Tag: neo-fascist parties

Nazi salutes and the growth of far-right ideology in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In two weeks, two Perussuomalaiset (PS) politicians got their fingers burned badly after one made a Nazi salute with a Hitler mask while another took a picture of another one who made the same salute in parliament. One of the reasons why some Finns can do this in public is because they have a blind spot for the Holocaust and the atrocities committed by the Nazis in World War 2.

Turku University historian Markku Jokisipilä agrees. He was quoted as saying on Iltalehti that some people in Finland don’t see Nazism the same way as elsewhere in Europe because they don’t grasp its connection to the Holocaust.

It’s been quite a week for the PS but what can you expect if too many of its members have a fascination with Nazi Germany.

In the first case, Kangasala councilman Jani Viinikainen, resigned from the PS after it became clear that it was him wearing a Hitler mask and making a Nazi salute below.

Viinikainen, a far-right politician who has a close ideological ties with Hirvisaari, first denied he was in the picture. He tried to play down his role by stating that the Nazi salute he made wasn’t at a 45° angle and done with his left arm.

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Former PS councilman Jani Viinikainen on the right with Seppo Lehto on the far left.

Finland still has a problem with Nazism because it has never debated openly its role with Hitler’s Germany during the Continuation War (1941-44). Debating it would be opening a can of worms that would put into serious question the credibility of some of our most important historic leaders like Marshal Carl Mannerheim.

The excuse, which impairs our understanding and condemnation of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in World War 2, is our hatred of the former Soviet Union and the Russians.

The same reasoning we used to go to bed with Nazi Germany works to promote far-right ideology today in Finland. Since we loathe Muslims, the new enemy, it’s fine to join and vote for a right-wing populist party like the PS and make Nazi salutes.

This ideological juggernaut that conditions our world view usually gets the last say and permits some to be tolerant of intolerance. It has given birth to far-right politicians like Hirvisaari, Jussi Halla-aho, Juho Eerola, Olli Immonen and many others. How do you explain a party like the PS that rose from relative obscurity to the country’s third-largest in parliament in 2011?

You can belong to a legally registered party in Finland and still wear a brown shirt under your suit. It’s not shameful and permits you to come to terms with “jokes” like the one below by Lehto.

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Seppo Lehto, who was sentenced to a 2.5-year prison sentence for ethnic agitation, gave a Nazi salute in parliament on Friday. He was PS MP James Hirvisaari guest.

Analysis: Is sacking MP Hirvisaari the beginning of the end for the PS?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the interesting questions that the sacking of MP James Hirvisaari raises is if it is the first visible crack that will force the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party to implode, eventually. Is Timo Soini’s PS a ticking time bomb and Hirvisaari a time counter indicating that we’ve got ten seconds to seek cover before the bomb explodes?  

Even if it is still too early to say, the Hirvisaari episode is an indication of the festering ideological sickness that the party suffers.

Miska Rantanen of Helsingin Sanomat believes that while its still to early to say if the party will suffer the same fate as the Rural Party in the 1970s, the PS looks like a tired team of players that are fouling out.

The Rural Party, which evolved into the PS in the 1990s, won the 1970 election with 17 seats from one in the previous election. The party, however, imploded due to internal bickering and differences.

Since intolerance, xenophobia and prejudice exist thanks to hot air comprising of inflated exaggerations and gross generalizations, anti-immigration politicians like Hirvisaari need to continually raise the bar to keep their followers entertained. Like dictators, they eventually lose touch with reality and fall from political grace.

While politicians like Soini are trying to wash their hands of Hirvisaari, we shouldn’t forget that it was he who helped Hirvisaari to get elected. Not only did Soini help Hirvisaari he left the PS door ajar for other far-right nationalists and racists.

Like Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja wrote, Soini made a pack with the devil when he brought them on board.

 

 

 

 

Will anti-immigration rhetoric boost the PS in the upcoming Finnish elections?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Two important questions arise in light of the upcoming Euro MP and parliamentary elections in Finland in 2014 and 2015, respectively:  How many parties will use immigration as an election issue, and will the next two elections reveal the ugly face of intolerance of other political parties in Finland?

If we look at the United Kingdom, there are clear signs that the Conservatives are using the anti-immigration message to boost their standing in the polls.

If the Tories have been able to gain on Labor and Ukip thanks to their anti-immigration message, will political parties jump on the same bandwagon as elections near?

We saw clearly how intolerance made its way into Finnish politics especially since 2008. As the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) were becoming a political sensation, the reaction of other parties was shameful to say the least. Instead of challenging the PS’ anti-EU and anti-immigration message, they approved it with their silence and patronizing.

We all remember SDP chairwoman Jutta Urplilainen’s infamous maassa maan tavalla (in Rome do as the Romans do) statement and National Coalition Party head Jyrki Katainen’s affirmation,  “debating immigrant issues didn’t make you a racist.”

Even today, Urpilainen’s statement is still used with gusto by some Finns. Some teachers use it to justify their ignorance and their own discriminatory behavior against other ethnic groups.

Politicians and the media must learn to lead and not cave in to pernicious ideologies that promote intolerance. We must look further than 2014 and 2015 if we want to keep Finland a successful society based on social equality for all.

PS chairman Timo Soini has claimed that the April 2011 historic election victory was mainly due to anti-EU and to a lesser degree on anti-immigration sentiment. The affirmation, in my opinion, is a good example of how racism is defended and protected in Finland.

Our intolerance is like having a gun hidden under our pillow. We can use it whenever we need to but we won’t tell anyone that we have such a firearm hidden in our bed.

There are already some clear signs that the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party is investing in the anti-immigration campaign message to lure voters. Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo of the PS “demanded” right after she was elected as the party’s new secretary that Finland should tighten immigration policy.

If the anti-immigration message picks up in the next two years, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, the biggest loser will be Finland.

Our society will not only lose demographically, but economically, socially and politically as well. Anti-immigration means being anti-foreign. Being anti-foreign in a globalized world is like shooting oneself in the leg and curing your wound with populist mumbo jumbo incantations.

It is like putting a noose around our necks as a society.

Social inclusion is vital to a well-functioning society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Why are we so passionate at Migrant Tales about immigrant and minority rights? Because such groups are effective yardsticks that reveal the state of civil rights and democracy. The more social inclusion we succeed in promoting, the healthier our society is. 

There are clear examples in some recent elections in Europe that blaming immigrants and minorities for a country’s problems has become the trend.

We have even seen the rise of political parties that are keen on promoting social exclusion. Naturally they will not tell you this outright but may resemble the neo-Nazi Golden Eagle of Greece, which won 7% of the vote on Sunday.

This video clip of the party’s leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, is a good example of what a financial meltdown can bring. And it’s not at all pretty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4AXJx3IzdY

In a very common style, Michaloliakos pointed his guns at Greece’s undocmunented immigrants: “Out of my country, out of my home! How will we do it? Use your imagination.”

Do we have far-right groups in Finland? What does it say about the state of our society if a right-wing populist party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) sees its support rise fivefold in last year’s election?

One thing that is clear about the PS is that it is anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam.

The way of thinking in anti-immigration parties, “this is our country so leave if you don’t like it,” is one of the reasons why integration isn’t working as effectively as it should.

One of the worst lies told about immigrants is that they do not want to adapt.

A Somali I met on Monday while interviewing the father of Abdisalam Mohamed Abdulahi revealed what we know but don’t want to admit. He speaks Finnish like a native. He’s lived in this country two thirds of his life.

“The worst thing in Finland is that if you have a different religion, culture and language, you are left on the  fringes of society,” he said. “No matter how much you try to integrate you are always left outside.”

Spreading an urban myth like “immigrants don’t want to integrate” is a very effective way to exclude whole groups and build high walls around them.

Why do we do this?

To control resources like wealth and jobs by excluding other groups.

It is no myth that excluding others and promoting social inequality is the costliest approach in social and financial terms.

What PS MP aide Helena Eronen wrote about armbands for foreigners in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri 

Every month we’ve seen some sort of scandal coming from the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party. In April, which is only eleven days old, we already got another one by an aide who suggested in a blog entry that foreigners should start using armbands to help police distinguish who is an immigrant and who is a Finn. 

Eronen was hired as PS MP James Hirvisaari’s aide in January. Hirvisaari, a hard-core  anti-immigration extremist, was fined in December by a court for hate speech.

The PS MP defended in a  new blog entry on Uusi Suomi Eronen’s writing.

Eronen suggested on her blog entry today that foreigners should start using sleeve badges in order to help the police figure out rapidly who is a foreigner and who is a Finn. Her blog entry was directed at the Ombudsman for Minorities, which accused today the police of ethnic profiling.

Her opinion piece was published around midday and was deleted by Uusi Suomi in the afternoon.

She writes: “If every foreigner were required to use an armband of his/her national background, the police could immediately spot whether that ‘aha, that is a Muslim from Somalia’ or ‘aha. that is a beggar from Romania.’ Muslims could [use sleeve badges] with a half moon…Russians [with] a hammer and sickle, Kampucheans could have field mines, a burger [could be used to distinguish] USAmericans…”

Eronen  appears to like her own suggestion so much that she envisions a ceremony taking place.  “…take for example if a refugee from Kurdistan would get permanent residency [in Finland], his red half moon would be changed for a blue-white half moon when he’d become a Finnish citizen… Think about what an important moment in that Kurd’s life [if he would exchange his red half moon for a blue-white half moon at some ceremony at Immigration Service]. It would enforce integration and would make Finnish and Finnishness an important goal [for every immigrant to attain].”

The parliamentary aide suggests that potential terrorist could wear chips under their skins to monitor their movements.

One of the matters that has raised concern in Finland has been the PS’ ties with neo-Nazi groups like the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta. There has been concern as well of PS MPs like Hirvisaari who belong to extremist associations like Suomen Sisu.

If you visit Eronen’s Facebook page and go to photos, you’ll find one where she is wearing an army-looking cap with a flower emblem. The edelweiss flower was used by a mountain commando division in Hitler’s army.

Argentina’s dirty war: A couple I never met but always knew

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It’s a long story how I ended up conscripted in the Argentinean army during the dirty war (1976-83). Being part of a country that was at war with itself was like taking a one-way stroll  down the ally of hatred with a sack over your head. Even if no sack was placed over your head, your eyes could neither see nor your ears hear what was going down. Terror has a way of numbing your senses.  

Taking into account the rise of racism and xenophobia in Europe and horrific examples of World War 2 and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, it’s clear that we cannot make a pact with the devil by remaining quiet to the threat of right-wing populist and far-right parties that are gaining strength throughout Europe.

One of the reasons why too many white Europeans aren’t too concerned about the situation is because these anti-immigration parties don’t pose a direct threat to them. As we know, these parties have declared indirectly and directly war against immigrants and other minorities.

I am grateful for the years (1977-78) I spent in Argentina. Even if  it changed my life as a young man, I now understand what it is to live under a ruthless dictatorship and why we must defend every day our civil rights.

In many respects populist and far-right parties are very much like those military dictatorships that ruled Latin America in the 1970s. I am certain that all hell would break loose in Europe if these types of parties got the chance to set their policies in motion.

The biggest losers would be our present democracies and civil rights, which are supposed to be inalienable.

How can I make such a claim? Easily. If you exclude and bash one minority by watering down their rights the impact is on the whole of society. Promoting social equality has the opposite effect.

I have adopted a couple out of the over 30,000 victims that disappeared in Argentina during the dirty war. They appeared by accident 33 years ago when I read about their disappearance on September 14, 1977.

Today Jorge Donato Calvo’s and his wife Adriana María Franconetti de Calvo’s story sits quietly on my desk.

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Jorge Donato Calvo and Adriana María Franconetti de Calvo.

According to the Buenos Aires Herald clipping, the couple left their one- and two-year old baby daughters in their home under the care of the children’s paternal grandparents and went to see a movie at the Ritz Cinema, not too far from where I used to live in Buenos Aires.

Their tragic stories was published in gruesome detail years later on a website of the victims of the dirty war of Argentina:

Adriana and Jorge were students of Buenos Aires’ National School. Jorge was a medic and he worked at the Ramos Mejía Hospital. The couple lived in Sarandi, Buenos Aires province.

The couple was kidnapped when they were standing in a line of the Ritz Cinema in the neighborhood of Belgrano in Buenos Aires. They were seen at the ESMA (Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics); Adriana was “transferred” one or two days after.

Adriana’s sister and brother, Anna María and Eduardo, are also missing. Her father Eduardo was kidnapped together with her sister and brother and taken to the  “Club Atlético” detention center where his children were tortured in front of him. His abductors interrogated him about Adriana’s whereabouts. They freed him but he died a short while later of a cardiac arrest.    

*The term dirty war came about when a reporter asked an officer how he’d describe the civil war in Argentina. He said: “It was a dirty war.”

 

YLE in English: Supo looks into possible Finnish connection to Florence shooter

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment:  The tragic killing of two Senegalese men and wounding of three others by a far-right anti-immigration extremist in Florence on Tuesday may have a Finnish connection with Suomen Kansalinen Vastarnta (SKV), a neo-Nazi association, according to YLE in English. 

The mass killings in Norway in July and this week in Florence should be seen as wake up calls of the threat of far-right groups in Europe and how far they plan to go in order to get their hate message across.

In a recent poll by MTV3, presidential hopefuls Timo Soini of the PS, Kokoomus’ Sauli Niinistö and Christian Democrat Sari Essayah believed that the far right do not pose a threat to Finland.  

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The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) is taking an interest in the racist shooting in Florence. The shooter, who killed two African immigrant street traders, belonged to a far-right organisation that also has Finnish members.

Read whole story.

Finland’s ignorance of racism and fascism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the political dramas that Finland is facing today is that it does not know what racism and fascism is. The Finnish media up to the April 17 election not only lost its teeth and forgot its important role in defending our civil rights but helped the right-wing populist Perussuomalaiset (PS) with its complacency.

It’s difficult to say if some journalists preferred not to write critically about PS candidates that belonged to Suomen Sisu because they were ignorant or because the racism of these candidates appealed to them.

While Migrant Tales calls Suomen Sisu a Nazi-spirited association, this was unfortunately the exception not the rule when it comes to the Finnish media.

Expo magazine editor Daniel Poohl said recently that Suomen Sisu ideology is a mirror image of fascist parties in Finland, Germany and Italy during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s.

If the Finnish media has done a shoddy job at reporting the rise of the far-right and populist threat to Finland, politicians haven’t done any better. Instead of trying to show leadership against racism and neo-fascism in Finland, they preferred to remain silent or, worse, assimilate the PS’ anti-immigration message.

Didn’t the politicians of all of Finland’s major and minor parties elect the head of the PS’ Suomen Sisu wing, MP Jussi Halla-aho, to chair the administration committee in charge of setting immigration policy?

It was only after Anders Breivik appeared on the scene in Norway and killed 77 Norwegians in July that some members of the Social Democratic party started to ask question about Halla-aho’s role in the administration committee.

Another tragedy of the media and too many politicians are their treatment of PS head Timo Soini, who tries to portray himself to the public as a good cop of a right-wing populist party that is anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim.

I totally agree with Poohl.  In the ongoing debate on Finland’s political future there is one important matter missing: knowing what racism and fascism is and their threat to our values and society.

Having lived, worked and traveled extensively in Latin America, I know that democracy can be shelved very easily.

Recovering it will be a real bitch.

The snow job of the far right in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The shocking revelations in Germany, whereby 140 people have died since 1990 as a result of far-right violence, is a wake-up call for us in Finland as well.  How is it possible that so many people are killed by a far-right terror cell without anyone raising a question? 

Writes Spiegel Online International: “Now, Germany has been startled from its slumber. Ever since the discovery of an underground far-right terror group which apparently targeted Turkish small businessmen all across Germany for many years, the law enforcement agencies have been asking themselves how they could have overlooked something that is actually impossible to overlook.”

The guardian.co.uk reports: “The German parliament has passed a cross-party resolution expressing ‘deep shame’ that a neo-Nazi terror cell was left unchecked to murder 10 people during 13 years on the run.”

Supo assured Finns in early November that while it takes the far right seriously, it does not consider these groups dangerous, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

What does “dangerous” mean? Should we be concerned?

Any person with some understanding of what has happened this year should be concerned. A party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), which got 19.1% of the votes in April from a tad over 4% in 2007, has received a dubious reputation in only eight months after its election victory. Just over a week after the election, it became pretty clear what some of their MPs thought about racism. Then came other issues concerning democracy, sexism, homosexuals never mind links to neo-Nazi associations like the Suomen Kansalinen Vastarinta (SKV).

Denial is one of the oldest snow jobs in the books: Racists never admit they are racists never mind the far right telling us that they are extremists.  That is why the role of  academics, analysts, writers and journalists who are on the ball are crucial at exposing these groups for what they are.

Some sectors of Finland, especially the police and Supo, have pretty conservative views about Finnish society. For some of them, the PS and groups like Suomen Sisu aren’t an issue because they identify with their ideology.

Even so, we at Migrant Tales see a worrying trend in Finland after April even though we feel that more Finns than ever expected are standing up to this menace posed by racism and nationalism.

By extremists we mean the SKV, Suomen Sisu and “light” versions of the latter like the PS, especially the Nuiva manifesto faction led by Jussi Halla-aho.

Should we be concerned or not in Finland?

I would be.

The PS’ lame stance on neo-Nazism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The resignation of Perussuomalaiset (PS) party aide, Ulla Pyysalo, didn’t come as a surprise. One of the most incredible matters about the Pyysalo case is the silence of the party and how PS MP Juho Eerola played down the Nazigate affair. Has Eerola and the PS made it clear that they will not tolerate neo-Nazi organizations? One wonders. 

Let’s look at the sequence of events.

At first Eerola, who belongs to far-right associations like Suomen Sisu and who has praised Benito Mussolini’s economic system, plays down the whole affair by claiming that Pyysalo joined the neo-Nazi associaiton, Suomen Kansallinen Vastarinta (SKV), when she was a member of the Center Party.

The PS’ Nazigate scandal takes on a new twist on Thursday when Pyysalo decides to “sacrifice” herself by resigning as Eerola’s aide only if she finds a new job, according to YLE. Irrespective of her apparent neo-Nazi sympathies, she plans to remain a card-carrying PS member.

Does the Pyysalo case draw a clear line between neo-Nazi associations the the PS?

Sadly it does not, even Ossi Mäntylahti asks in his Uusi Suomi column if its ok to be a Nazi and a PS member.

The “big far-right fish” are still members of Timo Soini’s party and in parliament. Even though these PS MPs like Eerola may not directly belong to a neo-Nazi association, they do belong in Nazi-spirited ones.

The whole Pyysalo case reinforces as well that the PS is a wild card ideologically that can transform itself, self-destruct or inspire others to far-right causes.

Eerola’s aide is no stranger to the racist and homophobic world, when she published a “joke” in July on Facebook about Green MP Jani Toivola, who is black and gay.