Tag: Perussuomalaiset

What does PS membership in the European Conservatives and Reformists group reveal about the Finnish populist party?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the matters that one notices about the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is how it has metamorphosed and continues to do so. Even so, its stand on our social welfare state isn’t clear never mind what it thinks about EU membership, even if its leader, Timo Soini, now says that the party wants Finland to continue being a member of the EU. The party’s entry into the Europe of Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is highly revealing, since it reinforces what we’ve known a long time about the PS. 

One matter it reveals is that the PS is an opportunistic party that doesn’t really have a clear stand on anything except that it polarizes instead of unites, speaks and stresses “us” and “them” in its rhetoric. Deep inside its reason for being hinges on anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam stands.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

A way to understand the PS stand on many issues is to check what the ECR stands for. Below are some of the principles that the European parliamentary group supports, according to Wikipedia:

  • Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
  • Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
  • Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
  • The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
  • The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
  • The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalized NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
  • Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures
  • Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
  • An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
  • Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

In many respects, the PS stand on many of these issues is similar to the Youth League of the National Coalition Party, which is in favor of  “streamlining” the welfare state.

The Youth League of the National Coalition Party made 150 proposals last year that, if implemented, would turn Finland into a U.S.-modeled country where money is king. Some of the proposals made by the group are racist and xenophobic and in line with the most far right representatives of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

The youth wings of the PS and National Coalition Party have lobbied to demote the Swedish language to elective status in schools.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Financial Times: Finnish and Danish MEPs “with criminal records” join Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s group

Posted on by Migrant Tales

While some speculated that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* and the Danish People’s Party (DPP), both with MEPs with criminal records, would be given the cold shoulder by UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group,  the opposite happened, writes the Financial Times. 

The two MEPs with criminal records are PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho and DPP’s Morten Messerschmidt, who was convicted in 2002 for claiming that cultural diversity was linked to rape, violence and forced marriages.

Writes the Financial Times quoting Mats Persson of the Open Europe think-tank said:

This will raise the eyebrows of many in Europe who thought the Danish People’s party in particular wouldn’t pass the Tory party’s blush test…The good news for the Tories is that they’re on course to become the third largest party in the European Parliament. The risk however is that they drive reform-minded liberal parties straight into the arms of the big federalist block in the EP [European parliament].

PS chairman Timo Soini expressed satisfaction about being accepted into the ECR.

“Fifty-five MEPs have joined so far this group [ECR],” Soini was quoted as saying on YLE. “This group is in practice bigger than the Left and Green group [European United Left-Nordic Green Left].”

The PS and DPP used to belong to the Europe for Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, with far-right parties like the  Slovak National Party, whose leader said that the best policy for dealing with the Roma is “a long whip in a small yard.”

With parties like the Lega Nord – formerly an EFD member – joining Marine Le Pen and the PS and DPP the ECR, the interesting matter to watch is if UKIP’s Nigel Farage will be able to get the seven parties and 27 MEPs are needed to form a group in the European parliament. 

 

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Read full story here.

 

Another interesting question to ask is why Cameron permitted two anti-immigration parties with MEPs with criminal records to join the ECR?

One answer is that Cameron and his fellow conservatives in the group don’t care too much if a politician has been sentenced for ethnic agitation or has issues with racism. Taking into account the Tories’ anti-immigration rhetoric that has grown recently due to  the growth of the UKIP, this is nothing strange.

The PS’ entry into the ECR puts the party well into the conservative, populist and far-right camp.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

 

Counterpoint: How to compare European populist parties

Posted on by Migrant Tales

There’s been a lot of talk as of late in the media about far-right and populist parties that were elected to the European parliament. One way to assess these parties is a chart by Counterpoint, a research group. Gathering from the chart below, European populist parties are mostly racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and sexist.

Their democratic contribution to healthy debate is questionable and it’s unclear if they’ll become more radicalized in the future.

A good example of radicalization is the UKIP, which apart from being more anti-EU before, took a strong anti-immigration stand in the European parliamentary elections. In Finland, there is concern that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* may take a more vocal stand against immigrants as next year’s parliamentary elections near.

Migrant Tales disagrees with Counterpoint’s classification of the PS as a party with “low danger of racism.” While the party leadership may not make racist comments, they are rife among its members. Read racist quotes by the PS here.

If you are going to challenge intolerance, it’s a good matter that you know those who spread racism and prejudice.

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Read full Counterpoint report here.

While the Finnish media hardly ever calls the PS a far-right party, the populist party was placed on such a list this week by the Huffington Post, Simon Wiesenthal Center and PolicyMic.

 

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

The PS of Finland is named again on a list with other far-right and neo-Nazi European parties

Posted on by Migrant Tales

On Monday the Huffington Post listed the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* as one of the nine scariest parties to be elected to the European parliament in the “good” company of xenophobic and neo-Nazi parties like the National Front of France and Golden Dawn of Greece, respectively.  On Tuesday, PolicyMic listed the PS as “one of the reasons we should be terrified about the people who just took power in Europe.” 

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Read full story on PolicyMic here.

 

On Wednesday, the PS’ name popped up again when the Simon Wiesenthal Center named it as one of ten parties it will monitor closely for  spreading xenophobia, nativist nationalism, anti-immigration rhetoric and anti-Semitism.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center listed the PS with neo-Nazi parties like the NPD of Germany, Golden Dawn and Hungary’s Jobbik.

Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily, published on Wednesday citing the Huffington Post’s story on the nine scariest parties elected to the European parliament.

The PS has members who are Holocaust deniers and who play down the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.

One of these is newly elected PS MEP Halla.aho.

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This picture by one of Halla-aho’s close allies in parliament, James Hirvisaari, caused the MP to be sacked from the party in October. Read full story here.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS promote nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Financial Times: MEP Jussi Halla-aho racist track record leaves PS out in the cold

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Success comes with a high political price especially if you base that success on spreading racism and prejudice. That is exactly the case of the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* who are hoping to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in Brussels but have been rejected by them because they see PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho as too racist, according to the Financial Times.

The Financial Times writes in another story that the freshly elected MEP, who was convicted in 2012 for “stirring ethnic tensions,” said “…something about the prophet Muhammad that we dare not repeat on a family blog. The True Finns [PS] also briefly suspended him from the party after he suggested that Greece’s debt problems could only be solved by a military junta [he retracted the comments].”

What is interesting to note is that the same anti-immigration and anti-Islam message spearheaded by Halla-aho and his cronies that was decisive for the PS’ historic victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections, is turning into its political epitaph to ever becoming a credible and mainstream political party.

The 12.9% showing of the PS on Sunday is still a long way off from the 19.1% it won in 2011. The PS’ showing in the presidential (9.4%) and municipal elections (12.3%) were equally disappointing.

If the same trend continues, it means that the PS will face a big upset in next year’s parliamentary elections.

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Read full story here.

Knocking at the ECR’s door is another close ally of the PS, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), which won the euro elections in its country by doubling the number of MEPs to 4 from 2009.

According to the Financial Times, both the PS and DPP both have MEPs that were convicted for ethnic agitation and therefore carry a lot of political baggage.

I find it very difficult to believe that [David] Cameron’s Conservatives, with whom we work closely to promote innovative, open and competitive societies, would team up with the True Finns whose rise is to large extent based on xenophobia and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia, writes the Financial Times, quoting one senior Finnish official.

While it’s clear that the PS is eyeing next year’s parliamentary elections and therefore is keen on joining the ECR group in order to get greater respectability, the big question is where they’ll end up in Brussels.

Moreover, even if the PS wishes to make its anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam stand mainstream, it’s another question if Europe’s mainstream parties will permit them to join their club.

PS leader Timo Soini says that joining Marine Le Pen’s is out of the question even if the National Front leader has courted the PS to join the European Alliance for Freedom, a new hard-right group spearheaded by the French politician.

That leaves the PS with Nigel Farage’s UKIP and the Europe Freedom and Democracy group (EFD), where members like the Lega Nord of Italy, which praised Anders Breivik for murdering 77 innocent victims on 22/7, are defecting.

Will Farage and Le Penn join forces? Will the PS be part of that new political group?

Time will tell.

Even if anti-EU and anti-immigration groups made gains in countries like France and the United Kingdom, 70% of the European parliament’s 751 MEPs belong to pro-EU groups in the center-left and center-right.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS promote nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Huffington Post: The PS of Finland is one of the nine scariest parties elected to the European parliament

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Is it surprising that The Huffington Post named the “True Finns,” or Perussuomalaiset (PS), in the same far-right league as the National Front of France, Danish People’s Party, Lega Nord, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn? Nigel Farage’s UKIP is not on the dubious list.   

Unfair? Not really if we look at PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho’s track record and his racist rambles about Muslims and migrants.

Finland’s other elected PS MEP, Sampo Terho, considers himself as a politician who is “critical of immigration.”

If you add both MEPs together, their message and rhetoric equal the following: We loathe cultural diversity and we are for social inequality.

Terho is chairman of the Suomalaisuuden Liito, a narrow-minded hate-mongering association that spreads hatred of cultural diversity because it believes the only “right” Finn is a white Finn.

Have any newspapers or journalists in Finland ever seriously questioned the PS’ strange bedfellows, starting from the anti-EU and anti-immigration Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European parliament? Why don’t they ask them how they can be part of the same parliamentary group as the Danish People’s Party and Lega Nord, of which one of its members stated that Anders Breivik’s ideas were “in defense of western civilization?”

Why would Europe, never mind Finland, vote for candidates who invest in spreading hatred and reinforcing racism against migrants and minorities? The answer to that question is pretty clear: Europe hasn’t done enough to challenge intolerance and its European “white” ethnic privilege issues.

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Read full story here.

 

If we look at the Huffington Post list of Europe’s nine scariest parties that were elected to the European Parliament, then we can see that all of them have major racism issues dating back throughout their history to the present.

About half of the countries on the list had colonies in Africa and elsewhere and were directly responsible for the slave trade and pillaging their former colonies of their wealth and committing systematic genocide with the help of eugenics. None of them have ever apologized for the atrocities they committed as former colonial powers.

Should we be surprised, then, that a country like France, the United Kingdom, Italy or Germany has a party that openly hates migrants?

One important question that none of these parties will ever answer clearly is how they plan to roll back the hands of time and restore their countries to their imagined ethnic “purity” of fifty years ago.

Geert Wilders tried that in March and unleashed a political scandal when he said he would make sure that there would be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, according to The Guardian.

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Are the PS a racist party? This cartoon was published by the PS and attempts to show that climate change is something that African medicine men predict.

 

For migrants and minorities, the EU elections on Sunday were a clear indication that matters will get much worse in Europe before they improve. Opportunistic politicians will target migrants and minorities to get elected and seek power.

They will speak and act like former colonial masters but in a twenty-first century context.

 

 

The euro elections have shown parties like the PS to be hostile to development aid, immigrants, minorities and gays

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It’s clear that if we allowed ourselves to be spoon-fed by the populism and anti-EU, homophobic and anti-immigration rhetoric of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, minorities would always be threatened with social exclusion. PS MP Maria Lohela, who is said to turn into a Ms Hyde if you mention the word “Islam” to her, offered in parliament another one of her party’s “great” ideas on how to scrap development aid.

Lohela suggested a new development aide model for Finland that would be financed by taxpayers and that the role of the state would be to offer tax incentives so that people could give money to development aid out of their own pockets, according to Finland’s largest daily,  Helsingin Sanomat.

 

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

While it’s clear that Lohela and the PS loathe helping less-fortunate people living in development countries, the most recent proposal is just as absurd as the one the MP made earlier this year concerning gay marriage. Lohela said that Finland didn’t have to pass same-sex marriage legislation since homosexuals could marry the opposite sex.

With euro elections ending on May 25, the party has made very public its anti-immigration and racist views, like with the publishing of a racist cartoon below denouncing climate change as a hoax predicted by African “medicine men.”

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Read full story on Migrant Tales here.

 

A poll by Helsingin Sanomat of Finnish MEP’s showed that the PS to be the most eager in wanting to restrict the free movement of people within the EU.

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PS MEP candidates were the most for limiting free movement of people in the EU. Read full story (in Finnish) here.

 

Taking into account the type of Europe the PS wants to forge, which is very similar to far-right Danish People’s Party and UKIP, people should get out and vote against these these types of anti-EU, homophobic, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam parties.

Why? Because we are against the model they’re trying to create for Europe since it would polarize our society and bolster intolerance and hatred of migrants and other minorities.

Why do countries that have built  a model social welfare state in the Nordic region want to support parties like the PS? Shouldn’t they instead challenge the root of the problem, which is poverty, inequality, racism and intolerance.

 

A racist cartoon by the PS, a Finnish anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Does the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party have issues with racism? Many will agree that they do starting from MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, who were sentenced for ethnic agitation, to city of Kemi councilman, Harri Turtiainen, who shamefully posted racist slogans of the Ku Klux Klan and US American Nazi party on his Facebook page.

The intolerance of the PS is well known. Their anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam message repeats itself over and over again like a broken record.

One of the many political stunts of the PS is attempted surrealism. They claim, for example, not to be racist but near-constantly post and make racist comments. They  claim they are against the EU but we still don’t know if they want us to terminate membership or ditch the euro.

Below is another example of how the party drives home its anti-EU message. The cartoon, which tries to show that climate change is something that African medicine men predict is not only racist, but insulting.

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Read original posting (in Finnish) here.

 

Anti-immigration Europe: The fruits you harvest depend on the seed you plant

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In many respects, Europe looks like a region that is running scared with a notable part of its population seeking to support populist, anti-immigration and even neo-Nazi parties that offer no credible solutions to issues like rising unemployment, poverty and estrangement from our political institutions. 

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If students from a small town in Eastern Finland did a poster advertising Finland, what push and pull factors would they highlight for migrants?

 

In Finland, some politicians are learning slowly but surely that it’s a very bad idea to flirt with these right-wing populist parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) that are anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam.

In many respects, those right-wing populist political forces they flirted with not only paved the way for a new political landscape in Finland after 2011, but marked their eventual political demise. A case in point is former Social Democrat party chairman Jutta Urpilainen, who flirted with the PS in 2010 with her infamous maassa maan tavalla statement, or in Rome do as the Romans do.

Taking into account the avalanche of bigotry at the time especially after 2008 thanks to the PS and many of its politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others, Urpilainen’s quote was seen as offensive to migrants living in this country. Instead of promoting Social Democratic values like social equality and inclusion, Urpilainen’s statement singled out and victimized non-ethnic Finns.

Another politician the PS should thank for helping them become one of Finland’s four largest parties is National Coalition Party Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, who said before the 2011 parliamentary elections that “debating immigrant issues in this country doesn’t mean you’re racist.”

 

If politicians like Katainen or Urpilainen think it was fair game to victimize migrants, is it then ok to be a bigot, sexist or homophobic in Finland? Shouldn’t human rights, Nordic welfare state values like social equality, non-discrimination be defended by politicians? Why do they give with their silence and lack of leadership the green light to others to bully migrants and minorities?

A part of the answer to the latter question lies in the fact that migrants and minorities are vulnerable and easy targets with little power in their respective countries. Anti-immigration politicians get their inspiration from apathetic migrants and the mood swings of society that they help create.

The same mistake that the Social Democrats and National Coalition Party committed in 2010 is happening in other parts of Europe like in the United Kingdom. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has become more anti-immigration and anti-EU in order to appease UKIP. He has helped the anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam party to grow into a formidable political force that is now threatening his party in the Euro elections.

This video clip UKIP’s Farage when effectively cross-examined by James O’Brien on LBC. Finnish journalists could learn a lot from this interview.

 

What have we learned from the UKIP and PS cases? One important lesson is not to suck up to the arguments of  populist parties that aim to polarize society. Instead of parroting their intolerance, politicians should take part in an open debate with them and expose them for what they are: a sham.

Politicians should answer simple questions like why are racism and prejudice hazardous to society?

One of the examples they could give is the stereotype that women don’t excel in math. How do you think a woman feels as a minority in an advanced math class with other males? Consider the pressure and stress she has to face daily to prove that she’s just as good, if not even better at math, than her male classmates. Think of the power and potential that would be released from that woman if she weren’t a target of prejudice.

Rubén Blades is a famous salsa singer from Panama, who said in one of his songs, Siembra (harvest), that Latin Americans everywhere shouldn’t allow their conscience to die and be careful with the seed they plant because the fruits they’ll harvest depend on that seed.

In the song, Blades states that the seed that needs to be planted are those of affection and humility. They are the ones that will give hope to future generations.

But with the rise of right-wing populist, anti-immigration and even far-right parties in Europe today, what kind of seed are we planting and what will be its fruits?

 

Pew Research Center survey: Anti-immigration and anti-minority sentiment runs high before Euro elections

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Pew Research Center, a Washington-based “fact tank,” reveals in a survey just before the European parliamentary elections on May 22-25 that anti-immigration and anti-minority sentiment runs  in countries like Poland, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy and Greece.

Euro MEP candidates like Jussi Halla-aho and Juho Eerola of the PS have used anti-immigration sentiment to attract voters. Halla-aho’s visit in February to Lieksa in eastern Finland is a good example of how he promotes anti-immigration sentiment by demonizing Muslims.

Some parties with strong anti-immigration campaigns include Britain’s UKIP, a close ideological ally of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland, France’s National Front, Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn.

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The Pew Research Center survey revealed that an average of 55% of respondents in the seven EU countries said they want fewer migrants. The strongest anti-immigration sentiment was found in Greece (86%) followed by Italy (80%).

If views of migrants was negative, so were attitudes of minorities like the Roma, Muslims and to a lesser extent Jews.

The survey revealed that the Roma are viewed as the most unfavorable (50%) minority with the Muslims (46%) trailing closely behind. While attitude towards Jews weren’t as negative as those towards the Roma and Muslims, they were especially high in Greece (47%), Poland (26%) and Italy (24%).

Still confused about how racist parties like the UKIP are? Check out this video clip below where the head of the UKIP, Nigel Farage, answers some hard questions in the same way that PS chairman Timo Soini did when he was interviewed on BBC’s Hard Talk in 2013.

UKIP’s Farage political views are very similar to Soini’s. Listening to the interview by LBC’s James O’Brien of Farage shows close similarities of how Soini speaks to the Finnish media.