Remember the proposals that the Youth League of the National Coalition Party (NCP) made last year concerning the type of society they’d like Finland to be in the future? Some of the many proposals that raised eyebrows and created quite a media storm back then included plans to scrap the Ombudsman for Minorities as well…
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A2 Islam debate: “We’re a very tolerant society but…”
Two matters bothered me the most about the A2 Islam debate Tuesday night: how the cards were deliberately stacked against cultural diversity, and how Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Olli Immonen and PS Espoo city councilman Simon Elo did their utmost to spread fear-mongering of Muslims. You can watch the full debate here until the end of…
Red herrings, code words that help sanitize and make more acceptable our intolerance
Even if I have written for years about Finland’s anti-immigration groups like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), you have to learn to detect the red herrings in order to understand their real views on the topic. What you may uncover behind these red herrings is far scarier than ever imagined. A red herring is “something intended to…
Cultural diversity is unstoppable – it exposes Finland’s white privilege and intolerance
A Silminnäkijä television program exposed Thursday something we all knew: how you are treated in Finland depends on the color of your skin and ethnic-national background. Should this surprise us? What is more incredible? Is it the indifference of the police, bouncers and near-silence of society as people are openly discriminated right before our very…
Youth League of the National Coalition Party sees no evil in hate speech
The president of the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, Susanna Koski, surprised even members of her party Monday by proposing, among a long list of other things, that the Ombudsman for Minorities office should be scrapped together with the quota refugee program and ethnic agitation law. The proposals for 2014 by the National…
Anti-immigration forces in Finland loathe cultural diversity in order to defend white privilege
Paavo Arhinmäki, head of the Left Alliance, was quoted as saying in Joensuu that Finland has never been a “monocultural” country. This is true but how many Finnish politicians understand never mind speak out and defend multiculturalism or cultural diversity? Unfortunately, too few. The fact that too few politicians have the courage to speak…
How many types of racists are there in Finland?
I read an interesting blog entry by Julian Abagond that highlights three types of racists in the United States: white bigots, white implicit racists and whites with integrity. How many types of racists are there in Finland? When studying racism in this country or in other parts of Europe, denial is the most incriminating evidence…
Who is responsible for the rise in hate crimes in Finland?
Apart from the usual social-media lynch mobs on the net, we have seen since the April 17 election a rise in hate crimes in Finland. The issue has escalated to such proportions that President Tarja Halonen has expressed concern over this problem.
Seeing the ogre of racism in Finland at an early age
What kind of a society denies others their identity? What kind of a society approves their children of ostracizing those that come from different backgrounds? Probably the answer is a society that has low self-esteem of its own identity.
The True Finns and their “True Finland”
With about a month left for the April 17 elections approaching, the big question remains: by how many times will the True Finns multiply their MPs from eight now? Some reliable estimates place the number between 15 and 35.