Contrary to what James Hirvisaari commented on the Hommaforum website, the Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP gave a more “tolerant” view on Helsingin Sanomat concerning his statement that homosexuality is “a sexual developmental disability.”
Hirvisaari said that even a disabled people like homosexuals need to accept themselves for what they are, he emphasized that homosexuality or disability does not erase human dignity. He said that his comments were not intended to incite hatred against homosexuals.
Outi Hannula, the chairwoman of the Finnish gay rights organization SETA, didn’t buy everything that the PS MP said.
“In what day does seeing homosexuality as a developmental disability differ from labelling it as an illness?” she said. “It seems that this is an attempt to label a person as deviant and unnatural.”
One of the questions that the whole affair raises is why bring up the topic in the first place.
The only sensible answer to that question is that Hirvisaari is trying to raise support and public visibility for the PS, which has seen its poll standings take a hit.
In light of the municipal elections of October 28 and the Perussuomalaliset (PS) party’s poll standings, it’s no surprise that MPs of the right-wing populist party like James Hirvisaari are leading the charge against different minorities in Finland. In a comment on Hommaforum, the PS MP considered homosexuality to be “a disability in sexual development.”*
Hommaforum is an unofficial PS website used to spread intolerance of minorities in Finland.
Of the Counter Jihadists in parliament, Hirvisaari is in the same league with other Suomen Sisu association fellow members like Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen and others.
“In my opinion there is a good reason to ask if homosexuality is some sort of disability in sexual development if a person cannot develop in the natural order [being able to reproduce] of things,” he is quoted as saying on Hommaforum. “It’s not [homosexuality] a sickness but only a disability.”
Hirvisaari, who got fined for hate speech in December, is a good example of the negative passions and political forces that social media has unleashed in this country.
The decision by the Kouvola Court of Appeal to fine Hirvisaari for hate speech was upheld in June by the Finnish Supreme Court.
The PS MP’s near-constant rants against different minorities are a wake-up call for us on how some politicians like Hirvisaari are breathing life back into intolerance and polarizing our society.
There is a clear connection between xenophobic and homophobic behavior. In order to promote tolerance in a society, we must challenge both of these social ills.
Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen expressed such concern recently on YLE. He said that the actions and comments of parties like the PS have hurt Finland’s international image.
”What is clearly causing harm [to our society these days] is the racist, near-fascist, xenophobic old way of thinking that is propagated by certain sectors…” he said.
*Taking into context what James Hirvisaari said, and trying to understand it, probably “disability in sexual development” is a better translation of kehitysvamma in this context than sexual disorder.
…hate groups have used conflicts over immigration to advance their White Supremacy, their hate, their stereotypes…Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the United States was founded in 1913 to address anti-Semitism and ”to secure justice and fair treatment of all.” ADL’s Stacy Burdett reveals in an interview below the code words of hate used in the U.S. to dehumanize and victimize immigrants and visible minorities. The same speech is rampant today in Finland and Europe.
Below are four ways to recognize the code words of hate:
Immigrants are an army of invaders
Dehumanization
Immigrants bring crime and disease
Conspiracy theory
While Hispanics are singled out as a danger to the United States, anti-immigration groups in Europe point their finger at Muslims.
Let’s look at Burdett’s points and see if they apply to Europe and Finland.
Immigrants are an army of invaders. With this claim, anti-immigration groups drive home the point that immigrants, or Muslims in the case of Europe, are an ”army” or “horde” invading our values and way of life.
There are many examples of people and groups using this argument. One of them is Aalto University senior lecturer Kyösti Tarvainen, who claimed, using a pocket calculator, that Muslims would outnumber Finns this century due to their high birthrates.
Pet adjectives used by these groups to describe immigration are “uncontrolled” and/or “mass.”
Dehumanization. Immigrants are talked about as swarms, hordes or in worse terms. Burdett says: “…when you teach children at school to think a person is animal-like, less than human, you teach them that this group is less-deserving of their basic civil rights.”
Former Interior Minister Kari Rajamäki (Social Democrat) once labelled refugees as “welfare shoppers” that come in groups to this country to live off our generous social welfare system. The claim implies that since they come here as “welfare shoppers,” they should be treated as second-class members of our community.
The Nuiva Manifesto, an immigration policy endorsed by the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, points out what basic civil rights should be taken away from immigrants.
Immigrants bring crime and disease. This is a common argument used by anti-immigration groups with the help of inaccurate statistics.
PS MPs like James Hirvisaari have used rape statistics and social welfare payments to single out and attack certain immigrant groups and minorities in Finland. One of his most incredible claims was that Norwegian mass killer, Anders Breivik, carried out his massacre because of “uncontrolled immigration” and because 100% of all rapes committed in the country were by foreigners.
Conspiracy theory. In the United States, anti-immigration groups claim that Mexicans that come to the U.S. do so to reconquer the Southwest and take back land that once belonged to Mexico.
In the same way, these groups in Finland and Europe claim that ”multiculturalism” is a conspiracy to permit Muslims and blacks to take over Europe ethnically and culturally.
Concludes Burdett: “When people all over the country are trained to think of immigrants as invading our way of life, trying to rip apart our civilization and undermining our values, when we are trained to think that they are a little less than, less-deserving of rights, less human, animal-like, almost…good people will be inculcated to hate.”
…”words have consequences. There is a direct connection between the policies we have in our societies, the words of leaders, daily lives of minority communities and immigrants and unfortunately we have seen hate crimes against Latinos, Asians and other immigrants on the rise.”
Sounds eerily familiar, even if Burdett is speaking about the United States.
It was only in 2010 when Kansainvälinen Mikkeli (International Mikkeli) brought to the city’s attention racist graffiti. To the association’s surprise, the graffiti had been on the walls of the Kattilansilta School and an underpass for over six months. Nobody, never mind the city, appeared to care too much about them.
While this type of graffiti is the work of a small minority, it should not only be condemned by the city but painted over. What kind of image does racist graffiti give to a city like Mikkeli? How many new families and businesses will they scare away?
Does our silence suggest that we approve of this type of behavior or that we are ambivalent to it?
This picture was taken in July 2012, even if Nazi Germany was defeated in May 1945.
White Power and SS signs, a trademark of neo-Nazis, together with a familiar warning. This picture was taken in July 2012.
One of these associations that is spreading stickers promoting neo-Nazism is the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV). The sticker was placed in spring 2012 in front of the author’s home. It reads: “Multiculturalism is hazardous to your children and grandchildren.”
When I grew up in Southern California, the object of racist insults weren’t only blacks but especially Mexicans. Even if there were no Mexicans never mind blacks at our elementary school in Hollywood, some students – if not all – had very strong prejudices against them.
An investigative documentary by PBS shows that not only is the treatment of Mexicans and other Latin Americans a widespread problem in the United States, it has risen to endemic proportions if we look at the actions of the U.S. Border Patrol.
Here is a link to the PBS website to the investigative report titled, Crossing the line. Here’s Part I.
Writes PBS: “In the rush to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants, has Border Patrol committed widespread abuse on [US]American soil? A former Border Patrol agent blows the whistle on unacceptable conditions in detention centers, including massive over-crowding and detainees who claim they were deprived of food and water.”
One part of the PBS documentary caught my eye with respect to Finland. It claimed that in 2010, there were only three complaints by detainees and 21 over treatment in general by Border Patrol officials.
If so few complaints have been filed against the U.S. Border Patrol against thousands of complaints by former Mexican detainees that suggest abuse, torture and even sexual harassment, the single- and double-digit figures above are highly revealing.
In Finland, there were questions raised by the Ombudsman for Minorities concerning ethnic profiling by the police. The police responded that there weren’t any such cases.
Such a claim in April, which was backed Christian Democrat (KD) Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen, shows in my opinion that ethic profiling by the police is an issue just like the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants is by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Take a look at the PBS documentary. It will shock you.
When any institution like the U.S. Border Patrol is out of control and not accountable for its actions, the biggest loser are the very values that these agents claim to defend and uphold. It is indeed a slippery slope.
Who are the real enemies threatening the United States: undocumented immigrants or a U.S. Border Patrol that appears to be out of control and acts with impunity?
Anger is the food of sick men wiser men don’t feed off such feelings
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If u stab a good human’s spirit ur spirit will end up being fed to the demons
A country that is angered about all things that are different from it, that country is Finland.
A country that has a social system but no social system at all, u think and u go nowhere.
A country that strikes out social habits, minds, people, ideas, speech and thoughts; the term social is a strange one because being alone is perfectly fine, the best choice.
Don’t be shocked by a country on this Earth, but it’s true: even if dreams rise from the earth, give them up, it’s only a dream; remember u can’t do that here.
Hate has an extensive market in a country where love is worthless, a country that tries to put you down and tells you that u r nothing.
A country that is proud, but about what??? No/one knows, it’s a secret. Oh ha ha ha ha , ho ho ho ha HA!
U be careful and don’t lose ur happiness when u come to Finland, don’t lose it, make sure you save it for urself because you’ll need a lot of it, almost in all of ur moments here. We all know that happiness resides in u and u can’t buy it from shops and stores. U should build it in ur heart and cells and allow it to expand in ur veins, but a warning: Finland is a country against your happiness.
In Finland, u don’t fit in anywhere because nowhere doesn’t have the power to accept u.
In Finland, the police and the law are the holy book, the supreme moral power
If the police beat u in front of others, those that watch will do so apathetically; even ur friends will tell u that’s normal in these parts,
So tell me what’s all this talk about respect for women? Nothing, really. Not even a gram of importance.
The courts will support the police and they will dance a dirty dance with them with the help of words and ur time; they will force u to obey the law and tell u, ”sorry that’s not possible, there is nothing you can do or say because the police are Holy.”
Oh yes, true, holy mixed with the rude stench of crime, and many other kinds of smells that hide from our noses; u can even scent those bad thoughts in bad people when u are in contact with them. Sometimes u don’t need any contact with these people because you can sense their sick minds on TV, the media, newspapers. Nobody can hide from them.
U r now foreigner in these parts, that’s a mark on ur forehead, that’s a good reason for everything and everyone to be against u; actually everyone has a right to be against u because u don’t belong here in the first place, but hey, who said the Finns did?
They came to this land a long time ago before I was born. Did I break some law for coming here?? Fine, you came to this land before me, but that doesn’t matter even if you are ten years my senior.
Ur age has no bearing inside the circle of time, because sooner or later we’ll die and leave this life.
As the municipal elections of October near, Perussuomalaiset (PS) MPs, James Hirvisaari and Jussi Halla-aho, are doing everything possible to bolster the sagging popularity of the right-wing populist party. It’s unclear, however, if they are attempting to stir up support for the Suomen Sisu wing of the party or for the PS.
In their usual style, one of the MPs throws a furious right against decency while the other swings a left at the country’s judicial system.
Graffiti on a school wall in Mikkeli that reads “white power” in Finnish.
Both MPs, who have built their political careers on victimizing and fueling suspicion of immigrants, are out of control. Even PS chairman Timo Soini appears perplexed. His silence speaks a thousand volumes about the present state of the party.
In the same crude style that Hirvisaari customarily attacks immigrants, he now targets Finland’s political parties. He slammed on Facebook the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) for being an elitist party, the Social Democrats for supporting “freeloading multiculturalism,” as well as the Greens and Left Alliance for being homosexual parties.
This video clip reveals what Hirvisaari thinks about same-sex marriages, which is just as questionable as his views on cultural diversity.
After the Finnish Supreme Court fined Halla-aho in June for defaming religion and inciting ethnic hatred, the PS MP removed the passages on his blog that got him in trouble but replaced them with links, which permit the reader to read the original text.
The police has contacted Halla-aho about the links and told him that they should be removed. He told YLE that he would not remove them even if the police and Supreme Court order it.
Writing about Hirvisaari and Halla-aho reminded me of a story JusticeDemon brought to my attention on the Guardian and which took place this month in England.
The story shows how some Pakistani men in a sex case made the national headlines, while similar cases involving white men went largely unreported by the national media.
Just as different immigrant groups in England have been labeled and accused of being pimps luring innocent white English adolescents into prostitution, muggers and looters, Halla-aho, Hirvisaari and others have stigmatized immigrants in the same way.
A favorite label placed on Muslims and Africans in Finland is that they are “leeches” and “gang rapists.”
Migrant Tales has shown beyond any doubt that rape statistic by Hirvisaari and others are bogus.
The victim of a rape crime can be a person who has been abused sexually or one that has been accused unjustly of such a crime. The fabricated rape case in Lammi, in which Halla-aho and Hirvisaari used in their blog writings to show that refugees are a menace to our society, is a case in point.
Despite the fact that all rape charges were dropped, Halla-aho and Hirvisaari never apologized for sending a social media lynch mob against the asylum seeker.
Writes the Guardian about a similar case in England: “By now surely everyone knows the case of the eight men convicted of picking vulnerable underage girls off the streets, then plying them with drink and drugs before having sex with them. A shocking story. But maybe you haven’t heard. Because these sex assaults did not take place in Rochdale, where a similar story led the news for days in May, but in Derby earlier this month.”
“Fifteen girls aged 13 to 15, many of them in care, were preyed on by the men. And though they were not working as a gang, their methods were similar – often targeting children in care and luring them with, among other things, cuddly toys. But this time, of the eight predators, seven were white, not Asian. And the story made barely a ripple in the national media.”
And concludes: “Make no mistake, the Rochdale crimes were vile, and those convicted deserve every year of their sentences. But where, amid all the commentary, was the evidence that this is a racial issue; that there’s something inherently perverted about Muslim or Asian culture?”
When we accuse whole groups of a certain crime what we do is reveal our most entrenched prejudices.
An Espoo District Court sentenced Monday an eighteen-year-old man for six years in jail for the manslaughter of Abdisalam Mohamed Abulah, 18. The father of the victim, Mursal Abdulah, told Migrant Tales that he will appeal the decision.
Abdulah is one of three victims who lost his life in a span of about three weeks in January-February. Related to one of the killings in Finland’s “black February” was a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilor, who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of the Muslims in Oulu.
Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah had plans to study medicine. He was a Manchester United fan.
Helsingin Sanomat reports that the victim, who attended the same high school as the sentenced young man, went to sleep at his home because he had lost the keys to his home.
Migrant Tales understands that the young man sentenced for manslaughter admitted consuming 16 bottles of beer and drugs when he killed Abdulah.
The fight erupted at the parent’s home of the young man, who slept in a room in the basement. He asked Abdulah if he was a Muslim, who responded that he was. He then asked Abdulah what he thought about Jesus.
Abdulah didn’t answer the question and told him that he did not want to talk about religion. There was silence between the two and soon a fight erupted, according to the sentenced man, who claimed that he feared Abdulah.
Abdulah lost his life when the assailant assaulted him on the head with a metal bar for weights.
Exactly a year ago Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?
In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that day.
In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.
Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVD0ztWaKA
In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.
Everything changed, however, after July 22.
The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.
Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.
In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.
A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party. Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.
The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.
Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.
The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.
In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?
Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.
But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.
Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?
If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain: We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.
Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.
Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.
That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.
It is ironic that those right-wing populist and far-right parties that have gone out of their way to warn us about the threat of multiculturalism and religions like Islam have become the threat and Trojan Horses in our societies. In one horrific blow, Anders Behring Breivik did not only strike at Norway’s liberal democracy, but tore a hole in the argument of the anti-immigrant populists and fanatics.
In the Nordic region, living in a post-22/7 Europe and Nordic region means a serious loss of public face for those groups that have been the breeding ground for hatred towards immigrants and minorities. We know as well that Islamists are not the only ones who commit acts of terrorism, as the Guardian of London pointed out.
When these groups warn us today of the “threat of multiculturalism” and how it is acceptable to treat minorities with contempt, a killer called Anders Behring Breivik will haunt us in the back of our minds.
Every time these individuals and groups spread their usual rhetoric of hatred, we will stop to think and see Breivik’s eerie arguments and logic that drove him to become a mass killer.
When people go to the polls the next time in this part of Europe, some will see gruesome images of Breivik shooting down young members of the Labor Party. People will think twice whether to cast their vote for the Progress Party of Norway, Finland’s PS, Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats.
They will ask if supporting a party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric is feeding future homegrown terrorism.
Possibly what happened on 22/7 will be a wake-up call for these parties to think about the impact their provocative claims not only have on immigrants but on deranged people like Breivik.
If u stab a good human’s spirit ur spirit will end up being fed to the demons
