Jussi Halla-aho
Encyclopedia
Jussi Kristian Halla-aho (born 27 April 1971 in Tampere
Tampere
Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...

) is a Finnish Slavic linguist, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

ger and a politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 for the True Finns
True Finns
True Finns or The Finns is a populist and nationalist political party in Finland, founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party. The head of the movement is Timo Soini. In the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, The party won 19.1% of votes, becoming the third largest party...

 party who has become well known for his essays criticising the humanitarian immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

 and multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

 policies adopted in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

.
According to the newspaper Aamulehti
Aamulehti
Aamulehti is a Finnish newspaper published in Tampere. It has the second largest circulation of Finnish dailies with an average circulation of 136,726 per day and 140,802 on Sundays . Today Aamulehti is part of Alma Media, a large media corporation in Finland...

, he is the best-known political blogger in Finland.

Halla-aho was elected to the Helsinki City Council in 2008. He became
Finnish parliamentary election, 2011
An election to the Eduskunta was held on 17 April 2011 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term. Advance voting, which included voting by Finnish expatriates, was held between 6 and 12 April with a turnout of 31.2%....

 an MP in the Finnish parliament in 2011. In the parliament he was made chairman of the Administration Committee, which deals with bills concerning immigration.

Politics

Halla-aho was elected a member of Helsinki City Council in the 2008 municipal elections as a candidate of the True Finns
True Finns
True Finns or The Finns is a populist and nationalist political party in Finland, founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party. The head of the movement is Timo Soini. In the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, The party won 19.1% of votes, becoming the third largest party...

 party, although he was not a member of the party until 2010. In the 2008 elections, he was the 18th most popular candidate in the entire country and the second most popular candidate of the True Finns party after the party leader Timo Soini
Timo Soini
Timo Juhani Soini is a Finnish politician, and co-founder and current leader of the True Finns party. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2011, when he returned to the Parliament of Finland. Well-known as an EU-sceptic populist, he was elected a member of the Espoo city...

. Halla-aho won the largest number of personal votes for the party in
Helsinki.

Halla-aho has stated that he became politically active because finds the Finnish immigration policy a problem and that Europe is heading towards a catastrophe because of massive immigration. Halla-aho supports the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

 and in respect to the economic policy he places himself on the left side of the political spectrum, even though he has told that if he had to choose between left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 and right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

 in totality he would choose the right-wing.

Halla-aho was elected into parliament in 2011
Finnish parliamentary election, 2011
An election to the Eduskunta was held on 17 April 2011 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term. Advance voting, which included voting by Finnish expatriates, was held between 6 and 12 April with a turnout of 31.2%....

. His vote share was the sixth highest in the country and the second highest within his party.

Scripta blog

Halla-aho maintains a blog titled Scripta that deals with issues such as ”immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance
Toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

 and political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...

”. His blog has between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day.

According to Halla-aho the biggest problem in the immigration due to humanitarian causes is the large amount of immigrants in relation to the resources used to integrate
Social integration
Social integration, in sociology and other social sciences, is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and underprivileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies...

 newcomers. He has stated that a minority group whose integration has failed everywhere is the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s that come from certain parts of the world. According to Halla-aho the cultures that fail to integrate are often cultures that respect force, unlike the Western civilisation. As long as the immigrants stick to the cultural characteristics of their countries of origin, their isolation within the society in the destination country is maintained. Therefore their adaptation is not possible which creates problems such as social exclusion
Social exclusion
Social exclusion is a concept used in many parts of the world to characterise contemporary forms of social disadvantage. Dr. Lynn Todman, director of the Institute on Social Exclusion at the Adler School of Professional Psychology, suggests that social exclusion refers to processes in which...

 and ethnic ghettoisation. He has stated that positive discrimination and privileges due to culture or nationality should not be allowed. According to Halla-aho, criticising "totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

 fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 ideologies like political Islam
Political aspects of Islam
Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Qur'an, the Sunna , Muslim history, and elements of political movements outside Islam....

" should not be considered racism and that facts cannot be criminalised.

According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

 in Finland. He has disclosed that he has received death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...

s because of his web columns.

After delaying their decision for several times The Finnish Green Women's Association announced 18 November 2008 that they have requested the Finnish police to begin criminal investigation on Halla-aho. The Green Women's Association's leader Heli Järvinen
Heli Järvinen
Heli Järvinen is a Finnish politician for the Green League, representing the South Savo constituency. She was elected to the Finnish Parliament in the parliamentary election of March 2007. She is also a member of the municipal council of Kerimäki...

 claims that
Halla-aho's texts are not simply expressions of freedom of speech and bona fide criticism of multiculturalism but they incite to raping
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 and hatred. Halla-aho has denied this and told that he opposes violence against women. In December 2008, Finnish police began the investigation on Halla-aho for incitement against an ethnic group because of his texts (see section below). name="Investigation">Police to Investigate Helsinki City Council Member's Blog YLE, 12.12.2008

Halla-aho has denied that he is against foreigners. He maintains that he is simply “critical of immigration”. According to Halla-aho he has received positive feedback also from immigrants.

In 2009, Halla-aho published a collection of his web columns titled Kirjoituksia uppoavasta Lännestä (Writings from the sinking West or Writings about the sinking West) in print. The book's first edition was sold out in three days.

Trial

On 27 March, 2009, the Helsinki District Court ordered Halla-aho to trial on charges of ethnic agitation as well as breach of the sanctity of religion.

The charges arose after Halla-aho posted remarks related to the matter of Seppo Lehto
Seppo Lehto
Seppo Olavi Lehto is a Finnish far right activist currently living in Tampere. The main theme of his activism is the return of Finnish territories ceded to the Soviet Union in World War II...

 on the Internet. In the course of the remarks, Halla-aho said the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 was a paedophile, and Islam is a religion of paedophilia, because Muhammad had intercourse with his 9-year-old wife and according to Sunnah
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...

 Mohammed's life is exemplary in every way. He also asked if it could be stated that robbing passersby and living on taxpayers' expense are cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Somalis
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...

. This was stated in sarcastic response to a Finnish columnist that wrote that drinking excessively and fighting when drunk were cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Finns.

On 8 September, 2009, the District Court convicted Halla-aho of disturbing religious worship, and ordered him to pay a fine of 330 euros. The charge of ethnic agitation was dismissed. In October 2010 the Court of Appeal agreed with the District Court's conviction. Both the prosecutor and Halla-aho appealed the case to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Finland
The Supreme Court of Finland , located in Helsinki, consists of a President and at minimum 15, currently 18 other Justices, usually working in five-judge panels...

. The Supreme Court granted a leave to appeal in May 2011, and the case is now pending Supreme Court hearing.

Controversies

In May 2011, Halla-aho announced that he will not be available for interviews or comments to the Finnish newspaper Aamulehti
Aamulehti
Aamulehti is a Finnish newspaper published in Tampere. It has the second largest circulation of Finnish dailies with an average circulation of 136,726 per day and 140,802 on Sundays . Today Aamulehti is part of Alma Media, a large media corporation in Finland...

because of a photograph of Halla-aho the newspaper had published. Halla-aho claimed that the newspaper was using intentionally bad-looking photographs of him.

In September 2011 Halla-aho wrote in Facebook that Greece's debt problems cannot be resolved without a military junta
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...

. He soon retracted the comment, clarifying that his intention was merely to point out that making necessary but unpopular decicions is not easy in a democracy. Timo Soini
Timo Soini
Timo Juhani Soini is a Finnish politician, and co-founder and current leader of the True Finns party. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2011, when he returned to the Parliament of Finland. Well-known as an EU-sceptic populist, he was elected a member of the Espoo city...

, the leader of the True Finns party, demanded a temporary suspension of Halla-aho from the parliamentary group. In the end the parliamentary group unanimously (Halla-aho himself included) suspended Halla-aho for two weeks, although Soini had initially called for a month-long suspension.

Scientific career

Halla-aho is a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 and has written his dissertation about historical nominal morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

 of Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

.

Halla-aho studied at the University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

 from 1995 to 2000. During his post-graduate period (2000–2006) he worked at the Department of Slavonic and Baltic Studies as a researcher and teacher of Old Church Slavic. Halla-aho has published two articles in scientific journals, has been one of the editors selection of papers by linguistics from several countries and written Old Church Slavic Manual, which is used at the University of Helsinki. Halla-aho's scientific interests include comparative Indo-European linguistics, especially nominal morphology and theoretical questions related to the principles of reconstruction, Old Church Slavic, historical morphology of Slavic languages, Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...

 and Phrygian
Phrygian language
The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, spoken in Asia Minor during Classical Antiquity .Phrygian is considered to have been closely related to Greek....

 languages.

Since April 2007 Halla-aho has been working on, together with translator Juri Zub, a Ukrainian-Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 dictionary, funded by the Finnish Cultural Fund.

Personal life

Halla-aho grew up in Tampere
Tampere
Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...

. His parents had moved there from Alajärvi
Alajärvi
Alajärvi is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...

. He lived in Tampere for 24 years. During the 1980s he travelled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 with his father who was a bus driver and it was the spark for his anti-leftist convictions. When Halla-aho was young he worked as a waiter. When conscripted
Conscription in Finland
Conscription in Finland is part of a wider, general "national defense duty" defined in the 127§ of the Constitution of Finland.Conscription can take the form of military or of civilian service. Currently, c.66% of males reaching military age do their military service, while a growing number of ...

, instead of military service he chose civilian service. He later expressed regret at his decision, calling the choice a "stupid political protest", and voicing support for the present conscription system. He applied for the University of Helsinki in 1995 and moved to Helsinki.

Halla-aho lives in Eira
Eira
Eira is a neighborhood in Helsinki, the capital of Finland.The district dates back to the early 20th century and received its name after Eira Hospital in the neighboring district of Ullanlinna, which in turn took its name from Eira Hospital in Stockholm, which was named after Eir, the old...

 in Helsinki with his wife Hilla Halla-aho and their three children. He met his wife in connection with a university project. Halla-aho has said that his children and family are the main reason why he takes part in social debate. Halla-aho's hobbies include reading J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 as well as pistol and rifle shooting
Shooting sports
A shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency using various types of guns such as firearms and airguns . Hunting is also a shooting sport, and indeed shooting live pigeons was an Olympic event...

. He is a member of Suomen Sisu
Suomen Sisu
Suomen Sisu is a Finnish association that defines itself as nationalist and patriotic, criticizing unlimited immigration and multiculturalism. Suomen Sisu proclaims to support the idea of independent national states, that govern themselves sovereignly, and opposes supranational co-operation,...

, an association that seeks to promote Finnish nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

.

Publications

  • Halla-aho, Jussi: Kirjoituksia uppoavasta Lännestä, Jussi Halla-aho, 2009 ISBN 978-952-92-5213-8
  • Halla-aho, Jussi: Problems of Proto-Slavic historical nominal morphology: On the basis of Old Church Slavic, Slavica Helsingiensia 26, Helsinki, University of Helsinki
    University of Helsinki
    The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

    , Department of Slavonic Languages, 2006 ISBN 952-10-3012-7
  • Halla-aho, Jussi: Two borrowings in Proto-Slavic; and a minor Balto-Slavic sound change, Journal of Indo-European Studies
    Journal of Indo-European Studies
    The Journal of Indo-European Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal of Indo-European studies, founded in 1973 by Roger Pearson. It publishes papers in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, mythology and philology relating to the cultural history of the Indo-European speaking peoples. The...

     33, p. 233-245, 2005.
  • Halla-aho, Jussi: The collapse of an early Proto-Indo-European ablaut pattern, Indogermanische Forschungen
    Indogermanische Forschungen
    Indogermanische Forschungen is a peer-reviewed academic journal of linguistics. It focuses primarily on Indo-European studies, but also publishes contributions on other languages and linguistic fields. It was established in 1892 by Karl Brugmann and Wilhelm Streitberg, and is presently published...

     110, p. 97-118, 2005.
  • Nuorluoto, Juhani & Leiwo, Martti & Halla-aho, Jussi (editors): Papers in Slavic, Baltic and Balkan studies, Slavica Helsingiensia 21, Helsinki, University of Helsinki, Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literatures, 2001 ISBN 952-10-0246-8 (Selection of papers by Slavists, Baltologists and Balkanists from Austria/Croatia, Canada, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Russia and the United States of America)
  • Halla-aho, Jussi: Old Church Slavic Manual, Helsinki, Jussi Halla-aho, 2006

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK