Being proud of your heritage is fine as long as you don’t use your whiteness to socially exclude and oppress minorities.
I have seen many pictures of Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MEP Laura Huhtasaari, who appears to pour it on with her whiteness. Her comments are not only often racist and absurd, but her blonde hair, photoshopped blue eyes, and made up white skin appear exaggerated.
The former logo of the PS Youth is a perfect example of ethnonationalism and fascist whiteness.
The late Risto Laakkonen (1939-2020) said that whenever a group starts talking about itself as a tribe, it starts to flirt with racism.
Former PS Youth logo and MEP Laura Huhtasaari. Both are examples of ethnonationalist whiteness.
There are many examples of why some Islamophobic and far-right politicians dye their hair a certain color depending on the political mood.
Black hair Jenna Simula in an ad when she ran for Oulu city council and promised she would continue being a Nazi on immigration policy if elected. As an MP, Simula now changed to blonde hair. She is a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association that supports ethnonationalism and fascism. Before and after. Why did Sanna Antikainen change the color of her hair? Is blonde more appealing to white Islamophobic voters? Antikainen has a way of making racist comments.
There are many other examples.
Former Perussuomalaiset minister and MPHanna Mäntylä with black and white hair. Sources: Yle and Seiska.Tiina Wiik isn’t a member of the Perussuomalaiset party, but she speaks and talks like one on steroids. Sources: Yle and Twitter. And who could not forget Ulla Pyysalo of the Perussuomalaiaiset party? She was caught trying to join a neo-Nazi group. Surprisingly, she doesn’t like foreigners, too. Source: Länsi-Saimaan Uutiset.What is far-right Marine Le Pen’s real hair color? Source: France 24.
I’m sorry to post this picture of Katie Hopkins. Who is she? Read this factsheet about this Islamophobe with a capital “I.” Source: Twitter.
Not obtaining the two-thirds majority needed to change the bylaws, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth turned down a motion from the party to change its bylaws 56 votes in favor to 45 against. The vote was a definite setback to PS chairperson Jussi Halla-aho.
Even if the party will make a decision in early March on how to proceed after the vote, it means that PS Youth will split from the parent party.
The only ones who appear surprised by the result is the PS leadership. Under Halla-aho, the party has promoted, even encouraged, ethnonationalism and fear-mongered about how white Finns will become a minority in their own country thanks to Muslim migrants.
PS party secretary Simo Grönroos, who is a declared ethnonationalist and a member of the fascist-spirited Suomen Sisu, confirmed after the vote that the party would establish a new youth association.
“Of course it is important that the party has its own youth organization,” he was quoted saying in Yle News, “so yes the party will found its own youth wing.”
Halla-aho is in the same quandary as former PS leader Timo Soini when internal power struggles were waged between him and the far-right Islamophobes led by Halla-aho.
Thanks to a media that is normally toothless in confronting PS politicians with tough questions, and other politicians who fear that opposing the PS’ racist policies may be counterproductive, Halla-aho and his cronies have had an easy ride in Finland.
Former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen, changed that momentarily when he admitted over the weekend at a conference in Estonia that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.”
Migrant Tales insight:The story below was one that was published in February 2012 about “Black February,” when three Muslims died and a Finn committed suicide after killing one Muslim and wounding another. As with the Pakistani who was viciously attacked in February 2018, there were a lot of question marks about how the police carried out the investigations.
Today we talk openly about instigating civil war and about politicians admitting they are fascists. The party? Guess.
This artricle below is to raise our consciousness about how Islamophobia is a cancer spreading in our society at this moment.
Remember Black February? Over about three weeks we read about the deaths of three Muslims , a suicide and a Perussuomalaiset (PS) councilman who offered to give a medal to a white Finn for killing one of these victims in cold blood. On Monday Migrant Tales had the opportunity to meet the father and a family friend of one of the victims, Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulah.
The first thing that you notice when you meet Abdisalam’s father is his grief. Anguish inhabits all of Mursal Abdulah: It’s in his eyes, in his face, in his posture, in his voice, in his persona.
The death of his eighteen-year-old son was such a strong blow that he is still recovering from the shock when two policemen broke the tragic news to him and his wife on a Friday February 17 at 10am.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said returning to that terrible moment of his life. “My wife fainted.”
Abdisalam’s father and wife were in the first group of Somali refugees that came to Finland in August 1990 by train from the former Soviet Union. Their son was born in Finland. Abdisalam was a good athlete, student, and son, according to his father.
“He [Abdisalam] planned to study medicine,” he continued. “I was ready to send him abroad so he could become a doctor.”
Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi was a Manchester United fan. In August he would have turned nineteen.
The last time that Abdisalam’s father saw his son was on Thursday night. “His last words were that he was going to take a shower, go to a [high school] party and return,” he said. “He never did.”
Abdulah isn’t at all happy with how the police have handled the case. Apart from not expressing any empathy for the parents’ grief, it was difficult to get any information from them about the crime.
“We were treated coldly and felt like we were the criminals,” he said. “The police appeared to be more concerned about keeping the case under wraps because they feared a revenge attack by Somalis.”
Abdulah says that if a crime were committed by a Somali it would have received a lot of media attention.
“The thing that struck us the most was when we went to the police station,” he said. “The same information that they wouldn’t give us, we then read in the tabloids right after we left the police station. How is it possible that the papers knew more about Abdisalam’s death than us?”
Abdisalam’s death happened between midnight and 7am. The suspect and the victim were school acquaintances. Abdulahi says that his son died from a mortal blow to the head. The suspect’s father was present at the crime scene as well.
I asked Abdulahi if he feels that justice will be done? “I don’t know,” he said trying to be diplomatic. “I’m not sure that I trust the police.”
One of the matters that the father has a big question mark is the complicity of the father in the whole affair. He doesn’t believe the police that the father was not an accomplice in the crime. “Abdisalam was big and physical compared with the attacker,” Abdulah said. “There must have been somebody else helping him [that could have been the father].”
A friend of the family present at the interview speaks.
“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”
Abdulah concludes: “Those Somalis that went to Australia and Canada are living better lives than I in Finland. All I have to show for over twenty years in Finland is a cold country with long winters and the death of my son.”
Migrant Tales expresses to the parents, relatives and friends its condolences for Abdisalam.
Being white is ok if you are white, but when you use your whiteness to oppress others and promote ideologies like fascism, then we need to have a discussion.
On the left is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth logo, which portrays an ideal of whiteness and ethnonationalism with fascist overtones.
I have always wondered about the exceptionally white image that MEP Laura Huhtasaari portrays. Hair dyed super white, blue eyes bursting out of her eye sockets and her very white skin enhanced with the help of makeup racist myths.
These are just a few images that the PS uses to attract voters with the help . of hashtags like #ItsOKtobeWhite and #ItsOKtobeChristian
On the left is the Perussuomalaiset Youth logo and on the right MEP Laura Huhtasaari.
Despite these manifestations of ethnowhiteness, there is one quote that left me guessing with a question by none other than former PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen.
Feeling sorry for himself because the world does not sympathize with his view of fascism, I wonder what Jalonen would say 10 years from now if he looked at the quote below.
I suspect he’d wonder what the hell he was saying and doing.
It is justified to consider the Nürnberg trials a farce. Guilt was decided in advance, and the justifications for the sentences were absurd.[1]
Perussuomalaiset* (PS) chairperson Jussi Halla-aho (2010)
Isn’t it incredible how PS Youth second vice president Toni Jalonen put himself in the eye of a political storm when he admitted over the weekend that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist?”
Not only admitted these words in public is one matter but doing it with his Finnish fascist black shirt and blue tie adds more light to the hypocrisy of the Finnish political system and specifically on the PS.
Halla-aho was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat that the PS doesn’t tolerate nazism or fascism. These assurances are as empty as Halla-aho admitting that the PS isn’t a racist party.
A 2011 campaign ad of Wille Rydman of the National Coalition Party. In some ads like this one he appears for some strange reason with photoshopped dark skin and in others with white skin. Rydman believes that his party should work closer with the PS. It is for this reason, and many others, why he is known as the Halla-aho of the National Coalition Party.
Jalonen used MP Juha Mäenpää, who is suspected for ethnic agitation over his invasive species remark of asylum seekers, as an example of why it would be injust to sack him from the party.
“I understand that if the party sacks me, but I do not see it as just if you look at what others have said [publicly] in the party,” he was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat, pointing the finger at Mäenpää.
What makes the whole we’re-going-to-possibly-sack Jalonen farce by the PS leadership is itself and its track record. Jalonen’s case shows that it is fine being a fascist in the party as long as you don’t say it too loudly in public.
Halla-aho was, for example, convicted in 2012 for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion. He was also suspended a year earlier from the party for two weeks for supporting a military regime in Greece.
“What is needed in Greece right now is a military junta, which would not need public approval and could use tanks against strikers and demonstrators,” he wrote on Facebook.[2]
The PS has, under the leadership of Halla-aho, become more radicalized. Racist concepts like ethnonationalism, ethnic replacement, fascism, and other ones are today the norm.
The same challenges former PS leader Timo Soini had with the racists in the party, which was nothing more than a power fight between him and Halla-aho, is now taking place in the party but with fascists and ethnonationalists.
Let’s not fall for the hypocrisy of the PS, but continue to focus on challenging a party that wants to turn Finland into a country like Victor Orbán’s Hungary.
[1] For an example Alber Speer (an architect) got a long sentence since he knew about the holocaust but didn’t try to prevent it. As if a person living in a dictatorship should fight against the dictatorship even if it costs his life. Source: Wikiquote (Hommaforum).
Toni Jalonen, who is the second vice president of the Perussuomalaiset* (PS) Youth and member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu, states openly in a speech below that “I am an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist [clapping].”
Yes, you heard, right. Politically matters appear spinning rapidly out of control in the PS and some are living in an alternate reality.
Recently, PS MP Ano Turtiainen called on his followers to civil war never mind PS MP Juha Mäenpää, who said in summer that asylum seekers are “an invasive species” that had to be eliminated.
Just like former PS leader Timo Soini had a tough time keeping the racist outbursts of his party in line, Jussi Halla-aho is seeing the same problem. Even if he is on the same ideological wavelength, open fascism, and ethnonationalism are eating the party from within.
On the left is Toni Jalonen, PS Youth vice president admitting that he is “an ethnonationalist, traditionalist, and a fascist.” The Lapua Movement was a fascist organization that failed to overthrow the elected government of Finland in 1932 after which the the Patriotic People’s Movement (Isänmaalinen kansanliike, IKL) was formed. The Lapua Movement-IKL did not use brown shirts but a black one with a dark blue tie. Is it a coincidence that Jalonen is wearing a Lapua Movement outfit? Source: Twitter and Good Reads.
PS Youth substitute board member for Lapland, Johannes Sipola, has said a lot of terrible things like condoning and blaming the Christhurch killings in March on multiculturalism.
It’s clear that he is one of the first to defend Jalonen like in the tweet below.
From the second paragraph it reads: “Jalonen represents the [PS’] youth association and yes, the youth association is openly fascist. This line is supported as well by the members. That is why Jalenen was voted to his post.” Source: Twitter.
Where will all this lead?
It will not end well, I am afraid. It is only a question of time when something will snap, and we will – hopefully not – see something tragic like we are seeing today in different parts of Europe.
I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country.
PS MP Ano Turtiainen
The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP with a curious first name, “Ano,” [1] Turtiainen is another dangerous example of how the Islamophobic party fuels the hostile environment against migrants and minorities like Muslims.
Recently we saw a deadly killing in Hanau, Germany, at the hands of a far-right German who turned words into bullets. Considering that lawmakers like Turtiainen and others are encouraging people to acts of violence, the horrific events in Hanau sends chills up our spines.
Turtiainen was quoted as saying in Mikkeli-based Länsi-Savo last year that he has no regrets about publishing in December 2015 a post where he asks people to burn asylum reception centers run by the Red Cross.
In another interview with the Mikkeli daily, he stated the conviction for inciting people to commit a crime was a” feather in his cap.”
What kind of a lawmaker is Turtiainen who directly incites (see posting below) white Finns to rise up in arms?
One of his writings in Uusi Suomi was taken down recently. In the opinion piece, he called people to incite a civil war:
“I doubt that anyone of us wants to see a [civil] war in our country. We cannot, however, avoid such an eventuality if we continue this silent unsuspecting observation from the side when the enemy among us takes more power.
Use your voice and [say it] loudly! “
Ano Turtiainen: “member of parliament, father, town councilperson, entrepreneur, weightlifting world champion, weightlifting record holder.”
[1] “Ano” is a real name in Finland. The equivalent name for women is Anna. In Spanish, “ano” means anus.
Mauri Peltokangas is an MP for the Islamophobic Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party and a member of the Nazi-spirited Suomen Sisu association. In the hostile video below, the PS MP with close ties to neo-Nazi groups, uses the following terms to cry us a river about bringing to Finland 175 children from the Lesvos refugee camp.
If his invective monologue below lasts 2:36 minutes, it means that around every 20 seconds you hear the following swear words:
Shit (paska): 2 times
Fucked (perseestä): 2 times
What the hell, hell (mitä helevetti, helevetti): 2
The devil (perkele): 2
Are these the “lawmakers” that are supposed to look after our interests and bring security?
Source: Facebook.
Writes Al-Jazeera about the humanitarian crisis in Lesvos: “More than 18,300 asylum seekers currently live in and around Moria camp, a facility built to accommodate 2,200, according to the UNHCR. Tents and ad hoc structures are stacked close by on the hillsides, forming a makeshift city whose population is now the second largest on the island, after the capital Mytilini.”
Migrant Tales recently published a story of a refugee family in Lesvos.
“The toilets are a kilometer from their tent, and the journey there is dangerous because it is downhill and slippery when it rains,” said a relative of the family that now lives on Lesvos. “If you get to the toilet, you’ll find long lines with families with ten children waiting for their turn.”
But Peltokangas is defiant. He states in the video that there is no reason to bring 175 children from Lesbos because Greece “is a warm and secure EU country.”
Believe it or not, Peltokangas is a very popular politician in Finland, a country that tries to prize itself as a champion of human rights, social equality, and one of the best education systems in the world.
After almost a year after the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* almost pulled off the parliamentary elections of April, Finland’s largest daily, Helsingin Sanomat, treats the Islamophobic far-right party.
A story by Tommi Nieminen correctly points out that the violence called by some PS MPs is unacceptable but then blows his speak-out-against-the-far-right-with-one-hand-and-support-it-with-another with this statement:
Political protest movement – in which the Perussuomalaiset could be included – is an essential part of democracy.”
This sentence by Finland’s largest daily is the reason why Helsingin Sanomat plays down the threat of the PS in politics and society.
How can a party like the PS, which wants Finland to trash its international agreements so that no Muslims and other people of color can enter the country, be good for democracy?
How can a party that believes in pseudosciences like eugenics support ethnonationalism?
Instead of writing wishy-washy articles that play down the far right, why doesn’t Helsingin Sanomat write an editorial denouncing violence against migrants, minorities, women, and our Nordic way of life?
This is one of the big unanswered questions that Nieminen analysis exposes as well as the following: Why write now – almost 10 months after the parliamentary election – about this topic?
His answer? A Hollywood ending to our far-right and racism social ills will come when both sides will kiss and make up.
Migrant Tales has always understood the threat that parties like the PS pose on our society.
After the April 2011 election, when the PS scored their historic victory, raising the number of MPs from 5 to 39, we wrote: “Far-right populism is an illness inflicting Europe at present and it now has a beachhead in Finland.”
Back then, our blog got cited by Time Magazine. The above quote was a response to PS chairman Timo Soini’s statement: “We [the PS] are not extremists so you can sleep safely.”Has Finland slept politically safely since 2011?I don’t think so.
Back before the 2011 election, Migrant Tales was one of the few blogs that openly questioned and warned about the rise of the PS in Finnish politics.
