The Finnish government has called for comment on its proposed six-million-euro action program against racism by June 10th. The program’s development began last year when then President Sauli Niinistö was questioned at an international press conference about racist remarks made by ministers in the Petteri Orpo government.
Announced in May, the program calls for anti-racist programs in ministries, schools, and volunteer organizations. It highlights the adoption of a national holocaust remembrance day and promises to make holocaust denial illegal. Other welcome issues, though modest in substance, is a reference to Islamophobia, but nothing on specific measures.
There is also no mention of intended legal reforms in response to charges against Finland by the EU Commission (ECRI) regarding weak legal protections against racism. It would be a systemic
change isf such measures were adopted but there is little in the program outline of that nature.
That is likely because such changes could get ministers like Riikka Purra- who recently reiterated her view that there was a conspiracy to replace white Europeans with immigrants- in trouble.
Her social media remarks about fantasizing shooting immigrant kids on a commuter train, as well as Minister for Economic Affairs Wille Rydman’s emails about wanting to ban Muslim women rather than their hijabs, was what got the government in trouble to begin with.
There is no specific mention of Africans, although an EU study recently found that group to be more discriminated against in Finland than in any country in Western Europe. Finland’s largest
immigrant minority, its Russian community, is also totally ignored although in other recent legislation, their travel and relations with families in their home country have been seriously hampered.
Elsewhere, the government is hard at work on making Finnish citizenship less accessible to immigrants and challenging international protections for asylum seekers.
The policing of racism in social media is ineffective and obviously, there was a concern that putting more resources into such monitoring would reveal more offending texts by these ministers and their supporters. At least one member of the government, Rydman, seems still preoccupied with suing Helsingin Sanomat for publishing his bigoted remarks.
Orpo has placed a team of civil servants representing the ministries in charge of the program and there is scarce representation by discriminated communities with the token exception of the
official hand-picked ETNO.
Perhaps it might be a bit unkind to say there is an aspect of condoning with ineffective condemnation in the proposed anti-racism measures. Soon after the program ends, most seminars, speeches, and brochures produced during it will likely be forgotten.
Describing it as a “zero-tolerance of racism” program such as called for by Niinistö would be an exaggeration.