The Happiest Country in the World Launches a Hate Campaign Against Muslims: What's Happening in Finland?

According to the World Happiness Report released by the United Nations for 2022, Finland retained its title as the "Happiest Country in the World" for the fifth consecutive year. However, this status doesn't seem to extend to all inhabitants of the country.

Muslims, immigrants, and certain ethnic groups like Africans and Arabs have been targeted by a surge of hatred and racism fueled by the far-right movement, one of the elements of the current ruling coalition.

The country's current government has even become embroiled in a series of recent hate campaigns and scandals against Muslims and immigrants, particularly by the Minister of Economic Affairs, Wille Rydman, a supporter of Nazism and the extremist Neo-Nazis movement.

As a result, it appears that the state of happiness does not encompass all Finns or some of the residents of this Nordic country, which has a population of 5.5 million people and is the thirty-first member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

According to the official website of the Finnish government, the number of immigrants living in the country is estimated to be around 402,000 immigrants, based on the 2022/2023 statistics.

Recent events have cast doubt on the ranking that claims "the people of Finland are the happiest in the world," previously attributed by the United Nations to optimism, a culture of tolerance, and freedom.

 

Nazi Affiliation

On July 27, 2023, the local newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, one of the best-selling newspapers in the country, exposed a racist scandal involving Minister Wille Rydman against Muslims, Arabs, and Africans.

A collection of messages sent by the far-right minister to his girlfriend in 2016, when he was a Member of Parliament, revealed a significant degree of racism.

The extremist Minister described Somalis in dehumanizing terms, saying, "They are like grass, you find them spreading everywhere in our country."

In another message, he referred to Arabs and Middle Easterners as "monkeys and desert monkeys."

He commented on Muslim women, stating, "It's better to completely ban the entry of veiled women instead of allowing them in and then banning the veil."

In one of his messages, he suggested playing a song about a Muslim immigrant who rapes women and recommended playing this song at student parties so that they can constantly listen to it and learn who Muslims are, according to his claim.

The Finnish newspaper's revelations shed light on the minister's extreme ideology. In one message, he wrote emphatically, "We, the Nazis, do not like to name our children with Jewish names. It's sad that Nazi Germany has disappeared from existence."

 

Purra and Racism

Those messages revealed how the minister deals with minorities while already holding prominent political positions.

The private messages shed light on the new Minister of Economic Affairs' thought process, but this wasn't an isolated case within the government, which is dominated by a segment of the far-right movement.

On July 11, 2023, Finland's Minister of Finance, Riikka Purra, faced criticism from her government colleagues over racially charged statements attributed to her, written 15 years ago, targeting immigrants and Islam, which forced her to provide clarification.

Purra, the leader of the far-right Finns Party, a partner in the ruling coalition, was accused of writing incendiary comments in 2008 against immigrants and Islam, containing racist remarks and threats of violence against Muslims.

The Minister of Finance faced allegations of apologizing for her racism through a tweet on her former Twitter account, where she said, "I apologize for the foolish comments I made 15 years ago, and the harm and understandable disturbance they caused. I am not a perfect person."

The abrupt statements by Finland's Minister of Finance included a direct call for the killing of Somali immigrant children.

Regarding her party's known extremism against immigrants and Muslims, Purra stated, "Our immigration policy is legitimate and legal, even if some of our political opponents want to undermine our agenda."

 

Nazi Tendencies

Rydman and Purra's statements come at a time when the government is grappling with successive crises of racism and support for Nazism.

In June 2023, Minister of the Economy, Vilhelm Junnila, was forced to resign due to statements expressing support for Nazism.

During the parliamentary elections, Junnila made a joke about a candidate with the number 88, which is seen as a reference to Nazi salute, as the letter H is the eighth letter in the Finnish alphabet.

This led to a fierce backlash against the Finnish minister, with accusations of extremism and association with the Nazi agenda. These allegations were insurmountable, leading to his resignation.

During a meeting on July 28, 2023, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo addressed concerns about increasing extremist rhetoric within his government while conferring with leaders from the coalition parties.

He affirmed his commitment to sending a clear message to Finns and the international community that there would be no tolerance for racism in his country.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto stated that "it would be wise for the government to take a clear stance of zero tolerance for racism."

On April 2, 2023, the results of the parliamentary elections in Finland marked a significant shift towards far-right politics.

The National Coalition Party, led by Petteri Orpo, won by a narrow margin over the far-right nationalist party, led by Riikka Purra, with the Social Democratic Party coming in third.

Former Prime Minister Sanna Mirella Marin, who had been a symbol of a more humanitarian approach to politics, especially with the support of Muslim and immigrant communities, lost her position. Media coverage had been filled with praise for the young leader who humanized politics.

In Finnish political tradition, the party with the majority of votes forms the government.

On June 20, 2023, Orpo's right-wing coalition government was sworn in, marking one of the most right-leaning governments in modern Finnish history.

 

Muslims in Finland

Finland is home to approximately 100,000 Muslims, including around a thousand Turkish Tatars. Islam was officially recognized as a religion following the enactment of the Religious Freedom Act in 1922, according to the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

On April 10, 2018, the agency reported that the first mosque built in Scandinavia was established on the Finnish island of Suomenlinna. It was initially a room in a building designated for Muslims to perform their prayers.

Helsinki, the Finnish capital, hosts the oldest Muslim cemetery, established in 1870. It is the final resting place for the earliest Muslims who came to the country, most of whom were Turkish Tatars.

In 1925, the first official Finnish Islamic association was founded, making Finland the first Western European country to formally recognize an Islamic association on its soil.

In 1943, Muslim Tatars established another association in the city of Tampere. However, Muslims of non-Tatar origin could not obtain membership in the Islamic association.

A new translation of the Quran into Finnish was published in 1995, prepared by a Finnish scholar of Arabic language and culture.

In 1996, Islamic associations and organizations in the country united to form the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Finland.

Most mosques in Finland fall under the administration of the federation, which aims to preserve Islam and its traditions, promote flexible cooperation between Muslims and external authorities and institutions, and engage with the government and state institutions concerning the Finnish Islamic community, whether resident or immigrant.

Somali immigrants constitute the majority of the immigrant Muslim community in Finland. They were selected by the Finnish Refugee Board in 1991 for resettlement in Finland, and as a result, they have been subjected to numerous racist attacks by extremists.