arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

– For the second time in its history, Denmark is reeling under the yoke of fascism, though this time the enemy is much more difficult to oppose. It has mutated, discarding its former image of the ostentatious, jackbooted Nazi, donning instead the guise of middle-class respectability, permeating through almost every aspect of Danish society.

For years, a steadily diminishing minority of social critics and intellectuals have struggled to highlight this insidious threat. Warnings that at best have been met with ridicule and condemnation and which at no point have succeeded in penetrating the hardened shell of superficiality and xenophobic populism which encapsulates the public debate in Denmark. At a time like this, when opposition towards the manifestly fascist tendencies in Denmark's swing to the right, seems to have been completely banished from the mainstream media, and where social indignation and solidarity with society's most vulnerable has given way to resignation and fear, Stephen Smith's article in the Guardian, "Copenhagen flirts with fascism," gives cause for renewed hope - at least among incurable optimists.

Because when a foreigner is able to point out that:

Over the past year, the unheralded swing to the right in Danish politics has made the gradual increase in Germany's vote for the Nazis look slow. In the words of a Danish friend of mine, now living in Brussels: "The country has gone crazy and no one has noticed." It is more disturbing than that. What we are witnessing in Denmark is nothing less than the return of rightwing extremism to respectability - not through the acceptance of a controversial Haider or Le Pen, but through the quiet adoption of their stance by mainstream political parties. (The Guardian, 05 June, 2002)
And even dares to draw attention to the direct parallels between Denmark today and Germany in the 1930's, then perhaps there really is cause for renewed hope.
Nevertheless, it is unsettling to discover that the Danish government has reacted to such much-needed criticism from abroad by creating a type of truth ministry, with the task of minimizing the damage from negative publicity. Whether these newly appointed guardians of Denmark's good name are to exert diplomatic pressure on the foreign press, thereby intimidating them into silence - a strategy employed successfully against socially critical Danish intellectuals - or attempt to regulate the domestic reaction with scornful refutations and ridicule, it clearly highlights the Danish government's opprobrious attitude to the free and open debate.

I must implore the foreign press not to be intimidated, or to refrain from criticizing the fascist tendencies presently haunting Denmark. Your help may be our only chance to penetrate the almost censorship-like Danish media-wall, and effectively warn against this threat from the center. It is crucial that you remain honest about the Danish fascist tendencies and our apartheid legislation. Because unless the proper designations are being applied, any Danish resistance will continue to drown in the endless stream of hypocritical declarations and outright lies from the Danish authorities.

The Danish government is clearly obsessed with the appearance of respectability, but this vanity does not, mark you, result in sympathetic consideration for the critique of the Danish police state tendencies, which instead are on the increase through increasingly harsh totalitarian legislation. It is as if we are in a collective national psychosis and so far, nothing has roused us from the dangerous xenophobic obsession that results in the allegedly necessary oppression of anything alien.

We are consistently sedated with this lie of how necessary it is, and they are even shameless enough to claim respectability for the Danish mainstream-fascism. We desperately need critical voices, fixing their focus on Danish legislation and stating loudly and clearly that this policy is not respectable but detestable! We need critical screams!

And I must also implore all critical Danish artists and intellectuals, who for too long have been absent in the Danish media, to seize which is perhaps the final great opportunity to receive help from the allied forces from abroad. And such an international joint venture between civil rights protagonists and freedom fighters is perhaps our only chance of turning the tide in Denmark.

It might even be decisive for the course of historical events, if we as Danes warn about the conditions, which made Denmark the pioneer country among modern western police states. It is disgraceful enough that we haven't been able to prevent the Danish swing to the right from developing into this terrible pre-fascist situation. But if we do not utilize our knowledge to warn the remainder of the western world of what is in store, and why it went wrong in our nice little country, our shame will be forever inexpiable.

The new globalized world order clearly exhibits many common features, and throughout the world right-wing demagogues have efficiently exploited and enhanced fear and anxiety, which the increasing social apartheid of the globalization has engendered.

It is therefore hard to pinpoint the special factors, which caused the mainstream-fascism of tomorrow to achieve its breakthrough in Denmark. Undeniably it seems odd, that a country that neither is particularly poor or particularly burdened with foreign immigrants or refugees has been so severely struck by national xenophobia. Among possible explanations for our unhappy condition should be mentioned the Danish "arbeit macht frei" - mentality that has turned Denmark into a slave nation of constantly stressed wage earners; the Danish "Jantelov" - mentality, a form of petty-mindedness characterized by anger and jealousy towards anything or anybody outstanding which has made us especially susceptible to xenophobia, scare mongering and blind obedience to authorities; a very strong anti-intellectual campaign headed by the Danish government; and the lack of a strong freedom-tradition as e.g. the American.

But we have also for years had our own special terrorist-threat with the evil "rockers" (the special Danish nigger-like invective for bikers) and we have even experienced our own private version of September 11. Five years earlier, 06 October 1996, during the so-called "Great Northern Rocker War" a biker-clubhouse was attacked with anti-tank missiles and two people died.

Before the attack the police, the press and the politicians had for years joined forces in creating a very effective scare-image of the bikers. And this missile-attack made it possible for the Danish parliament only nine days later to satisfy the media-created hysteria and public demands for protective actions with the passing of the so called "rocker law," the worst of the Danish police-state laws - until September 11.

According to this "rocker law," the rough estimate of the police alone and no longer the judicial power, i.e. the law courts, suddenly determines whether different groups are to be deprived of fundamental constitutional rights, such as the right to convene freely. And thereby the tripartition of the power that was supposed to protect the citizens against power abuse is severely invalidated.

The "rockers" have thus for years functioned as Denmark's terrorists which one had to protect oneself from by any means. Through a very effective propaganda campaign based on fear and hate, the Danish authorities has succeeded in creating a mental landslide in the Danish population that makes us ever so willing to enforce police state methods not only against the hated "rockers" but against any unpopular minority that we are told is dangerous.

This willingness to oppress, discriminate and even eliminate the unwanted elements out of necessity is the most dangerous fascist tendency in Denmark anno 2002! As an Iraqi doctor, Mohammed Albayati stated in an interview in the Guardian on June 29, 2002, we are in Denmark especially eager to use the "terrorist threat" for cleansing the country of unwanted aliens: "America is attacked on September 11 but the reaction of Denmark is stronger than the U.S." And: "They are trying to be dictatorial in a European way." Plus, the culminating missile attack on October 6, 1996 has very clear historical parallels not only to September 11, 2001, but to the arson attack on the German Parliament February 27, 1933, that Hitler skilfully exploited to pass his own anti-terrorist law against the communists only one day later. A legislative encroachment on vital civil rights that proved crucial to the persecutions and the horrific genocides of Nazi Germany.

How can the reaction to September 11 in nice little Denmark actually be stronger than in the U.S.? Because of the nazifying mental landslide that the "Northern Rocker War" engendered!

It should indeed be brought to the attention of foreign journalists, especially since the Danish newspapers are afraid to write about it, that the missile attack, which led to the Danish police state law was only the culmination of a conflict between the Hells Angels and Bandidos biker gangs, where Danish police officers in all likelihood manipulated the two groups and exploited them in order to procure the important steps towards the Danish police-state

It has for example been proven that leading Danish police officers had falsified at least one official report on "organized crime" (In 1995) and lied to the Danish parliament in order to obtain more power. Furthermore, several witnesses have testified to the fact that Danish police officers actively instigated and escalated the bloody conflict with solicitations for violence. Finally, on May 20, 2002 it was revealed, and even documented on tape, that a secret police agent had specifically and repeatedly warned the police of this fatal attack in 1996, and nothing was done to prevent it! (For further documentation cf. the Torch at http://www.faklen.dk.)

I guess it is unnecessary to point out that now the whole world is under siege after September 11 by right-wing politicians who without too many scruples exploit the fear of the people to transform the world into one big police state. Therefore the hard-pressed intellectuals, freedom lovers and civil rights protagonists all over the world can and should profit from the study of the conditions of the so far neglected Danish police scandal "Polititangate" in order to prepare for and possibly oppose the fascist horrors that are already being felt after September 11.

Indeed, our government sees Denmark as a pioneer-country and they feel certain, that the other countries of the western world soon will follow in our footsteps and adopt this "invisible" mainstream "mutant" fascism, which dressed in a suit and an indulgent smile explains to us that it simply is necessary for public safety and law and order that we deprive unpopular minorities of their basic constitutional rights. And especially during Denmark's presidency of the EU, they expect to show the world that apartheid, discrimination and inequality before the law is not only absolutely necessary, but actually quite respectable.

It is hard to see how the rest of the western world can avoid the same misfortune as the Danes. And unless you retort in aggressive terms and draw the necessary parallels to the Nazi's dehumanization of the Jews in order to prevent the same massive one-sided production of the dangerous scare-images; and unless you are more able to guard the justice of law and the constitutional rights for all citizens, unpopular or not, I sincerely doubt that the Danish dissidents will find a place to flee to, once the Danish "folkfascism" really becomes nasty.

Maybe you will have better luck exposing the "respectable" mainstream-fascism as an ideology of mediocrity without visions of anything but enforced regimentation to make everyone behave normal. Such an unsavory and antihuman ideology, which actually ought to be designated narrow-stream-fascism can only prevail through massive scaremongering and cultivation of collective xenophobia. Alas a terrifying predominant global tendency anno 2002.

It seems necessary in the strongest possible terms to warn against the so-called "third way," which e.g. Anthony Giddens in England has espoused. This strategy consisting of endless pandering to an increasingly greedy right wing has more than anything else created the "unheralded swing to the right in Danish politics." Actually, this "third way" has moved the whole of the political spectre so far to the right that the threat from the Danish folkfascism now emanates from the center. Nearly invisible, extremely powerful and almost impossible to fight, since it now represents the sacrosanct will of the Danish people.

This third way is political suicide, because once former humanists start to comply with the fascist-like demands of the right wing they will never stop craving more. And the frightened population will inevitably take it as the final justification for unbridled xenophobia, and eventually demand the real deal. It is my belief that the Danish people, and many others, are so terrorized into a xenophobic national psychosis that only a greater fear can save us; the fear of full fledged fascism. A well founded and liberating fear that we are denied access to in the Danish media.

If my tone is somewhat shrill and emotional it is because I write this in fear and anger. Fear of the increasing encroachment on the liberty of many Danish residents. Fear that these encroachments soon will be systemized and silence the screams from all critical intellectuals. But foremost, fear of the dishonor that will fall upon me if I do not try to oppose and warn about this very dangerous sociological tendency - this mainstream fascist threat from the center.

In the attempt to add to the revival of international intellectual solidarity, I venture to invoke the words of Edward Said in my plea for help: "Uncompromising freedom of opinion and expression is the secular intellectual's main bastion: to abandon its defence or to tolerate tampering with any of its foundations is in effect to betray the intellectuals calling." (Representations of the Intellectual)

Indeed in Denmark, freedom of opinion and expression is under siege as never before, people are being oppressed by the authorities like never before and the sacred universal ideals of liberty equality and brotherhood are daily being violated in a most foul and dishonourable manner. We can only pray that allied forces once again will come to our rescue. And when the Danish government and their omnipresent right-wing intellectual collaborators, assure you that everything is going oh so fine in nice little Denmark, and that we are more than willing to utter fancy words against racism to uphold a respectable image, then look at the content, look at our actions. Look at the legislation and their many new opportunities to violate our constitutional rights and our right to justice and equality before the law. Because it is in the legislation where all fascist tendencies have to show their ugly faces. Not in the nice and shining wrapping.

Do not let them fool you, do not let them intimidate you and do not in the name of the gods let them get away with making this despicable oppression respectable! We need your critical screams. For something is definitely rotten in the police state of Denmark.

[Jakob Stensgaard holds a masters degree in Classical Philology and is currently engaged in a Ph.d study at the University of Copenhagen within the field of persuasion and obedience in the Iliad. He used to write for the critical Danish magazine, The Torch, that now only exist as a web site (http://www.faklen.dk). He hopes through YellowTimes.org to contribute to the global fight for freedom and justice against the fascist tendencies currently sweeping the world.]

Jakob Stensgaard encourages your comments: akhileus@hotmail.com

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