Helena Eronen announced Monday on Uusi Suomi her resignation as Perussuomalaiset (PS) MP James Hirvisaari’s aide. Eronen suggested in a controversial blog entry in April that foreigners should start wearing sleeve badges to help police hunt criminals.
Even if Eronen claimed that her controversial blog entry was satire and not intended to insult anyone, it did just the opposite.
There is some unconfirmed speculation that one factor behind Eronen’s resignation was an affair with Hirvisaari, which the latter’s wife wasn’t too happy about.
Hirvisaari got suspended for five months by the PS parliamentary group for not sacking his aide.
Even if Eronen isn’t a member of the PS, she used to advertise on Uusi Suomi as belonging to Muutos 2011, a far-right anti-immigration party.
While the PS has not said a word about Eronen’s resignation, it’s clear that the party is releived because she was a liability.
While the choice of hiring aides by some PS MPs raises some questions, Ulla Pyysalo is another aide that is still working at parliament after her name appeared on a Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV) membership list. SKV is a neo-Nazi association.
Exactly a year ago Anders Breivik carried out his mass killings, which ended up causing the death of 77 innocent victims. Have we learned anything from that tragic Saturday that shook the Nordic region and changed it permanently?
In order to answer that question, we’d have to travel back in time to see how things were prior to that day.
In Finland, the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) had just won a historic election victory that enabled the party to increase the number of its MPs to 39 from 5 in 2007. While party leader Timo Soini played down anti-immigration sentiment as one important factor behind the PS’ election victory, others disagreed.
Before Breivik erupted on the stage, anti-immigration parties like the PS were the new political force to contend with in Finland. It seemed that nothing could stop them from adding new election victories in the future. The louder and cruder their anti-immigration and anti-EU stances were, the more supporters they’d rally to their cause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjVD0ztWaKA
In Norway, Denmark and Sweden, far-right populist anti-immigration parties had grown as well and were openly challenging traditional parties.
Everything changed, however, after July 22.
The first blow came in Norway to the Progress Party (FrP), which saw its support in the September municipal election plummet by 6.1 percentage points to 11.5%. In the same month, another anti-immigration party, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), suffered an election setback.
Since 2001, the Islamophobic DPP had supported minority right-wing government in exchange for tighter immigration policy.
In many respect, Breivik was a wake-up call that woke up for Finland and the Nordic region to the threat of intolerance and hate speech.
A recent supreme court ruling against Jussi Hall-aho is a case in point. The PS MP was not only fined for defaming a religion but for inciting ethnic hatred as well. The ruling wasn’t only a big blow to the PS but to the far-right Suomen Sisu wing of the party. Halla-aho was forced to resign as chairman of the administration committee, which, among other matters, sets immigration policy.
The presidential election was another important example of how Finland is distancing itself after 22/7 from the anti-immigration and populist rhetoric of parties like the PS.
Two conservative anti-EU candidates, Timo Soini of the PS and Paavo Väyrynen of the Center Party, lost to Green Party hopeful Pekka Haavisto in the first round of voting. Haavisto is openly gay and pro-EU.
The next test for the PS will come in the October municipal elections. If polls are anything to go by, the party will suffer another election setback.
In light of the above, can we claim that Breivik had had a direct impact on the popularity of the PS and other parties in the Nordic region that are anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam?
Your answer to that questions will probably reveal more than anything else your political views on immigration, Islam and cultural diversity.
But if we ask Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Norway had become after July 22 “more tolerant, [and] more careful not to judge people” by ethnic origin.
Even if Stoltenberg has shown leadership on how a wounded society should react to intolerance, it’s still unclear what impact Breivik will have on our societies. We are still healing from the wound and can matters return back to “normal” in Norway after Breivik?
If we set aside politics and try to understand the impact Breivik had on the region, one matter is certain: We are outraged by what happened but dread even more the possibility that it could happen again.
Competing for the anti-immigration thunder and rhetoric of parties like the PS, DPP, FrP and Sweden Democrats are far-right groups like the Finnish Defense League, which are copy-and-paste clones of the English Defense League.
Breivk scared the wits out of some of us and proved that anti-immigration and Counter-Jihad rhetoric can convert itself into a monster that has the ability to wreak terror and change our societies for good.
That I believe is the real message and threat of 22/7.
It is ironic that those right-wing populist and far-right parties that have gone out of their way to warn us about the threat of multiculturalism and religions like Islam have become the threat and Trojan Horses in our societies. In one horrific blow, Anders Behring Breivik did not only strike at Norway’s liberal democracy, but tore a hole in the argument of the anti-immigrant populists and fanatics.
In the Nordic region, living in a post-22/7 Europe and Nordic region means a serious loss of public face for those groups that have been the breeding ground for hatred towards immigrants and minorities. We know as well that Islamists are not the only ones who commit acts of terrorism, as the Guardian of London pointed out.
When these groups warn us today of the “threat of multiculturalism” and how it is acceptable to treat minorities with contempt, a killer called Anders Behring Breivik will haunt us in the back of our minds.
Every time these individuals and groups spread their usual rhetoric of hatred, we will stop to think and see Breivik’s eerie arguments and logic that drove him to become a mass killer.
When people go to the polls the next time in this part of Europe, some will see gruesome images of Breivik shooting down young members of the Labor Party. People will think twice whether to cast their vote for the Progress Party of Norway, Finland’s PS, Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats.
They will ask if supporting a party that bases its popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric is feeding future homegrown terrorism.
Possibly what happened on 22/7 will be a wake-up call for these parties to think about the impact their provocative claims not only have on immigrants but on deranged people like Breivik.
This week we heard Anders Breivik’s closing statements in his defense for killing 77 innocent victims. In his final tirade of how multiculturalism is responsible for fuelling the Islamization of Europe, the mass killer showed no remorse.
“The attacks on July 22 were preventive attacks to defend the indigenous Norwegian people,” he said. “I therefore demand to be acquitted.”
In a recent column, Perussuomalaiset party MP Olli Immonen writes at the same time as the Breivik trial is ongoing: “…it is clear that current developments [concerning Islamization] will lead to a situation where our Western way of life in Finland and elsewhere in Europe will be threatened. The confrontation between Islamic and Western culture is one of the megatrends of this century.”
Shivers went up my spine when I read both quotes. While they convey the same message, there is a difference: Breivik went on a killing rampage while Immonen didn’t.
The Norwegian mass killer uses Islamization to justify what he did; Immonen uses the same arguments but to attract media attention and, crucial to his political career, future votes. One is being tried in a courtroom for mass murder while the other is in parliament spreading Breivik’s Counter-Jihadist views.
In many respects, the debate revolving around whether Breivik is insane or not when he carried out the killings speaks volumes about how we want to continue seeing ourselves as a people and society irrespective of 22/7.
The question is an exceptionally tough one: Are Breivik’s thoughts “sane” but what he did “insane?” In other words, is it ok to spread hatred, racism and prejudice of other groups as long as you don’t take the law in your hands and start killing people?
If Breivik were Immonen and Immonen, Breivik, the verdict would be clear: Breivik would be “sane” and Immonen “insane.”
In light of what happened, we should ask some serious questions. One of these is what kind of society do we want to live in. Is it one where we consider racism “sane” but becomes “insane” if you are a racist that murders other people? Or one where all forms of racism and prejudice by anyone or any group are unacceptable?
Shouldn’t both cases, the sane and the insane racist, be equally condemned by society?
