Jacob Christensen

I suspect that quite a few things about Danish EU and foreign policy – especially on the electoral level – make a lot more sense if one considers the (Danish) expression “Die dummen Dänen” (sic!). The pseudo-German line reflects a widespread feeling that other countries basically see Denmark as a joke, best treated somewhat overbearingly and usually ignored. Exactly why the Germans are supposed to be especially condescending is a good question given that relations between Denmark and the Federal Republic have generally been good even if some CDU/CSU politicians and prominent representatives of the Danish People’s Party have at times done their best to sour the mood. Anyway, Denmark has a massive need to assert itself internationally.

But as it turns out, there is one place where you will find people happy to make Denmark the object of crude jokes: Whitehall.

But then again: Are anybody really surprised to learn that the English – Ex-pats living in the Nordic countries and continental Northern Europe excluded. I mean: They did emigrate for some reason – are a bunch of arrogant a***s? The only slightly surprising element of the story is that Lord West is not a member of the Conservative Party but connected to the Labour Party.

PS: Why “Die dummen Dänen” and not “Die dumme Dänen”? Because the expression is unknown in Germany.

Yesterday the Danish Ministry of Education published rankings of Danish secondary schools. The publication is an embarrassment because the Ministry didn’t bother checking for such factors as the social composition of pupils on different schools or the performances of pupils when they entered secondary school (an consequently nothing about the academic process of pupils).

So what the “rankings” tell us is that schools in areas with a high proportion of upper- and upper-middle-class parents and pupils “perform” better than schools in areas with high proportions of working-class or immigrant parents and pupils.

Well, duh.

The “rankings” tells us absolutely nothing about the quality of teaching at the individual schools. For this piece of junk, the people in the Ministry have earned an F. And maybe we should check the exam papers of the people involved in this waste of time. If they haven’t flunked their methods exams, something must be seriously wrong at Danish universities.

Institut for Statskundskab (Department of Political Science) is the oldest PolSci department in Denmark but its days appear to be numbered. As part of the Great Restructuring, the rector’s office announced the new departmental structure which holds two nasty surprises.

But let us first note that the basis of the Grand Restructuring is that “Big Is Always Good”, the same principle which was behind the Great Danish University Merger some years ago. Okay – academia is prone to trench warfare, fiefdoms and to some degree there are administrative savings to be made. I’m not completely convinced, however – my experience is that as departments grow in size, it becomes necessary to add one or two additional layers below the departmental level to make things work.

But here are the two things which offend me:

1. None of the social science departments have Danish names, only English. Obviously a concession to Ã…Ã¥rhus School of Business but also a very clear indication of the massive domain loss suffered by the Danish language. I predict that in ten years time, Danish will no longer be used at university level – and conversely, people educated at Danish universities (like doctors, lawyers and public servants) will not be able to use Danish in their daily work. Or have to take post-graduation courses in order to communicate with people.

Do you see a problem here? I do.

2. “Department of Public Policy and Administration”.

Huh?

Excuse me?

EXCUSE ME???

Public policy and administration is a f*****g subdiscipline of political science, not the opposite. (And for the record: Most of my work has been in the field of public policy and administration). Believe me: “Political Science” is an internationally established discipline – and “brand” to use business-speak – which the university management is sabotaging.

The message sent by the university management is that comparative politics, international relations and political theory have no place in the department. Alternatively, the university management has absolutely no clue about what it is dealing with. Not sure which alternative is the worst.

*Sigh*

Where bureaucratic arrogance meets corporate stupidity is where you will find the Danish Ministry of Education, or “Undervisnings ministeriet” as it wants to be known as. That the minister can’t add two numbers is already known but that the ministry doesn’t care about the basic rules of Danish orthography … well, this is the country where Helge Sander was Minister for Science for nine years, so we should have seen it coming.

Or to put it in Danish

Al tsåb ared etsk alop fatt esso metl ogom åman dele orde neli geso mman harl ystt il

On a more general note, the visual identity of the Danish government on the web and elsewhere remains a complete and utter mess. Obviously the big difference between Denmark and Sweden is that the Danish ministries are not, technically, departments under one Government Office but given that ministries are set up and abolished on a regular basis and parts of portfolios shuffled around, it really would make sense to set up the domain www.regeringen.dk and make the ministries appear as subdomains (e.g. finans.regeringen.dk, udenrigs.regeringen.dk etc).

And finally, I would love to see the Danish government make some kind of systematic policy for publishing white papers, reports parallel to the Swedish SOU and Ds.

Sigh.

The only good thing to come out of this is that Danish and international media do not have to explain why they describe Danish People’s Party as xenophobic.

Wikipedia on the quote “Let them eat cake”.

These days Lyngby Storcenter (if you’re not Danish, it is one of the major shopping malls outside Copenhagen) does not have shops, it has … concepts. Exciting new concepts which are waiting to relieve you of your money. Like in a shop. Except that shops are so 20th Century. Or whatever.

So, now I must remember my shopping concepting list for tomorrow. I wonder what they have turned the supermarket into by then.

Oh, sorry. Did I write shopping mall? Silly me: I meant concept mall.

Re: Okman-gate

Web designers love Flash. I don’t.

DSB’s goal is to provide reliable passenger transport on rail. Well, okay: DSB has messed up the commission and delivery of new long-distance trains in an epic way, the engines on IC3-trainsets catch fire and we shouldn’t even begin to talk about Kystbanen (even if that is technically run by a company called DSBLast – er DSBFirst).

So what to do? Concentrate on providing passenger transport or concentrate on discrediting media which reports on public transport.

Silly me: Discrediting reporters, not providing services for passengers are at the centre of attention for DSB’s management. The people who work at the delivery points and have to deal with frustrated passengers must feel pretty let down.

Here is my proposal: Make Frank Hvam operational head of the Danish armed forces.

Seriously: He is less accident-prone than the clowns running the show at present.