Today, the Independence Day of the Republic of Finland, December 6th, people celebrate, often watch the traditional celebrations in President’s Castle, eat Christmas cakes and drink glögi and maybe a little wine. On Independence Day, we remember our republic that has lasted over 100 years and the important work of past generations for peace, freedom, equality and well-being.

However, some people want to disrupt other (normal) people’s Independence Day celebrations by demonstrating for completely opposite values. The violent neo-Nazi organization Nordic Resistance Movement, banned by the court, and the self-proclaimed fascist Sinimusta movement founded the 612 torchlight procession ten years ago to push their violent and far-right agenda. The Nordic Resistance Movement has been guilty of, among other things, the political murder in Eliel Square in 2016. They openly admire Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Similarly, the Sinimusta movement draws its lessons from the Lapua movement, which supported Hitler and Mussolini and which attempted a revolution known as the Mäntsälä Uprising in the 1930s, as a result of which the capital was fortified and armored cars and ships patrolled Helsinki. In Mäntsälä, they shot inside the workers’ hall because they wanted to cancel the speech of Mikko Erich, a ”traitor” and a ”freemason who promotes the interests of the Jews” as they claimed in their posters.

I would go to light a candle for my great grandfather, who served in the 10th Infantry Regiment and fell for Finland in the battles of Vyborg. His grave is next to Mannerheim’s grave at the heroes’ graves in Hietaniemi, Helsinki, but when the far right is speaking there, I am not going. The 612 torchlight procession has taken over the area to promote its own agenda. Teemu Keskisarja, a member of parliament from the fascist and openly racist Finns’ Party, has promised to give a propaganda speech there. The Finns Party has, for example, described Muslim women of Somali origin as ”garbage bags” and posted on social media pictures of a snowman representing the Ku Klux Klan with a log rope in his hand. Their chairwoman Riikka Purra said on Speaker Halla-aho’s blog in 2008 that if she were given a gun, she would ”shoot immigrants on a commuter train”. Halla-aho has said that she is a ”proud Aryan” and wants to ”whip the nig..s.” Halla-aho also showed off a Nazi Luger pistol on social media. Shocking racism is at the very top of the political spectrum. The Finns Party is in government with the Coalition Party and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is looking through all the racism, hate speech and other evil of the Finns Party in order to get the Confederation of Finnish Industries to pass all the Ayn Rand-style theses of the Tea Party movement and neoliberal economic policy. By allowing the far-right to operate in government, Petteri Orpo himself is guilty of their evil. The German priest who defended human dignity, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered by Hitler in a concentration camp, often said: “Inaction in the face of evil is acceptance of evil and evil in itself.” Philosopher Karl Popper states in the paradox of tolerance that “if a society tolerates intolerance, intolerance will soon take over and eventually destroy tolerance.”

Well, I’ll light a candle on the grave in honor of my grandfather some other day. The far-right is ruining the Independence Day celebrations of other, normal, people with its hateful demonstrations. The far-right has hate at the center of everything and all their actions stem from hate, especially their opposition to immigration and equality.

Finland has had a big problem for the last 15 years or so, and that is the far-right. An EU study found that Finland is one of the most racist countries in Europe. The far-right and the Finns Party are constantly trying to shift the Overton Window, i.e. the topics of discussion that are accepted in public, towards the far-right, where hate speech and radical right-wing ideas would be permitted. In a civilized state, not all speech is permitted. Freedom of speech also includes responsibility for speech. No one’s freedom of speech may be violence against others. No one’s freedom may violate the fundamental freedoms and rights of others. Freedom of speech must not violate human dignity or oppose the rule of law and democracy. This is already stated in the constitution. Finland is also committed to complying with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

In Finland, political polarization is visible, with all other parties fairly in the middle of Nolan’s map (conservative-liberal and right-wing-leftist) and the Finns party is on the extreme far right, with ultra-nationalists, ultra-conservatives and extreme economic rightists thoughts. Others defend the traditional Finland based on debate, consensus, the rule of law, democracy and equality, but the Finns Party and some members of the National Coalition Party and Christian Democrats oppose all of these. Social media, especially Elon Musk’s X, has also been filled with hate speech, propaganda and disinformation from the Finns Party. Social media used to be much calmer without the far right and loose moderation. It’s all because of this one extreme right-wing group. The Finns Party is constantly trying to make far-right discourse and narrative acceptable and has already shifted the Overton Window in that direction.

Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher and one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, states that the far right arises from disenfranchisement and social exclusion. This has often been influenced by poor economic conditions. Uneducated, disenfranchised and excluded people are easy prey for populist agitators who create imaginary threat images, such as Hitler, Trump, Jörg Haider, Purra and Halla-aho. The far right has always been associated with disinformation and conspiracy theories. Hitler claimed that “the Jews have plans for world conquest”. The Finns Party, on the other hand, talks about, for example, “population exchange” and “Islamization”, which are untrue conspiracy theories.

The solution to the problem of disenfranchisement is more vigorous efforts for community and improving the well-being, education and ethical and social training of citizens. The fight against disinformation is particularly important. It would be very important to oblige social media giants to properly moderate, respect human dignity and remove disinformation and hate speech. This is already being planned at the EU level. Far-right extremism is a bug or virus in society that must be fixed. The fight for human rights and dignity is often slow work, but over the years it bears fruit. Future generations in particular are an opportunity. It is important to raise children and young people to be ethical, enlightened and wise citizens. For example, the former rector of the University of Helsinki stated that the most important task of the university is to raise good and ethical citizens. When the next generation comes to power, things can change fundamentally. It is in itself very sad that the valuable work done by previous generations against fascism after World War II has partly been forgotten. Has so much time passed since the horrors of World War II that humanity is beginning to forget the atrocities that fascism led to? Fortunately, the world defeated fascism, but it was a close that Hitler would have conquered Europe, fortunately Britain held out and fought. The fight against fascism has claimed the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians. My great-uncle did not fight for a fascist Finland, he fought for an equal, free, democratic and good Finland. He fought against totalitarianism. He would look sadly at today’s Finland and its development. Finland is common to all of us. Finland must be free, open and equal, prosperous and happy, for everyone. A better Finland is built together and internationally. What fascism does not see is that a good society is diverse and is built together. A weak fascist society always collapses because it is built on sand and whoever raises the sword of injustice and hatred in anger will also fall by the sword. I saw the place in Berlin where Hitler’s bunker and the Chancellor’s office were, now there is only a parking lot. Hate does not win anything, it only causes destruction and suffering.

Daniel Elkama

Church ruins in Berlin, the Holocaust memorial and the parking lot where was Hitler’s bunker and office.