Is H.C. Andersen and his fairytales the next to be cancelled?

To become wiser and change the future, we must dare to face the past without censoring it.

Regularly, literary writers have their texts dragged through the woke movement´s machinery. This time, the British writer Roald Dahl was the target, but when will it be Denmark´s national icon, HC Andersen? Drawing: Rasmus Sand Høyer

My son and I are reading “HC Andersen’s Fairy Tales & Histories + Complete collection prefaced by Johannes Møllehave” from 2000. The goal is to work through the book this year. We read a few pages every day and talk about the stories and about Danish words he doesn’t know, such as mill wheel, horse carriage, galoshes and wadsack. It is an excellent way to expand his Danish language skills and for his cultural understanding not to mention the quality time I get with him. We just finished “The Little Mermaid,” which my son dryly noted was “very different from Disney’s version.”

My kids loved reading Roald Dahl’s books when they were younger. The British author with Norwegian heritage is best known for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” but published a total of 49 books for both children and adults. My daughter especially loved “The BFG.” Roald Dahl was anti-Semitic, racist, and a misogynist – traits I actively teach my children are unacceptable.

The way Roald Dahl described gender and obesity tells us something about him and his time that we can learn from today when talking to our children about how to treat each other.

There has recently been an enormous public backlash after Puffin, the children´s imprint of Penguin Random House, publisher of Roald Dahl’s books, announced that they would change the author’s language to make the books more inclusive. The publishing house hired the consulting agency Inclusive Minds, and it was decided that words like “fat” and “ugly” were to disappear, and content that had to do with gender, race, ethnicity, mental health, appearance, and weight would change. “Words mean something,” the publishing house wrote. “The fantastic world of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most wonderful characters. The books were written many years ago, and we regularly edit the language to ensure that it can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.’

The outcry was substantial – from literary figures such as Salman Rushdie, from the British royal house, and from freedom of expression groups, such as PEN America. So loudly did people protest, that the publisher pulled back and announced that the books would be available both in their edited editions and in their original form. The censorship controversy hits directly into a groping zeitgeist, where the fear of stepping on someone’s toes risks introducing self-censorship and compromise freedom of expression.

Where do we draw the line if we start canceling books and make them unavailable? Censoring or making things disappear because times have changed is a dangerous direction. Shouldn’t large parts of the Bible then be cancelled as well? How do you accept the art of the past when it is based on views we have moved away from? How do we make room for literature written in another time when the content holds viewpoints, we now find inappropriate?

We are finding ourselves in a time of change. Most of us can remember a world that looked somewhat different from the global society we live in today and this forces us to grabble with this topic.

That reality is, that we must find a way where diversity is embraced and where it is simultaneously ok that literature does not satisfy all viewpoints, skin colors, religions, or body sizes. Because if we start introducing censorship, if we start regulating what our kids and youth have access to – then we are moving frighteningly close to totalitarian societies we pride ourselves of being far removed from.

Should Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” disappear, should books written with a British imperialist worldview? The balance is difficult – because what kind of literature is ok today if we simultaneously advocate freedom of expression and the importance of learning from the past as we move forward?

I don’t like seeing women depicted as cashiers if they could be research scientists or CEOs, as they now are in the edited Roald Dahl work, or to see someone being called “enormously fat.” The way Roald Dahl described gender and obesity says something about him and his time that we can learn from today when we talk to our children about how to treat each other and how a short time ago people looked at and mocked women and minorities. But the reactions to changing “mother” and “father” to “family” and the elimination of “girls and boys” to “children” and that phrases like “beautiful light skin” has been changed to “beautiful smooth skin,” shows that the woke movement is not backed by the general population.

When HC Andersen wrote “The Little Mermaid,” Denmark looked different. Denmark was a homogenous country, a country where Muslim headscarves, dark skin, and a diverse cultural population were not a natural part of the cityscape. If you wanted to experience the big world, you had to do like Andersen and go outside the country’s borders by horse-drawn carriage. The ideal of beauty was fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair.

And it is that reality, Andersen writes his stories from. Not the global world that surrounds us today. Therefore, the little mermaid is “the most beautiful of them all, her skin was as clear and bright as a rose petal, her eyes as blue as the deepest lake.”

Is this problematic? Is it something that should be cancelled the next time HC Andersen’s collected works are republished? No, because if we erase the past, we erase the possibility of conversations with our children about where we come from, what beauty is, how people before us were viewed. And we delete the possibility of taking a stand and making conscious choices based on a reflection on the world in which we find ourselves.

Hvornår begynder de at rette i H.C. Andersens eventyr?

For at blive klogere og ændre fremtiden er vi nødt til at turde se fortiden i øjnene uden at censurere den.

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NGOs aid the Taliban if they stay in Afghanistan

If NGOs bow to Taliban’s newest demand, barring women from working with NGOs, they accept the regime´s misogynistic agenda.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have once again found a way to curtail women´s freedoms and opportunities. After coming into power, the first thing they did, was to barre girls from going to school beyond sixth grade. Then, women were banned from going to college. Now, Taliban is banning female employees working with NGOs – the ban includes foreign women. Did I mention that girls and women above sixth grade are not allowed to sing in public? The completely male-dominated Taliban government wants girls and women out of the public eye and sphere.

Taliban wants women at the same infantile level they themselves belong to by introducing one misogynistic law after another. They cover their women, hide them away, deprive them of every opportunity to think, see and speak independently, and from singing and dancing – a clear strategy that makes the likelihood of organizing and rebellion minimal.

Imagine, if Western NGOs comply and bow to these horrible power-hungry, misogynistic types and allow themselves to be cowed and shod and submit to these outlandish rules. It would mean they accept the role as the cowardly dogs, dodgy Westerners and yes, the women, Taliban hate so much.

Millions are deprived of access to aid because of the Taliban’s cruelty. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Minister of Economy, Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, announced in a press release that those organizations not complying will have their licenses to operate in the country reevoked.

According to The Red Cross, Afghanistan is facing one of its worst winters with a starving population. Millions are forced to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families. We are looking at a humanitarian disaster. Still, taking a stand should not be a difficult choice. Looking at the Taliban´s history and the ever-tightening grip on Afghan women, it is unlikely that the Taliban will stop at their latest attempt. The West has no choice, it cannot bow down to the Taliban´s latest insanity. Imagine the victory these cloak-covered men would see this as, if they could make the good-hearted industry of the West jump when they say “jump”.

“Imagine, if Western NGOs comply and bow to these horrible power-hungry, misogynistic types and allow themselves to be cowed and shod and submit to these outlandish rules. It would mean they accept the role of the cowardly dogs, the codified Westerners and yes, the women Taliban hate so much.

Save the Children ‘s Norwegian spokesman, Neil Turner, has announced that his organization can no longer operate in Afghanistan. “We cannot help women and children without our female employees,” he said in a BBC interview the other day. “We have followed all the cultural norms; it is impossible to reach the Afghan women in desperate need without our 468 female employees.’

If NGOs choose to stay in Afghanistan under the new demand, they are aiding the Taliban – and the Afghan misogynist men. Afghan women will be left to their own devices in complicated childbirths and in other circumstances where men are not allowed to be present, while Western NGOs help little Ibrahim, Muhammed and Ali band-aiding their booboos and patching up Mustafa’s gunshot wounds.

I wonder what is going through the Afghan girls and women´s heads in the light of this new ban. What are their reactions to the fact that some organizations choose to stay – without being able and allowed to help them, those most vulnerable? The NGOs can invite men into their aiding tents for help – but not women, exactly as was intended by the greybeards.

Girls and women are the future in countries with living-conditions far from the rights, opportunities, and economic possibilities women enjoy in the West. Hungry for knowledge, these girls risk being flogged for logging on to an online class, offered by a Western educational institution. Finding that the very part of the world they look up to, as a representation for equal rights and freedom, is willing to let the turban, tunic shirt dressed village terrorists dictate Western representatives to work and obey in accordance with the Taliban’s view on women – that must be incredibly demotivating.

Hjælpeorganisationer hjælper Taliban, hvis de bliver i Afghanistan

Kvinder og piger betaler prisen, når nødhjælpsorganisationer bøjer sig for Talibans krav om, at kvinder ikke må arbejde for dem.

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Life with an ADHD kiddo is never boring

My son is almost 13 years old. He forgets his backpack in the morning, forgets to take off his clothes before going to bed and does lots of other things I don´t understand – boy do I learn a lot from him!

“Where’s your backpack?” I asked my son as he gave me a goodbye hug at the bus stop. Unlike many other boys his age, he has no problem showing affection in public.

In the rush to catch the yellow school bus, he forgot his backpack. That’s how it is with boys and girls like him. Despite the fact that there are two sheets of paper with bullet points on the bathroom wall, one for morning and one for evening routines – “brush your teeth, eat breakfast, pack your backpack” etc. – one must remember to read the list in order to do the things on it.

He has a green tote bag with white bubbles for swim practice.. I’ve written words inside the bubbles to make his to-do list not stand out too much. “Swim trunks,” “flip flops,” “towel,” and other essentials he needs to remember for practice.

With our hearts exposed, parents of neuro diverse kids are fighting for our kids from the sidelines – against thoughtless kids and adults who will or cannot embrace differences.

Routines, schedules, constant reminders are a natural part of our life – for neurotypical children, basic everyday skills and activities they carry out with ease and without giving them any thought. To my son, it feels like the first time he hears it – despite the fact that we remind him of the exact same things every single day.

It is not easy to be neuro diverse in this world. Imagine the effort it must require to get through a school day.

Researchers state that these kids catch up – it just happens a later than for neurotypical children. While I wait, I guide and sometimes nudge my son in a direction that doesn’t embarrass him when he is out in public and met by other people’s prejudices and wondering looks. With our hearts exposed, parents of neuro diverse kids are fighting for our kids from the sidelines – against thoughtless kids and adults who will or cannot embrace differences. Add my son’s nonexistent filter – what he thinks and feels comes out of his mouth uncensored – you have a potential for an avalanche of misunderstandings.

My son does not always know what is appropriate to say or ask. At home, we barely notice – we know him and have no problem answering questions some parents would cringe to hear. We know that he is not rude, crude, or insensitive – quite the opposite. But out in the world, in which he increasingly moves more independently, the reactions are different. That’s why we have a secret word. Since most Americans don´t understand Danish, we have chosen the word “carrot” in Danish which lets him understand that he must pause and stop what he is saying – without Americans understanding our verbal red flag. We cannot just gently let him know, since he doesn’t understand subtle hints.

But it’s not just us adults who have to teach him how to behave in a world that is unfortunately not as embracing as those close to him would like. We are the ones witnessing the consequences of the outside world´s reactions and what they do to a sensitive soul and a mind that experiences the world through a lens colored differently than most.

I am learning an immense amount from my son. That day was no exception. Since I am not a morning person, dad usually is on morning duty. He has more patience towards our bouncy ball, scatter brained son in the early hours. When I picked him up after school, I apologized for being short-tempered that same morning.

“Mom, I always make it to the bus, I finish my homework in time. I am never late. Our goals are the same, but we do things differently,” he replied. I was in awe and had tears in my eyes. Because that´s how it is: we do things differently and how boring it would be if we were all the same and did things the same way.

Livet med en adhd-dreng er aldrig kedeligt. Til gengæld er det lærerigt

Min søn er næsten 13 år. Han glemmer sin skoletaske om morgenen og glemmer at tage tøjet af, når han skal i seng – men hvor kan jeg lære meget af ham!

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Will Danish public schools be the next ideological battleground?

In the US, worried parents are taking over school boards. Could the same happen in Denmark?

It is a good thing, students learn about their country’s less beautiful areas of history. It is a good thing, attention is being targeted on oppressed groups, minorities, and vulnerable populations. It is part of a student’s school education to learn that life and history are nuanced and that all groups in society are not always treated equal – only by learning about the past can we look forward and try not to repeat the sins of the past and maybe even contribute to making the world a better place.

But it is problematic when the scales tip and focus is only on the sins of the white man and a country’s violation of fundamental humanity. A clear-eyed approach in dealing with multiple elements of the past should include teaching both the oppression of Native Americans and the ancestors of African Americans and the incredible progress that American history offers.

“The Danish public schools have an enormous responsibility for graduating democratically minded citizens who will take part in the Danish society – in a country that is held together, primarily because its so homogeneousity.

Not many places in the US are like that. Where I live, the school children know about countless Indian tribes, but hardly know why they celebrate Thanksgiving . And that’s problematic, because if we don’t know our own history, how can we relate to it? How, then, do we create a generation of citizens without guilt and shame, but with a nuanced awareness of the past, to gain the courage to go out into life uniting, side by side, with young people from other nationalities, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds to make life and society a better place?

Having an informed opinion about statues that symbolize oppression, books in school libraries that preach that a family consists of a father and a mother and a couple of blond kids – in a world that is constantly changing, is forming an opinion to a version of life, that is not one-eyed.

But when the attitude to what a family looks like is rooted in antiquated religious notions with Stone Age views, the Geist, many parents have when it comes to their children’s schooling, can be dangerous.

In the US, we see this especially clearly in rightwinged Christian circles, who try to get certain books banned from school libraries. This is particularly the case with books that have sexual scenes, or books with themes of homosexuality or other LGBTQIA+-community-related themes. Librarians and teachers live a life in fear these days – is school board members find they have exposed their kids to content that goes against their Christian beliefs they highjack the boards and change curriculum and library content according to their beliefs.

The school boards have great power in American schools and are elected for an entire school district, not to an individual school as is the case in Denmark. In America, you have to be an American citizen to run for the school board, in Denmark you just need to be a parent at the school to run. Fortunately, the structure of school boards in Denmark is different, otherwise that would be the blow and decline for a homogeneous Danish society.

The Danish public schools have an enormous responsibility for graduating democratically minded citizens who will take part in Danish society – in a country that is held together, primarily because of its homogeneousity. The Danish democracy is beautiful and works well, and fortunately the school board model also bears its mark.

Still, the individual schools will be challenged and tried in the future. There will be forces trying to shape the public schools in a direction that has a strong focus on religiously based values. Hopefully the implementation or imprinting of various radical teachings will not be able to take over or infiltrate the individual public school. Danish democracy is strong and, in contrast to the USA, the focus is on community and shared basic values, that might be the saving grace for the Danish public schools – and for Denmark.

Bliver folkeskolen den næste ideologiske kampplads?

I USA overtager rabiate elementer skolebestyrelser. Kan det samme ske i Danmark?

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While women in Iran burn their headscarves, Danish Muslims talk about a non-debatable God given order for men and women

I recognize the Muslims’ rhetoric about fixed gender roles from my time in the sect Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Iran is on fire – women are burning their headscarves and protesting in the streets in hopes of freedoms Western Muslims take for granted.

On September 16, Masha Amini, a young 22-year-old Iranian woman, was arrested by the morality police. A few hours later, she died in their costidy.

Across Iran, women are protesting against the hard line the country’s leaders are increasingly implementing. More than 76 protesters have been killed, over 1,300 have been arrested.

“Sometimes you have to listen for what is not being said and pay attention to what is implied.

What do these women who put their lives on the line have to lose? Nothing. They see no future for themselves or their fellow sisters – that´s why they are willing to put their lives on the line. As a side note, this is a stark contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Russian men who are leaving Russia in droves these days instead of fighting a system that suppresses basic human rights.

In tiny Denmark, a group of Western, privileged Muslims discuss gender and equality on a radio podcast. “Patriarchy and matriarchy: Do they apply in Islam?”, is the theme of the program.

Sometimes you have to listen for what is not being said and pay attention to what is implied.

In the studio, are two guests; a woman and a man. Hamid and Kasper. The male radio host consistently lets Kasper answer first throughout the broadcast. Kasper has a smooth voice, but his words are as dangerous as snake venom.

“Patriarchy and matriarchy are words used in a gender discourse that is dangerous and that you have to be very careful with as a Muslim,” Kasper says. As the most natural thing, he draws up a view of gender that I recognize with a chill from Jehovah’s Witnesses. He would like to avoid concepts of gender, but that is “unfortunately” not necessary in society, i.e. the Danish one, in which he lives.

It is clear that one can easily be called Kasper and be brought up in Denmark without becoming a democratically minded citizen. In his soft voice, he continues with an argument that the two sexes have strict, God-given roles. The world is determined by Allah, the relationship between women and men is not up for debate.

His arguments are full of sardonic juice frosted with academic terms. He even refers to the feminist Simone de Beauvoir’s book “The Second Sex”, and pronounces the title in beautiful French. I wonder if the French feminist would turn in her grave if she heard how her words are being twisted in the mouth of a misogynist?

“Men and women are created as one body. If one part hurts, the other parts will hurt. If one part … makes a power takeover, the body becomes in conflict with itself.” The monologue elicits an approving murmur from the other two present in the radio studio. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to listen to such incoherent, illogical nonsense. Would they be able to see beyond their indoctrinated gender views if I with a twinkle in my eye asked them how the analogy makes any sense given that men’s health is statistically so much worse than women’s?

The woman in the studio, Hamid, personifies women at their worst – arguing against gender equality. She is skeptical of the terminology examining power structures between the sexes. And then she says something that sends a chill down my spine: “It’s part of the reality we’re part of right now.”

“Right now.”

That term was widely used within Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Right now” suggests that it will not always be like this. It is an encouragement or a warning depending on ones temperament.

There are no critical questions asked about the views presented, there is only a tunnel-vision conversation about how different a Muslim mindset is from the Western one based on gender equality. “We have a different approach to life… we fundamentally do not share the same outlook on life with this way of thinking.”

“This way of thinking.”

You mean the Danish, Western and extremely well-functioning one with a focus on gender equality? My thoughts drifted to the debate about integration and to the fact that the Danes are regularly criticized for using a them-and-us rhetoric. Ditches can be dug on both sides of the value frontline.

Iranian women and Afghan schoolgirls will probably disagree with Danish Kasper, who says: “The roles of men and women must not be challenged. This is a violent trend in the West.” He continues: ‘In Muslim environments there is a difference between the sexes. It is a man who is an imam … a man who teaches. The women are at the back of the room … that’s how it is.’

No matter how many academic phrases like “gender discourse,” “power structures,” and “post-structuralist” Kasper and Hamid use, the pot is full of the same dirty scum. I came to think of an expression we use here in the US, which reads: “to put lipstick on a pig.” No matter how hard you try to make something unpleasant sound or look nice, there will always be a stinking pig underneath.

Words are powerful, words can be twisted, and words can create prisons for those who are not allowed to speak freely. That premise is what Iranian women are rebelling against these days. They pay with their lives when they try to question the order their gender has been forced into.

It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth when I hear Danish Muslims comfortably sitting in a radio studio in Denmark and pseudo-talk about how it is not important, yes indeed, downright ungodly to question the place, role and rights of the sexes. Western, privileged Muslims should stand shoulder to shoulder with their co-religionists in Iran and Afghanistan and fight for women’s right to be independent individuals who are not subordinate to men.

____

Mens kvinder i Iran brænder deres tørklæder, sidder danske muslimer og taler om en fastlagt orden for mænd og kvinder

Muslimers retorik om faste kønsroller genkender jeg fra Jehovas Vidner.

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Muslimske mænd: Mand jer op!

Hvor er vestlige muslimers kamp for afghanske pigers ret til at gå i skole

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Muslim Men: Man Up!

Why are Muslims in Western countries not fighting for Afghan girls’ right to go to school?

It’s been a year since Biden threw in the towel and gave Afghanistan’s girls and women the middle finger. The American exit was a disaster and a scandal, both for the country’s reputation and for the Afghan girls and women who are now caged behind their veils and the walls of their homes. The United States has a responsibility for sure. But what is much worse is that Muslim men in Afghanistan and the rest of the world are not fighting for their Afghan mothers, sisters and daughters – and that is a disgrace worse than the failed US presence in Afghanistan.

A year ago, city after city in Afghanistan fell to the extreme Islamist group, Taliban. For more than 20 years, American soldiers had been present in the country and tried to make a difference in relation to democracy, gender equality, and showing the population an alternative to the Taliban’s regime of violence and terror.

“Where were the Afghan men who reportedly overwhelmingly support girls’ right to school? Why didn’t they form a protective ring around the women?

Faster than anyone could say failed democratization, Afghan men laid down their weapons that should have been used to defend the weakest part of the population, namely women and children. The coward for a president took his billions and fled the country.

We all remember the images of desperate people trying to get out of the country, clinging to the wings of an airplane but ending up dead, while we watched them fall to the ground like little dark specks as the plane took off. In a flash I remembered the towers in New York when they were hit and people jumped off the buildings and straight to their deaths.

Violence, panic, chaos; families that were torn apart; women gave birth on the premises of the base; people died of hunger and thirst in the scorching heat or as a result of violent episodes.

Thousands of Afghans desperately tried to get out of the country when they saw where things were headed. They remembered all too well what the regime of terror by the Taliban. They knew very well that the Taliban speak with a forked tongue. In particular, everyone knew how girls and women were treated.

Imagine how the girls and women who stayed back are doing now – the hell they are living in. Taliban leaders told the West it was only a matter of time before schools would reopen to middle school-age girls. So we waited, and so did the girls in Afghanistan. On the day that was supposed to be the first day of school, they were more than ready. They smiled, there was a spring in their step; this was the day they had been looking forward to. Finally, they could go back to school. But when they showed up, long-bearded, robe-clad cavemen waited for them and told them that they wouldn’t be allowed back to school after all. What a vicious exercise of power, what a dehumanizing humiliating display of power. Since then, the girls have been hidden away and are back in kitchens, doing the laundry, and scrubbing the floors. If they move outside, they risk being beaten or shot.

A few days ago, approximately 40 women demonstrated for equal rights. 40 brave women. One almost get a lump in ones throat. The BBC reported that the demonstration was quickly dissolved when the Taliban regime’s scoundrels shot into the air in a show of force. The message to the women was loud and clear: Go home, or we’ll lower our guns and shoot into your little group.

Where were the Afghan men who reportedly overwhelmingly support girls’ right to go to school? Why didn’t they form a protective ring around the women? Why don’t they speak up for these girls when they clearly have no problem declaring in front of an open screen and in various opinion polls that they most certainly support girls’ right to go to school and absolutely do not agree with the Taliban? And where are the Muslims living in the West when it comes to supporting their fellow Afghan sisters? Here in the West, they live in safety with no threat when they utter their views. Here in the West, in stark contrast to the Afghan girls and young women, their sisters, wives and daughters have all the rights and access to free education they could ever dream of. So why don’t we hear a peep from some of the voices that otherwise shout so loudly that their rights in western democratic countries are not respected?

It is a cheap shot and a double standard to criticize things that you consider not adhering and accommodating Muslim values in countries that are based on Western freedoms, while enjoying these freedoms and simultaneously advocating and demonstrating for more legislative changes that accommodate Muslim values. The fact that you don’t lift a finger, take to the streets, or collect signatures to shout out about and for the rights of women who need the loud shouts more than you need to implement Muslim values into the legislation in western democracies, leaves me with a strong disgust, distaste, and lack of respect. So Muslim men : Man you up!

Psykisk mistrivsel skal ikke føre til sænkelse af adgangskrav på videregående uddannelser

Drømmen kan blive til mareridt, hvis de unge kommer ind på deres drømmeuddannelser.

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The mental health crisis in youth should not lead to lowering of admission requirements in higher education

If GPA requirements for students are lowered, their dream could turn into a nightmare instead of a dream educations.

It’s finals time, and students feel the nervous energy. Do you remember the feeling? Did I take the right notes? What did the book say about …, again ? What if I forget everything at the exam table? I hope they will not ask me about…

Young people in Denmark and in many other countries are suffering mentally. Especially during finals time, we hear about young people having difficulty coping. One study after another shows that young people suffer from anxiety and depression. And, indeed, something needs to be done about that.

But the answer is not to lower the requirements for higher education. It is understandable that the generation of power, that coincides in age with the parent generation of students, wants to help. But imagine how these young people will feel in an education they do not have the skills to follow let alone complete – not to mention how they will fair in a workplace after graduating.

“I was certainly not disappointed that my opportunity to end up as chief economist was not in the cards.

I would like to be operated on by a surgeon who knows the anatomy of the body before he puts his scalpel in me, I would like the anesthesiologist to easily calculate my anesthesia or pain relief so that I do not wake up in the middle of surgery. I would like to move in a public space where bridges, buildings and mobile masts stand as they should when it is a bit windy thanks to engineering calculations. And I would like to read articles in the newspaper edited by people who know Danish grammar and can spell most words.

Does this mean that there are young people who do not get into their dream education?

Yes, it does sometimes – and that’s the way it should be. Denmark is a fantastic country where anyone who wants it can get an education. But we do the young people a disservice if we tell them that they can become just anything they want – because only few can.

I graduated my one-year HH with a no-pass grade in accounting – but I was certainly not disappointed that my opportunity to end up as chief economist was not in the cards. On the other hand, I would have liked to have studied rhetoric, but my grade point average was not high enough for that. Denmark is a country that is known for not distinguishing between high and low – a country where the nurse assistant is worth as much as the doctor, where the carpenter can contribute something different than the architect.

Fortunately, there is a difference in competencies – and it is ultimately for the benefit of society, the individual citizen, and those whose grade point average has defined what education they could apply for.

Young people’s mental well-being is a problem that requires solutions and great focus. But even if it seems like a quick solution to young people’s mental health issues to lower the admission requirements for certain educations, it is a short-term solution. The dream could very well turn out to be a nightmare – for them and for society.

Fuck, de unge taler grimt!

De unge markerer identitet gennem sproget.

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Why the fuck do young people swear so much?

Young people show identity through their use of language.

“Fuck ! Shit! Nederen, LOL´eren, the chiller, meganeder”- I am watching a Danish dating show with my teenage daughter and can not quite find a facial expression suited for the situation. We are watching Wild Love on DR (Danish public service tv network)- for fun and because I want to introduce my daughter in a variety of ways to her Danish culture.

My daughter´s eyes are wide, and every now and then she side glances at me. I feel like a dinosaur. The way the Danish language is used has changed a lot both since I was young and since I lived in Denmark.

My daughter is shocked, but she is also fascinated. In the US, you get in trouble if you drop the f-bomb in school . On my end, I am both repulsed by the young people’s language at the same time rejoicing that they so clearly express identity. Because if there is one thing that is an identity marker, it is how we use language.

“I must say they swear a lot in Denmark,” my daughter states. The next day she starts to imitate the language she has been introduced to. “Fuck, I xxx,” “shit, I xxx…” first, I explain linguistically to her in which context you can use the words she is experimenting with and in which situations they are out of place – I am after all a former Danish Lecturer.

And so she starts experimenting. I sense that she thinks that part of her Danish heritage is exotically repulsive and attractive at the same time. Occasionally, she says something that clearly shows us that she is in the process of figuring out how far she can go before we as adults ask her to tone it down a bit.

My experience is that Danish kids and young adults use the f- and s-bomb in every other sentence and that it is a completely normal and accepted use of language. But here in the United States it is completely and utterly unheard of.

Friends regularly visit us from Denmark. They generally think it is immensely fun to blurt out the words in public I am trying to explain are not equally as accepted here as they are in Denmark.

And here is why. All though, in Denmark cursing expresses identity and has almost at present become a form of adjective and noun in line with any other, the use of the English words shit and fuck is culturally unacceptable here. Danes have a hard time understanding this – perhaps because they think that English swear words work here in the US since they are, after all, English.

Identity can be marked in many ways, but wanting to mark it presupposes that you are aware of which cultural codes you may be breaking – otherwise there is no point in the marker.

“You can not say that!” We exclaimed on the first semester of college to our professor at KUA (University of Copenhagen, Amager). And: “It’s not the correct use of Danish!” He had so much fun as he called us “old farts” and compared us to people who contacted tv and newspaper stations to complain about the journalists use of what they perceived as bad language. That semester, we learned that there is a difference between how people use language and in what situations – and that people do it to mark their identity.

So even though the old fart in me would like to be outraged at what honestly in my ears sounds rather simplistic and ridiculous, especially when English words are pronounced with excessive Danish pronunciation, I must at the same time rejoice that young people do what young people are best at – experimenting with who they are in the world and poking their fingers at the rest of us while doing so.

Ukrainske mænd kæmper for deres kvinder – hvorfor gør afghanske mænd ikke det samme?

Afghanske kvinder og ukrainske mænd er villige til at sætte livet på spil for frihed.

Læs hele bloggen her:

Ukrainian men fight for their women – why are Afghan men not doing the same?

Afghan women and Ukrainian men are willing to risk their lives for freedom.

They get their women and children on trains and wave their goodbyes. Then take up arms, for many for the first time in their lives. Or they make sure that wives, mothers, and sisters are safe in shelters deep underground, while heading out to fight against a brutal supremacy.

When journalists ask Ukrainian soldiers what they are fighting for, they reply “peace” and “the future of my children.”

Most of us have been deeply touched by the willingness of Ukrainians to fight for the freedom the country has only known since 1991, when they gained their independence. That is about as long as most of Afghanistan´s women experienced freedom from the oppressing cavemen of Taliban.

“It’s like being in a room that’s too small and too dark,” a young Afghan woman told a journalist on the New York Times podcast The Daily.

Yesterday, the Afghan girls were supposed to be back in schools after being sentenced to months of household chores indoors. The first thing the Taliban did when they took power in August last year, of course, was to cut off girls from education.

The girls’ dreams turned out to be just that – dreams. Because when the excited, happy, giddy girls showed up at their schools, they were sent home again if they went to a higher grade level than 6th grade. BBC World News shows pictures of covered girls with tearstained cheeks collapsing in anguish and others with an expressionless gaze.

The misogyny is devastatingly heartbreaking! Men were waving the girls biggest dreams in front of them, letting them rejoice, letting them get their classrooms ready, wiping chairs and school desks off – and then telling them that they can not get the education they have been looking forward to.

Far from all girls have the opportunity to participate in online learning. But those who do, study foreign languages, art, literature, physics, and chemistry. Some go to the bookstore and buy books, devouring as much learning as they can at home. Others draw, do dance groups with girlfriends, meet secretly.

In short – the girls have a will to fight, even if it is deadly dangerous if discovered that they spend their time on something other than domestic chores, which the Taliban believes is a woman’s ultimate purpose in life.

But the men in Afghanistan underestimate their girls and women if they think they are content with doing the dishes, cleaning, cooking, and give birth. Men have always underestimated women. And women have always had to do the dishes, clean, cook, and give birth – while completing an education.

This generation of Afghan women has access to the Internet – and thus to a knowledge of how women and girls in other parts of the world live. I wonder if they marvel at how men in Ukraine are willing to sacrifice their lives in the fight for their women and girls freedom.

Imagine what Afghanistan would look like, how the country and its citizens could flourish, if the Afghan men put their foot down and went against the Taliban brutality that has forced itself into power in the country. Imagine if the girls were allowed to believe in a future where they can live out their dreams and immense potential!

But since it does not seem to be the case that Afghan men want to fight for their women’s right to a free and peaceful life, like the Ukrainian men are willing to do, Afghan girls and women must fight for themselves. It should not have to be like that, but as I already said, there is nothing new in women having to fight for their rights without the aid of men.

I hope that Afghan women have as much fighting spirit as the Ukrainian men, since Afghan men have proven to be cowards.

Jeg får lyst til at stille mig op med en stor megafon og råbeskrige

Når vi lader som om, vi er ubekymrede over for terrorangreb, så har vi allerede tabt.

Læs hele bloggen her:

I feel like standing up with a big megaphone and shake the world up by screaming

When we pretend we are carefree about terrorist attacks, then we have already lost.

Then it happened again. We have become so used to it, does it cause anything other than a shrug? Another bomb attack, once again reports of many dead and maimed bodies. It’s so far away, what can be done against religious fanaticism?

Maybe we’re just pretending we’re carefree. We must not let our anxiety and fear get the better of us. We must live as before, even though we know that before it no longer exists. We trivialize the ideological evil that Lars Saabye Christensen writes in the third volume of his novel series “Byens Spor”. After all, there is so much more that is more dangerous, the probability of dying in a terrorist attack is less than of dying in traffic.

I feel like standing up with a big megaphone and screaming. How can we just let another madness attack lie like a shrug while we look down and away and not let ourselves be noticed that evil has once again shown its bloody face and laughed at us and our principles of equality right up in our face?

This time the attack was on a girls’ school in Kabul, and it is not Copenhagen, fortunately. The car bomb and the subsequent 2 explosions killed 85 people, mainly schoolgirls. 147 are injured.

What makes this bombing so heartbreaking is that it was targeted at a school – but not just any school. Quite deliberately, the terrorists went after the girls.

The Taliban has denied any involvement in the attack. But I wonder if it now also fits, we know how they feel about girls, and with the combination of girls and education. Girls become women and women with education are dangerous, they could go and think something about one thing or another and become difficult to control.

No no, if you have to control girls and women, and you obviously have to, then you have to assassinate yourself to power and hope that you scare enough parents to keep their daughters indoors, far away from books and education.

Joe Biden has announced that the United States will withdraw its forces by September 11th. In itself, the date is ironic and does not make sense – at least not if you want to signal that you have won.

For why is it now that the United States is in Afghanistan? – it all started on September 11, and with great fanfare, Biden now says: “Ok, dark forces, you win. From your earth caves you have proved that by primitive means, but with ideological misogyny, you can fight the world’s largest military and our Western values. And girls and women : sorry, you are on your own. ”

What the actual fuck, Biden !?

(Google translate)