Perhaps I was too quick to say that Denmark is trailing the Anglo-American world in social justice activism and scandals. Peter Rasmussen has posted a useful list of the “most absurd PC moments in Denmark in 2019” (DK) on Quora. He links to his individual commentaries on five incidents - good examples of how the country is striving to catch up to the achievements in outrage and grievance in more advanced precincts.
Hating hate
The first concerns Facebook comments by Black Lives Matter spokesperson Bwalya Sørensen about Pernille Vermund, the leader of the New Right party (and subject of a recent post). Vermund had expressed her happiness that a 14-year-old Thai girl who had been forced to leave Denmark because of strict family reunification rules was allowed to return. Sørensen wrote to Vermund: “You disgusting Nazi shit… How dare you use a little girl to spread your racist, hateful, verbal diarrhea… You stinking pile of garbage …” (my translation, may differ from the original English). Sørensen seemed to imply that Vermund favored deporting all Muslims (“her evil wish to shamelessly follow in her Fuhrers [sic] footsteps and cleanse Denmark of a whole religious group, 30s style”) and was therefore being hypocritical. As far as I know, the girl, known by her nickname, Mint, is not a Muslim.
Job theft
The second instance involves criticism in an op-ed piece of a thin actress for playing a fat character in the film Harpiks (Resin). This was considered discriminatory and fat-phobic because fat characters should be played only by fat actors – the same type of objection that led Scarlett Johansson to drop out of a transgender role. The writer is shown wearing a shoulder bag with the slogan “Fatties against fascism.”
Depicting another ethnic group
In a similar vein, a documentary film, Dreams from the Outback, was excluded from film festivals (DK) because the director was white and whites should not be allowed to make films about Australian aborigines and other minority cultures. The director noted that aborigines don’t often have the resources to make a film themselves, and they might well benefit from an increase in awareness in the outside world.
Everyday abuse is worse on holidays
Fourth, Micah Oh, who teaches structural racism and cultural appropriation at the University of Copenhagen, warned against girls’ dressing up for Halloween as the Arab Princess Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin because it could be perceived as “everyday racism" and offend people. Parents should tell them that they should be Sleeping Beauty instead. But with “Little girls first of all need to pretend to be princesses,” wasn’t Oh being somewhat discriminatory herself by stereotyping girls like that, besides ignoring the same pitfalls for all the little boys who might also wish to play princess?
Fighting racism with its own weapons
Finally, the Nørrebro Pride parade is an alternative to and protest against the annual Copenhagen Pride parade because of the latter’s commercialization, its acceptance of sponsorship from capitalist conglomerates and financial firms, and the participation of “racist politicians.” In the Nørrebro Pride parade, the LGBT+ people of color - “double minorities” - marched at the head of the procession, while white LGBT+ persons came afterward and cleaned up after the party. The parade thus not only offered an alternative for those who didn’t wish to be associated with mainstream racism; by reintroducing racial segregation, it also provided an opportunity for the descendants of racist oppressors to experience racism themselves.
While these events represent noteworthy strides in identitarian political action, they fall short of the dramatic harassment, physical attacks, vandalism and riots that greeted, say, Milo at Berkeley or Charles Murray at Middlebury. No one was fired or even hounded off social media for following a custom or holding an opinion that was unremarkable ten years ago. Some targets may have suffered slight reputational damage, and others might have been slightly guilted – those racist princess costumes! These results may be disappointing to subjugated and aggrieved groups whose existence is being denied or erased, but the local warriors are mashaling their forces and learning the necessary epithets, tropes and tactics, and perhaps this is only the warm-up stage in the long struggle for intersectional justice and equity in Denmark.
Tak, Peter.
Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that published the infamous Mohammed cartoons that caused violent demonstrations and boycotts in the Arab world in 2005, has done it again. It has picked on another bloc of more than 1.3 billion people to offend. On Monday it published a drawing of the Chinese flag with the five stars replaced by images of the Wuhan coronavirus. The Chinese ambassador to Denmark called it insulting and demanded an admission of misjudgment and an apology. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Denmark concurred.
JP’s editor, Jacob Nybroe, responded that the drawing was not intended to be offensive, that the paper has a right to freedom of expression, and that China’s response reflected a “different type of cultural understanding.” He maintained that there was nothing to apologize for. The illustrator himself, Niels Bo Bojesen, made no comment. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was also asked whether she would apologize and responded in the same vein (DK): “[W]e have a very, very strong tradition in Denmark not only for freedom of expression but also for satirical drawings in Denmark, and we will also have it in the future.” Other party leaders concurred.
Satire in the eye of the target
In Denmark political cartoons are referred to as “satirical drawings,” but it is not clear that this one is satire. Readers may differ in their perception of satire. The paper says the drawing is simply a representation of a major world event at the moment. The flag image is used as a way of identifying the origin of the coronavirus, but it does not explicitly mock or demean China. It has no text except the word “Coronavirus” and no other elements besides the flag image that suggest a particular interpretation. The paper had previously used other national flags to identify issues. It seems to have deniability.
Does Frederiksen think it’s satire, or was she just using the usual name of the genre? If it is satire, then it is satirizing something in particular, presumably the Chinese nation or government. What would the implied criticism be – that China should have done something to prevent the outbreak? That the Chinese might have risked something like this happening because they eat wild animals, as in the SARS outbreak?
It wasn’t critical, but if it was, it had a right to be
In any case, this has become a confused game of imputation and double-guessing. It’s not just any country that the drawing refers to; it’s one with the most powerful censorship apparatus in the world and the only one that can bully the most powerful corporations in the world such as Google and Apple into complying with its censorship policies.
Whether or not China is being hypersensitive, once it takes offense and demands action, it elevates the drawing to an international incident. If the drawing itself is a test of China’s international diplomacy, its response poses a test for the Danish players and then the Danish players’ response in turn poses another test for China. Frederiksen’s statement was less “offensive” toward a superpower than her seemingly spontaneous comment that Donald Trump’s interest in buying Greenland was “absurd.”
Finessing deniability
Did JP knowingly or deliberately provoke China, even with its deniability? Was the paper being callous and unsympathetic toward the Chinese people suffering from the outbreak and the Chinese authorities scrambling to contain it? Should it have refrained from publishing the drawing because of the Chinese government’s sensitivity to possible criticism and the possible repurcussions on Denmark’s exports to the country?
Perhaps the “satire” was aimed indirectly at China’s censorship policies. That is, even though the drawing itself didn’t contain any particular criticism, it was a stealth attack that provoked a reaction by China that could be criticized for trying to curtail freedom of the press in another country. In this reading, the illustration thus gained a measure of ridicule or absurdity that true satire requires – even the wordplay found in much classic satire – insofar as China itself has publicized the “insult” far beyond JP’s weekly domestic circulation of 120,00 – the population of a mere village in China – and caused it to go viral, like the bug depicted.
Why doesn’t Denmark have as much controversy about social justice issues as do the US and the UK?
First, racial and ethnic tensions are not as acute because Denmark does not have the same history of slavery and colonialism. Slave trade was conducted in the Danish West Indies until 1848, but there is no segment of the Danish population that has descended from slaves and endured centuries of discrimination. There is an ethnic underclass, but only around 13 percent of the population has a foreign background. The largest group are the descendants of “guest workers” who came mainly from Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s. It is difficult to remember a case of the police killing a person of color person under suspicious circumstances.
Second, conditions for women are more favorable because of the extensive welfare state and a tradition of greater egalitarianism.
Third, the country has historically been one of the most tolerant towards LGBT+ groups. It was the first to recognize same-sex partnerships, and it legalized same-sex marriage in 2012.
Fewer enemies
Fourth, the right-wing radicalism that provokes activism on the Left is less extensive and prominent. White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups are very small and are looked down upon by the general population. The extremist Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party, which advocated deporting all Muslims, received 1.8 percent of the votes in the 2019 election and didn’t qualify for seats in Parliament.
Fifth, universities, where most social justice agitation and scandals have taken place in the US, have an infrastructure in Denmark that makes them less susceptible to activism. They are not residential colleges. There are some dormitories, but very few are located on campus. Many students commute from home or live in apartments. They do not congregate as often as American students in clubs and interest organizations and perhaps for that reason do not develop a tribal mentality. They are also more professionally oriented. They do not simply “go to college” to get a B.A. They choose their major fields when they apply and begin to specialize after one year. It is likely that more of them are more interested in pursuing their careers than in political activism. Additionally, they aren’t burdened by the prospect of a sizeable undischargeable debt upon graduation.
Sixth, Twitter, which offers the quickest and easiest way to engage in ideological warfare, is less widespread in Denmark than in the US. Facebook is the most popular social media forum here. It does sometimes attract heated debate but has less rapid-fire escalation of denunciation and insult-trading and, in the extreme, mob frenzy.
Marxism was here first
Seventh, the European socialist tradition already offered a theoretical framework and vocabulary for addressing social injustice. It was more firmly established and intellectually coherent than, say, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and intersectionalism, which need to explain themselves.
Eighth (a corollary of the preceding), there were already well-established political parties on the far Left with a voice in Parliament and influence on center-left administrations. The Red-Green Party’s platform is more extreme than the American progressive movement’s. Activists have a channel to promote their causes and need not always be an protest element that is not taken seriously.
Ninth (something that could have been mentioned first), some of the main objectives of the social justice movement have already been accomplished here, most obviously universal health care, tuition-free university, and policies to prevent environmental damage and climate change. There is not as much crony capitalism and lobbyist influence to protest against.
Tenth, children here are less “coddled” than Americans, as famously documented by Lukianoff and Haidt. They are less sheltered and are encouraged to be more responsible for themselves and therefore less likely to develop an entitlement and grievance mentality.
Biology 101
Finally (and more speculative), both academics and, where relevant, politicians appear to be stronger adherents and defenders of free speech and a scientific viewpoint than their American counterparts. Denmark is proud of its democratic tradition, which is linked to its egalitarianism. It has high voter turnouts and numerous local organizations and cooperative housing associations founded and run by citizen groups that span socioeconomic strata. There is less tendency to attempt to silence and suppress opposing political positions and probably less need for students to insulate themselves from exposure to ideas that might make them uncomfortable.
I don’t know how deeply social constructionism has influenced the social sciences here, but I doubt that the natural sciences are seriously threatened by ideological campaigns to deny the distinction between sex and gender, for example. If university faculty are under less pressure because of the factors listed above, then there is less need for them to cede an evidence-based approach.
In the Anglosphere you see things like this everyday: An IT contractor sues Nike for failing to protect them (the contractor) from misgendering harassment by coworkers who didn’t refer to them by the desired pronouns. Dozens of psychologists resign from a British clinic because they think it overdiagnoses gender dysphoria in children and they’re afraid of being labeled transphobic if they don’t conform. With the arrival of 2020, there seem to be some signs of fatigue with aggressive transgender activism. Some people who might have been sympathetic to the issues are tiring of the dogmatism fueling the more questionable demands and judgments: their insistence on the right of biological males who self-identify as women to compete against cis-women in all sports, their branding as bigots heterosexuals who are not interested in dating transpeople, and their automatic approval of transitioning for pre-adolescents.
Below the statistical radar
Transgender issues also arise in Denmark. There has been a steady increase in requests for hormone treatment and surgery in the past few years. But the trend appears to be at a simpler, more exploratory stage, and issues concerning transgender rights, inclusion and pronouns are still rather novel. Schools are only beginning to adapt restroom and locker-room facilities (DK) to dysphoric children. Earlier this year professors were still surprised when students criticized the use of the categories “male” and “female.” One case involved a statistics course (DK) in the biology faculty, in which students were to analyze differences between the sexes in phenomena such as left-handedness and height. Some objected that the assignments were offensive to people who don’t identify with either category. They weren’t questioning the validity of the studies, only the conventional limitation to two sexes that made some people feel overlooked and left out.
The professor couldn’t change he statistics, but he offered to use colors instead of the sexes, however that might work. After the evaluation meeting, he felt that his freedom of expression was being constrained and it made his teaching difficult. It seems rather quaint in comparison with what happens to American professors who run afoul of transgender activists. The same article tallies up the number of formal complaints about sexual harassment and offensive behavior at the University of Copenhagen: there were only five from 2016 to 2018.
Taking the plunge
Last month the Denmarks Radio television network broadcast a documentary about the youngest child in the country, at age 11, to begin hormone treatment: “I don’t want to be a girl, Mom” (DK). It gave a sympathetic, sometimes moving account of the child’s situation and the difficulty of the decision. Altogether it offered a balanced treatment of the factors at play: the children’s discomfort in their innate sex; parents’ and doctors’ uncertainty about the best course and the timing; sex researchers’ and politicians’ caution about irreversible long-term effects of the treatment; and the possibility of regret and a desire for de-transitioning. There was widespread agreement about the need for better knowledge about the consequences of such treatment.
And the process for determining whether to offer the treatment reflects those concerns. It consists of a referral to a sexology clinic, several interviews and tests, including psychiatric assessments and intelligence tests, consultations with school personnel, and a comprehensive evaluation by a group of psychologists and doctors. Contrast this with the position taken by American Academy of Pediatrics, whose guidelines for children who seek treatment for gender dysphoria recommend an immediate “affirmative” response, that is, a commencement of the treatment process.
Whose interests are being served?
In a recent podcast with Quillette Magazine, Dr. James Cantor discusses his critique of these guidelines in a peer-reviewed article in which he cites several instances where the Academy misrepresented research. Among them was a dismissal of the previously accepted approach of “watchful waiting,” which was supported by replicated findings that after puberty two-thirds of children with gender dysphoria come to accept and prefer their natal sex. Most of them found that they were simply gay and not born in the wrong body.
Like much of the transgender debate that goes beyond questions of fundamental civil rights, discrimination and equal protection, the Academy’s attitude is baffling in its apparent disregard for both science and common sense. Does it reflect a tendency toward overtreatment in American healthcare, a general trend toward ideological extremes and rigidity in American public debate, both? It's encouraging that Danish healthcare professionals and researchers maintain a more deliberative, agnostic approach to this fraught issue and the transition bandwagon.
The results of a new study (DK) from Think Tank DEA surprised researchers. They show that, after the data are adjusted for the families’ financial background, more children of non-Western immigrants are completing a course of higher education than so-called “ethnic Danes.”
The study compares the number of young people who have taken a bachelor’s degree within 10 years of graduating from elementary school, that is, ninth grade, in the period 2002-08. The subjects are broken down into quintiles on the basis of their parents’ income. The results are consistent across the income spectrum: 8 to 10 percent more of the children of non-Western immigrants – both those born in Denmark and born elsewhere – attain a degree than Danes. The percentage ranges from about 30 percent for the lowest quintile to 60 percent for the highest.
Without the adjustment, this still isn’t the case. The gross average for all Danes is 33 percent and for immigrant youth is a couple of points lower. The difference in the two results reflects the fact that there are relatively few children of immigrants in the highest quintile segment. Another qualification is that Danish youth may take longer to finish college because more of them take a supplementary year before starting gymnasium (high school) and take a gap year before college.
Breaking the trend and the pattern
Nevertheless, the results are seen as a significant success for recent efforts to get more children of immigrants to pursue higher education. The accepted “story” in Danish society about ethnic minorities and education, especially in recent years during the rise of nationalist sentiment and the Danish People’s Party, has been that the lack of education and interest in education among immigrant children were a prime factor in preventing meaningful integration.
For a few years now, however, immigrant girls have constituted an exception to this image. A study from the Economic Council of the Labour Movement (DK) published in September showed that, of children of parents without an education, more girls with an immigrant background completed a degree than Danish girls as well as boys, or became “pattern-breakers” who exemplify social mobility. Even in gross terms, without considering parental background, immigrant girls recently surpassed Danish boys in educational attainment.
Girlbosses on the march or boys playing hooky
I would draw two conclusions from the study, one fairly obvious: The problem is with boys, particularly low-income boys of all ethnicities. It is well known that girls have been overtaking boys in the educational system for years in the US as well as Denmark. With the outsourcing and automation of manufacturing, academic training is necessary to thrive in the knowledge economy, and girls have seen women advancing into professional careers for at least a generation.
Critics have said that the educational system is geared towards girls, who are able to sit still, concentrate and communicate verbally at an earlier age than boys, and that boys become discouraged and fall behind. Another explanation in the Danish context is that immigrant girls are encouraged to pursue education as the path toward integration in Danish society and are receptive to the message, while boys are “left on their own” and are more likely to end up in vocational training if they pursue a career. In any case, the fact that, taking into account their economic background, immigrant boys show the same margin of superiority in education to Danish boys is a striking development.
The stick and the carrot
The other conclusion will be less palatable to many. That is, that the hard line on immigration and integration taken by the preceding (center-right) Liberal administration in both policy and rhetoric has been effective in changing attitudes toward integration among immigrants. Inger Støjberg, the Minister for Immigration and Integration from 2015 to 2019, was mocked and vilified for her 100-plus measures to restrict immigration and reduce social benefits for immigrants. She was accused of being cruel, of increasing child poverty, and of flouting international conventions. She is still the subject of an investigation (DK) for allegedly separating refugee couples in which the girl was a minor automatically, disregarding their right to a hearing on their residential accommodations.
Despite the legitimate criticisms, it is likely that the reduced number of immigrants has made it easier for the educational system and social services to help steer those already living here into productive career paths and has mitigated the sense of a separate social underclass in immigrant neighborhoods that is exacerbated by a steady flow of new arrivals. And that the insistent rhetoric about the necessity of rejecting Sharia law and accepting the norms of Western society, such as equal protection and equal opportunity, has helped to persuade immigrant families that formal education is the best means of promoting their children’s success and happiness. These effects are probably the reason that the new Social Democratic administration, in its approach to integration, has only moderated its predecessors’ harshest measures and maintained the emphasis on liberal democratic values.
Every New Year’s Eve, the queen gives a brief speech on the state of Denmark, and the next evening, the prime minister does the same. The latter is not intended to be a definitive status report on the nation or a detailed program for the future, but it does usually offer an outline of the most important items on the political agenda. The tradition often produces well-intentioned sentiments and objectives that people can agree on, even if it lacks concrete measures for realizing them.
This year was Mette Frederiksen’s first such speech (UK) as the leader of the Social Democratic administration that came to power in June. Frederiksen appeared a little nervous, but she delivered it smoothly. Its substance was unusual. She spent most, perhaps two-thirds, of the 15 minute speech on a single subject and one that has never received such prominence in this context: children who should be removed from their homes. That is, children who are so neglected or abused by their parents that they should be transferred to foster parents or a foster home or even adopted by another family. On the face of it, that was an extreme, disquieting message at the conclusion of the biggest family holiday week of the year.
Save the children
But it was not wholly surprising. During the parliamentary election campaign, Frederiksen announced that she wanted to be the “children’s prime minister,” so she was expected to take steps to make good on her promise. The issue falls under the headings of social mobility, equal opportunity, protection of the weak, and solidarity, which are core Social Democratic principles that are generally shared by the entire political spectrum. One of Frederiksen’s first major acts in office was to make an official apology (DK) to a group of boys who were abused in a foster home in the years 1946 to 1976. Their treatment gave rise to an extensive report on the mistreatment of foster children, but Parliament had voted against a formal apology.
Besides its length, this part of the speech was striking for its hard line and blunt criticism of irresponsible parents. There was hardly a mention of support or counseling for such families. Far too many parents have had “too many chances” to redress their harmful behavior. Their children should get a new home earlier in their lives, and it should offer better conditions than such alternatives have previously afforded. They should not be shuttled around through foster homes and schools, for example. In a line that pleased the nationalist constituencies, Frederiksen added that children’s entitlement to these things superseded the customs of some “other cultures” that allow corporal punishment of children and do not allow girls the same freedoms as boys. She cited Denmark’s historical tradition of advances in these areas. It was the first country to require schooling for all children and one of the first to prohibit child labor; it banned corporal punishment in the 90s.
The other topics mentioned in the speech fit into the same general concern with fælleskab – solidarity, community, fellowship. The one that was the most widely anticipated, because of campaign proposals, was an effort to enable people who are physically debilitated from their work to take an early retirement. After a brief comment on a stronger line against terrorism threats, returning jihadis and gang crime, Frederiksen concluded on the urgency of measures to prevent climate change, with a nod to the young activists who helped to publicize the stakes.
Only in a welfare state
Imagine how this focus on adoption would have gone down in an American state of the union address: The “government” thinks it knows what’s best for my children and wants to kidnap them in a new sort of civil forfeiture? It’s inconceivable that this would be a headline topic in any presidential speech on the general condition of the country, even by a female democratic socialist. Frederiksen received the usual criticism (DK) that the plans, particularly for early retirement and climate change, were lacking in detail. But the other party spokespersons generally praised her emphasis on mistreated children, with few questioning whether it was the country’s most pressing issue.
Perhaps that came partly from politeness toward her first New Year’s Day performance, but it does seem rather odd. After all, foster care concerns about 15,000, or 1 percent, of Danish children. Frederiksen could have clarified the priorities in the recently adopted 2020 budget, such as day care and support for immigrant families, which benefit a great many more children. She could have dwelt longer on the terrorist plot that was discovered and prevented last month. The speech was also noteworthy for completely ignoring a topic that usually receives much attention on this occasion: the economy. But the reason for that is a positive one: the economy is sound and no emergency measures or drastic reforms are needed. Aside from climate, there was nothing on world affairs such as Brexit and on international relations, not even a little joke about defending Greenland from a greedy real estate developer.
Last week I wrote about the relative paucity of controversy about social justice and political correctness in Denmark. But there are often minor incidents that indicate the status of the culture wars in the country. Most often they concern race and immigration A couple of recent incidents involved a fairly new political party, the Nye Borgerlige (The New Right), which was founded in 2015.
On December 17, Denmarks Radio, the state television network, broadcast a short documentary about the party’s campaign to gain a foothold in Parliament in the June 2019 election (Vermund and the battle for the right wing (DK)). It focused almost exclusively on Pernille Vermund, the party’s co-founder. Vermund is a former member of the Conservative Party who sought to create a niche that combined aspects of the xenophobic but welfare-state-friendly Danish People’s Party and the economically libertarian Liberal Alliance Party. The party’s platform had three key conditions for supporting the current center-right government: a moratorium on accepting refugees, the deportation of foreigners convicted of crimes, and a requirement that foreigners support themselves. Its main stated objective was to preserve Danish culture and values.
Competing for anti-immigration voters
It appeared from polls that the party was taking voters from Denmark’s People’s Party. But during the campaign, a newer, more virulent anti-immigrant party obtained enough signatures to get on the election ballot. This was Stram Kurs (Hard Line), led by Rasmus Paludan, who advocated deporting all Muslims and whose public appearances drew counterdemonstrations from Antifa that turned violent. The New Right thus now had a rival faction to the right that was also drawing voters from Denmark’s People’s Party. Paludan was considered a crude interloper, while Vermund was a presentable sophisticate from the wealthy northern suburbs. In the election, the New Right received 2.5 percent of the votes and gained the minimum number of parliamentary seats, and the Hard Line fell just short of the 2.0 percent threshold. Overall, the left-wing parties won a secure 91-75 majority, with the Danish People’s Party suffering the greatest losses.
Wedding-day jitters
Six months later, the documentary included a kind of open-mic moment that had nothing to do with the campaign. The governing administration had announced the election in May, one week before Vermund’s planned wedding (she married entrepreneur, investor and author Lars Tvede). On the morning of the wedding, Vermund was hanging campaign posters on lampposts with her staff. It was warm, and she was wearing shorts. She wasn’t being interviewed, and they weren’t discussing the election. The camera watched them from across the road. When a limousine passed, Vermund remarked that it was a perker, a derogatory term for people of Middle Eastern or Arabic background with a connotation similar to the notorious American N-word but not quite as charged. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand, and someone standing by her quickly added “En udlænding” (a foreigner), a more politically palatable description. (Only “more” PC because the people in question may well have been Danish citizens whose parents or grandparents were immigrants.)
This little remark prompted accusations of racism and calls for Vermund to apologize by representatives of other parties. In an interview with the tabloid BT (DK), Vermund refused to apologize. She maintained that she was informal and outspoken, that this had been a private situation with familiars, that the word referred to a particular subculture, that it shouldn’t be considered offensive if it is not used maliciously, and that she wouldn’t use it in Parliament. Vermund, who happens to be an attractive blonde in her early forties, has at times behaved impulsively, once saying that she found women attractive and French-kissing a (male) comedian on a talk show. She said that it’s good to provoke the liberal intellectual elite (DK) who think they are more open-minded than others.
Forgiving jihadism?
The word perker is indeed considered by most to be a vulgarity in any context, certainly any involving a politician. It suggests condescension at best and possibly an instinctive aversion to ethnic minorities or a lack of compassion. It tarnished the veneer of slick confidence of Vermund and her neoliberal supporters and lessened their distance from Paludan’s motley Hard Line. One might ask why the camera was turned on at that moment when nothing significant was happening and whether Vermund and her staff knew it was on, although that doesn’t change the fact that the word slipped out and was captured.
This slip-up aired just a week after another incident involving the New Right that reached its conclusion. MP Mette Thiesen was convicted of libeling a fitness instructor (DK), Mahmoud Loubani, by calling him a “terrorist sympathizer” in a Facebook post. The background is a little murky. Earlier Thiesen had written a post about a threat made against her. Loubani, who had appeared on a television program, wrote a comment on it wondering whether Thiesen had made up the threat herself, with laughing emojis. Thiesen read through Loubani’s posts and found that he had once written “Allah yerhamo” (May God forgive you) apparently about Omar El-Hussein, the young radicalized Muslim who murdered two people in 2015, a film director outside a panel discussion with a cartoonist and a volunteer security guard at a synagogue.
Thiesen maintained that she had deliberately refrained from calling Loubani a “terrorism sympathizer,” but the judge found that her epithet must ordinarily be understood to mean that Loubani endorsed the terrorist action. She had to pay a small amount to Loubani for damages and legal fees (under $5,000 in total), but she was acquitted of criminal charges because Loubani had not filed them within six months of the incident.
Small parties come and go
Is the lesson here that the New Right’s leaders need better PR discipline? Neither incident is more unusual than behavior that emerges periodically from the Danish People’s Party, and they apparently have little consequence. Telltale indiscretions followed by obligatory indignation and then exculpatory rationalizations – fairly tame business as usual that can’t compare to saying that Mexicans are rapists and Congresspersons are treasonous human scum.
It’s not clear yet whether there is indeed a place for nationalist libertarians on the crowded political landscape. Recent attempts by the right-wing coalition to blend these elements did not succeed, and the New Right is now polling below the parliamentary threshold. It is not sitting idle in its legislative seats, however. Most recently it initiated a farfetched campaign (DK) against the new center-left administration’s removal of restrictions on social benefits for immigrant families. It proposed holding a referendum on the issue and got support only from the Denmark’s People’s Party.
Last month there was a little ruckus over a questionnaire (DK) for a thesis project that two University of Copenhagen students sent to 7,000 other students over the University’s shared email system. One of the respondents hit Reply All and complained very politely, almost apologetically, that they [sic] couldn’t complete the questionnaire because it asked the subjects to identify themselves as male or female and the student was neither of those.
The student was attacked less politely in further replies by people who thought they were a whining snowflake or worse. Others asked for the administration to take action, particularly against the first student’s accusers. The associate dean explained that the administration hadn’t been aware of the inappropriate Reply All function in the email system and afterward shut down the system. He added that it is important to have a space where people can discuss topics such as sex, gender and identity, and it should preferably be offline.
Rules on outrage
That was apparently the end of the incident. The most striking thing about the report is that it reminds us how little in Denmark we hear of the kind of culture wars that are raging in the US and the UK, particularly on campuses: bias reporting, protests, deplatforming, calls for resignation, self-censorship. Identity politics is hardly unknown here, but it doesn’t have a pervasive influence on academic life. In fact the most noteworthy recent event on this front was the University of Copenhagen’s revision of its guidelines on offensive behavior (DK) to define such behavior more narrowly.
The University had instituted a set of guidelines in 2018 after the so-called Sombrero Scandal in which students at the Law Faculty objected to costumes based on ethnic stereotypes at a Mexican theme party. The Faculty banned such parties, and a controversial debate on cultural appropriation and “offense-culture,” as it’s called here, ensued at the University. The result was a set of rules that defined offensive behavior very broadly as any action that caused a perception of violation on the part of an individual university employee or student; that is, any subjective feeling of harassment, discrimination or even discomfort.
This is the key sentence: “It is the employee’s or student’s experience of having been subjected to offensive behavior that is the basis [of the case].”
Anything qualifies for a citizen’s arrest?
The guidelines in turn prompted a new debate about whether the criteria for an offense should be an individual’s opinion or more objective categories of behavior. They occasioned protests by some faculty members that they would hamper academic freedom, classroom discussion and research. This phase led to a re-evaluation and eventually a revision of the guidelines at the end of October of this year.
The new guidelines are no longer based on a subjective perception of violation but rather on the definition set forth by the Danish Working Environment Authority. The Authority’s definition also takes the individual’s experience as the starting point, regardless of whether or not the behavior arose from a deliberate intention to offend. But it makes an important qualification that an individual’s reaction is not automatically accepted as evidence of a violation:
“It is a case of offensive behavior when one or more persons grossly or repeatedly subject other persons to behavior that is perceived by the latter as demeaning. This implies that there may be situations in which a person feels violated but management determines that it was not offensive behavior.” (my translation)
Rolling back the presumption of guilt
The new guidelines state that they do not cover referrals from students about the content or methods of teaching or about teaching assignments. They also set forth a procedure for persons who feel violated: First they should object or refuse to participate in the situation, and then they should speak to others about the incident and possibly to their manager or administrator. For their part, managers should investigate the circumstances that led to the report before opening a formal case.
These are significant changes not only because they moderate the policy but also because they defer to the civil rights that apply to society as a whole and do not treat students as a vulnerable class in need of special indulgence. Students are already protected by laws against discrimination and harassment that protect all citizens. The University opted out of the more expansive conception of harm that can be problematic to implement and that can have negative consequences for the fundamental principle of free expression.
Uncommon sense
The University Rector, Henrik Wegener, explains that the guidelines are intended to balance the interests of academic freedom and need for students and employees to feel that they are in a safe environment. That sounds like obvious common sense, but the University’s position doesn’t appear to be a very common viewpoint on American campuses. One problem with the welfare state is that once a social group receives a specific benefit, it becomes almost impossible to scale it back, even if economic or other factors argue for doing so. The same may be the case for the burgeoning diversity and inclusion bureaucracy in the US that has a vested interest in its own prohibitions.
It’s that time of year again – not only for the winter holidays. The Danish Social Democratic administration, along with four smaller parties, reached a deal on the 2020 budget, the first one since the election that brought them to power in June. Since Denmark is one of the few remaining European countries with a left-leaning government in power, it is noteworthy as a barometer of what is possible for the welfare state these days.
More social services and taxes
Here are some of the main features of the agreement:
- Increased funding for staffing at day-care centers, for hiring additional nurses, for psychiatric services, for schools, and for green initiatives such as the removal of duties on electric cars.
- The termination of fees for instruction in Danish for foreigners, of a strict residence requirement for unemployment benefits for foreigners and Danes who have lived abroad, and of the “education ceiling,” a limit to one degree that had been intended to get dilatory college students into the workforce faster.
- A resumption of the policy of accepting “quota refugees.”
These measures will be financed by increases in taxes and duties on cigarettes, plastic shopping bags, estates, property registration, gambling, aircraft, and leased company cars and by a termination of tax deductions for work telephones and favorable treatment of parents’ purchases of apartments for their children.
The government needed the support of all the left-wing parties, so the crux of the negotiations was concessions to their demands. The increase in day-care staffing was controversial because it will result in higher user fees (DK) since parents usually end up paying 25 percent of the costs – an extra $200 to $400 per year in this case. The perception was that voters were willing to pay for more welfare as well as for more “humane” treatment of refugees and immigrants after the Liberal Party’s infamous series of restrictive measures.
Democracy in action
The right-wing opposition voiced its usual objections that higher spending and taxes, particularly for benefit of foreigners, will hamper business and the property market. Others complained that the green initiatives are too modest and that while domestic funding was increased, contributions to international collaboration were not.
Altogether the budget appears fairly typical of center-left initiatives that are intended to compensate for or undo the excesses of the preceding center-right administration. The Social Democrats have moved rightward in recent years, especially on immigration, and these measures represent only an incremental adjustment, not a realignment. The far Left wanted to avoid a further increase in wealth inequality, and the centrist faction wanted to avoid a net loss of jobs. The budget apparently does not quite fulfill either of these wishes, which is perhaps a sign of a fair compromise. Social services should improve somewhat, economic growth is likely to slow somewhat, and in a few years the country will probably be willing to let the pendulum swing back in the other direction.
Tackling climate Armageddon
The budget agreement was swiftly followed by the adoption of a historic climate bill (DK). It stipulates a 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 1990 level by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. It was hailed as a model program ready just in time for the COP meeting in Madrid next week. It was endorsed by all the parties in Parliament except for the two smallest right-wing parties, partly because it didn’t contain provisions for maintaining jobs. A crucial factor was an agreement on setting binding intermediate targets in the individual years from 2025 until the overall target dates.
There were no details about how this reduction will take place, however. That is to be determined by a broad majority of Parliament next spring, with recommendations of concrete measures from the Climate Panel. Those measures (DK) are likely to include a transition from fossil fuels for transportation to electricity and biofuels, more wind turbines and solar energy panels, less use of natural gas, better insulation in older homes, and changes in agriculture that will result in lower meat consumption and food waste.
Progressive landmark or worse than useless?
The initiative did not escape criticism. The targets were called misleading because they covered only domestic production and not emissions from imported goods. The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjørn Lomborg of Copenhagen Consensus, maintains that the expensive plan will have a negligible effect on the climate (DK). The 70 percent reduction alone, which will cost DKK 842 billion ($125 billion), will reduce global warming by only one ten-thousandth (that’s 0.0001) of a degree in 80 years. Lomborg argues, as he has contended before, the money should be spent instead on research and development on alternative energy sources in order to help reduce emissions in the largest developing economies, particularly China and India.
Lomborg’s critique implies that the new law is merely a form of national virtue signaling. Denmark has had a rationale for such symbolism, though. Its politicians are well aware that it is far too small to have a significant effect on global trends by itself and have therefore sometimes argued that its achievements could serve as inspiring models for others, as formerly when it topped the list of foreign aid contributors. But if these are merely stopgap measures and a waste of resources, then it’s not even sending a good signal. Lomborg has often been dismissed out of hand by climate activists, but he’s not a denier and his position should be addressed directly.
The first of December kicks off the Christmas season in Denmark. Christmas is big here, not only because it’s an overwhelmingly Christian country – it’s also one of the most unreligious societies you can find. Also because it’s very dark in the winter – up to 17 hours a day. Families and schoolchildren gather indoors to make decorations and ply other time-tested customs. Companies hold their annual, sometimes a bit profligate parties. The country leads the Western world in candle consumption by a sizeable margin. When you’re biking home during rush hour in the chilly, drizzling rain, the sight of flickering flames in the window reassures you of a cozy haven awaiting with seasonal delicacies and uplifting music.
Truth in food labeling
This strong tradition also leads certain people to defend its sanctity against possible incursions and slights. Thus the criticism that some supermarkets received (DK) from politicians and other cultural watchdogs for advertising items such as “vinterboller” (winter buns) and “vintermedister” (winter sausage). The critics, mostly on Facebook, the leading local forum for debating social and moral issues, assumed that these concoctions had replaced the traditional “juleboller” and “julemedister” (Christmas buns and sausage), presumably to placate the Muslim population that might feel excluded from such majoritarian observances.
The supermarkets were quick to correct that misapprehension. They had been wise enough not to drop the Christmas versions of those goods from the inventory. They had merely added an alternative secular variant. More enlightened commentators and media outlets criticized in turn the traditionalists’ alarm at a nonexistent problem while much more urgent issues such as climate change demanded their attention.
A-caroling we go
Lest anyone think that Denmark’s progressive tendencies have kept it on the straight and narrow politically correct path, however, another incident last week raised a slew of eyebrows and hackles. Bertel Haarder, a former cabinet secretary from the Liberal Party (the center-right mainstream party) and the longest-serving member of Parliament, continued his own Christmas tradition of presenting his colleagues with a humorous homemade song (DK). All in good fun until the last of the eight verses:
A much different hetero is the Hedeager boy:
One wasn’t enough, he wanted two in the mayor’s bed!
He went after them both and grabbed a little too much!
He thought that the Red-Green Party was common property!
BUT why should they be so strict
And prevent Red-Green sex.
Let him take a lovely witch
Home for Christmas!
(my literal translation, sans rhymes)
This rousing finale refers to an event from earlier in the year for which a former member of the Red-Green Party board was convicted of raping (DK) a woman at a gathering in the home of Ninna Hedeager Olsen, Copenhagen’s Deputy Mayor for Technology and the Environment. The victim was judged to have been defenseless because of sleep and alcohol, and the man was also found by the court to have groped the mayor at the same time. The small Red-Green Party (Enhedslisten, a.k.a. the Unity Party) is the furthest to the left in Danish politics. It has advocated the nationalization of private enterprise and other collectivist measures. Multicultural Copenhagen is its prime stronghold, and environmentalism is its strongest position.
No sense of decency?
Outrage ensued across almost the entire political spectrum. WTF was he thinking – joking about rape and referring to the victim as property and a witch to boot! It sounded like he even approved of the assault. Haarder had a single supporter in the parliamentarians’ email thread (DK), from the Danish People’s Party’s, the most strident proponents of Danish family values (“Get with the Christmas spirit!”). Haarder made a rather mild apology saying that he was sorry if anyone was hurt by the verse and he had never intended to condone or make fun of rape. A party spokesperson reiterated his disavowal of any disrespectful intentions.
The 75-year-old Haarder has often extolled Christianity and traditional cultural values and played the moral watchdog himself. That an intelligent, well-educated, respected high officeholder could be so tone-deaf (while being a prosodic craftsperson) to the growing sentiment about rape culture tells us something about this country. It has seen the arrival of identity and diversity politics, but it is not yet under great pressure to conform to intersectional ideology. It’s nevertheless surprising that none of Haarder’s aides forwarded him the #metoo memo. His freewheeling boorishness prompts a comparison to the U.S. Troll in Chief, who has done more than anyone else to lower the standards of decorum for the highest ranking officials. Few others have achieved the cultish devotion that grants him virtual immunity, however.
Poetic licentiousness
It’s unlikely that Haarder was influenced by Trump, though. He’s been cranking out these songs since Trump started playing with his daddy’s money in New York real estate market. He just got carried away with his composition. He was thinking as a poet, not as a politician who consults his spin doctors and their polls, and reveling in a saturnalian tradition that is not above a touch of bawdry. The perp’s covetousness must have offered a tempting opportunity to exploit the trope of abolishing private property, but did he really wish to characterize the event as typical of an entire political party’s style of sex – to wit, a drunken orgy – hinting at its origins in the hippie-communist milieu decades ago? Such an indiscretion, at the expense of an unconscious woman, shows that while Scandinavian social democracy might serve as a model for economic progressivism, it offers less inspiration for the cultural warriors battling sexism and other abuses of the patriarchy.
In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that the convicted rapist is appealing his sentence on the grounds that he believed the victim had been awake, although that would not exonerate him from the charge of indecent exposure to Mayor Hedeager Olsen, who took an extended sick leave after the incident. During that time she was spotted serving draft beer at an inn run by a friend, for which she is being investigated for a violation of labor market rules.
Cheers (in moderation), holiday revelers!
