Shortly, we’ll look at this period as the…
Tag: Bigotry
Exposing white Finnish privilege #40: To whitewash or to disenfranchise
If we wanted to give an extreme picture of how people are “integrated” into society, we could go back to the 1940s when Jews, the Roma and other undesirables of the Nazi regime were transported in boxcars to death camps. Just like those that were separated and sent to go the gas chamber or would…
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Defecting from a single-issue party like the PS of Finland
Pekka Sinisalo defects from the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* to the Blue Reform party because, under Jussi Halla-aho, it is a single-issue party. Before the PS imploded in June, it was a supposedly a 1.5-issue party. The Finnish media forgets that the PS is the only party in modern Finnish history that decided to target and capitalize on Islamophobia…
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Finland’s ever-racist and ever-injust society
Where Finland thought it could find strength in nationalism is today its greatest stumbling block. Finland is such a white society today that it has a serious blind spot for detecting fascism, racism, and bigotry. Our impaired view and lack of leadership are creating an ever-racist and ever-injust society. The signs about our society’s issues with racism…
Timo Soini’s fall from grace and the legacy of planting the political seeds of bigotry and racism in Finland
One lesson we could learn from former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini is that the right balance between flattery and speaking in code will get you everywhere, well, almost everywhere. You can win big elections like in 2011 and ride, albeit momentarily, the crest of the popularity wave until you hit the wall in disgrace with your fingers badly burned.
The words and silence of politicians have dire consequences in Finland for us
After the stabbing of ten people in Turku on Friday, politicians like President Sauli Niinistö, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, Interior Minister Paula Risikko, the national media, which echoes far-right opinions of Jussi Halla-aho, the chairman of the Perussuomalaiset* who was convicted for hate speech, appear to be carried away by their own prejudices and hostility towards asylum seekers, which does impact our culturally diverse community.
US President Donald Trump’s Finnish “tolkun” moment and his mixed response to far-right violence
Three people died in the wake of a demonstration by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed Saturday with anti-racism activists when the white nationalists planned a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The demonstration saw a car being deliberately driven into a crowd of people who killed one person and left at least 19 others injured.
Introducing presidential hopeful Laura Huhtasaari, the Islamophobe with the kindergarten teacher smile
The far-right anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party announced Friday that their first vice president, Laura Huhtasaari, is their candidate for the 2018 presidential elections. The announcement didn’t surprise anyone but it did raise a lot of media and social media interest.
Disingenuous Timo Soini should take a long look in the mirror
If there is a power-hungry politician who will do almost anything to gain power and lose it in an instant, that politician is Timo Soini. Apart from being a disingenuous politician who saw his populist creation inflate and implode, he is a sore loser as well. In an interview in Tampere-based daily Aamulehti, he claims…
Just call them the New Perussuomalaiset and Old Perussuomalaiset
As politicians like MP Simon Elo try to assure us of their questionable political credentials after he and nineteen others ditched the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party on June 13, the new party’s name, which has changed three times in less than two months, is nothing more than a snow job.