I am certain that I am not the only one whose blood boils every time a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* politician makes a racist statement about migration, cultural diversity, minorities, and the EU. In light of the June municipal election, the PS’ result was a disappointment for the party even if they improved their result by 5.6 percentage points from the previous election in 2017.
While some opinion polls put the PS as much as 19% of the vote, they could only muster 14.5% in the last election.
The election was not only a big disappointment for the PS, but it shows that their campaign message lacked appeal among voters.
Despite the setback, the PS has ratchet up their Islamophobic, ultranationalistic and anti-EU message. Like raw meat thrown at hungry wolves, they believe this is the best way to get votes.
Their own rhetoric will do a lot of harm and dash many of their hopes. Their rhetoric is like a tinderbox that can explode in their faces at any time with varying intensity.
As the PS veers further to the far right under its chairperson Jussi Halla-aho, first vice president Riikka Purra, and party secretary Simo Gröroos, its message has also become more threatening.
In his cockiness fueled by opinion polls, Halla-aho targetted earlier this year the Center Party and hoped to steal more votes from them in the countryside.
I remember that day as if it were yesterday. First, a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, and what followed then were the cold-blooded murders of young people on Utøya island. A total of 77 people lost their lives on that day. Countless remained scarred by what happened for the rest of their lives.
22/7 happened as well about three months after the far-right Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* scored their historic election victory. In a matter of four years, their numbers in parliament had swollen from five in the previous election to 39 MPs.
Few were asking – if not playing down – the political significance of the PS’ election victory ten years ago. They will implode in time just like the Rural Party did in the 1970s.
The PS was built from the ashes of the Rural Party.
After a decade, we can say with certainty the following: The PS has made Finland a more hostile place for migrants and minorities, polarized society, and fueled anti-EU sentiment.
The Norwegian mass murderer cited in his deranged manifesto his ideological allies of Finland.
One of the Finnish politicians that the Norwegian mass killer cities is PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho.
On this somber day, forced to return to the events that marred 22/7, the day is crueler because we have few answers to understand why.
“We have discussed the unpreparedness of the rescue services, the number of police officers we should have on the street, the number of helicopters, the memorials, Breivik’s mental health…” said Astrid Eide Hoem, a leader of the Social Democratic Party [AUF]. “But there was no discussion of the political ideology behind it.”
Just like the post 22/7 era, the far right is as strong as ever. Even mainstream parties like the Social Democrats of Denmark, one of the most Islamophobic countries of Europe, have adopted the policies and rhetoric of anti-Muslim racist parties like the Danish People’s Party.
In Finland, the PS has openly vowed to end Muslim asylum seekers from coming here and declared war on cultural and ethnic diversity.
It is not a fringe or minor party pursuing such aims in Finland, but the biggest opposition party threatening to win the next elections.
The mass murderer of Norway and his hateful ideology inspired many.
Wow! Looky here! Tens of far-right vigilantes called the Soldiers of Odin are marching in the western Finnish city of Pori! Quick! Take a picture and publish a story because tens of Soldiers of Odin vigilantes are marching in Pori.
The media has a lot of power, but it does not go the extra mile when reporting xenophobic and far-right stories.
The Satakunnan Kansa story states that the Soldiers of Odin are an anti-immigration group, which is correct. When they write about parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, which ties with the vigilante group, they rarely mention that they are too anti-immigration.
Apart from bias and the fact that all of Finland’s newsrooms are overwhelmingly white, very few editorials are written about a social ill like racism and its threat to Finnish society.
The marching vigilantes in Pori are another example of the fascination of some of the media to far-right groups.
If they don’t want Finland to become a Hungary or a country that places its democratic institutions under threat like in the United States, the national media has to do a much better job.
In English, we have an expression, a horse’s ass. A horse’s ass is a person who is stupid andlooks like a horse’s ass after their statement. Sometimes, a comment that makes you look like a horse’s ass may appear to be months later.
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is Finland’s party that adores former President Donald Trump. Not only that, but they like the autocratic politics of Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki.
PS parliamentary group leader Ville Tavio went as far as to declare his love for the undemocratic regimes of Poland and Hungary.
Source: TwitterTweets Halla-aho in November: “Trump is the best thing that happened in a long time to the United States and to the west. Tweets MP Niikko: “Trump’s campaign is similar to what the PS does. Trump has spiritual superiority. And then Russian premier Vladimir Putin: “Trump is a very qualified leader. His vitality enables him to do away with viruses.” Source: Mannerheim-projekti.
Startling revelations – that make the PS leadership look like a horse’s ass – were uncovered in a few books that wrote about the chaotic last days of Trump’s administration.
It is quite extraordinary that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* continues to play down and deflect criticism for their admiration and support for outgoing US President Donald Trump whose most recent crimes included actively inciting a mob to violently assault the legislative branch of government to overturn the election he lost by seven million votes.
PS leader Jussi Halla-aho, like Trump, suffers from obsessions that are perilous not only to them but to the whole nation.
If Trump is driven by his vanity, Halla-aho’s political message is based on racism and hard-right economic policies in the worst conservative tradition.
Like Trump, Halla-aho’s obsession with so-called “harmful migration,” which is a disguise to spread racist offshoots like Islamophobia, he too as well as his party faces a day of reckoning.
Apart from “digging” Trump and claiming that he is the best thing to happen to the United States and the Western world, Halla-aho shows support for the outgoing US president’s immigration policy.
But that isn’t all.
What about Trump’s Muslim ban? What about his open support for white-supremacists and their violence? And who could forget the tear-gassing of peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square for a photo shoot holding a Bible upside down?
CRITICAL QUOTE
Halla-aho and in the case of Trump was quoted as saying in Ilta-Snomat that too much attention has been given to him for his unorthodox style. Even so, he said the outgoing US president raised critical issues concerning global trade, Chinese dominance, and blocking migration.
One of the big questions to arise from the Capitol storming on Wednesday by hordes of President Donald Trump followers is if the same could happen in Finland and other European capitals.
The dust from the Capitol building’s storming by Trump hordes is still settling on a political landscape that appears threatening.
Whatever your view of why and what happened on January 6 will be remembered as one of the worst days of US history. It also serves as a warning to us in Europe.
Four Trump thugs and terrorists died. One of these is a police officer, Brian Sicknick, 42, who was killed in the line of duty by the enraged crowd,
The hordes were encouraged to go to the Capitol to stop the electoral college’s voting, which confirmed Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
The storming of the Capitol building was planned for weeks on social media and different websites. Even so, law enforcement was caught with their pants down,
The action of the Capitol police raises a lot of questions. Why did some of them open the gates to the hordes, and why did some of them appear in selfies with these domestic terrorists?
Is there complicity on a higher level, and was the assault on US democracy a coup attempt?
THREAT TO DEMOCRACY IN FINLAND
In Finland, we have experienced the rise of a radical right populist party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*. The party under its leader Jussi Halla-aho has veered further to the right.
In one of many tweets showing support for Trump, Halla-aho, in a tweet below, claims that the outgoing US president is the best thing to happen to the United States and the Western world.
The love affair between the PS and autocratic rulers who shun democracy is nothing new. Even after the assault on the Capitol building on Wednesday, there is an eerie silence of complicity among the party.
Piia Kattelus-Kilpeläinen is the latest example of the bedfellows of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. The councilperson from Seinäjoki, where she works as a police officer, offers an odd New Year’s greeting, all with a fascist Lapua Movement, Lapua like, (1928-1932) pullover, an ax, and a chain.
A publicity stunt of a media-hungry person craving for attention. Yes, true. Moreover, a person who would care less about the police’s image.
The PS has had several politicians who are from the police force. How could we forget Olli Sademies, convicted of ethnic agitation, Leena Meri, Tom Packalén, Mika Raatikainen, and others?
Former Helsinki substitute councilperson Sademies played dumb in court about his racist comments.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he was quoted as saying in 2017 by Demokraatti . “What is that ethnic group anyway that I have agitated? Charging me is absurd, and it’s a racist opinion.”
So what did Sademies actually say about Africans and Muslims?
Sademies’ post in May 2015 on Facebook suggested that since Africans threaten to destroy Finland’s social welfare system because they have so many babies. Therefore it “would require forced sterilization of African men [after three children], which would stop such a flood [of people coming to Finland] from obtaining a better living standard by shagging.”
Writes Kattelus-Kilpeläinen: “During the following year [2021], the Perussuomalaiset will become trendy and will be able to walk on Bulevardi street [in Helsinki] with a coffee with the colors of the Lapua Movement [a fascist group that was dissolved in 1932 after attempting a coup] [in Helsinki] without creating a commotion.”
All of the above-mentioned police officers who are PS politicians are known for their anti-Islam stances, which are so blatant at times that one wonders if it forms part of their police training.
We read about Joy Aalto, a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party member, who gave us 1 + 1 = 2 advice on becoming a Finn. If such a simplistic recipe for integration – learn Finnish and get a job – worked for her, that is fine, although I have my doubts.
Before reading on, this post is not against women from the Far East but wants to raise a question: Why does the PS believe that such women – not men – are acceptable foreigners?
Why don’t we see the PS empowering Somali and Muslim women?
Joh Aalto states that she became a Finn by learning the langauge and getting a job.
Let’s hope that Joy Aalto will not turn into a Helena Puustinen or house the opinions of former Helsinki deputy councilperson Belle Sene Xia, who wished death to members of the Falun Dafa religious sect.
So what did Helena Puustinen post?
Puustinen said that she would like to lock up Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government in Auschwitz and devise “a better plan than Hitler” to, I suspect, exterminate the ministers of her cabinet.
Puustinen’s hostile rant did not spare asylum seekers. Dropping atomic bombs on them would do the job.
Puustinen in a picture with a Waffen SS of Holland ad asking people to join in the fight against Bolshevism.
And who could forget Belle Selene Xia, who got sacked from the Helsinki PS for wishing that they kill members of the Falun Dafa religious sect?
Before getting the boot, Helsinki PS municipal candidate Belle Selene Xia didn’t consider her former party racist or against migrants.
“They’re only people’s stereotypes against the Perussuomalaiset,” she said. “The Perussuomalaiset are strongly against racism. Moreover, the PS is in favor of labor immigration.”
Surprisingly, she changed her opinion after getting sacked from the Helsinki chapter of the party.
She then said that her foreign background played a role in her sacking.
Anyone who has followed Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairperson Jussi Halla-aho’s political career will easily conclude that it was done on the fuel of racism and bigotry, and generous chunks of it.
Racism had become such a normal matter for the PS that on the same day when Halla-aho claimed on Marja Sannikka’s talk show that he “resents people being treated differently” due to their skin color, the party’s vice president lashes out against people of color.
On Marja Sannika’s talk show (in Finnish), Halla-aho was incapable of condemning racism.
States Purra (who calls, like Halla-aho on Sannikka’s show, asylum seekers “harmful” migration) stated on the same day of Halla-aho’s interview: “Wouldn’t it be high time to think that the mixing of people, religions, and cultures in the West is such a good matter? The development of mass migration and violent cultures is A PROBLEM. Beheading a person is only one example.”
Sannikka asks Halla-aho in the interview if he resents racism.
His response: “Yes, I resent any thinking that treats people differently because of their skin color. I do resent this.”
Affirms Riikka Purra: “Wouldn’t it be high time to think that the mixing of people, religions, cultures in the West [not] IS SUCH A GOOD MATTER? Mass immigration from the developing world and violent cultures ARE A PROBLEM. Beheading is just one example.”
One of the biggest challenges of Finnish journalism is follow-up. You throw a question to the person you are interviewing, and if he tries to wiggle his or her way out of it or speak in code to his followers, you hit the person with another question until you get the answer.
Halla-aho’s response if he resented racism was a half-ass job.
Diagree? Check out one of his tweets:
Nobody in the Perussuomalaiset [party] wants a multiethnic or culturally [diverse] Finland, which consistently mentioned in our program and in everything that we do.” Source: Twitter
Halla-aho’s answer could mean anything. It could be seen as a statement against affirmative action, equality but not equity.
