It is a positive sign that President Sauli Niinistö, who has been no friend of cultural diversity in the past, speaks out against the rise of anti-Semitism and racism in Finland on the formal opening of parliament on Wednesday, according to Yle News.
He said: There are signs of anti-Semitism and racism being on the rise, unfortunately also in Finland,” he said. “We must be resolute in opposing them. They do not deserve any foothold in our society.”
And added: “Hate speech, too, generates a myriad of emotions in its targets, from shame to hatred.”
While it is encouraging that President Niinistö has awoken to the threat that racism and hate speech pose in Finland, one hopes that it isn’t too late to change course.
Even if the president didn’t mention any names of parties, analysts saw that he was pointing to the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
Another matter that is interesting to note in his speech is that while he mentioned anti-Semitism, he did not say anything about an ever-growing social ill called Islamophobia.
Anti-Islam racism has such a foothold in Finland that it helps minor parties like the PS over a decade ago to become the biggest opposition party today.
Racism is a threat in Finland, irrespective of who the victim is. It is a good matter that President Niinistö finally understands the gravity of the problem.
If there is one party that racializes sexual assaults, especially committed by Muslims, that party is without a doubt the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. Its chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, first vice-president Riikka Purra, MP Sebastian Tynkkynen, and the rest of the 36 MPs of their party in parliament.
All of them, the 39 PS MPs, used Islamophobia and xenophobia to get elected. They have nothing else to bring to the political table except for their hatred of Muslims and non-EU citizens.
Both the Perussuomalaiset and its youth chapter are opportunistic cowards. In this tweet affirming that cultural appropriation is ok, there is no Jew with a kippah. I asked them about this, but they never responded.
In the Perussuomalaiset Youth tweet above, the Islamophobic and far-right group makes a statement about cultural appropriation, which is ok, according to them.
If you look at the picture, the only thing I can make out is a Mexican, two Arabs, and, possibly, somebody from the Far East. There are no Jews in the picture because that would force all hell to break loose. The PS, like its youth organization, bully and pick on soft targets like Muslims.
Remember the Oulu sexual assault cases and the hysteria it brought upon Oulu and Finland? Not only were the PS guilty of spreading anti-Muslim racism, government parties like the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and even the police did so as well.
The spread of this racism would not have been possible without the collusion of the media. The media should know better to distinguish what racist reporting is and what is not.
Harvey Weinstein
In the United States, we’ve been reading about the scores of women that disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually abused and raped.
In one story in the Huffington Post, it states that the Weinstein case has not only sparked debate about the sexism and abuse in the entertainment industry but anti-Semitism as well.
Writes the Huffington Post: “Several white supremacists and even one prominent Jewish magazine, though, have latched onto Weinstein’s Jewish identity as somehow explaining his abusive behavior towards women.”
Just like our far-right Islamophobic politicians like Halla-aho, Purra and others, anti-Semitic commentary in the U.S. came from the likes of David Duke, a white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan leader, who said that Weinstein is “a case study in the corrosive nature of Jewish domination of our media and cultural industries.”
Certainly, Muslims do not have the same power are Jews have in the United States. Even so, the racializing of the Weinstein case is strikingly similar to how the PS and other racists frame Muslims.
It is a case in point how the Finnish media treats Muslims and a good examples why the Finnish media has an “r” and “I” problem.
Kaikki tietävät, ettei Presidentti Sauli Niinistö ole kovin äänekäs kun puhumme rasismista, turvapaikanhakijoista ja eriarvoisuudesta. Niinistö ei myös näe, että rasismi on uhka suomalaiselle yhteiskunnalle.
Niinistö edustaa suomalaisten kaksinaismoraalia seuraavalla tavalla: yhdellä kädellä hän tuomitse rasismin mutta toisella hän ruokkii sitä
Hänen “tolkun ihmisten” ylistys on hyvä esimerkki siitä kuinka rasismia ja eriarvoisuutta ei tulisi haastaa.
”Kuulkaa, nyt tuli vastaan juttu, joka ehdottomasti pitää lukea. Se on Jyri Paretskoin kirjoitus ”Tolkun ihmiset” Iisalmen Sanomista. Kun lehti ei varmaan ihan kaikille vielä tule, niin liitän jutun tähän. (Lähde: Satakunnan Kansa)
Tolkun ihmiset kannustavat hiljaisuudella maahanmuuttovastaisuutta. Lähde. Ville Ranta.
Täsmälleen neljä vuotta myöhemmin, toimittaja Yrjö Rautio vastasi kolumnissaan napakasti ja paljasti mitä “tolkun ihminen” on:
“Ääripäistä puhuminen on vain raukkamainen tapa välttyä itse ottamasta vastuuta. Tolkun ihmisiä ovat vain ne, jotka nousevat vihaa ja pahuutta vastaan. Se on ihmisen moraalisista velvoitteista suurin.” (Lähde: Helsingin Sanomat).
Some Finnish politicians condemn racist acts with one hand but with another encourage them.
National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) MEP Henna Virkkunen stated in a tweet lofty European values after an MP of the same party said Saturday that it would be easier for Kokoomus to work with the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party than with the Greens and left-wing parties.
She tweeted below: “The values that #kokoomus wants to build in Finland and Europe are education, tolerance, encouragement, caring, equal opportunities. Kokoomus wants an open, free, and internationally-minded community [and] this is distant from what the Perussuomalaiset represents.”
While her tweet is welcome, it reveals the ideological battle going in that party. One faction of Kokoomus is liberal and pro-EU while the other nationalistic, and xenophobic represented by politicians such as MP Wille Rydman, Jukka Kopra, Pia Kauma, Elina Lepomäki, Kai Mykkänen, and others.
Is Virkkunen’s tweet disingenuous?
In October, Virkkunen voted with Petri Sarvamaa, who is a member of the same party, with Laura Huhtasaari of the PS to not step-up search and rescue operations for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.
Virkkunen is also one of the 36.3% (85/234) MEP candidates who either “strongly disagreed,” “disagreed” or were “neutral” in an Alma Media’s election compass that asked: “Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”
Virkkunen answered “disagreed.”
Is letting people drown or turning a blind tye to their fates in the Mediterranean European and Finnish values?
Over 27,000 people have drowned crossing the Mediterranean since 1993.
Migrant Tales insight: Remember 2015? It was the year when over 30,000 asylum seekers, mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan, came to Finland. Do you remember the reaction of some Finns who attacked fourteen asylum reception centers? Why weren’t these acts of violence classified as domestic terrorism?
This disgraceful story is dedicated to Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Ano Turtiainen, who is in the news for all the wrong reasons and, who, was convicted in 2018 of inciting violence against the Finnish Red Cross, which manages many asylum reception centers. The conviction has its roots in 2015 Facebook post that was liked by PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari.
The fact that fourteen asylum reception centers have been attacked in Finland since mid-September is scandalous. According to the police service of Kangasala, an asylum seeker was beaten by two or three men Saturday evening near the Kaivanto reception center, reportsYLE News.
And the news doesn’t stop here: Neo-Nazi vigilante patrols, one Perussuomalaiset (PS)* substitute MP from Kankaanpää, Juha Maenpää, stated in December that god had answered his prayers after a reception center that was supposed to house asylum seekers was razed to the ground. If an asylum seeker commits a crime there is a social media lynch mob ready 24/7.
If it is a Finn that rapes a woman the public, politicians and the media don’t appear too interested.
Double-standards and xenophobia are rife in Finland today.
In the ever-worsening anti-immigration atmosphere, some politicians and the government are even showing some understanding to the hostility against asylum seekers, which has spread and affected all migrants and minorities living in this country. Interior Minister Petteri Orpo blamed asylum seekers on YLEfor these attacks by stating that is would calm matters down by tightening immigration policy even more.
You may be asking why the National Coalition Party and Center Party aren’t even raising a finger against the PS’ obsession against immigrants and asylum seekers. These two parties need the support of the PS to streamline the welfare state. In return, the PS can tighten immigration policy and thereby appease their racist voters.
Like in all the attacks against the reception centers this fall and early winter, only one suspect was caught in Kouvola (24.9.2015), a middle-aged man was charged and given a one-year prison sentence.
How big will this disgraceful list grow below?
Attacks against asylum reception centers in Finland
“The inhabitants of Juva are quiet about [MP] Ano Turtianen.* It is a sign that there is a lot of shame.”
A Juva resident
THIS POST WAS UPDATED
Juva in the region of Etelä-Savo is a sad example of how a town withers demographically and what types of politicians appear and are supposed to save it from itself.
Etelä-Savo, like Juva, is graying, and rapidly. The population of the region plummeted by 18.2% to 142,380 inhabitants in 2019 from 174,237 in 1990. Thirty percent of the region’s inhabitants are over 65 years old, with Juva having 32%.
In the face of the region’s and Juva’s demographic challenges, voters don’t support people who want effective solutions but body-building politicians like Ano Turtiainen [1] of the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party.
Turtiainen is no “lawmaker” per se but one who breaks the law.
Source: Facebook.
In 2018, he was convicted of inciting violence against the Finnish Red Cross, which manages many asylum reception centers. The conviction has its roots in 2015.
In that year, asylum reception centers were attacked by white Finns. In 2015, a record number of asylum seekers, especially from Iraq and Afghanistan, came to Finland.
In an interview with Mikkeli-based daily Länsi-Savo, Turtainen boasted after he took away his appeal that the conviction was “a feather in his cap.”
In the year that Turtiainen posted and incited people to attack the Finnish Red Cross, there were fourteen asylum reception centers that were attacked in Finland in 2015.
During that year, over 30,000 asylum seekers came to Finland.
Nature is helping in keeping population growth in check. #ebola #Africa he stated on Facebook in June 2019.
The latest incident involving Turtiainen for slamming police Chief inspector Jari Taponen a “castrated wimp” for telling him that freedom of expression carries responsibilities.
Taponen has filed defamation charges against Turtiainen.
Another one of PS MP Turtiainen’s “famous” Facebook posts. He writes: “It came from painful constipation for swallowing the Greens in government…it was a great relief to see a bucketful of shit…
[1] Ano is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. The translation of “ano” in Spanish is anus.
Migrant Tales insight: Daniel Malpica is an artist who, like many, has been wronged by the Finnish Immigration “Service.” Malpica is an old friend of this blog. Below are some of his earlier writings:
The vandalism that took place on Sunday against the Turku Synagogue did not come as a surprise, said Harry Serlo, a spokesperson of the Jewish Community of Turku.
“What happened is a general trend [in Finland] and should be seen in such a light,” he said. “I don’t like to talk just about anti-Semitism but how all minorities are targets of such hatred [these days].”
Serlo said he was especially happy with President Sauli Niinistö’s reaction and condemnation of what occurred.
The spokesperson of the Jewish Community of Turku said that the best way to counter anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred against minorities is not only political leadership but respect for diversity, which should be taught at an early stage at schools.
“This is a long process [to root out hatred] and will take a very long time before matters start to change for the better,” he said.
The Turku Synagogue was built in 1912 and is one of two synagogues in Finland today. The size of the Jewish community of Finland numbers over a thousand members.
National Coalition Party chairperson Petteri Orpo tweets that “I condemn the vandalism against the Turku Synagog and I’m satisfied that the Turku city council signed a motion [condemning] what happened.”
Orpo’s support is important, but the question that arises from what happened is if there are different scales of importance when it comes to vandalism motivated by hate.
When the Resalat Shia mosque in Eastern Helsinki was in March when it was vandalized with hate graffiti a day before the Christchurch mosque shootings, no politician expressed outrage.
Petteri Orpo tweets:“I condemn the vandalism against the Turku Synagog and I’m satisfied that the Turku city council signed a motion [condemning] what happened.”
This is a sad example of political hypocrisy even if both cases are equally alarming.
On the left is the Turku Synagogue and on the right, the Resalat Shia Mosque in Eastern Helsinki. Sources: Yle and Facebook.
Another matter that does not seem right in Orpo’s condemnation is his anti-immigration track record when he was interior minister and later finance minister.
Below are some of the questionable matters that Orpo and the previous government (2015-2019) of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä “had to be reviewed” in the face of an “unseen wave” of asylum seekers that came in 2015:
Free legal representation restricted to applicants who required exceptional grounds for assistance;
Deadline for appeals was lowered from 30 to 21 days after a second rejection and to 14 days after the third rejection;
The government tightened appeal times in the hope of ejecting asylum seekers faster from Finland;
There were further administrative restrictions and practical difficulties making the application process more complicated;
Tightened family reunification laws;
No time limit on detaining families with children in immigration removal centers like Joutseno and Metsälä;
Lack of government leadership in tackling Islamophobia and racism contributed to Finland’s hostile environment affecting migrants and inhumane immigration policy.
Finnish politicians like Orpo condemn racist acts with one hand but with another encourage them.
Finland has had, for a long time, an “r” problem in the way of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and other social ills like hatred against the Romany minority. Part of it has to do with the historical acceptance and even closet glorification of our alliance with Nazi Germany.
The photograph below of Marshall Carl Mannerheim and Heinrich Himmler toasting to a glass of schnapps, at the height of Operation Reinhard to commit mass murder to wipe the Jews off the face of Europe.
You may ask people about this shameful picture and if it is ok to be on the wall of Mikkeli Klubi in Mikkeli. “It’s history,” the majority would respond and thereby washing their hands of such genocide.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Turku Synagogue saw its walls vandalized with red paint, according to Yle News.
Is it a cultural thing or is that some of us have witnessed racism and the oppression from it directly? It seems that every time a Finnish politician speaks about “rising racism” he attempts to be diplomatic and kind.
President Sauli Niinistö was asked to comment on what happened in Turku. Writes Yle News: “[N]iinistö characterized the incident at Turku Synagogue as very disturbing. He said the vandalism was an indication of broader racism, saying that the growth of racism and anti-Semitism was worrying and that their developments were linked.”
Niinistö said that the growth of racism and anti-Semitism “was worrying” and what happened in Turku “very disturbing.”
The term “worrying” should, in my opinion, be replaced with alarming taking into account the present situation spearheaded by an Islamophobic party on the warpath against migrants and minorities.
A respectful question to President Niinistö: What have you done to challenge this “worrying” and “very disturbing” news?
President Niinistö, like any other politician in Finland, is part of the racism problem in Finland. It is, unfortunately, done through denial and watered-down reactions.
The good news is that President Niinistö appears to be waking up as he warned in his New Year’s speech about the dangers of hate speech.
