I think that Lidl is the best supermarket chain in Czechia although my view may be biased due to my getting used to a nearby new Lidl. But I've been to other supermarkets very many times and the reasons to think that Lidl does a better job are too obvious and numerous. Low prices, weekly themes with special products, fast cashiers supported by effective systems to add or remove employees etc.



Well, some flame wars have erupted in which I am not quite on Lidl's side. Well, the story is simple. In the weekly flyer for this week (an XXL week at Lidl), a black model has appeared twice, on pages 22-23. I did see the flyer a week ago for the first time and I didn't react. I obviously don't have a problem with a black model at all. I don't really care about models of any color or type. If you had asked me about the photographs, I would probably say that Lidl is making the flyers for the whole Europe and the incorporation of the black model is mostly driven by the political correctness in Germany.



On the other hand, some Czechs did care and they criticized Lidl for this choice. While I am not one of those critics, I find it essential to respect their right to have opinions. After all, in a truly free market, models should be chosen so that the target audience likes to look at them or is otherwise satisfied with them or encouraged to buy more etc. If they don't like a model or a group of models for any reason, blonde hair, thin muscles, high age etc., it's their choice. You can't change people's aesthetic preferences.









The model we discuss is Mr Alpha Dia, a Muslim guy (and a Bolshevik who loves Czechia although he doesn't know the country's name) born in Senegal in 1992. He is probably earning lots of money just for being photographed. His most successful places are Paris and Milan but he lives in Hamburg. Some pictures, like this one with a blonde babe, are sort of cute. Or weird. People could pick various adjectives.



Germany has an official welcoming policy so it's "redefining" the German nation to include lots of blacks and other people. In some sense, this megalomaniac social engineering is the mirror image of the racial policies that Germany pursued between 1933 and 1945. The word "mirror image" denotes two things that are "opposite to each other" from some viewpoint. But you know, they are "basically the same" from a more general viewpoint.









At any rate, Alpha Dia's presence in the flyer – and other places – didn't work too well for Czechia. Lots of criticisms were posted on the Facebook page of Lidl Czechia. Top Czech daily iDNES has written several articles about the controversy. One of them, titled Lidl is facing criticism by racists over a black in a flyer, doesn't plan to back away, attracted over 3,600 comments.



You may see that the writers of the article automatically promote a multicultural interpretation of the events. In particular, whoever prefers models that resemble the citizens of this country must be a racist!



I don't want to translate 3,600 comments but it may be useful translate some of the initial Facebook comments that have been called racist:



Why do you have a black guy in the flyer? Do you know that you are making lots of people upset, people who don't like these freeloaders and parasites and who are afraid of them?

Are we in Bohemia, or Africa? Why is there a black man in the flyer? Run to the aß with your multi-kulti. ["Run to the aß" is a Czech idiom synonymous with "f*ck off".]

Why do the flyers of Lidl for the Czech Republic persistently feature models of the negroid type? Thank you for an explanatory answer.



Czechs must realize that Czechia is a part of Europe, Prague is an international city, and it's logical in Europe to hire African models for flyers.



Some of the comments were written by an official from a small nationalist party (close to several lawmakers – which of these guys are still "together" is a bit difficult to follow) etc.Well, yes, these three are nicely chosen and they could marginally be called racist. "Negroid" may sound insulting – but I think that as a kid, I was still taught the adjectives "negroid" and "mongoloid" as the most kosher scientific terminology for human races (after all, they're just some variations of the Romance language roots for the "black" color or some countries). But what's more important is that they're clearly legal according to the Czech law and this is no detail. Nuances may decide whether or not you consider a particular comment racist. But this flame war isn't really about nuances. It's about many citizens' dissatisfaction with this multiculturalism pushed through the people's throats. And hundreds of others have expressed these attitudes in polite and careful ways that are unassailable.And the dissatisfaction has absolutely legitimate reasons and even if some of these people use a tough language I wouldn't normally choose myself, I would never stand against these people's rights to defend the common sense and understandable national interests.The Czech and Slovak (basically unified) Lidl flyers often feature some famous Czech and Slovak cooks, Czech actor Marek Vašut – often with wines etc. – and other people whom we know to be Czech or Slovak. And then there are lots of models whom we don't know. What makes it problem-free – what makes us think that the supermarket chain has adapted to our country – is the general feeling that all the models could very well be Czech. They could be your neighbors etc. It generally looks like a flyer targeting us.Whether some people dreaming about a demographic revolution in Europe like it or not, Czechia is not a multicultural country. It's a country where the number of black citizens is basically negligible and the existing population wouldn't democratically agree on policies that would substantially change this fact. Basically everyone agrees that we have the right if not the duty to defend the country we have inherited from our ancestors so that it remains a country belonging to a similar kind of people, biologically and culturally, and the evolution of these deep parameters isn't fast.If someone wanted to question this basic right and sovereignty of the Czech population, it could become a serious problem – even for an influential supermarket chain like Lidl. Lidl may use any models in their flyers but the consumers have the right to criticize the flyers, the company, and stop doing shopping in its supermarkets. I don't expect that Lidl will go bust because of this "event" but if it wanted to escalate the war against the Czechs' opinions about their rights, it could hypothetically end up with existential problems for the subsidiary.Lidl admitted that the opposition was substantial but it insisted that it's right to hire blacks for the Czech flyers. The spokeswomen for Lidl has said things like:That's what I call women's logic. Czechia is indeed a part of Europe but the normal inhabitants of Europe are called Europeans, not Africans, which is why it's logical to hire European, and not African, models for flyers targeting European consumers. Return to the basic school, madam, if you have trouble with these simple insights.Moreover, it's not really true that "Prague is an international city". Prague is a Czech city – the most important Czech city and the capital – with lots of international tourists and companies. But those don't "own" Prague. The "legal layer" of Prague belongs to the citizens and they're Czech. In the very same sense, Prague used to be a Czech-German-Jewish city (with several Danish astronomers and Italian architects) but the other two groups have largely disappeared for certain historical reasons.So what is "normal" and "legal" in Prague isn't decided by the international people but the Czech people. Again, if you have a problem with this elementary fact, it may be a serious problem.To make the conflict worse, a major German politically correct daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has encouraged Alpha Dia to whine:Well, I wouldn't agree that a guy who earns lots of money by standing or sitting in jeans, being hugged by a blonde beauty, and getting the support of major newspapers in Europe's largest economy whenever someone criticizes him has a "difficult life". In fact, he is an arrogant lying jerk if he's willing to say things like that.The German daily tells us that he was "shocked" by the racism of Czechs, especially those who were worried about the "demise of the white race". I am sorry but when we look at the attitudes in Germany and demographic changes in much of Western Europe, these concerns seem justified. We're constantly being shown the conflicts, attacks, but also billboards e.g. in Norway that work hard to suppress the European culture and the white race and spread others.An overwhelming majority of Czechs just doesn't approve of these efforts. Get used to it. What is actually racist is to accuse a whole adjacent nation of racism just because many of its citizens prefer more or less domestic models in flyers. Many Czechs – like me – don't care about the skin color of models at all but almost all of us agree that each of us has the right to prefer any models we want. None of these widespread things prove racism and it's offensive – analogous to the Nazi propaganda – if the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes about our nation in this way.As I mentioned, in average, black models actually have an easier life than their white colleagues in the politically correct countries because they have some very powerful people, including chancellors and the major dailies, on their side. And these models are often hired simply because the political correctness and calls for "diversity" (and sometimes explicit quotas that favor them) are omnipresent. I think it's not right and so do most Czechs. What decides about your success as a model should be ultimately the reaction of the target audiences. And if it's negative, it's too bad. They have the right to react and evaluate the choice of models in the way they do. They may be dissatisfied that they don't know what the clothes would look like at them because the model looks very different than they do.You have no right – and no actual power – to force the Czech consumers to change their opinions what is the right choice of models for a Lidl flyer.Bonus: The newest poll measuring the likability of other nations among Czechs, from November 2016, sorted 27 nations from the most likable ones as follows:SlovakiaAustriaFranceSwedenNorwayItalyBritainHungaryJapanGreeceBrazilPolandU.S.GermanyLithuaniaSerbiaIndiaRussiaUkraineChinaIsraelTurkeyPalestineAfghanistanIranSyriaIraqMy list would "substantially" differ but would still be clearly positively correlated. U.S. and German readers may see that instead of being exceptional, they're the geniuses of mediocrity. Some other nearby nations are generally most likable while all 6 Muslim countries in the list ended up at the last 6 places. I guess that similar polls are taboo in most Western countries.