Tag: Perussuomalaiset

Will the PS succeed at its vicious campaign against immigrants and visible minorities?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

 Will Matias Turkkila, the new Perussuomalaiset (PS) editor-in-chief that aims to jump start the party’s website into a Hommaforum phenonmenon, succeed? In order to answer that question we’d have to rephrase the question in to the following way: Will Turkkila and the PS succeed at luring Finland’s biggest nationalist and multiculturally challenged crowd to the party’s cause whatever that may be?

You don’t need to be a brilliant analysts with a crystal ball to figure out that PS chairman Timo Soini is very concerned by the party’s waning popularity as the crucial municipal election nears in October.

In order to slow the PS’ demise as one of Finland’s four largest parties,  Soini has turned to his favorite weapons of choice that helped him last year: bigotry, prejudice, nationalism and anti-EU sentiment.

Soini will never admit that he wants to incite nationalist sentiment because “he is a Christian.” He will tell you this with a poker face as he has said repeatedly: There isn’t one racist in the PS or that racists will be baned from running for office in the municipal election.

The latest appointment of Turkkila by the PS is a last-ditch effort by the party to save its political hide and vie for a respectable result in the 2015 parliamentary election. The PS is looking at new ways to disguise its bigotry, prejudice and nationalism in order to lure voters. What better way than by appointing as their new editor-in-chief a person who made Hommaforum the most successful hate site in Finland?

This present period, 2011-15, is a wretched and dangerous stretch especially for immigrants, visible minorities and sensible thinking Finns.  It would be naive, even an exercise in self-deceit, to claim the contrary.

The big question that we should ask is if the PS will succeed at turning their poor poll showings into something that we saw before their impressive election victory last year.

I doubt it but at the end of the day that depends on each and everyone of us.

Be warned: Whatever argument the PS uses to inject nationalist sentiment and make bigotry acceptable in Finland  is part of a vicious campaign that will at the end of the day hit immigrants and visible minorities.

Anti-immigration Hommaforum editor to head PS’ party newspaper

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

What kind of message does the Perussuomalaiset (PS) give when it names Matias Turkkila as the new editor-in-chief of the party’s newspaper and web page?  It reinforces what Migrant Tales has been saying all along: the PS will step up their nationalistic and anti-immigration campaign up to the do-or-die municipal election in October.

Turkkila, who used to be a member of the far-right Suomen Sisu association, was PS MP Jussi Halla-aho’s campaign manager in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Halla-aho received 15,074 votes in Helsinki, which is the second-highest amount after Left Alliance chairman Paavo Arhimäki, who got 17,226.

The newly appointed editor-in-chief is editor of Hommaforum, an anti-immigration messageboard site where Migrant Tales has been mentioned on numerous occasions. Hommaforum is closely related to Scripta, Halla-aho’s blog.

Critics of the PS politicians who based their campaigns on anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim rhetoric are naturally not surprised. Green Party Uusi Suomi blogger Pekka Siikala recently described PS Chairman Timo Soini as “Finland’s most immoral person” over this latest appointment and his sustained failure to deliver on a promise to throw racists out of the party.

Some political observers see Turkkila’s appointment as a last-ditch attempt to repair the PS’ image, which has been tarnished by numerous scandals. Whether he succeeds is a totally different question.

But Soini must succeed in the October municipal elections. If his party does as poorly as in the presidential election, it will mean a long and painful march to the 2015 parliamentary election.  The 39 seats won by the party last year are in serious jeopardy.

Turkkila’s appointment as editor-in-chief suggests that he may become the party’s unofficial spokesman after Matti Putkonen has burned all of the its bridges with the Finnish media.

 

Anti-immigration groups in Finland care less about immigrants and visible minorities

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Behind all the rhetoric spread by anti-immigration groups in Finland and elsewhere a fact emerges: they are out to destroy the lives of as many immigrants as possible with their prejudice and racism. When a Justice Ministry official hands over rape statistics on various immigrant groups he gives a power weapon to slander and victimize people from various countries.

Such statistics have little value apart from hindering the integration of hard-working immigrants and those that want to make and build their future in this country.

Risto Laakkonen said on YLE’s Historiansarjoja: Raggarit, rasismi ja suomalaiset program how Swedish newspapers stopped linking crimes to national origin in 1970. The Finnish Embassy in Stockholm was instrumental in reaching an agreement with the editors-in-chief of Sweden’s major newspapers, who agreed not to publish the nationality of individuals committing a crime.

Things had gotten so bad in Sweden that the media had a common saying whenever a Finn was involved in a crime: En finne igen, or Yet another Finn.

Racist perceptions of different groups in Finland is more widespread than people would like to think, and the media have played a key role in spreading racism and prejudices among the population.

The fact that a political group openly spreads and distorts crime statistics about another national group is the worst form of chicanery.

If anti-immigration groups like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party are honestly interested in promoting the integration of various cultures in our society, why do they commonly single out immigrants and never suggest the same things for Finns?

A case in point of the latter can be found in a good opinion-piece by Hussein Muhammed.  PS MP Jussi Halla-aho has suggested that unemployed immigrants should be put to work, even if this means digging and refilling holes.  Muhammed asks: “…why must this kind of work only apply to “newcomers?” Shouldn’t it apply equally to “natives” or to the majority population that are unemployed?”

Why do anti-immigration groups apply two standards? One of these are for “newcomers” and the other for “natives?” Why are they so eager to use crime statistics and point the accusing finger at the whole group?

The answer to that question is simple. It is prejudice with a capital P, and racism with a fat R.

Mitä monikulttuurisuus on?

Posted on by Susannah

Susannah

Kansanedustaja Saarakkala (ps) näyttää kuvittelevan, että monikulttuurisuus olisi joku poliittinen agenda: 

http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2012050315527919_uu.shtml?fb_ref=flb&fb_source=home_oneline

Mietitäänpä paria asiaa: mitä Suomen perustuslaki takaa Suomessa asuville?

Suomessa pitää elää maassa maan lailla. Se tarkoittaa sitä, että voimassa on uskonnonvapaus, sananvapaus, kokoontumisvapaus jne. (ks. tarkemmin luku 2 perusoikeudet).

http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1999/19990731

Monikulttuurisuus ei siis ole mikään poliittinen agenda, vaan joukko menetelmiä ja ajatuksia, joilla moniarvoinen (vaan yhtä lakia noudattava) yhteiskunta pystyisi toimimaan (§6) yhdenvertaisuuden mukaan. Monikulttuurinen siis sitoutuu käsitteenä tiukasti Suomen lain hengen toteutumiseen.

Miten propagandaa tehdään termikaappauksilla?

”Saarakkalan mielestä esimerkiksi se, etteivät muslimitaustaiset naiset kulttuurisista syistä johtuen juurikaan solmia avioliittoja kristittyjen miesten kanssa, ei ole asia josta pitäisi monikulttuurisuuden edistämisen nimissä vaieta.”

Länsimaissa on perinteisesti annettu naisten valita omat puolisonsa. Saarakkala näyttää vieläpä kuvittelevan, että Suomessa asuisi natiiveina vain kristittyjä miehiä.

Tämä on klassinen esimerkki siitä, miten propagandaa koitetaan salonkikelpoistaa ”kaappaamalla” termejä ja vääntämällä ne oman agendan käyttöön. Tässä käytännön esimerkissä voidaan kyllä nähdä, miten tuollaiset yritykset päätyvät usein sellaiseen lopputulokseen, jossa ei ainakaan Suomen lakia tai kulttuuria kunnoiteta.

Migrant Tales May 16, 2011: Xenophobia and racism are the poverty of Finland today

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Some people claim that ever-growing poverty and social inequality in Finland were the reasons why the Perussuomalaiset (PS) scored such a big election victory last year. We read in the media about lengthening bread lines and how it has become more difficult for some people to make ends meet. Even so, does this justify growing xenophobia and racism in our society?

Some cast their only vote last year in the belief that our most pressing problems in this country would be solved by supporting an anti-immigration candidate.

Voting for such a person, however, is like calling a pyromaniac to turn off a raging fire. You need qualified firemen to deal with such a situation in the same way that Finland today needs leaders and politicians who have political experience and a strong background in economics, globalization and sociology.

Poverty is unacceptable in any society. In some parts of the world it means living on $1 a day, or even less. It means making hard decisions like choosing not to eat today in order to feed my children.

I remember a documentary I saw in university a long time ago about a poor family in the U.S. Appalachia Mountains. “In the same way that some rich folks may be proud of being rich,” the young father said standing next to his wife, “I’m also proud of being poor.”

The couple didn’t have enough money to buy milk so they fed their baby gravy from a bottle.

I am certain that when Finnish politicians and policymakers speak of poverty they don’t mean living on $1 a day or having to feed your baby gravy (läskisoosi).

Poverty means different things in affluent countries like Finland and in the developing world. Poverty teaches some of us two important lessons: our vulnerability in society and that nothing is permanent. If there is some wisdom we can learn from it, probably it is treating people with respect even during good times, because we never know when we’ll need their help.

The rise of racism and right-wing populism in Finland and Europe are proof that these lessons are not even being acknowledged by some. Moreover, the arrogance of some politicians is like adding salt to the open wound of Finland’s polarized society.

The more we boast our racism and suspicion of minorities in public and in private, the more our society will continue to slip into a more profound type of poverty. We will not throw extra weight overboard to slow our downward spiral, but instead stand by our most inalienable values like social equality for all.

Xenophobia and racism are the real poverty facing Finland today.

Ilta-Sanomat tabloid ad (lööppi) from June 14, 1993

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales publishes on and off Finnish tabloid ads* (lööppi in Finnish) from the 1990s. Taking into account that Finland’s immigrant population started to grow during that decade, it is easy at least through some of the main stories of tabloids like Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti to see how some of them reflected our xenophobic, prejudiced, racist or anti-Russian views.

A common stereotype about Russia at the time — and still is — that it’s rife with Mafia criminal gangs. The billboard below claims that the mafia apprehended 70 Finns.

Instilling fear in the population, that the outside world and especially Russia are dangerous places, was and still is the main message of xenophobic groups in Finland. Around 1989, Keijo Korhonen became a household name by warning that the fall of the Soviet Union could bring hordes of refugees.

The argument used once by Korhonen is the same one used by the anti-immigration wing of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party, which warn us of “Islamization.” The same high-birthrate argument was used against the Jews in Finland in the nineteenth century. Today, Finland’s Jewish population numbers, however, a mere 2,000 people.

*Migration Institute archive.

YLE poll: The Perussuomalaiset party suffers a new blow in the polls

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The many problems of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party worsened today after a poll published by YLE showed the popularity of the party further slipping by 1.7 percentage points to 14.1%. The biggest party was Kokoomus (22.6%), followed by the Social Democrats (up 1.8% to 19.1%) and the Center Party (16.4%).

The plunge in the polls is quite significant, taking into account that the PS’ popularity once stood as high as 23%. The party won 19.1% of the votes in last year’s election.

Without a doubt it’s been a scandal-rich year for the major tabloids, thanks to the numerous PS racist gaffes, foot-in-mouth displays, declarations of wars against immigrants and the media, members joining neo-Nazi parties, satirically suggesting Holocaust-style armbands to help police in ethnic profiling, decorating cold-blooded killers and recent internal bickering.

In the meantime keep your seatbelts fastened. This is only the first year and we still have three more to go. What kind of a country will Finland look like after four years of the PS in Parliament? Will we recognize it? How much damage will be done to the credibility of our institutions, never mind our international image?

The people who lifted the PS from a minor to a major party last year are now sending it back to where it came from.  There is no sympathy from the major parties, never mind the media, which has grown some teeth after initially treating the PS as some kind of sensation before the election.

Migrant Tales has constantly warned about the PS and the damage it is capable of inflicting on Finland.  Our editorial line, and the fact that we got it right, explain why our blog has seen unprecedented growth in the past year.

Migrant Tales wrote shortly after the election:  “Another factor that spurred the PS to new heights was a watershed statement in March 2010 by Kokoomus chairman Jyrki Katainen, who stated that being critical and debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist. After that green light to racism was given, the Social Democratic leadership gave the PS another pat on the back with their infamous saying, maassa maan tavalla.”

Supporting the PS is not just being anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-establishment but supporting a party that aims to change Finland into something that it isn’t quite sure of.  Some PS MPs want to take it back to the 1950s while others are fascinated by the fascism that mushroomed in the 1930s.

There is no room for dissent in the narrow-minded world of the PS.  All you have to do is repeat patronizingly after every other word fatherland, fatherland and fatherland.

Like Migrant Tales, Sweden got it right a year ago.

Immediately after the PS election victory the New York Times wrote: “In the European news media, particularly in Sweden, the True Finns have come under fire as right-wing racists. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and others have defended Mr. Soini from such accusations, though other members of his party hold more radical views on immigration.”

Even Social Democrat Lasse Lehtinen tried to assure Europeans that they have nothing to fear. “Timo Soini is actually a very civilized guy,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “He reads a lot. He thinks a lot.”

If the leaders of the major parties and the majority of Finns had been visible immigrants for a day before the election, then they would have seen Soini and the threat of the PS much more clearly, as they do today.

Why is the Perussuomalaiset party riling mad at the Finnish media?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

You know that there is something wrong whenever a group, never mind a major political party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), start accusing the media for their problems. This is exactly what Matti Putkonen and MP Jussi Halla-aho did Wednesday on  YLE, when they blamed the media for treating the PS unfairly compared with other parties.

This view was contested by Risto Uimonen, chairman of the Council for Mass Media in Finland and a guest on the show. He said that since the election, when the PS became the third-largest party in Finland, it’s only natural that it has come under greater media scrutiny.

Even though Putkonen, who was convicted of rape in the early 1990s, vows to restore the PS’ good name in the media, it’s pretty clear that any such attempt will end up in failure before it leaves the drawing board.

If we look closely at what Putkonen and Halla-aho said, it’s clear that the party is pretty much in the dark about the watchdog role of the media.  Statements by them and PS MP James Hirvisaari, who has called the media “bloodthirsty hyenas,”  should instead sound alarm bells.

I am certain that if these PS politicians had their way, they’d be the first to curtail press freedom in order that the media would write what they wanted. Putkonen said in a letter to journalists that the media should “serve the fatherland when writing the news.”

Does “serving the fatherland” mean distorting the news and self-censorship when reporting on the PS?

If the PS were fair and had a drop of self-criticism, they’d understand that much of the so-called negative coverage of the party is self-inflicted. Have they forgotten PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, sacked PS councilman Tommi Rautio, Ulla Pyysalo, Helena Eronen, Freddy Van Wonterghem and a long, long list of others?

Sad but true. Every month, sometimes every week, we are questionably entertained by some scandal that hits the front pages of the tabloids.

The ignorance and contempt that some PS members have for the media and for freedom of expression in Finland can be seen as well how the party addresses other issue like immigration and cultural diversity.

In their amateurishness and populist anti-democratic wishful thinking, they seek to rewrite history and move the goalposts of  society to fit their intolerant world.

The media is the best insurance that such a thing will never happen.

 

PS anti-immigration wing: “a new [Cadillac] model every year”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Helena Eronen, the parliamentary aide who suggested armbands for foreigners, is what Malcolm X once said about racism and Cadillacs:  “They make a new model every year.”* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party’s far-right anti-immigration wing led by MP Jussi Halla-aho have a new model: Helena Eronen.

Hirvisaari was fined in December for hate speech, which explains why he chose Eronen as his aide to write and be his ideological alter ego.

Taking into account the outright rejection by the media especially after the election of the Counter-Jihadist writings of Halla-aho, Olli Immonen and Juho Eerola, it’s pretty clear that this group needs a fresh new face, and a new writing style to get across the same anti-immigration message. That person is none other than Eronen.

Even if Eronen claims no political affiliation, she used to advertise her affiliation to the far-right Muutos2011 on her Uusi Suomi blog. Many of her blog entries confirm her anti-immigration views, such as the last one published in Uusi Suomi and headlined, “What on Earth would you do about exotic- [skin-] colored rapists.”

Hirvisaari shines through in the text, and Eronen also mentions MP Olli Immonen, who inquired in Parliament about rapes committed by immigrants.

Eronen fails to share one absolute figure with the reader about how many rape cases have occurred. This is for obvious reasons, because we are talking about tens of cases and not discussing the white Finnish males who commit the lion’s share of rapes in Finland.

At the end of her blog entry she warns that two dailies, Turun Sanomat and Karjalainen of Joensuu, may not quote the text unless they want to pay a 100,000-euro fine. This shows how little Eronen understands and her utter ignorance of the media. It’s a pretty ludicrous warning: how can you write a public blog and forbid someone from quoting you?

We mustn’t forget that PS MPs Hirvisaari, Halla-aho and Immonen – and Eerola herself – are all social media creations.

Noting how much their racist writings and victimization of certain immigrant groups brought them money and a ticket to Parliament, it’s clear that they will not abandon social media as a platform for getting their anti-immigration message across to their followers.

*Thank you Sasu Xinkang Ölander.

Anti-immigration sentiment in Finland hinges in great part on the PS

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The atmosphere for some immigrants in Finland has been an ever-worsening slippery slope. First the historic victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party last year and then the near-constant racist gaffes and foot-in-the-mouth shows.  

If you want to know what the PS stands on certain issues you have to watch for the but… in their sound bites. We are against racism but… We are against ethnic profiling but… We are for immigration but… We are for gender equality but…

It’s pretty clear that as long as an anti-immigration party like the PS remains the third-largest in parliament, matters will continue to worsen before they improve.

The PS are not only a threat to immigrants and visible minorities in this country, they are a tragedy for Finland. No matter from which angle at the situation, building a country on the populist ideology of the PS, which hinges on hatred, suspicion, racism and prejudice of other groups can never bring any type of prosperity to our country.

A story published by YLE Wednesday reinforced some disturbing news we already knew about immigrant youths. It states that immigrant youths have a five-time higher chance of being marginalized than Finnish- and Swedish-speakers.

It’s fair to say that the ongoing anti-immigration climate in Finland, thanks in part to the PS and to the economic situation, nothing far-reaching will be done to correct this situation.

The matter that causes youths and adults to be marginalized from society is a complex issue. Even so, the main culprit lies in between our ears.

Too many politicians, policy-makers, the public and even immigrants are content with the present untenable status quo. We agree on one matter and that is not to rock the boat.

It’s wishful thinking as well to believe that the integration and acceptance of immigrants and visible minorities in Finland will be easily solved by offering more Finnish-language course. It is a long process that will take generations and a lot of work from both sides. There are no easy fixes.

The role of mutual acceptance and respect are crucial if we aim to build a healthy and dynamic society in this century. At this moment there is too little of those important qualities.

The only way for Finland to shake off the present political nightmare and blow away those adverse anti-immigration winds blowing over our society is at the ballot box.

Fortunately time flies.