Posts Tagged: nationalism

When countries become nationalism addicts and junkies

Xenophobia tends to pile up. Like blacks in the United States, Finland’s “black” problem is Russia, and from the 1990s, Muslims. In the 1980s, when I lived permanently in Finland, and about 12,000 foreign nationals were living in the country, the racist undercurrent that flowed like a mighty river was ever-present. It reminded you whenever

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Piia Kattelus-Kilpeläinen: Put another fascist feather in my PS cap

Piia Kattelus-Kilpeläinen is the latest example of the bedfellows of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. The councilperson from Seinäjoki, where she works as a police officer, offers an odd New Year’s greeting, all with a fascist Lapua Movement, Lapua like, (1928-1932) pullover, an ax, and a chain. A publicity stunt of a media-hungry person craving for

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Adam Al-Sawad: Missä menee sivistysvaltion raja?

Nationalististen tahojen kerätessä suosiota Suomessa, kohtaa Suomen poliittinen kenttä yhä useammin skandaaleja perussuomalaisten poliitikkojen toimesta. Yhdessä skandaalissa kannatetaan “eliminointia” ja tuhopolttoja (Turtiainen, 2015) tai levitetään räikeästi väärää tietoa rasistisin tarkoitusperin (Purra, 2020), toisessa vitsaillaan murhattujen tummaihoisten kustannuksella (Turtiainen, 2020) tai väitetään vielä elossa olevien tekevän kouluista eläintarhoja (Halla-Aho, 2007). Puolueen sisältä paljastuu tasaisin väliajoin kytköksiä

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Finland’s speaker of parliament stokes the white Christian flames of “us” and “them”

Conservative National Coalition Party speaker of parliament, Paula Risikko, was quoted as saying in Senäjoki-based daily Ilkka that she is concerned about the role of Christians in Finland. “Was it easier before to be religious,” she was quoted as asking in Keskisuomalainen. “For example, it’s not as easy today to bring one’s religious views at

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Timo Soini’s fall from grace and the legacy of planting the political seeds of bigotry and racism in Finland

One lesson we could learn from former Perussuomalaiset (PS)* chairman Timo Soini is that the right balance between flattery and speaking in code will get you everywhere, well, almost everywhere. You can win big elections like in 2011 and ride, albeit momentarily, the crest of the popularity wave until you hit the wall in disgrace with your fingers badly burned. 

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Finland’s government to tighten again immigration and asylum policy

The desperation New Alternative* or Blue Reform, the faction that split from the Perussuomalaiset (PS) to keep their jobs as ministers, must be huge. Minister for European Affairs, Culture and Sports Sampo Terho announced Thursday that the government plans to tighten immigration and asylum policy laws in the face of the Turku attack, according to YLE News. 

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Che’s corner: Don’t turn into a racist!

There is a fine line that separates patriotism from racism. Patriotism is love and devotion to one’s country. A sense of patriotism is any affiliation to the homeland and to work for its best interests of its people. Every person cares for his home and does everything possible to live and enjoy a decent life with his family.

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Brexit: Stoke the fires of natonalism and you’ll get burned

After the United Kingdom decided Thursday to exit from the European Union, the question remains: why? In many respects, the answer to that question is a similar one that you hear in some European countries why such-and-such country has seen the political rise of populist anti-immigration party. Finland is a good example of the latter. The

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YLE poll: Support for PS of Finland takes another dip to 9.8%

A poll commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) revealed more pain for the nationalist populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which saw its support plummet below 10% to 9.8%. The party that gained the most in the poll were the Social Democrats, which saw their support rise by 2.4 percentage points to 20.7%.

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Finland election result: No evil lasts 100 years

No hay mal que dure 100 años. The saying in Spanish means that since a human doesn’t live for 100 years, his or her evil cannot last that long. One day it will end when the person dies.  Even if the PS is not a human per se, the damage it has inflicted on Finland

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Finnish NCP youth league gives thumbs down to cultural diversity

Remember the proposals that the Youth League of the National Coalition Party (NCP) made last year concerning the type of society they’d like Finland to be in the future? Some of the many proposals that raised eyebrows and created quite a media storm back then included plans to scrap the Ombudsman for Minorities as well

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Too many Finnish politicians and parties are ignorant of their country’s migrant and refugee history

-titta, en finne igen i fyllan! -satans finjävlar! -look, (a) drunken Finn! -damn Finnish devils! The infamous saying, en finne igen, yet another Finn, can be found in Urban Dictionary. The statement was used by Swedes to claim that Finns are “violent, primitive savages” because some have issues with learning Swedish and alcohol. After World

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Why do we consider Timo Soini to be “a good cop” if he brought all these “bad cops” to power?

Doesn’t Perussuomalaiset (PS) leader Timo Soini bear responsibility for giving people like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Teuvo Hakkarainen, Olli Immonen and a very long list of others a platform to spread their hatred and intolerance?  Why does the media let Soini get off the hook so easily? Is Soini the culprit for anti-immigration sentiment and

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Cultural and ethnic diversity are who we are

When you do everything possible to undermine diversity you end up letting out the genie out of the bottle.         If we look at the political climate in Finland today with the rise of an anti-EU, anti-immigration and especially anti-Islam party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS) in 2011, it’s clear that the genie

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Why we call the Finns Party the Perussuomalaiset

Some may wonder why we don’t call on Migrant Tales the Perussuomalaiset (PS) by their official English name, the Finns Party. When I speak to people in English and mention the PS, they answer back by naming it the Perussuomalaiset.   There was a lively discussion on Migrant Tales in 2010 on whether the correct translation

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Statement by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner: “Europe must combat racist extremism and uphold human rights”

Migrant Tales comment: This statement by the  the Council of Europe’s Human Rights commissioner, Nils Muižnieks, is a good example of  how racist anti-immigration groups are gaining more power in Europe. In Finland we saw the spectacular rise of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party in 2011. Finland’s anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-Islam voice got stronger in parliament.  Matters

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BBC’s HARDtalk: Soini defends decision to not sack Halla-aho

Perussuomalaiset (PS) chairman, Timo Soini, said on BBC’s HARDTalk that the five-year ordeal that lead to a Supreme Court ruling against PS MP Jussi Halla-aho for inciting ethnic hatred was enough punishment, according to YLE. Soini had promised previously to sack any member of the party if they were sentenced by a court for hate speech. 

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Abagond: What this blog has taught me about white people

Comment: Abagond is a very successful blog that debates issues like racism in the United States. We at Migrant Tales like to ask serious question about such a social ill as well. What about if we asked that same question as Abagond did in the headline?  For me personally, Migrant Tales has taught me that

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Our Finnish national identity in the new century

Glancing through a pile of documents and certificates my late grandfather (1892-1979) had is like entering a time machine. Two certificates catch my attention: a Finnish-language test in 1925 and another one when he changed his surname from Hantwargh to Harvo. Both documents offer us a glimpse of how a social construct like Finnish national identity was forged in the last century.

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The role of nationalist populism in Finland

Like a new chapter of history book, each decade brings out its unique personality for the foreign correspondent. In the 1980s it was Helsinki’s special relationship with Moscow and in the 1990s the country’s full political and economic integration with Western Europe. The first decade of the present century was a lull where the country reaped the fruits of the right decisions made in the previous two decades. What kind of a child will the 2010s be?

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A-Talk: What is wrong with the Social Democrats?

At least for me, the debate on immigration on A-Talk on Thursday was a disappointment. The only sensible persons on the show were Anni Sinnemäki of the Greens and Jyrki Katainen of Kokoomus. The two opposition leaders, Jutta Urpilainen of the Social Democrats (SDP) and Timo Soini of the True Finns were a disappointment filling the airways with hollow catchwords that reeked of populism, protectionism and heavy doses of obnoxious nationalism.

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