Comment|Even if my permission is just my permission, it is a purposeful choice of words as bait to continue the anti-immigration debate, writes Milla Palkoaho, editor of Helsingin Sanomat.
Either Member of Parliament for Basic Finns Ari Koponen is particularly concerned about the purple lupine fields along the highways, or else he continues the double communication typical of basic Finns.
On Thursday, Koponen brought up the lupine problem affecting Southern Finland in particular in the message service X. Koponen talked about the foreign species covering the local species, which should be removed.
It is certainly possible that Koponen, who lives in Tuusula, has only now noticed the plants decorating the roadsides on his car journeys. After all, there has only been lupine in Finland for more than 200 years.
Second the alternative is for Koponen to do what the Fundamental Finns like to do: address his supporters with language that can be disguised as seemingly innocent, and then present his message ignorant of the possible ambiguity.
For example, last week Perusfinlomaiset organized an election event, whose name referred to a conspiracy theory favored by the far right. At the event, it was emphasized that the party has absolutely nothing to do with this ideology.
Political scientist Johanna Vuorelma The University of Helsinki has liked the way of basic Finns to use irony in their speeches as a kind of wink.
“The use of irony enables addressing different audiences at the same time: A wink to one’s own supporters, another message to others”, Vuorelma comment on X last summer.
Koponen the message he published on Thursday caused aggravation also because of its timing.
Later that day, a 12-year-old immigrant child was stabbed by a far-right man in a shopping center in Oulu. One of the police’s lines of inquiry is that it is a hate crime.
For example, a member of parliament Eveliina Heinäluoma (sd) commented on Koponen’s publication in X as disgusting. Heinäluoma’s view was that Koponen uses a secret language that is nevertheless recognizable as racist.
After all, Koponen would not be the first member of parliament for basic Finns to use foreign language as a euphemism for immigration.
In 2019 Juha Mäenpää gave a speech in parliament in which he equated asylum seekers and alien species. Mäenpää regretted that the control of non-native species recorded in the government program was read in the wrong place – that is, where it dealt with, for example, the gray rose and the mink.
Mäenpää himself admitted that he meant “different religions” by the comparison. In his opinion, it was about political rhetoric, not denigration of asylum seekers.
At the time, the Attorney General considered Mäenpää’s speeches inappropriate, but considered the “spontaneous features of thoughtlessness” associated with giving the speech to reduce the reprehensibility of the act.
Already because of Mäenpää’s case, you would think that Koponen knows what kind of resonance the term foreign species has. Nevertheless, Koponen considered it appropriate for the MP’s dignity to play with the foreign sport comparison.
Although Koponen invited his more than 3,000 followers in X to act in order to stop the foreign species that had arrived “unasked and unexpectedly”, he did not give very concrete advice on that.
Helsingin Sanomat would also have liked to hear from Kopos why he was worried about lupins right now.
We would also have asked why Koponen has not considered it appropriate to intervene in the perception of many commentators that when he talks about foreign species, he actually means people who have arrived in Finland from elsewhere.
When no responsibility is taken for a possible misinterpretation of one’s own publications, eternal doubt is revealed. Even if my lupin is just my lupin, the purposeful choice of words is also a bait to continue the anti-immigration debate on social media.
Despite numerous attempts, HS could not get Kopo to a phone interview on Friday, Saturday or Sunday by two o’clock.
For the information of those who are concerned: lupine can be combated, for example, by mowing or covering the vegetation.
Correction 16.6. at 8:40 p.m. At one point in the story, it was erroneously mentioned that Koponen had published his message on the message service X on Friday, although in reality he published it on Thursday.
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