Radical right Perussuoalaiset (PS)* chairperson, Riikka Purra, like Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, loathes Muslims and other minorities. Slamming and suggesting that Deputy Chancellor of Justice Mikko Puumalainen is a”liberal moron,” exposes her hatred and desperation.
Purra, the one who said she’d shoot migrant youths on a train in 2008, now takes out her crystal ball and claims to be a clairvoyant.
She writes that the people coming from Russia to the border “are not genuine asylum seekers,” adding that they “have nothing to worry about and are not fleeing [war].”
If Purra claims that these people aren’t real asylum seekers, we could say that her concern about “national security” due to a few hundred asylum seekers coming to the border is hogwash. In 2015, we had thousands of asylum seekers entering Finland from Iraq and Afghanistan and nobody raised serious outcries about national security. As we can see, it is all a political stunt by Purra and her party.
But here is the question: Why is Purra so eager about trashing our international agreements that are protected, according to her, by “liberal morons.”
Many mainstream politicians have adopted and amplified the language of the far right
On the far right, Geert Wilders of PVV looks on during the last debate in the Dutch parliamentary elections on 21 November, 2023 in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo by Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images
Dutch far-right and anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders’ success in this week’s elections in the Netherlands has been widely described as a “shock” result. It is nothing of the sort.
Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), whose manifesto calls for bans on mosques and the wearing of Islamic headscarves in government buildings, won 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament, more than doubling its previous number.
Instead, sections of the media described Wilders as “charismatic” and failed to challenge him, even as he called Moroccan migrants “scum” and said Islam is “the ideology of a retarded culture”. He was also courted unashamedly by Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, leader of the liberal VVD party, which has been in power for the past 10 years.
The shock for those of us who have observed the resurgence of far-right politics in Europe is not that Wilders may become Dutch prime minister. It is that today in Europe, for people of colour, there appears to be no hiding place.
Almost all of Europe’s mainstream politicians — in varying degrees — have adopted and amplified the racist, xenophobic, anti-migration and Islamophobic views of Wilders, France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Thursday’s A-talk not only exposed Perussuoomalaiset (PS)* Interior Minister Mari Rantanen’s total disregard and desire to trash international refugee agreements, but her propensity to spread disinformation to her voter base.
The logic is the same that we’ve seen throughout history: I hate this group and this entitles me to spread lies about them at will.
Rantanen makes an off-the-cuff claim:
“It [present refugee system] means that if we continue on this path it means that anyone from anywhere, and it means [she shows excitement] if Vladimir Putin crosses the border and says, ‘asylum,’ he can stay indefinitely [in Finland] – it also means that,” said Rantanen. Left Alliance Chairperson Li Andersson laughs at Rantanen’s claim and stresses that it does not mean that. Putin would be arrested and sent to the International Cour of Justice at The Hague. Rantanen continues: “You can’t send [Putin] back to Russia because it isn’t a safe country.”
IRadical-right nterioir Minister Rantanen commonly spreads disinformation about asylum seekers and migrants. She is a hateful politician who has built her political career on xenophobia. Source: Yle
Politicians like Rantanen use an old trick to spread disinformation. It involves making an outrageous claim, like Putin cannot be returned to Russia if he applies for asylum. The news spreads like a wildfire to her voter base. Even if journalists refute her claim later, it does not matter because it is too late. The news is already out there.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* congress over the weekend raised some questions and new perspectives about the PS’ alternate reality. The hostile attacks by PS chairperson Riikka Purra and speaker of parliament, Jussi Halla-aho, Matti Putkonen, and others as “spineless liars” are a warning of the perilous direction that the party wants to steer Finland.
Apart from the numerous scandals this summer due to the PS’ history with racism, attacks by the party on our media are equally concerning.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s leadership is another problem. Very few members of his party, the conservative National Coalition Party, have voiced concern about the siatuion and its hardright political direction.
Pertti Salolainen is a veteran former NCP MP and minister who is one of the few dissenting voices of the party. Another one is former NCP member and MP Kirsi Piha.
Tweets Salolainen: “The full-frontal attack on #journalism, journalists and #YLE is worrying. It must be rejected out of hand. We don’t need to be on the path of Hungary in Finland!”
By now, after numerous scandals, Prime Minister Petteri Opro may be thinking that getting into bed with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* was a huge mistake that will have far-reaching consequences for the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and even end up costing him his job.
If Orpo and PS Finance Minister Riikka Purra had a crystal ball to look into the future, what would they have done differently? Quite a lot, I think.
Prime Minister Orpo got the first sour taste of scandals to hit his government with Vilhelm Junnila, who resigned almost s soon he was appointed as minister of foreign trade.
It could be summed up in two words: overestimate and underestimate.
It’s pretty clear that Orpo and Purra underestimated the Wilhelm Junnila debacle. Or maybe the correct term should be wishful thinking, believing that Junnila’s racist, far-right, and anti-Semitic writings would not raise any questions.
One matter that Purra and her party overestimated was the lure of racism and xenophobia. Like a magic button, the PS can turn to its magic racism button to get votes, and lots of them, and media complacency.
But has this now changed? Are we now seeing, as what PS Interior Minister Mari Rantanen called a paradigm shift migration policy, a change in our perception and acceptance of racism?
Time will tell if my comment was an overestimation or an underestimation of the situation.
It would be wrong to just blame the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* for Finland’s racism problem. The rise of the PS after the 2011 election would not have been possible without the direct and indirect support of other political parties, the media, and the public.
When results of the 2011 election started to appear on television screens, which placed the PS in the major political leagues after 39 MPs were elected versus five previously, a perilous watershed was crossed. Back then, Migrant Tales was one of the few voices in Finland warning about the rise of the PS.
But let’s go to the original question in the headline: Are we waking up to our country’s racism problem?
As mentioned, it would be misleading to just blame the PS for the growth of this problem.
Finland’s racism problem, which is a pretty serious social ill, has grown thanks to denial and playing down the problem. If Riikka Purra’s writing was concerning, they will be small fries when compared with the hostility our culturally diverse communities will endure when we grow bigger and demand our rights and public spaces, which rightfully belong to us, too.
The only matter that Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s embattled government will gain if it does not go under after its chaotic start on 20 June, is a Pyrrhic victory. In today’s press conference with journalists, Orpo defended Finance Minister Riikka Purra’s apology for her violent and racist comments made in 2008 when she was a 31-year-old researcher at Turku University.
The long-overdue meeting with the media was to clear up Purra’s apology for her past writings where she commonly used the n-word, spoke of Africans as subhuman and even threatened to kill migrants.
One of these was written on 25 September 2008 about young people of migrant origin on a train: “If they gave me a gun, there’d be bodies on a commuter train, you see.”
Apart from the Vilhelm Junnila resignation and scandal, far-right conspiracy theories and views of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ministers like that of Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, Justice Minister Leena Meri, Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio, Foreign Trade Minister Wille Rydman and Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of the parliament, the government has proved to be a liability to Finland and its international image.
At the press conference, Prime Minister Orpo continued to sound like a broken record assuring us that the government is committed to social equality and against racism. On Monday, it went as far as to put out a joint statement to this effect.
Helsingin Sanomat columnist Jussi Pullinen asks a good question that rips wide open the official façade of the government:
“The [scandalous] chain of events led to a government statement reaffirming its commitment to universal human rights principles and renouncing racism. For a Western [European] government to have to make such an assurance is highly exceptional and raises many questions.”
Incredible, no? The government, a Finnish government, has to put out a statement that it supports human rights and is against all forms of racism and discrimination.
Purra tweets: “Or are the activities of the Perussuomalaiset based on extremism, racism, or incitement of hatred, but on promoting the interests of Finns and Finns themselves? Our immigration policy is legitimate and legal and there is nothing wrong or suspicious about it.”
Purra’s defence of the government’s severe immigration policy is preposterous. Andrew Stroehlein, Human Rights Watch European media director, offers below Purra a stinging rebuke:
Coverage by the international media hasn’t been rosy for Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government. Munich-based daily, Süddeutsche Zeitun, christened it the Chamber of Horrors while Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called the government’s start “a fiasco.”
Of the seven Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ministers, including the speaker of the parliament, Jussi Halla-aho, five have shady histories littered with racism, far-right conspiracy theories, sexual harassment, and neo-Nazi links and sympathies.
Even if National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government started on June 20, it has been rocked weekly by scandals and revelations. The first on the chopping block was former minister for foreign trade, Vilhelm Junnila, who had a long history concerning links to neo-Nazi and far-right groups.
Even if Junnila survived a vote of confidence in parliament, he resigned two days later.
Every week there has been a scandal that eats away at Orpo’s government.
The MPs of the PS have given Finland its “Chamber of Horrors.” Source: Eduskunta
The government fuels two matters: loss of credibility and polarization of society.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government, considered the most right wing since the 1930s, faced a storm of controversy on its first day not because of its austerity program, which will hit the most vulnerable sectors of society, but because of its embarrassing links to neo-Nazis and racism.
Headlined Euronews: “Racism and rape fantasies: The PR headache facing Finland’s new right-wing government.” Madrid-based El País writes: “The far-right will control seven key ministries in the Finnish government.”
The Times of Israel doesn’t beat round the bush either: “[Minister of Economic Affairs] Vilhelm Junnila says previous [neo-Nazi] behavior was ‘foolish and immature’; another key figure in new government, House Speaker Jussi Halla-aho, also has history of racist remarks.”
Apart from taking part in a rally organized by far-right groups, Junnila congratulated in 2019 a PS candidate for receiving the 88 election number. “First of all, congratulations on an excellent election number,” he was quoted as saying in The Times of Israel. “I know it’s a winning card.”
As everyone knows, 88 is code used by neo-Nazis to mean “Heil Hitler,” or “HH.”
It is odd why Junnila now apologizes for such inappropriate behavior.
Minister Junnila, who claims to not house any extremist views, now apologizes for his “88” comment: “Those who know me, know that I am a moderate. I do not belong to any nationalist organisations [sic], nor do I plan joining any.”Source: Twitter
Junnila and former MP Veikko Vallin, givng the thumbs up with their MAGA caps. Source: Facebook
There are many surprising factors about Finland’s parliamentary election result in April. One of these is how a progressive government with an internationally acclaimed politician, Sanna Marin, who became the world’s youngest prime minister in 2019 at 34, shifted to a possible conservative and radical right government.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s speech upon receiving an honorary doctorate from New York University Wednesday at the legendary Yankee Stadium offers some answers.
History will expose Prime Minister-designate Petteri Orpo’s deep denial and disregard for the country’s most pressing needs like human rights, inclusion, diversity, and empathy, and his disdain for outgoing Prime Minister Marin.
Whenever there was a coup in Argentina, we used to comfort each other by saying “no evil can last a 100 years.” Even if few humans live that long, the saying can be adopted in Finland to state “no evil can last four years.”
Time will expose Orpo, and the new austerity government in formation as a vain attempt to take Finland back to simpler times where 1+1=2 arguments answered all our problems.
The present government in formation, considered the most right-wing and anti-immigration in a long time if it survives present negotiations, is revealing and concerning. It shows we still have a long way to go to create a more inclusive and fairer society.
I will highlight some of the most inspirational parts of Marin’s speech in New York.
