Roger Kulmala is a 22-year-old student of economics. He is the chair of HAPSU (Helsingin Akateemiset Perussuomalaiset), the executive manager of The Finns Party Youth of Helsinki and also the second vice-chairperson of a local chapter of The Finns of Helsinki.
You are a very active member of various groups of The Finns. Why did decide to you join them?
I joined the party in 2012 because I felt that The Finns was the only group that really advocates the welfare of Finnish folk especially in the Parliament of Europe. I had followed keenly the Eurocrisis and decided to get involved. Additionally, I support the values of The Finns: I am conservative, patriotic and share their family values.
Tell me about activities and goals of HAPSU.
Well, our organization is rather young since it was founded 2009 and became formal member of HYY only last year. At the moment we have around 10 active members and few honorary members. Our main goal is to bring the ideology of The Finns into our university. Right now we have concentrated on parliamentary elections and we have little other activities going on besides that.
In the representative elections last fall our support waned slightly, but on the other hand, we got more candidates than ever before. The basic idea now is to become bigger and show up in the events where all the other political groups are too.
How is it to be an academic Finn party member? I have a feeling that it isn’t always easy.
You are right that we are not the most popular group in the university. At the same time we get a lot of attention. This was shown in the election panel of Kannunvalajat last fall during the elections of representative council. The conversation was centered around me and views of HAPSU, which was quite odd since we didn’t even have any representatives!
For some reason the atmosphere in the university is very – let’s say – peculiar. Isn’t it odd that outside of university the support of The Finns is rather high, but in the university our group is very small? I have noticed that it’s precisely the same case among right-wing thinkers – Kokoomus is one of the biggest groups in parliament, but where are the people who recognize themselves as a rightist in the university? You know how hard it is to promote not-leftish values in the social circles of the undergraduates!
Other thing is also that people tend to associate The Finns to vulgarity and, of course, that is a problem in university where people try to be more sophisticated. But there is no contradiction between the academic world and The Finns per se, which you can see in the vast number of postgraduates and doctorates among us outside of student politics.
Okay, but you are all racist right? I mean that’s the one sure thing everybody “knows” about you.
We are not racist. It’s true that we highlight questions of immigration differently than other groups but there is still zero tolerance with racism, and due to that fact, few people of The Finns have left the party to become members of Muutos 2011.
But I have to say that I see that the judgment Halla-Aho had on his blog post was wrong. After all, it was only rhetoric provocation, which was not meant to be an agitation against anybody. I think it says a lot that the chair of ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) – which The Finns are a member of in the Parliament of EU – Syed Kamall, who is a muslim, blurted when hearing about Halla-Aho’s fate: “Don’t you have freedom of speech in Finland?”
You feel strongly that there is demand for The Finns. What kind would be the ideal university of the Academic Finns?
We believe that HYY should focus on improving students quality of life and not that much on, for example, development aid or questions of values in broader sense. I feel that HYY has editorialized too much on urban policy.
I also think that Ylioppilaslehti should refine its guidelines. In the last edition there was a big cover story of Ozan Yanar, the candidate of the Green party. In principle the article was justified – after all, he received the most of the votes in HYY’s Representative Council elections. But still, he is not the only candidate in HYY on upcoming national election. Why did he get all that attention? It feels strange that the whole students’ union has to support a magazine, even though they don’t have a say in its stories.
I want to emphasize that if HAPSU one day gets the majority, we wouldn’t be pursuing only our own goals but the benefits of students in general. Actually, we contest the idea of the need of political organization in HYY in the whole. Why does the university need the exact same groups that there are in the “real” parliament?
Any word of wisdom for our readers?
Enjoy life while you are still alive. When you are buried it’s very difficult be nothing but dead.
Also, I have to admit I can’t understand people who don’t vote. Of course, it’s true that one vote isn’t that much, but when compared historically and globally, it shows that we have the best system in the world. Let’s say NO to cynicism!
In these series we celebrate the upcoming parliamentary elections by interviewing students involved in HYY’s political organizations about their values and political opinions. We want to encourage a multivoiced university and dialogue between different political groups by giving voice to these brave and visionary fellow-students. Different views – same university!