Jacob Christensen

091209 – dias

I’ll probably kick myself for doing this (scribd uses a flash-based code) but the slides are reference to a presentation about unemployment policy in Denmark in the 1950s.

Oh, I almost forgot: I made a short trip to Flensburg (or Flensborg, as we call the place) with some of my colleagues. To most Danes, Flensborg has meant cheap beer and alcohol and cigarettes at the border supermarkets but the town has a long and – in the 19th and 20th centuries – turbulent history.

If nothing else, the Gulf Times got some media time in Denmark for this article quoting Yusuf al-Qaradawi:

The rest of Europe may perhaps follow suit as indicated by Denmark. It has hailed this vote and announced that it will make a similar move.

So, what to say?

1. Qaradawi has a political agenda. The paper should have noted that. Now, the paper is seen as supporting Qaradawi without reservations.

1a. The Gulf Times is published in Qatar which is categorised by Freedom House as “not free” with regard to political freedom and freedom of the press. So, is this the government of Qatar speaking?

2. The Gulf Times might be excused for not knowing the finer details of the Swiss and Danish constitutions (which are really different when it comes to referendums), but if the news desk had been worth its money, it would have noted the following:

2a. Denmark as a state has not taken any stance on the Swiss referendum. Gulf Times could have contacted the Danish Foreign Office for information. Alternatively, you could have checked Politiken’s news in English section. I think it is safe to say, that Politiken is not unnecessarily positive towards the Danish government and the VKO majority.

2b. Did some Danish parties and politicians make positive comments about the Swiss vote? Yes: The Danish People’s Party (well, duh) and (more troubling) Søren Pind, the foreign policy spokesman of the Liberal Party. Needless to say, Pind makes use of the “I don’t support a ban, but…” rhetoric. I should note that the Liberal spokesman on immigration rejected any ideas of a ban on minarets or other architectural symbols.

Via Twitter the – rhetorical – question “how do you say this in Danish?” reached me. “This” was astroturfing, which is the not uncommon practice where companies or other established interests try to create popular legitimacy by setting up or funding organisations that look like ordinary grassroots organisations.

I doubt if the term astroturf with reference to artificial grass is generally well-known in Denmark, if only because top-level football (that’s soccer to you yanks) is played on real grass in this country, but we do talk about kunstgræs. So maybe astroturfing could be kunstgræsrødder in Danish? After all, the practice of astroturfing is not that uncommon: As politicians have learnt, the activities of one or the other organisation of patients or people suffering from some kind of disorder have over the years turned out to be heavily subsidised by medical companies, even if completely artificial organisations are very rare.

Oh, and kunstgræsrødderne are coming this way.

In case anybody wondered, all parties survived Tuesday’s “Exam” quite well. I doubt if many votes were moved but it was a fun and well-attended arrangement. When people have the chance to meet a political leader, they will take it.

So, were there any surprises? Well, not really. As we concluded, Vestager is an intelligent politician, she’s very dedicated to her work and definitively generally well-prepared.¹ We should, however, also remember that she was playing on her home ground, i.e. in front of an audience of academics and others with a higher education. Even if they wouldn’t vote for the Social Liberals, the audience would still get what the party’s basic approach to politics is: A highly analytical one.

We might have stressed this aspect further and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of this approach as well as the possible conflict between the party’s very analytical stance on the one hand and its representation of the interests of a certain segment of the society (urban, highly educated, etc).

Okay, this was my first attempt at Being Jeremy Paxman, so a bit of training might do the trick.

1. This is not a royal “we” as I shared the honours with my colleague Lene Rimestad [↩]

Cibelle gives Gilberto Gil’s “Punk da Periferia” the works. Now if only all deconstruction could be so stylish: