Tag: Europe

PS stands for perkele saatanas – damn everything!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The biggest shock on April 17  was that Finns woke up to the reality that a large minority (19.1%) had radical views on issues like the EU, immigration and nationalism. A poll published on Friday showed that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party continues to be the biggest in Finland. What does it say about the present state of Finland? 

The PS, or that closed and angry group of people clenching their fists and yelling damn the devil/everything (!), or perkele saatanas (PS), are a belated fruition of  decades of living under the shadow of the Soviet Union during the cold war. That period fuelled if anything our sense of isolation and mistrust of the outside world.

The PS are as well a reminder to us of  the deep state of denial Finns have lived in when looking at our history. By erasing our cultural and ideological diversity we ended up creating a very narrow and deaf view of ourselves.  Even if the Winter and Continuation War ended in 1940 and 1944, respectively, we are still fighting in those trenches with our nationalism and suspicion of the outside world.

In light of this, it should not come to any surprise that the PS’ reaction to the economic crisis in Europe is fear. The prescription is simple: blame the “elitist” EU,  immigrants, in particular Muslims, for our problems and bring back the good old times of black-and-white television sets and when analyzing the world was a simple mathematical formula: 1 + 1 = 2.

The fear-mongering spread by the PS appears to have no limits.  Just like some people thought back in the fifteenth century that the world was flat, too many have the same perception of society and other groups today.  Even if the Internet opened up the world to us, it has done little to question our prejudices but found a large audience and a home for them.

One of the most “society-is-flat” statements I heard was last month by a prominent PS politician of Mikkeli, who claimed on a letter to the editor to Länsi-Savo that if the EU ever became a federation, the Finns, Finnish culture and langauge would disappear from the face of the map.

“The (implementation) and the development of the EU into a federation will in time mean the death of the Finnish people (as a group), language and culture in the same way that happened to other Finnish-speaking groups (in Russia) like the Mari, Vatjas and Veps,” the PS politician writes. “I value my fatherland and my culture so much that I don’t want the same to happen (to us).”

What is incredible about this affirmation is that it was not only published by the local paper after what happened in Norway, but that the writer compares small Fenno-Ugric groups in Russia and Latvia with the over five-million Finns that live in Finland. In a later letter to the editor, the PS politician bestows  more of his “foresight” on us by claiming that higher birth rates among Muslims are a threat because they will force white Europeans to become a minority in their continent.

The apocolyptic-like prediction of a “Muslim takeover” is very similar to what far-right groups in the US have been predicting a long time.  The American Nazi Party, for example, sees an all-out “race war” taking place because whites are becoming a minority in their own country.

Finland and the rest of Europe are embarking on a perilous path if  they allows fear to get the best of them. Parties like the PS show sadly that that is the path Finland and Europe should take.

The big test for Europe will, however, come in the years ahead. It will hinge on how we react to the financial crisis and who we blame for our problems.

The New York Review of Books: Toleration and the Future of Europe

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Comment:  Anders Behring Brevik imagined the defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 as an important date to mark the war that Europe will wage in the twenty-first century against the Muslim takeover.

Writes the New York Review of Books:   “It is unsurprising that what Breivik has to say about European history is trivial. The plagiarism of his manifesto recalls Hannah Arendt’s point that those who do great evil may themselves be incapable of cultural creation. The superficiality of his worldview recalls her notion that the greatest of evils has no roots, and therefore has no bounds.”

There is no such thing as selective hatred or xenophobia. That is only a pipe dream. If you are on the war path against one group, everyone is involved. One of the big issues and challenges in Europe as it races into the depths of the new century is accepting and learning to live with its cultural diversity.

“One twentieth-century solution, exemplified by Nazi Germany, was to attempt to build state power by eliminating the diversity,” writes The New York Review of Books “. This involved racist mass murder, and it also brought failure; failure that Breivik’s mass murder recalls both in its barbarity and in its self-destructiveness.”

If denial of who we are gets the best of us, what will it imply for Europe? Economic decline? Ever-growing social problems? The rise of the far right? Loss of civil rights? War?

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Timothy Snyder

In Anders Breivik’s manifesto, the ostensibly Christian defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 is the central historical event. He imagines a European rebirth in 2083, four hundred years later, and names the Polish king Jan Sobieski, whose troops were crucial to raising the Ottoman siege, as one of his heroes: “John III Sobieski and the Holy League successfully defended Europe against an army of more than 150,000 Muslims.” Breivik thinks Europe today is again under siege from Muslims, and that Europeans must resort to “atrocious, but necessary” violence to defend it. 

Read whole story.

Spiegel Online International: Can Europe’s Populists Be Blamed for Anders Breivik’s Crusade?

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Comment:  Below is a comprehensive report that looks at the tragic events that hit Norway July 22 from many angles before and after.  The mass killings, which caused the deaths of 77 people, is the worst in Norway since World War II, according to Norwegian Prime Minister Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Debate is still ongoing about the mass killer, Anders Behring Breivik, and what propelled him to carry out such horrific acts. A general consensus is emerging throughout Europe that websites and political parties that incite their followers to loathe other groups are largely if not indirectly to blame. While hate speech means generally encouraging others to carry out acts of violence against a group of people like immigrants, it is difficult to prove and sentence in a court of law.

While this may be the case, it is morally questionable and should be condemned by society.

Breivik, however, leaves us with a list of people and groups he identifies with.  When one reads his  1,518-page manifesto, it becomes clear that these people and  groups are a sort of  big family where they feed off each other’s loathing for Muslims and immigrants.

Breivik cites the following far right, right-wing populist and ultra-nationalist sites that supposedly will rally behind his “2083 European declaration of independence” declaration: Austria’s two populist parties, BZÖ and FPÖ, Sweden Democrats, Danish People’s Party,  Gert Wilders’ Freedom Party, British National Party, Lega Nord of Italy, anti-Muslim Norwegian blogger “Fjordman,” Gates of Vienna, Brussels Journal to name a few.

From Finland you will find the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party,which he cites as “anti-immigration.” PS MP Jussi Halla-aho is mentioned twice in the manifesto. Others on his questionable list are: Suomen Sisu (a nationalistic organization, according to Breivik), Suomalaisuudenliitto (nationalistic cultural organization), Bluewhites of the Finnish People (nationalist party), and Independence Party-League of Free Finland.

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Norway and the world are still struggling to understand the ghastly deeds of Anders Breivik, who was driven to kill by his hatred of Muslims. His confused worldview, which Breivik describes in a 1,500-word manifesto, was influenced by European right-wing populists. Do politicians and writers share some of the blame for his terrible crimes? By SPIEGEL Staff.

Part 1: Can Europe’s Populists Be Blamed for Anders Breivik’s Crusade?

Part 2: Can Europe’s Populists Be Blamed for Anders Breivik’s Crusade?

Part 3: Is Breivik a Psychopath?

Part 4: How Does the Perpetrator Justify His Crimes?

Part 5: Where Did Breivik Derive His Ideas From?

Part 6: Who Are the People Who Influenced Breivik Intellectually?

Part 7: How Do Right-Wing Bloggers Defend Themselves Against Accusations that They Bear Part of the Blame?

Part 8: Is Breivik Different from Other Terrorists Such as Islamists and Anarchists?

Part 9: Why Didn’t Anyone Notice What Breivik Was Planning?

Europe’s and Finland’s radical right: toning down diatribe rhetoric

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By Enrique Tessieri

We are seeing today how the impact of the killings in Norway have placed the far right and right-wing populist parties under greater scrutiny.  If these parties are now forced to tone down their anti-immigration message that fueled their rise, will greater scrutiny dull their most powerful weapon and weaken them in the end?

Over a week and a half after the horrific events that gripped Norway, there is evidence that a clear shift has taken place in the debate over immigration and Islam.

The change is significant considering how radical right parties before 22/7 saw no end to their growth thanks to their diatribe rhetoric against immigrants and Islam.

In Finland it has rudely awoken some parties out of their deep sleep of denial over the menace of the radical right especially after the election victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party on April 17.

Social Democratic Party secretary Mikael Junger openly challenged PS MP Jussi Halla-aho to step down as chairman of the administration committee, whose responsibilities include among other matters immigration policy.

Even President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen have openly condemned hate speech more energetically than ever before.

Reaction in Europe has been similar, according to the International Herald Tribune. “Most of Europe’s right-wing parties have condemned the actions of Anders Behring Breivik… whose lawyer says is probably insane. Sill, politicians have begun to question inflammatory oratory in the debate over immigrants that has helped fuel the rise of right-leaning politicians across Europe in recent years.”

In Finland, PS MP James Hirviisari, Halla-aho’s crude alter ego, suggests that a failed immigration and multicultural policy explain why Breivik went on the rampage.

In a thread under his Uusi Suomi blog entry, Norjan verilöyly (Norway’s bloodbath), he offers an explanation why Anders Behring Breivik snapped and started his mass killings. “I really am not surprised that something like this could happen in Norway. In the last years at least ALL (100%) of tens of those accused of violent rapes have been caused by immigrants/foreigners that have come from outside Europe.”

Sensible people in Finland and Europe understand that anti-immigration and anti-Islam groups pose today a threat to our democratic way of life. Breivik is a case in point.

There is a danger that pushing Halla-aho and his Counter-Jihad followers to a corner could weaken PS MP Timo Soini and force the party to take a more radical line against the EU and immigration.

On the other hand, it may well be that we are finally acknowledging and seeing the real face of the PS that we have not wanted to see thanks to our silence.

All that has now changed after 22/7.

Living in post-22/7 Europe: The tide has turned

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the biggest blows to the far right and right-wing populist parties in Europe and the Nordic Region after the horrific events in Norway has been to their provocative anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam discourse.

What was acceptable before, like racist gaffes and jokes by politicians, their aides and common citizens, look terribly embarrassing today in light of Norway. There are a lot of red faces today out there.

In Finland, the biggest loser of post-22/7 are the  so-called anti-Islam Counter-Jihad extremists of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. They are the MPs who signed the Nuiva manifesto: Jussi Halla-aho, Juho Eerola, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen, Vesa-Matti Saarakkala, Maria Lohela and others.

What unites these PS politicians is their extremist views of Islam, immigration that is stuck in a time warp eerily close to how Nazi Germany perceived “racial hygiene,” or that ethnic groups should not mix.

But this is only a small number of the openly anti-immigration PS MPs in parliament. We have all heard of PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen and some may even know who Reijo Tossavainen is. He said in May that Finland should close its borders to asylum-seekers.

According to researcher Toby Archer of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Counter-Jihad is the new ideology found in the blogshpere, which is not anti-Semitic nor does it associate itself with neo-Nazis. I see it is a sort of modern-day fascism without the heavy ideological baggage of its predecessor.

One of the best-known sites for the Counter-Jihad movement is the Gates of Vienna, where Halla-aho was a regular contributor, translator and correspondent. The website used to be visited frequently as well by Anders Behring Breivik, the mass killer of Norway.

What I find surprising is how a politician like Halla-aho washes his hands of how his extremist views on Islam could have impacted Breivik.  Green Party MP Outi Alanko Kahluoto writes (in Finnish) has a good blog entry about this.

The tide for the Counter-Jihadists has turned especially in Finland after 22/7.  More politicians, the media and common citizens are seriously questioning the PS’ and other people’s anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances today than ever before.

One of these public figures is Social Democrat Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, who said in the Kokoomus-run Verrkouutiset that PS head Timo Soini bore responsibility for the racist language coming out of the party. “There should be zero tolerance (in society) for this type of hate speech (by Halla-aho his followers  and others),” he said.

In order to put a lid on racism on the net, Tuomioja suggested that bloggers should as a general rule publish threads and blog entries with their real names. If this isn’t possible, the real name should be known to the administrator of the blog.

EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström said in Spiegel Online International that Europe wants to fight right-wing extremism.

“I have many times expressed my concern over xenophobic parties who build their unfortunately quite successful rhetoric on negative opinions on Islam and other so-called threats against society,” writes Malmström. “This creates a very negative environment, and sadly there are too few leaders today who stand up for diversity and for the importance of having open, democratic and tolerant societies where everybody is welcome.”

guardian.co.uk: Anders Behring Breivik had no legitimate grievance

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Comment: Another excellent analysis piece by the Guardian of London over the political impact of Anders Hering Breivik’s killings and how politicians are still refusing to stand up and show leadership. They prefer instead to eerily pin the blame on immigrants during these dire economic and political times for Europe. The analysis sites “the failure of multiculturalism” as “racism’s most elastic alibi.”

Write Gavan Titley and Alana Lentin: “Despite the fact that Anders Behring Breivik was not permitted to publicly justify his actions in public on Monday, a scrambling defence of his repertoire of prejudice is already in full swing,” they continue. “(Wall Street Journal writer  Bruce)Bawer blames mainstream politics for failing to address the corrosion of Europe by Islamicisation and multiculturalism, meanwhile The Jerusalem Post cautions that ‘Oslo’s devastating tragedy should not be allowed to be manipulated by those who would cover up the abject failure of multiculturalism.'”

As the economic situation worsens and our lives in Europe aren’t helped at all by what happened in Oslo, it is incredible how political leaders even in countries with small immigrant populations like Finland are blaming the “failure of multiculturalism” when, in fact, it is their own failure and of their policies.

One of the biggest answers that they have yet to give is what is the nexst step if “multiculturalism has failed or is dead?” How do we make our societies more acceptant of  cultural diversity and how do we avoid the mistakes and our past issues with racism?

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Gavan Titley and Alana Lentin

Despite the fact that Anders Behring Breivik was not permitted to publicly justify his actions in public on Monday, a scrambling defence of his repertoire of prejudice is already in full swing. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Bawer, who is quoted by Breivik in his manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, emphasises his repeated warnings that a rightwing extremist may use violence to address “legitimate concerns about genuine problems”. Bawer blames mainstream politics for failing to address the corrosion of Europe by Islamicisation and multiculturalism, meanwhile The Jerusalem Post cautions that “Oslo’s devastating tragedy should not be allowed to be manipulated by those who would cover up the abject failure of multiculturalism”.

Read whole story.

Suomen Kuvalehti.fi: Terrorismintutkija: Breivik selittää tekonsa vasta-jihadilla – tästä on kyse

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Comment:  The analysis on Finnish newsmagazine Suomen Kuvalehti gives us a gruesome picture of the new face of fascism if you will in the twenty-first century. It is the same ideology that drove Anders Behring Breivik  on his crusade to “save Europe” by killing 76 innocent victims. It is the same ideology used today by the far right and right-wing populist groups.

According to researcher Toby Archer of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, the new ideology on found on the blogsphere is called the “Counter-Jihad,” which is not anti-Semitic nor does it associate itself with neo-Nazis. It is a sort of modern-day fascism without the heavy ideological baggage of its predecessor.

The new face of fascism is, in my opinion, the same beast but has aged eighty years from the 1930s.

Archer believes that Timo Soini’s Veikko Vennamo’s former Rural Party roots in the PS have weakened   since Halla-aho joined the party.

The researcher says that PS has become part of the international Counter-Jihad movement, of which the party’s rhetoric towards Muslims and immigration are very similar. 

You can read Archer’s full report here.

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Juho Salminen

Kun uhrit on laskettu, alkaa syiden pohdinta. Millaisella ajatusmaailmalla Anders Behring Breivik perusteli tekonsa itselleen ja yrittää tehdä niin myös muille? Breivik julkaisi perjantaina noin 1500-sivuisen manifestin, jossa hän muun muassa kuvailee valmistautumista terrori-iskuun. Hän kertoo vastustavansa islamia ja marxismia. Terrorismintutkija Toby Archer sanoo, että Breivik ei ole vain hullu. Hän on selvästi mielenvikainen, mutta hänellä on myös poliittinen viesti.

Right-wing populist parties want Europeans to live in their news blackout

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By Enrique Tessieri

The job of autocratic regimes is still made easy today thanks to faulty technology and infrastructure. If a military regime usurped power from a democratically elected government, it can literally “turn off the lights” and keep the population in a news and information blackout.

While some may claim that this could never happen in Europe, where access to information is supposed to be our inalienable right, news and information blackouts do take place in many parts of the world. Some countries where this occurs are Myanmar, Turkmenistan, North Korea and in remote areas  where basic infrastructure like electricity and telephone services are not available.

Even if we live in Europe in the dead center of the information highway (an old term but still valid), some of us strangely prefer to treat news in the same way as countries like Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia or China.

Things have got so bad in these nations that many of their inhabitants have learned to trust those who have placed their civil rights in cold storage and be   highly suspicious of those who are trying to regain them.

Just because we live in Europe and have access to information doesn’t mean that we are not in danger of falling into the same trap as countries like Belarus, China or Vietnam. Wikileaks is a good example that this problem exists in countries that claim to be open and democratic.

But who are these groups in Europe that want to  switch off the information and news lights?

They are none other than right-wing populist parties. We all know their names: Sweden Democrats, Jobbik, Perussuomalaiset, Danish People’s Party, National Front of France, Lega Nord, Slovak National Party, British National Party to name a few.

Certainly switching off the news and information lights would be impossible in Europe in the same way as Cuba. However, there are many ways to skin the news and information cat. On of the most effective ways is with the help of rhetoric, populism and nationalism used by these parties, which are anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-minority and anti-Islam.

Let’s take for instance the anti-immigration “switch.” If we accept the arguments of these parties who picture immigrants as social-welfare shoppers, rapists, criminals etc, our fear shuts down our reasoning and ability to register news and information that is well-balanced and objective. We end up living in a self-imposed news and information blackout thanks to our fear.

What these right-wing populist parties haven’t told you, however, is that we are the only ones who have the power to turn on or off that crucial switch.

Our civil rights have to be defended everyday.

guardian.co.uk: North Carolina’s reparation for the dark past of American eugenics

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Comment: When we think of pseudo-sciences like eugenics we usually associate them with Germany. However, eugenics was widely accepted in other European countries as well as in the United States. The story below published by the Guardian shows how eugenics led to forced sterilization in the United States and how such practices continue to impact its victims to this date.

The following documentary, The Occult History of the Reich, gives a grotesque view of how eugenics got wide support from medical establishments and how it served fanatics like Adolf Hitler to set his country on a ruinous crusade. 

Even if sensible people know that eugenics is baloney with a capital B, associations like Suomen Sisu continue to flirt with such ideas through their views of “racial purity.” This is odd because Nazis like Eugene Fischer considered Finns of Mongolian stock. 

Apart from not having any scientific foundation, the legacy that eugenics left us is war and mass-murder in the name of racial purity.

Thanks to JusticeDemon for alerting me about this story.

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By Edwin Black

North Carolina’s compensation to victims of forced sterilisation is a chance to illuminate a gruesome US tradition of racial ‘science.’

Twenty-seven American states joined a decades-long pseudo-scientific crusade to create a white, blond, blue-eyed, biologically superior “master race”. Their misguided utopian quest was called eugenics. But only one state, North Carolina, is now readying a massive plan of financial repatriations to its surviving victims. Just how much North Carolina should pay is now the subject of a historically wrenching debate.

Read whole story.

HS: Ihmisrotuja ei voi perustella biologialla

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Comment:  Here is an interesting letter to the editor by Turku University professor of genetics, Petter Portin, who states that one myth that has been constructed by Europeans is the concept of  “race.” Genetic research has shown that so-called racial differences between people are very small.  The only differences that separate us are geographic. 

Even so, classifying people into different races has served many purposes throughout history. One of these has been to dominate groups and to justify their exploitation. 

One of the first to classify people into different races was Carl von Linné (1707-1778), who argued that there were four: white, red, yellow and black.

“The best matter would be to give up classifying people altogether,” Portin writes. “Using terms (to classify different groups) is a way to control them.”

The term ethnic group is used more in Europe than in the United States, where groups like blacks refer to themselves as a “race.” Mexican Americans, for example, call themselves “la raza,” or the race. Europeans that immigrated to the United States and who were “white” were seen belonging to ethnic as opposed to racial groups. 

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Petter Portin

Mitä pidemmälle ihmiskunnan geneettisen muuntelun tutkimus on edennyt, sitä selvemmäksi on käynyt, että mitään selviä ihmisrotuja ei ole olemassa. Antropologian historian aikana ihmiskunnassa on erotettu kymmeniä eri rotuja. Ihmisbiologiassa ollaan kuitenkin nykyään luopumassa tai on jo luovuttu rodun käsitteestä.

Read whole story.