[lit-ideas] Guardian Unlimited: Denmark's new values
- From: omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 11:33:31 GMT
Omar spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
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Note from Omar:
Comments welcome.
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To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Denmark's new values
What was once a liberal country lurched to the far right while the world was
not looking
Kiku Day
Wednesday February 15 2006
The Guardian
Denmark has at last managed to catch the world's eye, after so many years of
failing to get credit for being at the cutting edge of liberalism. But the
inelegant handling of the controversy over the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad
is the result of a country that has been moving in the direction of xenophobia
and racism - especially towards its Muslim inhabitants.
The world needs to realise that the Denmark that helped Jews flee from Nazi
deportation is long gone. A new Denmark has appeared, a Denmark of intolerance
and a deep-seated belief in its cultural superiority.
We were a liberal and tolerant people until the 1990s, when we suddenly awoke
to find that for the first time in our history we had a significant minority
group living among us. Confronted with the terrifying novelty of being a
multicultural country, Denmark took a step not merely to the right but to the
far right. Now, politicians of most stripes have embraced ignorance.
The Social Democrats, formerly Denmark's largest party and the force behind its
postwar social reforms, were forced to realise that the rhetoric of solidarity
and social reforms no longer impressed voters in an increasingly prosperous
economy. To win support mainstream politicians felt they needed to bully the
same scapegoat blamed by the far right for the social problems arising in
modern Danish society, in the form of the Muslim minority. The rhetoric of
politicians and media hardened and became offensive. Where else could liberal
politicians get away with saying that one of their party's main aims is to stop
Turkey joining the EU?
The discussion has focused on freedom of expression, but that is not what
Jyllands-Posten had in mind when it published the caricatures, nor is it the
prime mission of the rightwing Danish government. Denmark has embarked on a
self-declared crusade to tell others how to live. The prime minister, Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, is quoted as saying: "Freedom of speech should be used to
provoke and criticise political or religious authoritarians."
The Danish establishment weighed in on its leader's side. The rightwing
newspaper Weekendavisen - at one time Denmark's foremost intellectual journal -
justified Rasmussen's initial reaction of indifference to complaints about the
cartoons and his refusal to meet with 10 concerned ambassadors from Muslim
countries as "a desire for an activist foreign policy which has clashed with
the traditional diplomatic wish to smooth things over". An MEP, Mogens Camre,
declared: "It is 2005 and there is no reason whatsoever to respect foolish
superstition in any form."
Following the lead of the moderates, the founder of the ultra-rightwing Danish
People's party, Pia Kjærsgaard, felt emboldened to say that in order to
qualify for citizenship, immigrants must not only master the Danish language
but be examined on their respect for Danish society and its values. The words
"Danish values" are repeated reverentially, as if all Danes possess a single
mindset opposed to that held by Muslims. Kjærsgaard tells her countrymen
the issue is not one of cartoons, but concerns rather a titanic struggle of
values between totalitarian, dogmatic Islamic regimes and the freedom and
liberty beloved of western democracies. Meanwhile the 200,000 Muslims living in
Denmark have been denied a permit to build a mosque in Copenhagen. There is not
a single Muslim cemetery in the country.
It is now obvious that Flemming Rose, the culture editor at Jyllands-Posten who
commissioned the cartoonists to satirise the prophet, exhibited a striking lack
of judgment. His subsequent decision to salvage things by planning to publish
anti-semitic and anti-Christian caricatures went beyond the bounds of the
permissible in Jyllands-Posten's and Denmark's crusade for free speech. Chief
editor Carsten Juste finally intervened and sent Rose on indefinite leave.
An indefinite holiday is not enough. As the former foreign minister and Venstre
party leader Uffe Elleman-Jensen has suggested, we need editors who realise
that just bad judgment can have important consequences. Both Juste and Rose
need to step down.
And how have ordinary Danes reacted? The People's party reported that last week
it had received almost 17 times as many applications for membership as normal.
Is this the future for Denmark? These are the new "Danish values", and the
world needs to be aware of the dangers of a country that went off on the wrong
track while nobody noticed.
· Kiku Day is a Danish musician living in London
kikuday@xxxxxxxxxx
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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