Tag: Perussuomalaiset

MTV3: Rasistit joutumassa uuden hallituksen silmätikuiksi

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: After calls last week by President Tarja Halonen for the new government to make a pledge to combat growing racism in Finland, it appears that not only most political parties but the public are taking a more vociferous stand against this social ill.

One matter that the victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) brought to the table with the election of people like Teuvo Hakkarainen, Jussi Halla-aho and others is that Finland can no longer deny that racism is a minor problem that will go away by itself.

Finland’s ever-growing polarization due to the PS victory in April has had a positive impact on parties like the Greens and Left Alliance, which have seen their membership soar by 45% and 13%, respectively.

Some PS politicians are politically off track if they believed that a few xenophobic blog writings would turn Finland into a subsidiary of the Danish People’s Party or the Sweden Democrats.

The embarrassing episodes that have been splashed in the country’s tabloids and newspapers only a month and a half after the election show that the PS are going to face a very rough four years. 

Just as pain tells a wounded soldier that he is still alive, Finland’s reaction to the PS shows that it will not tolerate free-fall racism and populism.

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Rasismin rajoittaminen voi saada uusia aseita seuraavassa hallitusohjelmassa. Kovempia otteita vauhdittaa muun muassa viimeaikainen julkisuuskohu perussuomalaisten kansanedustajan Teuvo Hakkarainen lausunnoista.

Read whole story.

Finland’s Tahrir Square is located on Facebook

Posted on by Migrant Tales

How deep in denial is Finland concerning the Perussuomalaiset (PS) and the values they represent? It’s pretty clear that the shameful racist gaffes of PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen and the party’s public statement on Thursday condemning racism are fuelling Finland’s Tahrir Square on social media sites like Facebook.

Just like what ignited the Arab street to rise up against their despotic rulers, we are seeing in Finland candid outrage to social ills like racism that have been accepted in silence for so long but never seriously challenged.

The PS’ public statement denouncing all forms of racism is a good example of how Timo Soini’s party is emboldening Finns to take action in our own Tahrir Square. We saw it gain strength right after the April 17 election when about 1,000 people demonstrated against the PS in front of parliament.

Apart from PS MP Hakkarainen, whose racist gaffes have made Finland a worse place to live for minorities like immigrants, the public statement by the PS denouncing all forms of racism is a good example of their cat-and-mouse game stance on racism.

But what else could be expected from a party that mixes too often facts with populism and hearsay? The statement against racism by the PS is another unfortunate example: We agree to be against all forms of racism and discrimination as long as we destroy minority rights by doing away with so-called positive discrimination.

Some professors like Kaarlo Tuomi, Tuomas Ojanen and Veli-Pekka Viljanen warned in Saturday’s Helsingin Sanomat that the PS statement was “terrible” and “very problematic” because it is in conflict with our Constitution. Instead of promoting equality it would undermine it fatally.

The PS have crossed once again another line but have revealed to us their double-talk and how they plan to further their jumbled political agenda for this country.

Since leading political parties like Kokoomus and the Social Democrats underestimated the PS and did not consider their challenge a menace to our society on matters like racism, it is then the job of common people to take action, which they have started on different social media sites.

The continued willingness of different political leaders to continue to see Soini as a “moderate” and “nice guy” is synonymous with burying one’s head in the sand. They should look at the big picture: The PS has 39 MPs in parliament that would be ready to water down minority rights for their brand of populist nationalism.

Recent attacks reported in the media of immigrants by thugs and the PS’ wishy-washy stand on racism ensure that Finland’s Tahrir Square will continue to gain strength.

HS: Rasismia ei torjuta etuja purkamalla

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Here is a good Helsingin Sanomat editorial on the public statement made Thursday by the Perussuomalaiset (PS) against all forms of racism.

The inclusion of so-called positive discrimination, or lowering the bar for some minorities, in the PS statement was criticized by the editorial.

If the PS had their way, their recipe for social equality, even for minorities such as the Roma, would be to scale back positive discrimination. HS disagrees with this position.

Moreover, one could ask if eliminating positive discrimination would be an effective way of undermining or fueling greater racism in society?

In a culturally diverse society it is important that we have the right mix of ethnicities and sex in any job. The other side of the coin is that if  minorities are not sufficiently represented in certain fields like the police force, it could lead to perceptions of institutional racism and sexism. The end result? Lack of credibility.

Leveling out the playing field for all people, even those that aren’t as fortunate enough to compete equally with other groups, is a noble way of promoting equality by leveling the playing field.

The other side of that policy could be that all forms of discrimination are wrong, even positive. This is the argument that the PS has chosen to take.

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Perussuomalaisten eduskuntaryhmä ilmoitti keskiviikkoiltana julkilausumalla tuomitsevansa kaikenlaisen rasismin, syrjinnän ja väkivallan.  Perussuomalaisilta oli vaadittu kannanottoa siksi, että yksi puolueen kansanedustajista on toistuvasti käyttänyt maahanmuuttajista ilmauksia, jotka luokitellaan rasistisiksi. Eduskuntaryhmä antoi samalla edustajalleen huomautuksen.

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HS: True Finns renounce racism, discrimination, and favouritism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: I got acquainted with the public statement made against all forms of racism by the Persussuomalaiset (PS) through PS MP James Hirvisaari’s blog. For those who do not know who Hirvisaari is, he’s probably the most eccentric in his attacks of immigrants, especially Muslims. But after he got elected he appears to have turned into Dr. Jekyll from his pre-election Mr Hyde-mode.

Another question mark of the PS’ statement is that it was drafted by Hirvisaari’s political soul mate, Jussi Halla-aho.

Kristiina Kouros, the secretary general of the Finnish League for Human Rights, considered the PS  statement awkwardly drafted and not clear because it differs from the UN and EU Declaration of Human Rights, where there is no mention of the discrimination of the majority population by the minority.  “It’s very rare that a minority (group) can exclude the majority by discrimination,” said Kouros in Iltalehti. “Minorities do not have that type of power.”

Even though it is a good matter that a party like the PS is speaking out against all forms of racism and violence, how seriously do they take such a statement especially when it was drafted after PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen went on another of his outbursts against blacks this week on Jämsä Seutu?

What do you think?

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True Finns MP Teuvo Hakkarainen was chided by his Parliamentary group on Wednesday for recent racist comments. The group also made public a statement condemning all types of racism, discrimination, and violence.

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If you want to read a strong critique of the PS’ statement against racism visit Ossi Mäntylahti’s blog (in Finnish).  He is a member of the Kokoomus party.

Denying racism is rejecting Finland’s cultural diversity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

When one looks at some topical issues being debated in Finland, like the role of cultural diversity and tries to understand them, it is essential to dig deeper behind words. What do the most anti-immigration voices of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) say when they are against multiculturalism?

Anyone who has attempted to understand what multiculturalism is knows that it isn’t an easy concept to grasp. If we are speaking of the Canadian social policy that came about in the 1980s, there are only three countries in the world (Canada, Britain and Australia) that are officially multicultural, according to researcher Peter Kivisto.

Multiculturalism as a social policy works differently in all three of the above-mentioned countries. There is no same-size-fits-all when it comes to multiculturalism as a social policy.

What do anti-immigration groups like the PS tell us when they express their loathing for multiculturalism? Is it a last-ditch attempt to keep Finland white and hinder the development or, worse, deny our cultural diversity as a society?

What do anti-immigration groups like Suomen Sisu and PS MP Jussi Halla-aho reveal to us when state that they are against multiculturalism and find some basis for their arguments in the writings of  Alfred Rosenberg, David Duke and Michael Levin?

All of these persons have one matter in common: they are against cultural diversity, or are the antithesis of multiculturalism. Rosenberg, a Nazi war criminal who went to the gallows after the Nuremberg trials, believed that the ”Aryan race” would find greatness after it kicked out the Jews from Germany.

David Duke is a former Klu Klux Klan leader who believes whites should live separated from blacks. Levin is another controversial figure who sees whites at the top and blacks at the bottom of the ethnic totem pole.

When anti-immigration representatives in Finland tell us that they are only against certain groups moving to this country, they are stating us the same thing: we loathe people who strengthen cultural diversity.

The present debate taking place in Finland goes much deeper than what meets the eye because it is about the inevitable future of our society. One group, like some in the PS, are denying it by living in a Finland of the past century, while others have already accepted it.

What, then, is a person telling us when he claims there is no racism in Finland?

It’s the same side of the sinister coin: denial that Finland is already culturally diverse.

HS: Ilta-Sanomat: Soini ottaa Hakkaraisen taas puhutteluun

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Perussuomalaiset MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who became known nationally and internationally for his racist gaffes, has done it again. PS chairman Timo Soini was reported by tabloid Ilta-Sanomat to “be enraged” upon reading about Hakkarainen’s latest racist slurs in Jämsän Seutu.

The MP from Viitasaari was quoted as saying in the Central Finland local paper that “niggers” should be sent to work in the forests because the market squares in Helsinki are crowded with these type of people.

Black and gay Green MP, Jani Toivola, was naturally one of many Finns who was taken aback by Hakkarainen’s comments, according to MTV3.

“I belong to the same group (that Hakkarainen is referring to) and I have heard these types of words all my life,” said Toivola. “In my opinion it’s strange that not even grown-ups can shake off such words from their language.”

MPs like Hakkarainen have become a liability to the PS because they erode credibility from the party. For one, it has kept far-right Suomen Sisu MPs like Jussi Halla-aho from making provocative statements against immigrants.

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Perussuomalaisten puheenjohtaja Timo Soini joutuu taas puuttumaan kansanedustaja Teuvo Hakkaraisen (p) ulkomaalaispuheisiin, kertoo Ilta-Sanomat.

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Finland has been challenged by an anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam party

Posted on by Migrant Tales

If I were the head of Finland’s secret police, Supo, I would have sent a long time ago my best agents to investigate whether there is a connection and well-orchestrated plan by far-right groups in Europe and Suomen Sisu to the Perussuomalaiset’s (PS) election victory in April.

If  Supo decided to leave many stones unturned on this front or keep such information to itself, I would as head of a large Finnish daily send my best investigative reporters to find the tensions and links between Timo Soini’s SMP wing of PS and the MPs that belong to the Suomen Sisu association.

Here are some of the matters I’d ask my reporters to investigate: (1) Is there a greater-than-known link between Suomen Sisu/PS and other right-wing populist parties in Europe like the Danish People’s Party (DPP)? What level of consultancy work have the DPP given to Suomen Sisu/PS to spread more effectively the Islamophobic message in Finland? (2) Is one of the attack strategies of such a sinister plan overwhelming the net with Islamophobist websites like Hommaforum, which have close links to Suomen Sisu?

Apart from Migrant Tales, groups like Hommaforum have inhibited researchers, common Finns and bloggers to speak out against their xenophobic and nationalist message. Our blog was attacked by over 800 Hommaforum supporters in September 2008.

As head of Supo or of a major daily, I would look at the reaction of the politicians and society towards rising xenophobia in Finland. Did politicians cave in to the Islamophobia and reacted too late and with too little firepower? Or did the message of people like PS MP Jussi Halla-aho appeal and serve the interests of some like Kokoomus and the Social Democratic Party?

The biggest loser of the election was the Center Party. That party under the leadership of former Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi lost the most votes due to her pro-EU and outspoken stance against the PS.

Sometimes you need to cash in defeat in order to become stronger in the future. President Barak Obama is a good example by being one of the few senators that opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Thanks to his leadership, he was able to reap lots of advantages against his Republican rival John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.

Nothing happens by chance never mind getting 19.1% of the votes from 4.05% four years earlier. Certainly outside factors like the global financial meltdown of September 2008 and the EU bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal played crucial roles that benefited the PS. Even so, living in denial and playing down such a threat and lack of leadership by political parties probaby played an even bigger role in boosting the PS.

Despite the good fortunes of the Soini’s party, there is one lesson that can be learned: If you don’t stand up to right-wing populism it will end up challenging your power base. Why? Because it is a message of hatred that divides our societies and impoverishes us in the end economically and socially.

That is why we need today more than ever leadership concerning the menace that has challenged our society with its anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam message.

Jealous and spiteful behavior towards immigrants in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The jealous and spiteful behavior of some Finns and especially politicians belonging to the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is nothing new.  Even after Finland ceded for the second time Karelia in 1944 to the former Soviet Union, some Finns were very hostile and spiteful of the over 400,000 Karelian refugees that were relocated here.

After the war, some Finns not only blamed the Karelians for all the hardship the country endured during those difficult years, but were especially angered by the money the government gave them to buy land and start life anew.

A typical gripe of the anti-immigration groups in Finland is pretty much the same. They blame immigrants and refugees for getting preferential treatment and are especially angered because they get social welfare.

An interesting editorial in Kajaani-based Kainuun Sanomat states two factors propelled the PS vote in April: anti-EU sentiment, which is understandable in light of the bailouts, and immigration, which is incomprehensible.

A quote that caught my eye a while back on Twitter was by @sabergato. He put the anti-immigration sentiment in Finland in perspective from the Civil Rights era in the US:  “The most racist, rural, uneducated southern whites were very jealous & spiteful of Blacks.”

Here is a good example (in Finnish) of how the PS is fuelling the same type of jealousy and spite towards immigrants and refugees in Rovaniemi.

Unless major political parties like Kokoomus and Social Democrats consider Teuvo Hakkarainen’s Viitsaari in Central Finland a key battleground for votes, Finland needs today more than ever leadership on the anti-racist front.

Cultural diversity is guaranteed in our constitution and it is the obligation of all parties, including the PS, to defend minorities.

Let’s not make a mockery of our values and let Finland go on a free-for-all Internet lynching mode against minorities.

Finland’s Hommaforum fuels much of the anti-immigration sentiment on the net

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri

On Friday’s Pressiklubi hosted by Ruben Stiller there was an interesting talk on the rise of racism in Finland. Columnist Kaarina Hazard and Saska Saarikoski, the head of Helsingin Sanomat’s culture section, threw some hard questions at Matias Turkkila, head of Homma ry and PS MP Jussi Halla-aho’s campaign manager. 

When looking at the rerun, see how Turkkila looks and feels uncomfortable as he is slouches in the seat throughout the show. Even his hand movements express edginess.

Some consider Homma ry a place where stereotypes and suspicion of immigrants and refugees have a home.  For me it is like a sprinkler that waters much of the racism we find on different chat and websites in Finland.

Some of the posts on Migrant Tales have been debated, or discected,  on Hommaforum.

Scripta, Halla-aho’s blog like Hommaforum, operate as an army of faithful bloggers that would attack other sites if they did not like what they were reading.  One of of these was Migrant Tales’ in September 2008, which got over 800 hits from Scripta.

Turkkila claimed on the show that Homma ry represents 60% of the Finns’ opinion of immigration and immigrants.

While Turkkila is stretching it quite a bit with such a claim, the website is the humble servant of the hostile message to immigrants and refugees of politicians like Halla-aho.

One of the matters that surprised me most on the talk show was his explanation why Homma ry was born. According to Turkkila, the media always exaggerated and glorified immigrant but never bothered to report on the negative matters.

I have lived in Finland on and off for over thirty years and there has been very little of what Turkkila states of the Finnish media. If there have been human-interest stories on immigrants it has been more on what a great country Finland is to live in.  Rarely have they treated seriously the social problems and exclusion that some immigrants may suffer in this country.

If immigrants were “glorified” as Turkkila wants us to believe, why are so few taking part in the ongoing immigration debate in this country?

One of the biggest problems with websites like Hommaforum is that most of those giving their opinions of immigrants are Finns. It’s like a groups of only male chauvinists giving their unchallenged views on women.

Post-April 17 Finland: A protest vote against whom?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Enrique Tessieri

One reads and hears less these days about the reasons why the Perussuomalaiset (PS) scored such a big election victory in April. While casting a protest vote is a positive signs that our democracy functions, what did the voters actually contend? Political corruption? Immigration? Refugees? Mandatory Swedish? Ever-growing income gaps and social inequality?  

Since politicians and political parties have the most to gain from an election and the voters the least, some campaigns are carried out like aggressive used-car salesmen. The newer the party the more exaggerated its promises, while the more traditional ones give different sales pitches.

The PS, which is the new kid on the big party block, did a good job because it instilled fear and awoke passions so you’d buy its used car.

What the PS salesman won’t tell you are the real problems of the vehicle you purchased. Some of these are that the car has had ten owners, the mileage meter has been tampered, sawdust has been mixed with the oil and that he is charging you 80% more than the real price of the car.

Apart from the anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam sales pitch of many PS MP candidates, some voters are already noticing that they purchased a lemon.

One does not have to be a political scientist to understand that Finland will never find effective solutions to its challenges in Timo Soini’s simplistic sound bites and by polarizing our society between “true Finns” and “untrue Finns.”

Like a person that attracts bad company, the most unfortunate and questionable side of Soini’s PS has been its far-right wing led by MPs who are members of Suomen Sisu. Almost every week there is a worrisome revelation by the media about Jussi Halla-aho, who we now know disliked human rights in 2001 because they encouraged tolerance between black and white people.

The worst lemons of the PS are Halla-aho and his PS MP followers like James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen, Juho Erola and others. They are selling you a car that runs on the ideology of Nazi war criminal Alfred Rosenberg, David Duke, former head of the Klu Klux Klan, and Michael Levin. All this, of course, in an early twenty-first century Finnish context.

If Soini’s party was incapable of capitalizing on such a big election victory by entering government it is doubtful that they’ll be given a second chance by the voters.

Voters do protest but they want results as well.