Flat tax advocate murdered
@ 12:49 pm Professor Kari S. Tikka 61, a professor at the Department of Public Law of the University of Helsinki and a well-known Finnish tax expert, was found dead in his apartment on Friday. More in HS (For people not familiar with Helsinki, yes, DTM is a gay nightclub, nothing extraordinary about the venue, it is very popular.)
It is noteworthy to point out that it is very rare for a high profile society figure being murdered in Finland - last political assassination was in 1922 when the Minister of the Interior Heikki Ritavuori was shot on his doorstep. The police have not made statements, other than that they have arrested a 19 and 23 year old men that were recognized from surveillance camera pictures, and it seems the motive of the homicide was robbery rather than anything to do with prof. Tikka’s profession, as it also was speculated.
Now as prof. Tikka was not only an advocate of the flat tax system, but generally the highest expert authority on taxation in general I think the effect of loosing such an authority is a big setback. You can’t find as a professional person for the flat tax debates.
Deeply tragic.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 1:14 pm
Kind of ironic that those two criminals come from flat tax countries (Russia&Estonia).
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 1:23 pm
And where homo behaviour is even less tolerated by the “manly men”
Quite disgusting to see the gay pride march being disrupted in Russia. I have no interest in taking it up the rear from another chap, but what consenting people do behnd closed doors is another matter.
Comment by Hugh Janus — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 1:44 pm
When reading the spiel about political assasination I nearly replied “p.a… my ass” and then realised the irony of the situation
Must confess, I hadn’t known about DTM or needed to know. But a friend knew the Prof (in a professional lawyerly manner) and whilst he didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, he wasn’t in awe of the “professional reputation” being trowelled on the late dead SDPite. But he talks the talk.
Comment by Hugh Janus — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 1:48 pm
Those “manly men” are the ones that make the libertarians dreams like flat tax true in Estonia and Russia. Both countries are full of skinheads that see progressive taxation to be communism, it is really funny that they are the ones who enjoy poverty.
Ah, Skinheads and libertarians. They go together like butter on a bread. Too bad we have to live in communist finland that doesn’t have libertarian poverty.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 1:56 pm
This is quite extraordinary. When I first read the news, it was like some murder case from Mika Waltari’s Komisario Palmu series. (Waltari wouldn’t have settled for a plain murder-robbery motive though.)
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 4:28 pm
#5: Estonia, a flat-tax failure? Estonia, full of skinheads? Russia, a libertarian heaven? You’ve got to be kidding.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 4:29 pm
It was funny that the YLE news blurb in English mentioned only that the suspects were from ‘Former Eastern Bloc’ countries. The church arson case also only released the detail that the people detained for questioning were Finns. It’s interesting that the nationality matters at all at such an early stage of the investigations.
Comment by hfb — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
Hfb, I think it’s ordinary police language. They also usually release information on how old the suspects are and whether they’re men or women. And, as in the Porvoo case, it works against racism to know that this time at least we can’t blame foreigners. What do you write in the USA? Like ‘21-year-old Caucasian male’..?
If now somebody blames the entire nation of Estonians and/or Russians for a murder, blahblahblah. Neither do we blame all carperters for all possible evil deeds if we read that somebody has been murdered by, for example, a ‘22-year-old carpenter’.
By the way, I think the headline here was a little unlucky. It might give the impression for a careless quick reader that Tikka was murdered for being a flat tax advocate while the police has told from the very beginning that there’s no indication this had anything to do with his murder. It’s like writing that ‘Gay professor advocated flat tax’ although advocating flat tax has no link to the advocate’s sexual preferences.
MM
Comment by Sulkakynä — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 4:54 pm
I think it was on a porpoise
“Gay 61-year old man murdered” would not have been “news” now would it.
Comment by Hank W. — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 5:03 pm
Hugh Janus wrote:
“I have no interest in taking it up the rear from another chap, but what consenting people do behnd closed doors is another matter.”
I wonder why people still feel that if they defend gay people’s human rights (or if they support equal rights for all people) they then somehow have to prove that they’re not gay themselves.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
By the way, as for what comes to gay rights, Russia and Poland (and also the Baltic states) are as backwater as they come. It’s interesting to follow how the EU for example will react to Poland’s constant human rights violations as they oppress gay people there like there was no tomorrow.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
“Losing”, not “loosing”.
Comment by James V. — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 5:27 pm
You can rest assured that, during the next few decades, Western Europe will become much more hostile to homosexuals than Eastern Europe currently is. The cause will, of course, be the fast growing proportion of the muslim immigrant population. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the appearance of politicians somewhere in Europe, supported by many religiously conservative muslims, who seriously advocate the extermination of homosexuals, apostates, and other sinners, in genuine Middle East style.
Leftist multiculturalists will sacrifice the rights of homosexuals without qualms should angry muslims demand that. The right-wing business elite has never given a damn about anything but short-term economic gain for themselves.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 5:47 pm
Ã…boy. It is because you can’t win with the Gay Lobby.
Personally I find gay sex abhorrent and wrong and it holds no interest to me. HOWEVER if one doesn’t qualify that one can be labelled homophobe and worse. So one QUALIFIES (if one holds the view as I do) that just because I believe something is wrong/not my bag of sweets etc it doesn’t mean it should be banned. After all, homosexual acts are legal and quite rightly EQUAL dscrimination, as against positive discrimination should apply.
Just as I find overtly/OTT heterosexual displays of affection in a public place are distasteful it does not mean I cannot agree with the base principle.
It is not like smoking that should be banned out of time.
Comment by Hugh Janus — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
Maybe we’ll get tougher sentences in Finland if these beasts start murdering political elite.
Comment by Johannes — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
I’m not entirely sure I completely understood what you meant, Hugh Anus.
So in your opinion a gay person can’t be an advocate for gay rights? Does it somehow make a person less credible if he or she has a first hand insight to the gay person’s life?
A Few more questions:
a) Why is gay sex, according to your opinion, “wrong”?
b) What constitutes an “overt” or “over the top” display of homosexuality? What about heterosexuality? If there’s a difference between gay and straight people in this issue then in what do you base it on?
c) What do you perceive as “positive discrimination”?
Anonymous wrote:
“You can rest assured that, during the next few decades, Western Europe will become much more hostile to homosexuals than Eastern Europe currently is. The cause will, of course, be the fast growing proportion of the muslim immigrant population.”
I have to say that in a way I agree with you. The growing muslim populations of Europe are a very real threat to women’s and gay people’s human rights. Unfortunately not that many people understand this at the moment. Although a taste of what’s coming has already been experienced in Netherlands and in some other central European countries.
But I wouldn’t isolate Islam as the sole cause of this as christians in Poland (for example) are just as capable of narrowminded and bigoted thinking. I see the problem on a wider scale, caused by religions and fundamentalism in general. Religions have often been the major obstacles on the path to equality and universal human rights. To this day and age not much has changed in this respect: Religions still represent mostly conservatism, bigotry, suffering and hatemongering.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 6:50 pm
Ã…boy: Interesting questions you have for Hugh. My guess would be that many people answer a) in the affirmative because of their religious convictions and question b) brings to mind my time at high school in Helsinki when the school principal was concerned of pupils kissing each other (we’re talking about straight teenagers here) in the school premises, which happened very frequently. Kissing in public is often seen as over the top by conservative people. In US red states religious conservative politicians have been especially concerned of girls at high schools kissing each other. When it comes to c), doesn’t positive discrimination simply mean preferential treatment of a minority, such as affirmative action programs?
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 6:59 pm
OK, maybe not all red state Republicans are that concerned of girls kissing each other. But I came to think of Tom Coburn (Republican junior senator from the state of Oklahoma), who has inspired these Urban Dictionary entries:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tom+Coburn
This is pretty quick, since Coburn has only been in the Senate for less than a year and a half.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
HANG ON. Gay or not, the guy’s been murdered. What does his sexual preferences or the native countries of the suspected murderers have to do with this? When does a tragedy become justifiable or ‘explainable’ by exploring the sexuality of the victim and the background of the perpetrators? Just asking.
It’s deeply tragic what has happened, those two young guys are really sick individuals led by sick motives. Robbery can’t have been the actual motive, the investigator (was it Arto Karalahti?) indicates that not much had been taken from Tikka’s apartment despite the fact that he owned original Chagalls and Picassos. And the police is investigating it as ‘murder’, which requires premeditation and planning, not just sexual passion.
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:25 pm
In Russia the christians and the moslems have united in bigotry. They’ve joined forces in attacking gays and there has even been reports of priests blessing groups of skinheads about to go gay-bashing.
The same could easily happen anywhere in Europe. I sure hope that the more democratic and secularized countries intervene in time. Things are slowly starting to resemble the 1920’s and 30’s in an eerie way..
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:28 pm
@ Miriam: It could be that these young men were actually prowling for gay men to murder. Wouldn’t be so farfetched I think. There are some sick puppies out there thirsting for blood and it wouldn’t be the first time a hatecrime happened in Finland.
Comment by Ã…boy — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
True, Ã…boy. But these guys knew eachother (or so the police say). I don’t think it’s a hatecrime or directed towards gays in general, it was two sickos on the prowl. Two gay sickos, perhaps, as the two men knew Tikka from DTM. The bottom line is that the csexuality of the vitims and perpretators is probably not relevant and shouldn’t be discussed as such.
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:37 pm
Miriam: robbery can still have been an issue, since these guys might lack the contacts to sell original Chagalls and Picassos easily and swiftly. That stuff might have been too hot to handle for them, so they stole something they might turn into cash more easily. Since these paintings are so valuable, whatever was taken tends to be “not much” compared to them. But if nothing of significance was taken, maybe robbery wasn’t an issue.
You also asked what the sexual preference of the victim or the perpetrator might have to do with this. I think the tabloids sell the story better if either one or both are gay. When Versace was assassinated by a gay serial killer in Florida less than a decade ago, it was a huge news story. Of course this victim isn’t as famous as Versace, but being rich, powerful and gay all at the same time is something that the tabloids are already exploiting, although they might actually be a bit afraid of hurting the feelings of the nearest and dearest of the deceased by going too far.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
The police found some stuff that they suspect belonged to Tikka, but only cigarrettes and alcohol has been mentioned in the press.
Sure, the tabloids (IS and IL) will do what they want with the story, and I’m going to be pissed off the sexuality is portrayed as a significant factor in a murder case. There’s a freedom of speech, so no complaints there. What I was amazed of was that it became such an issue on FFT, and I’ll be further dissappointed if the reporting on the crime will circle around the issue of Tikka’s private life, or sensationalising his sexuality.
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
Correction (…)I’m going to be pissed off *if* sexuality (..)
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:48 pm
The Italian fashion designer Versace was killed in 1997 by a Californian high class male prostitute of half Filipino ancestry. The suspected killer who committed suicide was more than twenty years Versace’s junior. In the Tikka case, the suspects have an even greater age difference to the victim. It’s not just the gay factor, it’s the age difference that sells tabloids as well. Here’s the Wikipedia article on the Versace killer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cunanan
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:49 pm
Regardless of sexual preference, reporting around a crime usually circles around the private life if there is any reason to assume that any of the perpetrators or victims would have been in any way interested in having sex at the scene of the crime. Nothing sells as well as the combination of sex and violence. In the Lake Bodom case the tabloids made a huge issue of a suspected sexual motive in part of the accused, although he eventually was acquitted in court.
I don’t usually even read these tabloids but these sex + violence stories are usually the ones that make the screaming headlines and seeing such headlines one after the other sort of gives a pattern as to why these issues are discussed. A blog is not so much different from a tabloid in the end. I think a blog often functions as a sort of a conscious parody of a tabloid.
Comment by Helsinkian — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 7:57 pm
Well, unfortunately tabloids in all countries take a high heterosexual male moral ground to whatever happens. Men should have sex with women only, and appropriately aged women at that. Anything else is a ’scandal’
. Why should we accept or even embrace that kind of a view on individual tragedies like this?
Helsinkian, what does, again, the ancestry of a murderer (half Filipino) have to do with anything? According to Wikipedia, he was a troubled guy with a drug problem. Steroids and hormones make you paranoid and overly aggressive in some cases. Surely that’s a fact to mention when describing a serial killer, not that they were a male prostitute and half Filipino.
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
I think the case is more or less an chance it happened to be Tikka. What the papers say of the case was that Tikka liked to entertain in his flat and often asked strangers for a “continuation”. The 19-year old had been “chronically financially challenged” and was a known patron, while the 23-year old was a ‘new face’. What I suspect happened was the youngsters decided to ‘roll the old fool’ old fool woke up and the situation got out of hand with a blunt object. It does not need to be premeditated to be ‘murder’ in Finland. As the guys were probably drunk they took what they saw as “valuables” they probably think Picasso is a brand of Citroen. It could have been any other older gentleman as well.
Comment by Hank W. — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
“I have to say that in a way I agree with you. The growing muslim populations of Europe are a very real threat to women’s and gay people’s human rights. Unfortunately not that many people understand this at the moment. Although a taste of what’s coming has already been experienced in Netherlands and in some other central European countries.”
Unfortunately, not only are the growing muslim populations are a threat to the rights of women and sexual minorities but also any non- and particularly ex-muslims.
“But I wouldn’t isolate Islam as the sole cause of this as christians in Poland (for example) are just as capable of narrowminded and bigoted thinking.”
Certainly. It’s just that love for the fellow human being is not one of the tenets of islam (brotherhood only exists between muslim believers), so there is nothing to balance the narrowmindedness. According to Islam, Allah does not love humankind. He is no father figure (to suggest that would be blasphemous because that would be suggesting Allah has humanlike qualities) for muslims but an abstract superbeing who requires unconditional and total submission.
“I see the problem on a wider scale, caused by religions and fundamentalism in general. Religions have often been the major obstacles on the path to equality and universal human rights. To this day and age not much has changed in this respect: Religions still represent mostly conservatism, bigotry, suffering and hatemongering.”
Islam is far more dangerous than Buddhism or Christianity because critical and sceptical inquiry is not permitted in it. Islam is also growing faster than any of big religions.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:11 pm
‘Jatkot’: possibly the most common backdrop for crazy violence in Finland. I forgot that ‘premeditation’ is no longer a characteristic of murder in Finland. But the police says that it was a very violent death (erityisen raa’alla ja julmalla tavalla), which still classifies it as murder. Hank, your speculation sounds realistic to the tee…
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:14 pm
Er, just reading the comment from someone called ‘Anonymous’ (brave), where the hell did religion come into all this?
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
Islam is far more dangerous than Buddhism or Christianity because critical and sceptical inquiry is not permitted in it.
Is critical and sceptical inquiry permitted in Christianity? I don’t think so. I do agree with you on Buddhism though. But then Buddhism is not a religion. It’s an ~ism.
Comment by Liber Al — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:36 pm
Liber Al, it depends on the Christianity in question. There are so many schools or sects within it that it can barely be surrendered under any other one umbrella than the common belief in Jesus Christ as a saviour. Catholicism, too, of which I admittedly know nothing, has internal struggles on how to view both faith and history.
Even within the Lutheran church there are different ways of looking at not only the Bible but personal faith, and the constant questioning of God has quite a role in liberal Lutheranism.
Buddhism is not a religion in the sense that there is no God nor Gods, but some sects of it, such as Tibetan Buddhism, is animistic in its traditions and does aknowledge the existence of some divine spirits. Generally it is often seen as a religion as it respects in all beings a soul or spirit which live on forever.
Again, Buddhism is not just ‘Buddhism’, but more complex and cultural than the mere label we put on it, just like Christianity and Islam are.
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
Miriam:
“Again, Buddhism is not just ‘Buddhism’, but more complex and cultural than the mere label we put on it, just like Christianity and Islam are.”
Technically true when it comes to Islam, but of little consolence in the context of this discussion. All major Islamic schools of jurisprudence sanctify the killing of apostates, so there is no freedom of conscience in mainstream Islam. If you publically announce that you are no longer a muslim, you can expect mainstream religious authorities to agree that you must be put to death and that if you are in an Islamic state such as in post-Taleban Afganistan or Iran, you are guilty of a crime punishable by death according to the law of the land.
Liber Al asked whether Christianity has critical inquiry. The answer is yes. What do you expect of a religion that used to be hostile to homosexuals that nowadays has known homosexuals as clergymen?
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 9:41 pm
Hi Anonymous. BTW, which Anonymous one are you?
Schools of jurisprudence… It’s not reflective of how most citizens think, muslim or otherwise. Jurisprudence, even in religious terms, is up for interpretation, and that’s exactly what I said. If I would adhere to my religion, Lutheranism, in the strict sense, I’d be a nutter too…
About your quip on Christianity and homosexual clergymen, I don’t know of very many congregations that would allow the open homosexuality of their clergymen. Not even in Sweden. But I don’t think the so-called ban on homosexuality mentioned in the Bible is anything other than a 2000-year old idea of what should and should not be done. I personally don’t care about religious jurisprudence, and a lot of liberal Lutherans don’t give a damn either. Our culture has changed. Most Muslims I know interpret the Q’uran the same way, flexibly, although still tied to their parental cultures. It’s the culture and upbringing, not necessarily the religion, that is the strongest factor in the makeup of people’s identity.
I’ve met a lot of jurists who think all law is based on one grundnorm, and thinking that’s how law should be thought of. They’re all scholars. Go figure …:)
Comment by Miriam — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 10:36 pm
For all the professed liberal attitudes towards homosexuality in europe it’s really not much different than the US. You have to wonder if there would have been such a fuss over a old dude taking home a 17 year old Russian prostitute from Alcatraz.
Comment by hfb — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 11:12 pm
For all the professed liberal attitudes towards homosexuality in europe it’s really not much different than the US.
The differnece is, I guess, that we don’t have in Finland an influential fundametalist faction in any party … well, perhaps outside the Centre, but even there they are a minority within a minority.
Comment by Anonymous — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 11:57 pm
“Most Muslims I know interpret the Q’uran the same way, flexibly, although still tied to their parental cultures. It’s the culture and upbringing, not necessarily the religion, that is the strongest factor in the makeup of people’s identity.”
Ignoring large parts of the Quran is not “interpreting” it.
Muhammad either was or wasn’t the perfect man to be imitated by every able-bodied muslim man. Some of what he did either was or wasn’t objectionable.
Just like when you’re fucking the plumber behind your husband’s back, you’re not “re-interpreting” one of the ten commandments, you’re violating one of them.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 12:12 am
That’s bollocks, Anonymous, and you’re being crude. Islam has many interpretations, as does christianity. ‘Fucking the plumber’ behind your husbands back is not a religious wrong for most people anymore but simply a betrayal of the trust of your husband: a cultural wrong.
I dunno, most muslims I know seem to ignore the murderous stuff in the Quran and rather adhere to the sociable suras.
Comment by Miriam — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 12:59 am
This just in: Foreigners still commit more crime. Who knew?
Film at eleven.
The Bureau of Statistics in Denmerk today published the latest crime-statistics.
The statistics show that men with a foreign background had a crime index of 114, whilst foreigners from non-Western countries scored even higher - a whopping 36 % more crime than the average Dane male.
And here’s the clincher - these are the numbers AFTER they have been corrected for age and socio-economical status.
http://www.dst.dk/asp2xml/PUK/udgivelser/get_file.asp?id=7826
Mmm-m! Jes’ looikt dat big ol’ slice o’ juicy humble pie coming your “let’s-compare-poor-unskilled-immigrants-with-poor-unskilled-natives-and-see-if-there-are-significantly-more-convictionsâ€Â-
way, Philly m’boy. Now open wide and say say aah.
Good boy.
Comment by Nice — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 1:46 am
And Lady Miriam … nigga please. The problem isn’t those muslims you know. I sincerely believe that “most muslims you know” do not kill in the name of allah. But frankly, who cares who you know?
The problem is those muslims who DO kill in the name of allah.
You wit dat?
Comment by Nice — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 1:56 am
The Dutch film director Theo van Gogh had the courage to argue that Islam is a violent religion. In result of this he was shot dead by a Moroccan Islamist.
Comment by Johannes — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 2:03 am
Mistah Nice. Yeah, there are sickos in evry religion. the thing is those few nutters who act on stuff and think that terrorism is justifiable, are not evn good muslims if you ask most british muslims. Don’t even go there, especially if you’re not ready to be yourself. ‘Anonymous’ is the cloak of cowards.
Comment by Miriam — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 2:24 am
@post 42
I tried to get Jan Ahlberg’s study of crime and immigrants in Sweden, but some asshole had stolen it from the U of Helsinki Law School library. That’s law students for you.
But going by second-hand accounts of Ahlberg’s work, children of immigrants have significantly lower crime rates than their parents. So acculturation works. Of course Finns are still the single biggest immigrant group in Sweden. Would be interesting to know if Finnish immigrants in Sweden had higher crime rates than Finns in Finland, but that kind of comparison is hard to do even between two very similar countries.
The biggest immigrant groups in Finland are the Russians and the Estonians (n.b, these are references to country of origin, not ethnicity), and their crime rates are close to the Finnish average, except for significantly higher rates of drunken driving and drug offences. (Juhani Iivari’s study)
What’s it mean? Buggered if I know. But I wish these things could be discussed rationally without either crypto-racism (We knew it! They’re all criminal, lazy and stupid!) or knee-jerk liberalism (it MUST be a statistical illusion).
Comment by prince of dorkness — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Do we remember Pim Fortuyn?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
Comment by Ã…boy — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 10:51 am
Miriam - The Nice guy is likely the Dutch guy who was quoting the same study and saying how foreigners are the root of all evil earlier. Of course the Dutch and other EU countries who let the immigrants in en masse and didn’t encourage them to integrate are bitter because now they have lots of angry people on the verge of wiping them out. Lots of people with nothing to loose are an army in search of an ideology.
And now that both Harper’s magazine in the US and another Danish publication have again printed the stupid Mohammed cartoons, we can all expect more riots and more hate. What would Torquemada do?
Comment by hfb — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 11:04 am
Speaking of religion, I’m not at all delighted about the possibility, that we must go through the enlightment, scientific revolution, emansipation of the women and the culture wars of 1960’s all over again, because of some oil sponsored wahhabists taking root in the west. They should stay home, if they can’t deal with it here. But I’m still unable to trash Islam as whole. Like I have said before, I have seen too many obituaries in HS with star, crescent and the sign of winter war veterans or the cross of freedom. Those are of our Tatar minority.
Comparing prophets, well Jesus didn’t make war with anyone, but before arriving to the modern feel good - praise the lord christianity, you must omit some real bummer scenes of the old testament and not to take ramblings of St. Paul too seriously.
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 11:28 am
Miriam #29: You asked about the relevance of the serial killer’s half Filipino ancestry. In itself it’s irrelevant but there are some reasons why I came to think of it.
1. He made the name Cunanan famous. Not many people had heard of the family name or that it is a Filipino name before the serial killer came along. After all, some of these serial killers are motivated by getting famous. Most probably he chose to assassinate Versace for the fame that brought him. The ancestry of famous people is a common topic for discussion.
2. FBI spoke of a Caucasian male when they asked for tips from the public about him. If they had looked closer to the origin of Cunanan, I guess they would have said “half-Caucasian, half-Asian” or something like that which might have helped the public to identify him earlier on (before he killed Versace). After all, in America race is usually used as a characteristic when suspects are identified. Not that Cunanan wouldn’t have passed as a Caucasian.
3. Many Filipinos are devout Catholics. The question remains as to how much of Cunanan’s becoming a prostitute was a result of a Catholic upbringing and seeing sexuality in terms of black and white, either virtuous or fallen. I agree that being a prostitute in no way makes a person more prone to become a serial killer and shouldn’t be that relevant. But cases where prostitutes are either victims or perpetrators tend to get more publicity than cases that don’t have prostitutes involved in them. To think of one, Aileen Wuornos had four things that made her more famous than most serial killers (1. gender, she was a woman, 2. sexual orientation, she was gay, 3. prostitution, she was a straight prostitute and 4. ethnicity, she was of Finnish ancestry, not Anglo-Saxon). In Wuornos’ case the trial and the death penalty helped to make her even more famous (for example, Cunanan committed suicide and could not be tried).
Being Filipino or gay isn’t something that you expect to find in an average killer. I think these factors increase the fame of the killer in a same way as that of the killer being a woman.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 1:14 pm
“That’s bollocks, Anonymous, and you’re being crude. Islam has many interpretations, as does christianity. ‘Fucking the plumber’ behind your husbands back is not a religious wrong for most people anymore but simply a betrayal of the trust of your husband: a cultural wrong.”
It is a violation of the ten commandments. There is no plausible way whatsoever to “interpret” them differently.
“I dunno, most muslims I know seem to ignore the murderous stuff in the Quran and rather adhere to the sociable suras.”
Of course. (Relatively few people observe Islam to the full extent.) But I wouldn’t that an interpretation of the Quran but simply avoiding to deal with large parts of the book (the hadiths - the example set by the prophet - are even worse than the Quran).
Similarly, if you ignore some of the ten commandments, you’re not interpreting them. To interpret something includes by definition dealing with it. Refusing to deal with something is not interpreting it.
Dancing around the issue won’t do any good. Moderate islamic clergy living in the west owes the rest of us coming up with an honest interpretation of all parts of Islam that is compatible with modern constitutional democracy society. Should that prove impossible, there is no way to refute the jihadists on Islamic grounds. In that case, there is no choice but to ban the Quran and the hadiths under the same laws against hate speech and sedition as expressions of neonazism and other hateful and anti-democratic ideologies.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
This is how CNN wrote about Cunanan’s (the assassin of Versace) homosexuality at the time of his suicide:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9707/24/cunanan.profile/index.html
“He had been openly homosexual since high school. His own mother called him ‘a high-class homosexual prostitute’, and his acquaintances said he sought out older, wealthy gay men. His father has denied the reports of the son’s homosexuality, calling him an ‘altar boy’ with a good Catholic upbringing.”
So in this case the devoutly Catholic Filipino father quite strongly confirmed the national stereotype of Filipino men (and some other macho, conservative Catholic nations) as unable to accept their children’s homosexuality. To other observers it was not such a big problem to understand that someone can first be an altar boy and after that a prostitute. It’s rather a cliché that a devout upbringing of the type that includes a demonization of sexuality can lead people to a path of sexuality where a person’s own needs are repressed, such as prostitution.
I know I’m sounding anti-Catholic here but the Vatican has in some issues been strongly in favour of those Catholics who embrace a repression of sexuality. Sure there are also plenty of liberal Catholics who accept facts of life like their children being gay.
In Cunanan’s case, it may have affected his personality that he couldn’t be himself in front of his father. These things are often discussed when a personality of a serial killer is assessed in the public domain.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
Oops, I just wrote that Aileen Wuornos wasn’t Anglo-Saxon. His father, a child molester who hanged himself in prison, was called Leo Dale Pittman. Maybe he was Anglo-Saxon, his nationality is never mentioned in connection with Wuornos. Sure, Wuornos was adopted and raised by the Finnish-American family of her mother’s parents but her ethnic heritage may well have been considerably Anglo-Saxon.
The same goes for Cunanan, I wrote “Not that Cunanan wouldn’t have passed as Caucasian.” Well, Cunanan of course was half Caucasian and rather Caucasian-looking. In fact, his ancestry was half Italian and his parents had divorced. His upbringing may indeed have had more to do with Italian-American than with Filipino values.
So the part of ethnicity of a person of mixed ethnicity that is somehow “exotic” is the only one usually highlighted in these murder cases. Indeed, in the case of the suspects of the Tikka case, we don’t know anything but the label “Estonian” and “Russian”. They could be an Estonian and a Russian of Finnish/Karelian/Ingrian/whatever descent for all we know. As far as Russians go, in that country it is very common indeed for people to be of mixed ethnicity.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
Sorry I meant her father not “His” in #53 when referring to Aileen Wuornos. I was referring back to my post #50. Thanks Miriam for your very interesting comments on this ethnicity issue earlier on in the thread.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
Was this chap openly gay? Whilst leaving DTM at 4 am with some young men is obviously going to set tounges wagging, you don’t actually have to be gay to get into the club. I’ve been and I’m tediously straight.
Comment by Toby — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
Toby: a very good point you’re making there. All of these ideas about people leaving DTM and thus being gay seem to me to be signs of people jumping into conclusions. Since we seem to know next to nothing about the suspects, I find it especially strange that there is this automatic assumption about them being gay.
I think it’s quite clear that the victim was gay, though. But the operative word in your comment is “openly”. Now my main source are the tabloids that I don’t read, so it’s just the headlines. One of our leading tabloids quoted “friends” of the victim in a screaming headline saying that they had been fearing for his safety because of his double life. I can’t believe the tabloids would’ve dared to make such a headline if anyone would’ve hinted of the possibility of the victim actually having been straight.
This double life would mean that people who knew the victim knew very well that he was gay but not everybody knew he was gay. So he was either a closeted homosexual or although he didn’t hide it, he hadn’t been interviewed on the topic of being gay; his fame was based on his expertise on taxation law, ballet, the arts etc.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
I think Finnish newspapers are more or less discrete about peoples’ (sexual) orientations. I mean they didn’t “out” Jari Sillanpää before he outed himself - of course some magazines like “7 päivää” write whatever but I wouldn’t say IL or IS would rip headlines “soandso is gay” maybe if it comes up in an interview they will rip a headline. It is a question of “everybody knows” and “nobody talks”… which applies to quite a lot of things in the Finnish society. Of course the “flower-hatted aunties” in this case a politically correct term for “juoruämmät” who have nothing better to do than talk spiteful tales of their neighbors speculate on a lot of things, but there is a wall of silence even somewhere there.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 6:12 pm
Hank: at least you can’t say talking tales about your neighbors isn’t a common Finnish pastime. Talking with them might not be, but talking about them sure is.
I remember some ten years ago when a friend of mine (also a straight male) told me that this Sillanpää dude is gay and if those aunties who dig him find out they’d be totally shocked.
Now that he’s out, who’s shocked? I think people are today quite ready to accept that someone is gay, at least if it’s an artist.
I think this “everybody knows” and “nobody talks” applies mostly to those who are of an older generation, such as prof. Tikka who was in his early sixties.
But I guess there really is a divide here between cities and small towns. Gay people often move to cities and straight people visit gay bars in cities. In small towns there still is more of this mentality that it’s somehow inappropriate to be gay or talk about it except in the form of gossip behind someone’s back.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
Well, Juha Mieto was shocked
The “small town” thing applies to anything/anybody who is “nonconformist”. However there is a bit of a difference between “small town” and “small village” as you do accept a “kylähullu”. Everyone talks about him, but he is ya part of the society. And if you saw that “Ranuan Cowboyt” about the gay farmers in rural Finland, it was quite interesting.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 6:39 pm
Yeah, I heard about those gay farmers. I suppose gay farming couples aren’t that common in Finland, though.
Comment by Helsinkian — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 6:43 pm
Well, not couples, but in the days of my lewd youth when I sold porn tapes, guess what kind of tapes went where…
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
“This is quite extraordinary. When I first read the news, it was like some murder case from Mika Waltari’s Komisario Palmu series. (Waltari wouldn’t have settled for a plain murder-robbery motive though.)”
Yes the tabloid headline “Renowned professor killed blabla” sure smelled like a b-class crime story. Especially the use of “renowned”. If the guy had been really famous, surely they would have just used his name (they didn’t mention his name in the whole lööppi).
Think “Matti Nykänen murdedered” vs. “Renowned ski jumper murdered”.
Comment by m — Wed, May 31st, 2006 @ 8:39 pm
Tobacoo & alcohol, the most valuable things in Finnish household/stores. “I just killed a guy, now I’ll take hes Kossu.” F*ing sick.
Comment by aziz — Thu, Jun 1st, 2006 @ 8:51 am
Thats finland for you aziz…
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, Jun 1st, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
helsinkian:
“a very good point you’re making there. All of these ideas about people leaving DTM and thus being gay seem to me to be signs of people jumping into conclusions. ”
Good point. Also, maybe fat people just have big bones. And if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it may very well be a giraffe.
Thank you. The world is so much richer now that we are no longer bound by the powers of logical deduction.
Comment by Nice — Fri, Jun 2nd, 2006 @ 12:53 am
Nice: “The world is so much richer now that we are no longer bound by the powers of logical deduction.”
I think you mean induction (premises of an argument support the conclusion but do not ensure it).
You know for sure when someone else thinks something is likely but not guaranteed. In a murder case it may be smart not to jump into conclusions. Sex, sexuality and human behavior (not to speak of a difficult murder case) are far more complicated matters than ducks being giraffes.
Toby explained very well that he’d been to DTM and he’s not gay. Still your Nice logic says that everybody who’s been to DTM is gay. Does that make Toby a giraffe who walks and talks like a duck?
Comment by Helsinkian — Fri, Jun 2nd, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
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Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Apr 4th, 2007 @ 4:36 am