THE VIKINGS
Never recalled for their delicate touch or flowery names (such as Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth), ninth- and tenth-century Vikings (Scandinavians pronounce it “Wikings”) were remarkable in their ability to sail nearly anywhere, plunder without reservation, and establish popular trading posts. Swedish Vikings headed east along rivers, setting up Russia’s Novgorod and Ukraine’s Kiev, and marauded across Constantinople and Persia.1 Danish Vikings headed west, sacking Ireland and roping England into the Danish Empire; they so frequently attacked France that the king finally handed them the French northwest coast, now called Normandy after the Norsemen. Vikings of Norwegian extraction colonized Iceland and Greenland and first touched down in Vinland—North America—six centuries before Columbus set sail. The Vikings were so brutal that they threatened to wipe out Western European civilization in the tenth century,2 but their legacy lives on: trading posts they established are today bustling cities, and their divinatory rune stones are still being pulled out of cloth bags and deciphered. Even Viking god Odin is making a comeback in Nordic pagan circles.
The collective fretting about immigration isn’t the only thing that binds them. Except for Finns (who have more in common with Estonians), Scandinavians are linked by similar languages, ethnic roots, and history. All (including Finland) are wealthy, nearly homogenous social welfare states, and are predominantly Protestant—although less than 5 percent typically attend church. All are heavily militarized, due in part to fears of Russia. They share the same cross design on their flags (but in different colors), and they madly celebrate the summer solstice in days-long midsummer festivals.
NORDIC PERKS
Living in the most northern region of the world does have its benefits—among them meteorological oddities. In the farthest regions of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, one can glimpse the world’s most spectacular views of aurora borealis—waves of phosphorescent lights that streak across the skies. The northern extremes also have the most dramatic lighting. In winter the sun doesn’t come up for weeks, and in summer it doesn’t set for weeks in these “lands of the midnight sun.” Being dominated by weather, Scandinavians emphasize the comfort of their homes—and holidays are times of days-long feasts. And once the sun makes its appearance, no group of people is happier as they set out on boats, set up in lakeside cottages, and transform small islands into concert sites and partygrounds. The highlight is June’s summer solstice, when they dance around maypoles, pluck special flowers for love, eat barrels of fish, and drink copious amounts to celebrate the return of warmth.
Despite their commonalities—including the fact that their residents speak gorgeous English—don’t mistake Scandinavians for one big happy family sitting around the fireplace knitting beautiful mittens. They battled each other fiercely for centuries—and rivalries still play out. The different countries all have distinct identities and plenty of differences, starting with Finland being a republic while the others are monarchies. Other contrasts:
Denmark entered the European Union in 1973, Sweden and Finland waited for twenty-two years, and only Finland uses the euro; Norway refuses to join at all (and isn’t covered in this book)
Only Denmark and Norway are NATO members
Sweden is now the most open to asylum seekers; Denmark is the most closed
Formerly liberal Denmark is still the most easygoing about alcohol
Finland used to be part of Russia
Norway is the richest, thanks to her North Sea oil fields
CHANGING PARTNERS
The Nordic countries weren’t always separate entities; for ages, they were part of Denmark or Sweden—Finland and Norway are very recent creations. In 1397, the areas that are today’s Scandinavia united as the Kalmar Union, dominated by Denmark. That lasted until 1523, when Sweden broke away, taking today’s Finland with her—and thereby launching a centuries-long war with the Danes; Denmark latched on to Norway for the next three centuries. Russia grabbed Finland from Sweden in 1809 (Finland shook loose in 1917); Sweden was so upset by the loss that she snatched Norway, which finally wriggled free in 1905. The Danish territory of Iceland, taken by Vikings in the tenth century, became entirely independent in 1944, and Greenland, self-governing since 1979, is still trying to give Denmark the full heave-ho.
Perhaps the best way to distinguish the different Scandinavian nationalities is to note where their citizens feel most at peace. Swedes find happiness in a sailing boat bobbing off the southern islands. Danes find it laughing in the pub (called kro) while drinking a bitter (beer) or Gammel Dansk (old Danish schnapps). Finns are happiest in their home saunas, from which they run naked into the snow.3 Norwegians are most joyful atop a mountain, preferably alone.
13. DENMARK
(Danmark)
The Bridge
FAST FACTS
Country: Kingdom of Denmark; Kongeriget Danmark
Capital: Copenhagen (pronounced ko-pen-HAYG-en)
Government: Constitutional monarchy
Independence: Constitutional monarchy established 1849
Population: 5,451,000 (2006 estimate)
Head of State: Queen Margrethe II (1972)
Head of Government: Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2001)
Elections: Monarchy is hereditary; prime minister appointed by monarch
Name of Parliament: Folketing
Ethnicity: Scandinavian, Inuit, Faeroese, German, Turk, Iranian, Somali
Religion: 95% Lutheran—less than 3% attend church; 3% Roman Catholic; 2% Muslim
Language: Danish; English widely spoken; also Faeroese, Greenlandic, German
Literacy: 99% (2003 estimate)
Famous Exports: Carlsberg beer, Lego, anti-Islamic comics
Economic Big Boy: Moller-Maersk (freight company); 2004 total sales: $26.55 billion1
Per Capita GDP: $33,400 (2005 estimate)
Unemployment: 4.4% (December 2005 Eurostat figure)
EU Status: EEC member since 1973
Currency: Danish krone
Quick Tour
She’s delightfully nonjudgmental, she’s pragmatically liberal, she’s joyfully open—oh wait, that’s old Denmark. Over the past five years, Danmark, the laid-back land where royals walked about town without guards and locals rarely locked their doors, has pulled a shocking about-face, swinging sharply to the closed-minded, finger-pointing, xenophobic right. Now the charming country that was long Scandinavia’s most open-minded (she was the world’s first to legalize gay marriage), is now the most uptight and downright racist of the region—so much so that the UN formally condemned her recent rabid political campaigns. Once known as the castled fairy-tale land of Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark is now best known for the nightmare she triggered when the most popular daily, Jyllands-Postens, printed cartoons denigrating Muslim prophet Muhammad. Muslims from Pakistan to Nigeria rioted in response, some attacking Danish embassies. And those comics were but one illustration of how sweet little Denmark has alarmingly changed.
The smallest of Scandinavian countries, Denmark likes to claim it is actually the European country with most land—and it is, if you add in Greenland, still a Danish territory.
To understand what is so rotten about what’s happened to Denmark lately, it’s best to understand what the lovely country until recently was, and in some ways still is, which is to say a smattering of 400 whose island denizens appeared more like a homogenous family 5 million strong. Danes speak what they regard as a secret language, barely understood by other Scandinavians, and all it takes is a request from their beloved queen—for instance not to litter—for Danes to honor it. Whether in a fishing village of thatched cottages or in Copenhagen, the elegant capital of spires where the pavements nearly glisten, life is usually so carefree that Danes leave their swaddled infants unattended in baby carriages on the sidewalk when they dart into a shop.
Copenhagen: Flat but high-minded, previously
Until recently, Danish life was so lacking in topics for outrage (beside
s the bingeing Swedes who come over and vomit in their streets) that Danes still brought up the 1963 scandal surrounding the visit of American actor Danny Kaye (star of the movie Hans Christian Andersen), who visited the Hans Christian Andersen Museum and caused a huge hullabaloo when he jumped into Hans’s bed. “Yes, jumped right in his bed!” they’d repeat indignantly, likening it to the “horror” an American would feel if a Dane jumped into Lincoln’s four-poster.
Danish life has long been (and continues to be) a festive affair. Christmas holidays kick off when Carlsberg makes rounds across the country, delivering kegs of free beer, Danes wander through candlelit squares or twinkling Tivoli Gardens sipping gløg—hot spiced wine with slivered almonds—before settling in for stellar Danish cuisine, perhaps duck cooked with cardamom, brandy, and prunes, and polishing off (or starting) their feasts with icy cold, caraway-spiked akvavit.
Nothing better captures the lavish art of Danish dining than director Gabriel Axel’s masterpiece Babette’s Feast.
In the summer, Danes frolic along gleaming island waters while glowing bonfires dot the white-sand shores, and a thousand festivals are crammed into the few gloriously warm days. And any time of year, Danes pack into grand high-ceilinged cafés, chic clubs, and cozy pubs, tossing back schnapps with their beers and celebrating a worry-free lifestyle that allows them to take off several years—with pay—to launch new careers.
Typically the most daring of the Scandinavian bunch, Denmark was the first to leap into the European Union and NATO, and she was the first European country to wholeheartedly embrace green energy. Giant, high-tech windmills spin across the countryside, generating wind-powered electricity, and Danes built Europe’s first large-scale solar energy plant; biomass is another power source, and steam from industrial plants is piped into villages to heat homes.
CHRISTIANIA
The best-known symbol of Danish tolerance is Christiania—an “alternative lifestyle experiment” on the outskirts of Copenhagen. In 1971, students, artists, and hippies moved into an abandoned army fort, transforming it into a self-sufficient eighty-four-acre village with houses, stores, gardens, and restaurants, complete with “Pusher Street,” where residents openly sold hash. Initially determined to shut it down, the government instead decided the community was a “social experiment” and, in 1987, turned the land over to the “Christianites,” requiring only that they pay taxes. The alternative community of 1,000 became a source of pride to many Danes as an illustration of their open-mindedness, and was a huge tourist draw. An icon of Danish liberalness, Christiania is now under attack. Shortly after the right-wing government marched into power in 2001, it banned hash sales and announced plans to renovate the lake-dotted hamlet and turn it into a condominium complex. Thousands of Danes marched across Copenhagen in protest, but the push is on to bring a screeching halt not only to Pusher Street but to the whole experiment.
The progressive country began shifting right in the 1990s, when thousands of Bosnians and Somalis flooded the country, seeking refuge from wartime strife—and bringing the number of Muslims to about 210,000, or 4 percent of the population. Now, about 8 percent of Danish residents are immigrants (although that figure includes other Scandinavians). In 1999, the government set up an integration and language teaching program; until then, most immigrants didn’t learn Danish. Thus many—about 90 percent of Somalis, and half of other immigrants—had remained jobless. Immigrants drained welfare funds by some 40 to 50 percent, according to right-wing groups, who added that statistics showed that immigrants committed the most crime in Denmark. Impish social worker Pia Kjaersgaard began screaming about the refugees, but initially most Danes rolled their eyes at her anti-immigrant tirades; in 1996, however, the newly formed anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party made her its head. Three years later, a fourteen-year-old Danish girl was locked in a shed and gang-raped by immigrant teenagers. Seven of the boys were found guilty in February 2000. But the group was sentenced to only nine months’ imprisonment; since they’d already been imprisoned for that long, they walked free from court. Danes were outraged—and Kjaersgaard made it her cause célèbre. In following weeks, swarms of anti-immigration protesters took to the streets, their marches sometimes turning violent—a most un-Danish phenomenon. The September 11 attacks gave the final push to full-strength xenophobia. Prime Minister Poul Nyrop Rasmussen called a snap election, believing the panicked country would stand behind him. He was dead wrong: opponent Anders “Fogh” Rasmussen (no relation) correctly read the mood and campaigned with the slogan “Time for a Change” plastered across a photo of the convicted rapists walking out of court. Fogh Rasmussen took the election in a landslide. Another big winner: Pia Kjaersgaard, whose anti-immigration Danish People’s Party suddenly made sense to 12 percent of the Danish population, making it the country’s third most powerful party. In a flash, Danes were looking at the most conservative government in seventy-five years.
“When she retires, Muslims will be a majority in Denmark,” reads the tagline under the photo of a wide-eyed blond child in a 2001 political poster for the Danish People’s Party. Another poster showed a picture of Danish girls next to a gang of bloody Muslims. “Denmark now,” ran the caption under the girls; “Denmark in ten years,” ran the caption under the gang. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees was so horrified by the racist campaigns that it formally condemned them.
Doors are slamming shut to asylum seekers, undesirables are being deported, minority populations are targets of scorn, and a new law states that Danes can’t marry foreigners unless they are at least twenty-five years old—and even then they have to plunk down $8,000 as a deposit against any future welfare payments. The country that was once synonymous with “evolved” and “egalitarian” is now best known for Pia Kjaersgaard’s “shrill squawking” and comments such as “Muslims have a taste for committing mass rapes”—none of which helps to solve very real problems.
Fogh Rasmussen sent in troops for the American 2003 Iraq invasion and cleanup.
Denmark has been catching plenty of flak, not only for now having the world’s most restrictive immigration policies, but for what smacks of inhumane treatment. In 2001, for example, the government temporarily boarded 300 refugees in container units—boxes used for shipping—providing only eleven bathrooms to share.2 The United Nations High Commission for Refugees was only one agency that swiped at Denmark for that move. The Fogh Rasmussen government points out that Muslims are free to practice Islam, that Denmark has over 120 mosques and prayer rooms, and that the country has Muslim cemeteries and has passed antidiscrimination laws. But Denmark appears to be dividing—as evidenced in a new trend for white Danes to head to private schools. It remains to be seen where the dust from this major fallout settles.
History Review
One word aptly describes Danish history: “shrinkage.” Denmark, now the tiniest of the Nordic countries, was once the largest. The alpha dog behind the fourteenth-century collective Scandinavian kingdom—the Kalmar Union—Denmark lost Sweden (and Finland) in the sixteenth century, lost Norway 200 years later, and lost Iceland sixty years ago. Just as painful: when German state Prussia snatched the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, Denmark lost a third of her territory and almost half her people—most of them ethnic Germans. That geographical severing, however, resulted in a country that was ethnically homogeneous, a white-bread uniformity that continued for over a century.
A mighty naval power during the seventeenth century, Denmark has since had problems with her navy: she kept losing it. First the British ran off with it during the Napoleonic Wars in the 1800s. Then in 1940, when Nazis occupied Denmark, Britain snatched it again—making off with half the Danish merchant navy. In 1943, the remaining Danish fleet ended up underwater; rather than serve Nazis, the Danish navy scuttled its ships.
DANISH STAR: TYCHO BRAHE (1546–1601)
Nobleman Tycho Brahe was a rash, passionate sort. In his youth, he dueled with a fellow student over a math formula, losing part o
f his nose in the fight. (Being wealthy, he bought a gold prosthesis, but it frequently fell off.) When he saw a supernova several years later, he became hooked on astronomy and talked King Frederik II into building him a deluxe hilltop observatory, Uraniborg, where he spent years tracking heavenly bodies and filling notebooks with Virgoan detail. The next king found his celestial studies boring, so Brahe huffed off to Prague to become Royal Mathematician for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and hired a German assistant named Johannes Kepler. The assistant stayed at home, poring over planetary studies, but Brahe was often dragged out to party with Rudolf; he died after one particularly rough night of drinking. For centuries, historians believed that the cause of Brahe’s death was that his bladder had burst. Recent DNA tests show, however, that Brahe died by accidentally poisoning himself while treating a bladder malady: fittingly, the astronomer was killed by mercury.
Brahe died thinking that the universe was geocentric, but in his vastly complicated model, the planets revolved round the sun. Kepler used Brahe’s notes to illuminate the motions of heavenly bodies, becoming far more famous, and accurate, than his boss.
Neutral during the First World War, Denmark stayed clear of the action, but neutrality didn’t help in World War II. Hitler wanted Scandinavian iron ore and threatened to flatten Copenhagen; the monarchy allowed Nazis to come in without a fight, in exchange for remaining an independent, albeit occupied, country. Food and industrial goods were shipped off for the German war effort, but Nazis generally treated Danes well, as Hitler admired their Aryan good looks and planned to make Scandinavians part of the German gene pool. Jews were discriminated against, but were not forced to wear stars and were somewhat protected under the collaborating Danish government—at first. That soon changed. Resistance flared up in 1941, and by 1942, when Danish politician Christmas Møller escaped to England and broadcast calls to throw out Nazis, acts of sabotage and riots kicked up all over the place; Hitler was livid that the Danish government refused his calls to kill resisters. Fearing that Denmark was slipping away, Hitler blew his top when he was snubbed (he thought) by King Christian X. When the Führer sent the monarch a birthday greeting, the king telegrammed back three words—“my utmost thanks”—which struck Hitler as curt. Shortly after the so-called telegram crisis, Nazis booted the king and took over Denmark’s government. Plans to round up Jews, however, were thwarted when Danish resistance spread the news in advance. Danes helped thousands of Jews flee the country and escape to neutral Sweden.
What Every American Should Know About Europe Page 30