Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Wonderful Copenhagen — Home of the Head Bashers

Lars Hedegaard, whom regular readers have met numerous times in this space, is the president of the Free Press Society (Trykkefrihedsselskabet) in Denmark. He sent us the following account in an email, and has given us his permission to publish it.


Wonderful Copenhagen — home of the head bashers
By Lars Hedegaard, President of The Free Press Society


If you happen to be a slow starter in the morning, there is no better wake-up call than a nationally disseminated suggestion that somebody kick your teeth in.

Consequently I woke up fast on the morning of November 2 2008 when a friend notified me that a blogger with our national paper of record — Politiken — had proposed just this course of action.

Here are his thoughts:

“Let us imagine 10-15 hooded Islamists lying in ambush behind a community center in Copenhagen to assault a spokesman for The Free Press Society, e.g. Lars Hedegaard. As he arrives, the ‘brave’ assailants jump Hedegaard and his friend (10-15 against 2) and they shout: ‘Let’s smash him’. They kick and beat Hedegaard and his friend in the head until a police car arrives.”

The point the blogger is trying to make is that if a spokesman for The Free Press Society had been attacked, it would have been all over the front pages, whereas an attack on two leftwing activists and politicians in the town of Aarhus a couple of days ago did not get nearly the attention it deserved.

Now, who is this blogger?
- - - - - - - - -
His name is Rune Engelbreth Larsen. He has been on the Politiken payroll since 2004 and has close ties to the paper’s chief editor Toeger Seidenfaden, with whom he has co-authored a treatise on the Danish cartoons. (Rune and Toeger “understood” the Islamist point of view and lambasted our prime minister for not seeking instructions on the practice of free speech from 11 ambassadors from Islamic countries that don’t know what free speech is.)

The Aarhus attack is part of a long history of political violence that has afflicted the city. For years various extremist factions have been slugging it out. It has been the extreme left organized as “The Anti-Racist Network” and before that as “Anti-fascist Action” (AFA) against “White Pride” — originally a group of football supporters. Most of the time the right-wingers have had the upper hand and on the night between Friday and Saturday, a spokesman for the “Anti-racists” was indeed attacked and severely beaten by 10-15 people lying in wait.

Their identity is unknown, for the police didn’t catch any of them, but it stands to reason that they have connections to White Pride.

It should also be mentioned that the victim of the assault and his companion, who managed to escape, are prominent members of the left socialist party, The Unity List, which is represented in parliament.

So Rune Engelbreth Larsen is undoubtedly justified in describing the incident as an assault on politicians whose opinions the assailants detested and as such a serious attack on the very foundations of democracy.

But exactly what has all this got to do with The Free Press Society, which is not a political organization and whose only purpose is the unconditional defense of free speech? Why does our blogger revel in fantasies of free speech advocates getting their heads bashed in unless he entertains the notion that free speech is somehow inimical to “anti-racism” or “anti-fascism”? Or to put it in simpler terms — that there is something inherently “racist” or “fascist” or right wing about the demand for free speech?

Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly what he thinks and this view appears to be widespread on the Danish left.

This is a notion that has been gaining ground since the middle of the 1980s and is closely linked to the lamentable fact that free speech is not permitted when it comes to Islam.

And it is a strange phenomenon indeed. You can say anything you like about Christianity, about capitalism, about gay marriage, about Israel. In Denmark you are even free to say that the Holocaust never took place. It will not make you very popular, but nobody will come and arrest you. You are perfectly welcome to declare yourself a Nazi or say that Buddhism or Hinduism is ridiculous or despicable. That the Earth is flat.

Only Islam cannot be discussed freely. And organizations that insist on treating this religion and its adherents in exactly the same way as they would treat any other phenomenon or group of people are automatically labeled racist or xenophobic or as belonging to the extreme right bordering on fascism.

In fact the very concepts of racism and xenophobia are now rarely used outside the context of Islam and Muslims.

That is why Politiken’s blogger, when racking his brain for a fitting victim on which to exact poetic revenge for the assault on his friends, will come up with an advocate of free speech.

He is right, of course. Free speech will eventually cause any untenable ideology, religion or Weltanschauung to unravel — including his own.

7 comments:

Czechmade said...

I offer strategic thinking again

We might create a coalition of minor European states, highlight more Denmark in detail and the Flemings, the leftists we can easily bring under control with what some commenters erronously and ignorantly call Eastern Europe. We have a whole apparatus to bring them down. Looking on the map from Prague I can greet my co-Eastern Europeans esp. in Rome and Stockholm...

Or New Europe and Old Europe. This one can be reversed if you succumb to the charm of islam...then you will be "New Europe" and we have to think of self defence in refard of the neomongolian danger from the West.

We could also limit the leftists obsession with the US and Washington by making a cultural-political map of US and include specific US states as our partners. Right now we know well US is not a homogenous country. Let us dig deeper. We can easily replace the Whitey concept with something else - parallel more efficient.


The more people know and speak of peculiar qualities of various US states the better. This is the propre way to establish a lasting relationship. US is our European baby, there is no reason to disavow or disown it.

We should focus on a regular basis on what is left of byzantine culture and fill the missing void left after centuries. Again via minor states first : Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria. For ex. Bulgarian lack of antisemitism is worth of deeper study. The Jews prefered to stay there neglecting the exhorting to move to Israel.
Think of it, maybe some clue lays here buried to our further thinking. Another state with no blurred relationship to the Jews is Georgia. Enigmatic?

The project could create something like a electrical circuit paralysing in long term the EU project - establishing a different one based on real citizens tightly bound to their ground. Opposing all megalomanic concepts let it be "proEuropean" EU, "liberated" Russia, "evil by leftist/islamic definition" US, cry baby islamic world etc.

Czechmade said...

More strategic thinking

If you want to win, first reiforce and fortify what you have.

Poland, Czech rep., Slovakia etc. are muslim-free countries. We need Westerners with other mindset different from Soros crowd, EU crowd, leftist crowd to influence our people and gov. You left this ground free for unproportional meddling.

The keys for the US might be states with universities resisting the left, then states with European traditions from our countries of choice. Specific European ethnicity impact in various US states would be the case for deeper studies bringing more points for deeper relationship. Such a thorough study would bring us back to closer relationship to US. Many Americans spend years searching for their specific European roots exploring them and many do not have to search at all never having lost them. I meet them in Prague. Maybe it would be a better way than declaring defence of overall white man culture - this can get easily stuck or attacked...

Denmark and Flemish cause need immediate support. This support will bring cultural and political climate change in countries supporting them.

Afonso Henriques said...

Czechmade,

you're strategc thinking is good as well as a great effort. However, I think you are having some fantasies. You see, untill 2004/2005 I was strongly against the Slavic inundation of the European Union. This mainly because we, Southern Europeans could never compete with you people (smarter, poorer, more "real"). Portugal would be the greatest victim because it is so perepherical and because our "National thinking", how the Nation made money, was radically changed. We were only dependent on the European Union.

I then liked to see that in the end, we cannot have rainning money here but at least we have some good sense from Eastern Europe that can put breaks in the crazy EU advances.

But, how do you create wealth in Eastern Europe? You do not. You are dependent on the European Union as well. Worst, you ARE part of the European Union. You will not fight it if needed because you are too small to pose a fight and they have plans reserved for you.

Also, about the lack of Anti Semitism in Bulgaria, you may want to read this:
As I suspected, the Bulgarians are Humans as well:

"Before World War II (...) The Zionist movement was completely dominant among the local population. (...) After the war (...) most of the Jewish population left voluntarily for Israel".

And Bulgarians have had more to worry about than the Jews, don't you think?

Afonso Henriques said...

PS - you think you can replace Russia. You cannot.
You think small states can pose a fight. They cannot. They will only be crashed if needed.
The more totalitarian the Europen Union gets, more the small states will suffer the most.

And the European Union had the soft power to do whatever they want to Norway or Switzerland. Especially Norway.

There are ony four States in the European Union that matter: The U.K; France; Germany and Italy.

Czechmade said...

Afonso, I do not speak about bull fighting. Your 4 bull countries are in deep shit and we do not have real financial benefits from EU. It is in your imagination.

Because you are intelectually unable to swim in "Eastern Europe" (a non sense, nothing to swim in) you get washed to some imaginary Russian sea-shore, which gives you the satisfaction to reach something. It is not understanding. You read better some history books.

Just the view of 4 alleged bulls turns you into a passive creature.
No wonder you get some humanitarian relief in your imagination of a silly overbull Russia.

Again read some history books.

Afonso Henriques said...

Ok then. Future will tell us better.

Czechmade said...

Read the past, no need to wait for the future, your passivity being calculated/rewarded.