Jacob Christensen

Someone at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights will be in a lot of trouble in the coming days.

The reason? The UNHCHR is celebrating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21 – that’s the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre – and that in itself is all very well.

Things started to go wrong when the UNHCHR commissioned a poster with the headline “Racism takes many shapes” featuring the well-known image of a LEGO brick.

You don’t have to hold a Ph.D. in Political Science to see what the target of the poster is: Not LEGO, but Denmark. Victimising Denmark would also serve to earn the UNHCHR some cheap points in – say – Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Still, LEGO’s management will be furious at the UN for a) using its products without permission and b) implicitly but clearly accusing LEGO of being racist. The lawyers will no doubt be calling relevant persons at the UN tomorrow. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the poster has been taken down from the UN website by Tuesday).

What is more interesting is the collateral damage. Denmark has traditionally been one of the staunch supporters of international law and the UN system but for a number of reasons that support has been vaning during the last decade among the centre-right parties which a) takes a national rather than an international approach to law and b) generally supports the U.S. rather than the UN in international affairs.

Predicting effects of political blunders is difficult but I would expect the shares of the UN to hit an all-time low in the Danish political system in the coming year. Only the Social Liberal Party, the Socialist Party and the Unity List will seriously consider defending the UN and multilateralism after this. The Social Democrats have been badly damaged by the Mohammad cartoon affair and I find it difficult to see the party launching a pro-UN campaign at the present time.