Those groups that are responsible for the rise of populism, racism and hate speech in Finland aren’t those that promote it but by those who stand by with their silence. They are the ones Martin Luther King Jr referred to as “the good people,” or “the silence of the good people is more dangerous than the brutality of the bad people.” 

Not only is the silence of the so-called good people a factor but their expectation and hope that racism and hate speech can be kept on short leashes.

Parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, who openly promote racism and want to make permanently migrants and minorities second- and third-class citizens, could never become such big parties without the tacit support of the “good people.”

Scores of asylum reception centers were targets of arson attacks. While we don’t know the motives of Saturday’s arson attack against a church in Ylivieska, mixed statements, silence and indifference have played a role in promoting such acts. Source: Ilta-Sanomat.

Violence and hostility towards people who aren’t white Finns have become more public in recent years. The so-called “good people” have let out this monster from the cage in the form of vigilante street gangs, fear-mongering and by encouraging, directly and indirectly, racism and hate speech.

Some “good people” I could mention are the Finnish police service, President Sauli Niinistö’s disingenuous and mixed statements about our ever-growing cultural diversity, and politicians who make careers by being racist and promoting hate speech. Others include the national media interested in its power and ethnic narrative, and an education system that still doesn’t promote enough cultural diversity at schools to reflect better the diversity of Finland in the 21st century.

Continue reading “We are all responsible in Finland for feeding the ogre of racism and hate speech”