Petteri Orpo’s government has been slogging from one racism scandal to the next. Right at the start of the term, in summer 2023, controversy swirled around the then Minister of Economic Affairs Vilhelm Junnila (Finns Party) for Nazi references, and around Riikka Purra (Finns Party) for old internet comments. Back then people argued about raccoon ties and number combinations.

Now we are dealing with something new. Miss Finland Sarah Dzafce lost her crown after a photo of her was published on social media in which she stretched her eyes.

The Finns Party smelled a publicity opportunity and rushed to defend a gesture widely read as racist: MPs Juho Eerola and Kaisa Garedew, and MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen, published photos and a video on their own channels in which they stretched their eyes — claiming they were showing support for Dzafce they said had fallen victim to cancel culture.

What has now travelled from Finland to Asia at lightning speed is a completely accurate image: that the country’s political leadership treats Asians in a racist manner — and does not even bother to hide it. The reason is simple: visual communication works.

The government’s earlier racism scandals were language-based. Junnila’s references to gassing, or Juha Mäenpää’s (Finns Party) talk of “invasive species”, required translation and context. (In Finnish, Junnila’s campaign slogan could be read as “step on the gas”, but it also echoed Holocaust gas chambers.) The average citizen in Tokyo or Shanghai is not going to wade through that. (Riikka Purra’s old writings, admittedly, were so unambiguously racist and dehumanising that the language barrier was not hard to cross.)

Stretching one’s eyes is different. The racist message reaches the viewer at a glance and needs no explanation. When a Finnish politician stretches their eyes, the meaning is crystal clear even without a dictionary: we are mocking you.

Around the world, brands have learned this the hard way. The fashion house Dolce & Gabbana ran into a massive crisis in China a few years ago because of advertising videos widely interpreted as racist. As recently as August 2025, the Swiss watch giant Swatch found itself in a storm over an advert in which a model stretched their eyes. For companies, the consequences have been concrete — and financial.

Finland does not sell luxury handbags or watches, but Asian countries are vital trading partners. For a small country, a good national image is often precisely that no strong image forms at all: Finland stays in the background, neutral and safe. That is why a single internationally circulating image can carry disproportionate weight. For many people it may be the first — and for a long time the only — lasting impression of Finland.

Images also stick. Especially the ones that trigger an emotional reaction: shame, or anger. Images can also be recycled endlessly. Once an image exists, it is easy to dig it up again and again — whenever someone wants to sneer, or to build a story about what Finland is “really” like.

The reputational damage is not just an abstract erosion of “country brand”, but a loss of trust that is already showing up in concrete ways. In Japan — where Finland is unusually well known and well liked for a country of its size — the scandal is being followed blow by blow on the most-read news sites. It has, for example, put a cultural project on ice after a Japanese partner said they had looked into the Finnish government’s actions and its attitude towards Japanese people.

When Japan’s second-largest newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, gives prominent coverage to a Finnish MP’s gesture, a domestic shrug is not an adequate response. Eerola has apologised to the paper, but the wording is familiar: “I am deeply sorry that my photograph has offended Asians.” In Japan, however, apologies still mean something — and expressing regret about the consequences without taking responsibility for the act does not work.

In the end, even a thousand explanations may not be enough to undo the damage done by a single image.