight of other humans. They are the same types that looked the other way when Nazi Germany committed mass murder during the Holocaust.
These politicians are the coronaviruses that infect people with racism and hatred.
How we treat asylum seekers today outside our borders explains in part why fascism lifted its ugly head in Europe in the 1930s. It tells us as well why so many “good” people became war criminals in the process.
There is one matter that bonds all the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs in parliament: They use migrants, especially Muslims and asylum seekers, to get votes. Their ads and rhetoric reflect well their racist disposition.
Take, for instance, the ad below that promises that she will make “Finnish well being and security” priorities.
Some of her pet topics are Muslims even if in her small, far-flung town of Outokumpu (6,803 inhabitants), there are hardly any foreigners, never mind Muslims.
In Outokumpu – are you ready for this – there are 177 people (2.6% of the total town population) who are not Finnish citizens, 231 (3.39%) who were born elsewhere than Finland, and 239 (3.51%) who do not speak Finnish, Swedish or Sami as their mother tongue.
Despite their minimal numbers, Antikainen does not miss a chance to label Muslims as rapists and terrorists.
That is why she is obsessed with the message: prioritizing white Finns’ well-being and security.
Antikainen’s Islamophobic worldview raises a lot of questions.
One of these is how she graduated as a registered nurse and what kind of an oath she took. The Hippocratic oath of nurses is also based on the Nightingale Pledge, named in honor of Florence Nightingale,
In the United States, nurses vow to treat patients equally: “Discrimination in any form is harmful to society as a whole and in opposition to the values and ethical code of the nursing profession, which directs the nurse to ‘…respect the inherent dignity, worth, unique attributes, and human rights of all individuals.’” (American Nursing Association, 2015, p.17).
Below are a Finnish nurse’s views about human rights and how to deal with people she does not like.
I sent MP Antikainen Thursday the following questions:
I never expect to get an answer from Antikainen. Even so, the fact that she didn’t answer is already an answer that reveals a lot about herself and her party.
If the PS ever could change the laws of Finland, that would be a sad day for Finnish democracy and the rule of law.
It would be a very sad day indeed because it would be based on racism and far-right populism.
We won’t allow it to happen and, in the meantime, we will give parties like the PS and MPs like Antikainen a run for their money.
Suomalaisuuden liitto or the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity (AFCI) will not receive any funding this year from the ministry of education and culture, according to Ilmari Rostila, the chairperson of the association. He is also a member of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.
For some, the news is welcome. One of the main aims of AFCI is to undermine the role of the Swedish language. Swedish is Finland’s second official language.
Another problem with AFCI is that it mostly run by members of the PS, a party that is openly hostile to Islam that sees the encroachment of English as a threat to the Finnish language and culture.
One of the matters that characterizes the AFCI is that it is in a time warp where its views of the Finnish language and culture are obsolete.
Another matter that the AFCI is accused of was its role in whitewashing Finnish culture. Right after it founding in 1906-07, there was a drive to change people’s “foreign”-sounding surnames into Finnish ones.
During 1935-35, some 200,000 Finns changed their surnames into Finnish ones.
Not granting funding to the AFCI is a step in the right direction.
KIRJOITUS ON PÄIVITETTY
Onko perussuomalaisten kansanedustaja Sanna Antikianen sairaanhoitaja tai lähihoitaja? Twitter profiliisa hän on sairaanhoitaja ja toisessa mainoksissa hän on lähihoitaja.
Jos olet sairaanhoitaja, kohteletko työssä muslimeja tasavertaisesti?
Onko mahdollista olla sairaanhoitaja Suomessa ja vihata eri ihmisryhmiä?
Yksi asia on kuitenkin varmaa Antikaisesta: hän ei tykkää muslimeja.
Hän on kirjoittanut omalla nettisivulla kuinka vaarallisia ovat Muslimit.
”Viime vuosien ajan Suomen turvallisuustilanne on yhdessä muun Euroopan kanssa muuttunut askel askeleelta huonompaan suuntaan. Lukuisat eri terroristi-iskut Euroopassa ovat vaatineet satojen ihmisten hengen. Elokuussa 2017 Suomen Turussa nähtiin ensimmäinen terroristi-isku, kun parikymppinen turvapaikanhakija teurasti julmasti suomalaisia naisia kadulla.”
THIS POST WAS UPDATED
Being proud of your heritage is fine as long as you don’t use your whiteness to socially exclude and oppress minorities.
I have seen many pictures of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Laura Huhtasaari, who appears to pour it on with her whiteness. Her comments are not only often racist and absurd, but her blonde hair, photoshopped blue eyes, and made up white skin appear exaggerated.
The former logo of the PS Youth is a perfect example of ethnonationalism and fascist whiteness.
The late Risto Laakkonen (1939-2020) said that whenever a group starts talking about itself as a tribe, it starts to flirt with racism.
Former PS Youth logo and MEP Laura Huhtasaari. Both are examples of ethnonationalist whiteness.
There are many examples of why some Islamophobic and far-right politicians dye their hair a certain color depending on the political mood.
There are many other examples.
The EU’s refugee policy is inhumane and all about sticking one’s head in the sand. Cartoonist Ville Ranta makes a good point showing how the EU is treating the refugee crisis.
