Finns

The Finest Art of Finnish Social Engineering: A Heterosexual (True) Finn Envisioning the Society of Tomorrow?

Not so long ago, the True Finns (PS/ Perussuomalaiset/ Sannfinländarna) has decided to change its English name and be titled (only) the Finns (see my previous blog entry discussing the matter, here). However, it appears that despite their name change, the the PS is keeping true to its previous radical right populist (RRP) line of discourse that so often has bordered with outright instigation to hate (be it against the Swedish-speaking Finns, the Somali community in Finland, or the LGBTQI–community in Finland).

The most recent example is constituted by the remarks of Teuvo Hakkarainen, the PS elected MP. He appears to have remained truthful to his line of reasoning (on this, please see my previous blog entry, here). When told he has a certain amount of male admirers that happen to be homosexuals, Teuvo Hakkarainen replied to the newspaper Ilta Sanomat that he would be more interested in having a female following. On the topic, he then presented his ideas about a ‘model society’ (in Finnish, tässä; in Swedish, här). According to him, the autonomous Åland/Ahvenanmaa islands (seen as the epitome of what the Swedish–speaking Finnish community in Finland stands for) are the perfect place where to ‘put’ all ‘homosexuals’, ‘lesbians’ and ‘Somalis’ to live side by side and see what kind of ‘model society’ takes shape from that. This way, the Swedish People’s Party (SFP/ Svenska folkpartiet i Finland/ Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue/ RKP) could no longer accuse the PS of not taking into consideration the needs of the minorities in Finland. He then concluded that on Åland/ Ahvenanmaa the ‘Somalis’ would finally be free to ‘shout from the minarets’ whatever they see fit. The ‘model society’ could be then replicated on the mainland.

Despite the uncanny resemblance of such a suggestion to the anti-Semitic Madagascar plan of the Nazis (a Wikipedia entry on this matter – in English, here; in Finnish, tässä; in Swedish, här), the Finnish MP Teuvo Hakkarainen does not seem troubled with that. Instead, he appears to have taken on himself this laborious task of social engineering. It does not take long to understand what would such an undertake entail. Finland as it is nowadays has failed the standards of truthfulness established by the PS. In order to correct that, Åland/Ahvenanmaa appears to be safely far and yet soundly Finnish to have all those who fail off the normative spectrum of Finnishness removed from the native mainland soil and sent there. What would this mean? If the Swedish–speaking Finns native of Åland/ Ahvenanmaa and from the rest of Finland, together with the deported Somali community and all those identifying themselves as LGBTQI previously living on the mainland would engage in crafting that ‘model society’ envisioned by the PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, one can only wonder what would happen in the meantime on the Finnish mainland thus vacated? Will a purely and truly Finnish heterosexual society blossom on the Finnish mainland, a place where only Finnish men will marry Finnish women and born Finnish babies that would finally balance the pressing demographic problems Finland has to deal with, where finally there will be no calls for prayer from the minarets, where there will be no minority one could think of? And if the SFP/ RKP would probably be busying itself with the ‘model society’ taking shape on Åland/Ahvenanmaa, what would the other parliamentary Finnish parties do then? Would the Left Alliance (Vas/ Vasemmistoliitto/ Vänsterförbundet) or even the Greens (Vihr/ Vihreä liitto/ Gröna förbundet) – only those who are (true) pure heterosexual Finnish-speaking Finns, that is – be participating in engineering this purely Finnish heterosexual society, or would this task be exclusively assumed by the party that IS the Finns?

Unfortunately, Pirkko Ruohonen–Lerner the chair of the PS parliamentary group did not allow for a full development of the PS MP Teuvo Hakkarainen’s ideas and label them as ‘vitsailua‘, or joke (in Finnish, tässä). On who this joke is, however, it has not yet been disclosed. Is it a joke on the Swedish-speaking Finns who see themselves thrown out of the national construct called Finland, or is it on the Somali community whose members have come to Finland with the hope of escaping death and oppression only to be welcomed with a discriminatory superiority of the native Finns, or is it a joke on the LGBTQI–community that is refused membership in this construction of (true) Finnishness? Or is this joke on those who were not yet named and who would, one way or another, end up as unaware pawns in the social engineering plan of a rightfully elected parliamentary representative into the Finnish Eduskunta/ Riksdag?

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Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 Research No Comments

Who Are Those Brave Men Who Support the (True) Finns?

In another move that has left very little room for interpretation with regard to the party’s intentions on the Finnish political stage – and should have signaled that some time for reflection is needed in the headquarters of the main political parties – the radical right populist True Finns (PS/ Perussuomalaiset/ Sannfinländarna) has chosen to drop the ‘true’ particle in their name’s English version and title themselves simply and perplexingly: The Finns (in Swedish, här). Besides the argument that most foreign media has been misusing their name, there is a deeper lying explanation and has to do less with the foreign media, than with the PS’ captive electorate: the Finns (the party) thereby appeal to those that have cast their vote for them that they the Finns (the voters) are to see themselves as one with all the Finns (the people). In other words, through a simple name change, the PS has anchored itself ever more comfortably in the populist discursive field, thus erasing the difference between a small community within the Finnish society and the society as a whole, while proclaiming its representativeness for the whole Finnish society.

Such claims of homogeneity and representativeness have nevertheless determined the media to scrutinize into the PS’ voter profile. Taloustutkimus hurried with a survey that was aimed to offer a better picture of the PS supporters. The survey was first published in Yhteiskuntapolitiikka (in Finnish, tässä) and later on was popularized further by among others Helsingin Sanomat, the Finnish daily with the widest circulation in the country (a more recent article in Finnish, tässä; in English, here). The study revealed that the PS has a serious support base among the workers and lower middle class small entrepreneurs. Noteworthy, the PS supporters are spread among all income categories. They also appear to share an affinity with the voters of governing conservatives, the National Coalition Party (Kok/ Kansallinen Kokoomus/ Samlingspartiet), in terms of conservative values. Nonetheless, the educational profile of the PS supporters is below the Finnish average, but this however does not necessarily mean that the party does not have its voters among the student population in Finnish universities. In addition to that, the finding that two thirds of the PS supporters are recruited among men was flatly reported as a stereotype with ‘some factual basis’ (a wording present in the English version of the Helsingin Sanomat article, see link above).

The media hype thus created around the PS voters unfortunately lost focus on certain important aspects. For instance to which extent does the fact that the party has a serious gender imbalance in terms of its electoral support reflect into the media’s labeling of the PS as a ‘party encompassing all classes of people’ (as the aforementioned English version of the Helsingin Sanomat article claims)? Is this representative for all Finnish parties, or is it rather a defining aspect of the radical populist parties that in the specialist literature are even called ‘men’s parties’ (Männerparteien)? And if the previous holds true, how much do the PS converge with the Finnish political mainstream and to which extent is the party actually getting closer to the other such radical right populist parties across Europe?

Even more so, is it to be understood that the unit of comparison in the Finnish context for a party to be part of the mainstream is to be voted by (Finnish) men? Are the voting patterns of Finnish women less representative and thereby there is no need to investigate the reasons of the gender imbalance among the PS supporters? Looking closer at the voter base of the PS, to which extent their support reflects a ‘perceived’ uncertainty (in this context, my previous blog entry discussing the situation of a ‘perceived precariousness’ becomes perhaps more anchored into reality)? In the end, one may wonder to which extent the media’s unabated reporting on the PS as part of the political mainstream does actually contribute to the party’s normalization?

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Monday, September 12th, 2011 Research No Comments

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