After Utøya: the politics of a monster

The news from Norway is horrific. What sort of monster could do such a thing? Placing a bomb and running away is one (terrible) thing, but is perhaps easier an act to commit than coldly walking around a small island shooting kids dead at close range. Anyone who has visited this blog over the years knows that I have researched terrorism for quite a long time now, but one thing I've always thought about "terrorism studies", if there is such a thing, is it too often focuses on the political ideology of groups and doesn't consider the psychology of individual actors.  We use our difference (most of 'us' being white secular Europeans or North Americans) from them (the brown, religious, Arabs or South Asians) to focus on their political/religious rhetoric and not ask the simple question: in comparison to all the other people like 'them' who don't viciously murder innocents, are they just fucking nuts?

Is Anders Behring Breivik just totally fucking nuts? Perhaps it is easier to comprehend or accept if he is. Definitely that is how Finland has dealt with its mall bomber and school mass murderers - just freaks, nothing to learn here, please move along. Surely Breivik was in some way mad, but there was an awful lot of careful method and planning for his ultimate act of madness. And therefore we have to look at what he has said, the politics of his dispicable actions. It is not enough to just say he is mad.

Even as I write this, what looks like his 'manifesto' and is coming to light, and the translation of the collection of his comments on a Norwegian "immigration critical" website show exactly the political background that he comes from. He is a product of the "Counter-Jihad", the transatlantic anti-Muslim, anti-immigration movement. He quotes leading 'thinkers' of the Counter-Jihad like Fjordman and leading blogs like Gates of Vienna. This is a specific political trend that isn't classic "far right", in terms of fascists and neo-Nazi. For instance a BBC article on the Norwegian far right completely misses this point. It isn't the old far right of Jew hatred and hating non-whites. It is a hatred of Muslim immigrants who come from a different culture and an ever-spiralling hatred of European politicians and general people in European societies who feel that actually we can live perfectly well in countries made up of people of different colours, religions, political persuasions and the like.

I've written about this movement here and elsewhere for a few years now. I always feared their impact on European electoral politics, sowing distrust and fear in diverse societies. But this is just sick; they have bred their own monster - not just a fire-bomb against a Mosque wall, or an angry street protest hurling abuse at British Asians - but a man who killed almost a hundred kids from his own fucking country because he didn't like their politics.

Dispatches from the northern front. The Finnish general election of 2011

What it's all about

So most people will have seen the Finnish election result by now. The success of the populist-right wing True Finns has made the headlines around the world, particularly in relation to whether they will enter government and block the EU financial assistance package to Portugal. But here are a few thoughts on the election from an outsider who has been watching Finnish politics for quite a long time now.

Firstly, this is PR – everyone’s a winner or loser depending on your outlook on life. Yes, the True Finns hugely increased their vote, but they still only got 19% of the vote. Less than one in five voting Finns agrees with them. If you think the True Finns are scary or wrong or silly, then don’t worry – 4 out 5 voting Finns agree with you.

The leader of the SDP said that “there’s no shame in getting silver”. She’s right – they came second, not too bad considering how poor the SDP has been looking in recent times. But let’s not forget, they came second by 0.1% - hardly clear blue water.

There's a foreign minister lurking in my local coffee shop! Seemed to work though, he got the second biggest personal vote in the country.

Likewise, the leader of Kokoomus, the National Coalition Party, was proud to announce that it was a historic night for them becoming the biggest party in the country for the first time. And this is also true, so congrats to Kokoomus, but they also lost votes from the last general election, and were only clear of the second place SDP by 1.3%.

So as I said: that’s PR for you – it’s fair but no one is even close to being a majority on their own and even the winner can only fairly claim to speak for one in five of the electorate. No party has a ‘natural’ right to be in government in such a system – if the second, third and fourth placed parties got together they would have a simple majority in the parliament, and could exclude the party that actually ‘won’ the election. This is unlikely to happen due to tradition and expectation, but it could happen.

Standing around in the rain, getting ignored. Isn't politics great?

At the moment it is suggested that Kokoomus, the True Finns and the SDP will try to form a government if they can agree on a programme. This is likely to produce all sorts of odd dynamics. Timo Soini, the True Finns leader, has said that he sees his party being close to the SDP, and economically this is true – both want to defend the welfare state and are happy to raise taxes to do so. It’s just that the True Finns don’t want any outsiders joining that welfare state (“this is a local welfare state for local people! There’s nothing for you here.”). The SDP have also been playing with Euroscepticism in the last Parliament – voting against the Greek bailout for example. There is nothing new about leftwing parties positioning themselves against the EU – as anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of the British Labour Party well knows. The SDP were from early 90s to 2003, under Lipponen’s prime ministership, very pro-EU, but the left of party such as President Halonen and former foreign minister Tuomioja always had their doubts. SDP watchers can perhaps correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the current leader Urpilainen and party secretary Jungner are identified more with the Lipponen-wing of the party, so are perhaps not particularly eurosceptic, but nevertheless the party has tacked that way, and it will make a government with Kokoomus and the True Finns ‘interesting’ when EU matters will be so central.

Anti-politics in Vantaa. I think we can put the perpetrator down as a "non of the above" type of guy.

The True Finns in government are the proverbial wild card. Tomi Huhtanen neatly puts it: “The True Finns’ party programme is actually rather mainstream; the problem is that hardly anyone in the party adheres to it.” So much focus was on Timo Soini (who as a result took the biggest personal vote in the country), less attention has been paid to those who came in on his coat tails. Quite possibly some will be hardworking, attentive MPs who regardless of their politics, will be doing their best for the people who voted for them. Others, well, perhaps less so. A number of times in the past Soini has had to distance himself from the antics, at times openly racist antics, of others in his party. Now with more media attention, there is a good chance similar will be seen and even if they do keep discipline, virtually all are new to national politics and the media will be happy to show up gaps in their knowledge.

Perhaps more importantly are the tensions within the party. Jussi Halla-Aho did well in the elections with a strong personal vote, and is well known for his outspoken anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim views. Halla-Aho’s association with the True Finns is complex, in the past he has stood on their ticket, but without being a party member – but now he seems to be in the party with both feet. His internationally influenced anti-Islam politics is closer to the politics of Geert Wilders in Holland or Vlaams Belang in Flanders, than it is to the rural-populist tradition that Timo Soini comes from. There have been and remain some tensions within the True Finns between the young Turks (yes, there is some irony to calling them that) who are Halla-Aho’s supporters and I guess what you can call the old guard. Soini is the man of the moment, but as Taneli Heikka perceptively notes that whilst “Soini has said he is happy with the current state of affairs with immigration policy, […]seven out of 39 [new True Finn] MP's have signed a staunch anti-immigration manifesto, and they want more. A government with True Finns will have to go for tougher measures on immigration, or the party (and the government) faces collapse. Mr Soini knows this.”

What's up with the "Counter-Jihad"?

I got the chance to listen to Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation yesterday. I've read his story in the past: in brief; racist violence and police profiling in Essex where he grew up, joining Hizb ut Tahrir as 16 years old and rapidly becoming an important organiser in the UK, Pakistan and Denmark for HuT, getting arrested in Egypt and spending 4 years in prison there. Coming home to the UK, turning his back on Islamism and becoming an advocate for pluralism, secularism and democracy. He has led an interesting life and speaks about it engagingly. But he also had a solid and well argued analysis of the different forms of Islamism  and why we have to be concerned about them using social movement theory. Interestingly, he reckoned there are now four identifiable social movements resulting from the Islamist ideology, the Ikhwani (Muslim Brotherhood) network, the so-called "Shi'a Crescent"; basically the Iran-Iraq-Hezbollah axis of politicised Shi'a Islam, the Saudi Wahhabi tradition; and now - following the thesis/antithesis logic - the new European anti-Muslim politics. I think Maajid makes a really good point, and as anyone who has followed this blog for any length of times knows, all four of those strains interests me, an particularly how they relate to each other. I'm interested in the collapse of the domestic/international distinction in politics; much of political life is both local and global at the same time. Geert Wilders is speaking in NYC at the anti-Ground Zero Mega Mosque/Park 51 Islamic community centre protest one week, and then is in Berlin surfing the wake of Sarrazin's book there the next. In between, he is doing a bit king-making back home in the Hague for the Dutch government. Wilder's vilification of Muslims, his warnings to Europeans to save their own culture from them, is as often as not based on human rights abuses and terrorist crimes committed outside of Europe as much as in it. Like I said, everything is local and everything is global.

Anyway, being interested in these issues for years I have read a lot anti-Islam blogs with some regularity. Kenneth, a regular and long standing commenter here, writes Tundra Tabloids, another English language but Finland-based blog, and I hope Kenneth will take it as complement when I say it is very representative of the "Counter-Jihad" blogosphere. I don't think we really agree on anything (except that there is nothing wrong with having either too many rucksacks or flashlights), but I have found lots of other, well let's just say - "interesting" sites from starting at Tundra Tabloids and have been reading that milieux enough now to have a feel for the lay of the land. It was from reading the Counter-Jihad blogosphere that I started realising the importance of philosemitism and pro-Israeli politics to the new European anti-Islamic populist right. It is something that perhaps Vlaams Belang and the Sweden Democrats have done prominently. Also some of the Italian post-fascist parties have done this as well, although I have no great knowledge of Italian politics. This means that although still populist rightwing parties, these parties are showing they are very different to more traditional neo-fascist European far right parties like the very worrying and scary Jobbik in Hungary.

Anyway, this particular zone of the internet has been hitting the mainstream press recently, mainly as a result of Pamela Geller's central involvement in the protests against the Ground Zero Mega Mosque/Park 51 Islamic community centre (yeah, I know it's tedious trying to be neutral. Perhaps I can just call it "Stroke place" in the way that "Londonderry/Derry" became "Stroke City" to journos in NI in the bad ole' days of the Troubles). I wrote three years ago about how Little Green Footballs was taking on the rest of the Counter-Jihad blogosphere over whether Vlaams Belang were fascists or not (LGF - yes, everyone else - no). Well, amusingly LGF's main man, Charles, has completed his political odyssey right to left to write a critical screed against Pamela in the Guardian! The Guardian! It's all somewhat reminiscent of the American 60s Trots who ended up as the 90s NeoCons. But still, to blow my own trumpet (it's a special skill, are you jealous?) I blogged about it two and half years before the NYT - the "lamestream media" after all... Anyway, going back to my collapse of the international/domestic divide, it is interesting that in the Guardian (the Guardian!) Charles is citing Geller's endorsement of the EDL as one of her 'crime' (the EDL want to be part of that new right I mention above, and not seen as neo-Nazis, but this is difficult when their leadership are covered in Swastika and Celtic cross tats).

Anyway, I had a good handle on the Pam vs. Chuck blog war, but as I've been reading the main Counter-Jihad blogs recently about both the Ground Zero Mosque protests and American support for the EDL, I keep reading about other fights that are going on. This is both confusing and interesting - if many of the main players seems to be falling out with each other, is there really a "Counter-Jihad blogosphere" any more? So far, as far as I can see Debbie Schlussel hates Pamela Geller, why seems quite complicated - although Schlussel also says that Geller is involved in some insurance scam and worse crimes, you can google all that for yourself as I couldn't make much sense of it. Debs also hates Mr. Jihadwatch, Robert Spencer, and keeps calling him "Slobbert" which seems just plain mean. But then again Spencer hates Andrew Bostom, because Bostom accuses Bobby of plagiarising his books. Meanwhile Pamela doesn't like "the Baron" from the Gates of Vienna any more - he is a small, petty man reputedly. She doesn't like the Baron's friend Vlad either. The reason for all this appear to be a question over copyright of some videos. Ho hum, it's all a bit high school-esque isn't it? I don't suppose al-Qaeda is quaking in its combat boots.

Long hot summers of their discontent

Finland: still a place for those of a nervous disposition?

Finland has a reputation for being a civilized, safe and, frankly, a slightly boring place to live. And to a certain extent it is, but this summer some people have been trying to make that less the case for immigrants here. Last night some fine, upstanding, storm trooper of the Übermensch decided to show their racial and intellectual superiority to those foreign hoards by trying to burn down a still under construction Buddhist temple. You’ve got to watch those Buddhists; if you don’t before you know it they will be imposing their totalitarian laws of peace, love and and karma on everyone. Trying not to hurt anyone is just not our way; if they want to live here they should respect our culture: binge drinking, internet porn and pointless late night punch ups. If they want to live in harmony so much they can bugger off back to Karmastan or where ever they come from.

"Kill [immigration minister] Thors" downtown Helsinki graffiti summer 2010

Obviously the best way to deal with globalization and the increasing need for migrant labour is to solicit the assassination of a democratically elected politician, burn down the houses of worship of the least offensive religious group anyone can think off, throw bombs at refugees (because after all, those Afghans, Somalis and Iraqis probably only feel at home with shit exploding around them). And whilst we’re at it, let’s set fire to a few late-night eateries as well. That will show ‘em! Those… those… foreigners.

And so there we are; Finland 2010 – where the most openly anti-immigrant political party is rocketing to new levels of success. Where the Gay Pride parade gets attacked by people using CS gas. Where one of the country’s leading neurosurgeons publicly states that he now worries about encouraging students from other countries to come and study under him because of the new levels of violence he has seen aimed at foreigners in racist attacks. And where hate crimes are aimed at Buddhists.

Things I didn't know before today #3: Antifa Hairdressers

Did you know that Vidal Sasson, the hairdresser, was as a youth in a militant, British, Jewish anti-fascist group call the 43 Group that used go and smash up far-right meetings in London and fight Moseley's re-established fascist group? The group operated in the immediate post-war years and was comprised of Jewish ex-servicemen, by the sounds of it - armed with knives, knuckledusters and the like, they were pretty serious:

"We're not here to kill," a former The 43 Group veteran recalls, being told on that occasion: "We're here to maim."

Male hairdressers tend to have a reputation for being effeminate or camp, but any macho types tempted to mock should be careful just in case their hairdresser is also a no-nonsense street-scrapper in the local Antifa cadre.

What floats? The True Finns are all at sea.

Timo Soini, leader of the populist-nationalist True Finns party just can't catch a lucky break. Soini himself has developed a good reputation for being honest, witty, and willing to at least talk with all. Yet he is struggling to show the True Finns to be moderate populists and nationalists, not nasty racists like the British National Party and other European far-right parties. Soini was just last week bemoaning to Helsingin Sanomat that 'he was thoroughly fed up with having to answer for the doings of Internet troublemakers and a former “not-quite councillor”' who had been making death threats towards a Finnish government minister. Soini's problem is though that his supporters and party activists keep showing themselves to be idiots. Now we have the comically absurd story of a True Finns seminar-cruise on the ferry to Sweden which happened to coincide with large numbers of Iraqis resident in Finland taking the same ferry to Stockholm where they could vote in the Iraqi general election. Alongside reports of racist abuse to other passengers from seminar attendees, one True Finn MP even felt the need to perform on the ship's night club stage where he ended up getting his microphone cut off for singing racists songs. Ho hum. Soini's recent suggestion that candidates standing for his party will need to go through background checks seems sensible, but perhaps they should do a basic IQ test whilst they are at it.

What do the EDL want to be?

Various bits of the British blogosphere and old media have been following with interest the development of and developments around the English Defence League (EDL). The best coverage I've seen has been in the ever superb Bartholomew's Notes on Religion. Much of debate has been around whether the EDL is the "far right" or not. The connections of this rather nebulous organisation's leaders have been one point of investigation down this path - particularly whether they have connections to established British far right groups such as the BNP or NF. I'm not actually sure how important that classification is. EDL leaders have stated they are not a racist organisation although their statements made in an interview (conducted, incidentally, by a visiting American Christian-right activist with a history of homophobia and with the EDL chaps wearing NI-paramilitary style balaclavas) give plenty of grist for anyone who wants to dispute this. There is a very obvious football casual culture and skinhead connection to the group as well, and I imagine that the Brum police will see a few known faces in the crowds from the national soccer hooliganism files. The organisation's mission is quite clear, they are against Islam in the UK - rather than having a more specific target of Islamists or radicals - so they don't seem very keen on any individual Muslims generally. Choose your own word to describe that.

What I found most interesting were two of the pictures that came out of the Brum demo: firstly, on the Daily Mail website, showing a bunch of shaven headed guys surrounded by cops, holding aloft the Israeli flag (scroll down). Pro-Israeli expression is now pretty common amongst far right groups and political parties across Europe, reflecting the centrality of their anti-Muslim discourse domestically. But also amongst the EDL crowd, other shaven headed young men were seen doing Hitler salutes, giving a very different impression. If the EDL attracts people of latter bent, they will alienate potential sympathisers in the former camp. This makes them an interesting British example of a tension in the radical right visible in lots of other European countries.

Violence against refugees in Finland

Today saw the second headline in two weeks about an attack on asylums seekers at a hostel in Finland. Two weeks ago someone threw some sort of bomb at a Red Cross hostel for refugees in SW Finland, fortunately with no injuries. Yesterday, men armed with knives attacked a refugee inside a reception centre in northern Finland, and another refugee was thrown in a nearby lake. The national broadcaster YLE has come up with the quite incredible headline this evening of:

Authorities Unalarmed by Reception Centre Violence

One wonders what would have to happen to alarm them? Is people making bombs and throwing them at occupied buildings not alarming? YLE also reports the authorities saying - as if it was a good thing - that no known "organised hate groups" have been linked to the attacks in northern Finland. If a known group was involved, they could be arrested and charged. If no known group is involved it means that locals are actually organising racist violence themselves, in places where that kind of activity didn't exist before. I'm not sure if that can really be seen as a good thing. The move towards committing politically/ideologically motivated violence has over recent years become known as "radicalisation" - and is generally considered pretty frigging alarming when it is being done by young, brown, Muslim men. Understanding what factors lead to that radicalisation has become a central political and academic question across Europe since 9/11. The same questions should be asked in these case as well.

Finland is not facing any particularly big issues over immigration; no more than anywhere else in Europe, and actually a lot less than most. Yet still some wish to make political capital out of attacking asylum seekers, whilst national policy makers (probably with the best intentions if not much forethought), tell Finns that immigrants are a security risk. Perhaps the knife wielders of Kemi and bombthrowers of Suomusjärvi think they are defending something. I'm an immigrant and I'm not a security risk. I am pretty angry though.

Billy few mates goes to Brussels

The Times reports on the newly elected BNP MEPs visiting Brussels to get things started. They haven't found enough support yet to form a grouping within the European Parliament; the Italian Northern League MEPs seem to be wisely steering well clear of them, along with Wilders and co from Holland and the Danish Peoples Party. But according to Nick Griffin, they have agreed to cooperate with the Hungarian Jobbik (and who wouldn't want to cooperate with a party so cool that it has its own militia with armbands, boots and everything?), the Bulgarian Attack Party and Belgium's Vlaams Belang. Are we seeing a pattern forming here?

Shooting at the Holocaust Museum

Being a political science geek, when I was in LA last month, I didn't go on any of the studio tours or 'homes of the stars' trips, I went to the Museum of Tolerance - part of the Simon Wisenthal Center. It is basically divided in to two sections, one is a Holocaust museum and the other is museum and discussion of racism in America. I walked there - very un-LA I know, particularly considering the 30 degree heat - confusing the guard slightly when he asked if I would leave my rucsac in my vehicle. On saying I didn't have one, he looked genuinely confused and asked "how did you get here?" On replying "I walked", he laughed and said "dude - you should be at the beach on day like this!"

I understood the reason for the security - full x-ray of bags and airport style metal detector - but it seemed rather sad and jarring at a museum of tolerance. But the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC yesterday, show that the government's assessment of the likelihood of far-right violence against such targets was correct, necessitating such sadly intrusive security. It is tragic that the security guard at the DC museum, Stephen T. Johns, paid so heavily for doing his job protecting people. It could have so easily been the guy I chatted to a few weeks back.

It's even more disheartening that so quickly, bloggers - in this case, Sunny at Pickled Politics - managed to show that the murderer had gone to events where the star of the show was no other than North West England's newest MEP - Mr Nick Griffin of the BNP. The Economist also has an interesting angle on the shooting, particularly considering this is the second case of far right 'domestic terrorism' in the US in a short period after the shooting of Dr. George Tiller a couple of weeks ago.

European Cooperation - isn't it nice that we all get along?

It's a funny thing, but until yesterday I don't think I had heard of the Czech nationalist political party Národni Strana, and then they're suddenly popping up everywhere. In Finland today it is reported that the slightly odd, but quite successful, Finnish heavy metal cello band Apocalyptica (yes - cellos!) are going to take Národni Strana to court. The Czech nationalists had, without permission or payment, been using some Apocalyptica music in their adverts. Apocalyptica - despite the slightly dodgy heavy metal look - are obviously sound lads and put out the following statement:

This is an official statement by the band about the illegal use of our song 'Path' in a tv and internet commercial in the Czech Republic. Apocalyptica always supports minorities, stands up for human rights, respects every human being, no matter their colour, ethnic background or religion, worldwide. Apocalyptica also supports the idea of a united Europe and the European Union. We hope it is a clear statement that we would never allow the Czech Republican party Národni Strana to use any of our music.

Having your music nicked must be annoying, but the band is particularly narked that the music was used in a now infamous advert by the party where they call for the "Final Solution" to the Czech Republic's gypsy problem. The final solution turns out to be 'only' the deportation of all Czech gypsies to India. The leader of the party is Petra Edelmannova; here she is in the picture below with Nick Griffin leader of the BNP. She was going to come and enjoy some good ole' English hospitality at the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival last summer, but unfortunately it seems couldn't make it in the end. But there is lots of news and pic about her friends in the UK on the Národni Strana website.


She did though make it to Cologne recently, for the Pro-Köln get-together. Here she is with Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang and Markus Beisicht of Pro-Köln.

Petra and Filip seem to be good mates, as Dewinter has a different picture of them holding hands on his own website:


She's young, she's smart - what's not to love (beyond the expulsion of people who don't fit your sense of ethnic purity obviously)? To quote one commentator: "the young party leader is seen as one of the future hopes for a modern patriotic party with a European orientation." Presumably, she just didn't tell Vlaams Belang about her final solution for the 'blacks' because they wouldn't want anything to do with those type of nasty race-based politics. Oh, hang on a minute...

If the BNP weren't a bunch of liars...

<--- this is what their election flyer would say.

I was tickled the other week to see that the BNP's flyer was rather easily shown to be deceptive and stuffed full of photos taken from photo agencies, rather than of British people who really are voting for the BNP. The one real Brit featured, a former soldier, in a photo on the flyer said he was outraged that they used his picture and that "they are scumbags and I'd never vote for them in a million years."

I'm not quite sure who came up with this wonderfully amended and rather more accurate version on the left - I saw it on Pickled Politics - but big up to whoever did the original art work; it is a work of art indeed. Click on the flyer to read it in full size.

Who Brits should probably not vote for on June 4th

Euro elections are a comin'! It really isn't a very opportune time in the UK where politicians' stock has fallen further than at any point before due to the great expenses scandal of 2009. Minor parties were probably always going to do well in the Euros, as people all seem to vote on the basis the national situation, not the European one, but in the UK currently this effect is likely to be amplified. Protests votes are all well and good - but think about what you are voting for as well as what you are voting against. UKIP MEPs, on top of being nutters, seem to have tendency of actually managing to be more corrupt than all the MPs back in Westminster. Meanwhile the BNP might be trying to redefine themselves as the saviours of the working class, but remain the nasty racists they have always been.

Finnish fringes

Finnish fringes - supposed Islamists and Russia fans rally in Helsinki (photo from Wikipedia)

Sometimes if I get a late bus home, I see my friendly neighbourhood Salafi. Salafi-chic is a lot less common in Finland than it is in, say, parts of London so he sort of sticks out. He's a skinny white guy with a friendly and slightly goofy smile - but the rest is classic neo-Salafi: the straggly beard, the skull cap, the shalwar kameez, but crucially with mid-calf trousers, and of course some old army surplus jacket over the top. A bit Tora-Bora 2001 for my taste, but there's nowt as queer as folk and each to their own. He wears combat boots though, which I thought was missing the point as aren't Salafis meant to show their ankles to follow the Prophet's example? But ankles and Islamic jurisprudence are by the by - whenever I see him, I think of the Finnish Islamic Party and Abdullah Tammi.

You don't get more loony fringe than Tammi - who may or may not have been a neo-Nazi, communist, fireman, KGB spy, wife beater, entrepreneur and captain in the Red Army. And if that isn't an interesting enough life, now he most definitely is the leader of the tiny Finnish Islamic Party. The FIP aren't solely white converts, but they do seem to make up the majority of the party. The Finnish Muslims I know from more traditional immigrant backgrounds seem to treat them with polite scepticism at best.

Tammi along with some other FIP guys were protesting today outside of the Helsingin Sanomat offices in Helsinki - but it wasn't their protest. Oh no. They were there with the "Nashi", the Russian, pro-Putin and sort of ultranationalist youth outfit - more famous for chasing and harrassing ambassadors in Moscow from countries they don't like, such Estonia and the UK. Now the Nashi don't really seem to be mad at Finland, their fire is directed at Estonia, but for reasons you need to read the news story to see if you can work out (because I'm not sure if I fully do), it was more convenient to protest here.

The jist of it seems to be that those who criticise the Soviet Union are really just criticising the Russia of today, and they are doing this because they are fascists. All the breakaway states from the USSR - like Estonia - are full of Russia-hating fascists. It's a rather silly argument, but then the Nashi are a populist youth movement so perhaps expecting much more would also be silly. But anything to do with Russia can bring the 'interesting characters' out of the woodwork in Finland - Johan Bäckman being one such. He appears to think that the anti-Russian sentiments prevalent in the Baltics are being imported to Finland. This strikes me as odd as you really don't have to dig very far to find Finnish anti-Russian sentiments. Why they would need to be imported from Estonia escapes me. Bäckman is a member (founder member I think) of the Finnish antifascist committee that seems to be more interested in criticising the Baltic "apartheid regimes" and supporting Russia than the more normal sort of Antifa activities like rucking with skinheads. All very odd.

What Tammi is doing there is anyone guess (beyond the stated protesting for better recognition of Muslims in Estonia - if I was an Estonian Muslim [or should the be the Estonian Muslim], I'd be running in the opposite direction from Tammi's 'support'). I suppose he couldn't get much more weird in the eyes of the Finnish public. But for a man who has praised bin Laden, turning up at a Nashi protest, an organisation that lionises Putin - the destroyer of Grozny, is strange to say the least.

True Finns, true prats.

(photo: True Finns Parliamentary Group) Finland's populist right wing party is led by a smart man, but what follows behind appears to be a mix of the dumb and the very unpleasant. Timo Soini, the True Finns leader, last year had to ban his youth wing from associating with dubious foreign party youth wings. Recently he had to disassociate himself from a man who stood (and won) on the True Finns' list in the municipal elections. This councilor has publically wished that certain women whom he dislikes get raped - delightful eh? Soini didn't actually say he disagreed, although I'm sure that he does, but only that it wasn't his business. And then today another True Finns candidate from last month's municipal elections (this one didn't win a seat it seems) makes the news for having started a Facebook group suggesting - in a hilariously jokey manner I'm sure - homophobic violence against a Finnish TV personality. And of course let's not forget the former True Finns MP, Tony "the Viking" Halme who was convicted of firearms violations, drug use and the smuggling of illegal drugs into the country.

What a nice bunch.

No surprise: the BNP is utterly cynical

I've been writing today on the BNP and its recently acquired respect for Israel and Jews more generally. This has meant lots of reading the BNP website - a rather depressing experience - but I turned up one gem of political cynicism from the pen of Nick Griffin himself. A 2007 article called "By their fruits (or lack of them) shall you know them" is basically a reply to American neo-Nazis who have criticised the BNP for being to cosy with 'the Jews'. These US anti-semites parrot some of the Islamist (and indeed "Troofer") conspiracy theories, that terror attacks like 9/11 were really the work of Mossad and represent Israel's continued machinations to get the US west to fight their middle eastern wars for them. Griffin writes that these conspiracies "may or may not contain some elements of truth" but this is not the point:

“May or may not contain some elements of truth,” I said. Is that too cynical for the purists? Then they need to wake up to the rules of real life politics rather than settling for last place every time. It’s better to be a little cynical on this issue and stand a chance of winning than to fret about which bunch of liars are lying in this particular instance and in so doing miss a great political opportunity to surf our message into the public mind on the back of a media tsunami of ‘Islamophobia’.

Everyone accuses politicians of utter cynicism, but normally they at least have the decency to try to hide it. Mr. Griffin rather lays it out for all to read. He then goes on to consider why the British media have become so critical of Islam in recent years - suggesting various explanations before concluding:

Frankly, who cares [why]? We don’t have the media clout ourselves to swim against the tide, but as it’s running in our favour in terms of boosting public rejection of mass immigration and the multi-cult, why should we even want to? Instead of wasting time worrying about it, we should - to mix metaphors - be organising to make hay while the sun shines.

By their own word shall you know them.

"A Federal Europe of Fatherlands"

God, does that sound scary or what!?

Mixing "federal" and "Fatherland" in one sentence just about ticks all the boxes for every red-blooded member of the Island race and, from Inverness to Penzance, will have us scrambling the Spitfires and loading the sten guns. Chocks away, tally ho!

But that is indeed how the new European grouping of far-rightists called the "European Patriotic Party" was described. It includes Jean Marie Le Penn's Front National who is busily polishing his jackboots in anticipation. He was joined on the stage at the launch by some bloke from the Austrian Freedom Party, a loon from Bulgaria (who interestingly deals with bad press by staging an invasion of the offices of the newspaper concerned and yelling threats at the journalist) and our old mates, Vlaam Belangs.

Mr. Siderov of the Bulgarian Attack Party bravely resists the temptation to raise all five fingers.

Basically the last collection of far-right parties in the European Parliament collapsed in a pile of recriminations and insults flung at each other. The Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty bloc (you at the back! Stop the comedy heel-clicking now!) broke apart when the Italian members started being rude about Romanians, forgetting that they had Romanian partners whose identity, traditions and sovereignty they were now demeaning. I haven't read if a fist fight was involved, but that would have livened up an otherwise tedious Euro Parliamentary session wouldn't it? The new band of brave warriors for the fatherland(s), seem to be searching for more member parties so that - irony of ironies - they qualify for EU funding.

Meanwhile Le Penn, whilst musing on the potential of the new party, reached near Rumsfeldian levels of everyday philosophy with:

"it's not necessary to hope in order to try, nor to succeed in order to persevere."

Exactly Jean Marie - although you still have a girl's name.
He has either been reading too many Hallmark greetings cards, watching cheap kung-fu movies, or it just sound better in French.

Clearly worried about being called fascists (perish the thought!) the new grouping has said that it is not negotiating with German, ummm... fascist parties like the NPD. Which is a shame because if they had, it would have given me a good excuse to post this:



my favourite hard-left, anti-fas, German techno-art-guerilla, but otherwise unconnected, anthem.

Moderate (looking) Nazis

I've written a bit about far right parties in Europe recently, mainly about ones that are trying to change their image. But the BBC's "Crossing Continents" has an excellent programme on the NPD in Germany, a party that isn't running from its historical ancestors in the slightest. Very interesting and worrying listening. Download it whilst you can because I think it might only be available for a few more days.

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

I dived back into the rightwing blogosphere tonight to see how things were shakin' down in the Littlegreenfootballs vs. Brussels Journal smack down that I mentioned a couple of days ago. I'm not sure who's winning, although reading more Brussels Journals articles than I have for a long time has reminded me of what a downright, strange political philosophy Paul Belien has (along with facial hair). It's easy to shout fascist as LGF has been doing a bit, but it more seems to be some form of ultra-reactionary conservative Catholicism. Of course there were plenty of links between the Catholic church and fascism in Franco-era Spain, and in Italy under Mussolini, but its a very different type of politics from your standard, racist, bully-boy, skinhead sort of European far rightism of the British BNP or the French Front National.

But what is amusing is the shock that some American conservatives are expressing on discovering their anti-Islam allies in Europe are actually, well, racist thugs. Have a look at the quote below from the delightfully named blog "THE OUTRAGED SPLEEN OF ZION" (slightly angry capitalization in the original), on their discovery of the "true nature" of Belgium's Vlaams Belang party, and its leader Filip Dewinter.

The White Power Neo Nazi movement needs to use people fighting jihad like us as political cover, they desperately need us to be the beard.
DeWinter is a major player in that world.
This is an international terrorist movement, just like jihad.

The White Power movement has risen on the ashes of 9/11 , it is rising concurrent to the rise of Jihad. It is a genuine, serious, international worldwide movement.
It is very organized.

DeWinter is in the thick of it and he happens to be a very major player with very major aspirations. He is a very ambitious boy.

They are intentionally planning to use your poor useful idiot ass as political cover.
Their sponsoring of the CounterJihad Europa conference was all about this.

They are in the process of BRANDING

If you told me this 13 days ago I would have laughed in your face.
I openly challenged everyone on LGF on it at the outset and did not want to believe it myself.

A list of codewords for what these MFers are now calling themselves worldwide is edifying and necessary, I have seen these words used plenty over the last 6 years never knowing what the hidden meaning behind most of them was:

• Movements calling themselves "Nationalist"
• Movements using the word "Sovereignty"
• Movements calling themselves "Christian Identity" and other "Identity" parties and groups
• Movements going by this title: [insert country name here] FIRST!
• White Nationalism (also they use WN alot)
• Paleoconservative (which is why they are obsessed with the word NEOCON)
• Paleolibertarian (yes we can get to Ron Paul in 3 degrees)
• The Patriotic Movement
• Homogeneous Ethnic Communities
• "Traditionalist" movements
• "America [or insert country here] Renaissance" movements
• The "New Right"
• Populist
• "Defensive Racism" movements
• White Renaissance

I'm sorry Ms. Outraged Spleen?! You what?! You didn't know what the "hidden meaning" was behind an organisation that calls itself "White nationalist"?! What did you think it might mean? A particular interior decoration style in one country? And Mr DeWinter might be many things, an arse in particular, but he wasn't an international terrorist last time I looked.

And just an aside, my last post on this subject I was going to call "a fascist in a suit is still a fascist", but then realised that half the post was about the True Finns, who although suit wearing and populist rightwingers, aren't fascists, so I changed the title. But the pic below, from the Blokwatch site, made me laugh. Yep, that's our old friend Mr. DeWinter in the middle.

Notes from the Northern Right

I noticed an interesting little story the other day about the True Finns party, Finland's populist rightwing party, or far rightwing party, depending on who you ask. Their leader, Timo Soini MP, had banned the party's youth wing from cooperating with the youth wings of far right parties from Denmark and Sweden. It doesn't name those parties and even though I've done a bit of sniffing around the story I haven't yet been able to confirm which they are, but presumably it is the Danish Peoples Party and the Sweden Democrats. These two parties are relatively bog standard European far rightists, not totally fascist perhaps, but definitely in that neighbourhood. The Sweden Democrats in particular have extensive historical links to the neo-Nazi movement in that country. The True Finns, whilst definitely not my political cup of tea (and clearly benefiting from and playing to a racist subsection of the Finnish electorate), are not cut of the same cloth. Soini in particular makes it clear that he is not a Finnish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Penn, and if you can put politics aside, is generally reckoned to be a 'decent bloke' by people I know who have met him (although being a Millwall supporter will always be a bit sus to Brits of a certain age!). The True Finns come out of a tradition of rural populism and although that has always had an isolationist and xenophobic tinge to it, the Rural Party under Veikko Vennamo was in the 1960s and 70s one of the few parties that was not under Kekkonen's spell - Finland's all powerful president of 25 years, and a man for whom democracy was was expendable if it was to get in the way of his idea of what the national interest was. The Rural party might have been an uncouth voice of the angry countryside, but it was willing to go against the political status quo at a time when precious few others would in Finland.

I'm not certain why exactly Soini took the decision that he did, but presumably he wants to keep the party more in that tradition than going down the road that the Sweden Democrats have taken, the road as someone put it of a 197os British fashion and 1930 Germans politics.

All this take place at an interesting time, because the Sweden Democrats are at the centre of another storm. A "Civil War" (their term not mine) has broken out on the rightwing blogosphere and the Sweden Democrats were the cause. A conference was held in Brussels to launch the "Counter Jihad" movement, to defend Europe from its "Eurabian" fate where we are all going to be ruled by Osma bin Laden and his minions. What appears to have happened is that the ever strident Little Green Footballs blog pointed out the blatantly-obvious-to-every- one-else fact that a number of the people involved, notably from the Sweden Democrats and from the Flemish secessionist/supremacist party Vlaams Belang, are basically smartly dressed fascists. The accused hotly contested this saying that they are totally cool with Jews these days, and they only spread conspiracy theories about Muslims now. Some in the middle (and remember that's the middle of the hard right) said, "Ok, so they used to be Jew-hating Neo Nazis but they haven't been that for at least five years, so can't we all just get along?" The cynical out there might wonder whether the President of Iran might be allowed to join their little gang in five years time if tomorrow he states: "I was wrong! The holocaust did happen, and actually I really dig Israel! Can we just all go and kick some Sunni ass now? Please..."? One suspects not. Anyway, if Little Green Footballs realises the Sweden Democrats are dodgy, Mr. Soini's decision looks a wise one indeed.

It's a funny ole' world when I'm nice about the True Finns and LGF in one post. Keep on rockin' in the free world folks.