Aslaug's Axe Shed

I need to make an effort to explain something important here. This is going to be lengthy, but please bear with me. It is important for me to lay this bare. While I realize that people in the United States or southern Europe or any number of other places in the world may not find Danish politics all that interesting, this is about MORE than Danish politics.

This is about a trend in politics all over the world. It is about something that has massively changed my political perspective over the last week in one very important respect.

Until last week, a small group of political refugees from Iraq, all of whom had received rejections on their applications for political asylum, had taken up refuge in a church in Copenhagen. Originally, the group included about 200 people, but most of them had gone back to Iraq by the time this group of about 40 people moved into the church. They don’t want to go back, because they claim they would be killed off within moments. The government and their supporters in the ultranationalist party (the Danish People’s Party … the name itself should tell you something here) insist that Iraq is a peaceful, safe country where there is no risk to anyone. They also maintain that unless a person can prove he or she is PERSONALLY persecuted, they are not elligible for asylum (which is absolutely true, may I add). However, several of the Iraqis in the church identify themselves as Christian iraqis and they come from areas in the southern part of Iraq where the Mehdi militia and others have made clear statements that any Christian Iraqis will be killed out of hand.

That might mean their religiosity might be a ruse … a simple trick … but the fact of the matter is that they identified themselves as Christians several years ago on television BEFORE the death-squads specifically started hunting down Christian Iraqis in Baghdad and Basra and other places.

However, I am in favor of the rule of law. I maintain that the law MUST be equal for EVERYONE, and that means that while I find the rejection of their applications to be wrong, since it has become public knowledge that the issue of religious persecution was not considered, they have in fact been rejected. That means they must be sent back to Iraq.

If that means Denmark gets blood on its hands, then maybe we may at least learn a lesson or two from this.

Or so one might think.

Last week, on the night between wednesday and thursday, police armed in riot-gear burst into the church at one o’clock in the morning and started arresting the Iraqis. Now … that in itself might seem weird. Why at one in the morning? The obvious reason … to catch them all while they were IN the church … isn’t applicable since none of them had LEFT that building for months, but more on that later. The violence that ensued has sickened me deeply. There were people with cameras in the church, and they shot some very, very telling images. Hard, first-hand evidence of abject police brutality. Children so frightened that they were LITERALLY wetting themselves while screaming their heads off. One of the iraqis climbing to the belltower to throw himself off rather than being sent back … another trying the same thing from the huge organ. Grown police-men landing blow after blow after blow with their nightsticks on dazed, sleepy people who had just woken up.

I have little sympathy for the danish protesters, although I still believe the police overreacted insanely in their case (such as one police-officer hitting a girl who tried to shield her head while sitting on the street no less than eight times with his nightstick … all in front of a camera). It was an illegal protest in the first place, and they only made things worse by being there, but when one of the Iraqis arrived at the police-station he was so severely injured he had to be sent to the nearest trauma center to get treated for headwounds. He had been fine when he was led into the waiting bus outside, mind you. That means that AFTER he was handcuffed in strips, he was beaten up INSIDE the bus … something every Iraqi now maintains took place amidst gross verbal abuse.

It sickened me. That’s not Denmark as I know it. That’s not the country I was raised to love and respect. Those are not values I can stand by.

NOT IN MY NAME!!

But now comes the truly awful part. The day after, the minister of justice praised the police in high tones for their prudence and calmness. When presented with fresh photographic evidence, he refused to comment on it, saying he couldn’t comment on individual cases, but that he felt the police had done a sparkling job.

And then came the explanation for the late hour of the operation. From the leader of the ultranationalists. She stood in front of the frickin’ camera and smiled, saying she felt the police had been remarkably kind and lenient, and that it was a blessing that it had happened when it did, so that no one had to witness it!

I’m not even going to comment further on that. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to get the obvious implications of that for yourself. Suffice to say that something inside me shattered when I heard that.

I knew, then and there, that the country I’ve loved so dearly, was dead. That the Denmark I’ve grown up so fond of is in the hands of people like her. More her than anyone else in fact, since the government would fall without her support, which gives her far more power than her voterbase justifies. About 13 percent of all danish voters cast their vote for her party, yet they decide practically all policy at the moment. Because the government refuses to make broad compromises. Because they can be ideologically pure … by selling their souls to the ultranationalists time and time again.

Recently, I’ve been engaged in a few arguments with a woman from that political party. I later learned she’s the wife of a prominent member of parliament FOR the ultranationalists, and I was further sickened at learning that. However, one of the things she claimed stallwartly was that only her party would ever defend Denmark against “the real threat”. And that she had NEVER … EVER … EVEN ONCE … heard ANY member of her Party say ANYTHING hateful or scornful. ANYTHING.

NOT EVER!

Then she accused me of being so hateful she couldn’t bear debating with me.

I have often lambasted the ultranationalists. None of you really know what these people stand for, so let me show you.

Below follows a long but by no means complete list of quotes made by prominent members of that party … members of the Danish and the European parliament all. I include dates and sources, although I doubt any of you want to check them. But I do so because it is necessary for the sake of seriousness. All quotes are translated as faithfully as I can.

S?¸ren Espersen, MP:

“The greatest problem in Europe is Islam!”

Danish National TV (2009-04-22)

Rev. Jesper Langballe, MP:

“Whether a parent hugs their child or beat it, it’s done out of love.”

Politiken (2008-11-12)

Mogens Camre, former MEP, former MP:

“Islam must be forced out of Europe.”

Danish TV2 (2008-09-23)

Kristian Thulesen Dahl, MP:

“In many ways, we are antimuslim.”

Jyllandsposten (2008-05-14)

Rev. S?¸ren Krarup, MP:

“Homosexuals are handicapped because they can’t fulfill the criteria needed to get married or have a family, and for that reason, they have no right to demand equality in that area.”

Danish National Television (2007-04-26)

Morten Messerschmidt, MEP, former MP:

“It is my opinion that all muslim societies are losersocieties. Muslims are incapable of critical thinking. When you place idiotic religious concerns above reason, you develop a losersociety based widespread starvation, repression of freedom and breaches of the most basic civil rights.”

(I feel compelled to point out that the biggest hunger disasters of the 20th century tended to take place in Christian Ethiopia …)

Mogens Camre, former MEP, former MP:

“Muslims come wielding a beggar’s cane. But as soon as they are through the door, it turns into a club to beat us into line with.”

Politiken (2006-10-07)

Rev. Jesper Langballe, MP:

“In the future, our children will ask us “Where were you when the muslims overran Europe and turned us all into Dhimmis? Were you a pathetic collaborator or did you stand up and protest?”

Danish TV2 (2006-09-17)

Martin Henriksen, MP:

“I became a member of Dansk Folkeparti and its youth organization to combat Islam and this fanatical religion’s influence on Danish society!”

Politiken (2006-06-01)

Martin Henriksen, MP:

“The only solution to this problem is to send them home, further legal tightenings and an iron hard line towards Muslim men. Send the men home to torture and political persecution!”

Ekstra Bladet (2006-05-22)

Mogens Camre, former MEP, former MP:

“Muslims should live in Muslimland. And that isn’t here!”

Jyllandsposten (2004-09-19)

Per Dalgaard, MP:

“This isn’t the Middle East. This isn’t the jungle. This isn’t some Balkan kleptocracy where only the rule of the strongest is valid. We want good old Denmark back. We seek, by any means necessary, to get these wild and unintegrated people sent home. Home to the conditions they so desire. Chaos, violence, murder, robberies and pure anarchy. In this country they are nothing but trouble and are of no use at all.”

Berlingske Tidende (2003-01-03)

Mogens Camre, former MEP, former MP:

“All western countries have been infiltrated by Muslims. Some of them say nice things about us. But they are only waiting until they are enough to remove us all!”

Danish TV2 (2001-09-16)

This is a small … a very small … selection of quotes from members of this party. The party that thinks it is good that children and sleepy adults are beaten up at one in the morning by the police … because at that hour, no Danes will have to witness it.

The party which, at the moment, are the de facto rulers of Denmark.

Not in my name.

They must be stopped, by any legal means necessary. And because of that, I’ve given up on my resistance to the greater integration of the EU. In the European parliament, they belong to a minority group called the national-conservatives. A group that includes such “illustrious” people as the British National Party (who openly laud Hitler as a hero) or Jean Marie le Pen’s “Front National” from France. This group has no power in the EU. The other political groups in the European Parliament refuse to work with them. When Morten Messerschmidt was recently elected to the European Parliament he foolishly believed he’d be welcomed with open arms into the regular conservative group, but the British conservative leader won indellible fame and glory in my book by cooly turning him away with the priceless statement “We do not work with political extremists!”

I wish our own conservatives and liberals would see things that way as well, and truly give us back Denmark.

Until then, I reserve the right to be ashamed of my country.