Tag: timo soini

Perussuomalaiset of Finland: From bashing immigrants and the EU to “not selling one’s ass”

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What is wrong with the Perussuomalaiset (PS)?* In order to score their historic election victory in 2011, they went on a rampage and bashed migrants wholesale, especially Muslims. Today, PS head Timo Soini said that the party has its principles and therefore “doesn’t sell its ass [to anyone].”

Folks, the person making this statement is the head of Finland’s third-largest party in parliament. This is the same person who said this week that the PS wants to be in government after the elections and that he should be appointed foreign minister.

I can see Soini in Brussels at some important summit as foreign minister stating that Finland “doesn’t sell its ass to anyone.”

Social Democrat MEP Liisa Jakonsaari tweeted the following: “I have said before that Timo Soini is like an overgrown baby. He’s now in the anal phase [of development] and interested in his anus.”

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Different dailies in Finland believe that what Soini said could hurt his party.

Oulu-based Ilkka wrote that talking about rear-ends by Finnish politicians in public has been unknown up to now.

Is this a sign that the PS is desperate and losing it?

Whatever new chapter this brings to a tragicomic play called the PS, it’ll be interesting to watch how this convoluted party will make it to next year’s elections.

But what would you expect from a chairman that heads the PS, a hostile party towards migrants, minorities and anyone who doesn’t look or think like them?

Talking about one’s ass is for Soini and the PS the most normal thing.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Helsingin Sanomat poll shows the PS heading south

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A poll published today by Helsingin Sanomat reveals that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party is at its lowest point (15.9%) in two years. The most popular party in Finland continues to be the National Coalition Party (22.1%) followed by the Center Party (19.9%).

The Social Democrats, which are still struggling, are in the mid-teens (14.9%) with parties like the Left Alliance (9.3%), Greens (8.7%), Swedish People’s Party 4.5% and Christian Democrats (3.4%) trailing far behind.

Should we be surprised that matters are looking politically bleak for the PS?

Figuring out what the PS is and getting a coherent picture of what the party stands for is challenging for anyone. While it’s clear that the party is anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic, chauvinistic and especially anti-Islam, much of its energy has been spent to tone down its hate rhetoric but to stand for the same things.

The PS continues to be an openly hostile party against migrants and minorities. It would be wishful thinking on their behalf to think that some have short memories in this country.

The PS is in a near-constant state of animation trying out political images like a model changing clothes every few minutes. No matter how much it tries to change its image, the PS will end up committing political harakiri if it becomes too mainstream.

Even if the PS wants to look like a responsible mainstream party these days, it’s quite another matter if voters will buy it.

If the latest Helsingin Sanomat poll is anything to go by, the answer is a clear no.

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Read full story here.

The last three elections after the PS’ historic win in April 2011 are clear proof that something isn’t right. If the same trend continues in next year’s parliamentary elections, it will face a stinging – if not a mortal blow – to its chances to remain as one of Finland’s four largest parties.

 

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The PS’s election fortunes after 2011 have been disappointing for the party.


* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

The political record and chicanery of the PS of Finland is what has estranged so many voters from politics

Posted on by Migrant Tales

While some are still scratching their heads about the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* joining the European parliament’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group this week, it shows why so many voters have become estranged from politics. 

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Read full story here. 

 

Before the historic 2011 parliamentary elections for the PS, when 39 of its MPs got elected from 5MPs previously, the party had a solid anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam message.

It’s party leader, Timo Soini, watered down the PS’ stand on Europe recently by stating that he’s now against Finland leaving the EU. While its anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric are still strong and lurking in the sidelines patiently waiting to stir voter emotions, its most outspoken enemies these days are homosexuals and gay marriage.

Hoping to become the biggest party in Finland after next year’s parliamentary elections, the PS has, however, tried to give a more moderate and mainstream image of itself. This is understandable considering that it wants to be a member of the next government and the disappointing showing of the party in the presidential, municipal and euro elections.

In all three elections, the PS hasn’t come even close to its 19.1% showing of 2011.

But after criticizing and riding the wave of voter discontent and mistrust of mainstream parties, the PS is trying to look more like them. Is this a good matter or is it another trick by the party to lure voters?

While at Migrant Tales we have spoken out repeatedly against the PS’ racism, provincialism and nativist nationalism, what is happening inside the party resembles the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The last paragraph of Orwell’s book says it all with respect to the revolution at Manor Farm and what the PS did in 2011: 

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Green Party politician Ozan Yanar asks a very valid question on his Facebook page. He states with evident dismay that here’s the “labor party without socialism” that has joined David Cameron’s conservatives in the European parliament. The absurdity of the situation is further highlighted by the fact that AKP, the political moderate voice of Islam in Turkey, joined the ECR [through the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists], according to him.

Moreover, the ECR is in favor of Turkey’s membership in the EU. PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho, who has declared war on Islam in the same way as the worst Islamophobes in Europe, is now a member of a political group that approves Turkey’s membership in the EU. 

In anyone’s book a criminal record isn’t a good matter to have in your records. Even so, and in the conservative spirit, where social and economic inequality are acceptable because people aren’t equal, the membership of the PS and Danish People’s Party in the ECR proves that it’s politically worse getting arrested for shoplifting than ethnic agitation.

UK Prime Minister Cameron, the leader of the ECR, isn’t too bothered by racism and prejudice since it was his government that launched the “Go Home” campaign against undocumented immigrants and spread fear to Britons that the country will be overrun by swarms of Romanians and Bulgarians on January 1.

Cameron has been playing political catchup with dismal luck against his rival Nigel Farage of the UKIP. If the UK prime minister would have taken the time to see what happened in Finland when mainstream political parties started to flirt with the anti-immigration message of the PS before the 2011 elections, he would have learned an important lesson: Don’t try to compete against xenophobic parties because you give legitimacy to them.

While the PS’ leader Timo Soini wants to show that his party is “normal” and “mainstream” these days, we should never forget what the party said and did to get where it is today.

In that message and in their actions is concentrated the poison that has estranged so many Europeans from politics.

 

* The English name of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) is officially the Finns Party. The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Financial Times: MEP Jussi Halla-aho racist track record leaves PS out in the cold

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Success comes with a high political price especially if you base that success on spreading racism and prejudice. That is exactly the case of the Perussuomalaiset (PS),* who are hoping to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in Brussels but have been rejected by them because they see PS MEP Jussi Halla-aho as too racist, according to the Financial Times.

The Financial Times writes in another story that the freshly elected MEP, who was convicted in 2012 for “stirring ethnic tensions,” said “…something about the prophet Muhammad that we dare not repeat on a family blog. The True Finns [PS] also briefly suspended him from the party after he suggested that Greece’s debt problems could only be solved by a military junta [he retracted the comments].”

What is interesting to note is that the same anti-immigration and anti-Islam message spearheaded by Halla-aho and his cronies that was decisive for the PS’ historic victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections, is turning into its political epitaph to ever becoming a credible and mainstream political party.

The 12.9% showing of the PS on Sunday is still a long way off from the 19.1% it won in 2011. The PS’ showing in the presidential (9.4%) and municipal elections (12.3%) were equally disappointing.

If the same trend continues, it means that the PS will face a big upset in next year’s parliamentary elections.

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Read full story here.

Knocking at the ECR’s door is another close ally of the PS, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), which won the euro elections in its country by doubling the number of MEPs to 4 from 2009.

According to the Financial Times, both the PS and DPP both have MEPs that were convicted for ethnic agitation and therefore carry a lot of political baggage.

I find it very difficult to believe that [David] Cameron’s Conservatives, with whom we work closely to promote innovative, open and competitive societies, would team up with the True Finns whose rise is to large extent based on xenophobia and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia, writes the Financial Times, quoting one senior Finnish official.

While it’s clear that the PS is eyeing next year’s parliamentary elections and therefore is keen on joining the ECR group in order to get greater respectability, the big question is where they’ll end up in Brussels.

Moreover, even if the PS wishes to make its anti-EU, anti-immigration, homophobic and especially anti-Islam stand mainstream, it’s another question if Europe’s mainstream parties will permit them to join their club.

PS leader Timo Soini says that joining Marine Le Pen’s is out of the question even if the National Front leader has courted the PS to join the European Alliance for Freedom, a new hard-right group spearheaded by the French politician.

That leaves the PS with Nigel Farage’s UKIP and the Europe Freedom and Democracy group (EFD), where members like the Lega Nord of Italy, which praised Anders Breivik for murdering 77 innocent victims on 22/7, are defecting.

Will Farage and Le Penn join forces? Will the PS be part of that new political group?

Time will tell.

Even if anti-EU and anti-immigration groups made gains in countries like France and the United Kingdom, 70% of the European parliament’s 751 MEPs belong to pro-EU groups in the center-left and center-right.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS promote nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings. 

Are politicians like Jussi Halla-aho and parties like the PS racist?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Jay Smooth offered in early March some good points on how to spot a racist by sticking to the that-sounded-racist conversation as opposed to they-are-racist conversation. The former conversation allows you to focus on what the person said and why what they said is unacceptable. The other one will take your focus away from the issue. 

Keeping this in mind, it’s easy to spot racist and unacceptable comments by politicians like Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Jussi Halla-aho and others.

Taking the question a bit further, what does it say about the media, our politicians and society when they forget these racist rants and treat politicians who made them as if nothing happened?

It sadly reveals that if you are a white Finn you can nearly say anything you want about refugees, visible migrants and Muslims and almost get away with it. Even if Halla-aho got sentenced for ethnic agitation, the national media continues to give politicians like him inflated respectability and importance.

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Searching for easy targets and scapegoats is a dangerous and slippery slope that some witnessed in last century in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler and his henchmen were hostile to cultural diversity like some politicians and political parties in Europe today. The more they executed their plans “to make Germany Jewish and minority free,” the tighter the noose around its neck got until it snapped and become lifeless in 1945 with the fall of Berlin.

With European parliamentary elections (MEP) on May 22-25, there’s a danger that anti-immigration, far-right and nationalistic parties will make big gains.

No matter if these parties are from Finland or Italy, United Kingdom or Bulgaria, they lack credible solutions. Many voters will be shocked and disappointed if they ever get an opportunity to implement their policies.

Their negative and hostile stances on immigration and cultural diversity raise an eerie question as well. Considering that Europe already is culturally diverse, how are these parties going to make Europe white again? Are their actions and attacks against minorities going to get ever-merciless? Did Geert Wilders of the Islamophobic Party for Freedom give us a glimpse in March when he ensured supporters that there would be “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands?

The recognition we give people who spread racism, prejudice and hatred makes a big difference. Look at former PS MP James Hirvisaari after he was sacked from the party in October for taking a picture and posting on social media a person making a Nazi salute in parliament.

Hirvisaari, who was sentenced as well for ethnic agitation, became a political nobody and joke after he got the boot from the PS.

Contrary to Hirvisaari, Halla-aho has played his political cards differently. For Soini’s favor and protection, Halla-aho has toned down his racist rants without changing his views on “multiculturalism” and “runaway immigration.”

If you want to spot a politician who sounds racists look at what he or she said. What the person said is written in stone and can’t be denied with the usual “I’m not a racist” defense.

Here’s one of many quotes that got Halla-aho in hot water: “Robbing passers-by and living as parasites on tax money is the national, maybe even genetic characteristic of Somalis.”

In another blog post in June 2008, he wrote that the Islamic prophet Mohammed was a pedophile and that Islam was a pedophilic religion because its prophet had intercourse with his nine-year-old wife, Aisha.

Are these statements racist? Any sensible person can tell that they are because they single out, victimize and exaggerate a whole group of people. These statements weren’t made with the intention to foster healthy debate but to insult and insight ethnic and religious hatred.

Here’s another one by Halla-aho, who states that people from Africa live in the Stone Age and therefore should not live in Europe. One of the pet arguments of anti-immigration politicians is to stress how different people are in order to justify their racism of different groups. Here’s one he made in 2007:

An African who’s been brought to Helsinki from the savannah pollutes no less with his conspicuous consumption than an ethnic Finn. He will probably pollute more because moving from the Stone Age directly to the modern world, he lacks consumerism and eco-conscience, which Westerners have. 

If you still have doubts whether the PS makes racist and unacceptable statements, visit The Truth about the True Finns blog and Halla-aho’s quotes (in Finnish) on Wikiquote. Read a long list of racist, homophobic, fascist and neo-Nazi quotes by PS politicians here.

Juho Eerola, who is the PS’ third vice-president,  is another MP who has toned down his views. Check out what he said on Hommaforum, a hate site, on July 6, 2010:

I myself am attracted to Benito Mussolini’s fascism, and in particular the economic policy [the country] pursued. Entreperneurship was encouraged but it was under strict government control. Vital large corporations could not be owned by foreign investors but were firmly in government hands. Italy achieved during those times full employment and strong economic growth. We could learn a lot from such a model.

Apart from migrants, visible minorities or gays, the rise of the PS especially in 2011 was seen as a new and interesting addition to the Finnish political scene. Even if the PS are a knee-jerk reaction of voters to ever-growing poverty and social inequality in Finland, what is surprising is that some voters picked a party that is provincial, hostile and scapegoats migrants and minorities.

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It’s no secret that the UKIP and PS are close ideological allies in Europe. The Guardian of London published an opinion piece that gave ten reasons why you should not vote for the UKIP. The exact same reasons apply to the PS.

  • Its stances are bonkers
  • It has nasty friends in Europe
  • It’s a magnet for unsavory types here
  • It has rewarded offense (in the case of the PS it has rewarded party members who have been sentenced for ethnic agitation)
  • It hates the EU but cashes in
  • Its MEPs are not actually worker bees
  • It is vulnerable to special interest as any other party
  • It speaks with fork tongues
  • Its only plan is Nigel (or in the case of the PS it’s Timo)
  • It makes a sensible debate on Europe less likely

Another opinion piece on the conservative Telegraph explains how UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage has taken British voters for fools.

The PS are doing the same thing in Finland. Like their ally in the United Kingdom, both parties may have their victory in the upcoming MEP elections, “but then they will begin the long march back into political obscurity,” according to the Telegraph.

Miten maa joka on nähnyt niin paljon siirtolaisia ja pakolaisia voi suhtautua vihamielisesti heihin?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Timo Soini, tiesitkö, että Suomesta lähti yli 1,2 miljoona suomalaista siirtolaista 1860-1999 aikana? Tässä olivat myös pakolaiset. He jotka unohtavat tämän tärkeän faktaan unohtavat ketä me olemme. Miten maa joka on nähnyt niin paljon siirtolaisia ja on ottanut vastaan 420 000 karjalaista pakolaista voi suhtautuu torjuvasti ja jopa vihamielisesti siirtolaisiin ja pakolaisiin?

Älä ratsasta maahanmuuttovastaisuudella. Tulet häviämään ja tulevaisuuden suomalaiset, jotka ovat etnisesti ja kulttuurisesti moninaisia mutta suomalaisia, tulevat häpeämään sanomaasi.

Kuvassa on patsas Hangossa jossa muistetaan näitä siirtolaisia ja pakolaisia. Kuva on ottanut Erkki Siirilä vuonna 1980.

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Kuvassa on patsas Hangossa jossa muistetaan näitä siirtolaisia ja pakolaisia. Kuva on ottanut Erkki Siirilä vuonna 1980.

Tämä postaus voi lukea myös Facebookista.

 

How can you, Finland, loathe migrants and refugees if you were one?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

How can a country like Finland, which saw over 1.2 million people emigrate during 1860-1999 and resettled 420,000 Karelian refugees after the Continuation War (1941-44) with the former Soviet Union, loathe migrants and speak contemptuously against refugees?  How do you explain the rise of an anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) that grew from a mere 5 MPs in the 2007 elections to 39 MPs in 2011?

How is it possible that the president of that party, Timo Soini, could claim on national television Thursday that it was immoral if people fled war and came to Europe as refugees instead of fight for social justice in their war-ravaged homelands?

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Posing next to a monument for those Finnish migrants and refugees in the southern Finnish city of Hanko that left this country during 1880-1930. The picture was taken in 1980 by Erkki Siirilä.

Why do we continue to call evacuees those who fled their former homes and lands because they were ceded to the USSR? Why do we still refer to Soviet citizens who fled the country to the West as defectors and not refugees?

The answer is pretty clear: Denial of our history mixed with the shadow of the cold war, which ended with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Add to the latter the fact that we’ve done everything to kill diversity in the last century and a picture emerges. Our identity rests in that diversity. Erasing it is like erasing ourselves and our history.

Such a one-sided view of who we are and our history was and still is possible thanks to a closed and exclusive view.

Certainly it was politically correct to call Karelians and people from Petsamo and Salla “evacuees” and Soviet citizens “defectors” as opposed to refugees. Our giant eastern neighbor wouldn’t have liked it.

Our own prejudices and racism is nothing more than denial of who we are. We still lack courage to challenge this denial. However, time is on our side and one day we’ll be able to see the last century in a different light. This will make us stronger, not weaker.

The ethnic and racist fairy tales of some Finnish politicians and parties like the PS is based on your ignorance and theirs.

Timo Soini’s latest comment about refugees leaves many speechless but exposes him to the raw

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Sometimes politicians make incredible statements that leave you speechless. The latest one I heard was Thursday on a MEP election television debate on YLE Fem, the Swedish-language television channel.

Said Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini: “Is it morally right to leave one’s homeland during ever-difficult times or should one stay put and fight for justice? Would it have been right to leave the country when Finland was at war? Fighting for the fatherland was the right decision.”

If we look at Nigel Farage of the Ukip, who is Soini’s close ideological ally and who is ratcheting up anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment to lure voters in the United Kingdom on May 25, there’s very little difference between both politicians. The only difference is the cultural and national context. If Farage lived in Finland he’d speak like Soini and vice versa.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

To understand what Soini said on YLE Fem, we should turn briefly our attention to Syria and ask refugees there why they’re fleeing to refugee camps.

Soini’s knowledge of history is blurred as well. How many Finns left this country after the 1918 Civil War? Why did so many Reds move to the United States and Canada?

Why did my great grandfather, Dante Tessieri, an anarchist, leave Italy in the 1890s after he was accused of being part of a suspected assassination plot against Humbert I

Soini’s shows the conservative populist politician for what he is: A greedy and opportunistic politician who would care less for the suffering of others, including his own countrymen.

Why do we consider Timo Soini to be “a good cop” if he brought all these “bad cops” to power?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Doesn’t Perussuomalaiset (PS) leader Timo Soini bear responsibility for giving people like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen, Olli Immonen and a very long list of others a platform to spread their hatred and intolerance?  Why does the media let Soini get off the hook so easily?

Is Soini the culprit for anti-immigration sentiment and xenophobia or does he represent something much deeper about ourselves that we’re not yet ready to openly admit never mind challenge in earnest?

If I’d draw a cartoon of Soini, I’d put him in a concentration camp standing in front of people like Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen, Teuvo Hakkarainen and many others. Soini would tell the media with a poker face and then smile at the end of the following statement: “I’m against anti-Semitism and racism.”

One matter that has perplexed me for quite a while is how the media and journalists, who should know better, is that they treat Soini as some “good guy” in the face of the party’s near-constant anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, homophobic and conservative values.

If we search through the maze of answers and explanations, I believe that what we’ll find at the end of the day will find the word denial as the root of the problem.

I’ll never forget April 17, 2011 when the PS won their historic election victory, rising from the minor leagues with 5 to 39 MPs! Some thought it was something passing that wouldn’t last too long. They claimed that it’s only a question of time when internal bickering would cause the PS to implode like the Rural Party did in the 1970s.

One of the most incredible matters about the rise of the PS is how little opposition it has had and how easily it has been allowed to spread its intolerance. Institutions like the media have played a helping role. From a migrant’s or minority’s standpoint, however, the view is quite different since the PS is seen as hostile and dangerous.

Since one of the PS’ main messages is that non-white migrants and refugees should not be allowed to move to Finland never mind marry Finns because they are lazy and even stupid, it’s pretty clear how the PS exploits fear and racism.

Certainly the denial that takes place in our society of the PS wouldn’t be possible without the help as well of the other parties, which may have the same closest racists among their ranks like the most outspoken anti-immigration voices of Soini’s party.

The PS are not a threat to Finland per se, but our denial of them and our own intolerance are.

Finnish tabloid media’s dubious “achievment” is spreading intolerance

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The Finnish tabloid media has the dubious “honor” for having spread intolerance in Finland by giving populists and racists inflated respectability and importance. If we look at some of the billboards that tabloids published in the 1990s, it’s clear that they were responsible for spreading racism and prejudice in Finland.  

Take for instance the most recent ad on Iltalehti’s website about Timo Soini, the right-wing populist leader of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party who is hostile to migrants and minorities. The ad asks readers to buy the weekend edition to read about Soini’s “opening up” and soft loving dad side.

Soft loving dad side? Certainly everyone loves his family. But when it comes to loving others that’s where clear lines are drawn.

Soini, who likes to portray himself as a political leader who has not helped racists and ultra-nationalists to get political power, makes it clear that he is against gay marriage and abortion. This fact speaks volumes about what kind of a hell Finland would be if he ever became prime minister.

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What about if I posted the following billboards below to contrast with the one above? How do two from 1994 and 1996 contrast with what Iltalehti claims about Soini?

Tabloids may have a short memory but many in this country, especially migrants and visible minorities, remember many of the insults and outright hostility against them. Such intolerance is daily and not difficult to forget.

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This billboard from 1996 by Iltalehti’s rival, Ilta-Sanomat, claims that those Somalis that got asylum in Finland in the early 1990s will remain permanently in Finland.

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This billboard claims that Somalis conned authorities into giving them asylum. In 1994, Somali was absorbed in a terrible civil war that has been going on to date.

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