1,212 words
On December 11, Sarah Dzafce was forced to step down as Miss Finland and hand over her crown in a public ceremony.
This was due to a joke she had made two weeks earlier. While eating with a friend, she pulled her eyes into a slanted position. Her friend captioned the photo “eating with a Chinese person.” The photo was then posted to her friend’s Jodel account, an app designed to be “hyperlocal” and only show users content from those nearby, and someone shared a screenshot of the picture on Snapchat and Instagram. It soon went viral. Over the next few days, an internet mob formed.
A flood of comments appeared on Dzafce’s personal social media. Wave after wave of Chinese critics left caustic, vindictive tirades (some comparing her to a pig) while a few netizens defended her. Many of her staunchest supporters were Cambodians. Sarah had been a vocal supporter of Miss Cambodia during an earlier stage of the pageant, when the latter was bullied and harassed, and the Cambodians saw her joke as harmless. The Chinese mob didn’t care. Sarah quickly posted an apology in which she claimed the gesture had been misunderstood. This was soon deleted and replaced by a video in which, while standing next to the head of the Miss Finland Organization, Sarah handed over her crown to the runner up, Tara Lehtonen, and apologized in Finnish, English, and Chinese. A written statement was also published and pinned on all of Sarah’s social media.
Several members of the Finns Party immediately criticized this decision. MP Joakim Vigelius stated:
I think this is sick. Uptight and humourless. Above all, merciless. And I am not just talking about the beauty pageant controversy, but about repeated social media witch hunts and moral uproars.
Some MPs even began making the same gesture. Juho Eerola appears to have started this with a Facebook post which jokingly referenced the Je Suis Charlie movement. He is the man in the top right corner:
Finland’s Prime Minister, Petteri Orpo, responded to these pictures by issuing an apology. His statement said that racism has no place in Finland and that his country values equality and non-discrimination. This apology was quickly reposted to the social media pages of Finland’s embassies in China, Japan, and South Korea. The “incident” was even discussed with the head of the EU Parliament and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Most members of the Finns Party have, thus far, refused to apologize. Sebastian Tynkkynen released a statement declaring that, in his view, the media purposefully turned a minor incident involving an inexperienced young woman into an international problem and then feigned innocence. He went on to argue that politically incorrect humor should not be a cancellable offense and that Finland did not owe China an apology. His views were echoed by Kaisa Garedew and Riika Purra.
I think that Mr. Tynkynnen has a valid point.
Miss Finland is a private organization, unaffiliated with the Finnish government, and it’s important to remember what started this chain of events: Ms. Dzafce appears to have made a politically incorrect joke, never intended for the public, while drinking at a bar with a friend. She is not a politically active person and has never previously said anything “anti-Asian.” Most of her social media posts are about luxury clothes, food, travel, and pageantry.
The only comments she has made that are remotely related to race are about her pride in being an ethnic Albanian. She often vlogs about Kosovo and makes posts describing herself as “Balkan.” Despite being born in Finland and having a Finnish mother, she seems to feel a stronger ethnic attachment to Albanians than to Finns. In her first apology statement, she even claimed that she experienced racism as a child due to her ethnic background, so she would never purposefully make a racist gesture. It wouldn’t be a total exaggeration to say that this is very similar to the “code-switching” tactic that white-passing Hispanics sometimes adopt in the United States.
As one might expect, these arguments had no effect on the mob.
The Chinese netizens attacking Sarah didn’t care where her family was from. Instead, they seemed determined to use the incident as an opportunity to attack Finnish culture and demand changes in the Finnish educational system. The overarching goal appears to have been to shame Finland into being more deferential to China. This leaves me wondering if China’s infamous “50 Cent Army” was involved. China deploys influence operations, similar to those conducted by Russia, and it wouldn’t surprise me if elements within China’s propaganda machine saw this situation as a useful opportunity to manipulate Finnish politics & culture.
As China rises, its behavior towards small nations is rapidly changing. Asian societies tend to rank races and nations on hierarchies according to material wealth. In Jared Taylor’s first book, Shadows of the Rising Sun, he noted that Japanese behavior varied drastically by how a nation’s people were “ranked:”
This love of hierarchy extends to nations and races. Japanese rank them unabashedly according to their “superior” or “inferior” qualities, and Japan’s niche in the hierarchy is carefully monitored. As one Japanese explains it: ‘The Japanese reflex to modify behavior according to rank […] applies to races as well.’
Americans do not keep the same watchful eye on the world hierarchy that Japanese do. They may have a vague feeling that America has declined from its immediate postwar mastery of the globe, but few realize how much a change in hierarchy means to the Japanese. In world affairs, as in Japanese society, there are very few equals – only superiors and inferiors.[1]
While China’s culture is not interchangeable with that of Japan, there are many similarities. As time goes on, the Chinese people are adopting an increasingly aggressive and arrogant attitude. The White South African blogger Winston Sterzel, who lived in China for over a decade, documented this change. His videos show that China’s people are hyper-reactive to criticism and that China’s leaders have become increasingly determined to see to it that foreigners adopt a deferential tone. The same nation whose celebrities and comedians regularly make racial jokes has zero-tolerance towards jokes aimed in the other direction. This is because China sees itself as being near the top of the international hierarchy and expects foreigners to behave accordingly.
When faced with this type of hypocrisy, it’s nonsensical for Western officials to immediately adopt an apologetic tone.
If a member of the Finnish government had acted inappropriately, without cause, then it would be rational for the Finnish government to address it, but that is not what happened. A tipsy joke was shared by a beauty queen’s friend, on an app designed to be relatively private, and a combination of leftist journalists and Chinese trolls used the resulting situation to create an international incident. This sets a bad precedent. We don’t want Chinese internet mobs, and their enablers in Western media circles, to weaponize Western “cancel-culture” against our people. I think there’s a time for decorum and holding oneself to a set of standards that correspond to one’s position, but there’s also a time when a nation’s leaders should show a degree of firmness and not fall into these “traps.”
Notes
[1] Taylor, J. (1983). Shadows of the Rising Sun. New York Quill.
25 comments
“Sarah quickly posted an apology”, big mistake, never apologize.
Leftist journalists are so good at making mountains out of molehills that they should design Wonder Bras instead.
Good one. 🙂
What happened to the good ole days when the Chinese were ripe for the pickin?
https://youtu.be/ULn0kvMyxVs?feature=shared
Too bad for Daffy. I don’t think they got her accent quite right. But the broken English was right on as well as her figure.
There are a lot of downsides to social media. The regime is watching, just waiting for someone to post something offensive, especially public figures.
It wouldn’t be a total exaggeration to say that this is very similar to the “code-switching” tactic that white-passing Hispanics sometimes adopt in the United States.
Great article. I fear those who can walk between worlds, those who are of another race can be seen afar–beware the enemy within the gates. 🙃
Nice piece. Maybe Finland should expel any real Chinese since it’s such a racist country. This ranking system would explain why white men are far more welcome in China and Japan than blacks. China is happy to exploit Africa for natural resources, but damned if they’re going to let you marry their women. I always get a laugh out of their over the top reactions to even the slightest offense in their eyes. I mean they had a commercial for laundry detergent that had a Chinese woman throwing a black man in the washing machine and he comes out white or Chinese. How’s that for racial sensitivity. Or their short memory of how the Americans helped them in WW II? Countries need to stop bowing down and begging forgiveness and to move on instead.
That was a great advert. I remember it from many years ago. It’s still on YouTube. Search for “Chinese detergent brand Qiaobi ad“.
The Chinese are natural racists, which is good for them and healthy. That means they will survive and prosper. The Chinese have a disparaging term for the “White Left” = “baizuo“.
Racism is good. Whites are the least racist, to our detriment. Worse than that, leftwing loonies are aggressively anti-White. Many of them are Jews, pretending to be White. Jews are the most racist. Whites should follow their example.
“Japanese, Chinese, dirty knees, look at these!”
“Me Chinese. Me make joke: Me go pee-pee in your Coke.”
If you occasionally recited those with your friends, you had a proper childhood.
How about “Chink a China china lo sitting on a fence, Try to make a dollar from 15 cents”.
My mom would tell us not to do that to our eyes or they might stay that way.
Seriously though the gooks are just offended because they know they look like aliens. They think Whites are primitive hirsute hunter gatherers but we are not about to have our eyes surgically slanted.
Yes, this Chinese mob is a rising yellow tide.
Yes, and they also know that their being “offended” can be used against us.
Finland should have sent China some of those old alt-right memes about Finns being half-Asian.
“Sarah handed over her crown to the runner up, Tara Lehtonen”
The silver lining is that they’ll actually have a Finnish girl as Miss Finnland.
I agree. I found out not long ago that Albanians can be quite attractive, but it’s more suitable for Finland to be represented by someone ethnically Finnish.
Exactly what I was thinking, Adam. There’s always a bright side!
Keep your white kids off of social media.
<s>Albanians are more European than Finns.</s>
Most Asians are racist and nationalist, some are self-hating as a rebound , but they are almost all not liberals.
As for me, I don’t hate anyone, but also just want Singapore safer.
But but but, I thought that Chinese people would be the savior of the white Civilization…
Like the blacks are token minority for the left, east Asians are the same for rightist virtue signalers. They are equally harmful to the white race and incredibly jealous. Plus, their supposed higher IQ is a scam.
Hmm, on the topic of Yellow Supremacy, if she had said “lunch with someone Japanese” instead of Chinese, I can’t imagine the same uproar. In Japan, foreigners, and especially Western ones, are called “round-eyes” and the sign language gesture for this, uses an index finger to draw an imaginary circle around the eye.
Ultraman offers demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1A4gjxxSIQ
They also may refer to us as long nose despite the millions they spend to shape their noses like ours.
So her defence was ‘as an Albanian living among racist Finns, trust me, I have no hate’. These episodes are a public service because it shows who among us can be trusted, and who can be jettisoned. This is a disloyal woman. And she must be surrounded by such people as nobody kept her from apologizing and surrendering the crown. As someone else commented, at least now a real Finn is Miss Finland.
I agree with the above comments. This gal is more proud of her Albanian connection than her Finnish homeland. No sympathy for her whatsoever.
The gravitational pull of identity/allegiance for mulattress-quadrooned hafus bends towards the darker whom they don’t live around and publicly antiWhite venom on whom they depend for everything.
As one might expect, these arguments had no effect on the mob… The cat’s out of the bag my friends and it’s never going back in… never.
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