A multipolar world order does not benefit democracy. But that is the new world order

The world order as we have known it since the Second World War has changed. What does this mean for global alliances?

Today, after twelve years of exclusion, Syria’s dictator and war criminal Bashar al-Assad was welcomed back into the Arab League. In his address he said that we live in a world characterized by “multi polarity” and that Syria will always be part of the Arab countries but must be allowed to govern domestically without interference. The statement rings somewhat hollow when more than twelve million people are internally and externally displaced, Assad repeatedly has used chemical weapons on his own population, and that thousands of political opponents have been thrown in prisons. Furthermore, powers such as Russia and Iran has aided Assad to stay in power. The US has troops in the country to fight ISIS, and UN peacekeeping forces are also in the country.

” Multi polarity.” I heard the term at a panel discussion titled “A World of Trouble” at a local library in Seattle the other day. Here, experts in China, diplomacy, Russia, and the Middle East talked about the world order of today. If I had hoped to come away with peace of mind, I was mistaken.

Democracies around the world are not only under pressure, they are in decline. A majority of world’s leaders are not interested in the democratic world order that the West, led by the United States, has been working towards since the Second World War. Moreover, internally in the US there is a growing resistance to being dominant on the world leading stage. In other words, we are facing a new world order.

The post WWII order no longer works. We are looking into a multipolar future that creates alliances and connections different from traditionally value-based ones. It is not a realistic assumption that powers with huge population groups, such as China, will submit to the principles that a democratic minority feels called to push and demand in order to cooperation and alliances.

India, which considers itself a democracy, buys oil from Russia. Turkey, a NATO member state houses rich Russian oligarchs and issues Turkish passports to them if they invest in real estate. China has imperialist aspirations and is expanding with artificial islands and influencing new territories, including Africa. South Africa speaks warmly in favor of Putin. Every now and then, we see cracks within the European alliance, especially from Germany and France. In the Middle East, support for the US and the West is generally minimal, and the region is facing an economic crisis. An economy in free fall will cause millions to migrate – towards Europe. The current European Muslim population and future Muslim immigration will have an impact on the adherence to democracies and democratic alliances in the near future.

The world order is changing. Democracies versus autocracies. In that battle, democracies will lose – and they are aware of it. New alliances must therefore be formed. But what do we base them on, and how do we define which undemocratic camels can be swallowed and which are unacceptable when finding new partners? I grew up with a world order that is based on fighting for democratic forms of government – through the power of leading by example and by military means. What we are facing is inevitable, but for someone who grew up during the cold war era this change feels unpleasant and uncertain.

Alliances are still relevant – for our safety. But wishing for a worldwide Western ideal of democracy spreading across the world is unrealistic. A multilateral approach is necessary, the unilateral one is obsolete. It has not worked for the US for decades. One just needs to take a look at the coup in Iran, the Iraq war and the developments in Lebanon to see proof of this.

So, if the future consists of regional powers, authoritarian forms of government will merge. If so, the future for democracy looks even bleaker than it is now.

En multipolar verdensorden gavner ikke demokratiet. Men den er måske vejen frem

Verdensordenen som vi har kendt den siden Anden Verdenskrig har ændret sig. Hvad betyder det for globale alliancer?

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Keep the Russians out. Also on the tennis court.

Wound the Russians where it hurts – on their identity and sense of nationhood.

Time is ticking, the clock strikes, and as time goes by, principles are flushed down the toilet. Last year, Russian and Belarusian tennis players were banned from entering Wimbledon. This year, things are different. Why, is not entirely clear: We know more, about Russia’s bombing of civilian targets, rapes used as a strategic wopen, abductions of Ukrainian children, internment camps, prison sentences for journalists, civilians and lawyers who dare to question Putin and his horrific war, than we do did last year.

Nevertheless, tennis players from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to run around on the world’s most prestigious tennis courts, while the world cheers on the sport.

Technically, Russian and Belarusian tennis players and their entourage must sign a statement saying that they do not represent Russia or Belarus, that they do not receive financial support from the countries, and that during Wimbledon they will not express support for their regimes’ war against Ukraine.

But Russia cheats as always. Of course the players receive financial support from their country or companies connected to the state. As recently as yesterday, a Russian tennis player removed a Russian oil and gas sponsor logo from her clothing.

Wound them where it hurts – the Russians. On their pride, on their identity. Don’t let them enter prestigious competitions – of any kind. It shouldn’t be up for debate, but when sports, money, viewership and sponsorships are at stake, principles and integrity are sacrificed alongside thousands of innocent Ukrainians in a war they did not want or start.

The question is whether the big business that takes place around the negotiation tables are pointing to cracks in the general sentiment towards Russia? I hope not, especially for those who keep insisting that politics and sports have nothing to do with each other. Imagine a scenario where wars are fought by powerful nations – like Russia or China. Imagine watching invasions and takeovers of territories of sovereign states on the news – while the elite of the powerful nations watch from the bleachers where they cheer and shout, while the sports teams of their aggressor countries run around a sports field or court.

Russia must suffer – economically and from identity degradation. That is achieved by aiming at the elite, because they are the ones keeping Putin in power. No fur-clad Russian woman should be able to shop in the expensive parts off Paris, no Russian children should go abroad to study at prestigious Western universities, and all Russian values in the West should be frozen. In addition, all Russian athletes should be denied access to all international sport competitions, allowing them to attend only contributes to strengthening their identity and nationhood and their belief in belonging in the company of other well respected states. The same treatment should apply to Russian culture and entertainment.

Hold nu russerne udenfor. Også på tennisbanen

Ram russerne, hvor det gør ondt – på deres selvforståelse, deres identitet, deres nationalitetsfølelse.

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Bud Light finds themselves in the center of the WOKE debate

The controversy is about so much more than an American mediocre canned beer – it’s about identity politics

The American musician Kid Rock has posted a video that has been viewed by more than ten million people. In the video, he wears a MAGA cap with a semi-automatic weapon and shoots down Bud Light beer cans. Afterwards, he looks into the camera and hurls f-bombs at the viewers.

What is he so angry about? And what has made others on social platforms post videos where they destroy America’s best-selling beer?

It is, yet again, identity politics that is at the center. Bud Light is primarily enjoyed by people who crack open a beer after a long day at work and college students – people for whom the price of a beer means something.

The controversy is about the trans activist Dylan Mulvaney, who received a specially designed Bud Light can with her portrait on it at her one-year transition day.

Dylan Mulvaney has an extensive platform with ten million subscribers and more than a billion clicks on her videos. She is an actor and comedian and has documented her transition on social platforms. Additionally, she went to the White House to visit Joe Biden and talk about the legislation that has been introduced in some Republican states to limit the rights of transgender people.

Hence, the controversy is about much more than a mediocre cheap canned beer. It is about the American soul – and there is a vast difference in how that should be defined, depending on which side of the political spectrum one belongs to.

In this column, I am not addressing whether kids should be able to transition or which bathroom they can use – I am addressing the fact that adults should be allowed to be who they are. And in some states, transgender people are the target of legislation designed to limit their rights. Laws have been introduced to limit the access to medical care for trans people, changes have been made to change the ability to perform drag shows, and a whole host of other blitheringly hateful measures have made their way into legislation.

In recent years, there has been a great deal of focus on minorities and particularly vulnerable people. There was and is a need to put one’s own privilege and ‘blindness’ under the microscope. That is healthy and good for everyone. But, as with so much else in this country, certain elements have taken what could be a healthy debate to extremes – on both sides of the political aisle. In some schools caucasian children are taught that because of their skin color they are racist, in other schools they are not allowed to learn about other sexualities than heterosexualism. It should not come as a surprise that our kids are confused when even the adults cannot deal constructively with important subjects like these. Recess fights does not only take place in the schoolyard.

So now beer has become part of the WOKE war. Right-wingers boycott Bud Light under the slogan “go woke, go broke”. In the LGBTQIA+-community, Bud Light has been popular for decades, primarily as a response to another beer brand’s discriminatory hiring practices.

But there is hope. Nothing could be better for Bud Light than the massive attention they get these days. It’s win-win: while Anheuser-Bush is laughing all the way to the bank, the LGBTQIA+-community has received worldwide attention all over the world.

Ølreklame får amerikanere op i det regnbuefarvede felt

Det handler om mere end middelmådig dåseøl – det handler om identitetspolitik

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Europe must not fall into Putin and Xi’s trap and withdraw criticism of the war against Ukraine

Russia uses what-about-ism as an excuse for violations of UN rules of war.

The media in the USA, Denmark, and on BBC report that today is the 20 year anniversary for America invading Iraq on false grounds and without a UN mandate.

No, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and yes, the war was terrible and had devastating consequences – for the people of Iraq and to a large extent for Europe.

The US went into Iraq without the approval of the Security Council – so did Putin when he invaded the Crimean peninsula and later Ukraine. Russia´s justification goes like this: the West does not obey by the rules that they claim everyone else must follow for world order.

Still, Europe must not fall into Putin and Xi’s trap and withdraw dritizism.

In the United States, we are seeing cracks within the Republican wing. Certain politicians, including the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who also has presidential ambitions, are agitating for the United States not to be involved in conflicts outside the country’s borders. The well-known policy of isolationism is alive and well.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin is happy to letting the discussion in America unfolds, the agenda fits perfectly with his discourse. We seem to be perfectly capable in the West to get lost in domestic political arguments about the war and completely miss the bigger picture of why or why not to get involved. If the political fractions in America keep quarreling, plays perfectly into his hand – without much effort, America helps him get his work done.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said in early March on his trip to India that if the United States has the right to invade a country, why doesn’t Russia? In one sentence he argued that the West has no right to have a position on the war in Ukraine and is even partly to blame for it given past actions. According to the UN charter, neither the war in Iraq nor in Ukraine was legal – but that does not mean that Russia can justify the war in Ukraine with the US invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.

Totalitarian countries that are ideologically far from the West’s standards when it comes to democracy and human rights have found a rhetorical argument that we must be careful not to accept. Arguments and excuses that actions can be justified based on similar actions done in the past.

It’s like talking to a child who has gotten into a fight at school. “He started it,” says the kid, and thus says that his actions are justified. But it’s not what most of us teach our children – so why do we accept the rhetorical manipulation when it comes from grown-up politicians?

I am terrified of what will come out of the meeting between Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi. China could have cancelled the meeting after the ICC announced that Putin is a wanted war criminal as a response to the thousands of children who have been abducted and taken across the border from Ukraine to Russia. Putin is now wanted for human rights violations in 123 countries.

If Xi doesn’t touch the wrong doorknob, fall out of a window, or eat something poisonous, we’ll see him and Putin on a press conference announcing to the world they have agreed on new trade deals. Trade deals which – as now – means that the “goods” they trade can be taken apart and used in Russia’s warfare against Ukraine. Time will tell, how we in the West reacts to this – and the future will later judge those reactions.

Europa må ikke falde i Putin og Xis fælde og trække følehornene til sig

Rusland bruger whataboutism som undskyldning for brud på FN’s regler om krigsførelse.

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Why did he shoot?

Excommunication from Jehovah’s Witnesses can result in trauma. Maybe that was why a man opened fire in Hamburg last week.

New drug for schizophrenia could meet desperate need for better treatments - leaps.org

We know them from public spaces, we recognize their magazines Watchtower and Awake! They engage with people in conversations at train stations and in public spaces. Dressed in a suit or a rather old-fashioned conservative length skirt they knock on our doors on Saturday mornings to proselytize God’s paradise and Armageddon. Maybe you feel sorry for them, especially their kids, when you see them knocking on door after door, preaching their “joyous” faith.

Most people have formed an opinion of them, but very few know what actually goes on in their churches, their Kingdom Halls, and about the indoctrination that pervades everyday life of these witnesses.

A few months back there was a shooting in the US in a parking lot outside a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thursday, the shootings in and around places of Jehovah’s Witness´ worship came to Europe with a shooting in Hamburg, Germany. Reporters in the US and in Europe have reported the Kingdom Hall shootings and compared them to other right-wing, radicalized perpetrators. But this parallel is problematic. Former Jehovah’s Witnesses who end up as perpetrators of mass shootings do not belong to the same group as racists and anti-Semites who run amok outside mosques and synagogues.

On Thursday, a perpetrator shot and killed six people and injured eight in a Kingdom Hall in Hamburg before turning his weapon on himself.

Violence is never a solution, no matter how much one understands why a person is suffering. Still, I would like to address and offer an explanation to the shootings within the sphere of Jehovah´s Witnesses.

Imagine that you met some incredibly nice people. Maybe you are at a vulnerable state, maybe you are experiencing a personal crisis. You feel lost, rootless, lonely, lacking a sense of purpose in life. A group of people welcomes you into their midst with open arms. You are invited for a cup of coffee, dinner parties, and conversations about the meaning of life. You are invited to talk about your frustrations with humanity, your viewpoints are met with understanding and empathy. Being met with openness and understanding is liberating.

Little by little, almost without you noticing, new ways are introduced to you. When you are invited to a dinner, they say grace before eating. This seems quite harmless, and you are after all their guest plus you want to be accommodating, so you fold your hands and look down at the tablecloth while the man of the house leads his family in prayer. What is said in the prayers may not be entirely to your liking, but you ignore that, there is no reason to spoil the atmosphere. Jehovah’s Witnesses are such nice, well-groomed and smiling people. All their talk of death to unbelievers is far from who you normally think voice such death and destruction-obsessed topics.

You notice that the important presentations in the Kingdom Hall, where you now come regularly, are given by men. Women are on the sidelines with supplementary roles on the podium, but the microphone time goes to the men, who are also heads of the family. You hear of a great war in the last day, when all who do not share the faith will be annihilated. This includes children. It’s scary, but luckily it doesn’t apply to you, because you saw the light and managed to get the right faith before God’s Armageddon war. You learn that Christmas, birthdays, Easter, indeed all holidays do not have God’s favor, so you must stop celebrating them. And you are told that you should cut off all contact with those in your social circle who do not share your views. And you do that, because you want to be part of your new club, right?

And then the trap snaps. The warmth is still there, if you follow the narrow path defined by the religious community. But if you “stumble”, you will be given a warning behind closed doors after a meeting with three serious-looking elders, who will find Bible scripters showing you that you have committed a great sin – something that, of course, must be punished.

The congregation has a certain number of “elders” who know about the actions and behavior of the individual members – this is known to all members, and this naturally means that you do everything you can to follow the sect’s rules. The “elders” have eyes and ears everywhere, because everyone has a duty to report if they see or hear something unregulated. Excommunication hangs over all members as the supreme shame and fear that pervades every action – the consequences are unfathomable, especially since everything now in your social life takes place exclusively within the sphere of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Critical questions are unacceptable and will, if they persist, lead to excommunication. They were welcomed before you became a member, not after. If you get drunk, smoke a cigarette, have sex without being married, swear, lie, cheat on your taxes… the list is long – you will be excommunicated. The path of virtue is extremely narrow.

There are many reasons why one can be disfellowshipped from Jehovah’s Witnesses. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s follow our imaginary example above. When hormones are raging and a baptized Jehovah’s Witness meets someone (of the opposite sex, naturally) he or she develops feelings for, and if they follow that desire and end up having sex, he or she is excommunicated and loses everything.

Everyone treats the excommunicated person as if he or she had a dangerous virus – the only way to get your life back is to repent, do penance and spend a year in the back row of the Kingdom Hall without being allowed to greet your family, without being allowed to participate, and without the right to seek eye contact with anyone. I know this, I went through it myself in the hope that I would be reunited with my family.

Should you have seen the clear light that makes you doubt whether Jehovah’s Witnesses really have The Truth, you are doomed forever. Even the most peace-loving family-deprived person can be driven to the brink of desperation.

Is this what brought the former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg to his action, which tragically cost the lives of members of the religious community and himself their lives?

Hvorfor skød han?

Udstødelse fra Jehovas Vidner kan resultere i umenneskelige traumer. Det var muligvis grunden til skyderiet i Hamborg i sidste uge.

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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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Harvey Weinstein, the renowned Hollywood producer behind #MeToo movement, receives another sentence for sexual assaults

The sentencing of the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is a sign that men’s yearlong exploitation of women ends now.

Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for rape. Women can no longer be treated as sexual objects and exploited with impunity, writes Desiree Ohrbeck.

He is known for movies such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love”. The man whose abuse sparked the MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein, has received another sentence, this time for 16 years, for sexual assault. Scores of women have come forward and told of rapes, humiliations and years of sexual abuse committed by the man with enormous power, a man who could make or break a career in the Hollywood film industry. Today the court in Los Angeles handed down the verdict. The former Hollywood producer already been sentenced to 23 years in another case in New York – also for rape and various sexual assaults.

“Cancel culture is not without its problematic areas – but when it comes to rape and sexual assault committed by men in positions of power, I have no problem seeing their names dragged through the mud

It has been despicable to watch the media mogul on tv. The man who for decades exploited, raped, and manipulated young women was suddenly so frail that he had to use a walker and a wheelchair to get in and out of court. It’s far from the first time we’ve seen men who have taken advantage of their positions of power arrive in huge muscle cars and leave as if they’ve aged several decades the very second their time for reckoning has come – just look at Bill Cosby and various Catholic priests. Every time I watch with rage running through my body. They took advantage of their position, subjecting children and women to physical, psychological and sexual humiliation, and the second they have to face what they did in court, they turn into pitiful men, playing victims without taking responsibility for their misdeeds.

Weinstein’s predatory tactics were the same every time. He used his influence to lure women into private meetings, assault them and, after his abuse, threaten to silence them. He is neither particularly unique nor inventive – men who take advantage of their position of power often share common traits. The list of women who have come forward in the Weinstein cases is long – actors, models, dancers, physical therapists. Instead of admitting and apologizing to the victims, the abuses continue in the courtroom: The charges were either denied or alleged as part of a “transactional relationship”.

“I was excited about my future,” cried one of the witnesses. “Everything changed after the abuse… I became invisible, to myself and to the rest of the world. I lost my identity. I was broken, empty and alone.’

Cancel culture has its problematic areas – but when it comes to rape and sexual assault committed by men in positions of power, I have no problem seeing their name dragged through the mud. This is not much of a reparation for the brave victims who came forward, but does show a change in sentiment and that the judicial system is on their side.

The misogynistic pig was found guilty and was sentenced. The 70-year-old will serve 39 years for sexual assaults – a sentence that came decades too late, but better late than never. Today is a good day for the legal system and for justice – and an expression that women can no longer be treated as sexual objects and exploited with impunity.

Manden bag #MeToo får endnu en dom for seksuelle overgreb

Vigtig strafudmåling til filmbagmanden Harvey Weinstein kan tages som udtryk for, at mænds årelange udnyttelse af kvinder stopper nu.

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Denmark is funding anti-democratic organizations and religious groups

Freedom of expression should never be up for discussion – but government funding should.

A burnt Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. BBC News is showing the extreme right politician Rasmus Paludan on my screen. He couldn’t have timed his happening better. We have seen the play before, now follows an international crisis. The Turkish president Erdogan has already announced that he will be voting no to granting Sweden a NATO membership.

“Finally, we are even, Ritt!” was the title of a bar happening on the extreme left. Recently deceased Ritt Bjerregaard was Mayor of Copenhagen when the police cleared young squatters from a house because the municipality sold the property. The bar event prompted a storm of protests. The Youth Center where the bar event took place receives 2 million Danish Croner in public subsidy each year and some voices want that funding stopped.

“If you take away the financial support for political parties, you risk an American-like system. Trust me, you don´t want the political arena in Denmark to become like the USA, where politics is permeated by economic interests.

Distasteful and reprehensible – is a label fitting for both Rasmus Paludan’s and The Youth Center´s happenings. But they are both legal. And they both receive state funded support.

You can have more than one thought in your head at the same time in this debate. The subsidizes come from the same place, regardless of whether it is a budget in Copenhagen or state-funded support for political parties, associations, organizations, and religious movements.

We must never erode the rights we enjoy in a free democracy where we have freedom of speech. Period. However, this does not mean that we should aid movements whose aim it is to destroy the fantastic democracy Denmark is.

It makes no sense to support religious communities, organizations, and associations that has as a core value to overthrow democracy. To name a few, extreme right- and left-wing groups that work towards a revolution and want to take the fight to the streets, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not believe in democracy, but theocracy which also seem to be the attitude towards democracy some Muslim circles. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately.

So, what about the political parties who do not believe that democracy is the right form of government, parties running for parliament? Do we want to keep aiding them with subsidizes? Both the extreme left and right have groups fighting for a system that is not a democracy. If these political parties are eligible to run, they have met the democratic rules enabling them to work within the framework we have set for the democratic process. These parties should be supported financially, as is the case in today’s Denmark – because the foundation for society is based on the individual citizen’s experience of participating actively as part of our democracy.

If you take away the financial support for political parties, you risk an American-like system. Trust me, you don´t want the political arena in Denmark to become like the USA, where politics is permeated by economic interests. The question then is whether changes should be made to the requirements for running as a party. The more diverse the population in Denmark becomes, the greater the risk of seeing parties running, that do not want to continue the welfare and democratic model, generations before us have built is This topic is a discussion for another day.

We must be vigilant about the values and rights we pride ourselves on, especially when they are tested. We can do this by letting people enjoy basic rights to believe, speak, and think freely – but we do not have to make it easier for them to spew their venom by financially aiding them to practice their anti-democratic views.

Hypocrisy is never pretty. Apparently the hurt is greater when a newly deceased well-known Social Democrat is under fire than when a relatively new religion is mocked. However, one of the things that makes a democracy differ from totalitarian regimes is accepting positions that are not represented by the incumbents and to know that people with far-out opinions have the right to and can express their point of view.

The discussion is not about freedom of speech. In Denmark, and other democratic countries, citizens have the right to oppose political and religious ideas. You can demonstrate, you can be provocative, you can burn the Koran, you can draw Jesus Christ with an enormous erect penis, and you can mock a recently deceased politician, like Ritt Bjerregaard.

How about instead of financially supporting forces that aim to overthrow democracy, we redirect the support to groups and initiatives that work to support democratic values?

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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Time has run out for places like Noma

Showing our distain for the treatment, employees in the culinary world must endure can be done when being mindful of where we put our money.

The closest I’ve come to dining at the world-renowned Danish restaurant Noma was when I visited The Willows Inn on Lummi Island. The chef used to work at the famous Copenhagen restaurant.

Sipping on my sparkling bubbles at an outdoor patio overlooking the Puget Sound, the tranquil atmosphere was abruptly interrupted when an infernal noise erupted. A mixture of shrill shouts, chants, megaphones, and musical instruments handled so effectively that every note that was out of tune reached me and the other guests.

“I’ll go talk to them,” I told my husband. All he wanted was to enjoy an evening without kids, hold hands, and have a private conversation. But he knows me well enough, so he didn´t object.

“What are you protesting against?” I asked them.

The person in charge told me about unpaid wages, inhumane working conditions, non-existent overtime pay and sexual assaults.

We often talk about that night. Not because the food left an impression, it was rather boring and predictable – but because that night we got to talk about what gentrification does to a community and about, and I understand this may come across as a bit of a white woman´s privilege, that we as consumers have a choices to make when it comes showing our values by being mindful of what we decide to spend our money on.

Had I known that the restaurant on Lummi Island with its 900 residents was at the center of a controversial case about pay, gender discrimination and physical and psychological abuse, I would never have set foot in that place – regardless if the food had been world class or not.

This weekend I watched the movie “The Menu” and couldn’t help but think of Noma and other high-ranking Michelin-aiming restaurants known for unacceptable working conditions.

The mood has changed, the winds are blowing in a different direction. It’s no longer cool to brag about having been to Noma – on the contrary, it’s almost considered a distasteful waste of money that could have been spent in so many other useful ways. The Menu points a finger, claiming that dining at a high-end Michelin restaurant is like a metafiction. The clown is the guest who leaves behind thousands of dollars on the restaurant table where he has been taken for a fool all night. Through a nonsense avantgarde description of food, the guest is tricked into believing that what he consumes is art – and so what ends up in the toilet is praised through a dance of words.

It is not benign things kitchen workers at Noma must put up with: odd working hours, being treated like brainless amoebas, physical and psychological abuse, poor pay, etc.

In the film “The Menu” it is clear that the emperor has no clothes in the sense that one of the guests, a woman who does not belong to the one percent of the population who can afford to eat at a fancy Michelin restaurant, lets the chef know that his food is boring and that she would rather have a cheeseburger.

Maybe it’s time to tear down restaurants instead of the people who work in them? And maybe it’s time for us as guests to make choices that don’t show what sophisticated avantgarde-ish we are. Maybe it´s time to stand up for people who´s working conditions we would never ourselves accept?

Tiden er løbet fra Noma

Med pengepungen kan vi vise vores modstand over for den behandling, medarbejdere i den kulinariske verden arbejder under.

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