“When a clown moves into a palace he doesn’t become a king, the place becomes a circus.”
A Turkish proverb
Finland has turned into a show of lying politicians who no longer rely on facts but on prejudice and bigotry. Even if we mention the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, National Coalition Party’s (NCP) Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is the ringmaster, saying one thing and meaning another.
The only conclusion I can come to after living decades in Finland is that the country’s racism problem is getting worse.
The government’s ignorance, lust for power, and neo-conservative economic policies are concerning. It suggests that the government has few problems in throwing under the bus the rule of law, Human Rights, and international agreements.
One part of Finlnad’s, or particularly the government’s, alternative reality is its migration policy, labor market, and changes to social welfare.
These are not changes but they are referred to by the government as paradigm changes:
- changing the period of residence from five to eight years for citizenship;
- tougher rules to get a permanent residence and citizenship;
- prohibit asylum seekers from getting a work permit;
- speed up deportations and asylum applications;
- tighter family reunification requirements;
- a person will be forced to leave the after being unemployed does not find employment in three (non-specialists) or six months (specialists);
- imprison undocumented migrants;
- temporarily suspend asylum rights at the Finnish-Russian border;
- deny dual citizenship rights to Russian nationals.
Politicians from the PS and NCP will tell you with a poker face that the paradigm changes in migration policy have nothing to do with racism since “we are bringing to line out policy with the rest of the Nordic countries.”
Could we conclude that all the Nordic countries’ migration policies are then racist?
“The population changes, problems mount.” Let’s have a frank chat about the Great Replacement theory. How white Finns are becoming a minority and how Finland is being taken over by Muslims. “Let’s have a frank chat about the Great Replacement theory. How white Finns are becoming a minority and how Finland is being taken over by Muslims. Source: Facebook
Interior Minister Mari Rantanen and Finance Minister Riikka Purra before they were elected in 2023 and appointed ministers. Source: Facebook
The politicians leading Fnland in government leave a lot to be desired. Prime Minister Orpo has given them a platform to fulfill their xenophobic yearnings and racist antics.
Social Democrat MP Tytti Tupparainen said something that few in the media dared to ask. Eleven months of right-wing xenophobic policies have led us to even consider suspending the rule of law, Human Rights, and Constitutional rights through the pushback law.
Tuppurainen considered at A-talk the government’s pushback law as a Trojan Horse to spread the PS’ and NCP’s anti-immigration policies. She pointed her comment at Jukka Kopra (NCP) and Mauri Peltokangas (PS), two MPs who have made their career on spreading racism.
Watch program (in Finnish) here.
“Jukka Kopra has said that we should be able to turn back all asylum seekers. Mauri Peltokangas has spoken of them in very ugly terms as parasitic animals. With this attitude, we want to be careful that the government does not use this law as a pretext to drag Finland’s immigration policy in a more restrictive direction.”
The response by Kopra to Tuppurainen was an example of his and the NCP’s alternate state of reality. “I am in favor of a restrictive immigration policy precisely so that resources can be allocated to those who really need help,” he said.
Does Kopra’s response make any sense?
