A parliamentary working group chaired by National Coalition Party (NCP) MP Arto Satonen to examine the role of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) is not proposing any drastic change to the system of funding but plans to make the broadcaster more nationalistic.
One of the most surprising matters that the parliamentary working group will change concerning YLE’s role is exchanging the name “multicultural” for “cultural diversity.”
While the term “cultural diversity” is a good synonym for “multiculturalism,” striking off the latter term from YLE’s role shows blatant ignorance and how nationalism and intolerance have crept into Finnish politics.
While the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, a hostile party to cultural diversity, wanted to scrapthe term “multiculturalism” from YLE’s priorities, we must not forget that government parties like the Center Party and NCP support such changes.
Cultural diversity and combating hate crime doesn’t appear to be high on YLE’s priority list. This is clear in the story. The news about exchanging the term “multiculturalism” for “cultural diversity” was mentioned at the end of the story, not at the top.
Read full story here.
The recommendations by the working group set a strong message to Finland’s ever-growing culturally diverse community: You don’t have power and never will under our watch.
* 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.”