Perussuomalaiset Archives - Page 126 of 161

Post-Jyväskylä: Where do we go from here?

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Considering how the media treated before the April 2011 election racism and far right ideology and how social media sites were teeming with racist online lynch mobs, we are today waking up from the hangover of our state of social inebriation. The aftereffect will not go away in a day, week, or month but will take a very long time to wear off.

Instead of alcohol, Finland has been consuming and experimenting with racism, nationalism and far right ideology as answers to our ever-growing cultural diversity The more it drinks, the more we lose touch with reality and what is good for us.

Was it a coincidence that the attack in Jyväskylä marked exactly the eightieth anniversary when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany as chancellor and transformed the country into a totalitarian state?

When speaking of far right violence and racism in Europe, we cannot avoid addressing social ills like intolerance.

Claiming that social exclusion of white Finnish youths is one of the main factors behind what happened in Jyväskylä is only addressing part of the problem without seeing the whole picture.

Reading a number of editorials about what happened in Jyväskylä, only one by Savon Sanomat cited racism as the real culprit. It wrote: “An even greater threat from organized extremist movements is a sort of daily racism that is targeted against immigrants and even to our [Swedish-] language minority. Attitudes in Finland have changed course, which isn’t anything to brag about.”

The Kuopio-based daily makes a valid point. Every day racism, xenophobia and attacks against our Swedish-speaking minority feed far right and populist-nationalist groups. They are the 98 octane fuel that permit it to spread their intolerance.

Bears hibernate in winter but so can countries for many years when they live in a state of denial. Finland is no longer a nation owned and controlled by just white Finns. It is a fact that we are an ever-growing culturally diverse nation.

Let’s not give an Andres Breivik the opportunity to commit murder on a mass scale before we understand that our response to intolerance was inefficient.

Everyone in Finland has the right to be treated as an equal member of society and with respect.

Some sectors of our society have a very hard time accepting this. They are not only white marginalized Finnish youths, but a far bigger group that extends to all sectors of our society.

PS’ second vice president doesn’t condemn but “gives advice”to Jyväskylä’s neo-Nazi attackers

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) second vice president, MP Juho Eerola, did not condemn the attacks in Jyväskylä by suspected neo-Nazi thugs but advised them how to do it more effectively, reports National Coalition Party’s online Verkkouutiset. Writes Eerola: “The next time don’t look like “patriots” when you plan to enter such an event. Don’t go as a group but be [inconspicuous] in the crowd.”

Eerola’s views are shameful if not worrisome. They reveal how some PS members hold rights rights like freedom of speech and the right to assembly in contempt.

The PS MP denied on Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat that he was giving advice on how to carry out the attack and should express his ideas more precisely the next time.

Eerola’s aide, Ulla Pyysalo, had applied for membership in the neo-Nazi Suomen Kansallinen Vastarina (SKV) but refused to resign from her post unless she found a new job by the end of the year.

Eerola, whose sympathies with fascism are well known, defended Pyysalo and did not see any reason for her to resign. He said he’d be more worried if his aide belonged to a far-left organization.

One of the matters that worries me about t people like Eerola and his band is they think they can rewrite history and put our way of life in cold storage in order to please their views, which are harmful to our society.

Timo Soini and his pact with the devil

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The cracks in the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party are widening as the latest Kai Haavisto-James Hirvisaari scandal proves. The PS has reached a dead end with its present band of politicians. With the complicity of the near-silence of other parties, no other political group in modern Finnish times has created so much resentment and hatred towards others like the PS.

No matter what the PS does, it is a rambunctious party ready to die by the sword after living so eagerly by the sword.

If I could paint a cartoon that would depict the present situation, I’d draw Haavisto and Hirvisaari as a two-headed stick of dynamite joined by a lighted fuse. All around them would be PS members, including Soini, getting ready for the loud explosion.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja sheds light on a blog entry where the PS is today.

He writes: “The spirit that [Timo] Soini opportunistically freed from the bottle by accepting extremist [candidates] of the Suomen Sisu [association] to run for office will soon permanently tarnish the ability of the party to cooperate with other ones and may even soon threaten Soini’s position as party leader.”

EuroMP Sampo Terho, together with PS strongman Matti Putkonen, are another example of how lost the party is. Both proposed a plan how Finland could save 3.15 billion euros. While the usual culprit of development aide was mentioned, it was surprising that Terho and Putkonen suggested raising VAT, a PS policy no-no.

Soini has distanced himself from the proposal.

Terho is chairman of the Suomalaisuuden liitto, an association taken over by right-wing extremists which, like Suomen Sisu, see cultural diversity and immigration as a threat to Finland.

One matter I have never figured out is why politicians like Tuomioja and the media still see Soini as a “good guy” victim if he signed a pact with the devil? Soini is nothing more than the good cop but we mustn’t forget that he’s still a cop.

Finland’s stance on Soini reflects how out of touch it is with its immigrants, visible minorities and its ever-growing cultural diversity. It’s perfectly fine to socially exclude, bash and insult immigrants and visible minorities in this country as long as you don’t treat white Finns the same way.

The PS, with the blessing and silence of other political parties in Finland, blames immigrants and visible minorities for most if not all of the country’s problems. Sensible people understand that the issue is much bigger. Large multinational companies relocate to countries where they can exploit workers by paying lower wages.

Greedy corporations are the ones stealing jobs, not immigrants.

Was PS MP James Hirvisaari bullied at school and in the army?

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The most recent scandal to rock the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is another sad chapter in the history of the right-wing populist party and for the same reason: racism. The culprits are now MP James Hirvisaari and Kai Haavisto, member of the party’s Uusimaa regional board. What’s wrong with these people?

How can anyone who can count to five with his fingers suggest in 2012 that chemical castration should be an option to deal with potential rape when permitting new refugees to live in Finland? What kind of world does Hirvisaari live in if he thinks that gang rape in South Africa is a genetic trait and a national pastime?

With respect to Hirvisaari, one could ask if his instransigent hatred against Africans and Muslims is “normal.”

Probably behind Hirvisaari’s hatred lies a hurt man who was bullied at school and in the army.

I wonder what Hirvisaari would say if I’d ask him the following question: Were you bullied as a child and as an adult? Are you getting back at those that hurt you by bashing immigrants in the same way?

The PS cannot rid itself of its racists because it would commit political hara-kiri

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Migrant Tales

It’s been interesting to read how some Perussuomalaiset (PS) party members suddenly feel overwhelmed by the most recent racism scandal to rock the party. PS MP Tom Packalén asks in tabloid Iltalehti what should be done? Answer: For a start, why not sack them?

The other option is to defect from the PS like Kontiolahti councilwoman Mirva Hyttinen did on Sunday. She defected from the party after PS councilman Mika Hiltunen slandered refugees on Facebook by labeling them as social bums and rapists.

“I meet foreign people at work on a daily basis, and I cannot accept this type of intolerance,” she said.

How would any sensible person react if somebody labeled and victimized refugees as rapists that should chemically castrate such people as PS Uusimaa regional board member Kai Haavisto suggested? What about if like PS MP James Hirvisaari claimed that gang rape in South Africa was a genetic trait and a national pastime?

Here’s the million-euro question: Why doesn’t the PS sack those members who are openly racist (and there are many of them)?

The answer shouldn’t surprise us: Racism and nationalism give the PS its political strength. How do you think they rose from nowhere to become Finland’s third-largest party in parliament?

Do I believe that the PS regrets what Haavisto and Hirvisaari wrote? If they did, they’d sack both of them from the party.

But this won’t happen because sacking racists from the PS would be synonymous with committing political hara-kiri.

Even if the PS uses rape statistics to justify its racism, it forgets that one of its party heavyweights, Matti Putkonen, was sentenced to eight months in prison in 1990 for rape.

Racism, xenophobia, and intolerance are powerful political forces in Europe these days. PS head Timo Soini understands this perfectly well. That is why he will not sack Haavisto and Hirvisaari from the PS. If we look at Soini’s track record on racism, we’d see a very long trail of broken promises and outright deceptions.

Remember when Soini said that any party member sentenced for hate speech would be banned? Remember when he played down racism in the PS to “one, two or three” cases? Remember when he scolded the foreign media, especially from Sweden, for giving the “wrong” picture of the party?

So many scandals have hit the party since the April 2011 election that we’ve lost count on Migrant Tales. And so have many others.

The PS reveal a lot of things about Finland. For one, it exposes racism as a much bigger problem in this country that some have wanted to believe.

If we are fair, all Finnish parties have their fair share of racists. Even so, no party has capitalized and given a platform to racists as the PS.

Even after the Kai Haavisto-James Hirvisaari blows over, we’ll be back to square one: nothing will happen.

Why?

Because the PS will not commit political hara-kiri.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party 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 direct translation of “Perussuomalaiset” is “basic” or “fundamental Finn.”

Rule number one about racism: Don’t generalize!

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Migrant Tales

It is amazing that people who should know better have never learned one very important fact: Don’t generalize about ethnic groups. We’d avoid a lot of harm to ourselves (living in the narrow world of hate and racism) and others (labeling and victimizing) if we stopped generalizing about ethnic groups.

The suggestion by Kai Haavisto, a Perussuomalaiset (PS) Uusimaa regional committee member, who wrote on a Uusi Suomi blog that certain refugee groups should be chemically castrated before permitting them to live in Finland, is a perfect example of how racism is spread and maintained in this country.

PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was fined in December for inciting ethnic hatred, adds more hate and racism to Haavisto’s suggestion by stating that “we should talk openly about gang rape” because in some African countries, like South Africa, such a crime is a genetic trait and “a national pastime.”

Hirvisaari only has a high school degree but PS MP Jussi Halla-aho has a PhD in linguistics. Halla-aho got convicted for defaming a religion and spreading ethnic hatred when he suggested that Somalis live off social welfare because it is a genetic trait.

In Finland and elsewhere, racism is kept alive because some people believe in old wise tales about ethnic groups. They believe these old wise tales in the same way as children believe in fairy tales or in Santa Claus.

When people are hostile and racist to other groups when they generalize, their aim is to show how different they are from us. Since they are so “different” it permits me to be racist towards them because they are “a threat.”

The big difference between fairy tales and racism is that the latter causes harm to society and especially to their victims.

Let’s get one matter straight: There is no such thing as national character because societies are too complex. This a fact that should be taught at school and to adults. The behavior we have is learned – not instinctual.

If we want to undermine racism and control those prejudices we learned, it is important that we start teaching our children at school that it is a grave mistake to generalize about ethnic groups.

If anything, such a lesson would be one big blow to our racism.

Anti-immigration sound-bite: Rape! Rape! RAPE!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Migrant Tales

I was surprised to read a blog post on Uusi Suomi by Kai Haavisto, a Perussuomalaiset (PS) politician from Espoo, who suggested that those groups that are prone to commit rape should be castrated chemically before being allowed to live in Finland.

Haavisto is well-known for his racist views. One of his blog entries in September suggested that the ”refugee problem” to Finland could be stopped and solved by exporting rice to Africa.

While Haavisto’s views may surprise sensible people, the reaction to what he wrote is even more stunning. The response is no different to how lynch mobs reacted when they took the law in their hands.

Social-media lynch mobs are just as sinister. Their aim is not to lynch one person but whole groups shouting in a frenzy: Rape! Rape! RAPE!

PS MP James Hirvisaari, who was convicted for hate speech, turns into a political Mr. Hyde if you mention two words to him: immigrant rape. In this comment above, he said that the high amount of rape committed in South Africa was a genetic trait.

As everyone knows, rape is one of the pet subjects of anti-immigration and racist groups in Finland and elsewhere.

As Migrant Tales has written on a number of blogs , the whole immigrant-rape issue is a storm in a tea cup. This does not suggest that we play down rape or any crime.

Anti-immigration groups use rape statistics to “prove” that as soon as an immigrant or refugee from a certain part of the world enters Finland, he becomes a gang rapist.

Nowhere in Haavisto’s blog entry, where he suggests chemical castration, does he give us any figures about what are the volumes of suspected never mind sentenced rape convictions. He only assumes (when you assume you make an ass our of u and me) that rape is a pastime of the immigrant community.

Certainly Haavisto’s blog entry is racist and it was surprising that Uusi Suomi’s moderators took such a long time to ban it.

If one traveled back to goes to Nazi Germany, this is exactly the type of eugenics that was carried out against Jews and other minorities like the Roma and the mentally ill.

Sad but true.

Journalists should question instead of spread racism and prejudice

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Journalists are one group that have helped to spread and reinforce our prejudices and racism of other groups. There’s nothing surprising about this considering that journalists, like the media that employs them, mirror in part what the public feels.

Ilta-Sanomat is one tabloid resonsible for spreading racism in Finland during the 1990s. This billboard tells us that Somali refugees will stay put in Finland.

Even if this may be the case, the difference between a sharp and mediocre journalist is how well he or she can question and expose abuses in our society. The job of the media is to be a watchdog and ensure that our system of checks and balances functions properly.

Too many journalists and the media, however, forget what their primary role is. Instead of questioning social ills, they have helped to spread prejudice, racism and xenophobia in our society.

Closing one’s eyes to racism or going after such a social ill without teeth is unfortunate because we all lose. The spirit of our laws, like our Constitution, should be our moral shield and benchmark.

Check out section seven of Finland’s Constitution:

No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person.

Even if the highest law of the land tells us convincingly that discrimination is wrong, why do some journalists and the media have a difficult time figuring out what is intolerance and what should our response to such a social ill be?

One of the most racist papers in Finland is tabloids like Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat, which markets news like a used car salesman, who would even sell his or her mother if the price were right. Another publication is Uusi Suomi, which helped Perussuomalaiset (PS) politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and a long list of others to become household names.

Online publications like Uusi Suomi and tabloids like Iltalehti are responsible for spreading stereotypes like that immigrants are lazy, rape and commit crimes in this country.

A good example of how prejudice and stereotypes of foreigners are maintained and spread by the media is a reent story on Länsi-Savo, teaching Russians how to use the toilet bowl.

Another example that fuels stereotypes and racism in this country is a non-story about banning in Finland the use of the burqa and niqab.

I have never seen a woman wearing such clothing in Finland. I wonder how many of the journalists at Iltalehti have never mind anti-immigration PS MPs, who want to ban the use of such clothes in our country.

Coverage of racism, hate speech and social exclusion has improved thanks to much better reporting by Helsingin Sanomat, Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, Keskisuomalainen, Savon Sanomat, Kainuun Sanomat, Karjalainen, Turun Sanomat, Kansan Uutiset and others.

These papers have done a good job at doing their job.

Why was Finland “tolerant” of Jews when it was an ally of Nazi Germany?

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Finns claim proudly – followed by an obvious sigh of relief – that even if we were an ally of Nazi Germany during World War 2, anti-Semitism never reached the same levels as in Hungary, Romania and in other parts of Nazi-dominated Europe.

While Finland offers an interesting case with respect to anti-Semitism in war-ravaged Nazi Europe, was tolerance the principal factor that kept Finns from persecuting Jews? Could the underwhelming size of the Jewish community and the fact that they were accepted as Finns offer us better explanations?

Memorial ceremony for Jewish soldiers who fell in World War II presided by Marshal Carl Mannerheim in Helsinki, Finland. Source: Flickr.

The size of the Jewish community in Finland has been small. In the 1870 census, there were 460 Jews and by 1883 they are said to have risen to 1,000. In 1929, it peaked to 1,763.*

Today there are about 1,500 Jews living in Finland.

The Jews were granted Finnish citizenship in 1918. Finland was the last country in Europe together with Romania to do so.

Even if there appears that Finland tolerated Finnish Jews in World War 2, former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen formally apologized in November 2000 to the Jewish community for the extradition of eight Jews to Germany in 1942. Only one of the eight survived after they were sent to Auschwitz.

While the Jewish question never reached the same proportions in this country as elsewhere in Nazi-dominated Europe, would anti-Semitism have soared if the size of the Jewish community were many times bigger?

There seems to be a connection between the recent rise of racism, xenophobia and growth of far-right parties in Finland and the size of the immigrant community. Certainly factors like the economic recession and rising unemployment play important roles as well.

How can xenophobia grow if the immigrant community is minuscule? How can there be anti-Semitism if there are only a handful of Jews?

Sometimes size does not matter. In neighboring Estonia, an estimated half of the Jewish population, which totaled 4,000, died in the Holocaust. In countries like Poland 3 million Jews perished under Nazi rule.

If we look at history, Finland was far from being “tolerant.” The Restricting Act of 1939 is one of many laws that showed how Finland perceived the world as a threat.

The Jews were in part saved by their acceptance as Finns in the 1940s, but a very important factor must have been their underwhelming numbers.

* Migration Patterns among Jews – Finland. See following link.

Racism is alive and well in the PS as well as in other parties

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Husein Mohammed raised an important point on a recent blog entry where he reviewed Umayya Abu-Hanna’s latest book, Multikulti. He asks if the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is the only intolerant party in Finland.

He writes: “The term racism is used quite a lot in [Abu-Hanna’s] book but there’s no mention of violence, visible or about racism in [other Finnish] political parties. The general rule is that when we speak about anti-immigration [players], we mention the rise of the Perussuomalaiset as an important party [in this respect]. Not a word is mentioned of that party in the book. It’s a good thing since blaming only the Perussuomalaiset you leave off the hook other parties and players who aren’t anymore tolerant.”

How did the PS become Finland’s third-biggest party after the parliamentary election and how did they together with the media react to that party’s rising popularity?

Migrant Tales wrote on a blog entry in 2011: “The PS could have never dreamed of such success in the last election without the help of Kokoomus [National Coalition Party], Social Democratic Party and Center Party.”

Instead of challenging the rise of a populist party, some identified with PS’ intolerant and xenophobic message.

The Center Party and the Greens did put up some resistance and were punished severely in the elections.

One of the saddest cases was Social Democratic Party leader’s Jutta Urpilainen’s maassa maan tavalla (In Rome do as the Romans do) statement in March 2011.

National Coalition Party chairman Jyrki Katainen didn’t show much leadership either. He effectively let racism out of the cage in Finland by stating that “being critical and debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist.”

He forgot, however, to mention one very crucial point: Immigrants must take part in such a debate too.

There was no open debate that included immigrants and visible minorities up to the 2011 elections. The debating landscape looked more like a PS bashing ground against immigrants with the tacit approval of other parties.

While racism is alive and well in all Finnish parties, it does especially well in the PS.

What is the difference between a person who is openly racist or one who isn’t?

If we look at the recent municipal elections, many candidates that jumped the PS ship defected to the Center Party, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and National Coalition Party.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, and leaves us with the following question: Racists come in different sizes and shapes. Some are quiet while others are quite vocal about it. The quiet and the silent are, however, bonded by the same matter: varying degrees of intolerance.

When debating racism in Finland, we should not forget that this social ill has many homes in many places.

It hasn’t found a home in one party but resides in all of them.

Tag: Perussuomalaiset