Finnish News Recap, Week 12: Erdogan Doll Edition
MP ATTACK: One of the longest-time MPs, Ben Zyskowicz, a stalwart of the centre-right National Coalition’s conservative faction, was attacked on the street while campaigning. According to Zyskowicz, The attacker – many details have come out since then, though not a full picture – shouted him something about the Jews (Zyskowicz is Jewish, one of the few notable Jewish figures in Finland), NATO and possibly immigrants, then pushing him on the street.
While Zyskowicz seemed to get out of it with a few bruises and was soon back on the street campaigning, this has ignited a debate on increasing levels of harassment and attacks politicians are facing while campaigning in a political atmosphere – though it has also been noted that this is not just about random “political harassment” but specifically appeared to possess a clear motivation of antisemitism, bringing up an issue that does not feature very often in Finnish discussions and politics.
Whatever the case may be, the attacker’s full motivations are still unclear – while many were quick to accuse specific far-right political organizations of providing motivations for the attack, no evidence exists trying the attacker to any of them, while he *had* participated in left-wing Smash Asem protests in 2006. Of course, that doesn’t establish a motivation by itself either. Further information will probably be forthcoming.
ERDOGAN DOLL: One debate undergirding the whole NATO membership affair is whether Finland is again becoming “Finlandized”, ie adjusting its internal policies to cater to autocratic foreign regimes, expect this time related to countries like Turkey instead of Russia/Soviet Union.
Such claims have certainly received a boost in the arm after the Finnish police confiscated a doll representing Recep Tayiip Erdogan, still – at least for some time – the President of Turkey. The doll was confiscated from a protest the pro-Kurdish group Rise Up 4 Rojava. It is, to put it mildly, what authority there exists to confiscate a doll representing a foreign President, and how this is not an obvious violation of freedom of protest.
The police has stated that they suspect defamation – if such a standard started to apply to politicians in general, we’d probably see an end to almost all protest in a short order. The national Police Board is investigating the incident.
In any case the NATO membership process moves forwards, as Hungary votes through Finland’s NATO bid.
TRAIN STRIKE: Much of the country saw trains stopping in the early part of the last week. In a country like Finland, with a strong labor movement, this self-evidently means that the trains indeed stopped all around Finland, forcing people to work remotely or use bus companies, or find other solutions for intercity traffic in cases where they couldn’t just commute by car.
While this soon helped the striking train conductors come to a resolution with the state railroad company and get a wage lift, this is mainly emblematic of the entire spring seeing a major wave of high-profile strikes (example) affecting many important and visible sectors. Of course, strike action is an usual feature of the Finnish spring, as unions and employer organizations gear up for negotiations.
Also, early voting for the parliamentary elections happened and the main parties (center-left, center-right, right-wing populists) squabbled over election issues while media pontificated about potential governmental coalitions. The election date is on Sunday.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turkish_PM_Recep_Tayyip_Erdogan.jpeg