Muzzled in Finland, Part 5

Jussi Halla-aho is a well-known Finnish author and journalist, and has previously published two guest-essays at Gates of Vienna, “Multicultural Discourse in Finland and Sweden” and “Inter Arma”. He has recently launched a political career by winning election to the Helsinki City Council.

His new prominence as a conservative politician in a very politically correct environment puts him at risk for charges of “racist” speech. The campaign has already begun: Mr. Halla-aho is under attack by a women’s organization for an article he wrote almost two years ago.

To ensure that a public record exists outside of the Finnish language, Vasarahammer has translated the offending article in its entirety. He has kindly given me permission to repost his translation here, along with the introduction.

I have edited his text slightly for the sake of syntactic clarity:

In this post I have translated Jussi Halla-aho’s article from the 20th of December 2006 (original: Monikulttuuri ja nainen). I post this to provide a reference to the text if the news spreads outside Finland. I have removed most of the links to original news articles. They are, however, present in the original Finnish language text.

The Women’s organization of the Green Party has recently filed a complaint concerning the last paragraph of the text, after publicly “thinking” for days whether to actually file the complaint or not. The Green Women’s organization wants the police to investigate to determine whether the paragraph constitutes incitement to rape.

I am no legal expert, but to me it seems clear that you need to do a considerable amount of mental acrobatics to make it such.

However, in the current climate of censorship prevalent in Finland as well as in other Western European countries, I would not be surprised if the investigation leads to prosecution by none other than state prosecutor Mika Illman, who has prosecuted previous “freedom of speech crimes” involving bloggers.

The complaint has been preceded by a longstanding campaign of vilification, during which quotes from Halla-aho’s numerous articles have been taken out of context and used to smear him. The main parties involved in the campaign have been Iltasanomat, Helsingin Sanomat and the state broadcaster Yleisradio. The campaign can be credited to the fact that Halla-aho got almost 3000 votes in the recent municipal election, and was elected to Helsinki City Council. Had he received that number of votes in the last parliamentary election, he would most certainly have been elected.

I apologize for the errors in translation, which I did hastily. The content of the text should, however, be readable to most people who understand English. I also don’t provide the context of some of the events and people mentioned in the text, which are only evident to Finnish audience. Matti Nykänen, however, won the ski-jumping gold in two events in Calgary Olympics 1988. He later suffered from problems related to excessive drinking, and in addition has served time in prison.

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Multiculturalism and Woman
by Jussi Halla-aho

I have often written about the paradox that immigration and multiculturalism (which in practice mean Islamization and submitting to it) are mainly supported by those who stand most to lose in this development. For some reason, for example, the Left, claiming to support the working man, supports the import of cheap labor that draws down wages. Feminists clap their hands to openly anti-female Muslim culture. Greens are excited when new consumers, who have never heard of ecological thinking, are imported from countries with low consumption levels, as well as those for whom slaughtering an animals is taken care of with the help of reciting Allah’s name. The academic community supporting secularism and rationalism applauds to the rise of religious fundamentalism and creationism. Bleeding-heart Christians who have spent too much time reading the Gospels (and too little time reading the other parts of New Testament) preach tolerance of those who advocate crushing the cross and present the infidels with two options: either submit or die. And so forth.

In my article “Concerning the general and specific tolerance of Islam” I considered multiculturalism from the sexual minorities’ point of view. Today I thought to write about women. I got the incentive from a fresh event of cultural enrichment that took place in the north. A 26-year-old woman was gang-raped in the center of Oulu during the night between Friday and Saturday 15th/16th December. There were four to six men and they knocked the woman unconscious before the rape. According to Kaleva newspaper the men were foreigners, ‘dark but not black’.

Helsingin Sanomat published the news at their website on 17th December. All the details about the appearance or nationality of the perpetrators were omitted. HS, knowing of their censorship, allowed the following message in the comment section of the story:

“[…] there something wrong in Finnish men’s upbringing. How can this happen in a civilized country? For example, Army or Civic duty would be a correct place to teach Finnish men about women’s rights!”

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Several readers, including this author, mentioned the details of the case in their comments. Contrary to my expectations, the censor let the messages through. About an hour after my message was published the story was updated and a reference to the perpetrators’ foreign nationality was added. Marks of identification (“dark skin”) were still not included, even though eyewitnesses were requested to come forward.

Aamulehti removed, according to their standard practice, the references to the perpetrators’ foreign nationality. Iltalehti and Iltasanomat did not seem to know whether to censor or not, and the end result is a bit funny. The reference to foreign nationality was left to stand, and dark skin removed, but the information about the non-black skin was left intact.

“According to the woman the men looked foreign but were not black-skinned.”

Does “foreign” mean black-skinned by default? Or do IS and IL assume that a foreign rapist is expected to be black-skinned?

The event will most likely be forgotten. It was an individual event, and individual events cannot be used to label the entire community. In any case, it was about disturbed individuals, and the explanation of the event must not be sought from the perpetrators’ cultural background.

I think it was Reino who said in my guestbook that a small minority can ruin the reputation of the entire group, because the entire group panders to the small minority. Does anybody remember if any of the challenging minorities of Finland has ever issued a collective apology because of the actions of their members? Or have they internally disciplined the rotten apples? Neither do I. Instead, after the Hakunila skirmish six years ago the entire Somali community of Helsinki and Vantaa demonstrated for their countrymen who had been prosecuted for attempted manslaughter. When Somalis wreaked havoc last fall in the center of Helsinki, the community leaders only expressed their concern about the indigenous people’s attitude towards the Somalis. When the Somalis wreaked havoc last summer and fall in Turku, the Somali community (and the city of Turku decision-makers) were mostly concerned about the (“anti-immigrant”) street patrols organized by the Finns.

The Finns’ attitudes are the most important aspect in Antero Mukka’s unbelievable drivel published by Helsingin Sanomat on the 18th December. The article leaves little more room for comment than the article concerning immigration policy written by Reetta Räty in the same publication.

If the minority communities don’t take a stand against rampant crime in their midst, it may be concluded that the issue does not interest them, or that they condone the actions of their members. On the other hand, the Finnish government through cabinet ministers and members of parliament took a stand against alleged racist attacks in Kajaani in 2005. With this statement a community called “the Finns” condemned the crimes committed by its members against other ethnic groups. (Although it was later revealed that the racist attacks never took place, but the immigrants in question had themselves been guilty of assault. This fact never made its way to mainstream media, and nobody issued an apology to the people of Kajaani for the baseless labeling of the city as hotbed of racism.)

It can also be asked how much a certain group of people has to excel in the field of crime to make a trend out of the individual events. For some reason the relative share of violent crime (many times more than that of native Finns) among certain immigrant groups grows year by year, even though only a small minority of the total members is involved. Either the perpetrators are not punished but set free, or these groups continuously produce new players for the market.

However, the most important question is: why did the gang-rape in Oulu take place? Are the perpetrators disturbed individuals (like the progressives want to believe), or in their own cultural context perfectly normal young men (like I believe)? I stand by my assumption (which at the moment is racist and Islamophobic but will turn out to be accurate at 100% certainty in the course of the police investigation), that the perpetrators were Muslims. What do Islamic scholars, the best friends of every woman, say about rape and particularly about rape of a Western woman? What is happening in the rest of the world and what are our future prospects?

One of my readers sent me an interesting article from 16 years ago. Terhi Width, a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat, reports from Oslo 23rd July, 1990 (scanned article can be found here). Norway was back then in the same situation with immigration as Finland is today. Foreign nationals formed 3.3 per cent of the population. Today their share is 8.3 per cent. The biggest groups are Pakistanis, Swedes and Iraqis.

Even though the share of immigrants was only 3.3 per cent, they committed 15 percent of all violent crimes in 1989. They committed 70 per cent of rapes reported during the first half of 1990. Read that statement again.

Because it was as early as 1990, it was possible to say many things that despite their obviousness cannot be said in 2006. Annette Thommesen from Norwegian refugee organization stated:

“It is obvious that a Muslim accustomed to veiled women gets wild about the sea of bare breasts on the beach. That’s why it is about time to arrange educational courses about the matter.”

The reaction was familiar to the people of a later age as well:

“Refugees settled in Norway regard the statements made by refugee organizations as insulting and certain individuals are considering suing Thommesen for libel.”

Muslim honor was not insulted by the fact that they, as a marginal minority, committed two thirds of the rapes in their new home country. Instead what caused their anger was the fact that somebody dared to suggest that something should be done about the issue. This is logical if we assume that Muslim rapists don’t think they are doing anything wrong while raping, especially raping infidel women. In fact Muslim scholars have stated this several times, but we don’t want to listen to them. We would rather listen to Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila’s fairy tales.

In 2004, mufti Shahid Mehdi from the Islamic Cultural center in Copenhagen said in a television interview that women who don’t wear a headscarf “are asking for rape”. (A mufti is someone who is allowed to issue interpretations of Islamic law).

In fall 2006 there was an uproar in Australia when the most authoritative Islamic scholar in the country, mufti Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, presented a Ramadan sermon in Sydney. In his speech he covered the gang-rape incident a few years back. The accused Arab men had openly stated in court that it was all right to rape Christian women. From our point of view this sounds insane, but based on Islamic teachings it is perfectly logical. Islam is doctrinally an expansive religion. Muhammad tells his followers to spread it and wage war against infidels. In addition, Muhammad says in the Quran (4:24) expressi verbis that enemy women must be dealt with as war booty, and it is permissible to abuse them sexually.

Except that Muslim men find it impossible to control their sexual impulses due to the culture of head scarves, they consider themselves as soldiers of Islam and treat the women of their host country as they are supposed to be treated. The rapes are a logical consequence of Islam, as taught to them in Western mosques.

But what did mufti Hilali say? He said that rape is..

“…90% the women’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman possesses the weapon of seduction. It is she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on makeup and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying.[…] Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years. “

Hilali refers to the gang-rapes of 2000 and their main perpetrator Bilal Skaf, who was initially sentenced to 55 years in prison. He laughed in the court, cursed to the judge and threatened with terror acts in prison, but the Supreme Court still found it appropriate to shorten the sentence to 28 years.

Hilali continues and quotes another scholar:

“But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, scholar al-Rafihi says: ‘If I came across a rape crime — kidnap and violation of honour — I would discipline the man and order that the woman be arrested and jailed for life.’ Why would you do this, Rafihi? He says because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it.

If you take a kilo of meat, and you don’t put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you’re crazy. Isn’t this true?

If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.

If the meat was covered, the cats wouldn’t swarm around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it. “

Hilali agrees with Unni Wikan, a professor of Social Anthropology in Oslo University, who said that seductively dressed women are partially to blame for gang-rapes in Norway.

“Norwegian women must understand that we are living in a multicultural society and adapt to it.”

A part of Australian Muslim community saw Hilali as a public relations disaster and “was stunned” about his speech. However, there were also expressions of support, including one from Abduljajil Sajid, one of Britain’s most influential Muslim experts.

“Dr Sajid said while visiting in Australia that Sheikh al-Hilali attacked immorality and indecent clothing. He attacked ladies ‘standing in the streets and tempting men to do these evil deeds’. […] What is wrong here? Who disagrees? […] I think he is a great scholar with excellent knowledge of Islamic law. His intentions are noble. He wants to make morality and virtue part of our society.”

During his speech Hilali thought he was talking to his own people. The publication of his views started a furious cycle of explanations. He was misunderstood, things were taken out of context and so forth.

Angry Australians decided to arrange “a bikini march” for the Australian way of life and as a protest against fundamentalism. The Australian media, in typical progressive Western fashion, started mudslinging and accusations of far-right connections. The organizers of the event received threatening phone calls and the papers even published their names and contact details. Local socialists, according to modern socialist tradition, allied with the Islamists and began organizing a counter-demonstration. In the end the march was cancelled. (See the project homepage).

And, not surprisingly, this fall the gang-rapes that had plagued Sydney spread to Victoria. Four 16-17 year-old Middle Eastern youths robbed and raped two fourteen-year-old girls at a railway station in Melbourne. One of the accused had earlier committed a rape of a minor.

More informed opinion has been heard from Pakistan, which, by the way, is the country of origin for the main part of Norwegian and British Muslim population as well as large part of Swedish Muslim community. The burden of proof for rape is decreased so that a woman no longer has to find four witnesses as Quran states (if the woman cannot present four male witnesses, the accused is set free, but the woman herself is convicted of adultery). The Union of Islamic Opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which has a strong representation in Parliament and a majority in two key state legislative bodies and which is regarded as the main threat for the government in the next parliamentary election, has declared that it will launch a popular movement to oppose the new legislation. According to religious scholars, the changes are “immoral and un-Islamic” and a proof that “Western values have infiltrated the society”.

The same issue is covered in the latest news from Indonesian county of Aceh that is recovering from the tsunami. The millions of aid dollars pouring into to Aceh have been used for creation and enhancement of religious militia responsible for guarding sharia law and terrorizing women. The authorities control the use of headscarf, and in some places women are placed under a curfew during the evenings. Social workers warn that this forces several of the tsunami widows to leave their jobs as waitresses and food saleswomen and resort to prostitution. According to local estimates, more sharia militia members have been hired than regular police officers, and they consist mainly of aggressive young men.

A woman who is found guilty of “indecent” clothing or being together with a male is sentenced to a special punishment. For the ritual, she is escorted to a specially created stage and forced to kneel. A hooded man with a cane rises to the stage and recites religious verses suitable for the event. Then he starts to count and after each number the cane strikes. There are other canes that will strike as well:

“The witnesses say that male spectators often scream with joy, utter pious curses, and work themselves into frenzy.”

This is here if you have wondered, what the 700 million euros of development aid taxed from the Finnish public is made to accomplish.

The situation in Norway 16 years ago was probably due to initial difficulties in implementing multiculturalism, like the gang-rape in Oulu. Things are probably much better now.

In 2001 Aftenposten wrote about the same issue. In eleven years the foreigners’ share of the population had climbed to 14.3 per cent. In the year 2000 the number of rapes had risen by 40 percent compared to previous year. In September 2001, there were already 13 per cent more rapes than during the entire previous year. 65 percent of the suspects had “non-Western” background. Norwegians with their 85.7 share of Oslo residents constituted 28 per cent of the rape suspects. 80 per cent of the victims were Norwegian women.

[At this stage professor Unni Wikan (see above) made her famous statement ]

There had been little change compared to year 1990, except that the absolute number of rapes had exploded due to the increased immigrant population.

Aftenposten returned to the subject in December 2006. The absolute number of rapes had doubled in 2005 compared to the year 2001. This year a new doubling is on the way, since by August Oslo the rape support center has received 165 clients already (130 during the entire previous year). A trend similar to Oslo’s has been observed in Trondheim.

The cures suggested by the experts look familiar. Per Kristian Dotterud from the Reform center for men proposes that…

“…men should take an active role and discuss what they could do.”

Yes. In these pages I have provided my humble contribution to the discussion of what should be done so that women would not need to be afraid of rape while walking the dog or returning home from the bar. I’m afraid that my contribution is not good enough. Guess what the men should do according to Dotterud?

“In my opinion, men should take both individual and collective responsibility. The rape problem should be a topic in discussions between men.”

I think Dotterud’s target has already been achieved. Men are probably the only ones who discuss of the problem. The actual problem is not solved if Pentti and I get together in a male discussion group and start pondering our masculinity and the dilemma of the phallocentric paradigm. The true problem is the fact that European women have become prey for barbarian invaders in their own country. The problem is solved only by removing the barbarian invader. The majority of men would have done this a long ago, except that the European woman, possessed by her warped sense of care, like Mervi Virtanen, Eva Biaudet and Tarja Filatov, stood firmly in the way protect the barbarian invader.

Perhaps Virtanen, Biaudet and Filatov should think of their individual and collective responsibility before the Oulu rape victim as well as others like her.

The situation is extremely frustrating for me as a man. I believe it is equally frustrating for most other men. I think that the Finnish police feel the same when investigating quarrels between Matti Nykänen and Mervi Tapola-Nykänen (or whatever her name was). The police take Matti to the station and helps Mervi to file a complaint. A day later Mervi cancels the complaint and wonders on the cover of Iltalehti, why the police harass a regular, loving couple. Yet a day later, Matti punches Mervi who gets a black eye, and Mervi wonders in the cover of Iltalehti why nobody does a thing.

Finland will follow in the footsteps of Britain, Norway and Australia. The rape incident in Oulu will not be the first nor the last. It is a step in transforming Finland to a regular Western European society, a “communal and responsible society, as Anna Kontula and her ilk would say. It is a society in which a growing number of people regard women in one way or another as responsible for rapes. I don’t only mean those immigrants but also progressives (like Unni Wikan) active in politics and media, to whom rapes themselves are far less of a problem than the attitudes towards foreigners that a proper discussion concerning rapes could provoke.

Every now and then I have written about problems related to the collective sense of guilt. Still, I find it hard not to feel collective resentment towards women first because of what they (along with a few male sycophants) allow to happen to this society and themselves, and second because after each violent act committed against a woman the progressive womenfolk blame me, the Finnish man, for women’s sense of insecurity. In my collective resentment I sometimes find it difficult to feel genuine sympathy towards the victims of these crimes. I feel tempted to think that the women get what they ask for.

However, I try not to think that way, because not all the women are like Virtanen, Biaudet and Filatov. Rapes will eventually become more frequent. Since, this being the case, more women will be raped anyway, I sincerely hope that the predators who randomly pick their victims would catch the right women — meaning green-left liberals and their voters. It is rather them than someone else. For them nothing else works except if they get a taste of their own multicultural medicine.