Finns are nice people in general. Some are patient and like to give kooks an opportunity. They do so because they mistrust the establishment or want to confirm that their trust of the establishment is justified.
Let’s be sincere. If the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* ever got over 50% of the vote they would turn this country back to the murky days of the 1930s. There would be no press freedom only a charismatic leader that would goose step us to a country that would look like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
But thanks to the fact that the PS’ is an amateurish party that is trying unsuccessfully to normalize racism, ultranationalism with the help of ignorance, becoming the biggest party of Finland with over 50% of the votes is a political pipe-dream.
One of the PS’ happy-go-lucky MPs, Teuvo Hakkarainen, who has made many racist comments in the past, claimed recently that international agreements and the constitution hinder the PS from carrying out its policies.
What kind of policies does he mean? He probably doesn’t know but the catchphrase sounds right to incite ultranationalist sentiment.
Yes, right, Hakkarainen is the MP who sent to a woman last year a picture of his phallus by SMS.
You may rightly ask why we are putting up with MPs like Hakkarainen and a party that has little respect for our Nordic values and constitution. Why would some Finns vote for a late PS MP like Tony Halme, who has called former President Tarja Halonen a lesbian and showed his racist machismo in the following quote below?
“I promise here and now to buy gas for each Lada, if the communist traitors to the fatherland drive away forever straight to hell. The only thing that helps is to stick a Balalaika up their asshole and kick them to the border.”
PS MP Kaj Turunen, who used to sell ice cream in Savonlinna before he was elected to parliament in 2011, is another PS lawmaker that doesn’t understand our laws.
Yes, he’s the politician who filed charges in 2014 against Social Democrat chairman Antti Rinne in 2014 for ethnic agitation. Somehow Turunen believes that the PS is an ethnic group, which it isn’t.
After watching Thursday’s A-studio Turunen was at it again with the following tweet: “YLE attacks the PS and the party will attack YLE.”
Mikkeli-based daily Länsi-Savo approached Turunen and asked him about that eerie tweet that is common in countries ruled by dictatorships.
In the usual style of the PS, Turunen gave a funny excuse and said he didn’t mean that the PS would attack YLE but that the ratings would.
Showing more ignorance and his distaste of press freedom, Turunen admitted that he was unhappy with the media for prying into the PS’ internal affairs. He defends what he said by claiming that the two PS party members on A-studio, MP Sampo Terho and Matti Putkonen, were also tired of the media mixing in the party’s internal affairs.
Sorry Turunen but it’s the media’s job to get to the bottom of the Sebastian Tynkkynen row. It’s not your job to tell the media what to cover. They can cover any story for as long as they please because that’s their constitutional right.
Read full story here.
Certainly if a party exposes its amateurish behavior and ignorance of our constitutional rights should be seen as a threat to the country. Why should we support that kind of ignorance and place our values and laws in harm’s way by a party that has little respect for our most basic rights?
The latest polls by Helsingin Sanomat and YLE reveal that voters have got enough of the PS and that the nationalist populist party is flirting with the single-digit percentage political league.
I hope that the party’s return to those depths will be swift for the sake of democracy and the future of Finland.
The PS is not an example of democracy but a rude reminder that racism, ultranationalism and fascism are still alive and kicking in Finland.
The actions of the party continually confirm the latter.
*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.