20170905

Author Jari Ehrnrooth has written a hostile and offensive text: “Pahuuden kieltäminen ei auta” (Denying evil doesn’t help) and got it published through YLE, our national broadcasting company. The text is using the Turku attacks to target muslims and other religious groups. He claims that the attack in Turku was executed using “Isis-style knife handling” and that “islam is still an authoritarian and expansive world religion, which strictest forms include appalling amounts of mental submission, physical violence and murder”. He continues to speculate about a “righteous terrorist-mother, kissing her little-jihadist, who is send to the daycare center on a be-a-hero-for-a-day event wearing a fake-bomb-vest around his chest – As is happening in Gaza”.

I send a complaint to YLE which is responsible for publishing the text. Ehrnrooth holds the title of adjunct professor in the universities of Turku and Helsinki (he signed his text highlighting the title). I wrote to Thomas Wilhelmsson the chancellor of Hki Uni. and Professor of Cultural History Marjo Kaartinen in Turku, asking them to distance their universities and departments from Ehrnrooth. I got a sympathetic reply but I was explained that adjunct professor is a only a title and that the person is not employed by the university. The message also underlined the autonomy and right to freedom of speech of their researches. This was a weak argument. There is no “free speech” in relations others are targeted based on their religion. #ॐ

Send my Dude mixer back to Brno. Included a short letter explaining the problem and a postscriptum: “Ps. My favourite Czech performance artist is Jiří Kovanda. I’ve worked for an old Finnish lady Outi Heiskanen who had performed with a Czech group called Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke in the 70ties. I own a hobby-anvil made from a tram-rail (made in and bought from Prague) and an axe manufactured in “Czechoslovakia”. I’ve visited Brno once, only passed through. Here is a video of me making macho-coffee in Prague 2009.”