I’m writing this in English because I want the international audience and media to know a little more about the state Finland is in. I’m hoping, that international awareness will help the fight against racism in our country. The second most important minister in the government, Minister of Finance Riikka Purra says that there is no racism. There are only rumors and scandal stories made up by the people and the media. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo says, that enough has been said and the discussion must end.
And yet: the Finnish government is a racist government formed by racist parties.
In a small country with only 5,7 million inhabitants, the media is also small and totally dependent on their advertisers and owners, the large companies. The companies are the financial supporters of rightwing politicians, also the far right. The main parties on this side are kokoomus, “the Coalition Party” and Perussuomalaiset, “The Finns Party” or “the Basic Finns”. In this situation it’s difficult, if not impossible, for the media to write, repeatedly or at all, honestly and truthfully about racism in Finnish politics and about the racism of the Finnish government and parliament.
Many private people are reluctant to stand up against racists, too. They are afraid of cyberbullying, of violence and even of losing their jobs or finding themselves in a suspicious position in the eyes of their bosses. That’s why racism is still discussed thoroughly and rigorously in private internet groups. That helps to ease the worried citizens, but it has little effect on the worsening situation.
I wrote a summary about the Finnish government’s racism. I will translate its main content here, adding some explanations.
The latest racism spree by Petteri Orpo’s government took a new geographical direction. Previously, public, blatant racism has been targeted at the Middle East and Africa. As “the Asian eyes” scandal spread, Orpo sent via the media an urgent message from Brussels to the Finns Party: ”This discussion must be stopped in Parliament today and it should be made clear that Finland does not accept any kind of racism and regrets what happened.”
The Prime Minister was concerned about Finland’s reputation in Asian countries. Not about the racism that is rampant in Finland – and has been for years, with added volume during this government.
After returning home, Orpo deeply apologized to the embassies of Asian countries. However, the apology was deeply false. It began: ”I deeply apologize for the recent offensive social media posts by individual members of parliament…” and the last, third paragraph begins ”The chairmen of the parliamentary groups of the governing parties have discussed the actions of individual members of parliament.”
Mr. Orpo is trying hard to propagate that just some individual MPs acted in a racist manner. That is a clear lie.
At the beginning of Petteri Orpo’s tenure in government, the brazenly racist writings of the current Minister of Finance and Minister of the Interior came to light. The Minister of Finance was initially defiant and said that she would not apologize for her thoughts, but a couple of days later she stood at a press conference with Prime Minister Orpo, looking like she had been crying, to apologize. The government was close to being overthrown at its very beginning.
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen got scared and managed to delete almost all of her election-time updates from social media. Racist updates, of course, that’s how you get into the best positions in the Finns Party and the coalition government.
Now that Petteri Orpo has normalized his government’s racism with his apparent anti-racism campaigns and statements and by calling racist acts just “childish”, and voters of all governing parties are thirsty for anti-immigrant policies, Riikka Purra has once again let her racism ring out and told the media that the apology at the time was a mistake.
While “the Asian eyes” campaign was going on, Teemu Keskisarja, the chairman of the Finns Party parliamentary group, and Riikka Purra stood in front of the media to explain that the fuss was unnecessary, that there was nothing racist about it. And yet Mrs. Purra herself was racist when she claimed that the cross-eyed pictures were about defending Miss Finland – that is, she claimed that there was nothing racist with the racist action of Miss Finland and that the beauty pageant organization acted wrongly in punishing her for the racist act.
In September of this year, Mr. Keskisarja spoke, when referring to immigrants, about a “developing country pigsty” and “hundreds of thousands of low-quality newcomers.” Mrs. Purra was demanded to resign and punish Mr. Keskisarja – but a racist does not scold a racist and Mr. Orpo is reluctant, too. So these “individual members of parliament” once again declared their racism and their complete unwillingness to give it up.
Mr. Orpo’s own party, the National Coalition Party, is at least as racist as the Finns Party. The National Coalition Party just has a more schooled approach. While the Finns Party, like Interior Minister Rantanen in her election campaign, openly talks about “the threat of Islam” and population exchange theories, the rank-and-file National Coalition Party members write as if on command, each during the same election campaign, about how we have ”failed in integration”, how refugees come here only in the hope of social security and how immigrants are unwilling to work and unadaptable.
After the last election, I looked through the racist statements of the National Coalition Party parliamentary group. Out of the group of 48 people, 29 had produced easily identifiable racist text, including the current Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen, and Social Security Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen. The National Coalition Party parliamentary group also includes several members of parliament who are as public and vocal in their racism as the Finns Party. And there probably aren’t many representatives there who haven’t committed to the racist government program or have ever stood up in any way to oppose the racist statements of their party’s representatives. Such brave people have already been smoked out of the party.
Finland has a racist, neo-fascist government, led by Petteri Orpo. Mr. Orpo’s apologies and statements are false and baseless. Racism in Finland will spread and become more brutal as long as racists are in power.
Link to my text in Finnish
https://reijaharkonen.com/2025/12/27/petteri-orvon-hallitus-velloo-rasismin-suossa/
Link to the text about racism in National Coaliton Party (in Finnish)
https://reijaharkonen.com/2023/05/20/kokoomus-on-sopiva-puolue-persujen-aisapariksi/https:/