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The Finns denial and hypocrisy
by Thanos Kalamidas
2013-11-29 11:49:39
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The first time is accident, might bad luck, the second time there is the chance that it is coincidence but when it happens every few weeks is not an accident and it is definitely not coincidence; it is the True Finns.

The “mistake” the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn did in Greece was that at least just for appearances they didn’t keep a political correct profile. They were – and still are – arrogant to show from the very first moment their true faces accompanied with Nazi salutes, anti-Semitic hysterics and racist outbursts all joined with violence that ended to a murder.

truefinns01_400The True Finns have always been more careful. When the time came to have a national meeting they did it in a boat outside the jurisdiction of any Finnish prosecutor and the Finnish police so they could take off their political correct masks and show their true faces. And their true faces were terrifying and the same time reflecting the reality of the contemporary Finnish society. A society that after decades of isolation can not accept the multicultural world. Cannot accept that they are relics of something evil.

Few weeks ago week the True Finns party councillors in Lieksa – a small city of 12,500 people in the east of Finland -  demanded a new meeting space, a “clean meeting room,” for the party, to avoid using one where a Somali group meets once a month. In any democratic country that would have mean investigation on criminal charges. In Finland it is an independent incident.

Independent incident was the clock in the city-hall with the Nazi insignia, independent incidents were the hundreds of racist comments in social media pages, independent incident was the suggestion for the immigrants and special groups to wear distinctive signs on their cloths, independent incident was the stabbing in a library, independent incidents have been all the racists remarks from Hala-aho in his blog that appear and disappear intentionally long enough to be read but not long enough for the police to do something, independent incidents is obviously a non-ending list for the True Finns.

Actually even Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian extreme right-wing Norwegian mass murderer independently and coincidentally idolize the True Finns and made special references to them in his manifest. I suppose that was  ...independent incident.

That the Finnish people and Finnish police regard all those as independent incidents is not a sign of naivety but a sign of serious denial with dangerous consequences. And when the police and the media start recognizing that there is a racist problem and that, incidents have escalated then the situation in the streets is bad, really bad.

The True Finns is a fascist, racist, xenophobic party which unfortunately reflects the new reality in Finland. The fact that over 19% of the electoral body voted for them in the last elections of 2011 and that this minute they hold 1,195 of the 9,674 Finnish municipalities have a representative even in the European Parliament shows how much Finland is in denial of the problem. And their power keeps increasing constantly reflecting new Finland.

The best prove of the Finnish denial with the True Finns is their name. Two years ago the True Finns in really aggressive announcement, blaming foreign media, they demanded everybody to call them the Finns Party instead of the True Finns. Awkwardly their name is Perussuomalaiset, or Sannfinländarna in Swedish, the second language spoken in Finland, and in both cases it clearly means “true”, “genuine or “pure.” The reason they wanted their name changed ONLY when it was written in any other language or non-Finnish media, was that thanks to some genuine democratic publications (including Ovi magazine) the prejudice and discriminating name started attracting the attention of the European authorities.

And one “demand” from the True Finns was enough for Finnish media and communications to obey! Here we don’t only have denial but also hypocrisy. Because the name hasn’t changed in Finnish or Swedish. The True Finns feel confident inside Finland. After all one every five Finns have voted for them and surveys show that this number is increasing. And they follow Finnish media, they are judges, policemen, civil servants, mayors, army officers; they are the new Finland.

Hypocritically one in five Finns says that they vote for a patriotic party knowing that they support a racist, xenophobic, discriminative party. A party that wants – occasionally demands - Somali/foreigners/gay/black/yellow/unionists/leftish/liberals/multiculturism-free premises. An independent incident that becomes identity.


         
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Emanuel Paparella2013-11-29 12:58:28
Indeed, to paraphrase Edmund Burke those who don't know or ignore their history are doomed to repeat it, to which Marx added: and the second time as a farce. That's what we are seeing in Finland and unfortunately not only in Finland.


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