The prime minister speaks of “intestinal flu” on Twitter: rain of comments
“My daughter attacked me with an intestinal virus over the weekend, today I have to skip work”: the message, similar to the one that any of us would send to the office – perhaps with some shame in adding “intestinal” – is instead a tweet on the ‘official account of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. No obscure periphrases such as “indispositions”, no silent updating of the government agenda, the opposite of the British “never complain, never explain”. The message, as well as one of transparency towards its citizens, being written only in Finnish, is more broad-based. And more contagious than a virus.
A month ago, the defense minister of Sanna Marin’s government, Antti Kaikkonen, took a two-and-a-half month paternity leave, right in the midst of Finland’s difficult process of joining NATO: «Nobody is irreplaceable, not even a minister », he said announcing it to the press. And “no one is irreplaceable” seemed to many to be the subtext of the sudden resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who performed her last day in office yesterday. Now, she announced on Jan. 19 at a press conference, she will be more dedicated to the family than her. “I’m human,” she said.
And now the “justification” of Marin, infected by his five-year-old daughter Emma Amalia, who has his surname. “We are human” seems to be the message that more and more politicians, especially of the female gender, seem to want to give with their professional choices. Even when these expose them to greater vulnerability.
On Twitter, for example, around 500 comment on Sanna Marin’s tweet and her intestinal virus. Someone detailing the images that the definition evokes, and all with much more colloquial tones than those with which one generally addresses a head of state: even when they are benevolent, like that of a woman from India who writes, motherly, « but how did you get a virus? In any case, drink lots of liquids and you will recover». Angry, a Finn presses: “Just get sick, why are you writing it on Twitter?”. “And to think that yesterday you were at a public event,” another wrote to her. “You will have infected everyone.”
Some anonymous accounts rage: “She must have drunk too much or taken drugs”, and here the barb goes to another occasion in which the Finnish premier had shown herself to be “human”, and that is to say at the parties this summer from which they were leaked on social networks images of her dancing a little sprawling and could appear tipsy. At the time she too had used the motto “I am human”, adding: “and sometimes I need joy and fun”. Unlike then, no Finnish newspaper today comments on the premier’s virus. That tomorrow she is expected in Brussels for the European Council (if she is better off).
February 7, 2023 (change February 7, 2023 | 21:25)
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