More shameless remarks by Larko

Something is rotten in the land of Denmark

I read this rather small notice in the Danish paper Berlingske Tidende which seriously suggests that everything is not well in the land of Denmark. Apparently, 12 good citizens of Århus decided to organize a demonstration under the slogan “Stop islamizing Denmark”. They chose to have their rally in the suburb of Gellerup which is mainly populated by immigrants, many of them muslims.

Suggesting that Denmark would be islamized does not really make sense, baring in mind that this was the very country that managed to protect a newspaper’s right to publish comics that attended World wide attention. But in a democracy, you do not have to make sense to express your opinion. Everybody has a right to express their opinion, no matter how little sense it makes.

The Århus Police Department made an effort prior to the demonstration to convince representatives of different nationalities living in Gellerup that there was no reason to let themselves be provoked by this small demonstration. The strategy first looked like working well but a small number of local inhabitants started to throw stones at the 12 demonstrators who were very peacefully walking through the residential area while carrying banners against the alleged islamizing of Denmark.

If I see or hear somebody say something that I do not like, I have basically two options. I either argue back at them or I ignore them. But I never start throwing stones at them. No matter how little I like their opinion, they have a right to express it.

The police, of course has the duty of maintaining law and order. They also have the duty of defending the democratic rights of citizens. It is always hard to act to everybody’s satisfaction while attempting to fulfil those duties.

The Århus police apparently made a pragmatic decision to stop the demonstration. They were afraid that the situation would otherwise get out of hand. They protected law and order but they failed to protect the democratic rights of the demonstrators.

If the local inhabitants that were annoyed of the demonstration had chosen to ignore it or counter argue in a legal way, the Berlingske Tidende would propably not have had anything to report about. I would not even be writing this blog post. But they started to throw stones which made it a news story.

They propably never thought that throwing stones was to bring some bad publicity upon them. Their reaction could even be interpreted as a confirmation of the demonstrators’ message that I would not have agreed with without reading about this bizarre incident. Maybe Denmark is being islamized because the police chose to break the demonstration rather than protect the demonstrators.

The message being sent to everybody encountered by opinion they do not like is alarming. All you need to do is to throw stones upon anybody whose opinion you do not like. The police will eventually be there and make those people shut up.

That sort of a message is bad for Denmark and it is bad for democracy. Something is indeed rotten in the land of Denmark.