Finnish Clowns Give Marauding Bigots Exactly The Respect They Deserve

His next words were "High five to that!" and we could not possibly agree more.

That headline is going to take some explaining, so stick with us here.

Alright, so, Finland. You guys know Finland, right? It's the third biggest Scandinavian country, after the ones you always remember first. Its chief exports are alcoholism and hating Russia to the point where "I guess we'll side with the Nazis in WWII because then we'd get to shoot at Russians" is sound logic.

Anyway, Finland has been having a problem lately with anti-migrant hate groups, particularly one calling itself the "Soldiers of Odin." That might sound like the best name for a metal band you've ever heard, but trust us; they're way less fun in real life. Odin, the Norse God of Being Anthony Hopkins, apparently inspires them to cozy up to neo-Nazis and refer to asylum-seeking immigrants as "a bunch of animals" who are out to sexually assault Finnish women.

The Soldiers of Odin like to spend their time wearing matching black hoodies and marching menacingly through the streets of Helsinki (and other places, we just really wanted to say "Helsinki"). The night of January 30, they were having the first ever of these marches in the southern Finnish city of Tampere, where 4,000 Iraqi refugees were settled in 2015.

That's when the clowns showed up. 

Like its neighbors, Finland may have widespread "Scandinavia is for white people" racist undercurrents, but they're also Scandinavian, which means they are wacky as fuck. So it's not wholly surprising the response of right-thinking Finns to the rise of the Soldiers of Odin was to dress up as clowns, call themselves the "Loldiers of Odin," and follow their protest, honking at them and raising their voices in clownsong.

The Soldiers were not happy about it, either:

The Loldiers of Odin, as they called themselves, were a feisty, fearless lot. One of the few males donned an outfit topped with Viking horns to mock the Norse god Odin, the inspiration of the Soldiers. At one point, the clowns held hands and danced around the Soldiers singing a Finnish nursery rhyme akin to Ring Around the Rosie. They teased the far-right Soldiers by highlighting a verse that roughly translated as the “fingers say ‘tut-tut-tut', the shoe heels say K-K-K.”

“They are trying to make us look like fools,” griped one muscle-bound Soldier who declined to give his name.

Just this once, we'll make an exception to our longstanding "no clowns" life policy, because the Loldiers of Odin are clearly doing Thor's work.

[ WaPo ]