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Denmark newest party, Ny Alliance (“New Alliance”), has continued its turbulent history by excluding one of its parliamentary members Jørgen Poulsen. The party, which originally got 5 mandates in Danish parliament at the national election in November 13, 2007, is down to only two members since three of the members of the original parliamentary group have now left the party.  One of the former members of Ny Alliance, Malou Aamund, the daughter of a highly profiled Danish businessman, joined Venstre, Denmark’s liberal party, when she left the New Alliance in early February this year. In this way, the exclusion of Jørgen Poulsen shall be seen as the last step in a process of dissolution and turbulence characterizing the brief history of the new party.

Jørgen Poulsen was excluded on June 24, 2008 from the parliamentary group of Ny Alliance (New Alliance) by the party-leader Naser Khader because of what Khader called his illoyality to the party line. Jørgen Poulsen was born in Branderup in “Sønderjylland” (the southern part of Jylland) in 1943. At the time, he joint Ny Alliance, he was the director of the Danish Red Cross and a celebrity-name within the Danish nation. Jørgen Poulsen was compelled by his dislike for the Danish People Party and a part of his trouble with Ny Alliance was that the party changed its attitude toward the Danish People Party and didn’t want to follow such a confrontational line, which was essential for Jørgen Poulsen.

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Jørgen Poulsen was excluded because he had opposed the party’s political platform. Jørgen Poulsen has lately at various occasions, expressed himself in direct contradiction to the party line. The leader of the New Alliance, Naser Khader, explained to the press that he had lost confidence in Jørgen Poulsen. “If we create uncertainty about the party line, Khader said, “then it will become impossible to regained confidence among the voters.” Khader explained that the party had lost faith in the idea that Mr. Poulsen would be able to close rank and fight for the party-platform. “We are working very hard to regain the confidence of the votes,” Khader explained and we cannot allow confusion and doubt about what is the party’s new policy line. “Jørgen Poulsen agrees on something at our group meetings, and then he goes out and say the opposite or only give half-hearted support… we can no longer accept this behavior,” Khader explained. Khader was particularly displeased about an interview Jørgen Poulsen gave to the Danish Newspaper Berlingske Tidende last Sunday. Khader was also displeased with a speech; Jørgen Poulsen gave under New Alliance’s party conference, where Poulsen compared the Danish People Party with the Nazis. This is a rhetoric, which the party cannot support, Khader maintained. Khader rejected the notion that the exclusion of Jørgen Poulsen was a blow for the party. “It is no blow for the party, Khader said, it is a necessary step, which will give us an opportunity to accomplish things.”

The three original founders of the party, Ny Alliance. From left to right: Naser Khader, Gitte Seeberg and Anders Samuelsen.

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A characteristic situation from the happy, early beginning of the Ny Alliance, 2007.

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The New Alliance, which was born on May 7, 2007, emerged with a kind of two dimensional agenda; A) first it became a rally point for center-voters who was inclined to vote on Det Radikale Venstre (a center-left party) yet at the same time wanted a pragmatic center-oriented policy that engaged the liberal-conservative government. B) The party declared itself in an all-out opposition to the Danish People Party, which is a social-conservative party with a strong profile on the issues of Islam and “integration”-policy. The central declared goal of the New Alliance was to isolate the Danish People Party by breaking its monopoly as a support-base for the liberal-conservative government. A strong election result for New Alliance would be the way to accomplish this task.

Pia Kjærsgaard, the leader of the Danish People’s Party during a conversation with a voter on the street. Pia Kjærsgaard’s party, a patriotic social-conservative party was the key target for Naser Khader’s new Alliance, when it was created. The reason was that the Danish People’s Party, as the supporting party for the liberal-conservative government, was standing with the key to the power-balance in the Danish parliament. If the Danish People’s Party could be weaken, Ny Alliance would stand strong in later negotiations with the liberal-conservative government.

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Pia Kjærsgaard speaks with a young Muslim on the street during the election campaign in 2007.

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In the beginning the new party emerged as a split-off group from Det Radikale Venstre consisting of Naser Khader and Anders Samuelsen. They were further reinforced by Gitte Seeberg who had been a member of the Conservative People’s Party and represented this party in the Europe-parliament. These three people, Khader, Samuelsen and Seeberg defined the party’s first public image and became the center of the media storm that followed. The motivation for Naser Khader in initiating a new party was clear; he was frustrated by his old party’s refusal to embark on a positive dialogue with the liberal-conservative government. The majority of his old party, Det Radikale Venstre, was traditionally inclined toward the Social Democrats, while Khader hoped for an engagement with the right. Khader was always in opposition to his own party. He never accepted what he regarded as the naivety of his own party on the issue of immigration and fundamentalist Islam. In an article featured on The Hudson Institute, (dated February 4, 2008), Naser Khader explains his original decision to leave Det Radikale Venstre, “My reasons for leaving the Social Liberal Party were many. I had long been frustrated by the naiveté among my fellow party members, especially during the cartoon crisis. At lot of them condemned the Jyllands-Posten newspaper for printing the cartoons, but had a hard time condemning the overreaction to the cartoons in the Middle East. My former party represents typical European intellectual cultural relativism at its worst. Their general view goes like this all views are equal. … Today, I have become averse to cultural relativism. I find it old-fashioned and immature. I call those who hold such views for halal hippies and do no longer believe that all values are equal. Some values are better than others, and democratic values will always stand above the rest. … My own party minimized the problems with the Muslim Brotherhood in Denmark and in world. Their view was that if we speak out too loudly about the problems with the Brotherhood, we will instead find ourselves supporting the right wing’s point of view. These naïve people did not and will not differentiate between Islam as a religion and the politics of Islamism.” During the Muhammad crisis Khader criticized Marianne Jelved (the then chairman of Det Radikale Venstre) for criticizing the Danish Primer Anders Fogh Rasmussen. During a group-meeting in the party on April 6, 2006, Khader clashed with Marianne Jelved on the issue of the Islamists; Jelved characterized it as a “limited problem,” while Khader called Jelved naïve and blamed her for not knowing what was happening in the migrant ghettos. When Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, a member of Det Radikale Venstre made a media-stunt, where she dressed in an Islamic scarf to make a point about “immigration,” Khader accused her of “running errands for the Islamists.” Marianne Jelved declared Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen’s media-stunt for “successful,” while Khader declared it as “foolish.” In this and in other ways, Khader had for a long time got tired of his own party long before he broke with it.

Naser Khader.

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Members of New Alliance on their way to the Danish Ministry of Intern Affairs in Copenhagen on June 25, 2007; on the day, where they registered as a new party for the Danish Election of 2007. On that day the party had collected 21.516 signatures, which was far more than was needed. In order to be registered as a party for the election, a party will have to collect the numbers of voters signatures that correspond to one mandate. With their signature, the voters shall declare that they support the registration of the new party. It is Naser Khader with a box of voters-signatures in the forefront. Gitte Seeberg, a former member of the Conservative people’s party is number second to the right and Anders Samuelsen is the first to the right.

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Naser Khader meet voters on the street in Horsens (Jylland), May 12, 2007.

Anders Samuelsen and Gitte Seeberg in the street of Horsens in Jylland, asking voters for their signature, so the new party can register for the election, May 12, 2007.

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Naser Khader is interviewed in the program “Frost over the World” during the Danish election campaign in 2007.

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In the beginning in May 2007, when the new party, Ny Alliance, was established, it looked like an upcoming success story. Many famous people rallied as candidates for the new party and the party was particularly popular among business people. The party got more than 10,000 members in no time and the first opinion polls promised the new party 12 percent of the votes. If these polls had been true, the New Alliance would have got at least 20 mandates in the Danish parliament and would have won a sweeping victory. Indeed, one opinion pool in May 2007 promised the party no less than 29 mandates. Indeed, Der Spiegel interviewed Khader and called him “the rising star on the political scene.” Also, Frost over the World had to speak with Khader. Also, The Guardian brought an article a few day before the election with the title, “Muslim politician could become kingmaker in Danish Election.” It looked as if the party would redefine Danish politics over night. The realities, however, became quite different, on election-day, in November 2007, the party only pulled 2.8 percent of the voters and got 5 mandates, which was exactly one mandate too little to tip the delicate parliamentary balance. Also, the party did not accomplish any isolation of the Danish People Party, since the Danish People’s Party increased its votes and mandates and became even more crucial as the support-base for the liberal-conservative government. Rather than becoming a big success, the New Alliance looked as a failure at least relative to expectations. This notion of failing was further reinforced in the process that followed. Since the election in November 2007, the party has lost 3 of its 5 parliamentary members; it has also lost a number of its many new party-members and worst of all, it felt below the 2 percent bracket, which stipulated the minimum threshold a party need to command in order to be presented in the Danish parliament.

A scene from the Ny Alliance’s celebration on election night, November 13, 2008. To the left is Naser Khader’s mother, Saba Abu Khader, in the middle Naser Khader and to the right Gitte Seeberg.

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The new parliamentary group of the Ny Alliance after election night 2007. From left to right, Malou Aamund, the daugther of millionaire Asger Aamund. Before she became an NA-politican she was sales-director in the Danish IBM. She is also known for having been the sweet-heart of crownprins Frederik back in 1990. Naser Khader, the chairman of Ny Alliance, who is a former member of Det Radikale Venstre, Denmark’s social-liberal party; Gitte Seeberg is a former member of the Conservative People’s Party. From 2004-2007, she represented this party in the Europe-parliament. Before this she was for a long time the Conservative People Party’s spokes-person on the issues of taxes and from 2001, its spokesperson on foreign politics. She is the daughter of an engine fitter and is educated from the University of Copenhagen as a lawyer. Jørgen Poulsen, the former director for the Danish Red Cross. He is educated as a journalist and has been very vocal in the Danish political debate. Anders Samuelsen was born in Horsens and is a former member of Det Radikale Venstre. He represented this party in the Danish parliament from 1998-2004 and from 2004-2007 in the Europe parliament. His eduational background ís a cand. scient. pol. (political science) from the University of Aarhus.

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Malou Aamund is interviewed on February 5, 2008, when she decided to leave Ny Alliance and become a part of the parliamentary group of Venstre, where she eventually became the party’s spokesperson for Innovation. Malou Aamund declared the day she left Ny Alliance that she had “lost faith in the project.”

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The chairman of Ny Alliance, Naser Khader has for a long time been a very well-known Danish politician recognized for his straight talk and forceful personality. What was appealing for many Danes was the fact that he was a Muslim who was defending the values of liberal modernity without reservation. Khader is a man who has the word “democracy” in Arabic tattooed on his arm. “I am a fanatical democrat,” Khader has characterized himself. “Democracy” he has said, “is not simply a matter of voting with four years intervals. It is a world-view; it is a way of life.” In an investigation in 2007 of who was the most quoted and cited politician in Danish Newspapers in regard to the prevailing religious debate, Naser Khader was placed as the top-runner. Generally, Khader have been a proliferate writer and debater, as when he was co-writing a dialogue book, “Tro mod tro” (“Belief against belief”) with Kathrine Lillør, one of the most popular theologians in Denmark today. Through these and other mechanisms, Khader has for long been a darling of the Danish media and he had very broad popular appeal. In 2003, he met his wife, lawyer Bente Dalsbæk during the so-called “culture-night,” a festival in Copenhagen.

Naser Khader together with his Danish wife, Bente Dalsbæk. The couple and their three children is covered by Danish Police Intelligence Agents day and night because of death treaths against Naser Khader and his family from orthodox Muslims.

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Khader was born in Damaskus in 1963 but has lived in Denmark since he was 11 year old. His father was Palestinian and his mother a Syrian. As a small child, his parents moved to Palestine and Jordan but at the time of his elementary school years, his parents settled in Syria, in a village, 6 kilometer outside Damaskus. When Naser Khader arrived in Denmark, the family lived in a flat in Vesterbro, a working class quarter of Copenhagen. He has an economic degree from Copenhagen University and has also a degree in Middle East Studies at the University of Odense. For many years, he worked as a translator in the Arab language and has also worked in that capacity as a consultant for the Danish National Television. He has also been a member of the Danish Council of ethics from 1998-2001. Khader became member of Det Radikale Venstre in 1984 and he was elected to the Danish parliament in 2001. In 2005, he was the key initiator of an organization called “democratic Muslims,” which was an organization that was established under the Muhammad cartoon crisis in 2005, as a counter-force to the orthodox Muslim’s position. During the Muhammad crisis, Khader stated explicitly, “Therefore as a Muslim and a democrat, I want to stress that: I (and many other) do not feel insulted by the drawings. But I feel deeply insulted that where there was earlier a tradition for religious satire in the Middle East it now seems that a satirical stance on religion has become the privilege of the West. … My message to Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries that joined the boycott is: You insult my democratic conviction. Say sorry.” In an interview with Daniel Pipes for The Middle East Quarterly, Khader explained the situation around the Mohammad crisis, “Before the cartoon crisis, I never wanted to begin a Muslim organization. I’m a firm believer that Danish Muslims should aspire to integrate in Danish life, and I felt that a Muslim political organization would serve to undermine this. But, as Islamists claimed to speak for all Muslims during the cartoon crisis rather than speaking for themselves personally or organizationally, I charged my views. Moderate Danish Muslims needed their own voice. So, I started the Democratic Muslims in Denmark organization in response.”

A Hitzb ut-Tahrir demonstration in Denmark. The Danish Director of Public Prosecutions (Rigsadvokaten) has just released a report, which conclusion is that there exist no legal reasons, as far as reasons are known, which justify the prohibition of Hitzb ut-Tahrir as an organization in Denmark. Hitzb ut-Tahrir is considered a criminal organization in Germany and both the Danish People’s Party and Naser Khader have argued for the prohibition of the party. However, Khader doesn’t think that the Danish parliament should vote for a prohibition but that a prohibition should emerged out of an open process in a Danish court. Naser Khader is disappointed over the decision by the Danish Director of Public Prosecution and is repeating his request that a case against Hitzb ut-Tahrir should be initiated in the court.

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Despite his occasional rhetoric against the Danish People’s Party, Khader is one of the most ardent opponents of fundamentalist Islam and he is one of the people in Denmark who argued for the prohibition of the extreme Islamist party Hitzb ut-Tahrir. Hitzb ut-Tahrir is illegal in Germany and Khader want Denmark to consider the same option. Khader has also been relentless in criticizing the Danish Imams who he has characterized as a bunch of reactionaries. Khader has also quite critical of the Danish left’s view of Islam. When asked about his own religious affiliation, he answer that he is “Muslim light.” Khader doesn’t attain the Mosque, he doesn’t pray five times a day and his respect of most Imams can lie on a very little place. As a strong defender of liberal democracy Khader has become a hate-object for many radical Muslims in Denmark and he has received serious death-treats; so he today always is followed by body-guards from the Police Intelligence Service, who covers him 24 hours-a-day. Also, his children and his wife have to be under constant police protection, while his mother felt forced to move out of Nørrebro (a part of Copenhagen with many Muslims); Khader is paying high cost for his struggle with fundamentalist Islam.

Naser Khader has said: “It is important to note that the biggest clash of civilizations isn’t between Islam and the West; it is between democratic-oriented Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a battle about conquering Muslim souls, and it is fought with harsh means by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s main enemy is not the Jews or the Christians, but Muslims who want democracy, modernity, and reformation. That is where the real battle is, and the Brotherhood will win if the rest of the society keeps suffering amnesia attacks. The greatest challenge for democratic Muslims in Denmark  — and all over the world — is to cure the amnesia by constantly taking a stand in the debate, by constantly letting their voices be heard.”

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The failure of the New Alliance has been contributed to the party’s lack of a clear message during the November 2007 election. The party hoped to gain votes from both the left and the right and therefore was reluctant to declare itself as strictly in support for the liberal-conservative government.  This tactic backfired, since it produced a negative image of uncertainty and lack of direction in the eyes of the voters. Also, since the party had become a rally point of many highly profiled Danes with strong, innovative opinions, it had from the very beginning difficulties in keeping all these “egos” within one overall political framework. Hence, one of the party’s highly profiled candidates Lars Kolind, a successful Danish business entrepreneur, suggested out of the blue that one should give the Danish Iceland of Fyn a special 20% tax reduction, “just as an experiment” to test whether lower taxes worked. Although such remarks like Kolind’s might deserve a gold-medal in innovative thinking, it didn’t fare well with prosaic Danish voters and added to an increased perception of the new party as a strange hodgepodge of everything and nothing. In the common voters’ imagination the New Alliance began to appear as “too many big egos and too little substance.” In addition, the party had great difficulties in explaining how it would finance its election-promise of 40% flat tax, which is a drastic tax-reduction by Danish dimension. The endless pile of bad karma for the party reached a climax, when the editor of the scandal journal SE OG HØR accused Khader for having accepted “moonlight work” for some repair work in his home and Khader failed to handle this delicate issue with sufficient “cool” and in a convincing way.

Lars Kolind (to the left) together with Naser Khader on a charm-offense among votes in downtown Copenhagen in 2007. Lars Kolind is a Danish business entrepreneur, know from his time as an brillant and innovative director for the hearing-aid firm, “Oticon.” Lars Kolind was candidate for Ny Alliance on Fyn and he became known during the election campaign, when he suggested that one should test the Alliance’s proposal about 40 percent flat tax by given the Island of Fyn a tax-break on 40 percent flat tax for a year or two. If the system worked in Fyn, it would work in the rest of the country, Kolind suggested. Although, Kolind’s suggestion could get high ranks for innovative thinking, it didn’t fare well among Danish votes and it added to the perception of Ny Alliance as a party of “bytosser,” (“Urban bubbleheads”), big egos and a party too “spaced out” for its own good.

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The evaluation of New Alliance among Danish bloggers is quite interesting. Generally, opinions are quite varied yet certain themes prevail. Bloggers, generally, agreed that the party was too media-fixated without having any substantial party-program. One blogger said that one cannot build a party on sheer Pia-noia (he was referring to Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish People’s Party). As one blogger noted, the key problem with New Alliance was that it was not born out of politics but out of a strategic consideration. Yet, even on the strategic note, Khader never succeed during the election campaign to get the message right. His remarks established confusion about what was the party’s actual strategic intention and his constant talk about “overcoming block-policy” appear too diffuse as a major voter-appeal. One problem was also that the issues, for which Khader is burning, integration, fundamentalist Islam and principle of democracy, never became front-issues in the party’s election campaign. The voters experienced a tactically “contained” Khader who was lacking the normal zeal and pathos. Indeed, Khader showed a peculiar “incapacity” in many situations during the election, especially, he appeared as the weakest speaker during the crucial last TV-debate, the traditional party-leader debate, which often has quite an impact on undecided voters just before they vote. Indeed, Khader acknowledged later in an interview that there where moments during the party-leader debate, where he had “talt sort” (spoken incomprehensibly). Some commentators took a harsh view of Khader’s performance during the election. In December 2007, Isabella Balkert, a Danish blogger and artist, wrote, “Under cross-fire and in dialogue, Naser Khader showed again and again that he had no clue of what was talked about or why he had to be accountable for his party’s political principles or defending a tax-policy, he didn’t understood.” Although Balkert might have exaggerate somewhat; she still gives a psychological account of how many voters perceived Khader’s performance during the election campaign.

Video about Ny Alliance from the election campaign in October-November 2007. The video focuses on Naser Khader’s capacity to speak incomprehensibly (“tale sort”); the video starts with an example on this.

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Many observers see the New Alliance as “death already” yet the party is currently attempting to turn things around. Both Naser Khader and Andreas Samuelsen, the founders of the new party, have declared their continuous commitment to the party. On their annual party-congress on May 24, 2008, the party tried to define a new political platform after the first turbulent mistakes. During the congress, the New Alliance declared that it no longer regarded the Danish People’s Party as its main enemy, which indeed is quite a shift from the party’s original rhetoric. Although, the party still used rhetoric about a center-policy, it was clear that the party during the congress moved toward the right and portrayed itself as Denmark’s liberal party. The emphasis on liberalism followed the party’s original inclination but sharpen the party’s tactic appeal to liberals who feel that Venstre no longer promotes a genuine liberal position. (Venstre, who calls itself, Denmark’s liberal party has increasingly adopted Social Democratic policy in order to appeal to a broad popular basis). Generally, the shift toward a highlighting of the party’s “liberal profile” can be seen as a victory to the political line emphasized by Anders Samuelsen.

Asger Aamund, a Danish multi-millionaire (supposedly good for the first 200 million dollars) was one of the original enthusiastic supporters for Ny Alliance. Malou Aamund, one of the five candidates elected for Ny Alliance on election-night 2007, is a daughter of Asger Aamund. Asger Aamund is director of the boards of the biotechnological enterprises, Neurosearch and Bavarian Nordic. Asger Aamund is one of the most well-known Danes who often participates in Danish political debates. Asger Aamund is reported to have had quite an influence on the ideas, which inspired Ny Alliance’s political platform, especially the idea of a 40 percent flat tax was strongly influenced by Asger Aamund’s suggestions. However, as thing began to go wrong and the party felt drastically in the opinion-polls Asger Aamund’s attitude became more critical. A few day before election day, he asserted that he thought the party had done so badly that he was not sure whether he personally would vote for it. He also criticized the party in an article in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende, the following way: “The New Alliance is about to waist its historical chance to renewing Danish politics. They have chosen the wrong war, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy. They have used their time to fight Pia Kjærsgaard, which is a completely hopeless struggle.

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The new direction of the party also falls into line with the idea of the Danish millionaire Asger Aamund, who is reported to have functioned as a consultant for the party. Asger Aamund has argued for a “Californian model,” where tax reforms are essential. The party’s new policy also seem to follow some of the lines, which are argued by the Danish think tank CEPOS. The much talk in the New Alliance about the other parties in Denmark as “change-fearing” (forandrings-angste) is also echoing a pet phase used by Asger Aamund. However, Asger Aamund was also very critical of the election strategy, which the New Alliance had chosen during its election campaign. Asger Aamund wrote in Berlingske Tidende in one of the last days before the election-day, a quite devastating critique of the chosen strategy: “The New Alliance is about to waist its historical chance of renewing Danish politics. They have chosen the wrong war, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy. They have used their time to fight Pia Kjærsgaard, which is a completely hopeless struggle. Pia’s voters are a completely different segment, and even if one takes battle after battle [with Pia] one will not be able to move any voters to the New Alliance on that account.”

Naser Khader and Pia Kjærsgaard in a head-to-head debate during the 2007 election. One commentator have said that the election in 2007, only on the surface was a choice between the Primer Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the leader of the Social Democratics, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. The real election, it was suggested, was between Khader and Pia Kjærsgaard.

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The exclusion of Jørgen Poulsen from New Alliance has been seen by most commentators as a necessary strengthening of the party’s message and profile. Poulsen had for a long time been a thorn in the flesh of Khader and Samuelsen’s attempt to build-up a new image of the party. Also, at the time, when Ny Alliance was negotiating with the government and the Danish People’s Party about the so-called “asylum politics,” Poulsen had showed what Erik Meier Carlsen (the political commentator at the Newspaper Information, and earlier a key-writer for the weekly newsmagazine Ugebladet Mandag Morgen) has characterized as “a complete lack of a sense of occasion.” Khader and Samuelsen understood increasingly that they in Poulsen had an erratic partner, who at any time could throw a spanner in the work. According to Erik Meier Carlsen, Poulsen has spoiled many opportunities for the party to positioning itself in Danish politics in the time following the election in November 2007. There is little doubt that Jørgen Poulsen represented the old format of the party, especially that part of the old policy that considered the Danish People Party as the main enemy. In contrast to Jørgen Poulsen’s view, the redefined New Alliance want to be seen as a more all-round party and not as a party, which is narrowly defined as an anti-thesis to the Danish People’s Party. Such a total anti-thesis would also be quite fabricated since Naser Khader and the Danish People Party agree on quite many things when push comes to shove, especially, when the issue comes to fundamentalist Islam. One blogger wrote, that “far into the ranks of the Danish People Party, people like and has sympathy for Naser Khader.” This is most likely correct. Indeed, in a recent co-interview with Farshad Kholghi (in November 2007), Pia Kjærsgaard has declared, “I will have to admit that I originally was a great admirer of Naser Khader.”

Pia Kjærsgaard together with Naser Khader. During an co-interview with the Danish-Iranian Farshad Kholgni, Pia Kjærsgaard said: “I have to admit that I orginally was a great admirer of Naser Khader.”

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Pia Kjærsgaard (to the right), the leader of the Danish People’s Party greets the Danish Primer Anders Fogh Rasmussen on election night. The Primer’s party lost mandates during the election but Pia Kjærsgaard party gained one additional mandate and remained such the crucial supporting party for the government.

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Pia Kjærsgaard speaks to party-members on election night, November 13, 2007, where the party consolidated its position by advancing from 24 mandates to 25 mandates.

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Most commentators do not give New Alliance many chances in future Danish politics. Hence, the Danish Newspaper Politiken, speak about the party’s agony and the newspaper, which once only had fulsomely praise of the new party, now call the party “one of the greatest flop in the history of modern Danish politics.” Also, Niels Krause-Kjær in his blog in the Newspaper Berlingske Tidende speaks about the New Alliance as “dødsboet” (a Danish term for the estate of a deceased person). There is really no end to the negative perception of the party’s future among experts; Bo Bredsgaard Lund, a communication-expert, calls Ny Alliance for a “political-communication catastrophe.” Also, the latest opinion polls don’t provide any happy news. Currently, the opinion polls give the party 0.2-0.9% of the votes, which is not a stimulus for great enthusiasm. The central vision of the New Alliance, when it was created was to break the supreme influence of the Danish People’s Party over the current government. The party’s obsession about the Danish People’s Party is understandable, since it is the Danish People’s Party who is the crucial force, blocking “the left side” of the Danish parliament from power and influence. The Danish People’s Party is the real fundament in the stability of the liberal-conservative government because the Danish People’s Party is the only party of the three parties to the right, which are able to attract Social Democratic votes in great numbers and on a persistent base. An analysis of trade union SID membership base under 40 from 2001 revealed that there were more SID members voting on the Danish People’s Party than on the Social Democrats. Also, in a recent pool, the Danish People’s Party is advancing to 15.5% of the population, while the Social Democrats are loosing voters’ confidence. In the old days in Danish politics, there was the saying “that one can’t rule without the center” but Pia Kjærsgaard changed all that. The New Alliance was a highly geared attempt to change this situation. Yet, rarely in Danish politics has a party raised so great expectation and failed so utterly in fulfilling them. Indeed, what Khader seriously weakened was not the Danish People Party but rather his own old party, which suffered a devastating defeat on election-night and went down from 17 to 9 mandates. Indeed, the so-called “center” of Danish politics has never been weaker than today, this is Naser Khader’s real “accomplishment.” The great period of Det Radikale Venstre is dead and the party itself under Margrethe Vestager is moving left of the Socialistic People’s Party (at least on issues of Islam and integration). Or perhaps, it isn’t Margrethe Vestager moving to the left but everyone else moving to the right. In the end of the day, Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish People Party has reasons to smile; she stands unchallenged as the crucial supportive base for the current government. Indeed, Pia Kjærsgaard didn’t really have to “destroy” the political center in Denmark; Naser Khader was fully able of doing it on her behalf.

The lesson of Naser Khader’s experience in Danish politics is that much better to begin as the ugly duckling but end up as a swan rather than beginning as a swan and end up as the ugly duckling. Ernst Jünger once said that “one must create the situation,” yet in regard to Naser Khader, the situation outflanked his capacity to create it.

A broad political majority in the Danish parliament decided on June 11, 2008 that Denmark will continue its current military and civic activities in Afghanistan to 2012. As a part of the agreement, the Parties concurred that Denmark’s military engagement in Afghanistan would be gradually reduced and replaced by civilian projects, ”when conditions allow it.”  As a part of the agreement, Denmark will double the amount spent on civil projects in Afghanistan and it will also build a military field hospital in the area. The Danish People’s Party, the third biggest party in the parliament went only along with this agreement reluctantly, since they were concerned about what they regarded as a underfunding of the Danish military effort against Taliban. The only two parties in the Danish parliament that did not participate in the agreement was the Socialist People Party and ”Enhedslisten,” a radical socialist party. This meant that the government ”activist” foreign policy in the case of Afghanistan has the broadest possible parliamentary base, since even Det Radikale Venstre has concurred with the new agreement. Det Radikale Venstre, a center-left party, has often articulated disagreement with the government ”activist” foreign policy and the fact that the party concurs on a prolonged military present in Afghanistan is indicative for the broad parliamentary base of the agreement.       

The Danish minister of development, Ulla Tørness has worked hard to get the different political parties to find common ground on this issue.  She characterized the key elements in the government’s aid policy in Afghanistan the following way, ”Our aid focuses on state-building, on fighting corruption and on promoting democracy.  Our aid to education shall also secure that disadvanced Afghan girls get a chance to go to school.” Denmark’s foreign minister Per Stig Møller has told the Danish Newspaper Berlingske Tidende that he will request a more determined effort from the Afghan government, especially on issues of corruption and human rights. In regard to human rights, Per Stig Møller had earlier this year brought pressure to bear on the Afghan government in the case of the death-sentence over the 23 years old Afghan student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh whose “crime” under Sharia law is to have distributed a report criticizing the treatment of women. The Danish People’s Party has threatened to redraw its support for Afghanistan completely if the journalist is executed.

The Danish parliament’s decision to stay in Afghanistan to 2012 shall be seen as a preparation for the Danish participation in the International Conference in Paris in support of Afghanistan held the day after on June 12, 2008. The conference brought together (at least) 67 countries and 17 organizations and was co-chaired by Afghanistan, the United Nation and France. The purpose of the conference was to reaffirm the international community’s support for Afghanistan’s successful reconstruction. The conference can also be seen as a follow-up on the conference on Afghanistan held in London in January 2006. At the meeting at least 17 billion dollars was pledged in future aid for Afghanistan, of which the US provided 10.2 billion dollars alone.

David Frost interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, June 13, 2008.   

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The Danish troops in Afghanistan are under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). ISAF is made up of about 53,000 troops from 40 different countries including the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Jordan. The largest contributors to the troops are US and Britain. The US has also an independent force under Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), known as the Coalition forces, which is active in the eastern part of Afghanistan along the border to Pakistan. The mission of the ISAF and the Coalition forces is quite different. The basic mission of the ISAF is to provide security for the social reconstruction of Afghanistan, while the prime task for the Coalition force is defined as counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The ISAF mandate is defined by the Bonn agreement and by relevant UN security resolutions. In the beginning of its mission ISAF was only operating around Kabul but today it is active in all provinces of Afghanistan.  The command of ISAF is rotated among different nations on a 6 month base and so far Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Britain and the US have been in charge of the command. On June 3, 2008, American General David McKieman took command over ISAF. 

Danish soldiers fighting Taliban in Upper Gereshk Valley in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2007.

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The Danish troops are located in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, which is the most battle-intensive region of the country and considered the ultimate Taliban stronghold. Tony Blair in his speech to British troops called the battle of Helmand and surrounding areas for “the key to world security.” The Helmand province consists of an area of 58,584 square kilometer and is only slightly bigger than Denmark and has a population of around 750.000. It is the world’s largest opium-producing region, responsible for approximate 40 percent of the world’s supply. The Danish battle group in Helmand consists of two mechanized infantry companies, a tank platoon and a handful of light reconnaissance helicopters. Denmark has also employed special troops in the area, including the “Jægerkorpset.”The Danish troops in Helmand province is working very close together with the British units there. In the summer of 2006, the Danish forces were involved in intensive fighting in the Musa Qala area in the Helmand province.  Indeed, the battle of Musa Qala resembles the fiercest battle the Danish army had encountered since the battle of Dybbøl in 1864. The Danes involved in the hideous Musa Qala fighting was a light reconnaissance unit, not quite equipped for this kind of fighting. The unit of approximately 100 men arrived in Musa Qala on July 25, 2006 and had literally to fight its way into the city, where they joined British pathfinder soldiers from the 16^th Air Assault Brigade. According to unverified reports snipers from “Jægerkorspet” was brought into Musa Qala to support the Danish forces there. During the Musa Qala fighting 8 Danish soldiers were wounded; two seriously, as one Danish soldier was hit in the head. 14 Danish soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan of which ten have been killed in Helmand since May 2007. As late as on June 7, a Danish vehicle hit a landmine and one soldier was wounded. Currently, a new group of soldiers, who shall serve in Afghanistan, is going through intensive training in the military area of Finderup in Denmark.

Danish Troops fighting in Musa Qala in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan the summer of 2006. 

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Afghanistan has been a test of NATO’s new doctrine, which aim at using NATO’s forces in relation to security threat and piece missions, which goes beyond the boundaries of Europe. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has faced gigantic obstacles in its mission in Afghanistan. NATO has simultaneously been faced with the task of training the Afghan military, facilitate the rebuilding of a war-devastated country, stabilizing the country’s political institutions and fight the Taliban. Since Afghanistan is a poor country with limited and weak institutions NATO had no other opinion than become entangled in a broad set of administrative and political functions which normally goes beyond the task of a military organization. The degree in which NATO and other participating organizations have been able to accomplish these tasks in a turbulent war-situation is quite impressive by any measure. 

Danish soldiers in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan during a conversation with the Danish Minister of Defense, Søren Gade, December 2007.

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Afghanistan has been on a rocky road to economic development and political stability since the country adopted a new democratic constitution in January 2004 and elected its president in October the same year. Afghanistan is a war-torn, impoverished country, which suffer from all the deficiencies characterizing an underdeveloped country. In fact, Afghanistan is one of the absolutely poorest countries in the world. According to Afghanistan’s own human development report for 2004, it is estimated that Afghanistan rank as number 173 out of 178 countries by basic index standards of human development. This places the country among the bottom part of African countries, barely ahead of Chad and Mali. One of the most compelling problems in Afghanistan is Illiteracy. Two-thirds of Afghans beyond the age of 15 cannot read and write.  Also, Illiteracy among Afghan women is reported to be the worst in the world and the health-care standards of women is equally deplorable.  At the same time, Afghanistan has the youngest population in the world as an estimated 57 percent of the population is under the age of eighteen. Rapid development is notable in the capital of Kabul, which has been witness to an unregulated process of urbanization. From an estimated 500.000 people in early 2001, the population of Kabul has soared to 4.5 million. This process of demographic transformation also herald the coming of a “new modern type” of secularized role-pattern associated with the lifestyles, work-schedules and symbolism of modern urban life.   

2000 schools have been built or repaired in Afghanistan since 2001 and 1.5 million girls have attained school since the fall of Taliban.

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The task of getting Afghanistan on the right track is tremendous. Yet, NATO have met the challenge head on. Afghanistan today is a very different place than it was for seven years ago; Afghan infrastructure has been improved, schools have been built and people’s access to health care has expanded drastically. More than 10,000 kilometer of road has been built in Afghanistan since 2001. In addition, 440 irrigation canals have been built since 2003. In the same period 2,000 schools have been built or repaired. Female education, which was non-existing in during Taliban rule has become very common. Today, 6.4 million Afghan children is attaining school compared with less than 1 million for five years ago. The US alone had in 2006 distributed more than 42 million textbooks for Afghan schools. The numbers of Afghans with access to health care has expanded from 8 to 80 percent, while more than 500 new health clinics have been build. Since 2002, 16 million vaccinations against childhood diseases have been administrated, while child mortality has fallen with 26 percent. The ISAF operations have provided the space and opportunities for these changes to occur.  

What is equally encouraging is that a new modern civil society has begun to emerge.  The political interest among the Afghan people is surprisingly high; there exist more than 80 political parties and a large numbers of human right NGOs. Although fragile, a democratic system has emerged.  Naturally, civil society in Afghanistan is cross-cut with colorful contradictions as old traditions get entangled with powerful new trends. In this way, the relation between civic laws and Islamic laws is prone with persistent tension and is reflected in the Sayed Pervez Kambaksh case. Although tradition still looms large, a secularized society, Afghan style, is beginning to emerge by a thousand measures. As in so many other underdeveloped countries, the progress of women has become notables in the cities but is lacking far behind in the rural areas. Asefa Kakar, a female judge in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court characterizes the situation the following way: “Most women in the rural areas of Afghanistan can’t even leave their homes, not because the Taliban are still here, but because their families and communities have yet to accept a new role for them.”

Of course, the Afghan government is still struggling to match great challenges; as a recent World Bank/IMF review has highlighted, the prevailing administration is lacking in governance skills and is inadequately prepared to deal with such a tremendous infrastructural build-up. As so many other places in the underdeveloped world, the lack of sufficient managerial skill is often the real bottleneck in the process. The lack of sufficient government capacity is further reinforced by widespread corruption, which in the Afghan case threatens to undermine the state’s taxation base. Indeed, the question about Afghanistan governmental capacities, has become the central issue in the whole puzzle of nation-building. Also The Economist, in their analysis, maintains that it is the Kabul government that is the weak link in the chain. “Unless the Kabul government can be made to work more efficient,” the whole international effort will maybe be in vain, the Economist warn its readers.

The Afghan government depends totally on foreign financial assistance, which according to some estimates make-up 90 percent of the state budget. Yet money is only a part of the government’s problems; many donor countries are highly concerned about the lack of “human capital” or what The Economist called “the shortage of literate, capable, honest people to staff an administration.”  

One of the worst problems in Afghanistan is a rampant corruption, which especially has been a concern for aid donors. To be sure, Afghanistan ranks as one of the most corrupted countries on the planet. According to reports corruption extend far into the government and the police-force. Not surprisingly, the donor nations prefer to spend aid directly rather than feed the money through the Afghan government. According to BBC News, no less than 60-70 percent of the donor money is spent outside the government’s budget. The Danish foreign minister’s strong emphasis on the problem of corruption should be understood on this background. In a very frank recent interview with Der Spiegel, in February 2008, Afghan President Hamid Karzai openly admitted that ”dirty deals” was an absolute necessity in order for the current Afghan government to prevail. On the question from Der Spiegel, whether ”dirty deals” was necessary, Karzai replied: ”Absolute necessary, because we lack the power to solve these problems in other ways.  What do you want? War?” However, Karzai argues that the general government process in Afghanistan has improved. ”Governance has improved immensely in Afghanistan, Karzai told Der Spiegel, for the first time in six years, the Afghan budget has become transparent, there are no longer any secret funds. Before, the governors did whatever they wanted. Now there is a reporting requirement and there are former governors who were criminals and corrupt, who are now in prison, like the former governor of the Baghdis province.” One do understand Karzai’s dilemma; he has to deal with many corrupt local leaders, since he can’t afford to alienate them within the greater Afghan power-struggle.

Danish Soldiers in Afghanistan, 2007. 

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In regard to Afghanistan there is a place for cautious optimism. Afghanistan is not Iraq. In contrast to Iraq, the US and Nato have a very broad international mandate in Afghanistan; this time various allied have been consulted and included in the process.  Indeed, the recent conference in Paris showed how broad-based the international community’s support for Afghanistan really is. Taliban’s international reputation will make it difficult for an “anti-war” movement to use them as a compelling symbol. During the five years, the Taliban regime reigned in Kabul, it became internationally known for its extreme repression of women and gained only diplomatic recognition from three states. This also means that the kind of opposition that was mobilized vis-a-vis the Iraq war is unlikely to materialize in the case of Afghanistan. When Americans was polled by the Pew Research Center in February 2008, the pool revealed that 61 percent of Americans maintained that the US should stay in Afghanistan, while 65 percent thought that the original decision to employ US military in Afghanistan was the right one. The pool also showed that support for the war in Afghanistan had increased both among Republicans and Democrats since May 2007. What is also important is that opinion polls conducted in Afghanistan by BBC in December 2007 show strong support for the government. By the same poll revealed that most Afghan supported the presence of overseas troops and opposed the Taliban. This result confirms earlier polls from World Public Opinion.Org conducted in 2006 showed that 92 percent of the Afghan people viewed Taliban unfavorably, while only 2 percent was of the opinion that Taliban controlled their area. In the same poll, 82 percent of the Afghans found it unlikely that Taliban would return to power. By the same token a poll conducted by Environics Research commissioned by the CBC, The Globe and Mail and La Presse in the fall of 2007 revealed that 60% of the Afghan people said that the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan was a good thing, with only 16% who said it was a bad thing. Also, 64 percent said that the troops were doing a good job, while only 17% said that the troops were doing a bad job. Polls, however, might differ somewhat the ABC poll published in December 2007 witnessed a decline in the support for US troops but even so, the same poll revealed that there only was a national support for Taliban on 8 percent. Also, the same poll reported that 76 percent of the Afghan people still regarded the overthrow of the Taliban as a good thing. Also, in February 2007, the renowned American military expert Anthony H. Cordesman said in a testimony to the US House Committee of Foreign Affairs, “the good news is that popular support [in Afghanistan] for the US and Nato is strong and can be built.”  In other words, there is little which indicate that Taliban is winning the battle over the hearts and minds of their own people. Polls after polls show that the ratings of President Hamid Karzai are high. The favorable view of the government was manifest despite the fact that only 39 percent of the Afghan in 2005 could characterize their socio-economic situation as improved. Also in an ABC poll in 2005, nine out of ten Afghan had a disfavorable view of Osama bin Laden. These polls fall into line with a study by Nearnat Nojumi of the Harvard Law School who has examined Afghanistan under the years of Taliban rule and who concludes that Taliban and its ideology never enjoyed widespread support.

Indeed, Helmand, where the Danish troops is operating, is by many measures the ultimate Taliban stronghold but even here they do not control any major city after their forces was kicked out of Musa Qala in December 2007. Generally, NATO’s strategic in Afghanistan must be characterized as relatively successful; the Taliban doesn’t really control any major area today although Taliban has apparently some support in pockets of rural traditionalism such as Helmand and Kandahar, which long have been traditional strongholds of the movement.  Yet, poll after poll reveal that Taliban can find very little support outside these two regions. Despite much hype of Taliban’s current strength, it is a fact that Taliban has failed utterly in regaining the power, it had in 2001. This is even more remarkable, when one consider the fact that the NATO forces employed in Afghanistan has, generally, been under-supplied with resources. Although resources so far have been restricted, the political commitment to Afghanistan is far more solid than in the case of Iraq. Indeed, in an interview on November 9, 2007 on Ohio Public Television Barack Obama argued that the US should scale-up its military effort in Afghanistan. In May 13, 2008 Obama repeated the assessment. “I don’t think we have enough troops” in Afghanistan, he said.  In an interview in the Charlie Rose Show back in November 2004; Obama said that he from the beginning was “strongly in support for the war in Afghanistan.” In the interview, he also strongly emphasized, “I am hard when it comes to defeating terrorism.”

The British Army in Afghanistan, 2007.  

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The real problem in regard to the overall process is whether the social and economic build-up of Afghanistan will become reasonable successful in the years to come. Taliban has no way to ”win the war” against NATO; their option lies in disturbing the social build-up process, which they so far has failed to do or to produce a sense of frustration in the international community (which is their real option). Despite occasionally fierce fighting, most of the Taliban warrior actions has little or no military meaning but aim primarily to effect Afghan or international public opinion through hit and run tactics. The real war in Afghanistan is a battle of perceptions and the media is the real executors of the events. As in the Vietnam War the real answer to the question might lie in the international global opinion and not so much within the actual events in Afghanistan. As Chinese has discovered around the Olympics all modern battle ends and begin with good PR people. When General Westmoreland in those days again and again claimed that he was winning the Vietnam War, he was absolutely correct, since the Vietnam War was not lost in Vietnam. Despite much hype to the contrary; Taliban cannot win in Afghanistan; it is both military and ideologically bankrupted as a prime actor for the future. Only the West can lose “the war” in Afghanistan if it loses its nerve. 

Niels Due Jensen is the former director and today the chief of the Board of the Danish enterprise Grundfos, which is one of the biggest companies in Denmark. The company produces pumps and its headquarter is placed at Bjerringbro near the Danish city of Viborg. The Company has 15,000 employees and had a turnover on approximately 3 billion dollars in 2006.

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The suicide bomb against the Danish Embassy in Pakistan has intensified the ongoing debate about Danish foreign policy. Niels Due Jensen, the chief of the board of one of Denmark’s largest business enterprises, Grundfos, has raised concern the direction of Denmark’s foreign policy. Mr. Jensen has argued that the Danish government’s policy is damaging Danish business interests internationally. In a statement to the Danish Business Newspaper Børsen, Mr. Jensen has declared, “As a business leader, I am very concerned about the aggressive foreign politics, which our government is conducting and which some of the opposition parties are supporting. It is an approach toward increased confrontation and confrontation will create counter-confrontation. In this way, we are on the road to a very unpleasant escalation of the relationship between Islam and Denmark.” Mr. Jensen assessment was met with strong reactions from the Danish government and from various political parties. Henriette Kjær, who is a spokes-person for the Conservative People’s Party responded to Niels Due Jensen assessment by suggesting that Mr. Jensen needs to look on the question of Danish foreign politics from a much wider perspective than the narrow interests of this own firm. “The direction of the Danish Foreign Politics is not up for grab, Henriette Kjær declared, we will not bend for extremists and fundamentalists who want to destroy Western democracy and replace a democratic constitution with the Sharia. We will fight for democracy globally, since this is the safeguard of our own democracy. ”

Henriette Kjær is a former Danish Minister of Social Affairs and a spokesperson for the Conservative People’s party. It is not the first time, Henriette Kjær has responded to criticism from Niels Due Jensen, also in March this year did Kjær and Jensen exchange opinions about Danish foreign policy and the Muhammad’s drawings. In March, Henriette Kjær had to remind Mr. Jensen that “the freedom of expression is not a commodity of which we can sell out because of a misapprehended consideration for Due Jensen’s foreign costumers. In this country, we say what we want, we write what we want and we draw what we want within the framework of the laws. And this is a thing, which is of no concern for loudspeaker fabricants, chiefs of enterprise boards or Saudi Arabian business men.”

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A spokesman for, “Venstre,” the liberal party in Denmark Jacob Jensen also rejected the assessment from Niels Due Jensen. Hence, Jacob Jensen declared: “If we just kneel and apologies, then the terrorists have won. We have nothing to apologize for and we have no need to be reluctant. On the contrary, we need to give 100 percent support to the Danish soldiers who are fighting for freedom and democracy in Afghanistan. It is their action, which is safeguarding that everyone in Denmark – also Niels Due Jensen and the rest of Danish buisness – also in the future can live in a safe and free environment.” Naser Khader, the chairman of the party New Alliance also joined the debate. Khader declared that “The huckstering mentality of Niels Due Jensen is a disgrace. Perhaps, Niels Due Jensen will have a good time in a dictatorship. He has a lot of money and money will solve most problems in corrupt and dictatorial countries. But for the common man, freedom and democracy is values, which are worth fighting for. … With his attitude he is renouncing all the millions of repressed people in the world, who is force to live under Islamic repression and he is leaving those people down who had chosen to take up the fight against repression.” “I will look forward to the day, Naser Khader continued, when Niels Due Jensen chose to criticize those dictatorships with whom he is collaborating rather than criticizing his own country.” One commentary on the Danish blogs wrote that Niels Due Jensen must be more stupid that the pumps he is producing if he believes that his stockholders are more important than the future of Denmark. Another blogger called Niels Due Jensen en “værnemager,” which is the name used in the Danish language for those industrialists who worked for the German occupation army in Denmark during the Second World War.  

One of the Islamist demonstrators during the Muhammad Crisis in 2005-2006.

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The current debate in Denmark about the country’s foreign policy shall be seen as a revitalization of the continuous debate about Islamic terror and freedom of the press that has prevailed in Denmark since the Muhammad crisis. The Muhammad crisis started when the Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The publication of these cartoons is a standard affair in Denmark, where there is a long tradition of political and satirical cartoon-drawings, resulted in a massive protests in Islamic communities worldwide and in the burning of Danish Embassies and countless death-threats to the cartoonists. In this way, Haji Yaqoob Qureishi, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh state government in India announced in February 2006 that he was willing to pay $ 11 million to anyone who would behead the Danish cartoonists. At the same time, the Danish export to the Middle East dropped with 50% during 2006.

The Danish Primer Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks to Danish Soldiers in Afghanistan.

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On June 2, 2008, the Danish Embassy in Pakistan was hit by a terror bomb. The bomb was the first anti-Danish attack since the Muhammad cartoon crisis, three years earlier. The Danish Primer Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the car bomb that killed at least six people an “attack against
Denmark” and characterized the attack as a “cowardly act.” The attack provoked a debate in
Denmark, especially, when Margrethe Vestager, the chairwoman of a center-left party, used the occasion of the attack to argue for a change in the Danish Foreign policy. Margrethe Vesterager was immediate attacked by other Danish partiers and newspaper columnists for runing errands for the terrorists. Pia Kjærsgaard, the chairwoman of the Danish People’s Party declared that Margrethe Vestager “is misusing the situation and creates disunity and try to shift the blame to those parties, which stand behind the government foreign policy.” Also, the Danish Primer criticized Vesterager’s approach. “It is important in this situation, the Primer said, to make it clear that terrorist will never be able to inflict on our freedom of speech or determine our foreign policy. And therefore, it is wrong to link the terror attack to a discussion of our foreign policy.” Margrethe Vestager was also denounced by the chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who emphasized that “terrorists shall not dictate Danish foreign politics or our right of freedom of expression.” “It is important, Thorning-Schmidt said, “that all parties in the parliament stand together in a situation like this.” The denouncement from Thorning-Schmidt was particularly notable because Margrethe Vestager’s party, Det radikale Venstre, (a center-left party know as “the radicals”) and the Social Democrats have establish themselves as an opposition-alternative to the current government. Ralf Pittelkow, a columnist on the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, wrote that if Margrethe Vestager had seen the bomb-attack as an opportunity for the party to heighten its profile, she miscalculated. Vestager’s politics, Pittelkow declares, does not only hurt the party’s relationship with the Social Democrats, it is also a piece of self-destruction, since her politics appeal to the left and not to the core supporters of her party. Thomas Larsen, another Danish political commentator agreed, Margrethe Vestager has become a liability for the Social Democrats.

Danish soldiers attack Taliban Stronghold.

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Behind the evolving debate lies a division line between the parties in the Danish parliament, there support the government’s “activist foreign policy” and those who disagree. Denmark has currently 700 soldiers fighting Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. The Danish soldiers are located in southern part of the Helmand province and have been involved in persistent fighting. It should be noted that the debate about the Danish participation in Afghanistan shall be seen a momentum in a continues debate in Denmark about Islam, the Muhammad crisis, Danish Foreign Politics and Danish identity; it is all part of a continuous value-debate, where Pia Kjærsgaard from the Danish People Party and Margrethe Vestager from “the Radicals” by many measures stand as the two prime antagonists. A recent opinion pool shows that 62 percent of the Danish population supports an activist foreign policy. Also, 75 percent of those asked expected that Denmark will become the target of more terrorist attacks. The Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller takes the opinion poll as a sign that the Danes “are realistic people, who do not want to hide away from terror.” “I think, the Foreign Minister said, that the Danes wish to become an active part of the globalized world and not simply a little country who hide away in cosy solitude; they want to take responsibility and try to make an impact on the world by the attitude we represent.”

One of the days when the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco in April 2008, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University discovered a gathering of pro-Tibet demonstrators faced with a much larger pro-China counterdemonstration on the university campus ground. Ms. Wang who had friends on both sides tried to get the two groups to engage in a conversation with each other. However, the Chinese students she spoke with didn’t want to hear about any criticism of the Chinese government. The next day, Ms. Wang’s photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with the words “traitor to your country” written across her forehead. In addition, Ms. Wang’s Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents’ apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city. In the coming days, photographs of the young woman with demeaning text, including ugly rumours were circulated through China’s most popular Webs and for each expansion on the internet, thousands of new insults and derogatory remarks about the woman were added to the mountain of the already accumulated insults. One web-commentator even suggested that Ms. Wang should be burned in oil. Another Chinese patriot wrote to Ms. Wang, “If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces.”

Oh, yes, Chinese nationalism these days are well and alive. Two things triggered the current outburst of Chinese nationalism, one was the disturbance of the Olympic torch by pro-Tibet demonstrators and the other were pictures broadcasted by CCTV and other Chinese stations featuring selected scene-shots of the Tibet uprising, which according to CCTV was nothing than “a riot” of the worst kind. Most Chinese protesters had no problem in condoning and justifying Chinese repression in Tibet; indeed, they could not conceptualize any repression at all. Tibet was according to them an indisputable part of China and it was a province that only had benefited from Chinese money, generosity and civilization. When Western media presented a different story, boundless anger was levelled toward everyone who dares to tell any other story than the true motherland story. For many weeks a campaign against CCN and other Western media boiled back and forth on the Chinese internet, where everyone showed his patriotism by introducing new and more compelling derogatory terms about the Western media; this anger was also organized abroad, hence in Atlanta in April hundreds of agitated Chinese demonstrators were waiving Placards in the air, while shouting “CNN liar.”

What was especially striking about the behavior of many of the Chinese demonstrators in foreign cities around the globe was the way by which it resembled mob-behavior during the Cultural Revolution; could it really be possible that no one had learned anything from this dark chapter of Chinese history? Another notable feature was that Beijing unscrupulously encouraged its devotees to demonstrate all-over the free world, while pro-boycott demonstrations anywhere in China would have been beaten-up and arrested. In this way, Beijing used the freedom of the Western world to its own advances but prohibited its adversaries to enjoy the same right in China. Needless to say, this is the kind of opportunism; there is build into the very nature of the Chinese autocratic system. In South Korea, the behavior of pro-Olympic torch demonstrators was particularly rude and violent, as they engaged in throwing rocks, bottled water, steel pipes and sticks against pro-Tibet demonstrators, who they heavily outnumbered.

Chinese demonstrators attack Tibetan protestors in Seoul, South Korea, April 27, 2008.

Certainly, recent events surrounding the Olympic torch and the rebellion in Tibet have potentials of becoming a turning point in history. I tend to agree with Zhengxu Wang, a scholar at the University of Nottingham, when he says that “in essence, the Beijing Olympics, along with the global controversy it has generated, mark not the beginning, but the end of an era.” Yes, there is reasons why it is plausible that we stand in the beginning of a new era in the relationship between China and the world. The rebellion in Tibet and the corresponding debate about the torch has function as a eye-opener and turned global awareness toward the political and moral consequences of China’s rise as a global power. Free trade and cheap Chinese products are nice things but people are begining to wonder whether the political costs of the benefits are not too high? What has emerged in blogs, news-media and worldwide opinion-polls, is an increased scepticism and aversion about the nature of China’s political regime. More and more observers are concerned with the political cost of allowing a harsh authoritarian dictatorship like China to grow into such an important international economic actor. Is the democratic world digging its own grave by facilitating China with FDI, markets-options and international goodwill?

This change in public awareness and concern is by no means restricted to “the Western world,” world-wide opinion polls reveal that the sentiments span the whole globe. As a matter of fact, one of the most outspoken intellectuals against Chinese politics is Ian Boyne from Jamaica and Jamaica is not normally associated with the West in any narrow sense of the term. Mr. Boyne is a prolific writer, who has written in countless international journals spanning the political spectrum from New Left Review to the Cato Journal. Mr. Boyne is particularly concerned with what he consider as Beijing repressive behavior in Sudan and Zimbabwe but he has also offered a more general analysis of the Chinese regime’s nature and politics. In the Jamaica Gleaner, in April 20, 2008, Ian Boyne analyzes the recent events surrounding Tibet and the Olympic torch. “China, he writes, is an increasingly influential Great Power whose scorn of the western human rights tradition is a deep concern to foreign policy analysts. The recent protests in Tibet and the subsequent repression by the Chinese authorities, which sparked the Olympic torch disruptions, could advance the torch of freedom in China. Human rights activists must continue the pressure on China, with the hope that that country can tame its totalitarian impulse. … While the United States has often failed to be true to its democratic rhetoric and heritage, that country has a strong philosophical and cultural commitment to human rights and civil liberties. China is philosophically committed to a set of ideas which are obnoxious to the Western liberal tradition.

By this token, the dramatic events surrounding Tibet and the Olympic Games have given birth to a new global awareness. As a signpost it reflects a new phase of China’s rise, which is moving beyond a sheer industrial exercise and into a process, where its moral and geopolitical implications become more obvious by the day. It has increasingly become clear that China’s growth is much more than an “neutral” exercise in economic development, it has crucial negative implications for the survival of democratic and human rights in the world. As Ian Boyne correct pointed out, China’s authoritarian dictatorship is inherently obnoxious vis-a-vis the fundamental principles of human rights. Indeed, China’s power to harass and obstruct democratic principles can be seen very clearly in the way the German government has avoided to met with Dalai Lama during his recent visit in Germany; it is a concrete example of how China’s economical strenght can translate into political might. Be sure that the harassement of the German government is only a prelude for things to come.

Of course, it is not the first time in modern history, where the democratic world has been faced with an aggressively expanding autocratic regime, we are naturally all aware of the historical processes by which the democratic countries of this world combatted Nazi Germany, Japan Imperialism and the Soviet Union. However, as Robert Kagan has argued in a new book called The Return of History and the End of Dream, the battle with autocratic regimes is not over and democracies in this world need to pull themselves together and actively defend their basic principles. In this way, the idea that China simply would developed into a democracy society through sheer economic development alone is no longer a plausible proposition. Thus, the prolonged hope that China through the mechanisms of a free marked would pass into the orbit of democracy is nothing but a flimsy illusion. Indeed, the nationalistic outboost and various opinon polls indicate that the Chinese population has move significantly in an authoritarian direction. In this regard it is indicative that a new TV series in 23 episodes about the young Chairman Mao, one of the biggest mass murders in World History, has become a big hit in China, especially among university students. The ghoost of totalitarian ideologies is not far away from the Chinese unconsciouss; the government is promoting a rosy, soap-opera-like fairytale about the Chinese past and too many young Chinese is too ready to swallow it. That Mao was a criminal is too hard a reality to cope with: it is easier to live in the lies of a patriotic phantasm. George Santayana, once said, “wisdom comes with disillusion,” but the young Chinese radicals is fixed like junkies on cheap, pseudo-heroic fairtales about their own past. One need to understand that the outbust of Chinese nationalism as it exploded around the Tibet event came from the roots of the young nationalists on the Cyberspace themselves. That is, its was a genuine feeling not simply a government construct. In its own peculiar form, it does indicate that some kind of civic society do exist but a civic society that has internalized the values of their own repressors. Indeed, when one study China today it becomes increasingly clear that the country’s civic-societal paralysis is not so much the effect of regime repression as it is the victim of its own self-repression. The government is feeding this self-repression through CCTV and other tools yet fundamentally, it is a flaw from within; the flaws of nationalist mythologies that paralyze the brain. All true greatness start with a humble but persistent self-criticism but when did you last met a young Chinese nationalist who was self-critical on China’s behalf? The West is different, our hero is Nietzsche but what is Nietzsche saying; he is basically ridiculing the West, telling us that Christianity is evil, that democracy is silly, patriotism is rubbish and so on. In sum, he is telling us all kind of things we do not want to hear. But that is why he is so attractive in the West because he inspires our critical thinking. Where is Nietzsche in China these days? Literally nowhere; indeed if Nietzsche was in China he would be ridiculed, called a traitor, silented and arrested. That’s why China is in a kind of intellectual limbo today, everything deeper is sapped out of the debate either because of a cloroformistic groupthink, or by CCTV and by the police. The problems is not that China doesn’t have great intellectuals; the problem is that they do not stand at chance in China these days. What is particularily noticable about young Chinese nationalists is their obsession about being proud about China, speak about the country’s glory, etc. etc. As if real greatness had anything to do with screaming and shouting about it. Think about it: a person who goes around saying “look how great I am; I am very, very great” is most likely not the most greatest person around. Another trend among young Chinese nationalists is the idea that the world is “out to get them.” For them Tibet is just a plot in a Western conspiracy which only purpose is to weaken and humilitate China; of course, it has nothing to do with human rights; no, no, it is a part of an evil plan by CNN, CIA, the French, the Japanese and who-ever is on the hitlist of evils. And so on. When one look into the current Chinese debates on the internet and elsewhere, one get a sense of a nation still living mentality in the 15th Century or at best fighting the battle of the 19th Century. The worst thing is that they are repeating the same mistakes; then and now, it is the political system, which is the problem; but young Chinese nationalists have taboorized this idea; they can’t even raise the question. Certainly, there exist few brave exceptions in China, some real substantial people but they are depressingly few. One can only wonder what has happen to the spirit of 1989? If the current political regime continues in China, and there is no sign to the contrary, then China will emerged as an authoritarian threat to the democratic way of life and especially to human rights in places such as Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Tibet.

New York Times Video about Chinese Cyber-nationalism.

It is not because democracy has bad odds in the approaching struggle. Some of the major powers who determines the socio-political order of this planet are all democracies; they include the US, the EU, India, Japan, Brazil, South Korea and South Africa. Although China is a giant, the major democratics in this world is by combined numbers far bigger; so even if China is big one should not become paralyzed by its numbers. Although the road to democracy is complex and troublesome, the general tendency in modern time has been a stepwise increase of democratic countries allover the world. Yet, with a major autocratic power as China emerging this process can’t simply be taken for granted. Unless democratic countries stand up for their principles and values, they might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Nonetheless, with the exception of China most autocratic states in the world are comparatively weak, underdeveloped or highly troubled places, so even if there should emerge an authoritarian axis under the hegemony of China, it would not be an axis that was terribly strong. Nonetheless, the new authoritarian “brotherhood” is working well already, since China, is selling its advanced censorship systems of the Internet to other repressive regimes of this world. According to Joshua Kurlantzick, “already, China, Russia and Central Asian authoritarian states have issued joint communiqués denouncing the export of democracy, and have begun to protect each other from international forums like the United Nations.” Many has speculated whether there could emerged as Russia-Chinese autocratic alliance? The recent joint statement from Russia and Chína condeming the US missile shield could be seen as an important step in such a direction. However, a strong anti-democratic Russian-Chinese alliance is not very plausible for several reasons. First, Russia is importantly tied to its obligation and trade with Europe and it will have little and no interest in seriously alienating this relationship; moreover and perhaps even more important, Russia and China stand head-to-head in the strategic game about Central Asia, where the interests of two powers are fundamentally opposite.

What Tibet has signified and what the Olympic Games in August most likely will reveal is that the naivity and goodwill regarding China have gone and that a new era of skepticism will emerged. In other words, the rule of the game will change and China’s policy in Tibet, Africa, Cental Asia and elsewhere will become submitted to intensified global attention and counter-measures. At the same time a wave of protectionalism can’t be rule out, especially in the US and such a trend will weaken China’s drive. Another scenario might be that international investment will begin to flow in other directions than China. The most important step will most likely become a new intensified skepticism and criticism of China on the grass-root level of global politics. Whatever the case might be, the relationship between the world and China after Tibet and the Olympics is ripe for profound changes. World opinon brought at least Apartheid to an end, and one can just wonder whether it has other great deads to perform.