iety Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho was a guest on Yle’s Ykkösaamu. Convicted for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion in 2012, the PS chairperson gave his usual simplistic views on immigration and Finnish identity.
One of these was when the reporter asked him about the party’s youth wing and their Finnish white supremacist ethnonationalistic views on who is a Finn.
Halla-aho didn’t condemn this view but blamed it instead on linguistics.
“The question who is a Finn is interesting [question],” he explained. “The problem is that in Finnish we don’t have a term that classifies who is an ethnic Finn and a Finnish citizen.”
And then adds: “If I would for some reason go to Somalia and become a Somali citizen would that make me a Somali?”
Possibly, Halla-aho, you could be a “Somali Finn” or whatever you would want to call yourself. I doubt that minorities are aiming to be white like you but seek social justice and recognition. They are tired of being labelled by Finnish white supremacists and society as eternal “people of foreign origin.”
Watch the full interview (in Finnish) here.
Halla-aho and his party have inflicted harm to migrants and minorities. Their racist rhetoric has no interest in making such people equal members of society. Their main aim is to label and exclude certain groups and attack groups like the Somalis.
Halla-aho and the PS represent Finland’s lost political decade (2011-2019) that normalized racism by polarizing society.
What did we gain from their rise and fall from politics?
Absolutely nothing unless you believe racism is a value.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way.
A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.