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SannaMarinHelsinkiPrideMarch2022.jpeg

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin Caught In An Act of Unspeakable Coolness

By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | August 22, 2022 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | August 22, 2022 |

SannaMarinHelsinkiPrideMarch2022.jpeg

I’ve been watching a lot of old videos from The Onion on their YouTube channel; they mostly stopped making them probably because they looked damn expensive and because reality made them obsolete. A classic and prescient one was “Every Potential 2040 President Already Unelectable Due To Facebook”, which is funny because it assumed Millennials would still be using Facebook in the future. Of course, not all countries are like the US, where politicians born in the ’80s or earlier are either rare exceptions, like AOC, or only electable because they’re filo-fascist fratboys. Elsewhere in the World, we count several progressive Millennials being elected as heads of state, shaking up the notion that seniority is the same thing as experience. One such head of state is Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Raised by her mother and her same-sex partner, she became the youngest elected head of state in 2019 at age 34 (and having become a mother just a year earlier!), leading the Social Democratic party and a coalition of left-wing, green and liberal parties. Just like Jacinda Ardern a few years earlier, she has become the epitome of everything women could achieve in a society with a functioning social network and that is actually attempting to be in the 21st Century. I’m far from saying Finland is an utopia because the far-right party has been sitting on a comfortable 17% since 2011. But let’s be honest, there is no way someone like Marin could’ve been elected to her position anywhere other than in a Nordic country. She did a commendable job steering the country through the pandemic, despite an infamous misstep when she had a night out despite one of her ministers testing positive for Covid, though the vaccination rate at the time had been outstanding. Nevertheless, we stan.

But since there is no rest for women in office doing normal stuff, she has been thrown into the spotlight once again, now for an even more bullshit manufactroversy. A video of her partying and dancing with friends was leaked, and people lost. their goddamn. minds. The right-wing Finnish opposition of course. But since we live in a world where Twitter has given a platform to all the saddest and weirdest of men (and women) out there, the whole thing turned into a discourse. They do have a point, though. When have we ever seen political leaders dancing in ways that range from endearingly dorky to this-could-blind-a-teenager cringe? On an unrelated note, here is former Chilean President dancing to “Thriller.”

Since no country is exempt from bullshit discourses, Marin had to make a statement by taking a drug test (which came back negative), because the song she dances to has bars about cocaine, as if LA snow wasn’t one of the main motifs of the most popular crooner today. But since Finland still lies in the less-crazy part of the world, there has been an outpour of support coming from Finnish and European women, reminding everyone to calm the hell down and remember that this is what normal women her age do to have fun and blow off steam with friends.

Blowing off steam is quite warranted as Finland jumped from the pandemic crisis to the “being neighbors to our former colonizer Russia” type of crisis. Not that Finland isn’t up to the task of facing a Russian invasion, but the threat has gone from lingering to “Putin is going nuts and we’re right in the middle of it.” Consequently, Sanna has been criticized for drinking and partying during a time of national crisis, as if Churchill didn’t single-handedly keep the whiskey industry alive during the Blitz. As you might expect, there are suspicions that the video was leaked as part of a Russian hacking operation, because somehow this is supposed to demoralize the West?

For all the legitimate concerns about how Sanna, in her position, should’ve been twice more careful than her male counterparts, the problem is that there is nothing she can do to avoid being pestered. She already had a target on her for being a woman in politics, more so as a Leftist one, that’s just the baseline. But then we have the fact that she is a young woman (of a generation for whom the 30s are the new 20s) and, well, let’s say that I could not find a picture of her — for the banner — where looked simply neutral. She is indeed a strikingly beautiful woman, and cool enough to do this:

Sanna Marin represents everything the reactionary world fears: A successful, independent woman raised by a Queer couple in Left-wing politics. I’m not surprised at all Russia’s government hates her with a dedicated passion and is trying to tear her down. And for that, they sent in their English-speaking stooges in the far-right and in the substack fake-left. Also, sorry for quoting a neo-con zionist, but he has a great point:

When you have so many strikes against you in a world dominated by old, white men (not just Finland, for obvious reason, but on a global scale), what are you going to do: Play up the respectability politics, or just say screw it and be yourself? This is not rhetorical; it’s a valid question as Millennials and Zoomers finally start displacing the rust and dust from politics. Of course, I’m talking about Left-wing or Liberal politics; the right-wing will always be dominated by people who aged too early.

I have no idea how it was for Boomers and X-ers when they entered politics (again, always on the Liberal to Leftist side of the spectrum), but the formalities and rituals of politics can be a hurdle for Millennials and Zoomers entering it, not so much because we use social media, but because there is a major generational break in how those born in the ’80s and later observe formality. I am generalizing on an irresponsible scale here, but I’m kinda right: Millennials and Zoomers have embraced fluidity (in all spheres), unfiltered earnestness, and a love-hate relationship with our past selves, mostly for the better. Basically, we’ve come to realize that all the constructs erected around saving face are just as pointless as giving your all to a company, or capitalism. Let me repeat this once more: I’m only talking about those on the Progressive side (the one that matters). When you apply it to politics, it shows that the appearance of respectability is just a series of choices, that one too many times have become an ideology on their own, constraining the way of doing politics and the ideas that can be brought to the table. I’m not sure if this change will usher in a more honest way of doing politics and a progressive wave, but at least there is an awareness of how respectability in politics is as much of an aesthetic as it is a code. Respectability matters jack-shit when those old white men use it to pummel you down while they destroy the actual State said codes are supposed to uphold. I’m not talking about the former guy, I’m talking about Reagan and W. Bush.

But since we need to mention the former guy when talking about what we consider statesman-like behavior (emphasis on the “man”), after seven years of being subjected to that extreme of formal and ideological terrorism, isn’t respectability, as defined by old white men, just a constraint?

Now let me contribute to the Cool Millennial Stateswoman trend with a couple of tweets from our very own Camila Vallejo Dowlig, mythical student leader, current Minister Secretary General of Government, and perhaps future President?

(Shout out to whoever coined “unspeakably cool” in regards to another bullshit scandal involving Malia Obama)

Alberto Cox is a neoliberal stooge even though he’s been arrested at pro-free education and anti-fascists protests more times than any of those dickwads at The Grayzone have: Once.