Tag: timo soini

Anti-immigration populist parties are a menace to democracy, ethnic and cultural diversity

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales has never hid its criticism of parties that base their message on populism, scapegoating minorities and nationalism. If such political parties ever got power, it’s doubtful that they’d know what to do with it except polarize our society more than before. 

Anti-immigration and nationalistic parties are masters at scapegoating because they are incompetent at doing anything right. Since they usually fail at what they do, they blame others for their failures.

Blaming migrants and minorities for unemployment and the recession are classic examples. It not only reveals who they are, but the fact that they don’t have any credible and workable political program.

How can a party that victimizes minorities and polarizes society be taken seriously?

There are already some disturbing signs what these far-right and right-wing anti-immigration parties would do if they got power. In Holland we heard Geert Wilders assure supporters that he’d make it possible that there would be less Moroccans in his country.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage, whom the Perussuomalaiset (PS) of Finland consider their political soul mate, has praised Vladimir Putin’s leadership in Russia and claims that the EU is undemocratic. He blames Brussels for the crisis in Syria and the Ukraine.

“As an operator, but not as a human being,” he was quoted as saying on the Guardian, “I would say Putin [is the leader I most admire].”

An editorial by Oulu-based Kaleva asks what PS chairman Timo Soini thinks about Farage and that if it wants to be a viable political force in Finland, the PS leader must distance his party and denounce what Ukip’s statements of support for Putin.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Such a suggestion by one of Finland’s largest dailies shows more naivety than real understanding of what the PS is and why it is a threat and menace to our democracy and peace.

The PS bases its recent success at the polls on isolationist-nationalism, anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam rhetoric.

Asking such a party to denounce the Ukip, which has become the third-largest political force in the country according to recent polls, would be synonymous to committing political hara-kiri.

Waiting for the PS to “change” into something credible is nothing more than wishful thinking based on self-deceit. It’s this kind of thinking that is already costing our country dearly.

We can do it and send Halla-aho and the PS to where they came from

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I still remember April 2011, when the anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam Perussuomalaiset (PS) party opened a gloomy chapter in Finland’s history by getting 39 MPs elected to parliament. The election was impressive to say the least considering that only 5 PS MPs got elected in 2007.

yes we can

Source: www.youthventure.org

While some were surprised by the election result, some played it down. They felt that the PS would blow over and that it’s only a question of time when the party would implode, like the Rural Party of the 1970s, due to internal differences.

While the PS does well in opinion polls, the presidential and municipal elections were a far cry from the historic result that the right-wing populist party gained in the 2011 parliamentary elections.

With two crucial make-or-break elections in May and April 2015, the million-euro question is how well will the PS fare.

Certainly a lot of things can happen from here to May and April of next year, there are signs that the public is getting tired of the PS political scandals and the racism that continues to plague the party.

While there was a definite honeymoon with the PS’ chairman, Timo Soini, the media and public have started to lose interest in the charismatic leader.

And this is quite understandable considering that the PS have not given one credible solution to put the Finnish economy back on a healthy path of growth. It’s MPs are more interested in whining and machismo, which has a heavy dose of intolerance, nationalism and bravado, instead of offering credible solutions.

One of the biggest mistakes that the PS is making at this moment is that it believes its election good fortunes of 2011 are eternal, which reveals why the party has become arrogant and power-hungry.

I believe that we’ll see big surprises in the following MEP and parliamentary elections and that the election of PS MP Jussi Halla-aho is still undecided. Certainly the misfortunes of the PS rest on themselves and how well Finland’s traditional parties can expose Soini’s political antics and double-talk.

Finland took a clear swing to the populist and far-right three years ago. Finnish voters in 2012 gave an inconclusive show of support to the PS in the presidential and municipal elections.

The next two elections will decide whether the PS will be sent or not back to the minor political leagues.

 

Is your attitude towards racism determined by your upbringing and where you grew up?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some immigrants and visible minorities fight against intolerance their own way. Others, however, shy away from such a challenge by preferring to live in denial. Is the way you fight against intolerance dependent on what you learned at home and in your home country? 

If a white Russian learned to hate blacks and Muslims in his society, why would he start defending this group in Finland? What about those immigrants that come from countries where questioning authority is a no-no?

What about if you lived in a society where your ethnic group had privileged status but now you’ve lost that status? What about if you make a deal to accept that you’re a second-class citizen in your new home country as long as you are not relegated to third- or fourth-class status?

Just because a person is an immigrant doesn’t mean that he or she understands never mind is against racism. Those prejudices that you learned could be reinforced by the new home country.

While some white Finns try to justify their racism by claiming that some immigrants are racists, one can never compare the two.

Writes Migrant Tales in January:

“The fact that white Finns are the standard of everything in Finland is enough proof that they wield real power. White Finns don’t have to understand racism because they simply don’t have to. It’s not an issue because they are the standard of this society, the norm. Everyone else has a prefix attached to them like immigrant, immigrant descendant, black, Roma etc.”

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One of the great figures to emerge from the Civil Rights Movement was Martin Luther King Jr. He said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

The most important matter that the Civil Rights Movement taught me was that you can challenge a social ill like racism and beat it at its own game even if such a social ill believes that it is all-powerful and unbeatable.

If I use myself as an example, it’s clear that the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the United States  (1955-68) had a lasting impact on my life. It not only taught me how important it is to challenge a social ill like racism, but fight for change in a non-violent manner.

Images and my direct experience with that period lives on so strongly that I bring them up in talks in Finland.

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 Malcolm X is another exemplary fighter of the Civil Rights Movement. He said: “Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.”

Racism leaves deep scars in some people. It has left such wounds in me.

One open scar was left by our elementary school’s first black pupil in the mid-1960s. He was bullied to such an extent by his classmates that the black child lasted about two weeks at our Hollywood, California, school.

I don’t remember his first name, but his last name was Brown. How can I remember such a fact about a classmate I knew briefly such a long time ago? One of the jokes that was made by one student went as follows: “What’s the color of shit? Brown!”

Imagine the power or racism to destroy another person’s self-esteem. My classmates were all children who came from so-called middle-class homes. Together they acted like a school of ferocious pirhanas attacking their prey.

Even if the principle of the school spoke to all of us about how we should treat the new black student with respect, he never spoke to us about our behavior.

How is racism perpetuated and reinforced in Finland? By denial and in so-called normal Finnish homes.

The Perussuomalaiset (PS) and its leader, Timo Soini, are good examples of the bullying and victimizing of immigrants and visible minorities in this country. As everyone knows, Soini is the so-called good cop of the anti-immigration party.

One of the PS’ biggest loose canons and racists, MP James Hirvisaari, was expelled from the party after he invited a friend to parliament, whom he took a picture of making a Nazi salute.

If it weren’t for the PS, and specifically because of Soini, it is doubtful that Hirvisaari would have ever been elected. As a member of the far-right Muutos 2011 party today, nobody is any longer interested what Hirvisaari thinks.

So yes, Soini and the PS are responsible for making racism and intolerance more acceptable in Finland. Letting him off the hook is a mistake. He is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We must remember, however, that it’s not only the PS that has issues with racism but every party in this country. The PS would have never obtained so much power without the complacency and cowardice of other mainstream parties.

Finland and Europe must not be lured into populism and xenophobia

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Denials by party leaders like Timo Soini that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) isn’t a xenophobic party, and the meek response of Finland’s mainstream parties to such a threat, speak volumes of the present state of this country. Who helped the political careers of xenophobes like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and others? Soini and the PS. 

Why do we forget this important fact? Possibly because we dread admitting that intolerance is a bigger problem than we want to believe.

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Read full story here.

Believing that Soini is against racism as he often claims, it allowing him and intolerance off the hook.

Certainly racism and intolerance isn’t a problem for a white Finn never mind the head of the PS. It is, however, an issue for many in this country who aren’t white and those who struggle for acceptance in an ever-hostile anti-immigration atmosphere that has political support.

British shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, was quoted recently as saying on The Guardian that non-Jewish people must take a leading stand in defeating antisemitism in Europe. Speaking at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, he said that in the fight against antisemitism, silence was the “coconspirator of evil.”

Correct. If I were Alexander’s speech writer, I’d stress that it’s not only antisemitism that we should challenge, but all types of intolerance irrespective if that person is a Muslim, Roma, gay or belongs to any other minority.

He said that the rise of antisemitism was “deeply troubling” in the face of the far right making significant gains in the 2014 European parliamentary elections.

Will we begin to raise our voices against intolerance when it snatches power?

By then it will be too late.

 

 

The ogre of racism in Finland is learning how to wear a three-piece suit and tie

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Matters appear to have changed after the April 2011 election, when the Perussuomalaiset (PS) rose from relative obscurity to become the third-largest party in parliament. The well-known scandals and publicized vicious attacks by the racists of the PS against immigrants and visible minorities appear to have changed their tune.  

Apart from the row that former PS MP James Hirvisaari caused when he took a picture of a man making a Nazi salute in parliament, we haven’t heard or read recently about any racist outbursts in Teuvo Hakkarainen’s crude style.

Muutos 2011 MP Hirvisaari believes that the PS is becoming a more mainstream party by abandoning its openly racist and hostile views of immigrants and visible minorities.

In his fourth blog entry as a Muutos 2011 MP, Hirvisaari writes that “the party is shaping into an odorles, tastless and colorless mass.” He warns that “the collapse of the party is imminent” and support will “fall to under 10%” if the PS’ anti-immigration stance is brushed under the rug for fear of being labelled racist. 

While the next parliamentary elections will take place two years from now, a lot can happen during that time on the political front. PS chairman Timo Soini’s gamble to apparently weed out loose canons like Hirvisaari from the party and keep other ones like Hakkarainen quiet, it’s pretty clear that the PS is putting its convoluted house in order so it can form part of the country’s next government after the 2015 elections.

Even if the PS wants to look more mainstream, can MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, Juho Eerola, Olli Immonen and others take on a new image? Certainly they can but can a leopard change its spots?  What will the voters think? Didn’t they vote for 39 MPs in 2011 because they weren’t mainstream and because they were openly hostile to immigrants, Muslims and the EU?

There’s an important question that Soini dreads the answer: Would the PS commit political hara-kiri if it forced its racists and hardline nationalists to chill out?

An story in The Guardian shows how far-right parties are constantly changing and reinventing their image to appeal to mainstream voters:

This is exactly the modus operandi of such factions. From the British Union of Fascists to the British People’s party, the Action party, the National Front, the Flag Group, the New National Front, the BNP and the EDL, the far-right throbs and expands, blooms, then folds into itself and subdivides like an amorphous but sentient blob from a 1950s B movie.

A good example of the new image that the PS wants to sell to voters is PS Helsinki substitute councilwoman, Belle Selene Xian. She is the exact creation that the PS wants to sell to voters: she’s Chinese but white and who says all the right sweet things that win over some but makes her obnoxious to others.

The PS is like an ogre that is trying to learn how to speak and learn new ways, wearing a three-piece suit and tie tie trying to say all the right things without saying anything.

 

 

 

Are Finns conservatives by nature?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman Timo Soini was interviewed on YLE Saturday morning. Commenting on a recent opinion poll commissioned by YLE, Soini claimed that the good showing of the PS and Center Party proved that Finns are by nature conservatives. 

The YLE poll, which was published Friday, showed big gains by the opposition Center Party (23.8%) and the PS (19.3%).  The ruling National Coalition Party’s popularity slipped to 18.3% and the Social Democratic Party to 15%.

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Read full story (in Finnish) here.

It’s nothing surprising that a politician like Soini, who will do anything to snatch as much power as he can in order to form part of the next government after the 2015 parliamentary elections, sees Finns as “conservatives.”

What does being a conservative mean in Finland in 2013? In general terms, it suggests having conservative values when it comes to marriage, work ethic and suspicion of cultural diversity.

Are Finns conservatives by nature as Soini claims? I have my serious doubts.

The reason why the PS is so popular, at least in the polls, is due to the lack of diversity and consensus-driven politics during the cold war era.

The rise of an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party like the PS in the 2011 elections would have never happened if Finland’s population would have been more culturally diverse.

When Soini speaks of Finns being “conservatives” by nature, he means that they are potential PS voters and in line with the party’s nationalistic name, the Finns Party, or the Perussuomalaiset as we call the party on Migrant Tales.

Our best insurance against populism and ideologies that have little respect for human rights is cultural and political diversity. More diversity coupled with social equality will help conserve our Nordic democratic way of life rather than undermine it.

Being too alike ideologically, culturally and ethnically is hazardous to our society.

 

PS MP Hakkarainen of Finland launches new attack against immigrants and Muslims

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, who suggested two years ago that homosexuals, lesbians and Somalians should be relocated to the Åland Islands, has launched a fresh attack against immigrants and Muslims on a blog entry.

Sensible people understand that generalizing about different groups, like Hakkarainen does, is not only wrong but racist.

Migrant Tales strongly condemns this type of hate speech that only serves to fuel ethnic hatred and further Hakkarainen’s questionable political career. We not only condemn the PS MP’s words, but the silence of Finland’s political establishment, especially that of the PS.

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Read original blog entry here.

Hakkarainen, who represents the Central Finnish town of Viitasaari where there are few to no Muslims, was the first part of the PS tragic-comic political play that kicked off after the historic April 2011 elections.

Watch what the newly elected MP had to say about Muslims in this video English subtitles.

At that time, PS chairman Timo Soini defended politicians like Hakkarainen with a poker face by claiming there wasn’t one racist running for office.

According to Hakkarainen’s latest blog entry, the government doesn’t want to admit that Finland allows too many migrants to the country, which cost too much to upkeep and are a drain on the country.

He claims that too many immigrants live off social welfare and are ”increasingly guilty of crimes, which were previously rare, among others, like gang rape.”

According to the PS MP, whose drinking problems have been well-documented by the media, it is every Muslim’s “honor and responsibility” to kill and annihilate every religion and Jews, according to the Koran. ”The West is being flooded by millions of Muslims inside a wooden Trojan horse…” he wrote.

Citing a story on Turun Sanomat, he claims that there are Muslim extremists concentrated in Turku ready to declare jihad.

Hakkarainen slammed Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, who he called an ”imam” and supporter of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Is Hakkarainen for real or is he a political buffoon, who likes to amuse hard-core racists like himself?

He is for real. He is one of the many faces of intolerance and nationalism of Finland today kept intact by society’s near-silence.

Death threats and the PS threat to our Nordic way of life

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, reveals in a recent blog that he got four death threats recently. Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen’s Christian Democratic party received a bomb threat as well, which was reported by tabloid Iltalehti. The death threats are similar to what Swedish-language journalists received a while back. Migrant Tales has been a victim of death threats as well. 

The question that we should ask in light of the latter is what these threats say about Finland and where we’re heading today as a country.

One matter it says loud and clearly is that our response to intolerance is far from satisfactory. Those that fuel ethnic hatred, racism and make it their business to polarize society between “us” and “them,” believe opportunistically that hate speech can be their political servant.

How wrong they are! Mass murderer Anders Breivik of Norway is one recent example of how you cannot keep xenophobia and racism on a short leash because it can bite back at its owner, and hard.

Ali Esbati, a survivor of 22/7,* when Breivik murdered 77 innocent victims on his Islamophobic rampage in Norway in 2011, was quoted as saying on The Local, which cites an op-ed on Aftonbladet,  that Norway had learned little from the massacre. He claimed that the “undergrowth of hateful rhetoric” had recovered from the attacks by Breivik.

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Read story here.

While anti-immigration parties in the Nordic region suffered election losses due to Breivik, the approval rating of the anti-immigration Progress Party (FrP) of Norway has swelled today to 20% in the polls.

An editorial on Oulu-based daily Kaleva writes about the death threats against Soini.

”Hate speech has been raging for a long time, and there are among Perussuomalaiset MPs people who have been sentenced for ethnic agitation. From the mouthes of the Perussuomalaiset we’ve read uncensored text that is written off as humor.

Death threats show that the hate speech can travel the other way. The party’s figurehead Soini is the victim of such a situation.”

To use a recent example of how the PS fuels hatred in Finland, one of its MPs, James Hirvisaari, published on Facebook the wonderful time he spent with Seppo Lehto, a far right agitator who was  imprisoned for inciting ethnic hatred.

On the same weekend, he said in a tweet that a reporter working for tabloid Iltalehti ”masturbated wildly” when he was interviewed by him on the phone.

Add to the latter the near-constant hate speech against gays, elites, immigrants, and groups like Muslims from parties like the PS and a broader worrisome picture emerges of the problem.

Intolerance breeds more intolerance until it snaps like on 22/7 or turns into something more sinister like Germany 1933.

*I was surprised to see The Local use 22/7 to describe the mass murders that took place in Norway in 2011. Using a date for a tragedy is a way to honor and respect the victims. 

New PS party secretary Riikka Slunga Poutsalo “demands” tighter immigration policy

Posted on by Migrant Tales

As Migrant Tales correctly pointed out, it didn’t take long for the new party secretary of the Perussuomalaiset (PS), Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, to show her far right anti-immigration credentials. Interviewed by YLE’s 8:30 pm news, Slunga-Poutsalo “demands” Finland should tighten immigration policy further. 

Migrant Tales wrote Saturday that one of the aims of the PS annual congress in Joensuu was to make the party the biggest in Finland by  2015 with the help of an anti-EU and anti-immigration campaign. Finland will hold parliamentary elections two years from now.

“We shouldn’t commit the same mistakes [in immigration] than Europe but learn from them before it’s too late and when we’ll be in the same boat as them,” she said.

PS chairman Timo Soini played down as usual the role of intolerance and anti-immigration sentiment in his party.

“This is a myth that the media cranks out [constantly],” he said. “Crank it out [all you want] so the Perussuomalaiset will get more publicity.”

He denied that the anti-immigration wing of the party led by PS MP Jussi Halla-aho had got an important foothold in the party leadership thanks to Slunga-Poutsalo and Juho Eerola, who was elected third vice president.

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In one of her first major policy statements as party secretary, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo “demanded” that Finnish immigration policy should be tightened further.

The 8:30 pm news reported – as did Migrant Tales – that Slunga-Poutsalo is an anti-immigration hardliner who not only signed the Nuiva Manifesto but has taken part in anti-immigration chat forums like Hommaforum.

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The new party secretary finds herself in good anti-immigration company with Eerola, who likes Mussolini-style fascism, Halla-aho and James Hirvisaari, both of which who have been sentenced for hate speech.

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Slunga-Poutsalo was one of the signatories of the Nuiva Manifesto. She is on the top row right.

The PS’ new Cadillac model of racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

How does intolerance and racism work in Finnish politics? How does it manifest itself today in anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)? A quote by U.S. civil rights leader Malcolm X (1925-65) provides us with a partial clue to these questions: “Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.”

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Is it a surprise that one of the first persons to congratulate Riikka Slung-Putsalo was PS MP Jussi Halla-aho? Both were responsible for drafting the anti-immigration Nuiva Manifesto.

If we took Finland’s most intolerant party in parliament, how do intolerance and racism manifest themselves at the PS’ annual congress (June 29-30) in Joensuu? What Cadillac model has the PS introduced?

The answer to that simple question is a complex one since the driver, party chairman Timo Soini, denies that he’s driving a Cadillac. While the PS may want to hide the new Cadillac model, there’s a lot of incriminating evidence that suggests the contrary.

How do we know? Easy.

Take a look at the new PS leadership for 2013-15. Four of its party leaders, which include Soini, are strongly in the anti-immigration camp. Be it the elimination of mandatory Swedish at schools (Jussi Niinistö, vice president), to liking Mussolini-style fascism (Juho Eerola, third vice president), to denying cultural diversity (Hanna Mäntylä, second vice president), it’s the same anti-immigration PS Cadillac.

Let’s not forget Riikka Slunga-Putsalo, probably the worst anti-immigration pundit together with Eerola, who was elected party secretary Saturday.

One of the eeriest aspects of the PS is its ability to hide its racism model.What you see is not necessarily what you get. The culture of anti-immigration rhetoric is stuffed today with doubletalk and decipherable only by code.

Has anyone thought what kind of a country Finland would be if we’d allow the PS to draft laws that would strike the term multiculturalism from its youth law or prohibit the use of the burqa and nijab? What about if we banned male circumcision or decided that we wouldn’t accept Muslim refugees and immigrants to our country?

All these measures, which are wholeheartedly supported by the PS, would end up destroying Finland and its Nordic social welfare state democracy. It would be like leaving our future and democracy to chance.

Immigrants and visible minorities don’t need the acceptance or 5.4 million Finns never mind that of the PS to feel at home in this country. All of us who have moved to Finland know at least one person who has shown immense hospitality and given us hope that building a home in this country is possible.

The PS is not only a threat to Finland, but especially to immigrants and minorities.

Immigrants and minorities would be the biggest losers if the PS ever became the biggest party in the country. We’d be persecuted and our  rights downgraded even further by making discrimination and prejudice “normal” and “patriotic.”