Mr. Khader answered some questions for reporters in today’s Jyllands-Posten, and our Danish correspondent TB has translated a selection of them.
First, a brief summary of the Danish political milieu during this election campaign:
The dominant party in the ruling coalition is Venstre, led by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Venstre means “left”, but the party is in no way leftist. It has pushed legislation to curb Third World immigration into Denmark, and reduced the incentives for illegals to stop in Denmark. As a result, the “migrants” flowing across the border from Germany into Jutland and on into Sealand tend to continue across the Øresund bridge to South Sweden and add themselves to the already swollen immigrant ghettos in Malmö.
One of more successful measures implemented by the government has been “24-year rule”, a law that prohibits residents from going abroad to marry anyone under the age of 24. The effect has been to stop the common Muslim practice of returning home to take a teenage bride in an “arranged” (read: coerced) marriage.
The Social Democrats are a traditional politically correct European socialist party. It was on their watch that the immigration floodgates into Denmark were opened during the 1990s.
The “Dansk Folkeparti”, the “Danish People’s Party”, is the up-and-coming populist party which takes an unashamed patriotic stance on traditional Danish values, and is the most uncompromising on immigration issues. Like other patriotic European parties it has been tarred with the “neo-Nazi” brush, but there is no basis for this slur. DPP is without any anti-Semites or Nazi sympathizers.
Naser Khader is a former member of “Det Radikale Venstre” (“The Radical Left”, which is left, but not really radical, just dhimmi). He objected to his party’s appeasement of the radical imams, and jumped ship to form the “Ny Alliance”, the “New Alliance”. The New Alliance has upper-crust appeal, drawing from the runny-brie-and-dry-Chablis crowd, the halal hippies, recycling freaks, and advocates of trendy social causes, the people of quality who would never support anything as vulgar as the Danish People’s Party.
The big questions in this election are:
- How many seats in Parliament will the Danish People’s Party gain?
- How many seats will the New Alliance gain?
- Assuming his party does well, which party will Naser Khader turn his affectionate gaze towards when it comes time to build the governing coalition?
Naser Khader has the chance of being the kingmaker in the next Danish government, so all eyes are upon him.
This election is a big deal in Denmark. My Danish contacts barely have time to answer my emails, because they are so caught up in it.
Here’s TB’s translation of some of the questions and answers:
- - - - - - - - -
Dorte Mørck, Pt Cascais, Portugal, asks:
Please name the three most important differences between Ny Alliance and Radikale Venstre.
Naser Khader answers:We support the 24-year rule, because it helps especially the young girls avoid being forced into a marriage. And we think it has had a positive effect.
Basically we are a right-wing party opposite De Radikale. That means among other things that our point of origin is the individual, that we will create the best environment for businesses, research, and innovation.
We don’t see Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a dangerous man [as De Radikale does — TB] that you can’t cooperate with. We think that the VK [current Venstre coalition] government has done a lot of good for the country, but we would like to pull it more to the middle of the Danish parliament [as opposed to the right and the DPP].
Michael Hansen, Berlin, asks:
Is a vote for Ny Alliance a vote for a more un-nuanced anti-Israeli foreign policy?
Naser Khader answers:
No. We are not anti-Israeli and do not want to have an anti-Israeli foreign policy.
TB adds his own commentary:
Is this a Trojan horse speaking?
I don’t know, but of course he is compromised in the sense that much of his family lives in Palestine.
On the other hand — I agree with Kepiblanc about everything he writes about the history of Det Radikale Venstre. They are, and have always been, (in my humble opinion) a ‘bunch of potential traitors’, pardon my French. Especially during the German invasion and the Cold War. (Can it get much worse than that?)
A lot of people have been wondering also why exactly Naser Khader was enrolled in De Radikale Venstre. As Carsten Juste (editor of JP) said a few days before he gave Naser a prize for defending Freedom of Expression during the cartoon crisis (from my memory): “I simply do not understand what Naser is doing in Det Radikale Venstre. He does not belong there. Can’t he see that himself?”
Stay tuned. The fat lady sings on Tuesday.
7 comments:
Very informative post. I agree that the DPP has no Baggage, as even the Usual Suspects don't usually lump it together with VB and several others on their 'hit list'.
Denmark was always a joy to be in; a very diferent atmosphere from Sweden. Danes could spot a Svenske from a block away
Interesting that in a fairly short time there is such a fuss being made about political groups which have been around for years and years.......
I've always enjoyed my visits to Sweden. Possibly it's just the area you visit...
To clarify: I never called Naser Khader a traitor to his new country, Denmark. He is however a Trojan horse in the sense that supporting a legislation where asylum seekers go through several administrative committees and courts and then rejected, nevertheless can stay for many years, work and live 'normally' - thus making it even more difficult to send them back - is not only illogical, but immoral and undermining the law itself. A Trojan horse is made of wood, dumb as a doorknob, but not evil...
Hopefully, Ny Alliance won't get any influence
and Enhedslisten gets less than the required 2 percent, which is what the latest polls suggest (Berlingske Tidende)
Denmark is on the right tracks. I dream of some day when Sweden follows its south-western neighbor.
In the general election of 2010, this will not happen. Although SD will surpass the Swedish 4% treshold, it won't make any difference. Denmark has 2 major right wing parties, and Sweden has 4. A very likely situation would be that one of them starts a cooperation with the Socialist bloc "in order to prevent the foreigner-hostile Sweden Democrats."
Perhaps, and I'm saying perhaps, a "Denmarkization" of Sweden could be reality in 2014. But most certainly not in 2010.
Oh. News today is that the whole issue of the rejected asylum-seekers was a wild goose. Many of them, just about anyone interested, practically live outside the centers already.
Quite a few of them also have quite expensive cars (and in Denmark, cars are 3X as expensive as elsewhere). Noone asks how they make that kind of money. Still, they return to the asylum centers to collect their 'pocket money' (well, cash is cash), collect mail and perform a few duties.
They are not locked up inside. Never were.
Ny Alliance is faltering in the polls. One of their main backers, Asger Aamund, publicly doubts the viability of the party - 3 days before election day.
In case anyone likes to follow Danish news, Jyllands-Posten has a small English language edition here:
http://jp.dk/uknews
What is it going to take for Denmark and the rest of Europe to rise up and send the Muslims back to their own homelands where they belong? There is such thing as a point of no return. If it is reached Europe is lost.
Of course Naser Khader is not a Trojan Horse. He's more of a Sarkozy (only more honest, and not that much self-contradicting). But quite as Sarkozy will enable Turkey's entry into the EU, Khader will enable more (problematic) immigration to Denmark.
To understand Khader we must first look back at what he meant for Denmark and the Danish debate about Islam. Denmark today has the best Western immigration policy (which is still not enough though!) exactly because it had an open, constructive and unprejudiced debate about Islam since some eight years ago. Naser Khader is probably the single most important person in facilitating such a debate. He did many things. His way of strongly criticizing imams (such as Fatih Alev), back then, helped opening up people's minds. He invented the term "halal-hippie" which became one of the greatest antidotes against vacuous anti-racism positions, and took the sting out of "racism" charges. There is a comparison between Khader and Lars Vilks in how they have been pivotal in opening up people's minds, in respective countries. And in how they could each go further, both speaking from a protected position: Khader as an Arab, Vilks as an artist.
However, Khader didn't like all the results that the debate lead to in the ensuing immigration policy. He's no fan of he Danish People's Party. He never gave them the LGF treatment, though. He's always played it fairly and do not call Pia Kjersgaard "Nazi" or "racist". Instead he has been defending her against such charges.
But his affiliation is with universalist Western liberal democracy and not with Danish nationalism. And universalist Western liberalism is what's bringing us down in the first place, so this is where he becomes problematic.
He's the most dangerous threat to the current DPP backed Danish government, because he's able to take votes from them, and than form a coalition with them, excluding DPP. Yes, he's a very real threat in this election, and it's correct to fear his new party. But it's all unfair to call him a Trojan horse. He's a good man, all honest and has always played it fairly. It's the universalist Western liberalism that is the problem here.
It's the universalist Western liberalism that is the Trojan horse!
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