Tag: Perussuomalaiset

When Timo Soini and the PS cross the political point of no return

Posted on by Migrant Tales

When do you know when Timo Soini and the Perussuomalaiset (PS) have crossed the line and passed a political point of no return? The 50,000-euro ad on the front page of Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest-circulation daily,  blasting the government’s euro bailout policy is one of many examples. While more voters are turning their backs to the PS, the party has burned as well important bridges with other political groups in this country. 

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Timo Soini and the PS have got a lot of people pissed off in Finland. One of these is Paavo Pyykkönen.

Just like the party’s rhetoric and criticism of the EU, euro, gay marriage, immigrants and Muslims, the biggest threat to the PS doesn’t come from abroad or from outside the party but from within.  The PS comprises of such a rambunctious group of people that anything can happen. It is a wild card that bases its future political exploits on chance, never on concrete workable policies.

An opinion poll published by YLE last week revealed that the PS  is “hemorrhaging support” to the opposition Center Party, which has taken a less openly hostile position in the opposition than Soini’s party. Yle in English quotes Jari Pajunen, head researcher at Taloustutkimus, as saying that the Center Party has managed to attract low-income workers into its ranks.

Voters appear to  be getting tired with the PS’ anti-EU message, which sounds like a broken record playing over and over again the same rhetoric without any solutions.

“There must be some significance [that the PS’ anti-EU message is wearing thin], because here at home the discussion is on rather concrete issues that touch everyone. EU matters are always a bit more abstract,” Pajunen said.

While Soini is raising the stakes on next year’s EU parliamentary elections to help the PS score a similar parliamentary election victory in 2015 as in 2011, it’s doubtful that this will happen. If anything, the PS appears to be heading south in the polls and in the eyes of the voters.

Migrant Tales has never doubted that the PS is a pernicious political force whose rhetoric and actions polarize people living in this country. If the PS  had its way, immigrants and visible minorities would be relegated to fourth- and fifth-class status in this country.

In the minds of too many PS politicians, there would be one set of laws for white Finns and another one for non-white “not-real” Finns.

Even if the PS tries to portray itself as a party close to “the masses,” it’s nothing more than a conservative party in the same ideological league as the right-wing populist Tea Party of the United States.

We must go to the source if we want to challenge intolerance in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Even if the Continuation War (1941-44) and our military alliance with Nazi Germany ended 69 years ago, much of the ethnic ideology that sprung from that period is still alive and kicking. If we are serious about confronting intolerance in our society, we must challenge its many sacrosanct sources. 

When I think of Finland’s short-lived and disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany, I see images of Finnish Marshall Carl Mannerheim speaking cordially with Adolf Hitler and SS head Heinrich Himmler. All of this is happening while millions of Jews, other minorities and innocent civilians are being murdered on both sides of the frontline.

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One murky chapter of Finnish history that hasn’t been answered is our alliance with Nazi Germany during the Continuation War.

Even if Berlin fell in 1945 after Hitler took his life, his racist views continue to live on in countries like Finland and promoted today by anti-immigration politicians from parties such as the Perussuomalaiset (PS).

In a clear rebuttal to Abdirahim Hussein’s blog entry about the riots in the northern Stockholm neighborhood of Husby,  Kai Haavisto of the PS affirms that a New Finn isn’t a Finn. Haavisto has made outrageous claims in the past like solving the refugee problem to Finland with rice exports to Africa and that certain refugee groups should be chemically castrated before being allowed to live in Finland.

While Haavisto’s writings “are his own views,” the PS politician is a good example of how racists in this country see a social construct like the Finn. They see Finnishness as an exclusive club where you not only have to be white, but live hundreds of years in this country.

He writes on Uusi Suomi: “A Finnish citizen with immigrant background isn’t a Finn, his genetic background is foreign. You can never turn such a person into Finns no matter how you look at it. A foreigner is always a foreigner [irrespective if he becomes a naturalized Finn].”

Then Haavisto writes further down the blog entry why he’s a Finn and Hussein isn’t. He claims that his family has lived in Finland for about 400 years.

Nazi Germany and the SS used similar schemes like Haavisto to define aryan ancestry (sic!). As everyone knows, the term aryan was a racist social construct devised by the Nazi regime to exclude, deport and murder other ethnicities and religious groups in Germany.

It should be pointed out that not only were the Nazis racist, but all of Europe. The Nazis, however, used their racist diatribe as a political and geopolitical weapon to wage war and murder systematically six million Jews and other minorities like the Roma and gays.

With the passage of the Nuremberg laws of 1935 under Nazi Germany, a Jew was a person who had at least three Jewish grandparents who had been enrolled with a Jewish congregation. The Nazi regime had a very clear classification system to define who was Jewish. Haavisto and many others speak in the same race-and-blood terms.

It should be pointed out that it’s not the aim of a new Finn to become white. On the contrary, Finnish identity is and always has been diverse. The mere fact that over 1.2 million people emigrated from this land between 1860 and 1999 is ample proof of the latter.

A non-white Finn has the same right as a white Finn to be accepted and be treated as an equal member of this society.

Suomalaisuuden liitto: Seeing Finland through blue eyes

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Suomalaisuuden liittto, an association taken over by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party to lobby against Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity, condemns in a statement death threats to leading figures of the Finnish Swedish-speaking community.

While it is a good matter that the association’s chairman Sampo Terho condemns such death threats, it is quite another matter if we should take his words seriously. Should Suomalaisuuden liitto take instead a bold look at itself in the mirror and ask if it is somehow responsible for stoking the flames of intolerance against our Swedish-speaking community?

Together with Vapaa kielivalinta and the youth associations of the PS and National Coalition Party, Suomalaisuuden liitto has launched a campaign to demote Finland’s second official language to elective status at schools.

What kind of an association is Suomalaisuuden liitto? How many non-white Finns does it have on its board? None. The association sees Finland exclusively through blue eyes.

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One of the pet issues that the PS like to attack is affirmative action. Why? Because they are colorblind. Source: The Sociological Cinema via Annie Hayford. 

This is not the first time that death threats have been sent in Finland. Feminists, researchers and even Migrant Tales have been intimidated in such a questionable manner. There is a pattern, however: Those that promote or research cultural diversity are likely to get death threats in this country.

It’s clear by the PS’ and Suomalaisuuden liitto’s track record that they’re not too happy about Finland’s every-growing cultural diversity, which they see as a threat. This is one reason why we should treat Terho’s words with tweezers.

Check out how one PS MP played down the death threats while another one, former police chief inspector Tom Packalen, thought it was a bad idea to publish it as news on the country’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, even if one of the daily’s managing editors was threatened.

Here again we see an old stunt by the PS: condemn racism but give it simultaneously a pat on the back.

Attaching little importance to intolerance speaks volumes as well.

Should we be worried by the exclusive white nationalism promoted  by PS-run associations like Suomalaisuuden liitto? Certainly, but time has a magic effect and is ruthless with those who like to remain anchored in its stuffy corridors.

Those that don’t want to accept the fact that Finland never was, is, or will be just a “white” society, will eventually turn into museums where future generations can see with astonishment how some Finns thought about diversity a long, long time ago.

 

 

 

Finnish Swedish-speaking journalists and public figures receive death threats

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Is it a surprise that prominent Finns belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority received anonymous hate mail and death threats this week? If you want to find the roots of such hatred, one place to look is the anti-immigration, anti-Swedish language and anti-EU Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. 

Members of the Swedish-speaking communities are not the only ones who have received death threats. Feminists, researchers and even Migrant Tales have received such threats as well. It is a sad reality of life in Finland these days. 

It’s no news that part of the PS’ survival plan as a political party includes a concerted campaign against immigrants, visible and language minorities in this country. Another target of the conservative populist party is the Finnish media, which it claims is biased against the populist party.

Amid all this intimidation and attacks, PS chairman Timo Soini claims with a poker face that his party doesn’t hate anyone.

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Read whole story here.

YLE journalist Bettina Såghbom said that she and her family have received death threats on Monday and Tuesday by email, according to YLE in English. Helsingin Sanomat managing editor Paula Salovaara is another journalist who was sent death threats by email this week.

Apart from being strongly opposed to immigration and Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, the PS has attacked the Finnish media as well.

The views of PS MPs like James Hirvisaari should worry us since Finland’s third-largest party in parliament believes it’s acceptable to pry in the newsroom and tell the media how to do its job.

MP Hirvisaari has branded  journalists in the past as “bloodthirty hyenas” as well as “arrogant lying scum.”

Tom Packalén is another PS MP who is eager to teach the national media what they should write about his party. He called Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, former Soviet daily Pravda (a favorit term used by many PS politicians), and accused the daily of limiting freedom of speech.

Migrant Tales has never hid its concern about the ever-worsening anti-immigration and anti-minority climate in Finland exacerbated by groups like the PS and assisted by the recession.

Death threats against prominent figures of the Swedish-speaking community in Finland as well as prying into the newsroom by politicians should send alarm bells off. An attack against any minority in the vile manner of the PS and steps to compromise the independence of our national media should be strongly condemned as well.

We have fresh examples in Hungary how anti-Romany and anti-Semitism sentiment promoted by nationalist parties has led to greater scrutiny by the government of Viktor Orbán of that country’s media.

In today’s Europe what goes around comes around much faster than before.

 

Suurin uhka Euroopalle ovat he, jotka haluavat puolustaa meitä toisilta

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Minua ei pelota kulttuurinen moninaisuus puhumattakaan terrorismi. Toisten kulttuurien olemisen kieltäminen globalisoituneessa maailmassa on sama kuin yrittäisi kieltää seksin. Kulttuurinen moninaisuus ja seksi ovat osa ihmisyyttä. On turhaa kieltää jotain niinkin luonnollista.

Toki on paljon uhkia. Yksi niistä on  äärioikeistolaiset, populistiset sekä maahanmuuttovastaiset ideologiat, jotka ovat hyvin yleisiä tämänpäiväsissä Euroopassa. Jos emme haasta näitä ilmiöitä on samaa  kuin asettaisimme hirttosilmukan kansalaisoikeutemme kaulaan.

Terrorismin laajentuminen tai sen pelko voi johtaa meidät vaaralliselle totalitarismin polulle, koska yrittäisimme suojata itsemme kaikin mahdollisin tavoin.  Löytäisimme paljon syntipukkeja, mutta emme lopulta ratkaisuja eikä rauhaa.

En pelkää kulttuurien moninaisuutta, terrorismi tai Husbyn kaltaiset mellakat Suomessa. Haluan, että populistiset poliitikot erityisesti perussuomalaisesta puolueesta lopettamaan pelkäämisen minun puolestani.

Älä käytä Ruotsissa tapahtuneita mellakoita tekosyynä hyökätä sitä vastaan kuka olen tai kieltää oikeuteni olla erilainen tässä maassa.

Hyväksy se tosiasia, ettei yksikään nykyinen tai tuleva laki estä Suomen moninaisuutta tai sitä, että se pitäisi meidät turvassa terrorismilta. Suomi pyrki vuosina 1939 ja 1995 rajoittamaan ankarasti maahanmuuttoa ja ulkomaalaisten muuttoa tänne epäonnistuen.

Useasti maahanmuuttovastaiset rinnastavat maahanmuuton terrorismiin vaikka se on edelleen erittäin harvinaista Euroopassa, EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2012 mukaan. Sinulla on Euroopassa suurempi vaara kuolla auto-onnettomuudessa, lääkärin virheestä tai poliisin luodista kuin terroristi-iskusta tai kulttuurien moninaisuudesta.

Britanniassa traagisesti murhatun armeijan sotilaan tapaus torstaina osoitti sen, kuinka Britannian reagoi ja miksi suvaitsemattomuus on  suurin vaara Euroopassa. Islamin terrorismi on yksi vaara mutta vielä suurempi uhka ovat ne ryhmät, jotka väittävät puolustavansa meitä siltä uhalta.

Sinä olet vaarallinen. Kyllä, sanoin sinä, joka pelkäät minun puolestani ja olet valmis laittamaan kansalaisoikeutemme kylmävarastoon.

The biggest threat to Europe are those who claim to be afraid on our behalf

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I’m neither afraid of cultural diversity nor terrorism. Being against different cultures in a globalized world is like being against sex. Cultural diversity, interculturalism and sex are part of the human condition. You cannot make them illegal in any way, shape or form.   

If we’d embrace far right and mainstream anti-immigration ideologies so common in today’s Europe, it would be like placing a noose around the neck of our civil rights. Terrorism and our fear of terrorism would not diminish but grow as a result. Remember what happened in Germany in 1933?

More terrorism would lead us on a perilous path of totalitarianism, where we’d not only do everything possible to undermine and deny cultural diversity but use it as a scapegoat for all our problems and unhappiness.

I’m not afraid of cultural diversity. I want populist politicians especially of the Perussuomalasiet (PS) party  to stop being afraid on my behalf.

Don’t use the riots in Husby, Sweden, as an excuse to attack who I am or deny my right to be different from you in my country.

Accept the fact that NONE of your present or future laws will prevent Finland from being culturally diverse or keep it safe from terrorism. Finland tried between 1939 and 1995 to severely limit immigrants and foreign investment from coming here and failed. I doubt that any sensible person would want to return to the days of cold war Finland.

Since anti-immigration Islamophobists like to equate immigration with terrorism, terrorism remains extremely rare in Europe never mind in Finland, according to the EU Terrorism and Situation Report 2012.  Despite the tragic murder of a member of the British armed forced this week, reaction to it in the UK reveals that the greatest threat to Europe isn’t Islamic terrorism but from groups that claim to defend us from it.

Stop spreading fear and absolutely stop being afraid on my behalf! You’re most likely in Europe to be killed by a policeman, medical error or car accident than terrorism never mind cultural diversity.

The biggest threat to our society is you. Yes you, the one that is being afraid on my behalf and ready to put my civil rights in cold storage.

Calling Timo Soini’s bluff

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) is a desperate party and Timo Soini’s claim over the weekend, that the Social Democrats had abandoned working-class men, is another example of how this populist anti-immigration party bluffs at the political poker table. The type of attack by Soini on the Social Democratic Party is in line with how the party has victimized and labelled immigrants and visible minorities. 

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Soini made his chauvinistic  claim after the SDP replaced two of its ministers on Friday, Jukka Gustafsson and Maria Guzenina-Richardson, with Susana Huovinen and Pia Virtanen.

He was quoted as saying on YLE in English: ”Working men don’t interest the left. The collapse in support for the left stems from the fact that those who bake the cake, workers and small businsspeople, are not defended enough.”

And Soini’s rambunctious party, which will scare away skilled workers and investment from this country, is going to defend the working man? That claim by Soini is a good example of the PS’ political chicanery and desperation to win the EU parliament and parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

If there is little doubt that the PS is an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party, it is as well an anti-women’s rights party. Should we be surprised by Soini’s claim? Not at all. How can a party promote gender equality if it’s intolerant of immigrants and visible minorities?

Sensible people understand that if the PS ever got into government or if Soini become prime minister, the damage the party would inflict on Finland would be immense. 

You would not only see a populist party promoting its far right and conservative views on the country, but one that will promote racism, prejudice, sexism and intolerance in general.

Migrant Tales has written on numerous occasions that sucking up to PS populism has been a costly mistake for Finnish mainstream parties.

Politicians must lead. Offering leadership during trying times means standing up for your convictions even if it may cost you votes.

A good example that Finnish politicians should emulate is US President Barak Obama, who was one of the few politicians in 2003 who was against the invasion of Iraq. Even if he was in the minority that opposed the war, his leadership on this front was one factor that allowed him to become the first black president of the US in 2008.

 

Go GO PS MP Hirvisaari! Let all of your intolerance and racism hang out!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

We have written so much about the outbursts of far right Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari that it isn’t funny. One of his latest statements on Facebook, where he considers using the Swedish language in parliament as “ridiculous,” is not an attack on this language minority but serves to expose the intolerance and loathing that the PS has for minorities in Finland.  

Every time a PS MP like Hirvisaari opens his mouth, he actually helps the PS lose its appeal among voters and what’s most important its chances of being a partner in a future government.

We hope that Hirvisaari, who was sentenced for ethnic agitation in 2011,  continuous to stoop to ever-lower levels so that voters in his home municipality of Asikkala will give him the thumbs down in 2015.

A party that accepts politicians like Hirvisaari and a too long list of others like him doesn’t belong in parliament unless our aim is to send Finland back to the political dark ages when scapegoats and political witch hunts were the rule.

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 PS MP James Hirvisaari claims that speaking  Swedish, Finland’s second official language, in parliament is “arrogant snobbery” and a waste of time. Thank you @DrMKuismaa.

Councilman Mika Hiltunen gets sentenced for ethnic agitation but gets pat on the back by the PS

Posted on by Migrant Tales

After Perussuomalaiset (PS) party Kontiolahti town councilman Mika Hiltunen was sentenced Tuesday by a court for ethnic agitation, we saw once again a familiar balancing by the PS: stating to moderates it doesn’t accept racism but at the same time assuring the extreme right that the party accepts racist outbursts by its members.

We have seen this time and again. The PS and Timo Soini, who said in 2009 that any party member who got sentenced for ethnic agitation would be sacked from the party, are political Houdinis. How can you be against racism and support it at the same time? That takes special politcial skills and a public that is by and large pretty ignorant of what racism is.

It’s too early still for the PS to count it’s promising political chicks. Soini and the party leaders know that its double talk and political chicanery on intolerance could backfire badly.

Let’s see how the latest balancing act by the PS works. In order to stand out and award the extremist and racist voters of the party, councilman Hiltunen claims on his Facebook page that asylum seekers and refugees are “social-welfare bums and rapists.”

Ethnic agitation charges are then brought against Hiltrunen and gets sentenced by a court in May He is forced to pay a 2,000-euro fine.

Now here’s how the balancing act happens: Eero Bogdanoff, PS North-Karelian region chairman, publicly defends what Hiltunen said by asking him to not resign as member of the PS’ regional board and continue as if nothing happened. Well, as almost as if nothing happened…

“Hiltunen has mend his ways pretty well,” Bogadanoff is quoted as saying on YLE. “The publicity he got is punishment in itself.”

What would have happen to Hiltunen if he made such racist public comments and lived in a country like Sweden or Britain? There are two options: He’d be either sacked from the party or forced to give an apology for what he said.

He or the PS did neither.

DNA, Saunalahti, IF, Nordea: “Backward-looking” rules and laws mirror Finland’s anti-foreign sentiment

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A comment on Migrant Tales by Chef summed up pretty well how “several backward-looking” rules used arbitrarily by mobile phone and insurance companies continue to discriminate and make life difficult for immigrants. Why does this still happen in Finland, a Nordic welfare state country that promotes and bases its values on social equality (tasa-arvo)?

The suspicion that some Finns have of foreigners is very real. It hinges on our difficult history with the former Soviet Union and being under Swedish and Russian rule for over 650 years. Irrespective of such explanations, they sound more like excuses than proactive solutions.

Our suspicion of foreigners is not only evident in our actions and attitudes but in our laws.

Take for instance the Restricting Act of 1939 (law 219/1939), which became redundant in 1992. The aim of the law was to keep key sectors of the economy off limits to foreigners.

The act prohibited foreigners from owning real estate and acquiring a majority stake in Finnish companies – limiting this to 20% normally and 40% under special permission. It stipulated as well that foreigners could not own shares in key sectors such as forestry, securities trading, transportation, mining, real estate and shipping.

When I moved to this country permanently in December 1978, non-Finns weren’t allowed to establish a newspaper, organize demonstrations, no habeas corpus never mind appeal a deportation.

Until 1983, or about 65 years after gaining independence,  Finland got its first Aliens’ Act. Before and even after new act came into force, foreigners were at the mercy of the aliens office, whose aim  was to hinder immigrants from moving here.

Why was it so difficult for a foreigner to establish a business in Finland or move to this country in the last century? The answer is clear: They didn’t want you to invest or move here.

We rarely speak about how our anti-foreign sentiment continues to influence us today. How do you think an anti-immigration and anti-EU party, the Perussuomalaiset, was able to score a historic election victory in 2011?

Fortunately matters have changed for the better after we became EU members in 1995. Even so, the remnants of Finland’s anti-foreign sentiment can still be found in some of its rules, laws and what’s most important in attitudes.

“Several backward-looking” restrictions imposed by mobile phone companies, insurers and banks are some examples.

The sooner we throw them in the dustbin of history, the better.