“Always the Finns.”
This is how the Dutch nickname Jan commented in the message service X in September news of the incident, which happened in a Belgian swimming pool. The police arrested five young people who had caused disturbances at the pools.
“Always those white Finns…”
This update, in turn, is a nickname from Bart. In August, he commented on a Dutch afternoon newspaper’s news about a rape in France.
From this year alone, X has dozens of updates in Dutch, in which the same expression is repeated in slightly different forms when commenting on crime news:
Altijd weer die Finnen, i.e. Always the Finns.
In reality, it is not about traveling Finnish citizens. “Finns” is a code word used by the Dutch far-right for a long time, which mainly refers to Moroccans or immigrants from other African or Middle Eastern countries and ethnic minorities.
Commentators often use “Finns” as a rounding expression when they comment on news of crimes suspected to be committed by immigrants on social media, says a Dutch researcher familiar with radical right-wing social media.
– Finns are the opposite of the people referred to here. The joke is to show what the supposed perpetrator of the crime at least doesn’t look like, says the assistant professor Ofra Klein From Rotterdam Erasmus University to .
According to Klein, using such code language under the guise of humor is a common and quite effective way for the far-right to spread their own, anti-immigration message.
According to Klein, the messages ironically hint at the characteristics of “Finns” in such a way that the opposite thing is actually meant.
The July X update shown below is an example of this kind of suggestive communication. In it, the brand commented on the news about the abuse in The Hague by saying: “It’s always the Finns who work hard that cause problems.”
In June, another nickname also commented on the news about the fights that had broken out on the Dutch sandy beaches: “It’s always the Finns, right? A small group is ruining the reputation of all Finns.”
The anti-immigration message becomes normalized
Using a roundabout phrase emphasizes the suspected perpetrator more than the crime itself, says Klein.
– A somewhat absurd joke about Finns actually emphasizes the author’s background. It can reinforce the perception that the stereotypical perpetrator of the crime is not a white, blonde Finn, says Klein.
The code language expressions used on Social media have many other purposes.
According to Klein, they can, for example, create cohesion among like-minded people and mislead moderators who clean hate speech from social media platforms. The perpetrators can later deny that they did anything racist.
At the same time, the joking tone of the message sinks into a larger group of people in addition to the far-right, Klein estimates.
– The message appeals to a wider audience when an aggressive comment is made to sound less negative, says Klein.
Over time, most people learn to know what the code word really means. At that point, it’s no longer a matter of getting around moderation, but the expression becomes normalized as part of wider use.
The history of the Finnish meme goes back a long way
It is known that the first time the catchphrase referring to Finns was mentioned in the comments section of the website Geen Stijl, which became known for its provocative content, back in 2005. From there, it slowly spread and became more common.
Attention increased in 2010, when the judge brought up the meme right-wing populist leader Geert Wilders in a trial where he was accused of incitement against a national group. According to the judge, on the Geen Stijl website, the word “Finns” was used as a code language for immigrants in general.
The use of the meme was at its peak in the middle of the last decade.
Around this time, among others, a well-known Dutch columnist Ebru Umar shared another right-wing populist leader, by Thierry Baudet I tweeted about the unrest in the Amsterdam neighborhood with the following words: “Always those Finns. It’s starting to get boring.”
Numerous recent search results show that even though the meme’s popularity has waned, it is still in regular use, at least in the Dutch-speaking X.
Direct speech is ignoring roundabout expressions
The use of the word “Finns” in this context seems to be limited only to the Netherlands, says Klein, who has studied the language use of the radical right in Western Europe and the United States.
However, the method of communication is international. The far-right uses roundabout expressions in many countries, and some of the words are exactly the same.
Such expressions are, for example, the more common “cultural enricher” and “individual case”, which are also cultivated by the far-right in Finland.
Some kind of change in the use of circular expressions can now be noticed. According to Klein, it can generally be said that circular expressions flourish on social platforms where moderation is stricter. On platforms where the use of words is not so precisely restricted, the language is harsher.
– When arguments become more heated, people use more direct language and talk less in roundabout ways, says Klein.
Researcher at Umeå University Mathilda Åkerlund write in his research about the use of the term “culture enricher” in Sweden, that especially “code language, hateful humor” leads to the mainstreaming of the message of the far right.
– As the far-right grows more and more influential, ideas that were previously considered completely inappropriate are now slowly becoming normalized in mainstream politics, Åkerlund writes.
Along the same lines is the University Researcher Niko Pyrhönen from the University of Helsinki. According to him, circular expressions have decreased to some extent in various countries in recent years. They have been replaced by more outspoken rhetoric than before.
According to Pyrhönen, who has studied anti-immigration in public debate, the boundaries of permitted expressions are stretched in politics more generally.
– The current trend in polarization is partly the fact that the calls are becoming more direct all the time and operate less and less within the limits agreed upon for public discussion, he says to .
The limits of what is allowed are crossed and stretched
Pyrhönen gives three recent examples from Finland where radical speech is being mainstreamed.
One of them is that the speaker of the parliament Jussi Halla-aho (ps.) keeps a direct link to his old Scripta blog posts visible on his X profile.
– While alternative and radical views previously had their own media space, now we are trying to dismantle that boundary, says Pyrhönen.
Crossing certain limits, however, still leads to backlash.
Another example is a Member of Parliament Teemu Central Series (ps.) statement that caused disapproval in the plenary session of the parliament at the beginning of September. In his speech, he mentioned the n-word, according to his own words, in a non-racist sense. The party leadership supported Keskisarija’s choice of words when talking about Finns’ ancestors.
The third is the term “population change”, which according to Pyrhönen refers to the violent conspiracy theory spread among the radical right.
– Now it was to become a mainstream discussion with the authority of ministerial level. This time, however, it did not go through, says Pyrhönen, referring to the Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen (ps.) for social media posts.
Although there are still limits, they wear out when stretched.
– Whenever someone shocks a little and breaks boundaries, it is frowned upon. But a part of it and a milder version will remain in life for further use, says Pyrhönen.
According to Pyrhönen, the general development trend in Finland and internationally is that as the language used in political discussion becomes tougher, the need for roundabout expressions is decreasing.
Perhaps this is also why the Dutch far-right talks less about “Finns” today than a few years ago.