No Racism in Finnish People’s Name

Today, 30 January 2016, Finnish people gathered in Helsinki’s City center, holding the motto “No racism in my name!” Mostly women were there. Why so? And why is the slogan misleading.

There has been a controversial movement over here, in Suomi, of the right wing extremist group “Soldiers of Odin” (a name of either poor polytheistic revivalism or of rich Hollywoodish influence). They are about 500 men patrolling the streets of Finland for its safety, so they say and so they look, with their gym intensive schooling.
Their most popular demand is to close down the borders to protect “our women”! But not all women. The ones who are in favor of migrant inclusion, they deserve to be raped to learn a lesson. At least that’s the word on the street (you will not read such in the interviews their anonymous leader gives away).1
Finnish women (also men) do often go abroad and they do have a great desire to meet other, maybe, more passionate men (and women), from southern climates. “The illusion of the darker skinned Mr. Right, stealing away the blonde haired ones, might be troubling the locals, who often need coma amounts of alcohol or of snus to express such anxiety openly (or to express affection). But it goes both ways, so normally it’s the foreigner who gets tired out and moves straight away to the emotional sunny lands. Along the way, we have the “healthy” consumption, a more diversified gene pool and plenty of single moms!

The intolerance and blame throwing of the left wing of Finland is comparable to the one of the right side. Naming it as “racism” is to over-simplify it and it’s provocative. Even politicians and journalists are digging out here for racism excuses in every corner, not caring at all if it fits reality. The migration topic goes beyond such labelling and it touches many other ones of the social welfare stability of this country.
In times of the current mass migration, Finns are confused and divided about the topic. There has been a group of clowns (literally) who have been marching alongside these unarmed soldiers mocking them. Also here the “lefties” exaggerate greatly on the accounts of police brutality and protection of the “Soldiers”.  They are usually busy tindering on their warmed vehicles.

As Giles Fraser stated, on his latest article about the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, being an ordinary person is no protection against doing great evil. I don’t expect any harm from the “Soldiers” but from the ones (right or left wing) who blindly follows orders without questioning them. Education, as much infatuated among anarchists, is key to prevent violence and other alike irrational behaviour. And coincidentally, on the same day as today, following the protest, the Finnish anarchists are giving a lecture about the anarchist movements in Finland: most recommendable.
No racism in in our name, okay, I agree, but within today’s context I’d rephrase it to: “No bigotry in Finnish People’s name!”

All photos by Pedro Aibéo

  1. See “‘Right wing extremists’? Inside Finland’s Soldiers of Odin street patrol.”