Finland has been in the European political spotlight in the past two days. Firstly because their former Prime Minister Mr Alexander Stubb is an official candidate to become the EU’s next President and secondly because of a scandal involving a school and one of the nationalist politicians who is part of the rightwing populist party formerly known as the True Finns (currently renamed to the Finns Party).
Just as in other Scandinavian nations (Sweden, Denmark and Norway), Finland as well has seen a rise of populist, nationalist parties in recent years. One of their prominent figures is MP Ms Laura Huhtasaari, who couldn’t look more Finnish if you tried.
Over the weekend, Ms Huhtasaari said she was astonished when someone sent her a poster of a school project which has been done in a class on the topic of immigration.
”Several students have contacted me and said that teachers at the school engage in hate speech and incite and encourage hatred towards democratically-elected politicians. This is happening at primary and upper secondary schools.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="fi" dir="ltr">Useat opiskelijat ovat ottaneet minuun yhteyttä ja kertoneet, kuinka koulujen opettajat vihapuhuvat ja lietsovat ja kannustavat vihaan demokraattisesti valittuja poliitikkoja kohtaan. Tätä tapahtuu peruskoulussa ja lukiossa. Kyseinen kuva on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Tampereelta?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Tampereelta</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sammon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Sammon</a> koulusta? <a href="https://t.co/Ni7fK1UB4X">pic.twitter.com/Ni7fK1UB4X</a></p>— Laura Huhtasaari (@LauraHuhtasaari) <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraHuhtasaari/status/1046449736595714048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The Finns Party MP showed a photo of the pupils' poster, which shows the names of the students involved in the project. The poster itself appears to tackle the theme of immigration into Finland and is headlined, ”Finland or Death?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“Towards Finland, or towards death” Tampere 9th graders take swipe at Finns Party politicians <a href="https://t.co/MLFMhYzpiF">https://t.co/MLFMhYzpiF</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsNowFinland?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NewsNowFinland</a></p>— Cai Weaver (@caijamin) <a href="https://twitter.com/caijamin/status/1046695559300608000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Under the ”Finland” (on the left) headline are photos of President Sauli Niinistö and Greens MP Pekka Haavisto, while the images of Huhtasaari and her party leader Jussi Halla-aho appear under the ”Death” (on the right) text.
An image, apparently of a boat full of asylum seekers at sea appears in the middle of the composition.
”We are talking about work that was publicly displayed in the school lobby. The first names are there, all of the names should have been cropped. Naturally the teacher and principal are responsible for what kind of work ends up on the school walls. The responsibility lies with the teacher and the principal, not the students,” the politician added.
The school’s director, Ms Maaret Tervonen has since been swamped with questions from Scandinavian journalists: “They are studying social sciences, so many are very aware of what’s happening in the world”
“It is part of Tampere City’s art programme where pupils are making posters with social or political comments, and there are lots of posters on many different social topics, like the environment, for example.”
“They did their own posters, nobody told them what subjects to do their posters about. They wanted to have an opinion on their own subject.”
Whereas populist and nationalist parties have gotten some 10 to 15% of the votes in Western Europe, over in the north they easily trounced the traditional political parties and got 20%.
The state institutions, however, are still stocked with leftwing employees who seem to counteract what is happening politically. In neighboring Sweden, where one month after the elections no progress has been made on forming a government, many state employees fear for their future now that the rightwing Sweden Democrats got nearly 18% of the vote.
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and just who are these 'children' doing the 'art work', savage immigrants?