Center Party parliamentary group leader Juha Pylväs got his brief moment in the media by insulting migrants and minorities. Today, however, he showed us one of the oldest political tricks in the books: say something outrageous, usually racists, and then apologize.
He regretted calling some asylum seekers “welfare surfers” or shoppers. He said his statement was inappropriate because it undermined human dignity.
Such racist outbursts are harmful and only raise the level of hostility and suspicion of migrants and minorities.
Even if Pylväs spoke of “parasitic” asylum seekers who live off our social welfare, he meant our migrant and minority community. Asylum seekers don’t get social welfare but a small monthly allowance.
We’ve seen this same strategy many times. Remember Pia Kuma and her baby carriage claim? Another one that comes to mind is Perussuomalaiset MP Veikko Vallin, who took pictures secretly of children and employees of a Helsinki nursery.
Like Pylväs today, so did Kauma and Vallin apologize.
Jokainen julkinen huomionosoitus lisää rasistipuolueen edustajan uskottavuutta, normalisoi rasistista politiikkaa ja nostaa rasistit muka kunniallisiksi toimijoiksi muiden rinnalle.
Siksi muiden eduskuntapuolueiden puheenjohtajien ja yhteiskunnallisten vaikuttajien julkiset, lämpimät Twitter-onnittelut Riikka Purran tultua valituksi rasistipuolueen puheenjohtajaksi ihmetyttävät suuresti.
Center Party parliamentary group leader Juha Pylväs went on the rampage Wednesday: “We certainly need in Finland skilled foreigners who can live off their work,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat. “We don’t need surfers and parasites that seek a better standard of living.”
While we could consider Pylväs’ statement in foul taste, Center Party chairperson, Annikka Saarikko, only worsens matters by stating that the large amount of asylum seekers who did not get a residence permit is proof that they aren’t fleeing strife but looking for a better standard of living.
So?! Isn’t that what millions of Europeans did when they emigrated from Europe in the nineteenth and first half of the last century?
Is it a crime to seek a better life? According to many Finnish politicians like Pylväs and Saarikko it is a crime.
Pylväs is a member of the Center Party that uses the same language to label asylum seekers such as the far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. PS MP Mauri Peltokangas, charged with ethnic agitation, calls asylum seekers “surfers” who seek a better standard of living.
Even if the media attributes Pylväs’ xenophobic description of asylum seekers to Peltokangas, the term “welfare shopper” or “surfer” was coined in 2015 by then PS party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo.
Pylväs knows he’s said the right thing when PS MP Sebastian Tynkkynen, who is being charged for a third time for ethnic agitation, compliments him for his words.
If he were fair, the Center Party MP could tell us what studies he bases his insult on asylum seekers and our ever-growing culturally diverse community.
Considering the news coming out of Afghanistan these days, Pylväs’ words are especially insulting and expose what has always been wrong concerning the debate on asylum seekers and migrants.
Pylväs, and others of his ilk, are nothing but opportunists, bullies, even cowards for targetting and picking on the most vulnerable and defenseless people of our society, who are asylum seekers. Since asylum seekers are not eligible for social welfare except for the little financial aid they receive monthly, Pylväs directs his insult on Finland’s whole migrant community.
In the face of these types of inappropriate statements that are possible thanks to Finland’s white political system and media, one could ask why even parties in the government continually fuel suspicion, the hostile environment, and hatred of Finland’s new residents.
Even if the answer is complex, its roots are evident: Finland’s big “R” problem and nationalism.
In the meantime, I can vouch for most asylum seekers, migrants, and minorities living in this country that we are proud of our roots and our accomplishments in this country.
I don’t know if you feel the same way about helping Afghans after the Taliban took over the country. Listening to politicians and the media, two words reveal the present state of things: hypocrisy and crocodile tears.
Such deception is not only coming from Western leaders but from the Taliban as well.
Below are some examples of the hypocrisy and crocodile tears we are hearing and seeing now:
Hypocrisy 1: We went to Afghanistan to bomb the Taliban to the stone age for what al-Qaeda did on 9/11. During the past twenty years, however, the West spent two trillion dollars, killed tens of thousands of Afghans, and left the country in the hands of those that they were supposed to send back to the stone age. President Joe Biden said that he has no regrets about the messy US exit from the country.
Crocodile tears 1: Even if we don’t mean it, we are ready to take only small numbers of women and children in the West. Let the men be fed to the Taliban and let Afghan mothers raise their children in the West as single mothers and broken families.
Hypocrisy 2: Even if we claim that we are serious in the EU about helping women and children from the clutches of the Taliban, we are very serious about sending Afghan refugees to countries like Iran and Pakistan, which already house two million Afghan refugees. This is called subcontracting the human calamity you created.
Crocodile tears 2: We aimed to build a centralized democasy in Afghanistan but failed because it was a lie. The real profiteers of the war were the arms industry and disingenuous politicians who misled the public.
Hypocrisy 3: Taliban insists it will not shelter al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and respect the rights of women. Taliban insists it will not shelter al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and respect the rights of women. This promise is a lie, like when the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset* of Finland state that they are not a racist party.
Crocodile tears 3: We are so sad about the “poor” people of Afghanistan. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them. The truth? Your lives mean little to us.
The west should stop the theatrics and get real.
The last thing that the people of Afghanistan need are your broken promises and indifference.
Silence and complacency are some of the reasons why xenophobia and the rise of an anti-immigration party have been possible in Finland. While there are many common citizens and activists in Finland who have been fighting against parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, chairperson Riikka Purra’s interview on Yle’s Ykkösaamu is a definite reminder that we cannot stand idle.
Riikka Purra offered a view of her political fantasies charged with populism. See the interview here.
Here is a list of how Purra and the PS plan to disenfranchise migrants and minorities if they can:
Produce changes in the constitution so migrants can directly be discriminated by doing away with Section 6, which guarantees that everyone is equal before the law;
Raise the requirements for citizenship from five to 10+ years;
Force migrants to take or be graded by “pseudo integration” tests to prove that they are servile and docile enough and no threat to white Finnish privilege;
Fuel the hostile environment and maintain an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred for diversity.
All of these dangers should not only be a wake up call but a call to struggle against toxic politicians.
They also prove that if the PS ever got into power, they would not solve the problems of our ever-growing culturally diverse community but worsen them a million times.
Consensus, sucking up to racists and fantasies by the likes of Purra will not save us from our peril.
Perussuomalaiset MP and chair of the foreign affairs committee, Mika Niikko, said in Helsingin Sanomat that he’d only want to give asylum to Afghan women and girls. Niikko’s and the PS’ xenophobic views of asylum seekers are exposed.
“I am not heartless to not help women and children who seek to come and seek shelter from a dreadful government in the EU region,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat.
It should not surprise us that Niikko, like his party, constantly questions and undermines asylum seekers. As chair of the foreign affairs committee, he should know that asylum seekers are not accepted according to their sex.
Moreover, doesn’t Niikko think that Afghans have families and consider them an important factor like in all cultures?
Think what it’s like to live in a broken family, or be a single mother, fleeing war.
The chair of the foreign affairs committee is ignorant of history. Over 1.2 million Finns emigrated during 1860-1999. When they settled in the United States, they first brought their wife and children, then their relatives and even their friends.
Niikko’s comments only expose how the PS fuel and maintain Finland’s hostile environment against migrants and minorities.
The newly elected chairperson of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, Riikka Purra, did not waste any time attacking migrants. Apart from tightening naturalization laws and family reunification, she stated that the PS will not become a member of a new government that doesn’t “significantly” tightenimmigration laws.
The timing of her hostile and anti-social statements could not have been worse. We saw during the same weekend Taliban’s victory In Afghanistan to take back the country into the 21st-century stone age.
When Purra was asked if she would take in Afghan asylum seekers, her answer was negative and why no Afghan refugees must enter Europe.
What turns a politician like Purra to lose her empathy for the suffering of others only to spoonfeed herself and her base with racist sentiment?
Even if the PS is the biggest opposition party in parliament, only a minority voted for them in the last 10 years. The vast majority of voters did not vote for the party.
Some of the matters that surprise me about the PS are its shameless bravado and crystal ball antics.
Purra speaks as if she already won the 2023 parliamentary election and will be Finland’s next prime minister.
Another matter that amazes me about the far-right or radical-right party is how it shamelessly copies and plagiarizes (see PS MEP Laura Huhtasaari’s interview below, where she is accused of plagiarizing 80% of her master’s thesis).
While some reporters are hoping for the downfall of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government, they are also rooting for the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, whom they see as a shoo-in to lead or be a member of Finland’s next government after the 2023 parliamentary elections.
If you look at the reporting of the PS, it’s easy to discern the Finnish media’s important role in the growth of this radical-right and xenophobic party.
Moreover, the growth of the PS could be seen as Finland’s racism problem’s coming of age and that all the media had to do was give it a platform at the right.
Even if racism was always present in Finland, it had no opportunity to grow since there were hardly any foreigners until the 1990s, especially from 1995 when we joined the EU in 1995.
The first question: Is the new PS leadership under Riikka Purra capable of turning Finland into a worse country for migrants and minorities? Will the PS leadership succeed at penalizing people even more for not being a white Finn?
If we look at the new PS leaders elected on Saturday, the answer is no. I have written that the worst enemy of the party is its radical-right and racist views.
Let’s briefly look at the PS leadership and why they will fail to transform Finland into a country that loathes diversity.
Riikka Purra is an ethnonationslist who believes in far-right “great replacement theories.” Like her predecessor, Jussi Halla-aho, she will lie, kick and bitch to keep Finland white. As chairperson, she will fail at this. Tougher migration laws and xenophobia are not panaceas for the country’s ills.
First Vice President Leena Meri is a former police officer with strong views against groups like Black Lives Matter, which she mispronounces. Meri is a raving Islamophobe who sees no wrong in hate speech.
Second Vice President Mauri Peltokangas, charged with ethnic agitation, is a far-right Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu organization member. In a 2:36-minute long monologue, he said every 20 seconds the following words: two times shit (paska); two times fucked (perssestä); two times what the hell, hell (mitä helevetti, helevetti); and two times the devil (perkele). He is an Islamophobic hothead.
Third Vice President Sebastian Tynkkynen was charged for a third time for ethnic agitation. A social media Islamophobe, Tynkkynen wants to prohibit Muslims from applying for asylum, put asylum seekers in immigration removal centers, among other draconian measures.
PartySecretary Arto Luukkanen finds himself in “good” company. Some of his most infamous arguments was accusing the conservative National Coalition Party of caving into communism because of its stance against hate speech. In Luukkanen’s world, racists from parties like the PS can say anything they want to minorities like Muslims.
Statements about tightening immigration policy by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* elected chairperson, Riikka Purra, exposes her cowardice and the complacency of the Finnish media.
The cowardice comes from bullying people who are powerless to challenge her hostility. The complacency of the Finnish media comes from seeing no wrong in Purra’s and the PS’ hatred of migrants and minorities.
Purra, an ethnonationalist who fears brown and black Finns taking over the country, reiterated today at her victory speech that she is ready to lead the country as prime minister and would not enter a coalition government unless it takes a hard line on immigration.
“If a party is not ready to tighten immigration policy, then that’s game over, and we don’t have a possibility of co-operating [with them],” she was quoted as saying in Yle News.
There is so much poppycock and hypocrisy in Purra’s statement that it implodes with ease.
Just because Purra is doing her Ph.D. studies does not mean anything if you lack empathy for others.
Many Nazi German leaders had Ph.D. degrees like Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels that did not stop him from murdering his six children and becoming one of the architects of the Holocaust.
While some Nazis had one PhD.degree, others, like Emil Otto Rasch, had two doctorate degrees in law and political economy. Rasch, like others that led the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front had Ph.D. degrees and were responsible for murdering two million Jews and other enemies of the regime.
Have politicians like Purra ever stopped to think that migration has always walked side by side with human history? Even Finland, saw over 1.2 million Finns emigrate during 1860-1999.
