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

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."

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