‘I think so,’ I answer, unsure.
‘Did she have a back-up dress? Just handy? In case of emergencies?’
I shake my head in general confusion as the girl gives us a friendly wave and turns to make her way into the church followed by her friends and family. The surprisingly understanding crowd appear to dismiss us, and once there’s no one left to apologise to, we start walking, slowly, back to the road as well.
I have no explanation for what we have just witnessed. It is bonkers. Along the rest of the route home, we notice gazebos and marquees being erected in different neighbours’ gardens. Catering vans seem to be arriving in convoy and people in white chef coats begin to unload trestle tables and large crates of food.
‘Is there some sort of enormous party going on that we’re not invited to?’ I wonder out loud. At this moment, a mobile DJ van drives by as if to confirm my suspicion.
‘I’d say that’s a fair guess,’ Lego Man nods.
As we near home, we spot Friendly Neighbour. I say ‘hello’ and ask if there’s something special going on today.
‘Well yes! It’s confirmation season! You don’t have this where you’re from?’
I explain that while we have confirmations, there isn’t so much of a ‘season’ for them, debutante-style.
‘Oh, I see,’ she says, pityingly, her head on one side in a look I’ve come to recognise as ‘feeling rather sorry for anyone not fortunate enough to have been born in Denmark’.
‘We don’t tend to go all-out on the cars, either,’ adds Lego Man.
‘The cars? Oh but that’s tradition,’ Friendly Neighbour tells us. ‘You have to have a nice car for your special day!’
Of course you do, I think, because everyone knows that Jesus loved a pimped-up limo…
After assuring us that confirmation is ‘kind of a big deal around here’, Friendly Neighbour excuses herself. She’s double-booked and has to wrap presents and get ready for not one but two confirmation after-parties that she’s been invited to today: ‘So there’s a lot to do!’
After-parties? Gifts? Limos? The whole thing sounds light years away from my own experience of confirmation – a quick daub with oil and ash in the local Catholic church, aged twelve, before a ham sandwich at my gran’s. I wore an ill-advised pair of floral culottes along with a matching scrunchie. There were no caterers, mobile DJs, or marquees. And my mum drove the three of us there and back in her navy blue Renault 5 (Turbo, mind).
Back at home, the rest of the morning is spent washing the dog while surreptitiously spying on the confirmation goings-on all around us. Floral displays get delivered. Balloons arrive. Lego Man even thinks he spies a chocolate fountain being wheeled in to the gazebo in our elderly neighbour’s garden for some lucky grandchild or other. Consumed with curiosity and realising that I’m unlikely to score an invitation to attend a confirmation myself (this ‘season’, at least), I get back in touch with cultural expert Pernille, who helped us get to grips with hygge in January, to find out more.
‘Confirmations are huge,’ she tells me. ‘It’s tradition!’ Ah, that old chestnut again. From dressing up and eating special cakes at ‘Fastelavn’ in February to DIY paper doilies and special cakes at Easter and woven hearts, ugly elves, marzipan pigs and special cakes at Christmas, there’s a ritual (and a special cake) to go with everything in Denmark. Traditions and the faithfully repeated customs and behaviours that go with them seem to give Danes a sense of security, stability and belonging, even. Having recently read a study from the University of Minnesota that found having rituals could make things more enjoyable, I can’t help thinking Danes might be on to something. It’s like the hobby clubs, I think, only here it’s not just your evenings and weekends that get planned in advance – it’s your whole year!
Danes find it reassuring to have these things taken care of – and the numerous traditions mean that things are done in the same comforting way, year in, year out. The unknown becomes known. ‘It’s like tradition is our religion,’ says Pernille, ‘something that’s really important to the majority of Danes.’ Confirmation, then, is no exception and comes with its own set of rules and rituals.
‘Most Danes will get confirmed when they’re around fourteen in a big church ceremony with up to 40 other teenagers. It’s a really fun day for kids. Everyone gets new clothes, there are flags everywhere, and it’s often standing room only in the church for friends and family,’ says Pernille. ‘Afterwards, there are a lot of photos taken, a big three-course meal with songs and speeches, then there’s a party with entertainment and loads of presents. Danes get rather materialistic when it comes to confirmation these days – it was a different story twenty years ago when I did it!’
‘Same here!’ I tell her. I recount scrunchie-gate, we both agree that we were horribly deprived and that the youth of today don’t know they’re born. Then I get back to business: ‘And how much gets spent on confirmations in Denmark now?’
‘A lot,’ she replies. ‘With both parents working full-time and a lot of couples divorced these days, there’s often an element of guilt spending involved as well. It’s like, “we can’t spend much time with you but here’s a big party! Here’s a virtual plaster, let’s patch this up!” Plus a lot of Danish parents have a problem saying no. These kids are showered with presents, like it’s a wedding or something.’
She tells me that it’s traditional to give money as a gift – at least the amount that will be spent on entertaining you (including food and drinks). The closer you are to the family, the more you’ll be expected to shell out. If you decide you’d prefer something you can gift-wrap, you’ll still have to dig deep. Items topping teenage wish lists for the soon-to-be confirmed in Denmark include iPhones, laptops, watches, jewellery and holidays, and the average Danish teen will receive confirmation gifts worth 17,000 DKK (£1,980 or $3,200) according to a survey by Nordea Bank. So much for Danish equality, I think. The high streets capitalise on confirmation season with many stores putting up posters that read, ‘Don’t forget, you can exchange your confirmation gifts up until 1 June!’ and advertising confirmation cards, suits, dresses, shoes and, of course, special cakes. Any cold, hard cash gifts get put to use immediately by Danish teens on ‘Blue Monday’. No, not the New Order song, but the day after the church service when the newly confirmed take the day off school to go on a shopping spree. Most buy clothes and gadgets before comparing hauls with their friends and drinking a lot of cider, I’m reliably informed.
‘And what about,’ I hazard, ‘well, you know, the whole “God” bit? Does He (or She) come into this?’
‘Well…’ Pernille starts, in a tone that implies ‘not so much’. Confirmation in Denmark is, I learn, about God confirming His (or Her) promise to the individual – a promise to watch over them that was first made when they were baptised. In other words, a Danish confirmation service is God saying ‘yes’ to you, and not the other way around. Looking at it this way, it doesn’t seem to matter too much whether or not you plan to be a committed churchgoer, or even believe at all.
‘A fear of God isn’t included in the Danish version of the Protestant religion,’ explains Pernille. ‘Confirmation’s not a sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but a rite of passage from childhood to adolescence – so everyone’s included.’ I can almost hear my grandmother tutting in her grave. ‘Most Danish families view confirmation as a coming-of-age celebration. We aren’t a very religious country on the whole. There isn’t much pressure from parents [to be confirmed]. Some families say to their children, “if you don’t have a confirmation, we’ll throw you a big party anyway so you’ll still get presents”. This way, they can make sure the kids only get confirmed if they really want to.’ This gets called a ‘nonfirmation’ and involves just as much fanfare and gifting as the traditional version. Despite this, many teens opt for the church part. ‘I think this is because it’s an exercise in autonomy,’ says Pernille. ‘It’s one of the first choices a Danish teenager can make for themselve
s, and encouraging children to make choices as individuals is considered very important in Denmark.’ More important, it seems, than religion, at least for most Danes.
I take tea with Denmark’s church minister, Manu Sareen, to see if he minds this, but he too seems remarkably relaxed about the whole ‘faith’ business. ‘Danes have an interesting approach to religion,’ says Manu. ‘There aren’t many countries where such a high proportion of the population are members of a state church – we have 4.4 million members out of a population of 5.5 million, and yet most people probably take it for granted and don’t worry too much about their faith.’ Most Danes are signed up at birth, with parents registering their babies at the local church unless they’ve made a special request for a secular procedure. Many feel a civic obligation to pay church tax, up to 1.5 per cent of their salary depending on the municipality, as though this is just another tax that must be paid to keep Denmark the great nation that it is. As a result, the country has a Lutheran state church financed via taxes, but only 28 per cent of Danes believe in any kind of life after death, according to a survey by the country’s Palliative Knowledge Centre (in the US it’s 81 per cent). Just 16 per cent believe in heaven (the figure rises to 88 per cent in the US). A 2014 survey carried out for Berlingske newspaper found that almost every fifth Dane identifies him- or herself as an atheist.
I tell Manu that I find this fascinating. Lots of studies link religion with happiness and researchers from Columbia University found that faith can even ward off depression. Yet despite Denmark’s top spot on the happiness index and its high levels of church membership, it’s actually one of the least religious countries in the world, with low church attendance, secular schools and civic institutions and a population that regularly reaffirms its atheism (or at least agnosticism) in national surveys and polls.
‘Most people don’t use the church much apart from for baptisms, weddings, funerals and at Christmas,’ says Manu. In contrast with the rest of the Christian world, Easter isn’t a big draw in Denmark, with 48 per cent of Danes attaching importance to ‘spending time with family’ over Easter but only 10 per cent mentioning ‘church’ and ‘the Christian message’ according to the country’s official website. Statistics Denmark found that just 3 per cent of the population regularly attend church services in a 2013 survey. As a result of this widespread apathy, congregations struggle to keep numbers up and churches are starting to close countrywide. A few that have changed with the times are still going strong and some city churches now offer ‘spaghetti services’ – mass followed by a bowl of pasta where you can be in and out in an hour. ‘The church can just be there for you in Denmark,’ says Manu. ‘It’s like our welfare system – it’s there to catch you if you need it.’ It’s as though the country’s safety net extends to faith as well, and it’s The Danish Way, rather than regular attendance at church, that keeps the nation so buoyant. Manu assures me that this is what keeps him chipper: ‘I’d rate my happiness at a nine and half out of ten. I’ve got everything I need, I couldn’t ask for any more.’
Psychologists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, found that the better educated and wealthier a nation is, the less likely its population is to believe in a higher being. The Global Index of Religion and Atheism also assessed that poverty was a key indicator of a society’s tendency towards religion – so that poorer countries tend to be the most religious. The one exception to the rule? America. But in the strongly religious USA, despite the country’s wealth, there’s no universal healthcare, little job security, and a flimsy social welfare safety net. This means that the USA has a lot more in common with developing countries than she might like to think. Researchers from the University of British Columbia suggest that people are less likely to need the comfort of a god if they’re living somewhere stable, safe and prosperous. This helps to explain why Denmark and her Scandi cousins Sweden and Norway regularly rate among the most irreligious in the world. Scandinavians don’t have to pray to a god that everything’s going to be OK – because the state has this sorted. In other words, Danes don’t have so much left to pray for. And because there isn’t a big culture of churchgoing, the next generation are even less inclined to turn out in their Sunday best for mass. Research from St Mary’s University in the UK found that there was only a 3 per cent chance that a child would be religious if neither parent was.
But because nature’s not crazy about a vacuum, there’s still an intrinsic human need to look for answers to the big, thundering life questions that religion attempts to ‘clear up’ for believers. For Danes, it’s almost as though this need is met by the sense of shared values; a close, homogenous society, and a semi-religious, unquestioning faith in The Danish Way.
Manu is also the Minister for Gender Equality and so comes at church matters from a relatively progressive point of view. ‘It is a funny combination, gender equality and the church,’ he admits, crunching on a carrot stick from the array of crudités that have been set before us as an unusual accompaniment to morning tea. ‘Gender equality is about being pro-human rights, but sometimes the practice of religion goes against human rights, for instance in the case of abortion. If there’s conflict, I just have to take each situation as it comes.’ Manu tested this strategy when pushing for Denmark’s blasphemy law to be abolished, writing an op-ed in Denmark’s Politiken newspaper arguing that: ‘free speech and human rights are far more important than the danger that someone might feel offended if their religion is subject to mockery and derision’.
Because most Danes don’t take their religion too seriously, they’re surprised when others do (see ritual slaughter-gate from April). There’s been freedom of religion in Denmark since the constitution was signed in 1849. Since then, everyone has been allowed to practise his or her faith, and discrimination is against the law. All Danish residents are free to wear religious symbols and dress, from the crucifix to the Hijab, in public spaces as well as in parliament and schools. Islam is the biggest ‘minority religion’, making up 3.7 per cent of the population (according to the US Department of State). There are 22 approved Islamic communities in Denmark with the right to deduct their financial contributions to a religious community from their taxable income. Everyone seemed to be rubbing along pretty well until 2005 when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten famously printed twelve cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. This sparked international controversy as well as violent protests, a boycott of Danish goods in several countries and the burning of the Danish embassy in Damascus and its consulate in Beirut. The fallout mystified many Danes, who couldn’t understand why anyone was getting so het up. As The Viking put it: ‘They were just cartoons in a paper that most people would throw in the trash anyway…’
But conservative types keen on clamping down on immigration used the incident to launch a campaign ‘defending Danish values’. Denmark’s far-right Danske Folkeparti gained supporters as a result and has since called for a halt on immigration. The party has been growing steadily ever since and won nearly 27 per cent of the vote in the 2014 European elections, doubling its number of MEPs.
But these aren’t the views of the majority. Social Democrat PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt has managed to hold on to the reins of the country since 2011 and present a strong front for the traditionally liberal nation’s Scandinavian ideals. In her last New Year’s Eve speech, Denmark’s Queen Margrethe took the opportunity to caution the nation about the perils of being small-minded and urged respect for those from other cultures. ‘Denmark is a country with many different people,’ she said. ‘Some have always lived here, some have come here. But we are a part of the same society and therefore we share the same conditions, both big and small, good and bad.’
Danes have a reputation for being a tolerant nation, as happiness economist Christian told me right at the start, and in 2013 Denmark was the focus of celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the 7,000 Jewish lives saved during Nazi occupation. The rescue operation to smuggle Danish Jews to safety over
the border to Sweden was almost completely successful with 90 per cent saved (to put this in perspective, only 30 per cent of Holland’s 140,000 Jews and 60 per cent of Norway’s Jewish population survived). For Danes, standing up to Nazism by championing democracy – an idea totally incompatible with anti-Semitism – was considered crucial.
Perceived tolerance is a great source of national pride. I find that the Danes I meet need the merest of excuses to come over all patriotic about their country. Being born in Denmark is seen as incontrovertibly fortunate and even having a tenuous association with the nation is perceived as A Good Thing. Lots of companies incorporate ‘Dan’ in their business’s name, because being Danish here is equated with being generally fabulous and of a high quality. I join a Facebook group dedicated to recording this phenomena and finding as many ‘Dan brands’ as possible – 357 at the last count – including DanAir, DanFish, DanCake, DanDoors and my personal favourite, DanLube.
I start to wonder whether all this patriotism might also be having an impact on the nation’s well-being. Could loving your country and continually reminding yourself of what a fabulous place you come from contribute to higher life satisfaction? I have a scout around and discover that feeling good about your country has been scientifically proven to make you happier, according to research published in Psychological Science. A European Values Study also found that the greater one’s sense of national pride, the more likely you are to report higher levels of personal well-being. ‘So no wonder the Danes are happy,’ I tell Lego Man. ‘Nearly 90 per cent of them say they’re either “proud” or “very proud” of their country,’ I read to him from my laptop. Another piece of research from the International Social Survey Programme asked how many Danes agreed with the statement, ‘My country is better than other countries’. A staggering 42 per cent of Danes answered ‘yes, my country is better’. In contrast, other liberal countries with strong welfare models reported far lower figures, with only 7 per cent of Dutch people thinking their country was superior and 12 per cent of Swedes inclined to shout about their homeland.
The Year of Living Danishly Page 12