Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho announced Monday that he had no reason to bow out as chairman of the administration committee of parliament after he was fined by the Supreme Court on Friday for defaming a religion and inciting ethnic hatred. The PS MP said he would not resign because he considered the Supreme Court decision ”wrong and unfair,” according to a statement.
I beg your pardon?! Incorrect and unfair?
Apart from revealing Halla-aho’s arrogance and disregard for our legal institutions, the PS MP should ask those people whom he has insulted, Muslims and Somalis, if the Supreme Court fine was “incorrect and unfair.”
Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja criticized the PS chairman for not sacking Halla-aho from the party after the Supreme Court decision.
”Now Timo Soini, who three years ago threatened that anyone charged for racism had no place in the party, has eaten all of his words. This could be best understood if Soini openly supported Halla-aho’s opinions. In light of the [municipal elections], it shows instead a party leader giving in to opportunism and being morally bankrupt,” he said.
I had to laugh at this:
So this convicted racist criminal has no opinion on the judgement of the Supreme Court and his non-opinion is that it was incorrect and unjust.
Actually, there seems to be something mistranslated here.
What JusticeDemon quoted means that Halla-aho has an opinion about the the judgement, but regardless of that opinion he likes to point out the fact that the blog entry was written already year 2008 and no facts regarding that blog has been changed after that. All facts have already been known by people who voted him in parliament and also by people who nominated him in his position. Therefore this judgement will not change anything that would affect him being able to continue in that position.
And also Enrique has mistranslated, as he claims: “…he would not resign because he considered the Supreme Court decision ”wrong and unfair””. That is falsely translated. Halla-aho clearly says the reason for not resigning and that reason is not what Enrique claims it to be.
Please be careful when you translate Finnish news to English, so that you don’t end up providing false information.
Hello tp1
I assume you accept the obvious, and indeed comical contradiction in saying “en ota kantaa X:ään” and “mielestäni X on väärä” in the same breath.
Otherwise I think you have provided a fair summary of the grounds given by the convicted racist criminal Halal–oho for not resigning.
I would recommend changing “because” to “and” in the ATL article: The PS MP said he would not resign and he considered the Supreme Court decision ”wrong and unfair,”…
Ricky is correct to point out that the victims of the convicted racist criminal Halal–oho do not share the criminal’s non-opinion.
TP1
What I gather then is that Allah-oho is claiming that his political mandate was gained from people who had free access to the writings in question. However, what they clearly did not have access to was a legal interpretation of whether those writings broke Finnish laws. That is now a matter of public knowledge, and so certainly the circumstances have changed since his election.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Allah-oho refuses to understand the nature of his crime or the reason for the Supereme Court’s convicting him.
Time and again he appears fall back on the idea that he is merely stating facts, when in fact his writing clearly went well beyond ‘facts’ to making significant and defamatory commments in regard to a sacred historical figure and the tenets of the Muslim faith.
No doubt he could have engaged with both elements of debate for which he landed in court in ways that would have been legal, but he is either not smart enough to know how, which I doubt, or he is flouting the law as a means of protest against being able to spout his own vile and bigoted propoganda.
There is no way on God’s earth that he can justify his article as being a ‘reasonable’ discussion of the issues he brought up. No matter the circumstances or the previous editorial about Finns and murder, the fact that he chose to attack Islam and Somalis in the way he did reflects the actions of a deeply bigoted individual.
Am I surprised that he thinks those accusations of him are ‘unfair and wrong’? No, not one bit. I cannot recall a single case of a convicted racist politician who subsequently came out and accepted the judgement, accepted they themselves had made an error or that they would abandon their policies of prejudice.
Expect more of the same, from him and PS in the future, regardless of the mounting number of judgements against indivduals in and connected to their party!
JusticeDemon, you still don’t seem to understand that sentence. I assume you are not native Finnish?
“Ottamatta kantaa asiaan X – joka mielestäni on väärä – olen asiasta Y mieltä…” means that his opinion about X is not affecting to his opinion about Y. It doesn’t mean that he has no opinion about X itself.
That could be translated to English as: “Regardless of X – which is wrong in my opinion – I think Y is …”
tp1
I can read Finnish perfectly well, and I can see that your gloss is very obviously incorrect.
The abessive verb form “ottamatta kantaa” is equivalent in context to “ei oteta kantaa”, and its object must be in the illative case (thus “ei oteta kantaa KKO:n päätökseen“). This says that the writer is not expressing any opinion on the judgement of the Supreme Court. Adding the vague affectation “sinänsä” makes no difference to this core meaning.
The word “joka” is a relative pronoun and there is no question here that it refers to precisely the same “KKO:n päätös”. The word “mielestäni” is then used to express an opinion on this very subject (indeed “mielestäni” is specifically used to soften the declarative clause, thereby turning an assertion of fact into an opinion).
Thus the parenthetical phrase “joka mielestäni on …” expresses an opinion on the same “KKO:n päätös”.
Returning to the original:
The core message therefore spells out as follows in Finnish:
En ota kantaa KKO:n päätökseen ja KKO:n päätös on väärä ja epäoikeudenmukainen
So this both expresses and declines to express an opinion on the judgement of the Supreme Court.
There is no way to gloss “ottamatta kantaa” as “regardless” in this context. Corresponding abessive forms with the meaning of “regardless” include “välittämättä jstk” and “huolimatta jstk”, but “ottaa kantaa jhk” (literally: “to take a stand on something”) explicitly means to form an opinion on something.
Ottamatta kantaa kielitaitoosi – joka mielestäni on tältä osin puutteellinen – on syytä muistaa, että rikollinen rasisti on usein sekopäinen omista rikoksista keskustellessaan.
Why do you try to explain your interpretation as it already obvious from Halla-aho’s writing itself what he means?
Just a little Finnish lesson for you. In Halla-aho’s sentence there is a main clause and subordinate clause.
Main clause is: “Ottamatta sinänsä kantaa kko:n päätökseen on syytä muistaa, että syytteenalainen blogikirjoitus julkaistiin kesällä 2008, neljä vuotta sitten.”
Subordinate clause is: “joka mielestäni on väärä ja epäoikeudenmukainen”
Subordinate clause refers to the word preceeding it, which in this case is “päätökseen”.
Main clause can always be read independently and subordinate clause is used to specify/clarify something inside the main clause.
tp1
That merely confirms what I just explained to you.
The convicted racist criminal Halal-oho says two things about the Supreme Court decision in that single complex sentence:
1. He forms no opinion of it
2. His opinion of it is that it is incorrect and unjust
Incidentally, your alleged main clause contains two quite separate declarative claims. Indeed many Finnish writers would put a comma between them (after “päätökseen” – i.e. in the very place where you removed the parenthetical defining subordinate clause). For example the response of the Minister of Justice to written parliamentary question no. 138 of 2002 and of the Minister of Transport and Communications to written parliamentary question no. 123 of 2006 set off the initial “Ottamatta kantaa” clause with a comma. However, I am persuaded that the instincts of Finnish writers differ on this point and only a silly prescriptivist would try to argue that either school is somehow wrong.
With or without a comma, it is absolutely clear that your main clause says two quite different things. It says that (1) the criminal has no opinion of the Supreme Court decision and (2) we should remember that the blog entry in question was published four years ago.
A clearer thinker would have separated all of these disparate ideas and most certainly noticed the obvious contradiction between not forming an opinion on a subject and then promptly expressing an opinion on it. As I noted above, however, criminal racists are often woolly-minded when discussing their own crimes.
Is it so hard for you to admit your mistake?
That’s where you are already wrong. He doesn’t say he forms no opinion for it. He says “ottamatta sinänsä kantaa päätökseen…” which is part of the main clause and is referring to what he says after the subordinate clause.
This is clear for every native Finnish speaking person, I already checked this from Finnish language teacher, who has university degree in Finnish language.
What actually is a bit wrong in Halla-aho’s sentence is, that he uses dashes (-) instead of commas (,) to separare the subordinate clause. But yet that doesn’t change the meaning.
I don’t understand why you keep continuing this when it is perfectly clear also to you what the whole sentence means. Are you doing it on purpose, trying to twist what he says? What do you expect gaining for it? And did you leave the word “sinänsä” also out from your translation on purpose? That word emphasises it even more that he doesn’t mean that he has no opinion about the judgement.
Heh 🙂
Did your teacher also suggest that “Ottamatta kantaa jhk” means the same as “välittämättä jstk” and “huolimatta jstk”?
If so, then perhaps you would like to try to reformulate the sentence using these verbs, which clearly do mean “regardless of something”. You could begin “Korkeimman Oikeuden päätöksestä välittämättä/huolimatta …” Can you say the same thing beginning this way? I would say you can’t.
You also left “sinänsä” out of your rendition. As I observed above, this is a vague affectation. Whether attached to the verb (ottaa kantaa) or to its indirect object (päätös), it makes no difference to the truth of the assertion.
Are you trying to deny that the sentence begins with a declaration that the writer is forming no opinion of the Supreme Court judgement? There is no question that the nonfinite abessive verb form “ottamatta kantaa jhk” is formally equivalent to the passive “ei oteta kantaa jhk”. This verb requires an indirect object in the illative case to complete the sense, and the Supreme Court judgement (KKO:n päätökseen) is the only possible candidate for this role (there are no other illatives in the sentence). “Ottaa kantaa jhk” means “to form an opinion on something”. “Ei oteta kantaa päätökseen” means “declining to form an opinion on the judgement”. This also translates “ottamatta kantaa päätökseen”. You can drop the affectation “sinänsä” into this in any way you like, but it will make no difference to the basic sense.
Perhaps I should cut through all of this analysis and simply offer a translation of the offending sentence:
Firstly without the vague affectation “sinänsä”:
“Declining to form an opinion on the judgement – which I think is incorrect and unjust – it should be borne in mind that the blog entry subject to prosecution was published in summer 2008, four years ago.”
Now we can render “sinänsä” as “in itself”, “as such” or “as it is”. The only natural places for these expressions are after “declining”, after “form”, after “opinion” or after “judgement”, though “in itself” and “as it is” will only qualify a noun (“opinion” or “judgement”). The most common rendition is “as such”, but you can see for yourself that there is no way to put any of these expressions into the sentence in a way that changes the sense of the first claim. There is no way to use the vague affectation “sinänsä” to alter the point that the writer declines to form an opinion of the judgement.
The subordinate clause is entirely direct. It expresses the opinion that the judgement is incorrect and unjust. As you say, it should be set off with commas, though personally I feel that some variety in punctuation is desirable when a sentence is this complex. Parentheses would have been acceptable, so why not dashes?
So the sentence says that the writer declines to form an opinion of the decision and then it promptly expresses just such an opinion.
Tp1
Are you for real? First you denigrate JD for not being a native speaker and then it turns out neither are you and that you’ve been asking your teacher for a proper translation. 🙂
I asked my Finnish wife, and she confirmed JD’s interpretation, that it means, ‘without taking a stand on the court’s decision’, with kanta literally referring to the placing of the heel being a metaphorical way of saying ‘forming an opinion’. By using the negative of ottaa kantaa, you refer usually to the idea of not taking sides.
Allah-oho first gives the impression he isn’t going to get caught up in arguing about the decision, but can nevertheless not resist expressing his opinion that it was wrong and unfair, as if that had nothing to do with his opinion and was somehow a fact of the world. 🙂 As if!
That’s generally speaking referred to in English as ‘heavy spin’.
Mark, your wife being Finnish doesn’t mean she has anymore qualifications in this matter than myself, as I am as Finnish as she is. My wife therefore has qualifications on this area.
Why do you argue this, even if you yourself know perfectly well what Halla-aho wrote and what it means? Does it somehow give you an illusion that the whole statement can be disregarded if you are able to twist just anything, even if that wouldn’t have any effect on what the statement is about?
The main point here is that Halla-aho is NOT using his opinion about the judgement as a basis for not resigning, which Enrique falsely claimed. Do we even agree on that?
And how do you think it make you look when you try to be funny by writing Halla-aho’s name in strange twisted way? It kind of eats your credibility.
I already agreed on this point in my first response to you, and I recommended that Ricky should change “because” to “and” for that reason.
Well how do you think the Halal-oholaiset (or do you prefer plain old neofascist) wing of the peruSSuomalaiset looks with all of those odd neologisms and deviant redefinitions that have been oozing out of the closed world of scripta and hommaforum for several years now? These are new words like kulttuurimarxilainen, kukkahattutäti, hyyssäri, hyyssääjä, vihermädättäjä and dozens of others that you won’t find used in any other context.
Such expressions are strongly reminiscent of the synthetic dissociative subculture that grows out of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, in which the players become so absorbed that they are unable to appreciate that their language has become complete gibberish to outsiders. Once their minds are trapped in this subculture, of course, they become easy to manipulate for the most insane purposes.
Closed cults operated like this in the 1960s and 70s. There are chilling similarities between the inward-looking Halal-oholaiset community and cults like the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (Jonestown) and the Students of the Seven Seals (Branch Davidians). They too had their special newspeak terminologies. The Halal-oholaiset cult has already produced a couple of Breivik copycats in Oulu and Hyvinkää, and you can be quite sure that the Finnish security police are busy infiltrating it right now with a view to heading off similar tragedies in future. I would be amazed if the convicted racist criminal Halal-oho is not under continual detailed surveillance as the spiritual leader of this malevolent tendency.
TP1
My only argument with you is that I support JD’s point that Allah-oho first expressed the idea that he wasn’t going to give an opinion, and then promtply did. You seem to disagree with this, and that is where I gave my two cents. I have not commented on the accuracy of Enrique’s representation of Allah-oho’s words.
Allah-oho thinks the Supreme Court of Finland is wrong and that the judgement against him is unfair. Does this have anything to do with the fact he won’t resign? I think it clearly does. If he accepted the judgement as correct, then I think he would also have to accept that his own judgement has been very very poor and that he has lost the confidence of his fellow legislators and the public at large. But he’s a million miles from accepting that.
That he also adds an additional argument about having received his political mandate while these things were known to the public is, in my view, a weak argument, as I’ve already stated, because it is now beyond question that Allah-oho’s own views on the rights of citizens in Finland is in stark contrast to the Supreme Court and the Constitution of Finland.
As Chairman of the Administration Committee, he has a duty to the Constitution of Finland, first and foremost, before any duties to the small electorate that put him into his political post. He has clearly failed in that important duty, a duty to treat ALL citizens of Finland equally and without discrimination. Worse, he does not even want to understand how he has failed in his duty to uphold the Constitution.
His position really is untenable, and it is only the spinelessness of Soini that leaves him in any kind of political role at all. Soini fails to appreciate the need to uphold the honour of his party and the honour of the Finnish Constitution and Finnish judicial establishment. Typical bloody fascists, if you ask me.
Clearly the only facet of political life that PS have any allegiance to at all is political POWER. They have shown scant respect for the rule of Law, for Finland’s Constitution, for human rights, and for the right of citizens to live free of discrimination in Finland. How can such a party have any credibility?`
It is therefore with the strongest irony that you attack my credibility for joking around with Halla-aho’s name to remind and underline in a memorable way his persistent and vile religious intolerance and yet you have nothing to say about his credibility or the credibility of PS in these circumstances where he his now a convicted racist and bigot and yet chairs a powerful government committee!
Finland’s reputation suffers greatly when political parties like PS put their own welfare and political position ahead of upholding the Constitution that enshrines the rights of all citizens of Finland! Let’s just burn it, eh, if it’s really that meaningless!
It’s a sad day also when the rest of the political parties on the whole shrug their shoulders passively as if nothing happened!!!
What are you guys expecting from Timo Soini, the guy has same idealogy as Jussi Halla Aho, i don’t understand when everyone is expecting like Soini to Sack Halla Aho, it’s not going to happen, the Whole P.S on the same boat, they’re all in one so no chance.
Johtaako semantiikka tappelu nyt mihinkään. Halla-aho selvästi sanoi että paheksuu tuomiota eikä usko sen oikeudenmukaisuuteen.
Mark, is your problem now only the fact that it’s Halla-aho and Perussuomalaiset? There have been and currently are other convicted criminals in parliament and nobody seems to have any problem with that. So I wonder why it’s now a problem that Halla-aho have been convicted?
Taking in account that the crimes those others have committed are even more severe than what Halla-aho has been convicted of, it feels like hypocracy to attach Halla-aho.
Finland is a democracy. Democracy doesn’t work if only people with “correct opinions” are allowed in parliament.
tp1
My problem? That’s funny.
My issue is that Allah-oho is chairman of the Administration Committee. He was elected, and I’ve no problem with that, but he should resign to the ‘back benches’ and not hold any position within the parliament. And yes, this would apply to other convicted criminals where that conviction clearly creates a conflict with the Constitution. If he came out and said that he respected the judgement of the Surpreme Court and will seek other legal means to express his views, I would have less issue. It’s his total disrespect for the law and the Constitution of Finland that is so worrying about him.
Hypocrisy? Hardly. This is a man in charge of a committee that oversees immigration policy in Finland who is now a convicted racist. You really don’t see any problem with this?
It’s a bit like putting an habitual and unrepentant thief in charge of the petty cash!
There is nothing wrong with having different opinions, and clearly Allah-oho won’t change his opinions and that is his right. But if those opinions are particularly offensive or are infringing on the legal rights of others, then he does NOT have the right to express those opinions in such an offensive way publicly. There are plenty of ways he can express the same concerns in a legal manner. He’s not been gagged, just pulled up for presenting his views in such an obnoxious and insensitive way.
Not only does he not have that right to offend others without conscience, like you or I, but he has to accept that he has been breaking the law, a law that offers an important safeguard to social cohesion. Likewise, if in expressing those vile opinions he is also grossly disregarding the Constitution of Finland, then you really do have to ask whether he is fit to hold that kind of post in a parliamentary committee.
Do you have no standards, tp1? Where would you draw the line?
I suppose the most obvious point to make here is that ethnic agitation and desecration are specifically political crimes. They are offences committed against fundamental values, the social order and society as a whole.
Desecration is proscribed under chapter 17 of the Finnish Penal Code as a public order offence alongside crimes such as rioting, territorial incursion and failure to respect border formalities, vandalism, distributing certain types of violent and pornographic images (LoL – what was Halal-oho’s declared ambition at senior high school?) and incest. These offences typically do not have individual victims, but are an attack on our common social values.
Ethnic agitation is proscribed under chapter 11 of the Finnish Penal Code as a crime against humanity alongside offences such as preparing genocide, enslavement, war crimes and torture. These offences typically involve a gross failure to respect human dignity – which is the cornerstone of human rights and the very value that Halal-oho has notoriously refused to acknowledge.
I should point out, however, that this is a matter for Parliament. The administration committee is not a government body, but an organ of the Finnish Parliament. It is appointed by Parliament, reports to Parliament, and is accountable only to Parliament. The problem now is whether Parliament can sustain its political respect for this committee under the chairmanship of a convicted racist criminal.
tp1: here have been and currently are other convicted criminals in parliament and nobody seems to have any problem with that.
I have a problem with those that have been fined for defaming a religion and inciting ethnic hatred. On top of that, they sit on the administration committee.
tp1, you have probably noticed that we are not too excited about racists and bigots on Migrant Tales.
I shall correct my post, thanks for the heads up.
How can anyone be convicted of ethnic agitation, if nobody has been agitated based on the actions of the person convicted?
And about defaming religion, there shouldn’t even be a law against that. Laws should be updated to 21st century.
Illman and his demla-bros got agitated. Thats seems to be enought to get fined nowadays. He mentioned in HBL interview that “KKO has set a clear limit how far an invidual criticizing rulers can provocate and overdo”
Halla-aho was testing if there is a double standard. And there apparently is.
Come on, tp1, now you really are burying your head in the sand. So you are saying that specifically linking a national group with a genetic proclivity to commit crime is not offensive to anyone? And how about the members of the national group concerned, who suffer stigmatization and a feeling that they are denied an equal status in society? A crime is a crime, and this is a crime against humanity. Do you really place no value on human dignity? Anything goes? People should be tough, and who cares about stigmatization, eh?
Come on tp1, where do you draw the line here?
The laws are up to date. What you don’t seem to take into account is something called respect, tolerance and social cohesion. That requires accepting that people have a right to a basic dignity, and that public attacks on people’s dignity and integrity cannot be made just on the whim of the individual.
We live in a world where people are free to practice their religion free of discrimination and without fear of being defamed for it.
If I went back in your ancestry to find an ancestor that had married or started a family before the age of 16, and then used that information now to call you a pedophile or to say that your family advocates pedophelia, would you be happy about that? If I did this publicly through a very popular blog, would you be happy? Only today, the UK courts ordered Facebook to reveal the IPs of trolls who made exactly that kind of spurious charge against an individual, and that individual is attempting to bring them to court.
Defamation provides redress from slander. Religion, like a person or an organisation, has the right to protect its reputation. As Allah-oho points out, the facts are not disputed, but what Allah-oho denies, but is plainly obvious to the observer and to the Supreme Court, is that he used those facts to create a spurious and vile moral charge that significantly insults the moral integrity of the religion and indeed those that practice it.
There is a line here, and at the moment, you and Allah-oho don’t seem to be aware of it at all. First you deny that ‘ethnic agitation’ constitutes ‘agitating’ anyone, which is practicing blissful ignorance, and then you suggest that religious identity has no rights or reputation, though I imagine if I went around saying vile things about Finland and Finns, you would of course want to protect your national identity.
Come on, tp1, you cannot be that unaware of the values of the society in which you live!
You have understood the law wrong. Ethnic agitation has nothing to do with anyone getting offended. The law is about agitating someone towards group A. It has nothing to do with individuals og group A getting offended or hurting their feelings.
Can’t you really see the difference? Being Finn is something real, something that I actually am based on where I have born and where I live, based on facts.
But religion is totally different. Nobody is born christian, nobody is born muslim. Religion is something based on imagination and person himself can just choose what religion he belongs to.
Religion and nationality are totally incomparable.
Still, whatever you would say about Finns would not upset me or get me offended. Why? Because I am not a weakminded fool who let’s other peoples words to hurt my feelings.
Jssk
It says a great deal about you that instead of focusing on the crime and how we can prevent hate speech, you choose to demonise a public prosecutor on the grounds that he belongs to a civil rights organisation, and even if he is a member, then he certainly is not especially active.
In other words, all you have to offer is more hate speech directed at anyone who calls attention to your mad, sad mentality.
I wonder if we need armed guards at this year’s summer seminar?
You are the really mad one here, taking Finland to a cesspit of censorship. Halla-ahos conviction was a pathetic attempt of political lynching.
Well i dont know, are you planning an attack or what? In that case yes.
Suvaitsevaisuus ei ole suomalaisille ykkösasia
Suvaitsemattomuus kohdistuu kansainvälisyyteen, kaksikielisyyteen, monikulttuurisuuteen, erilaisuuteen ja maahanmuuttoon.
Vaikka yhteisöllisyys, huolenpito ja välittäminen ovat keskeisiä asioita, joita kotikunnalta kaivataan, suvaitsevaisuus ja tasa-arvo eivät siihen näytä kuuluvan.
Asia tulee ilmi Toimihenkilökeskusjärjestö STTK:n kuntakyselystä. Siinä kysyttiin internetin kautta lähes 12 000 suomalaiselta, minkälaisessa kunnassa he haluaisivat asua.
– Kun julkisuudessa keskustellaan leikkauksista, lisää se tunnetta niukkuudesta. Tämä nostaa osaltaan esille suvaitsemattomuutta. Suvaitsemattomuus on myös lisääntynyt edellisestä kyselystämme neljän vuoden takaa, arvioi tuloksia tiistaina esitellyt STTK:n pääsihteeri Leila Kostiainen.
Tärkeimmäksi nousivat odotetusti terveys- ja sosiaalipalvelut. Seuraavina ovat turvallisuus sekä nuorten- ja vanhustenpalvelut.
– Vastausten perusteella yhteisöllisyydessä korostetaan huolenpitoa kansalaisista ja välittämistä. Sivistyspalveluissa puolestaan puhutaan ennen kaikkia kouluista ja kirjastopalveluista, Kostiainen kertoo.
STT
This is what we M.T been saying all this time, racism has increased dramatically over the years, this is the latest research about racism in Finland, this is also for those who come here and deny racism to exist. could it be perhaps Jussi Halla Aho who has influenced people ?
Seriously, isnt it obivious that “tolerance” isnt a first priority for finns or any other nation? there is lots of more important, vital stuff.
I dont see why mandatory swedish must be tolerated. I dont see why we must tolerate more or less unjust things, its stupid. I can tolerate immigration (it should be about quality, not quantity) and natural multiculturalism. If its forced or taken as political agenda, it just wont work.
Next step is that we must tolerate robbers and thieves i guess.
Also one doesnt need to read researh about racism if it exist or not, all you have to do is just travel to helsinki and you will be astonished the stares you will get, almost everyday i get hostile looks by females and males, sometimes they look at my clothes with anger at their faces, i like to dress neat so maybe that explains why, like i have no right to dress good, sometimes i get a feeling by some Finns that they expect me to walk around with a sleazy clothes on so i can be a lauching stock.
Have you ever considered the fact that it’s normal for Finns to look at people like that? It has nothing to do with colour. You only think that they look at you differently, but they don’t.
tp1
Your responses convey the strong impression that you really have little idea of what culture is. You evidently think that religion is a matter of giving intellectual assent to certain claims concerning the nature of the world, and that adopting, altering or abandoning a religious tradition is merely a matter of changing your mind.
Such a view is hopelessly naïve. Culture and religious traditions are something that inform every aspect of human experience.
To give a very clear example of this, can you abandon your ability to understand spoken Finnish? Can you simply decide to give up this feature of your experience, so that you understand as little of what you hear in a room full of Finnish people as you would in a room full of Chinese people? Language is one of the most obvious acquired cultural traits: an individual gains access to a huge wealth of potential experiences merely by learning a language.
This should begin to give you some idea of how profoundly culture informs identity, but it doesn’t stop there.
Can you simply decide to enjoy the smell of rotting cabbage? How would you set about doing that? Can you abandon your tastes in food or music and adopt something entirely different instead, simply by changing your mind? Can you switch to a diet of insects and other invertebrates? There is nothing wrong with such a diet in scientific terms. Can you imagine what it would be like to be repelled by the idea of eating crayfish in the same way as you are repelled by the idea of eating cockroaches? These tastes are culturally determined and you cannot simply switch them off.
All of these things are part of your culture, and to the extent that your culture includes a religious tradition, this also comes to define you as an individual and to influence the values of those around you. You can no more switch off your religious heritage than you can disengage your aesthetic or moral sense.
Your culture, including your religious tradition, is part of the mechanism whereby you organise your experience and make sense of it. For a good example of how we are all hardwired to seek sense in our experiences, I recommend phantom words.
tp1
Do the birds in Finland know they are Finnish? Do the supikoira or the hirvi? Do the trees or the vast number of lakes know that they are uniquely Finnish? Do the bees or the moths, or the bats and the sleepy bears know their blood runs blue and white? Do they hang flags on special days, and do they hold their own special ball once a year, where all the animals gather on the flat plains of Vaasa to celebrate their Finnishness and dance to the wee hours?
A fact, you say?
I find this comment to be extremely naive about the world in which we live and what makes Western tolerance a virtue and not a vice. First, the idea that abusing the reputation of people who are religious is okay because ‘they have a choice about being religious’ has no moral or practical justification.
For example: Imagine this, a self-made millionaire is being robbed on a weekly basis, but the police do nothing, because they say, apparently he has a choice about being wealthy, he should just give away all his wealth, and then he wouldn’t be robbed. Tell me how this would be any different to the situation you seem to be advocating?
Good for you. I’m glad that you do not act on the basis of hurt feelings. So what brings you back to this site to comment on this case then? I’m glad it has nothing to do with the fact that it has upset your feelings in any way. God forbid that you would be so weak and, well, feminine!
My guess is that you would change your tune at least if you saw your children suffering abuse or your parents. You would change your tune if you saw your loved ones upset and confused as to why they were being called ‘pedophiles’. You might tell yourself that you are tough, but my guess is that you would understand the need to protect when it is your loved ones being attacked. Then your feelings would almost certainly would be hurt, and I could understand that!
Likewise, I hardly consider Einstein, or Newton, or Plato as weak-minded fools just because they believed in God. On the contrary, they were paying attention to the world around them and trying to make sense of it, both practically and morally.
But go ahead, keep imagining that everyone who is religious is just not as smart as you are. 🙂
The key thing here though is that you cannot justify abuse simply because ‘it’s only your feelings that are hurt’. We have laws that protect people against psychological violence and this marks our society as a modern society. If you take that away, then what are we, barbarians? A nation of thugs and fascists?
That sounds like you think it’s perfectly acceptable to let people bully other people through force or campaigns of public smearing into giving up their beliefs. And because you don’t like religion, then it really doesn’t matter to you.
It should. The standard for treating religious people should be the same standard as used for treating non-religious people: respect, for dignity and their freedom to practice their religion, providing that doesn’t infringe on other people’s freedoms.
I’m not so young or foolish as to think that religion is all good, but what I do know that is good is ‘freedom to live free of discrimination’. When religion starts to attack that, then I will oppose religion on that matter. When nationalism starts to attack that, I will oppose nationalism on that matter.
tp1
You are incorrect, which I am not surprised about. You obviously do not understand what Allah-oho has been convicted of, even though you come here trying to defend him. Maybe you should do some homework about this issue.
Ethnic agitation covers several aspects of injury, all of which are purely psychological in nature. I refer you to the webpages of the Ombudsmen for Minorities/ Vähemmistövaltuutettu
And in English:
Are you still going to tell me that ethnic agitation has nothing to do with people being offended? tut tut!
Yes. And the proof is right there, you quoted it yourself.
You are thinking that law totally at wrong side. If A is inciting ethnic agitation against B, then A will be charged for his actions, not because B hurts his feeling.
I don’t think there are any laws that forbids someone to hurt someones feelings.
Sections 9 and 10 of chapter 24 of the Finnish Penal Code are provisions of exactly this type. The law was last amended in 2000 and the Ministry of Justice translation bog standard translation is as follows:
Note in particular how the word suffering (kärsimys) is used here.
One interesting point about Finnish defamation law is that truth is not an absolute defence. What matters is the outcome of general disparagement.
Defamation laws have replaced the traditional method of settling questions of honour, which is duelling.
Somehow I suspect that Halal-oho would be more careful to avoid giving offence if the outcome was pistols at dawn.
tp1
You seem to be making exactly the same arguments as Jssk in regard to this ‘inciting’. The law does not mention incitement. The offence is not ‘inciting ethnic agitation’. Ethnic agitation includes distributing or making available to the public offensive materials, opinions or other messages.
Might I also remind you that it was not me that introduced into the discussion the idea of ‘hurting someone’s feelings’ as being a crime. That was you, when you said this:
Second, my response to you was in regard to your claim that “Ethnic agitation has nothing to do with anyone getting offended., which I flatly refute.
Ethnic agitation clearly relates to people’s reputations, and the injury that comes through a loss of reputation from simply being a member of an ethnic group, a national group, a race etc.
You are of course getting pedantic again in stating the law does not forbid someone from hurting someone else’s feelings.
The fact of the matter is the law protects from harassment, ill-treatment, defamation, persecution and threat. Each of these actions are objectionable for the very reason that they cause psychological damage, i.e. they hurt people’s feelings.
Be pedantic all you want about the matter, but you will miss the big picture and the spirit of the legislation in the process.
Jssk: I dont see why we must tolerate more or less unjust things, its stupid. I can tolerate immigration (it should be about quality, not quantity) and natural multiculturalism.
Could you please explain to us what do you mean by “natural multiculturalism” ???
Multiculturism, is a political ideology to enforce multiculturalism.
Expecting multiculturalism to just form out of nothing due to mass immigration is stupid and will lead to conflicts. Look at russian federation, for example. There is dozens of ethnicities. Thats what i call “natural multiculturalism”
Jssk
It has been shown time and again that as a political ideology, multiculturalism is a very weak concept, with very few specific policies. In fact, it is pretty hard to pin a pro-multiculturalist stance even with pro-immigration, as immigration can happen even when ‘multiculturalism’ is opposed.
The concept of multiculturalism as conceived by the Far Right is an altogether different animal to multiculturalism in practice, though naturally because those on the Left embrace its principles as founded in broad recognition of universal human rights of citizens, those on the Far Right therefore ‘oppose it in principle’. The reason is obvious – it weakens the notion of a strong nationalism. You can only have ‘one chosen people’ after all, with ‘exclusion’ for the rest.
Multiculturalism can be approached from a descriptive or prescriptive position. You can say that multiculturalism simply describes what exists when nations are built from disparate groupings, or you can say that multiculturalism is an attitude and belief system that must be adopted in order to achieve an end goal. If that end-goal is reasonably peaceful coexistence between peoples with degrees of different values and practices, then it clearly serves a useful purpose.
The idea that solving the problems of intercultural conflict is to avoid ‘interculture’ is about as daft as it gets. In that sense, multiculturalism is a realistic stance that opposes the FICTION of monoculturalism.
There is more to this concept Jssk than merely having lots of ethnicities represented in one country. By that definition, most of the world’s countries with very few exceptions, are monocultural, as they all have signficant minorities or shared majorities of groupings with different cultural, ancestral, religious and political origins.
Show me a single instance where multiculturalism is ‘enforced’, Jssk?