{"id":32040,"date":"2022-02-12T16:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T22:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=32040"},"modified":"2022-02-12T16:00:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T22:00:25","slug":"2021-miss-universe-pageant-occurs-amid-global-political-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2022\/02\/12\/2021-miss-universe-pageant-occurs-amid-global-political-tensions\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 Miss Universe Pageant Occurs Amid Global Political Tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2021 Miss Universe pageant took place in Eilat, Israel <\/a>on December 12th. Miss India, Harnaaz Sandhu, was crowned Miss Universe<\/a> with Miss Paraguay, Nadia Ferreira, finishing as runner-up. The pageant maintained its usual swimsuit and evening gown segments and touched on a variety of controversial topics<\/a> during the interview segment, such as cancel culture and vaccine mandates. The seventieth annual competition was incredibly significant for a number of reasons, including political tensions regarding Israel hosting the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2021 Miss Universe competition was threatened to be overcome<\/a> by the Israeli-Palestinian political scene. A grassroots Palestinian organization attempted to convince countries not to participate in the event due to Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians.<\/span> South Africa, an ally of the Palestinian cause, withdrew their support of Miss South Africa, Lalela Mswane, and urged her to not participate in the competition. The country even referred to Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians as \u201capartheid.\u201d South Africa\u2019s minister of sports, art, and culture, Mathi Mthethwa, stated, \u201c<\/span>If anything, by withdrawing, Miss South Africa’s reputation and overall standing will be far more advanced in South Africa and internationally in comparison to a once-off event that can prove disastrous to her future and public standing as a young, black woman.\u201d Mswane was not intimidated by the words of her country\u2019s leaders, participating in the event and finishing as second runner-up out of the eighty contestants. Miss Israel Noa Cochva argued that Miss Universe is not about politics. \u201cIt\u2019s about us as humans, as strong women,\u201d Cochva said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandhu is an Indian actress and model studying to earn a master\u2019s degree<\/a> in public administration. She is passionate about<\/a> female empowerment and lists well-known actress Priyanka Chopra, who won the Miss World pageant in 2000, as one of her biggest inspirations. Since receiving the crown, she has moved to New York<\/a> and plans to focus on advocating for menstrual equity<\/a> during her time as Miss Universe. Sandhu broke into tears after winning the competition, discussing how she was feeling \u201c<\/span>overwhelmed because it\u2019s been 21 years since India got the Miss Universe crown and it\u2019s happening right now.\u201d For her final question during the pageant, Sandhu was asked about the advice she would give to young women on dealing with the pressures they face in society and responded by encouraging young women<\/a> to be confident in their unique selves. Sandhu ended with these words of inspiration, \u201cI believed in myself and that\u2019s why I\u2019m standing here today.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2021 Miss Universe pageant took place in Eilat, Israel on December 12th. Miss India, Harnaaz Sandhu, was crowned Miss Universe with Miss Paraguay, Nadia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":32045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1020,3669],"tags":[1767,1544,3767,1234],"coauthors":[3415],"class_list":["post-32040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ae","category-television","tag-competition","tag-india","tag-pageant","tag-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32452,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32040\/revisions\/32452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32040"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}