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.

Racism in Finland

I'm trying to decide whether it's a good thing that a racist attack in Finland against an 8 year old girl makes the national headlines (i.e. such events are so rarely heard about so as to be shocking), or whether it is a bad thing (that there is any adult out there who possibly thinks it is OK to push a child off a train for any reason, let alone for them being black). But to the point made by the expert interviewed by Helsingin Sanomat that "many Finns do not know how they should react to racism that targets children", one feels tempted to suggest that, after helping the kid, kicking the racist fucker in the nads seems like one way to go. Of course violence never helps anyone blah, blah, blah (well - except for armies, boxers, hollywood movie makers and ice hockey players amongst others), but I'm sure people can come up with some verbal abuse that just stays the right side of law.

Meanwhile, in the Finnish parliament, an MP from the party that is just tired of being called racist has instead decided to compare committed gay couples who want to adopt, to people who want to shag dogs. Nice, and very helpful in improving your party's image Mr. Oinonen.

Anastasia Baburova - anti-fascist hero

I occasionally find the obituaries in the Economist quite affecting, often when not expecting it. This week's, for Anastasia Baburova, was once such. Baburova, a young brave investigative journalist, was gunned down last month in broad daylight in central Moscow whilst walking with Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer. She tried to tackle the assasin of Markelov, who simply killed her as well. No one in government has even expressed their condolences. Human rights lawyers who defend Chechen rape victims, and reporters who report their stories, clearly aren't worth much sympathy to the powers that be in the Kremlin.

It is a fine obituary for a brave young woman:

In Turgenev’s poem “The Threshold”, a young woman stands before a door. A voice asks whether she is prepared to endure cold, hunger, mockery, prison and death, all of which await her on the other side. She says “Yes” to everything, and steps over. “A fool,” cries a voice from behind her. “A saint,” suggests another.

She deserves such fine words, but 25 years is far too early to hear them.

Racism in Finland

You get racists in all countries, but in Finland racists still think its OK to share their racism with everyone, presuming that most others agree with them. Fortunately not all of do, and some will even stand up and complain.

HS reports that after many complaints the Finnish media watchdog has rapped the knuckles of YLE, the state broadcaster, for the comments made by a regular guest on one of their news programmes. The person concerned, Ritva Santavuori, a retired prosecutor no less (which makes you wonder about the blindness of her justice) made idiotic comments about Barack Obama's grandmother. Before she goes accusing other people of being ugly and having "residual Negroid features", she should look in the mirror. With her dyed-red hair she had residual stupid features.

And good for the folk who took the time to write or phone in complaint.

Is Shilpa Shetty white?

It's a rhetorical question; I don't need answers on a postcard thanks.

I was just eating lunch and listening to the podcast of Simon Mayo's FiveLive book panel from last Thursday. They were interviewing the author Sujit Saraf about his book the Peacock Throne, when the other guest author mentioned an excellent article of Mr. Saraf's website with Saraf's take on the Big Brother racism controversy. The point can be summed up in his own words: "I find it extremely funny and amusing that 'our' [meaning an Indian] white woman is being treated like a black woman by a 'real' white woman". The article is in a word document format and hopefully if you click this link you should be able to download it, or alternatively follow the link on the front page of Mr. Saraf's website. Saraf argues that where Jade (for anyone from Mars, click here) sees a "Paki", the vast majority of Indian's see a white woman. Shetty is a Bollywood actress in part because of her fair skin.

Over the last week I have been listening to the "India Rising" series from the BBC World Service, and like the Foreign Policy article I noted in an earlier post, it is an education in the complexities and paradoxes of modern India. Sujit Saraf does an excellent job on spotlighting the bluntness of Indian racism in this article, but if you listen to the BBC documentary series you start getting a feeling for all the other often more complex tensions - socio-economic, rural/urban, caste, religious - in modern India.

On a less India-specific note, Jade Goody has become famous for being thick, but she can serve as a reminder for us all that seeing people defined by race, or some other singular and preeminent identity, smudges out all the complexities of human nature, both good and bad.

You can get Mr. Saraf's book at this link:

According to the FiveLive book panel it's meant to be jolly good.