I’ve been reading with some interest the ongoing debate on social media about the Per-Looks blog that has outraged some Perussuomalaiset (PS) party members. The blog shows a number of PS candidates running for office in the October 28 municipal elections.
Just for the record, I don’t like to make fun of people due to their ethnic background, religion, culture or looks and dress as is the case with Pers-Looks.
While the pictures published on Per-Looks aim to give an image that the PS are a bunch of Finnish hillbillies, the blog does offers the anti-immigration and anti-Islam party a taste of its own medicine.
Possibly those who feel offended by Per-Looks now understand how it feels to be a visible immigrant attacked in the Finnish media by politicians of parties like the PS.
Blaming the social democrats for the prank, Matti Puukkonen of the PS said that Per-Looks was “a cowardly act made by losers who are in politics.”
Just like former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who commonly blamed negative media coverage on communists, the PS like to criticize eco-socialists for the critical coverage they receive in the Finnish media.
The person who made Per-Looks was quoted as saying on Nelonen TV that the aim of the blog was not to ridicule the PS candidates.
“The [purpose of the] Per-Looks blog is not to make fun or to make a political statement with the pictures,” the person said in a statement sent by email. “The pictures on displayed are just as they are found on different web sites [of the PS].”
Since the publishing of Per-Looks, other ones have appeared such as one for the National Coalition Party (Kok-Looks), Pirate Party (Pir-Looks) and Greens (Vih-Looks).
I wonder what would happen if somebody would go to Helsinki Railway station on the weekend and make a collection of “Mamu – looks” as a website….
Or Mohammad looks page?
MK
These (pers-looks) are people standing for public office on a political platform. They have put themselves into the public spotlight. It’s not the same thing to look for random ‘mamu-looks’.
Anyhow, there would be no ‘news’ in that, because many Finns already have stereotypical pictures of what Mamu look like, what they think, what their religious thinking is, what their politicla thinking is, etc.