There has been an interesting debate on hate crime in Finland. If we’d believe the government, hate crime and racism in Finland are a far-right phenomenon and of a few racist hotheads.
Wrong.
The government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä is so much in dark and in denial about a social ill like racism that it actually believes that having a nationalist populist anti-immigration party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, which bases its popularity on spreading ethnic hatred, in government, its lame stance on racism and tightening immigration laws have no consequences on rising hate crime in the country.
Wrong again.
We can conclude that the present strategy and stance on racism and cultural diversity of the government is an utter failure that promotes violence against migrants and minorities.
When the government’s anti-racism rhetoric is only air and when they tighten immigration policy they send the following message to Finns: These people aren’t worthy of dignity and are a threat to our country.
Måns Enqvist of the Finnish police service states in the YLE News story what we all know but don’t want to admit:
“Yes, it’s [hate crime] clearly on the rise,” Enqvist said. “And there are many reasons. Of course one reason is that the climate for discussion in Finland has changed. We are more likely to say anything at all. And that creates a foundation for moving from speech to action.”
A good example of the hypocrisy of the government concerning racism in Finland was the participation of Finance Minister and NCP Chairman Petteri Orpo and Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s participation at September 24 Stop this game! demonstration against racism and fascism in Finland.
The following Monday it was business as usual. The government was accused of lowering social welfare to migrants by 10% when compared with Finnish citizens.
Read the full story here.
The Police University College, which collects hate crime statistics, reported that there will be a rise in such crimes in 2015.
The majority of the hate crimes occur in southern Finland and 80% are racist in nature, according to YLE News.
* 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.”