timo soini Archives - Page 10 of 13

Annual congress: The PS aims to become the biggest party in Finland with anti-EU and anti-immigration platform

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The first day of Perussuomalaiset (PS) annual congress in Joensuu (July 29-30) did not produce any surprises but reinforced the party’s anti-immigration, and especially its anti-Islam and anti-cultural diversity stand. The party leadership, starting from Timo Soini to its new secretary, Riikka Slunga-Putsalo, confirm this.

Soini, who was reelected chairman of the party by a landslide, announced that he would not run for EuroMP in 2014.

“There are two reasons for this: I can’t afford to and I do not want to,” Soini was quoted as saying on YLE in English.

See original story here.

The new vice president of the PS is Jussi Niinistö, a member of the far right Suomalaisuuden liitto that campaigns against mandatory Swedish at school. Hanna Mäntylä and Juho Eerola were elected second and third vice president, respectively.

Niinstö’s political colors became evident in September 2011, when he stated in parliament Nazi playwright Hans Johst’s Schlageter, “Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning” (“Whenever I hear of culture… I release the safety-catch of my Browning”).

Niinistö replaced the word culture with parliamentarism when he mentioned Schlageter’s quote.

Eerola, who got elected to parliament thanks to his anti-immigration views and ties to far right associations like Suomen Sisu, which is no longer a member, doesn’t have the stomach to accept cultural diversity. One of his most infamous quotes is: “I am attracted to fascism and especially the economic policies of Benito Mussolini.”

Eerola was party second vice president in 2012-13.

Mäntylä is no friend of immigrants and visible minorities. She has supported a number of PS draft laws that see “multiculturalism” as a threat or that would ban the burqa and nijab in Finland.

Slunga-Putsalo was one of the 12 members that drafted and signed the anti-immigration Nuiva Manifesto, which aims to undermine immigrant and visible minority rights in Finland.

The type of immigration policy supported by Slunga-Putsalo would limit social aid for a year to all new immigrants that move to the country.

Another aim of the Nuiva Manifesto is to halt immigrants that would have a “negative” impact on society. It supports, however, immigrants whose impact would be “neutral or positive.”

While Slunga-Putsalo and Eerola, who signed the Nuiva Manifesto as well, won’t tell you what groups would be “negative” to Finland, it’s easy to understand that they mean Muslims, Africans and other visible immigrants from outside the EU.

Another example of the PS’ democratic credentials was inviting EuroMP Morten Messerschmidt of the far right Danish People’s Party to Joensuu to greet the PS delegates.

In 2007, he was charged with singing Nazi marching songs and giving the Hitler salute in a bar in Tivoli, the major tourist attraction in central Copenhagen.

Messerschmidt was cleared of such charges in 2009 by a court, which forced the daily BT to compensate him for libel. Together with two other DPP members in 2001, however, Messerschmidt was sentenced for 14 days for ethnic agitation. A DPP ad in Studiomagazinet claimed that Denmark would face mass rapes, violence, insecurity, forced marriages, women would be oppressed, and gang crime if the country became a multiethnic society.

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

Posted on June 4, 2013 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.

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.

Calling Timo Soini’s bluff

Posted on May 22, 2013 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.

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.

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

Posted on May 15, 2013 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.

How ideologically alike is the PS with the UKIP and BNP?

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The recent local election victory of the anti-EU and anti-immigration UKIP of Britain is a good example of what Finland experienced with the rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) in April 2011. While the United Kingdom and Finland are vastly different countries, the knee-jerk reaction of the ruling parties to right-wing populism and rhetoric is strikingly similar.

Instead of challenging the anti-EU and anti-immigration stance of the UKIP or PS, the Tories of the UK and Kokoomus and Social Democrats of Finland bowed to the political threat by mimicking the UKIP’s and PS’ message, respectively.

In Finland, Kokoomus and the Social Democrats have paid a dear price for their lack of leadership in challenging an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party. The only party that didn’t parrot too much the PS’ rhetoric was the Center Party, which was the biggest loser in the 2011 election.

Apart from being aided by being in the opposition, the Center Party’s decision to not mimic the PS appears to have paid off handsomely.

A recent YLE poll showed the Center Party to be the most popular in the country today. Cameron, Kokoomus and the Social Democratic Party of Finland prove that you pay a high political price if you don’t challenge a threat posed by parties like the UKIP and PS.

Sweden offers a good example of how to deal with groups that rely on the far right extremist, anti-EU and anti-immigration vote. All of the mainstream parties in Sweden have given the political cold shoulder to the Sweden Democrats. I am certain that in the long run, the Swedish answer to an intolerant party will pay off politically.

The political problem in Finland is the opposite to what is happening in Sweden. By accepting to sit at the same table as a party that promotes intolerance is synonymous to accepting their views and undermining your principles and values.

We must stand up for what we think is right. Accepting a society that basis itself on intolerance of immigrants, visible minorities and the outside world will end up doing more harm to a country than good.

What kind of country will Finland and Britain be if Timo Soini and Nigel Farage of the PS and UKIP, respectively, became prime ministers?

The answer: disaster.

One of the consequences of a UKIP and PS election victory would be to instigate a witch hunt against immigrants and visible immigrants.

That will happen in the UK when they reform Britain’s immigration system. Apart from regulating migrant access to the National Health Service (NHS), landlords will be able to check on immigrant tenants.

It is surprising that Cameron, who should know better, wants to scapegoat migrants and the EU to save his party’s hide from the UKIP.

Numerous studies show that immigrants use less social welfare than natives. This is logical since immigrants have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to match a native. Using social welfare would undermine a migrant’s competitiveness in the labor market.

Cameron will end up paying a costly political price for his anti-EU and anti-immigration stances.

Who are the PS?

One way of understanding who the PS is ideologically is by asking what are the differences between its close ally, the UKIP, and the far right anti-immigration and openly racist British National Party (BNP).

A survey published by The Guardian sheds light on this question.

The ideological similarities between the UKIP and BNP are strikingly alike on how the PS markets itself politically and its relationship with far right groups such as Suomen Sisu and Suomalaisuuden liitto. Is it a surprise why the far-right Islamophobic English Defence League supports the UKIP and why some members of the PS support the Finnish Defense League?

Writes the Guardian: ”UKIP is not a right-wing extremist party, but on the doorsteps of voters it is often pushing the same message as the extreme right, and this is reflected in our results.”

This latter conclusion unveils the PS for what it is: A party like the UKIP that attempts to give a moderate view of itself because it would lure more voters but appeals to the extreme right. Thus there are more similarities between the UKIP, BNP and the PS than there are differences.

That is one of many reasons why Soini has spoken in the past to three UKIP party conferences as in this video clip.

Maaseudun Tulevaisuus: Soini sees himself forming government after the 2015 elections

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Migrant Tales

What are we to think and believe about Timo Soini’s opinion piece on Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, where he claims that the next government formed after the 2015 parliamentary elections will comprise of three major parties? Certainly Soini sees his party emerging as the victor and Finland’s next prime minister.

Read Maaseudun Tulevaisuus news story on Timo Soini here.

It’s clear that if Soini’s Perussuomalaiset (PS) party wins the 2015 elections, the National Coalition Party will not be in government due to that party’s big differences with the PS concerning the European Union and the euro.

Moreover, Soini has said in the past that he could never work with neither the Greens nor Swedish People’s Party.

The interesting question we should ask is why is Soini creating waves about elections that are two years off? Since the PS leader doesn’t have anything significant to show to voters after being two years in the opposition, he is apparently forced to play for high stakes: It’s government in 2015 or bust.

Even if opinion polls have shown the PS to be breathing down the necks of the National Coalition Party and Social Democrats, it’s still a question mark how well they will do when elections arrive. After the historic victory in April 2011, the PS’ showing in the presidential and municipal election was a clear disappointment for the party.

It’s a good matter that Finnish voters have not fallen for the PS’ rhetoric and populism. Two years in the opposition have not helped the party’s credibility, which has been undermined by near-constant scandals, bursts of racism, ethnic agitation sentences, and anti-EU rhetoric without solutions.

If we are honest about the PS, voters have little idea what the party would actually do if they led the next government.

If the the PS is able match its historic result of 2011 and if any party, especially the Social Democrats, went to bed with Soini, it would be a kiss of political death.

Certainly that day would be one of the darkest days especially for immigrants, visible minorities, Swedish speakers and cultural diversity in general if the PS is able to match its 2011 result in 2014 EuroMP and 2015 parliamentary elections.

While such a threat may remain, some analysts believe that despite Soini’s popularity, most Finnish voters would not trust him as prime minister.

They like to see the PS as a sort of a show and a thorn in the traditional parties’ side.

Of Birds and Feathers: The PS, the Sweden Democrats, and Their American Bedfellows

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Migrant Tales

By Barachiel

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

I don’t know how or if this saying applies to personal relationships, but it is true in the world of politics. And though they undoubtedly hate to admit it, the populist parties of the Nordics and Europe are not exempt. The PS’ problematic relationship with Suomen Sisu is proof enough of this. But even though we are well aware of the ties between populist parties like the PS and racist groups like Suomen Sisu, what about the ties to intolerant people and groups abroad?

There are many. With enough unsavory people to sufficiently embarrass the populist parties.

While the links between the populists and their American fans may not always be reciprocal, they nevertheless shine a light on the ultimate mindset of the populists. If parties like the PS and their immediate neighbor organization, the Sweden Democrats, really weren’t racist and xenophobic, I doubt they’d get attention from the people listed below, among countless others.

This indeed would be a case of birds of a feather flocking together. Or more fittingly, moths mingling with butterflies around the bug-zapper of intolerance.

Theodore Beale, a.k.a. Vox Day

Theodore Beale, better known by his pseudonym Vox Day, is a blogger and columnist for the extreme-right U.S. website WorldNetDaily. Like most of the contributors on that site, Vox Day propagates all manner of anti-Obama and anti-government conspiracy theories, as well as attacks on minorities. This is what Vox Day said about Finland and the PS on WorldNetDaily in 2011:

Being a more pragmatic nation than most, the Finnish people are the first to openly reject the idea that sending millions of Euros to other European countries and importing large quantities of foreigners is beneficial to the nation of Finland. Unlike Americans, the Finns recognize that a foreigner who comes to Finland is not a Finn. He is merely a foreigner in Finland, and his interests have little in common with those of the Finnish people.

Vox Day
“The End of Europe”
WorldNetDaily
May 9, 2011

Meanwhile, on his regular blog, Vox Day criticized The Wall Street Journal for editing a letter-to-the-editor by PS boss Timo Soini. Invoking conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Vox Day expressed support for Soini occupying the Oval Office:

Since the election of Mr. Soetoro [Obama] has demonstrated that absolutely no documentation is required of an American presidential candidate, why not nominate Mr. Soini for the presidency? He’s a damn sight better than anyone else the Republicans are likely to choose, he isn’t too old, and as the leader of a popular, electorally successful party, he can’t possibly be called unelectable.

Vox Day
“The Wall Street Journal Scrubs The True Finns”
VoxPopuli.BlogSpot.com
May 11, 2011

Even for an extreme site like WorldNetDaily, Vox Day’s attacks immigration are unabashedly racist. In late 2012, Vox Day wrote WorldNetDaily piece in which he called for a whites-only secessionist movement, lamenting “the U.S. bifactional ruling party’s hatred and contempt for white Americans who still hold to traditional values” and “the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures.”

Vox Day, it should be noted, is an expat living in Italy.

Elsewhere, Vox Day has called for “traditional Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture” to be reclaimed through ethnic cleansing, and has reasoned that: “If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.”

VDARE.com

VDARE.com – named after Virginia Dare, the first reputed white settler to be born in the North American colonies – is a non-profit anti-immigration website that has been officially listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Founded by Peter Brimelow, former editor of the ultraconservative periodical National Review, VDARE.com posts all manner of propaganda pieces by anti-Semites, white nationalists, and race-baiting pseudo-scientists.

VDARE.com – through an irregular columnist named Rafael Koski, a Ph. D student from northern Europe – has taken to writing laudatory, rabble-rousing pieces about the PS…

The True Finns have been taking votes from left, right and center, by exposing the incompetence and arrogance of the ruling elite. True Finns have gained a lot of votes from the Social Democratic Party, which has abandoned its traditional focus on fighting for the economic improvement of workers and adopted the crazy-left focus fighting against reality. (cf. U.S. Democrats.) The other two parties, the centre-right Center Party (rural population) and National Coalition (city bourgeoisie), are Europhiles and have been losing their nationalist voters to the True Finns.

Rafael Koski
“Death Of Nation State Exaggerated: Immigration-Skeptic True Finn Party Roiling Finnish Politics”
VDARE.com
April 14, 2011

And the SD, too…

Swedish media elites and the Establishment parties made fools of themselves by calling the Sweden Democrats a Nazi party trying to get away with Goebbels-style propaganda . . . The party got a publicity victory by showing that it is being treated unfairly by the Establishment parties and their media supporters. The reaction against the Sweden Democrats overshadowed all other election themes and ensured that protest votes would end up to the Sweden Democrats.

Rafael Koski
“The Sweden Democrats—Alone Against Establishment Extremists”
VDARE.com
September 10, 2010

Who else does VDARE.com take stock in besides Koski? There is Kevin MacDonald, a college professor who says that Jews are genetically predisposed to undermine whites by pushing for non-white immigration; John Derbyshire, a disgraced National Review columnist who claims that “white supremacy…is one of the better arrangements history has come up with”; and Jared Taylor, a white nationalist who founded the “racial-realist” webzine American Renaissance.

What other topics does VDARE.com cover? Apart from attack pieces on what it calls the “Treason Lobby” – VDARE.com’s term for human rights groups who defend immigrants, such as the ACLU – the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented articles entitled “Freedom vs. Diversity”, “Abolishing America”, “Anarcho—Tyranny: Where Multiculturalism Leads”; and “Why Immigrants Kill.”

Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)

Known for its national television program The 700 Club, hosted by far-right televangelist Pat Robertson, CBN airs “news” stories which seemingly confirm Robertson’s contention that “Satanic” Muslim immigrants are out to conquer the world. Two CBN “reporters” – “terror analyst” Erick Stakelbeck and foreign correspondent Dale Hurd – have emerged as significant U.S. mouthpieces for European “counter-jihadist” parties, including the SD.

A March 2009 report by Hurd that aired on The 700 Club presented the SD as legitimate critics of Sweden’s immigrant community, with no mention of the party’s historical roots in neo-Nazism. Hurd took the party’s word for it that it wasn’t racist; dismissed criticism of the party as manufactured smears from Sweden’s “liberal media”; and cast two members, Kent Ekeroth and Erik Almqvist, in a martyr-ific light, along with the party in general…

KENT EKEROTH (Sweden Democrats international advisor): “I filmed the police chief [at a counter-demonstration of Islamic extremists in Malmö] and asked him why are they [sic] not reacting to [violence], why are they not doing anything. And he–he simply answered, ‘It’s their right according to the Swedish constitution to be there.’ We apparently did not have that same right because we were forced out of there, so…”

DALE HURD (voice-over): “Swede Ted Ekeroth [sic] helped film the Arab-left counter-demonstrations. He saw Arabs throwing rocks at a ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor.”

KENT EKEROTH: “Hopefully, you can show some of the clips from our demonstration for Israel, which is always peaceful and always with a message of peace. And theirs is always the quite opposite — death, hate, and killing of Jews.”

[…]

DALE HURD (voice-over): “But the Swedish Democrats [sic], who stand up for traditional Christian values and limits on immigration, have been stigmatized by the Swedish media as ‘fascist’ and ‘bigoted.'”

ERIK ALMQVUIST: “The media has tried to portray us as extremists, racists — we’re almost inhuman.”

DALE HURD (voice-over): “Erik Almqvuist, national youth leader for the Swedish Democrats, faces regular death threats and was almost killed recently in a left-wing knife attack.”

ERIK ALMQVUIST: “The multicultural system in Sweden has polarized this society. We have ethnic polarization. We have also political polarization.”

The 700 Club
Christian Broadcasting Network
March 12, 2009

With the benefit of hindsight, I’m sure I am not the only one chortling as Ekeroth and Almqvist insist – those two specifically – that the SD are neither violent or racist.

Both men became infamous after a video – shot a year after the 700 Club interview – showed them engaging in racist and thuggish behavior, resulting in the “iron pipe scandal.” Not only did that scandal expose Ekeroth and Almqvist as hypocrites, but also exposed as Hurd as an ideologue-posing-a-journalist who openly refused to look into the SD’s agenda. Hurd certainly didn’t cover the iron pipe scandal when it broke.

Hurd seems supportive of racists from both sides of the pond. His 700 Club reports include sympathetic stories on the violent English Defence League and the white nationalist “Identitarians” of France. Hurd’s public Facebook page shows pictures of him interviewing Jean and Marine Le Pen; as well as posing with ultraconservative writer George Gilder, who once called African and Native American cultures “destructive cultures”, “tragic failures” and “virtual social suicide.”

With supporters like these, how could the PS, the SD, and other anti-Islam parties present themselves as comfortably mainstream? Again, I doubt that rabid scribes like Vox Day and propagandists like VDARE.com and CBN would pay so much attention to these parties if they weren’t bigoted.

What Finland can learn from countries like the U.K. about racism

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Migrant Tales

We can learn a lot from countries like the United Kingdom, where multiculturalism is an official social policy. Few won’t deny that the U.K. as well as other European countries don’t know what racism is if we look at their direct involvement in the slave trade and in the systematic genocide of indigenous peoples outside Europe.

What does the U.K. do differently from us in Finland when it comes to racism? They take a social ill like racism more seriously than us. Few if any sensible politicians, except from xenophobic parties like the BNP or UKIP, deny that racism isn’t an issue in the country or that this is caused by immigrants.

Despite the rise of an anti-EU and anti-immigration party in 2011 in this country, the Perussuomalaaiset (PS) and its leader Timo Soini continue to play down racism with quaint sound bites like, “I cannot be a racist because I am a Catholic.”

Soini tried this line on HARDtalk and got torn to shreds. PS MP James Hirvisaari, an anti-immigration extremist who was sentenced for ethnic agitation, tried the same approach on a blog entry, Kristitty ei voi olla rasisti (A Christian cannot be a racist).

It’s pretty obvious that Hirvisaari, who must be worried about his image as a racist and extremist, must have asked Soini what to do about this. The head of the PS must have advised him to write a blog entry and argue that he, a Christian, cannot be racist.

Even if the credibility of such claims from Soini, Hirvisaari and others are questionable to say the least, they reveal two matters about those who make them: (1) They have no idea what racism and how damaging it is and therefore don’t take it seriously; and/or (2) know what racism is but are its junkies because it feeds their hunger for power and brings them media attention.

PS town concillor Mika Hiltunen is the latest politician to face ethnic agitation charges. There are, unfortunately, many others who build their political careers on spreading racism, prejudice and intolerance in all forms and shapes.

You may ask why doesn’t the media see things the same way like Migrant Tales. It does. The problem is that 99% of the national media is run by white Finns who have never faced racism. People like Soini and his band of followers aren’t yet a threat to them never mind white Finns.

If there is a model we could start to look at on how to deal with racism in our country, one good country to start is the U.K. never mind Canada and Australia. All three countries have adopted multiculturalism as their official integration policy.

Check out what happened to councillor Christ Joannides of the Conservative Tory Party after he made Islamophobic comments on his Facebook page. Right. He got in hot water and is now facing a police investigation but he hasn’t been kicked out of the party.

The Tories continue to have their racism issues in the party as this story on North London Newspapers reveals. To give the boot or not, that is the question.

Contrarily, Migrant Tales wrote about Tory MP Aidan Burley and how he was sacked from the party after attending a “Nazi” stag party.

By breaking his campaign promise, that any PS politician, especially an MP, would get sacked if sentenced by court for ethnic agitation, sends a mixed message: We’re sort of against racism but we’re not really. Carry on.

Shameful and disgraceful behavior coming from the leader of Finland’s third-largest party in parliament.

While racism and the PS may be in vogue today, history will judge them as a racist party that never got it when it came to cultural diversity.

Our response to intolerance in the EU and Finland must be first and foremost a response

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Migrant Tales

Every great ~~journey~~ challenge begins with a single step.

A Chinese proverb slightly changed

A study by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), reveals how racism and intolerant attitudes are becoming more prevalent in the European Union. What to do?

Read ENAR study here.

A recent example of how racism and intolerance spread roots in Finland is Timo Soini’s comments on PS MP Olli Immonen’s election as chairman of Suomen Sisu.

Soini did no condemn (why would he?) Immonen’s election but compared the extremist anti-immigration association to a harmless hunting, farming or youth association.

Not only is the PS chairman and his followers responsible for fueling more intolerance in Finland by playing down or denying such a social ill completely, the silence of the big parties is equally worrying.

One researcher in the ENAR study, Mutuma Ruteere, exposes what is not only happening throughout Europe but in Finland. He said that the problem is not only the discourse coming from far right parties, “but in the fact that established mainstream parties do not reject such discourses and even often support them.”

Bingo!

If there are two shameful watersheds that will be remembered for bolstering intolerance in Finland, they were made in 2010 by National Coalition Party’s Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Social Democratic Party economy minister, Jutta Urpilainen. Both said that “debating immigrant issues in this country didn’t make you a racist” and massa maan tavalla (in Rome do as the Romans do), respectively.

If we look at the most recent polls, the National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats are paying a high political price, together with the Center Party, for flirting with an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party.

The silence of the largest parties, coupled with the opportunity to capitalize on anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment in Finland by the PS, is what has gone terribly wrong with this country.

The more Finland denies collectively that it doesn’t have an issue with intolerance, the more it will continue to feed such a social ill.

We need the courage to challenge and ghostbust those myths that promote intolerance. There you will find the root of our prejudices and hatred.

One of these took place in the last century when Finland did everything possible to stop immigrants from moving to this country. As we lost hundreds of thousands of able workers to Sweden, we covered up for our mistakes with the help of ethnic myths about ourselves. In the process, we undermined diversity and fueled nationalism.

The ENAR study expresses concern over the rise of uninhibited forms of racism that have emerged throughout the EU. A good example is using freedom of expression or claiming how whites are victims of racism as justifications for promoting the status quo of intolerance.

Migrant Tales has written about this on many occasions. The aim of those who are against diversity is to point out how different a group is, which helps justify their racism and feelings of hostility for that group.

Haglund continues to challenge Soini on his broken campaign promises on racism

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Migrant Tales

The rift between Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini and Carl Haglund, head of the Swedish People’s Party, reveals an ongoing David and Goliath duel where Soini is showing his true autocratic colors. Haglund challenged Soini last week to an open debate on racism after the PS leader was grilled on HARDtalk about this festering issue.

Soini said in 2009 that he would sack any member from the party, especially an MP, if they were convicted for ethnic agitation.

As a result of Haglund’s challenge, Soini has refused to sit at the same table with him never mind have a debate about racism, according to Helsingin Sanomat. The PS leader even refuses to answer questions from journalists about the matter.

“He made a clear campaign promise, which he hasn’t kept,” Haglund was quoted as saying on Helsingin Sanomat. “After that he hasn’t accepted to comment about the criticism concerning his broken campaign promise but only repeated [in public] that he’s not a racist.”

Haglund, who is defense minister as well, said that the reason why the bigger parties haven’t challenged Soini on his broken campaign promise and racism is because they fear the PS will continue to eat away at their support.

Migrant Tales asked the same question and gave roughly the same answer as Haglund on a March 3 blog entry.

We responded: “The answer [why the big parties are so silent] is pretty obvious. There are two answers to this question: the biggest parties are too afraid to do so and/or silently agree with many of the populist policies of the PS.” The silence of the biggest parties has not undermined the PS’ popularity but helped it grow.

Thanks to the PS and its leader Soini, we have today given a political voice to a record number of racists, Islamophobes, immigrantphobes, isolationists, anti-EU supporters, male chauvinists, homophobes, neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Certainly that’s something to be worried about if you are attempting to build a society based on acceptance and harmony.

Is this is the brand of “Christianity” that Soini wants to promote in Finland? We certainly hope it isn’t but that’s what it looks like.

Migrant Tales raises its hat once again to Haglund for pressing Soini for some answers on his broken election promises.