News and comment from Denmark
The past weeks political turmoil has now brought about a ‘meeting of consolidation’ between the conservatives (who are the junior partners in the government) and the nationalists (who give the government the majority it needs in parliament, but who are not actually in the government)
Of late, the relationship between the government (which is a minority, coalition government) with Dansk Folkeparti has become some what strained due to the overtures of a proposed cooperation between the existing governing parties with the Radikal Venstre (of which I’ve written in previous posts). Dansk Folkeparti have not been pleased with how this overture was publicly received by certain members of the Conservative party’s grass roots and the Conservative leader Bendt Bendtsen was obliged to invite the DF leader, Pia Kjærsgaard to a lunch to discuss how the two party’s might settle their differences. Before the lunch, Kjærsgaard made her wishes clear to the press. She wanted both a sign of respect from the Conservatives and a public admonishment of those conservatives who have voiced their opinion that the governments relationship with DF is ‘damaging’. Naturally, Bendtsen couldn’t give in to this so the two leaders later faced the press with the announcement that the conservative leaders will meet with DF’s leadership, once a month from now on. This strengthens the unofficial ties between the government and the nationalists and I don’t wonder if this is what Kjærsgaard wanted all along. This is just her latest victory in the ongoing struggle between her and Marianne Jelved.
In the mean time, Denmark is facing the domestic fall-out of the Mohammed cartoons incident with many people pondering upon the image Denmark projects of itself to the world. A media relations company called Advice has recommended Denmark should not seek to portray itself as a ‘fairy tale nation’ or the home of HC Andersen. “Drop the Little Mermaid as a national symbol” is their advice to the Danish Foreign Minister.
“Since the Muhammed crisis, this ‘namby pamby’ image of Denmark is doing us more harm than good” said Advisor Jesper Højbjerg from Advice to metroXpress (a Danish newspaper)
“It confirms that we are an introverted and selfish nation, and that’s just not too fortunate right now when there is doubt regarding Denmark’s position in the global community or our respect for other cultures and traditions”
moif: doubt?
Naser Khader, who’s organisation, the Moderate Muslims, represents a meager thousand Muslims (and close to 20,000 other Danes) is now the most popular politician in the opinion polls, but he is widely considered to be a traitor by most Muslim citizens. In the DR debate threads it is often asked why the Danes should consider Khader as any one qualified to speak on behalf of all Muslims?
I don’t know, but perhaps its because he is elected…?
In Sweden, the largest Muslim organisation has sent letters to every member of the rigsdag (Sweden’s Parliament) proposing that Muslim childen are taught in state schools by official imams, that divorce, in the case of Muslim marriages, be approved by imams, and that Islamic separate laws should be written into Sweden’s laws. Naturally these proposals have been dismissed by the Swedish government. The Muslim organisation in questions has 70,000 members. So far I haven’t seen or heard any one question why these imams should be seen as any one qualified to speak on behalf of all Swedens Muslims. (I have no idea how many Muslims there are in Sweden, but I'll bet there are many more than in Denmark)
This is my problem in a nutshell. We're constantly under the obligation not to consider Denmarks 200,000 Muslims to be a homogenous group, but rather a mass of many people from many different backgrounds. Fair enough, but if they are so, then why don't more of these Muslims unite behind their adopted nation? Why do we so often see hostile imams freely speaking on behalf of the Muslims community against our country whilst an elected politician, one who is even able to bridge the gap, is considered a traitor and subjected to death threats?
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