Tag: fascism

Neo-Nazi activist Tornianen’s presence at a HIFK-HJK football rally and game raises concern

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Neo-Nazi Kansallinen vastarinta (SVL) activist, Eppu Tornianen’s presence at a rival football HIFK and HJK rally and game Monday, raised concern. He was seen carrying an HIFK banner in the front row and then watching the game with other fans.  

In September, Tornianen committed manslaughter when he gave a massive kick in the chest of a young man, who fell head first on the pavement next to the Helsinki Railway Station. The young victim,  Jimi Karttunen, was sent unconscious to the hospital where he died six days later from cerebral hemorrhages.

Torniainen got a two-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, but the prosecutor is appealing the sentence.

Karin Creutz, a sociologist, admitted that the presence of people like Tornianan at football rallies raise concern.

“Certainly we should be worried about their presence, but there is no indication that they are today actively trying to get new members,” said Creutz.

Tornianen has a history of violence as a member of the SVL. He was recently banned from going to the stadium for a year for violent behavior.

Over the weekend, a football fan was sent to the hospital after he was roughed up on Saturday in Kirkkonumi, a city located 28 kilometers of Helsinki.

Jarkko Fräntilä tweets about Eppu Tornianen’s presence at an HIFK fan rally before the game Monday. HJK beat HIFK 2-0.

Continue reading “Neo-Nazi activist Tornianen’s presence at a HIFK-HJK football rally and game raises concern”

Finland’s culturally diverse community must point out and scorn our Uncle Toms

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What does it say about our society when second-generation children of migrants join far-right groups that spew racism? We have a few of them in Finland like Gleb Simanov and the even more notorious types like Junes Lokka, Marco de Wit, and Miki Sileoni. 

Of the above four names, Sileoni is the least known. He’s an active far-right Suomi ensi member and was a candidate in the municipal elections of April.

I know Sileoni’s Argentinean father and was quite surprised that his son is so spiteful of cultural diversity. His Argentinean grandparents or great grandparents were migrants that came from Europe to Argentina.

Simanov didn’t turn to his boss to address the problem of people not paying their bus fares but turned to the most extremist and racist publications in Finland. Here he’s interviewed by Junes Lokka, a Moroccan-born Finn who hates Muslims, and his girlfriend.

In the United States, minorities such as blacks protect themselves from people like Lokka, de Wit, Simanov, Sileoni and others by labeling them, Uncle Toms.

Continue reading “Finland’s culturally diverse community must point out and scorn our Uncle Toms”

The old and new Perussuomalaiset: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party imploded on June 13 into two factions, there’s been a lot of finger-pointing from members of the old and new PS. This is nothing new coming from a party that has a long track record in scapegoating migrants and minorities.

The old PS and the new PS, called today either New Alternative or Blue Reform, is the only party in Finland after World War 2 that is openly racist and Islamophobic to attract voters.

Don’t believe the new PS. They are the same thing but in different clothing and give justice to Malcolm X’s famous saying, “Racism is like a Cadillac. They bring a new model every year.”

The old and new PS are not just clowns and jokers to the left and right but hazardous to Finland’s political health.

Are we surprised that the deposed PS leader, Timo Soini, blames the far right and Suomen Sisu for the split in the party? What he sowed and reaped for many years ended up destroying him and the party.

Soini writes in his blog: “It’s silly to argue that a coup/job didn’t happen at the Perussuomalaiset party convention. Electing an anti-immigration hardliner [like Halla-aho] was for many too much. The stick that broke the camel’s back was when Suomen Sisu attempted to overtake the party council.”

Electing “an anti-immigration hardliner?!” Why didn’t he sack Jussi Halla-aho from the party in 2012,  when he promised to do so if a party member got convicted for ethnic agitation?

Continue reading “The old and new Perussuomalaiset: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…”

Nuiva manifesto – now you see it, now you don’t! We won’t, however, forget

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Nuiva manifesto is a far right proposal on how to tighten immigration policy and make life more difficult for migrants and minorities in Finland. Those who signed the manifesto in 2010, all in all 13 people, cannot be found anymore on the net. 

Why do they apparently want us to forget what they endorsed seven years ago?

Six of the 13 were or are MPs. One of them, Maria Lohela, is speaker of parliament, while Jussi Halla-aho was elected chairman Saturday of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. All of the 13 persons below were or still are members of the PS. Two of them, Veli-Matti Saarakkala and Lohela are now members of Timo Soini’s new bloc, Uusi Vaihtoehto, or New Alternative.

Three, Halla-aho James Hirvisaari and Freddy Van Wonterghem, were convicted for ethnic agitation.

From left to right (standing): Freddy Van Wonterghem, James Hirvisaari, Juho Eerola, Olli Immonen, Pasi Salonen, Heikki Luoto and Maria Lohela. Sitting left to right: Veli-Matti Saarakkala, Teemu Lahtinen, Jussi Hallo-aho, Heta Lahteenaro, Johannes Nieminen and Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo.

If you go the the website and click on allekirjoittajat, or the thirteen that endorsed the manifesto, you’ll find a blank page like below.    Continue reading “Nuiva manifesto – now you see it, now you don’t! We won’t, however, forget”

Kärkkäinen: A company that believes racism, anti-Semitism and homophobic views sit well with the Finnish consumer and public

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We have to thank our vigilant contributor Ana María Gutiérrez Sorainen for exposing another underhanded trick by Juha Kärkkäinen to slip through the back door his anti-cultural diversity, anti-Semitic and homophobic views in KauppaSuomi, a advertising newspaper to promote and showcase his company’s products.  

It’s not the first time that Kärkkäinen has showed his racist views. In 2014, an appeals court upheld a Ylivieska-Raahe court ethnic agitation ruling Kärkkäinen for publishing anti-Semitic opinion pieces on Magneettimedia, reported YLE. He has published anti-Semitic writings of Adrian Salbuch, Ted Pike, David Duke and others as well as cartoons that bear a resemblance to the former Nazi tabloid, Der Strümer (1923-45).

A racist passage of the opinion piece that claims that white Finns will soon be overtaken by migrants. Source: KauppaSuomi.

The fact that Kärkkäinen got sentenced for ethnic agitation and continues to publish these types of views raises a questions: Does he believe that by spreading racist views will increase his department store’s sales?

In an opinion piece written in KauppaSuomi headlined, “Schools were turned into political brainwashing centers – who’s to blame?” the publication hits cultural diversity at schools by slamming Nordic values like social equality and labeling asylum seekers as rapist criminals. The opinion piece is homo-, transphobic and anti-Semitic as well.

Continue reading “Kärkkäinen: A company that believes racism, anti-Semitism and homophobic views sit well with the Finnish consumer and public”

Nativist nationalist anti-cultural diversity politician Sampo Terho named as Finland’s minister of culture, sport and European affairs

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What kind of message does the appointment of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* parliamentary group leader Sampo Terho to minster of culture, sport and European affairs send? Does it strengthen our Nordic welfare state values or does it drive a wedge between us? Does it expose our denial of racism and bigotry in this country? 

If there is a government that has done great harm to our welfare state and our Nordic values it is without any doubt Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government. Apart from targeting the most vulnerable sectors of our society like single mothers, the unemployed and marginalized, the government’s inhuman and obsessive policies have targeted asylum seekers, migrants and minorities.

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

This isn’t a government that has only tightened laws like family reunification and caused the number of undocumented migrants to soar, but has declared war on our ever-growing culturally diverse society as well.

Spearheading this hostility is the PS party, which has built its political campaign on anti-migration and especially anti-Islam rhetoric.

The new minister of culture, Terho, is no common politician but one that has built his political career and worldview on racist ideology that will end up undermining our Nordic welfare state and values.

Apart from being minister of culture, Terho is the chairman of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity, an association whose main task is to exclude non-white Finns and minorities from being treated as equal members of society.

In 2007, the new minister of culture published a eugenics-spirited essay dividing humans into three racial groups (Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasian) on the different races of the world and how the white Europeans were going to become a minority in the face of non-European migrants.

Continue reading “Nativist nationalist anti-cultural diversity politician Sampo Terho named as Finland’s minister of culture, sport and European affairs”

How Sampo Terho’s essay in 2007 is still the norm but in a different context to fuel fear and racism of migrants and minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Finnish Perussuomalaiset (PS)* parliamentary group leader Sampo Terho wrote a decade ago in Kanava an essay with the classic far-right populist rhetoric about the threat of migration. His point of view in the essay is not only sinister but was a central argument used by parties like the PS to attract voters and that their racism was “normal.”  

UPDATED (20.3): By publishing this baloney in a respected publication like Kanava, Terho’s aim is to substantiate his racist points of views.  

Many politicians who wrote racist things in the past and which helped them get elected want us to forget.

We cannot and should not forget for the sake of decency and respect for future generations.

Terho is not just any PS MP with racist views, but one that is vying to become chairman of the anti-immigration party after Timo Soini steps down in early June.

In a letter to the editor to Helsingin Sanomat, Terho claims that his or Halla-aho’s election to the helm of the party will not force it a path of “sheer darkness and evil.”

Columnist Yrjö Rautio wrote in Helsingin Sanomat Friday that if either Terho or Halla-aho become chairman of the PS it would not only mean the end of Soini’s populist project but a slip into “sheer darkness and evil.”

We disagree with part of Rautio’s analysis. The PS was always a party of “sheer darkness and evil” and its main architect is Soini.

Who is Terho anyway and what are his thoughts about migration and cultural diversity?

Even if the PS MP has tried to hide what he wrote in Kanava, it is a classic example of the racism and ethnocentrism that is spread by far-right and right-wing populist anti-immigration groups at the time to instill fear, hostility and racism against migrants and minorities.

Let’s look at some of the main points of Terho’s essay headlined, “European’s past and future.”

Read full essay here.
  • Terho groups humans in the essay into three racial groups: “Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasian;”
  • The European population of Africans will grow three-fold by 2050;

Continue reading “How Sampo Terho’s essay in 2007 is still the norm but in a different context to fuel fear and racism of migrants and minorities”

Finland’s deep denial of racism coupled with exceptionalism make it susceptible to right-wing populism and fascism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

“One the most infuriating decisions that I have seen lately was taken by the Helsinki District Court. The judges claimed in this particular decision that the poor Iraqi woman  – who was harassed and threatened  by a Sheikh – should have made a complaint to the local police station in her country against her own tribe’s decision regarding honor crimes. (And thus her asylum application was rejected).”

Boiata

If the latter claim above is true, it explains and reveals why Helsinki District Court judges agree with most of the decisions by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). The fact that only a minor amount of decisions by Migri are rejected by the district courts speaks volumes about the state of our country and how decisions are made. 

Ethnocentrism? Finnish exceptionalism? Xenophobia? Bigotry? Racism? Ignorance? Fear?

When a society or the courts agree overwhelming on decisions by another public entity or when the police claim that they don’t ethnically profile anyone we know that something isn’t right.

The district court’s track record is another factor that makes us doubt their integrity. Remember in 2013 when MTV revealed an internal report by the Helsinki District Court that showed judges used derogatory labels for blacks (n-word), Russians, Jews and gays as well as sexually harassed women at parties?

On top of this, the Helsinki District Court claims that such unprofessional behavior didn’t influence the decision of judges.

Who should we believe?

Great news for us, bad news for the Perussuomalaiset, which have seen their poll standing plummet for a number of months. Source: YLE.

Continue reading “Finland’s deep denial of racism coupled with exceptionalism make it susceptible to right-wing populism and fascism”

(Migrant Tales 12.2.2017) Dear Sweden, don’t play ball with the Sweden Democrats – Finland is the best example of the disaster that awaits you

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Dear Sweden, 

In all of the Nordic region we have seen far-right populist parties rise in this century with a hostile even vicious anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity agenda. Of all the Nordic countries, you are the only one in the Nordic region where populist anti-immigration parties have not formed directly or indirectly a part of government. 

A poll in November, however, showed a sharp rise of the far-right Sweden Democrats to 21.5% when compared with 12.9% it got in the 2014 parliamentary elections and not trailing too far behind the Social Democratic Party (25.7%) and Moderates (22%).

The Sweden Democrats are the third largest party today in the 349-seat Riksdagen (parliament) with 49 seats (12.9%) in 2014 compared with 20 seats (5.7%) they won in 2010.

In an analysis piece by Expo, an anti-racism and anti-fascism NGO in Sweden, they explained the rise of the Sweden Democrats in 2010 to the Riksdagen in the following words:

“The Sweden Democrats gain from presenting themselves as an alternative to the so-called establishment,” wrote Expo chairman Daniel Poohl. “The bloc politics that has marked the election campaign has turned the Sweden Democrats into a distinct third alternative, an underdog.”

Poohl continues to warn us in 2016 about the Sweden Democrats: “That’s where we come in. This is the white paper [stating that they aren’t a racist party and have no ties to fascism] that the Sweden Democrats would have to do, but will never be able to write. The racism found in the Sweden Democrats isn’t something that belongs to history but is a part of the party’s concept.”

Migrant Tales wrote the following letter to Sweden in june 2015 warning about the perils of playing ball with a populist party that loathes immigrants:

“Today, you, dear friend in Sweden, are the only country that can restore sanity to this part of Europe and effectively challenge this force that is undermining and threatening our Nordic values. We need you to hold out and show leadership, which has been shamefully lacking in the rest of our region.”

Read the full story here.

However, it looks like there is a tear in the cordon sanitaire that excluded the Sweden Democrats from Swedish mainstream politics. Anna Kingberg, the head of the Moderates, said that her right-wing conservative party would be ready to negotiate with the Sweden Democrats, according to Politico.

Continue reading “(Migrant Tales 12.2.2017) Dear Sweden, don’t play ball with the Sweden Democrats – Finland is the best example of the disaster that awaits you”

Donald Trump and the post-election European horror story

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We don’t mean to scare you with this tweet below. But it’s interesting to note how the Donald Trump’s rise to the US presidency is bringing out the absolute worst in Europe. 

While 2016 was a year that ushered in a new era of uncertainty thanks to Brexit and Trump, we must not despair and permit the flagrant opportunism of far-right politicians to dictate what Europe is.

The Guardian published a story Saturday where the region’s far-right leaders saw 2017 as the year when Europe “wakes up.”

One could fairly ask wake up to what? More discrimination? More attacks against our culturally and ethnically diverse roots as Europeans? More white privilege? More police surveillance and abuse?

From left to right some pretty scary far-right European politicians from left to right: Harald Vilimsky of the Austrian FPÖ, Matteo Salvini of the Italian Lega Nord, Gert Wilders of the PVV of Holland, Marine Le Pen of Front Nationale, and Germany’s Frauke Petry of AfD.

Folks, these politicians don’t have a clue about how to make Europe function as a region that respects and makes diversity work. They will fail and fall flat on their faces if they get power.

Continue reading “Donald Trump and the post-election European horror story”