The aim of the article is to highlight the question: why there have
been no relevant extreme right parties, movements or racist organisations
in Finland after World War II. One evident reason for the "silence" has
been the specific political history of Finland after World War II. According
to peace treaties, fascist, extreme right and national-patriotic parties
and movements were banned in Finland. The ban lasted until 1991. After
the world war, good relations with the Soviet Union captured all the political
attention in Finland, and "radical right-wing politics" had no role within
that political sphere. Today one can see in this "political vacuum" faint
signs of new life.
New radical right-wing, extreme right, radical right-wing populist
or national populist parties and movements, whatever name you will use,
have been gaining ground in many European countries during the last decade.
In addition to these parties, more radical, militant and violent neo-Nazi,
extreme right and skinhead type groupings have become more numerous and
salient in many countries. Finland seems, at first glance, to form an exception
to this quite common trend. For instance, Herbert Kitschelt states in his
book (1995: 49) that, with respect to all other northern European countries,
‘only in Finland, is there no obvious candidate for the New Radical Right’.
To specify the concept of the New Radical Right Kitschelt (1995)
argues that there are different trends in the current European New Radical
Right appeal. There are 1) authoritarian, xenophobic and capitalist appeals,
2) populist antistatist appeals, 3) "welfare chauvinist" appeals and 4)
fascist appeals. So far, there have been no relevant new radical right-wing
parties or movements in Finland. Only the populist Finnish Rural Party
has had some common characteristics with the Progress Parties in Denmark
and Norway.
However, even if there have not been any relevant radical right-wing
parties or racist organisations in Finland so far, totally new sights and
possibilities have opened up for such groups to operate in the 1990s. Kitschelt
states (pp. 20-21) that the New Radical Right parties are most likely to
appear and to be electorally successful ‘in post-industrial societies with
large welfare states and in circumstances where there has been a convergence
between the main moderate left and right conventional parties’. Kitschelt
states also (pp. 14, 17): ‘Whether a successful New Radical Right party
emerges depends on the opportunity structure of party competition. Only
if voters are sufficiently disaffected with the existing moderately conservative
and moderately leftist or social democratic parties will the reservoir
of potential right-authoritarian voters rally around a new political force.’
‘Convergence of social democratic and moderate conservative parties, together
with an extended period of government participation by the moderate concervatives
thus creates the electoral opening for the authoritarian Right that induces
voters to abandon their loyalty to established conservative parties.’ Finland,
indeed, fulfils almost all these criteria.
We have, for instance, the so-called Rainbow Government: an exceptional
government coalition between the Social Democratic Party, the Conservative
Party, the Greens and the Left-Wing Alliance (former socialists and communists).
It has also been proved in many studies that voter turnout has steadily
decreased in Finland, new small parties have steadily increased their proportion
of votes cast, voters’ volatility has increased and citizens’ indifference
to parties and politicians has been increasing. These signs of anti-party
sentiment have not yet produced any relevant "anti-parties" able to gain
a firm foothold in Finnish party political arena. A minor exception was
the Finnish Rural Party especially in the 1970 and 1983 elections in which
the party gained large victories. The party used the argument that the
ruling political class was corrupted and indifferent to ordinary people’s
problems.
***
The purpose of this article is to present the forms of right-wing
extremism which seem to be in the process of developing / taking shape
in Finland. We start by highlighting the background of the Finnish case:
in order to explain the specificity of Finnish political culture, it is
convenient to begin with the political history.
Specific Features of the Finnish Political History
Since the Second World War: The Doctrine of "Foreign Policy Comes First".
The first and most simple explanation for the lack of relevant radical
right-wing and racist organisations is to hint at the Moscow and Paris
Peace Treaties of 1944 and 1947. Accordingly, all fascist-type organisations,
as they were officially defined, were first dissolved and then forbidden
in Finland. The Finnish State, its security organisations and the public
atmosphere in general have respected the demands of the peace treaties.
The peculiar position of Finland between the East and the West has
had its own effect. This position may be described in the following way:
particularly before and during the war it was argued that "Finland was
the first fortification of the West towards the East". After the lost war,
a "more realistic" amendment was made: the East was geographically closer
than the West; and this fact had to be taken into account in a relevant
way in Finland. It was the "holy mission" of Finnish foreign policy leaders
to get the people and other Western countries to believe in the reasonableness
of the "amendment". It was argued that this realism was in the common interest
of the Finnish people and the West, too. This attitude has had long lasting
effects.
One of the main characteristics of Finnish political culture has
been the prominent role that foreign policy, understood as good relations
with the former Soviet Union, has played in Finland from World War II until
the early 1990s. The core of the doctrine was that foreign policy came
first, followed by other political questions, including internal affairs.
Especially during the long presidency of Urho Kekkonen, national agreement
regarding the pre-eminence of the Paasikivi - Kekkonen foreign policy was
upheld by all the major political parties. Wide national consensus existed
between the major political forces and established parties, both from the
moderate Coalition Party to the Left, Social Democrats and Communists,
that this kind of political constellation was best for Finland. This consensus
also resulted in a convergence between the Right and the Left, leaving
no space for radical right-wing politics and organisations.
Thus, the national consensus concerning Kekkonen's foreign policy
had a paradoxical result in the internal political arena: the paradox was
that the ideology and symbol of the "Right" and the "right-wing" gradually
lost all its special meaning. In fact, hardly anyone wanted to be labelled
as a right-wing party or politician. This automatically led to being in
opposition to good relations with the Soviet Union, to President Kekkonen
and to the basic interests of the Finnish State, as those interests were
understood by the so-called progressive forces at that time. Besides the
foreign policy doctrine, a more or less common political goal of the established
political parties was found in the Scandinavian welfare state project,
which has always had at least, a moderate leftist flavour. Thus, one could
argue that since the early 1970s, the Right has been ideologically and
symbolically rather weak. However, the former by no means suggests total
silence or the non-existence of the opposite opinions and political forces.
The Political Right in the Post-War Era Before
the 1990s: Keeping a Low Profile — for the Most of the Time
Of course the term "extreme right" was not totally out of order in
the 1970s. The label was utilised politically and attached to those small
organisations and individuals who dared to criticise the foreign policy
consensus and the strong personality of President Kekkonen. An illuminating
example of this is Prime Minister Kalevi Sorsa’s statement, when the Finnish
Parliament, in January 1973 discussed, the exceptional law concerning the
re-election of President Kekkonen. Prime Minister Sorsa formulated the
"official line" quite strongly: ‘An extreme right alliance has been growing.
I am, however, totally sure that in the next elections the Finnish people
will condemn this alliance which is reactionary in internal politics and
suspicious in foreign policy. (Vihavainen 1991: 113)
The Constitutional Party of Finland
Moderate right-wing politics was represented during the 70s by the
Constitutional Party of Finland (Perustuslaillinen Oikeistopuolue,
POP), headed by Georg Ehrnrooth - the previous leader of the right-wing
of the Swedish People's Party. The POP emerged as a result of a kind of
political scandal - as Ehrnrooth and his supporters thought - in 1973-1974.
Namely, President Kekkonen informed the major parties that he wanted to
be elected for a fourth time, without running for re-election. The parties
agreed to support a special law that allowed Kekkonen to be elected at
that time by the Parliament and not through a general election by the people.
This extraordinary law was enacted in the Parliament with a 5/6 majority.
Certain political circles regarded this type of solution as an insult
to the principles of Western democracy, and consequently the POP was founded.
It retained representation in Parliament for some years, due to the personal
support for Ehrnrooth in Helsinki. (See Appendix I) The POP could have
been labelled as an "aristocratic conservative party", because its main
support was among the upper class of the Swedish minority.
The Finnish Rural Party
The Finnish Rural Party (Suomen Maaseudun Puolue, SMP), the
only and the most salient populist party in Finland since the latter part
of the 1960s, began with a severe anti-Kekkonen attitude. It was founded
by an arch-enemy of President Kekkonen and his party - Veikko Vennamo.
As a charismatic and strong personality, he led the party until the 1980s
with his own colourful but rather stigmatising style. The party aimed at
mobilising and catching all the social and political dissatisfaction wherever
it might be found — among the underprivileged people in society, people
with low incomes and war veterans. The electoral fortunes of SMP varied
a great deal, typically swinging rapidly up and down. (See Appendix II)
It gained electoral success, first in the countryside at the end of the
1960s and the early 1970s, later among the deprived people in towns in
the early 1980s. In 1988-1991, the party tried - with some success - to
utilise xenophobic fears. It has not been called an extreme right-wing
party, even though it sometimes would have been justified: the votes for
its greatest electoral triumph of the 1970 were gathered from the previous
strong-hold positions of the extreme rightists in the 1930s. One may ask,
with good reason, whether populism has been and still could be the key
element, the essence of Finnish right-wing extremism?
Pekka Siitoin and his National Democratic Party
In the 1970s, Finns also experienced something that actually could
be called the extreme right, as Pekka Siitoin’s activities evolved from
"mere " Aryan occultism to comprise the traditional themes and appearances
of the Finnish extreme right. The visible side of his activities were concentrated
on the streets of Turku and Naantali. The small number of participants
in the happenings organised by Siitoin was compensated by the addition
of different colorful details, such as Nazi uniforms. Some of the public
scenes also took place in courtrooms and in the Parliament. Between 1976-1977
four interpellations were made on account of Siitoin’s fascist activities.
Despite the fact that he has been able or perhaps willing to only make
a lot of noise, one more severe occasion put a temporary end to his activities
in November 1977: Kursiivi - a printing house owned by Communists
was burned. Commander Siitoin was sued and found guilty of incitement and
assistance. He was sentenced to five years in prison for his part in the
crime. All his organisations, both occultist and political, were suppressed.
He was put on probation after two years, and the National Democratic Party,
which had been founded immediately after the ban of the previous organisations,
became active but with a low profile. The most important thing has been
the establishment and maintenance of the business side.
From the 1980s the most salient form of Siitoin’s political activity
has been his postal shop selling Nazi memorabilia and literature - one
of the best products of all times being however the Black Bible. Siitoin
has been a very productive author, having written 13 books on both national-socialism
and Satanism. He also publishes a magazine more or less regularly, or rather
a booklet called Rautaristi (Iron Cross, sometimes also called Steel
Cross). However, the most important aspect of his activities, although
less visible, has always been the wide international network he has gradually
managed to establish, and with the help of which he has been able to deliver
the Finnish extreme right scene the latest and hottest novelties from the
international scene.
New Opportunities, New Issues in the 1990s
The ban on fascist organisations and the "commonly approved silence",
concerning the ideological and symbolic Weltanschauung of the Right,
have had the effect that parties and organisations with clearly radical
right-wing or racist ideologies have been missing for the most part. The
tradition of the last few decades has been in "official publicity" the
ideology of tolerance toward foreigners and minorities and the ban on fascist
organisations. This ban has thrown its shadow over all radical right-wing
and radical national populist movements. So far, their symbolic capital
has been mainly missing and their social and political resources have been
scarce.
However, the collapse of Communism — both internationally and nationally
— as well as membership in the European Union, have changed the situation
in many ways: Finland's relations with Russia no longer have such a forceful
an effect; the ban on radical right-wing organisations is no longer necessary,
relevant or possible. The idea of the welfare state faces economic and
political difficulties. International radical right-wing and national populist
models have found fertile soil also in Finland. There seems to be new room
for new entrepreneurs to attempt to enter the political scene on the Right.
Silence around the symbol "Right" is breaking down, slowly but surely.
However, the existing extreme right, radical nationalist and racist
organisations are still tiny, and they seem to come and go all the time.
After the year 1990, radical right-wing groupings have become more numerous.
Now there are over 40 names of associations which are more or less connected
with the Radical Right. So far, there are no extreme right-wing parties
in Finland. On the other hand, nor have there yet been, in the 1990s, leaders
like Le Pen, Schönhuber, Haider or Hagen, leaders with political presence.
At the moment, only a) some anti-immigrant groups that support racial purity
slogans, b) radical right-wing nationalist groups and c) some tiny neo-Nazi
groups exist, but no prominent anti-Semitic or racist organisations or
parties as such. Small groups that have shown anti-Semitic and racist attitudes
are not known to the general public, and their political influence is purely
marginal.
When we take a broad perspective on all these new political forces,
we may begin with their ideas concerning the main target of their political
perspective. The relations with Russia, immigration and the European Union
have turned out to be the most important items of their agendas. Typically,
the organisations concentrate on one or two themes. Of course, broader
orientations and sensibilities around these issues do exist. However, whether
these issues are to be utilised successfully at all remains to be seen.
1. Some groups are mainly interested in the traditional complex of
problems regarding Russia. This is also a reaction against the traditional
foreign policy consensus: against the old relationship with the Soviet
Union as "treason" and "against Finnish interests". With the present situation
without any censorship, many traditional anti-Russian feelings and themes,
like the Carelian question, have arisen. A fundamental question is how
to get back the lost areas. Among the Carelian population there is an organisation
called the Union of Carelia (Karjalan Liitto), which has a moderate
line. People from all the main parties are active in the organisation -
even Social Democrats. However, inside the organisation there is a radical
minority. In addition, there are small groups, such as the Tarto Peace
Movement and the Great Finland Association, which accuse the Union of Carelia
for taking too moderate a line.
2. For the modern extreme right, the question of immigration usually
plays a central role. Thus, a very delicate but an irresistibly interesting
question in the case of Finland is whether the low level of immigration
has been one of the major factors preventing the extreme right from emerging.
Maybe so, but of course we do not want to create any mechanical causal
relationship in these matters. Nevertheless, the problems connected with
immigration and refugees offer material for these organisations. Typically
at a local level - a good example of which is Joensuu in eastern Finland
- the first acts of violence were committed immediately after the arrival
of Somali refugees.
3. A moderate nationalist opinion was clearly against Finnish membership
in the European Union. There are many kinds of anti-EU forces: Greens,
Communists and other so called progressive groupings, but also "patriotic"
elements which founded, for instance, an organisation called the League
for a Free Finland.
Organisations
The Finnish Rural Party (SMP)
An the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the1990s, the SMP tried
to utilise - with some success - xenophobic fears. In the Parliamentary
election of 1995, SMP received 36, 000 votes, losing over 95, 000 votes
when compared with the 1991 election. It now represented 1.3% of the electorate,
compared to 3.5% in 1991. The party drifted into an economic crisis, was
closed down and began anew as a party of the True Finns. In the local elections,
in October 1996, some of the candidates of the True Finns were known for
their xenophobic fears. Also, a few members of the Patriotic National Alliance
ran as non-party affiliated candidates in the lists of the True Finns.
The Finnish Rural Party has also agitated against the rights of the
Swedish minority in Finland. Although this theme was never a dominant one,
it still was used over the years. Since 1988, some politicians of the party
have made critical comments related to the problems of immigration and
refugees. We could say that their policy was not a racist one, but somewhat
similar to the line of Umberto Bossi and Lega Nord at the time. It should
be pointed out that, although the Finnish Rural Party often enough was
compared to the Progress Parties in Denmark and Norway, it took a more
moderate stand on these issues. However, we could say that the party has
been a channel for some xenophobic fears and attitudes.
What makes the Finnish Rural Party a populist party is the fact that
it has no permanent ideology, no interests or groups that it strives to
represent, but rather its main target is to find and mobilise political
dissatisfaction wherever it can be found. The electoral success of the
party has varied greatly, and has rapidly risen and fallen, as is often
the case in expressive voting. Its participation in the Governments during
1983-1990 laid the groundwork for its final crisis. At present, the party
seems to be living through its final period, with only one MP left - at
its peak in 1970, it had 18 MPs.
The League for a Free Finland
The League for a Free Finland (Vapaan Suomen Liitto) is a
moderate nationalist-populist party. We can compare it, for example, to
the party BfB of Manfred Brunner in Germany, 1994. The League also has
some similarities with the movement of Philippe de Villiers in France.
Its propaganda against the EU was very virulent; statements emerged such
as "we do not want to be slaves of the EU" and "we must give Finland back
to the Finns". It seems that the party has no other message than being
against the EU. There are more right-wing elements in the League who would
appreciate that the League would also agitate with themes like immigration
and refugees, but that is not their official line. The League received
one per cent of the votes cast in the parliamentary elections of 1995.
Its strongholds are in the region of Kainuu, in north-eastern Finland.
The League would like Carelia back, but does not have an aggressive policy
towards Russia. The party believes in negotiations. Some individuals with
extreme right opinions have tried to infiltrate the party, but they are
not wanted. In the spring of 1995 the League had about 1000 members, but
a great many of them have resigned after the elections.
The Patriotic National Alliance
The Patriotic National Alliance (Isänmaallinen Kansallis-Liitto,
IKL), whose membership claims to be about 700, though this may be overestimated,
is a far-right group with a nostalgic orientation. The Alliance publishes
the magazine called Ajan Suunta. The group imitates the flag and
uniform of the patriotic and nationalistic Isänmaallinen Kansanliike
(the Patriotic People's Movement) which was active in the 1930s and dissolved
as a fascist organisation in 1944. The Patriotic National Alliance continues
its traditions ideologically emphasising traditional conservatism, best
described by their slogan "Home, Religion and Fatherland". The Alliance
is also afraid of tolerance going too far, endangering good old Finnish
values, norms and habits.
The leader of the Alliance, Martti Järviharju, was a member
of the Constitutional Party of Finland (POP) during the 1980s and after
that he was close to the National Coalition Party, until he considered
it to be too "leftist". In spring 1993, the Patriotic National Union was
founded, and he was elected as its chairman. It is an organisation with
the same initials and with nearly the same name as in the thirties. Then
the name was Isänmaallinen Kansanliike, but now it is Isänmaallinen
Kansallis-Liitto.
Perhaps this type of party would have been banned earlier, but no
longer after the collapse of the Soviet Union, although some authorities
did not want to accept its registration at the outset. However, it was
accepted since the name was not exactly the same as in the 1930s. Now the
Patriotic National Alliance wants to create a mixture of the three agendas
mentioned above. The Alliance describes the dangers of the EU membership
for Finland. It supports the idea of a "Greater Finland", that is, getting
back Carelia and other areas lost to the Soviet Union in World War II.
Their map of Finland is the map of 1939. The traditional "anti-Russianism"
still has an important role in the Alliance. The group claims to reject
anti-Semitism and racism, but on the other hand, their newspaper is full
of comments against Blacks, gypsies and refugees. However, the patriotism
of the Alliance is rhetorically more cultural than racial: the "Finnishness"
the Alliance adores is more "cultural Finnishness" than, for instance,
speaking of a Nordic race. It must however also be remembered and emphasised
that it is not always easy to draw the line between culture and race in
the rhetoric utilised by extreme-rightist speakers. Rather, one could speak
about the efforts to racialize culture connotatively in such a way that
culture takes on biological characteristics.
The moral and political bankruptcy, observed by the Alliance in Finland
and Finnish immigration policy, have also been their current major ideological
starting points. According to the organization’s leader, Mr. Järviharju,
the established parties and politicians are seeking to fulfil their own
selfish interests; and merely in case of necessity or emergency do they
remember the people and their interests. Here the rhetoric of the Alliance
follows the old tradition of despising politics and, accordingly, democracy
too. Instead, they are hoping for unity of the people. The Alliance criticises
- as they call it - "a too human immigration policy", favouring immigrants
before its own people. They even argue that with the money of the people,
criminals are being brought to Finland. The Alliance has also started using
the internationally-used slogan: "Our own people first". - It seems that
the Patriotic National Alliance has awoken a new fresh interest within
some right-wing circles.
Both the Patriotic National Alliance and the Front of Patriotic Right
are trying to collect 5 000 names of supporters in order to be registered
as political parties in the official party register. Despite the fact that
Mr. Järviharju has encouraged the Alliance to act according to parliamentarian
principles and rules so far they have not succeeded in collecting enough
names. Difficulties in collecting 5 000 names reflects the high threshold
that Finns still have in giving their names to support this kind of organisation.
Their symbols and black clothing, for instance, awakens people’s political
imagination, reminiscent of the 1930s. Because the Patriotic National Alliance
has not succeeded in gaining the status of an official political party,
it has not been possible for it to appear in elections with its own list
of candidates. Therefore, some members of the Patriotic National Alliance
tried to become elected by appearing as non-party affiliated candidates
as candidates of other official parties. Suitable official parties in the
1996 European Union and local elections were the True Finns, the Conservative
Party and the Finnish Pensioners’ Party.
The Patriotic National Alliance has lately been active in organising
international contacts. Some of its members took part in the 1996 May Day
march organised by the Front National in France, and respectively,
a Front National delegate (Europarliamentarian Carl Lang) was present
at the summer meeting of the Patriotic National Alliance. Jean-Yves Camus
(Vendredi 21.6.1996) from CERA (Centre européen de recherche
et d’action sur le racisme et l’antisémitisme) argues that the
Front National has decided to develop some kind of international
co-operation. To this end the Front invited the Front National (Belgium),
Prawica Narodova (Poland), MIEP (Hungary), AUN (Spain) and IKL (Finland)
to participate in the May Day activities. The Front would particularly
like to develop contacts with various nationalist and populist groups in
the Europian countries in political transition - particularly in Eastern
Europe. Le Pen himself invited the delegation of IKL to the European Parliament
in September 1996. According to Ajan Suunta (3 / 1996), Le Pen expressed
his sympathy for IKL with the slogan ‘the nationalists of all countries
unite’. - It seems evident that The Patriotic National Alliance wishes
to be identified with the international family of radical right-wing national
populist parties.
The Patriotic Right
The other Führer figure on the extreme right is now Väinö
Kuisma, who first founded The Aryan German Brotherhood (Arjalainen
Germaaniveljeskunta, AGV). This fancy name tells us that the German
neo-Nazism of 1990-1992 was source of their inspiration. Later, this movement
has tried to change its identity. The Nazi symbols have been replaced by
other symbols, such as the symbols of ancient Finnish mythology. Now their
official name is the Patriotic Right (Isänmaallinen Oikeisto,
IO). The membership of the Patriotic Right numbers about 50, especially
visible in Lahti, in southern Finland. The Weltanschauung of Kuisma
has strong ties to the heritage of the national mythology of the Kalevala
(the national epic of Finland). The association publishes its own photocopied
newspaper Kansallinen Rintama (National Front), and also sells items
like T-shirts, stickers and armbands. It seems that Kuisma and his group
are awakening a new interest, for example, among some skinhead groups in
towns like Joensuu and Turku.
The Front of Patriotic Right has also tried, with no success so far,
to collect 5000 names of supporters to gain the official status of a political
party.
Since the disintegration of Kansallinen Radikaalipuolue (the
National Radical Party), some of its former members have been interested
in and joined Väinö Kuisma’s Front of the Patriotic Right. The
National Radical Party was founded by Tapio Linna in 1991: It was earlier
known as the Organisation of National Unity, founded in 1985. The party
was most active in Helsinki and Turku, especially among skinheads. Linna
was fined in January 1993 for incitement to ethnic hatred and interference
in the freedom of religion. This sentence irritated some of his followers
who left the party. After his conviction, it was also impossible for Linna
to get his paper sold in bookstores. Before the process of disintegration,
the National Radical Party claimed to have 170 members and its publication
was Uusi Suunta (New Direction).
The Patriotic Right publishes the newspaper Kansallinen Rintama
(National Front). According to Kansallinen Rintama the PR nowadays
has parliamentary political goals. The party leadership hopes to collect
5 000 names among the enfranchised voters in order to become an official
party. Because of these parliamentary political objectives, the PR, at
least rhetorically, wants to distance itself from Nazism and the violent
and anarchistic skinhead groups. The party is attempting to create the
image of being a firm nationalist party. That is, a party obedient to democratic
political rules, even if at the same time it heavily criticises ‘a weak
party political democracy’ and wishes to replace it with ‘a strong leadership
democracy’.
However, it may be argued with good reason that the PR is a party
with a totalitarian ideology. Our argument is that the overall idea of
the totalitarian PR is to create a myth, according to which the PR is itself
mythical. The mythical construction of the identity is based particularly
on the following three factors: a) According to the rhetoric of Kansallinen
Rintama history is a great narrative. History has a sense and a task,
i.e., it is the Finnish people’s struggle over the defence and preservation
of its own identity. b) The fact that History is a big narrative gives
the PR a holy mission and obligation: to serve the narrative and try to
fulfil its obligations. c) History gives the PR its legitimisation. Therefore,
for true believers, the PR means the Road, the Truth, and Life: it is the
movement which resolves all problems, the movement which is an end in itself.
The PR claims that when others have forgotten and even discarded
history, they want to speak of history, to remember it, to imagine it,
and to take into account its teachings and learn from them. The will to
learn from history goes so deep that one can even speak of the imitation
of history, of the will to revive the claimed heroic features of the Finnish
history. The historic mission of the Finnish people is first to recover
its hidden secret essence, what the true Finnishness in fact means, and
then fight for the preservation and fulfilment of the national spirit.
Because Finland has always been a very homogenous nation, it is also
easy to ideologically tie together the concepts of peoples and races. According
to Kansallinen Rintama, the struggle over the preservation of the
Finnish people must today be combined with the struggle over the preservation
of the white race. The task of the PR is to achieve ‘a racially pure and
united people’.
Great Finland (Suur-Suomi -yhdistys)
One special issue and theme of the Finnish Radical Right has always
been suspicious and hostile attitudes towards the Soviet Union and Russia.
This heritage is important to the Patriotic-National Alliance, for instance,
but there are also small groupings for whom this is the only issue.
The quite small grouping Great Finland (Suur-Suomi) uses very
radical verbal attacks against Russia, Russian authorities and individual
Russians in Finland. One of its enemies in Finland is the small group of
Zhirinovsky-supporters among the Russians in Finland. The leader of Great
Finland, Seppo Lehto, received some international publicity as an independent
candidate, in the Tampere region, in the last parliamentary elections (The
European, 17-23.3.1995). In our interview with him in June 1995, he expressed
his anti-Russian feelings very clearly. He has not been so interested in
the immigration, but during autumn 1995 he made very violent propaganda
against the Somalis in Finland. He also supports the EU and NATO and believes
that these institutions could help to intimidate Russia into returning
to Finland the areas lost. Naturally, these are just daydreams, but such
of ideas have a provocative message when they are quoted in the Russian
press.
***
Herbert Kitscelt (1995) argues that there are different trends in
the current European New Radical Right appeal. There are 1) authoritarian,
xenophobic and capitalist appeals, 2) populist antistatist appeals, 3)
"welfare chauvinist" appeals and 4) fascist appeals. According to Kitschelt
(p. vii-vii), the electorally ‘winning formula’ of the new radical right
parties and movements has been: ‘Only if they choose economic free market
appeals that are combined with authoritarian and ethnocentric and even
racist messages will they attract a broad audience.’ Compared to these
appeals, one can argue that ‘the "master case" for the contemporary extreme
Right’ (case 1) has been missing in Finland. The Finnish Rural Party has
resembled most of the populist appeal. The Patriotic Right comes closest,
on the basis of its rhetoric, to the neofascist appeal. The Patriotic National
Alliance is a mixture of the national-patriotic heritage, the populist
antistatist appeal and the welfare chauvinist appeal. The other new radical
right movements and groupings existing in Finland are either one-issue
movements, centred around such issues specific to Finnish political history,
such as acting against the EU or wishing to return the lost Carelian areas
to Finland, or such marginal groupings that are not known to the general
public at all.
There have been skinhead groups in Finland since the end of the 1980s.
For the time being, skinheads exist in the bigger towns, like the capital
area of Helsinki, Turku and Tampere, but also in smaller towns like Joensuu,
Mikkeli, Kouvola, Jyväskylä, Oulu and Pori. The number of skinheads
is very difficult to estimate, but according to them there are about 300
or 400 skinheads in Finland.
For most of the time, groups have been nationally oriented local
phenomena, though lately the scene has become more united and international.
As everywhere else, an important role in this shift has been played by
music, concerts and publications. The Finnish skinheads have also been
anxious to introduce products of their own to the markets in the form of
videos and music from bands like Mistreat and Pig Killer. There have also
been two Finnish skinhead magazines: Ainaskin and Pro Patria.
The groups have become more active and salient during the last few
years: incidents of street violence and harassment have become more numerous,
yet remain more accidental than planned. However, neither arson nor Molotow-coktails
have been employed. Moreover, nobody has been killed by skinheads. The
rise of street violence seems to be over for the time being. The main reason
for "silence" is that most violent skinheads either are already in prison,
or about to be sentenced to prison.
Nevertheless, the skinhead scene has become more organised and the
activities take place within their own clubs, founded in Turku, Helsinki
and Joensuu. Some groups (from Turku and Joensuu, for instance) have also
tried to organise co-operation with some neo-Nazi organisations, like Väinö
Kuisma's Patriotic Right. Other groups have not been interested in this
kind of political action, but define the skinhead sub-culture as youth
culture.
The British skinhead movement Blood and Honour has also announced
the creation of a Finnish division called Veri ja Kunnia, with headquartes
in Helsinki. It organised two concerts, one featuring the band "Brutal
Skins", the other "Mistreat", the country’s best known "oi" music band.
Radical Right-Wing Parties, Groups and Candidates
in Elections
The proportional electoral system used in Finland can function, in
principle, as a contributory factor in the endeavours of radical right-wing
organisations and of individual candidates to get some public attention
outside their silent subcultural ghetto, in which they usually find themselves.
However, the new radical right organisations, excluding the populist Finnish
Rural Party, have not had any relevant success in elections. Usually, they
do not even present themselves as representatives of their own organisations,
but as independent candidates in some larger coalition.
The other characteristic of the electoral system that might help
an individual radical right-wing populist candidate in elections is that
Finnish voters choose a candidate from a party list. This means that elections
are also quite personified. With party ties becoming looser and looser,
a candidate's personal role becomes evermore important. Therefore, candidates
may, or even must, try to differentiate themselves from other rival candidates,
even from those of the same party. These trends make it possible and tempting
for individual candidates - even from the mainstream parties - to campaign
with themes that seem to be popular among voters, i.e. with a theme like
immigration.
These opportunities have already been successfully utilised in some
elections. In the 1991 Parliamentary elections, the Finnish Rural Party,
and its MP Sulo Aittoniemi in particular, tried with some success to mobilise
support with xenophobia. The party gained new votes and Aittoniemi got
over 18 000 votes in the Tampere region; and he was even the third largest
vote-magnet among the individual candidates in the whole country. His opinions
concerning the asylum-seekers were one factor for this success. Later,
he joined the Centre Party and was re-elected in the 1995 elections.
In the 1996 EU elections the New Radical Right groups did not succeed
as well they had hoped: The True Finns got only 0.7% of the votes cast
and the League for a Free Finland 0.6%. Martti Järviharju, the chairman
of the Patriotic National Alliance, did not campaign for the Alliance but
as a candidate of the Pensioners’ Party. Järviharju got 1610 votes
and was the most successful candidate on the list, which however only received
a total of 0.3% of the votes cast. One evident explanation for their total
failure in the EU elections was that the overwhelming portion of the existing
anti-EU atmosphere was channeled both through some publicly well-known
anti-EU candidates in established parties, in the Centre Party and the
League of the Left Alliance in particular, and through the Christian League
(which got about 3% of the votes cast).
The 1996 local elections also meant a disappointment for the Finnish
New Radical Right. The Patriotic National Alliance and the Patriotic Right
were not able to take part in the elections on their own lists. Some of
their members tried, with little success, to get elected by appearing as
non-party affiliated candidates on the lists of the True Finns, the Conservative
Party and the Finnish Pensioners’ Party.
Pekka Siitoin got 91 votes in the town of Naantali, 2.3% of the votes
cast, and he was not elected. Seppo Lehto, the leader of the grouping Great
Finland, got 163 votes in Tampere, and was not elected. At least seven
members of the Patriotic National Alliance were candidates on the lists
of different parties. Only Martti Järviharju, the party chair, was
elected to the Kauhajoki Council. Other candidates got at best slightly
more than one hundred votes.
In Turku, the third largest town in Finland, the electoral alliance,
called ‘In defence of Turku’, had the greatest success of the New Radical
Right in Finland in the 1996 local elections. The alliance got 4% of the
votes cast in Turku and two councillors. The leader of the alliance, Olavi
Mäenpää (who got more than 2,100 votes of the 3,200 votes
received by the whole list), was earlier a councillor for the Finnish Rural
Party. But he left the party and has been campaigning with various other
populist themes. He has been attacking leading local politicians for their
corruption. He has also spoken against asylum-seekers, Somalis in particular,
against Finnish citizens who help the asylum-seekers and foreigners, and
against the strengthening role of Islam in Finland. Criminality among foreigners
has also been an important theme for him. Although the main common themes
of the alliance were patriotism and anti-immigration, two candidates of
the alliance were also members of the Patriotic Right and have also been
active in skinhead movement. When the newly-elected Turku town council
began its work, the two councillors of ‘In defence of Turku’ took on the
name of National Front (Kansallinen Rintama). Councillor Mäenpää
has also said that a new party will be founded under the same name.
The success of the list "In defence of Turku" is a specific problem
for the left-wing parties, because the list succeeded quite well in the
decaying suburban areas where the left-wing parties have traditionally
succeeded best. What this involves is traditional working-class areas in
which unemployment and high immigration often coincide nowadays.
The main problem in the 1996 local elections, however, was political
apathy. The voting activity was as low as about 61%. In many voting districts,
especially in decaying urban milieus characterised by high unemployment,
voter participation was less than 50%, and in some cases even less than
40%. The existing dissatisfaction with established political parties resulted
in voting apathy in this situation.
The other reason that might explain the meagre success of the New
Radical Right candidates in local elections was the invisibility of their
special issues in the elections. As the political agenda of the elections
was, after all, very traditional, voter decisions and voter behaviour were
also quite traditional - disregarding the astonishing voter apathy. On
the other hand, on the lists of the established parties there were even
some individual candidates who made propaganda around the issue of immigration.
Consequently, the New Radical Right entrepreneurs, even if they did get
some political attention in a few local milieus, were not able to transform
these issues into ideas articulated and represented only by them.
Propaganda against asylum-seekers and immigration has been the most
important single issue brought forth by extreme right movements in recent
decades. In Finland, asylum-seekers and immigration have been quite new
phenomena compared to the situation in Central Europe, as well as in the
other Scandinavian countries.
Table 1: The number of foreigners in Finland
| 1980 | 12,800 |
| 1985 | 17,000 |
| 1989 | 21,100 |
| 1990 | 26,200 |
| 1993 | 46,300 |
| 1994 | 62,000 |
| 1996 | 74,700 |
However, relatively speaking this increase in the number of foreigners
has been very rapid in some areas, since immigration has been concentrated
in the Helsinki area and some other large towns. Nevertheless, the percentage
of foreigners living in Finland is one of the smallest in Europe: in 1994
1.2 %.
The number of asylum-seekers was at its highest in 1992, when there were 3,600 asylum-seekers.
With the increase in the number of immigrants, and the continued
economic recession in Finland, unemployment is still above 18 per cent.
With no rapid recovery on the horizon, the attitudes of Finns toward immigrants
have become more critical. In 1987, 42 per cent of the Finns were willing
to receive more refugees; but by 1993, the percentage had dropped to only
20. The most critical attitudes towards refugees were found among the unemployed,
workers, pensioners and farmers, that is, people with a low social status
and little education. When respondents in 1994 were asked (Jaakkola) which
nationalities they were willing to receive, the most popular were the Norwegians
(about 75 %), while one of the most unpopular were the Russians (about
25 %). One reason for the impopularity of the Russians may be the news
about and public discussion concerning increasing criminality among foreigners,
and the role of the "Russian Mafia" in particular. However, there have
been no violent acts against Russians.
According to the police, the number of racist crimes is steadily
on the increase in Finland. In 1995, the police recorded 97 crimes which
had racist and xenophobic characteristics. In 1994, the number was 87.
Ten of the 97 crimes in 1995 were despicable. One was a racist murder,
in another case a skinhead stabbed a foreigner, in four cases foreigners
were attacked with explosives and in another four cases foreigners were
brutally beaten. The culprits of hate crimes have usually been a group
of young skinheads with a criminal record. However, their violence has
usually not been planned in advance, but have rather been spontaneous acts.
Michel Wieviorka (1994: 173-188) differentiates between two main
levels of racism: the infrapolitical level and the political level. Usually
contemporary racism appears first on the infrapolitical level and then
ascends to the political level, with variations from one country to another.
On the infrapolitical level, racism is neither ‘a central issue, and it
is limited both quantitatively and qualitatively, nor does it give the
image of a unified and integrated phenomenon’. In political racism ‘political
and intellectual debates and real political forces bring a dual principle
of unity to the phenomenon. On one hand, they give it an ideological structure,
so that all its expressions seem to converge and define a unique set of
problems; on the other hand, they offer it practical forms of organisation".
(pp. 183-184) Following Wieviorka’s definitions, one can argue that current
racist violence in Finland is on the infrapolitical level and that the
characteristics of political racism and racist organisations are missing,
at least so far.
Conclusions: Will There Be Relevant New Radical
Right Parties, Movements or Racist Organisations in Finland?
Of course one cannot give any clear positive or negative answer to
this question. What one can do is to consider the existing tendencies and
tensions.
One evident reason for the "silence" that has characterised the radical
Right in Finland has been the specific political history of Finland after
World War II. According to the Moscow and Paris peace treaties, fascist,
extreme right and national-patriotic parties and movements were banned
in Finland. The ban lasted until 1991. After the world war, good relations
with the Soviet Union captured all the political attention in Finland,
and "right-wing politics" had no role within that political sphere. The
paradoxical result in the internal political arena was that the ideology
and symbol of the "Right" and the "right-wing" gradually lost its special
meaning. Today one can see in this political vacuum faint signs of new
life.
Because Finland has been a quite homogenous society, and the number
of foreigners and asylum seekers so far has been very low, there are no
strong racist traditions. Only the gypsies, and the attitudes of repulsion
some Finns feel towards them, have been an exception. The "official" political
tradition in the last decades has been the ideology of tolerance. However,
the collapse of the Finnish foreign policy-paradigm, deprivation associated
with the on-going economic recession, especially in central-urban areas,
and the growing number of immigrants and asylum-seekers since the end of
the 1980s have challenged the former self-evident ways of thinking.
The issue of racism is often related to the so-called urban crisis
and the suburban problem. Christopher T. Husbands writes in his article
(1994, p.566) that ‘the persistent definitional feature of the British
extreme right has been crude urban racism, concentrated in specific localities
and derived from parochial inter-ethnic competition about materialist or
consumption issues or from local cultural clashes’. One cannot speak about
urban racism in Finland in the strict sense of the concept. So far, growing
suspicions towards immigrants have not brought forth new extreme right
movements, racist organisations or any massive violence against non-white
immigrants, although single violent acts, especially by skinhead-groups
and, at random, also by drunken young men, have become more numerous.
The basic reason for xenophobic fears and racism is usually, for
one reason or another, accumulated frustration, resentment and anger among
the local people. This dissatisfaction may be directed against foreigners
and refugees, who may symbolise and represent alien elements in an unsatisfactory
everyday life.
Until now, the economic recession and broad rhetorically-expressed
political dissatisfaction in Finland have not turned into subjective crises
experienced by a great number of individuals. The recession and political
dissatisfaction, so far, have remained mainly on the level of social problems
without being transformed into subjectively-experienced crises of the self.
Social problems have not yet turned into subjective crises because the
welfare state, until the present, has been so strong that it has been able
to "buy tranquillity" by paying "enough" public subsidies to families and
individuals in troubles. Therefore, the real problems of the economic and
political system have not featured as a real crisis; dissatisfaction and
discontent have resulted in apathy and indifference rather than in the
"politics of resentment". (For more a thorough argumentation about this,
see Pekonen & Hynynen 1995)
Thinking about the possibility of a "new racism" (see Wieviorka 1993),
the situation of the Left with its labour identity has been, and still
is, surprisingly important and persistent in Finland. A labour identity
with its symbolic and ideological characteristics, such as respect for
work, distant goals of equality and brotherhood between workers and even
nationalities, although these are only part of an ideological superstructure,
still has an important role to play among middle-aged and older Finnish
workers. Because of this still-strong position of the "old politics" in
Finland, the favourite themes and issues of the New Radical Right have
not yet become real political issues in elections.
What will be the future seems to depend both on what will happen
to the massive unemployment and the experiences and judgements people will
have concerning the so-called Rainbow Government: an exceptional coalition
between the Social Democratic Party, the Conservative Party, the Greens
and the Left-Wing Alliance (former socialists and communists). Parliamentary
elections in spring 1995 revealed a slight recovery of parliamentary politics,
with increased voter activity. However, voter activity crashed again in
the 1996 local and EU elections to as low as about 60 %, and in some "declining
urban suburbs" even below 40 %. The 1995 parliamentary election seemed
to have meant, for many desperate voters, the last political hope for change
in their everyday life situation. This meant voting for the established
political parties, in particular for the Social Democrats.
In the 1995 parliamentary elections the Social Democrats showed a
remarkable gain for example in Helsinki in such downgraded neighbourhoods,
where, in many countries, the left-wing parties had lost during the last
few years. In the 1996 local elections some of these neighbourhoods were
districts of political apathy, with a participation of 35 - 45 %. If the
hopes of the 1995 elections will be crushed, there might become new "solutions".
The success of the list ‘In defence of Turku’, in the 1996 local elections
can be connected with the French discussion of "lepenisme de gauche"
(left-lepenism). Pascal Perrineau (1995) reminds us how a significant part
of the electors of the Front National in France ‘call themselves
leftists the same day they voted for the Front National’. Many of
those voters who in the 1996 local elections voted for the list ‘In defence
of Turku’, voted for the left-wing parties in the EU elections.
Although the voter turnout has steadily decreased in Finland, new
small parties have steadily increased their proportion of votes cast, voters’
volatility has increased, and citizens’ indifference to parties and politicians
has been increasing, these signs of anti-party sentiment have not yet produced
any relevant "anti-parties" able to gain a firm foothold in the Finnish
political party arena. A minor exception was the Finnish Rural Party, that
utilised the theme of the ruling political class, especially in the 1970
and 1983 elections in which the party gained large victories. The party
used the argument that the ruling political class was corrupted and indifferent
to ordinary people’s problems. So far, the New Radical Right parties and
movements have not been able to utilise new opportunities on the "demand
side". One of the main reasons for this has been the fact that the "supply
side"of the New Radical Right has been very weak.
Betz Hans-Georg, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe.
(MACMILLAN, 1994)
Camus Jean-Yves, ‘L’internationale de l’extréme droite.’ Vendredi
21.6.1996
Husbands Christopher T., ‘Following the "continental model"?: Implications
of the recent electoral performance of the British National Party’. New
Community July 1994 20(4): 563-579.
Jaakkola Magdalena, ‘Suomalaisten ulkomaalaisasenteet kiristyneet.’
Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus neljännesvuosijulkaisu Kvartti
1/1994: 3-10, Helsinki 1994.
Kitschelt Herbert, The Radical Right in Western Europe. A Comparative
Analysis. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press 1995)
Lane Jan-Erik, Martikainen Tuomo, Svenssion Palle, Vogt Gunnar and
Valen Henry, ‘Scandinavian Exceptionalism Reconsidered’. Journal of
Theoretical Politics 5 (2): 195-230 (1993).
Pekonen Kyösti and Hynynen Pertti, ‘Seeking the Finnish Extreme
Right’. Paper presented at the Conference "New Right in Europe". University
of Helsinki, 14-15 December, 1995.
Pekonen Kyösti, Politiikka urbaanissa betonilähiössä.
(Käsikirjoitus) 1998.
Perrineau Pascal, ‘Les électeurs inattendus du Front National’.
Le Nouvel Observateur 17.8.1995.
Vihavainen Timo, Kansakunta rähmällään.
(Helsinki: Otava 1991)
Wieviorka Michel, ‘Tendencies to Racism in Europe: Does France represent
a unique case, or is it representative of a trend’. In John Solomos and
John Wrench (eds.), Racism and Migration in Western Europe. (Ann
Arbor, Mi.: Berg, 1993) pp. 55-65.
Wieviorka Michel, ‘Racism in Europe: Unity and Diversity’. Polity
Press, 1994, pp. 173-188.
Appendix I: The Constitutional Party of Finland
in Elections
| Local elections | Parliamentary elections | ||
| Year | Percentage of votes | Year | Percentage of votes |
| Whole country | |||
| 1976 | 0.9 | 1975 | Whole country 1.6
Helsinki* 4.1 |
| 1980 | 0.5 | 1979 | Whole country 1.2
Helsinki* 2.5 |
| 1984 | 0.4 | 1983 | Whole country 0.4
Helsinki* 2.5 |
| 1988 | 0.2 | 1987 | Whole country 0.1
Helsinki* 0.8 Vaasa* 0.2 |
* Helsinki and Vaasa constituencies
The Constitutional Party in Presidential elections:
1978 3.4 % of the votes (the party’s candidate was the former Social Democrat Ahti Salonen)
1982 0.3 % of the votes (The party did not have its own candidate
but the party supported Social Democrat Mauno Koivisto, who was elected
with a big majority)
Appendix II: The Finnish Rural Party in elections.
| Local elections | Parliamentary elections | ||
| Year | Percentage of votes
Whole country |
Year | Percentage of votes
Whole country |
| 1960* | 2.7 | 1962* | 2.2 |
| 1964* | 1.4 | 1966 | 1.0 |
| 1968 | 7.3 | 1970 | 10.5 |
| 1972 | 5.0 | 1972 | 9.2 |
| 1976 | 2.1 | 1975 | 3.6 |
| 1980 | 3.0 | 1979 | 4.6 |
| 1984 | 5.3 | 1983 | 9.7 |
| 1988 | 3.6 | 1987 | 6.3 |
| 1992 | 2.4 | 1991 | 3.5 |
| 1996** | 1995 | 1.3 | |
* Small Holders Party of Finland
** True Finns
The Finnish Rural Party in Presidential elections when the party
chairman Veikko Vennamo was the party’s candidate:
1968 11.3 % of the votes
1978 4.7 % of the votes
1982 2.3 % of the votes