Tag: xenophobia

Finland: Enter at your own risk or beware of dog!

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Rabbah Boussuira is an artist and an old friend that was able draw a snapshot of the hostility that inflicted Finnish society in the early 1980s. What is sad is that that same drawing could apply today. About 25 years ago, anti-foreign sentiment was all around but today it has found a home in the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. 

Instead of inviting immigrants to work to Finland, why not avoid problems and put up a sign like the one below at the border?  The sign could read in all the major languages: “Beware of dog” or “Enter at your own risk.”

Even though Finland's immigrant population has grown by ten times since 1984, when Strange Days was published, the ongoing one-sided debate on immigrants makes this drawing still valid by Rabbah Boussuira.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finland: To isolate or not to isolate ourselves from the world

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

If there is a post-Finlandization period in this country it manifests itself today through fear and suspicion of the outside world. As the April election result showed, a large minority of Finns don’t have a problem about returning to the days when Finland was near-isolated geopolitically from the outside world thanks to its special relationship with the former Soviet Union.

A Helsingin Sanomat poll published Wednesday showed that 40% of Finns are not very enthused about Europe and would not would not run under any circumstances to the aid of countries like Greece. Finland’s polarized society exposed itself in April, when a surprising 19.1% voted for the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

If the Helsingin Sanomat poll showed that 40% of Finns would be ready to turn their backs on Europe and the world, the PS victory in spring has turned that will into a strong political message. Even if the PS is a mixed bag of ideologies, it bases its support on anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim sentiment.

The Helsingin Sanomat poll and the election result show how polarized Finland is today. On the one hand you have a large minority that wants Finland to effectively isolate itself from the world while the majority has a different opinion.

One of the matters that has impressed me a lot about the Finns is how this society can leap through history with Superman aspirations and with little debate.  A case in point is our ever-growing cultural diversity as a society after promoting ethnic and cultural homogeneity during the last century. The same is true when looking at Finland’s geopolitical near-isolation during the cold war era (1945-1991).

How difficult can it be for a country like Finland, which had seen its foreign population plummet to a mere 7,000 people in 1970 from 24,451 in 1920, to leap from a near-homogeneous society to one that is today tolerant and culturally diverse? A similar watershed was crossed in 1995, when we became a European Union member.

Fortunately the majority of Finns have been able to keep up with these breath-taking transitions. The Helsingin Sanomat poll shows that over half agreed at least to some degree that Finland should help eurozone countries.  Even if the PS scored a historic victory in April, 81% of Finns did voted for the traditional parties.

Debate in Finland is picking up as our society becomes more diverse ethnically and culturally. Our conceptions of ourselves as a unified ethnic and cultural block are changing but are still reinforced at school whenever  Finns are pitted against the outside world as is the case with the lessons of the Winter War (1939-40). Even though we are grateful to those who sacrificed their lives, glorifying these types of wars only serve to strengthen our sense of “us” and “them.”

It is a bit absurd that in 2011 we continue to place so much emphasis on the Winter and Continuation War (1941-44) taking into account that Russia is our neighbor and that the largest national and linguistic group living in Finland are Russians.

Finland needs today a much richer and varied debate on where our country is heading in this century.This debate is vital so we don’t end up living inside a nationalistic and xenophobic bubble.  It is as well the only effective way to challenge the threat posed by parties like the PS.

The whole issue can be summed up by an editorial of Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat: “Finland’s greatest danger isn’t terrorism (in light of 9/11) but isolating itself (from the world).”

Halonen cites the economy and racism as threats to Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

President Tarja Halonen was quoted as saying on YLE that the government is facing two challenges after it returns from its summer holiday: the economy and racism. Her advice was calm, patience and not allowing hate speech to overtake our worst fears.

“If the economic situation remains difficult and even worsens, then we will need the kind of patience that is able to use democratic means to combat the kind of populist responses that cannot produce results — but which create anger and bitterness,” said Halonen.

If the president of Finland expresses concern about the rise of hate speech in this country, then matters must be pretty serious. More than ever before, immigrants, minorities and Finns must stand united against hate speech.

Social Democratic Party secretary Mikael Junger is one such politicians who has recently challenged Perussuomalaiset (PS) party MP like Jussi Halla-aho’s provocative statements about cultural diversity, the Nuremberg Trials, and Social Democrats.

Remembering how the announcement of Portugal’s default just a week before the April 17 election was an important boost for the PS, some supporters believe that as matters get worse in Europe financially the better the right-wing populist party’s standing in the polls.

It is no secret that during dire economic times, the first ones to get blamed are immigrants and minorities.

According to Halonen, the combination of poor economic times, loss of jobs and scapegoats feed populism and probably hate speech.

There is a good blog entry in English on the rise of hate speech in Finland on  On the Road of Succcess by Zuzeeko. 

Europe’s and Finland’s radical right: toning down diatribe rhetoric

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

We are seeing today how the impact of the killings in Norway have placed the far right and right-wing populist parties under greater scrutiny.  If these parties are now forced to tone down their anti-immigration message that fueled their rise, will greater scrutiny dull their most powerful weapon and weaken them in the end?

Over a week and a half after the horrific events that gripped Norway, there is evidence that a clear shift has taken place in the debate over immigration and Islam.

The change is significant considering how radical right parties before 22/7 saw no end to their growth thanks to their diatribe rhetoric against immigrants and Islam.

In Finland it has rudely awoken some parties out of their deep sleep of denial over the menace of the radical right especially after the election victory of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party on April 17.

Social Democratic Party secretary Mikael Junger openly challenged PS MP Jussi Halla-aho to step down as chairman of the administration committee, whose responsibilities include among other matters immigration policy.

Even President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen have openly condemned hate speech more energetically than ever before.

Reaction in Europe has been similar, according to the International Herald Tribune. “Most of Europe’s right-wing parties have condemned the actions of Anders Behring Breivik… whose lawyer says is probably insane. Sill, politicians have begun to question inflammatory oratory in the debate over immigrants that has helped fuel the rise of right-leaning politicians across Europe in recent years.”

In Finland, PS MP James Hirviisari, Halla-aho’s crude alter ego, suggests that a failed immigration and multicultural policy explain why Breivik went on the rampage.

In a thread under his Uusi Suomi blog entry, Norjan verilöyly (Norway’s bloodbath), he offers an explanation why Anders Behring Breivik snapped and started his mass killings. “I really am not surprised that something like this could happen in Norway. In the last years at least ALL (100%) of tens of those accused of violent rapes have been caused by immigrants/foreigners that have come from outside Europe.”

Sensible people in Finland and Europe understand that anti-immigration and anti-Islam groups pose today a threat to our democratic way of life. Breivik is a case in point.

There is a danger that pushing Halla-aho and his Counter-Jihad followers to a corner could weaken PS MP Timo Soini and force the party to take a more radical line against the EU and immigration.

On the other hand, it may well be that we are finally acknowledging and seeing the real face of the PS that we have not wanted to see thanks to our silence.

All that has now changed after 22/7.

Am I a carrier of European right-wing populist rhetoric?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

We all know that right-wing and far-right populism is on the rise in Europe. By the same token, many us without knowing it, may carry the same seeds of intolerance that these groups spread without ever knowing it. Certainly our democratic society must be able to debate a wide range of issues that affect us like immigration. We must, however, be able to distinguish what are inaccurate claims and facts.

There is no cause for alarm. Every illness has some cure, especially those that are based on fear-mongering, hatred and racism. 

The Council of Europe’s comprehensive report, Living together, is an excellent and long-overdue source to help distinguish between myths and facts about our European cultural diversity.

As with Migrant Tales’ most-popular blog entry, Are you a target of racism in Finland?,  which has got 19,583 visitors and 1,425 comments (June 18,2011), we now publish Are you a carrier of European right-wing populist rhetoric? which aims to show how much far-right, anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric has affected our good judgement.

Like the Council of Europe report, Migrant Tales believes that Islam, or any religion even far-right populist group, should not be exempt from criticism.

But read carefully what the report states: “At the same time it is important to notice that distorted or inaccurate accounts of religious beliefs or practices, or assertions that those of particular groups or individuals are characteristic of a religion as a whole, are often expressions of prejudice and also help to spread it.”

But let’s go now to the test. Please answer yes or no to the following nine claims:

1. Immigrants cause an increase in crime

2. Immigrants bring diseases into the country

3. Immigrant workers take our jobs

4. Immigrant workers drive down our wages

5. Immigrants abuse the welfare state

6. Immigrants behave as if the place belonged to them

7. Immigrants build parallel societies

8. Immigrants’ children are lowering standards in our schools

9. Immigrant women live as a minority

If you answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are a carrier of European right-wing populist rhetoric.  If you answered YES to three or more, you are definitely a carrier.

Below are some answers to the above-listed claims that can help you get a realistic and factual view, according to the Council of Europe and Migrant Tales:

1. Immigrants cause an increase in crime. This is widely repeated by the media, officials and certain “security experts”, and accepted unquestioningly by a large proportion of the population, in terms such as: “migrants, especially illegal migrants, are criminals;” “migrants are less law-abiding than nationals;” “migrants are responsible for much of the crime that takes place”; “they come to our country to commit crimes” and “now that they are here, our towns and streets are less safe.”

Migrant Tales comment: The Council of Europe answers this claim above comprehensively. It follows: “European countries and are sometimes verbally abused in a racist way, harassed or even physically abused by law-enforcement officials. The fact that these groups are more often subjected to police stop and search operations increases the likelihood that they will end up in the criminal justice system.”

“Official statistics do show higher-than-average crime rates among certain minorities (notably Roma) and immigrants or people of recent migrant background. But these statistics should be treated with care. There is abundant evidence of prejudice and discrimination within the criminal justice systems of many (probably most) European countries. Someone identifiable as an immigrant or member of a minority is more likely to be stopped and searched by police, more likely to be arrested, and more likely to be charged with a criminal offence than a comparable member of the “native” population. Thus the popular conviction that these groups are more prone to crime is, to some extent, self-fulfilling. It does almost certainly have some basis in fact, but this does not mean that people commit crimes because of their ethnic origin or immigrant status.” (The bold print was added by Migrant Tales).

2. Immigrants bring diseases into the country, or “migrants are to blame for the return of certain diseases that were eradicated in Europe decades ago.” Proponents of these arguments claim that irregular or undocumented migrants and their children often have poorer health than the rest of population, and that certain infectious and transmissible diseases are more common in migrant communities than in the indigenous population.

Migrant Tales comment:  Since immigrants and refugees are “criminals,” why not make them more undesirable by claiming that they are carriers of deadly diseases? They are so backward and maladapted that they even bring diseases like tuberculosis that have been eradicated from our society a long time ago.

3. Immigrant workers take our jobs.  This view is extremely common in European societies, especially among workers in sectors where there are large numbers of immigrants. It is applied not only to immigrants stricto sensu but also to their children, the so-called second generation, who are still seen as being “not part of the nation” on account of their physical appearance, culture or family ties.

Migrant Tales comment: This is due to the lack of acceptance by the majority of minority groups like immigrants. It is an effective argument to ensure the control of the labor market by the majority and exclusion of immigrants.

4. Immigrant workers drive down our wages. Many people who accept that there is no proof that migrants and nationals are in direct competition for jobs nevertheless subscribe to the idea that through their presence, immigrants drive down wages. This view is especially widely held in the workplace and even in trade unions, at least among the rank-and-file members.

Migrant Tales comment: One gets the impression from the public debate that immigrants want to break the law, evade taxes and that they are more than happy to work for lower wages and rights. The root of these problems lie a lot with the employer. Why wouldn’t a person want to contribute to the society he or she is living in and pay taxes if he or she had the same rights as “native” workers?

5. Immigrants abuse the welfare state. Migrants and their families are accused of abusing the services provided by the welfare state in three ways. First, it is claimed that they make excessive, unfair use of public services and assistance, to which they are believed to have wider, more liberal and less tightly regulated access than other citizens. Second, they are alleged to have access to provision and services to which they are not legally entitled, and thus to be committing outright fraud, to the detriment of the indigenous population. Third, it is alleged that during their stay, which is assumed to be temporary and prompted chiefly by the desire to benefit from the European welfare state, they get more out of the economy than they put in.

Migrant Tales comment:  This appears to be one of the pet myths used by anti-immigration groups. They assume that not only social workers collude with immigrants in this type of fraud, but the state turns a blind eye to the matter as well. If I were a social worker one of the matters I’d try not to do is get fired. One way of getting the boot would be to break the law by granting immigrants special rights outside of the law. If such anti-immigration groups are really worried about this type of fraud, why are immigrants usually the targets of such criticism?

6. Immigrants behave as if the place belonged to them. This attitude is especially common among older people, who have the impression that newcomers do not respect them, that their familiar way of life is being eroded and that “immigrants’ culture and way of life are respected more than ours”.

Migrant Tales comment:  This type of claim reveals low self-esteem of one’s own culture.  Moreover, recent studies show the contrary.  These types of arguments are effective anti-immigration arguments used by populist parties.

7. Immigrants build parallel societies. Migrants are often described as a social and political group alien to the members of their host society. Attention is paid to cases where they behave like a closed and self-contained community, and much less to cases where they are open and seek friendly relations with members of other groups. Typical claims are “they like to keep themselves to themselves,” “they have no desire to integrate,” “they cannot speak our language” and “all they want is rights without duties”.

Migrant Tales comment: These are a good list of excuses. People usually emigrate in search of better opportunities or where “the grass is greener.” It would be illogical for a person to travel many thousands of kilometers, learn a new language and culture just to continue living the same way as he did back home. Immigrants adapt rapidly. How rapidly they adapt in their new home country usually determines how fast they can progress. A crucial aspect of adaption is acceptance by the host society.

8. Immigrants’ children are lowering standards in our schools.” Immigrants’ children are said to “perform poorly at school because their parents lack the skills and education to bring them up properly,”and are often blamed for their own difficulties: “they do not speak their host country’s language;” “they enrol at school in the middle of the school year;” and “they don’t know which culture they really belong to.”

Migrant Tales comment:  A recent study in Finland showed that there aren’t that big differences in some areas and that multicultural Finns, or so-called second-generation immigrants, enjoyed attending school more than their Finnish classmates. These arguments are pretty much similar to those made on #9.

9. Immigrant women live as a minority. Non-European immigrants are often regarded as “backward” in terms of civilisation in general and gender equality in particular. This prejudice is now directed mainly against Muslims and Arabs.

Migrant Tales comment: Anti-immigration groups use the same argument over and over again everywhere. They argue that since a group is so different from us, they can never be part of our society. Thus their racism and hatred is thereby justified.

“Living together:” Council of Europe Eminent Persons’ report

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: It is not only long-overdue but vital that Europe answers forcefully the threat posed by the rise of intolerance, racism and xenophobia. All of us as members of society can and must do our part to challenge these threats to our democratic institutions by right-wing populist parties.

I don’t have any doubts about placing the Perussuomalaiset  (PS) as one of these parties in Europe that aim to undermine our values and democratic institutions. Even though they have the right to take part in elections, what is unacceptable is the racism and hostility of a large number of their MPs towards immigrants and minorities in Finland.

“Diversity is here to stay,” said the Council of Europe’s Secretary General,  Thorbjørn Jagland. “We have to learn to live with it, manage it, and benefit from it.”

The Council of Europe Eminent Persons’ report identifies the following risks to our values: “rising intolerance; rising support for xenophobic and populist parties; discrimination; the presence of a population virtually without rights; parallel societies; Islamic extremism; loss of democratic freedoms; and a possible clash between “religious freedom” and freedom of expression. Behind these risks, it suggests, lie insecurity (stemming from Europe’s economic difficulties and sense of relative decline); the phenomenon of large-scale immigration (both as actually experienced and as perceived); distorted images and harmful stereotypes of minorities in the media and public opinion; and a shortage of leaders who can inspire confidence by articulating a clear vision of Europe’s destiny.”

Migrant Tales will never give up its passion for democracy and civil rights and identify those groups and individuals that want to breathe life to twenty-first century fascism. Migrant Tales does not fear identifying such groups and individuals who belong to the PS and associations like Suomen Sisu.

________

On behalf of the Council of Europe Group of Eminent Persons, Javier Solana Madariaga  presented the report “Living Together:” Combining diversity and freedom in 21st-century Europe to the Committee of Ministers session meeting in Istanbul. Taking stock of the challenges arising from the resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe, the report analyses “the threat” and proposes “the response” for “living together” in open European societies. 

Read whole story.

The New York Review of Books: A New Approach to the Holocaust

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: The New York Review of Books  offers some of the best analysis around on history and contemporary affairs. If you are going to subscribe to this excellent journal, you have to set aside a lot of time to read the lengthy and well-written reviews.

The Holocaust will always live by us like an ugly reminder of our savagery, or in particular of a regime that based its existence on racism and ethnic homogeneity. Some have asked on Migrant Tales what does the adjective “Nazi-spirited” mean before an association like Suomen Sisu? The answer is in its racial views and, like the Nazis, to the idea that ethnic homogeneity is an important value that society should strive to maintain.

This idea is not only shared openly by PS MPs like Jussi Halla-aho who are emembers of Suomen Sisu, but by many far-right populist parties in Europe like the Sweden Democrats and others. In other words, their reason for being and aim is based on their objection to multiculturalism, or cultural diversity, which is a threat to  ethnic homogeneity. 

One matter that these parties and associations don’t tell you is how they plan to preserve never mind return their countries back to some “ethnically homogeneous” society. Taking into account that over a million Finns emigrated from here in the last 150 years and that Finland has always been a part of Europe, we can even argue if we’ve ever been ethnically homogeneous. 

Ethnic homogeneity as an ideal of society has its roots in racism and most recently to the rise of fascism in the 1930s.

This explains as well why PS MPs like Halla-aho and Suomen Sisu don’t openly condemn the works of Alfred Rosenberg and David Duke. Halla-aho even plays down the Nuremberg Trials.  “It is quite justifiable to see the Nuremberg trials as a farce,” he wrote. “Sure, the guilty had been condemned in advance and their convictions carried out on absurd grounds.”

Peter Longereich’s Holocaust not only tells us how misguided Nazi Germany was concerning their pathological ethnic policies but how it led to mass murder when they tried to implement them and make their country and occupied territories ethnically homogeneous. If the Nazi ideology failed in this task and caused as a result the systematic murder and social engineering through death camps and deportation of millions of Europeans, it is doubtful that far-right parties will ever succeed in the task today.

Do you agree?

__________

It is fruitless to reduce the manifold evil of the Holocaust to a single cause. Ideology, charisma, conformism, hatred, greed, and war were all very important, but each was related to the others and all mattered within rapidly changing historical circumstances. In his profound study Holocaust, Peter Longerich puts forward an analysis that includes all these factors and shows how politics or, as he puts it, Politik, set them all in motion. In this amplified English edition of his Politik der Vernichtung (1998), Longerich preserves the German term Judenpolitik, and with good reason. In German Politik means both “politics” and “policy,” and the compound noun (Juden + Politik) gives a sense of a joining of concepts that English cannot quite convey.

Read whole story.

PS’ recipe for failure: nationalism, xenophobia and isolationism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

It is pretty incredible how a minority like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) that got 19.1% of the votes are blackmailing the rest of the country with their anti-EU policies. It not only wants the majority to join its anti-EU bandwagon, but has among its ranks MPs like Jussi Halla-aho, who are trying to  give bigotry a respectable name in Finland. 

But can any sensible person in this country play down what the PS hope to achieve politically? One of the main stands of  Timo Soini and the PS is Finland’s withdrawal from the European Union and slap more restrictions on immigration.

Has the EU impacted Finland negatively? Have the 2.9% immigrants living in this country formed a threat to our way of life? Why all this obnoxious nationalism? What gives?

If I had the opportunity to interview Soini, one of the questions I’d ask him is how Finland is going to succeed outside the EU? Of course he’ll never give me a satisfactory answer because he is a politicians. Politicians rarely reveal all their playing cards.

Here is one PS politician who likes to bash immigrants on the net, city councilor  Hemmo Koskiniemi of Rovaniemi, on how the PS will give Finland back to the Finns.  This is what he writes in Uusi Suomi. Scary stuff.

While Soini and the PS may look like foxes  in sheep’s clothing, another menace to Finland is Halla-aho and his Suomen Sisu followers.

Here is a good link (in Finnish) of the provocative statements he’s made throughout the years about immigrants. One of the many that ring out was in 2007 when he wrote that, “I am against immigration and I hope a growing number of Finns are against it.”

The fascination of some Finns with Halla-aho and Soini, who opportunistically uses him to lure votes to his party, is a good example of how low politics has stooped in Finland.

Taking into account the problems the PS has already inflicted on Finland through its populism, anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric, you don’t need to be an expert to grasp that Finland is on a perilous path.

The PS view of the future of Finland hinges on nationalism, xenophobia and isolationism. In plain English it means recipe for failure.


Immigrants in Finland must rise up and challenge the ogre of indifference

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

What can be done if Finland’s third-largest party in parliament is not only anti-EU but strongly anti-immigration? One of the things you should not do is stay home and gripe. Many immigrants and multicultural Finns had it worse in the early 1980s, when the then Aliens’ Office could throw any foreigner they pleased in jail or deport him from the country. 

That was before Finland got its first Alien’s Act in 1983, or 65 years after independence. Immigrants had few if any rights at the time. If you were a foreign resident, the Restricting Act of 1939 made sure that you could not own land and set up businesses in many sectors like forestry.

If you asked the police leadership at the time why Finland had such a restrictive policy against foreigners, their argument is bascially the same even today: To keep criminals from moving to Finland.

With public officials having that kind of attitude, that foreigners are potential criminals, it’s pretty clear why xenophobia and racism have grown strong roots in this country.

Rodolfo Walsh was a radical journalist from Argentina who was killed for speaking out against the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina in 1976-83.

Even if Walsh’s quote below has a 1970s spirit in it, the message is still applicable to immigrants and multicultural Finns: Our dominant classes have made sure that the worker has no history, doesn’t have a doctrine, any heroes or any martyrs. Every struggle has to be started from scratch, separated from previous struggles; the collective history is lost, their lessons are forgotten. History appears as it if were private property, whose owners are the owners of everything.

One will find that immigrants and multicultural Finns have hardly any history in Finland. Why? Because this group hasn’t been acknowledged. But if we look a bit closer, there is a lot that can be brought to the surface like that very important and symbolic march of October 19, 1982.

Hopefully it will inspire new immigrants and Finns from all backgrounds to march and demand their rights in a Finland that is still struggling to accept us.

This picture of the 1982 march was published on the front page of HYY=Peli.

As one can see from the picture that appeared on the front page of Kansan Uutiset (20.10.1982), the march attracted many people. It was also the main story on the 8:30pm news on television.


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

Posted on by Migrant Tales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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