Politics of fire: the commemorative torch rally 612 of the Finnish radical right

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the last decade, the radical right has organized numerous torch rallies around Europe. This essay analyses symbolic meanings attached to torches in these events. My case study is the 612-event that has taken place in Helsinki every Finnish Independence Day since 2014. The organizers of the torch procession claim that their event is politically non-committed, patriotic and commemorative. However, the organizers and speakers in the event come from various radical right organizations. Torches are said to symbolize life, continuity, and the ‘eternal Finnishness,’ but in the context of the radical right, the torches may also recall the torch rallies of the Ku Klux Klan, Nazi Germany, the Finnish Academic Karelia Society (AKS) in the 1930s, various similar radical right torch rallies in contemporary Europe, and the petrol bomb attacks against asylum centres around Finland in the autumn 2015. While the speeches held in the event move mostly on quite general patriotic level, one can also find references to more radical right-wing ideology, for example to the theory of the ‘Great Replacement.’ The event is thus illustrative of the ‘doublespeak’ of the radical right: it sends different messages to the general public and the initiated activists.