Finnish foreign minister, Timo Soini of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, was on the Embuske, Veitola ja Salminen talk show on Thursday. On the program, he showed his bigotted views with a smile by taking credit for stopping the flow of asylum seekers to Finland.
“We stopped the flow [of asylum seekers],” he boasted. “And credit should be given to the PS.”
Last year, some 32,500 asylum seekers came to Finland.
Soon after Soini’s statement, National Coalition Party MP Arto Satonen said that credit should go to his party’s interior minister, Petteri Orpo.
Imagine, two parties fight to see who gets credit for being the most heartless.
Credit and merit?!
Is it a “merit” to turn your back to people fleeing war, poverty, and persecution? Is it a “merit” to believe that your greedy expectations and arrogance will save you or your children from suffering the same fate in the future as these asylum seekers today?
Watch full talk show here.
Certainly Donald Trump’s “good cop” has the gall to affirm such a thing. According to him, we should be proud of ourselves for turning our backs to people who are fleeing war and in need of protection.
Soini is a politician who spoonfeeds racism and bigotry to his followers. The social Frankenstein he created is called the PS.
The foreign minister and head of the PS regularly speak in code. He may say things like “we’re not against immigration, anyone who wants to work in Finland can come here,” which sugarcoats his real views and his aspiration to keep Finland white and Christian.”
Yes, he’s the same politicians who is an ideological ally of the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party and who likes people like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He even defends Poland’s Eurosceptic, far-right government against the EU.
Soini is a construct of Finland’s worst issues with cultural diversity and bigotry with an isolationist world view.
He isn’t the foreign minister of Finland per se. He’s the foreign minister of an island that is called today Finland.
* 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 direct translation of “Perussuomalaiset” is “basic” or “fundamental Finn.”