El Mundo-world

Karsten Lauritzen from Venstre

2009-08-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

Mr. Karsten Lauridsen is the spokesperson on immigration in the Danish political party Venstre.
As a continuation of the debate on the Iraqi asylum seekers who have been expelled from Denmark according to Danish law, he has recently said
"Jeg synes sådan set, at oppositionen bør skamme sig lidt. Hver gang man løber tør for almindelige argumenter, så hiver man en konvention eller et lovbrud op" (http://politiken.dk/indland/article771515.ece) (freely translated: "I think that the opposition should be ashamed of themselves. Every time they run out of normal arguments, they bring forth some convention or law."
This he said in relation to the fact that as these Iraqi's are being interrogated by an Iraqi delegation, they have been denied their lawyers being present. This is apparently in contrast with Danish Public law, something that has already been pointed out by numerous experts.
Therefore, Mr. Lauridsen's comment seems rather odd: wasn't it exactly because of the law that the Iraqis are being expelled!?
I don't think that the law is too strict, and that humanitarian considerations should go ahead of the law about expelling the Iraqis. But I find it outright hipocritical that a man like Mr. Lauridsen thinks the law is only valid in some cases and not in others. If he was really consistent, he would argue that protection of the law is equal for everyone in the country.
Sadly, in politicians in Denmark hide their lack of humanity behind the law, and on top of it, the law does not apply equally to everyone!
It is becoming so very sad to witness this!

Brorsons Church

2009-08-13T05:46:00.001-07:00

Call me naive: I don't really care about the political observance of people, but I have always thought that the priority of any political system should be consideration for fellow humans.
I have always felt that this was something we could be proud of in Denmark, where the consideration for the weakest in a society is what I believe has ultimately carried Denmark from being a poor northern warlike tribe, to become a free, rich and prosperous country.

Over the last 20 years or so, Danish society has been more and more influenced by globalization, for good and for bad (but wouldn't we want to face the challenge of globalization by being a dynamic modern society, that adapts and accepts while keeping the best of our society!?). And in the Danish political climate this has had the sad repercussion that the discourse has increasingly become more confrontational, discriminatory and defamatory (governments and opposition alike, very well supported by a sensationalistic media).
In spite of all this, I have remained convinced that Danes in general do have pride of being an open, altruistic and benevolent society.
And I still believe this, although the belief has been shaken lately and came to a head with the situation of the Iraqi refugees in the Brorsons Church in Copenhagen last night.

These refugees have been part of a group that over many years have been in Denmark (including children who have lived most of their life here), but having been denied asylum, were to be forcefully returned to Iraq (a country Denmark is actively participating in occupying). Understandably, the refugees are afraid of returning to Iraq after so many years, so some months ago, they sought refuge in Brorsons Church, and have been living there since, supported by local groups, the church and many people from all layers of society (independently of political observance), to the consternation of Danish authorities and politicians who seem bound by a Orwellesque attachment to laws and procedures that they do not understand should never overshadow our consideration for other human beings.
To the Danish authorities, these Iraqis seem to be mere paper-forms to be processed in the bureaucratic machinery, something that sadly is a sign of a society that increasingly has become a real-world secular technocracy.

The TV pictures of the police operation last night show Danish police in full riot gear leading young men, women and children out of a church (http://jp.dk/jptv/indland/?id=19653), as well as putting young men who offered no resistance in plastic handcuffs (doesn't the Danish police have normal handcuffs...?) and violently hitting and spraying peaceful demonstrators who were trying to block the way for the police (http://jp.dk/jptv/indland/?id=19657).

I have never felt so shameful to be Danish, and I believe that this is one of the saddest days for our country; the inhuman face of an inhuman system against the peaceful and caring traditions of our heritage.
We seem to be losing the battle, and more than any pseudo-nationalistic populist who believes that Danishness lies in beer, pork-shops, the queen and Dannevirke, the loss of our humanity and care for other people is the greatest threat to our Danish identity today.

The result of the EP Elections in Denmark

2009-06-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

The elections turned out very interesting, and over half the Danes came out to vote (perhaps because of the constitutional change) which is very good for Danes' involvement in the EU democratic processes. However, before proceeding to the elected candidates, I must mention the great losers of the election which I have to regret are Junibevægelsen and Radikale Venstre.
Although I generally disagree with Junibevægelsen, I find it a huge pity that Ms. Hanne Dahl did not get re-elected into the Parliament; she has undoubtedly been one of the most competent Danish MEP's and Junibevægelsen has done a lot to push for increased transparency and democracy in the EU. The demise of Junibevægelsen is a huge loss to the MEP and to Danish voters who are concerned about EU transparency.
And I say this as someone who is a supporter of Danish membership in the Euro and to take away the Danish "forbehold."

The Radikale Venstre had a messy campaign, although one must admire the tenacity and optimism of Sofie Carsten Nielsen; I hope to see her in Danish politics.
Nevertheless, one must question some of the choices that the party made; they chose to focus only on Ms. Carsten Nielsen, and this totally overshadowed other candidates, most notably Mr. Johannes Lebech, who has been a competent MEP over the last five years. Also, I am afraid their alliance with the Social Democrats and SF backfired, as some voters became afraid of seeing their votes being wasted on more socialist parties.
The great winners were DF and SF, who each managed to get two mandates. DF continues being an important player in Danish politics, and has run a very good campaign, competently appealing to the more nationally-minded voters, sceptic of EU cooperation. I also think DF in fact benefitted from no alliances with other parties: if you voted for DF you knew your vote would not get traded for petty favours!
Some of the Venstre and Conservative candidates also tried strategy based on petty nationalisms, and in spite of what they may think themselves, they came out quite pathetic and unreliable in the face of it. In Venstre there has been an open debate on the chosen strategy, and I agree with them who say this backfired and made DF stronger.
SF rode on the wave of increased popularity in Danish politics, as well as with the perfect combination of a competent and experienced Margretehe Auken and a dynamic and young Emilie Turunen.

The 13 Danish MEPs are:

Margrethe Auken, SF: Very competent and intelligent candidate who drew the bulk of the personal votes in the party. It is certainly good that she will be back in the EP, and I hope that she is able to access the Danish media more to tell about her good work in the EP.
Emilie Turunen, SF: I followed her closely in the campaign, considering to vote for her, but in the end found her way too immature, mostly because she seemed very narrowminded and insulting towards other candidates. No question about her great dynamism though. In one debate I heard her promise that she would keep her constituency close to her work even when in Brussels, but I honestly doubt that she will keep this.
Dan Jørgensen, Social Democrats: Has been interesting to follow Mr. Jørgensen in the campaign, where he has suddenly had to justify his last five years in Brussels, which he got by free-riding on the popularity of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. I must admit that I have my doubts to him, as I heard nothing about him during his previous five years and that some rather odd stories came out about him, like him voting "wrongly" on an issue of animal welfare as well as being the Danish MEP with lowest attendance in the EP. I hope he improves since his voters certainly deserve it, and he should be thankful for their trust.
Britta Thomsen, Social Democrats: She led a serious campaign on her core issues on sustainable energy and equality, using her experience as an MEP very well in the face of a campaign that often lack substance.
Christel Schaldemose, Social Democrats: Has been an MEP for the last five years, and I am certain she has been competent and hardworking, something she has deservedly benefitted from. She managed to get many personal votes in spite of a somewhat less prominent campaign. In a debate I heard her say that she has been the most cited Danish MEP the last five years. I must admit I hadn't noticed this, but hope that she manages to make herself more noticed this time around.
Ole Christensen, Social Democrats: This candidate can thank the alliance with the Radikale that he got in, and I personally greatly blame the Radikale for this (they thus justified my limited bad conscience at not voting for them!). In his time as an MEP he has never been heard about in any domestic debate and I doubt he will be heard of any more over the next five years.
Morten Messerschmidt, DF: Emerged as the great winner of the elections with some 265,000 personal votes. I personally find him too ideological and appealing to the lowest denominators of Danish nationalism, but I have to respect his intelligence and competence. I am certain he will be a hardworking and competent MEP, although very ideological. He is surely bound for a great career in Danish politics.
Anna Rosbach, DF: If I liked anyone from DF it was Ms. Rosbach, who knows the EP well, has a very positive approach to her colleagues in the EP (differently from one of her predecessors, Mr. Mogens Camre), and I hope she continues working like that as an MEP for a party that largely has a negative message to anyone who is not Danish.
Jens Rohde, Venstre: Mr. Rohde as probably run the most populistic and unreliable campaign of all candidates. But as top candidate of Venstre he managed to get sufficient exposure to appeal to nationalistic voters with some very un-Venstre rhetoric. I have no idea how he will bring Danish views to the EU, like he has said he will; in fact, I believe that this is another way of telling us that he will not try to be accountable to Danish voters.
Morten Løkkegaard, Venstre: The example that you only need to be a known face to get elected, Mr. Løkkegaard drew more personal votes from many far more experienced and competent candidates, after barely running an election campaign. I don't think we will hear from him at all over the next five years.
Anne E. Jensen, Venstre: A very experienced and competent candidate who with this enters her third term as an MEP. I thought this was too much, as I think Ms. Jensen has been too anonymous in her last period as an MEP. But with a new period I hope she uses her experience to continue her good work. She is the only hope of a serious politician for Venstre in the EP.
Bendt Bendtsen, Conservative: Mr. Bendtsen had a good personal election - no question about it. However, I think he could have pulled more votes for his party, and get one more Conservative in, had he not been so poor in the debates (he looked like he couldn't bother) and so focused on Turkey. I have very few expectations to him as an MEP, except that I predict we will hear something shady about him at one point.
Søren Søndergaard, Folkebevægelsen mod EU: It is a pity that it was not Junibevægelsen who entered to represent the EU-sceptic movements. However, Folkebevægelsen, and notably Søren Søndergaard has skillfully combined an appeal to the left-wing voters and the nationalist voters, and still advocates for Denmark to withdraw from the EU. He will surely be controversial as an MEP and push for changes.

In relation to the candidates I would have preferred to see in the Parliament, only Ms. Margrethe Auken and Ms. Anna Rosbach managed to get elected. Of course I would have liked to see all "my favourites" represented, but there are certain candidates I personally find a great shame that they didn't get in (in spite of the fact that I didn't vote for them in the end): Venstre's Mr. Kasper Elbjørn and Ms. Louise Freiberg, as well as the Conservatives' Mr. Christian Wedell-Neergaard. They would all have been far more competent and accountable MEP's than the candidates who actually got elected from these two parties.
I really hope to see them in Danish politics in the future.
In general I am mostly in doubt about the candidates from Venstre, Conservative and the Social Democratic party. In spite of some of them being extremely competent and experienced (Ms. Schaldemose, Ms. Thomsen and Ms. Jensen), I am afraid that we will not hear from them over the next five years now they are "safely" in Brussels.
I have great doubts they would even answer a question from a petty citizen like me - maybe they can prove me wrong...?

Now what remains is to follow the work of all of these candidates over the next five years. Have no doubt that the democratic work of citizens don't end with the elections, but must continue by monitoring our MEPs and making them accountable.
That is what they get (very well!) paid for, and each of them must now prove to all the good people who voted for them and whom they represent, that they are in Brussels and Strasbourg for them, and not for their own small egos and purses.

The privilege and burden is on you all, MEP's.
In the meantime, congratulations to each of you.

Weekly Update on the EP Elections Part IV

2009-06-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

-Elections in Denmark are tomorrow; while the media has finally managed to follow the elections well, it seems Danes are nevertheless more preoccupied with the monarchy succession and a world cup qualifier between Denmark and Sweden.

-Ask me, I have reached my high-point of listening to the candidates although my vote is as yet not finally decided.

-Ms. Louise Feilberg from Venstre gave me a beer at the Start-Festival, and I have to thank her for that, although my vote is worth much more than a beer!

-In Copenhagen a campaigner from Folkebevægelsen from EU approached me, and said that they encompassed the entire political spectrum: "our leading candidate is from Enhedslisten and our second is from Radikale" (two very different parties ideologically). I asked what they agree on then, and he replied "they don't like the EU."
-Inconsistency?

-Ms. Margrethe Auken may have been stressed from the campaigning, but she seemed to lose her cool in a recent TV debate.

-Polls are coming with all their smart predictions: Ms. Hanne Dahl from Junibevægelsen is to be out, while Ms. Mette Abildgaard from Konservative is set to surprise.

-At the same time the eager Ms. Sofie Carsten Nielsen from Radikale seems to have gotten herself into a difficult path: as polls predict that the Radikale will not get enough votes - it seems likely that any vote for her may end up with their allies of SF or the Social Democrats. Thus, potential voters have a strong reason not to vote for them, reinforcing their poor elections.
-The polls may be their doom.

-Song of the week I would like to hear a candidate sing: Dan Jørgensen, "Oops I did it again" (Britney Spears)

-Candidate I would like to have a beer of the week with: Kasper Elbjørn from Venstre

Constitutional change

2009-06-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

In Denmark there is a referendum on the inheritance rights in the Danish monarchy on the same day of the European Parliament elections. The referendum is a constitutional change about giving females the same rights as males in the succession of the throne (as it is now, the first-born male is the one to inherit the throne) and has been rather uncontroversial until lately. It is likely that the government included the referendum in the ballot so that many people who would otherwise not have shown up at EP elections, may want to give their vote in support of the monarchy.
However, the constitutional change is now running into opposition: a number of known Danes are expressing reservations and support for the law is dwindling.
It is not that it will come out a "no"; but the constitutional change requires that 40% of all eligible voters support the motion, and this is looking increasingly doubtful with a turnout that is still expected to be low. A number of people have called for a blank vote, and leading politicians, such as Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and Marianne Jelved have insinuated that they might vote "no".
The refenrendum is being sold as a question of equality between the sexes, and "bring the monarchy into the 21st century."
Still, many people complain that in fact it is not about modernising the monarchy, which would require many more relevant changes than this. Also, the issue of equality sounds hollow in a country where women are still left behind in salaries and access to jobs. Finally, some people are annoyed that the government didn't use the opportunity to promote a wider change of the Danish constitution whose modernization in the face of a changing Danish society and globalization is much more required than a populist change to a law on monarchy.
I am voting blank, and I think the motion will not pass.

Who I will vote for in the EP elections

2009-06-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

I have made a shortlist of the Danish candidates I find worthy of voting for in the EP elections. I have already made my selection of whom I will vote for, and it is one among the candidates below. I have given everyone the benefit of the doubt, and have selected someone from each party; and I am happy to say that I have found competent and good people in each party, so there should be a someone for everyone to choose from.

Before I reveal the simplified list I must underline that it is my personal list. I have tried to combine what I have heard them say in the news (TV, radio); what I have read about them (newspapers and internet); meeting I have been at where they have been present; as well as my general subjective impression of the candidate (some people may criticize this, but I do believe that as in any political fight of the 21st century, it is crucial how you present yourself).
I may be wrong in what I write, but it is my impression, and if anyone wants to ask me more, I would be happy to say more.

Candidates	Main issues	Advantages	Disadvantages
Margethe Auken (SF)	To fight climate change through Green jobs and sustainable energy. Minimum work standards in the EU. The fight against cross-border crime, including white-collar crime and prostitution (she advocates for Denmark leaving the judicial exception).	Knows the Parliament where she has been one of the best Danish MEP over five years. Extremely intelligent and balanced.	SF has focused entirely on their two top candidates, and they have drowned that there are actually others. They all seem to follow a strict party line As an MEP Ms. Auken has had a difficulty being heard in Danish press. From being anti-EU she is now very pro-EU.
Klaus Larsen-Jensen (S)	Social welfare and jobs. Alternative energy, education and equality. Control of capital markets.	Has been president of the Folketings’ Europaudvalg, and may thus be in a good position to build a stronger relationship between EP and Folketing	Has not participated enough in the debate; too anonymous in the campaign. Much of what he has written in the media has been about quite abstract subjects, and nothing concrete.
Einer Lyduch (S)	A social Europe based on rights, jobs and sustainable energy.	Quite knowledgeable on the EU and its international role	Too unknown; has hardly been profiled in the debate, and his knowledge seems too limited to EU international role, and less so on some of the more soft issues of the EU
Sofie Carsten Nielsen (RV)	Asylum and immigration; health (patient-rights); gender equality (maternity leave)	Radikale might not get in, and it would be a loss if there are none. She has been very active in the debate and very concrete and knowledgeable.	Her campaign has at times seemed desperate for attention and she has at times seemed stressed and almost hysterical, making one wonder whether she is up to the stress of the EP.
Johannes Lebech (RV)	Environment and climate, consumer rights and health	He has been a good MEP for five years, and sits in the environmental council. He has excellent experience and has seemed committed.	He has been notably absent from the campaign, perhaps to get focus on their only likely MEP Sofie Carsten Nielsen, and he may thus have given up beforehand.
Kasper Elbjørn (V)	Energy independence (including sustainable energy), strengthening the internal market, institutional reform and democracy in the EU	Young and dynamic, with a very interesting blog where he seems quite knowledgeable and focused, and doesn’t always follow the party line	Young candidates are a forgotten breed in Venstre. Kasper Elbjørn may be positioning himself in the party for the Folketing
Louise Feilberg (V)	A liberal Europe; climate change; stop human trafficking; consumer policy	Dynamic and committed, and knows a lot about the specific subjects she works with.	As young, she has little chance in spite of her dynamism. May also be setting herself up for a future in Venstre.
Peter Hjortkjær Jørgensen (LA)	Health, education, climate, the financial crisis (global solutions)	Basically the only worthwhile candidate in Liberal Alliance	Totally unknown and in the shadow of B. Dickow has had almost no profiling in the debate.
Ditte Staun (FEU)	Cooperation without a union; defend democracy and fight bureaucracy; fight EU trade-walls; health, environment and animal rights	Ideologically a liberal and quite well-argued about her stance against the EU	She often seems out of touch with political realities, and risks just being an eternal nay-sayer.
Hanne Dahl (JB)	Patient-rights; IT-security; water protection; democracy and transparency in the EU	Very intelligent and in-depth knowledge of all her issues and after a couple of years in the EP, knows the system well. Have moved from being anti-EU to EU-sceptic. Junibevægelsen has had a positive influence in the EP under Jens Peter Bonde and Hanne Dahl.	She appears arrogant in the discussions and her great level of detailed knowledge makes her sound uninteresting for some voters. Junibevægelsen will have a difficult election from being seen as inconsistent.
Anna Rosbach (DF)	Yes to cooperation between EU states in areas of environment, criminality, transport, research & education. No to the EU Constitution and to Brussels-made legislation	Appears to have a generally positive approach to the EU and is more a sceptic than an EU opponent. Many years of EU experience does that she knows the system	I could imagine that she has little appeal in her own party because of her generally positive approach and good way of discussing. Seems weak in the discussion of some of the more substantive issues.
Christian Wedell-Neergaard (K)	Peace & security; freedom & justice; climate & environment	Extremely knowledgeable of agricultural policy, and a sound and positive ideologically conservative approach- differently from many leading Conservatives, he is not a populist.	May not get elected due to his sound arguments. Comes out somewhat boring

There have been other candidates that I have been close to putting on this list: Emilie Turunen, Peter Norsk and Mette Abildgaard, but for different reasons I did not include them in the end.
Also, when voting some considerations need to be made on some party alliances and the party lists: for instance if you vote for either SF, Radikale or Socialdemokratiet, you risk that your vote goes to any of the parties in the alliance. And in some party lists you risk that your personal vote is given to someone you hadn't wanted to vote for (it is something not all parties are very good at answering, so I am not sure which ones do this).

In any case, the most important thing is to go out and vote, even if you turn in a blan vote!

EU Development Aid and the EP elections

2009-05-31T04:54:00.000-07:00

EU development aid is a subject that I am interested in both professionally and personally, and that I, in all due modesty, know a lot about. The European Parliament will, when the Lisbon treaty is ratified, have a increasing role to play in European development policy, and I therefore have found it interesting to study what Danish candidates think about this problem.

The subject has not had much attention, although it is now interesting that the Danish NGO, MS, has had a poll made by the pollster Capacent, in which 55 percent of the respondents agree to the statement that a it is important for their choice of candidate that he/she is worried about EU's role in relation to poor countries ("Det er afgørende for mit valg af kandidat til Europaparlamentsvalget, at vedkommende bekymrer sig om EU's rolle i forhold til fattige udviklingslande").
Looking at the questions this is hardly surprising, and I am quite certain that if they ask any candidate "Are you worried about EU's relation to poor developing countries?", they would all reply "yes". It is thus interesting that MS has also proceeded to ask many (not all!) candidates 17 specific quesitons as what aspects they will work for in the European Parliament.
Here, what causes most attention is the relatively small discrepancies in the replies: except for a couple of candidates from Dansk Folkeparti, and a few dissenters in Venstre, there is clearly a general agreement that EU should work towards the MDG's, that EU aid should be transparent and aimed at poverty reduction, that gender is important, and that fair trade with developing countries should be at the core of development assistance (nearly every candidate answered positively to tear down eksport subsidies on agricultural products and work for a dismantling of the CAP).
The main discrepancies appear in more controversial themes such as what is considered development assistance (such as debt-relief), but in particular in areas of climate change, what environmental support should be considered to be aid, and biofuels. However, interestingly, there was also general agreement on creating a fund to aid aigainst negeative effects from climate change in developing countries.
The question on whether the candidates would work to realize the goal to give 0,7 percent of GDP in aid by 2015 was only answered negatively by candidates from Dansk Folkeparti and Liberal Alliance, as well as Torkil Sohn from Folkebevægelsen mod EU and Jan Winther from Venstre. In fact, it is notable how much candidates from Liberal Alliance and Dansk Folkeparti were in agreement in most questions, with the exception of Morten Messerschmidt from Dansk Folkeparti, who largely followed the general replies.

Besides the publication of this commendable report, MS is not engaging in any further debate, besides telling us through a video of ActionAid that it is important to vote for a candidate who cares about the poor.
It is a pity that with this MS does not seem to want to engage in a debate of where they want EU to go with its development assistance (should it completely supplant member state development aid, as suggested by Sofie Carsten Nielsen?) and more broadly what should be the EU's role in the world? It is clear that this is the core of the disagreement between many of the candidates who otherwise gave such similar answers in the poll; the EU-sceptic Søren Søndergaard has given exactly the same replies as the super pro-EU candidates Sofie Carsten Nielsen from Radikale Venstre or Dan Jørgensen from the Social Democrats. In fact, except for one question, Jens Rohde from Venstre has followed Søren Søndergaard's answers.

Many candidates I have considered have answered a list of questions I sent. One of these questions was about development aid. Added to interviews the top candidates of eight parties (except Benjamin Dickow from Liberal Alliance, who I assume is just going to say that EU should not bother with this) in the Danish development journal Udvikling , I have an idea of what the priorities are for a small number of the candidates, who are surely also the ones with a position on the subject:

Some candidates don't think EU should give aid at all: Torkil Sohn from Folkebevægelsen mod EU is the most clear. Ditte Staun from the same party thinks Danish aid should be channeled via multilateral institutions. Kenneth Kristensen from Dansk Folkeparti is against EU aid in principle, but thinks that if it must exist it should focus on supporting countries with good governance and democracy.

Democracy and good governance is also central to a number of candidates. Morten Messerschmidt from Dansk Folkeparti wants to fight corruption, while Karsten Skawbo from Conservative also mentions good governance and respect for human rights as foci of aid. Democracy and rights are also part of the SF candidates Emilie Turunen and Margrethe Auken, while Klaus Larsen Jensen from the Social Democracy also values democracy support.

Microloans and jobs are quite central to the candidates from the Conservative party and Venstre: Jens Rohde and Bendt Bendsten both mention it, while Christian Wedell-Neergaard and Karsten Skawbo from the Conservatives call it "help for self-help". Emilie Turunen from SF also mention support for micro-loan schemes and jobs, while Klaus Larsen Jensen mentions that aid should focus on job-creation

Trade for development is central to nearly all candidates albeit from different perspectives. Kasper Elbjørn and Charlotte Antonsen from Venstre both believe that the core is to tear down trade barriers. Jens Rohde, Bendt Bendtsen, Sofie Carsten Nielsen and Ditte Staun from Folkebevægelsen all echo this quite explicitly, while Emilie Turunen specifically says that export-subsidies and reform and CAP is at the core of free trade (although they do not say it, I believe the other candidates agree on this nevertheless), and is in agreement with Søren Søndergaard, who nevertheless also says that there should be justice in trade-agreements (specifically with ACP countries). Hanne Dahl from Junibevægelsen and Johannes Lebech from Radikale Venstre also mention the importance of fair trade agreements between the EU and developing countries.

Climate is also an issue that is at the core of much of the debate in general, but also specifically in regard to development aid. Dan Jørgensen, Jens Rohde and Sofie Carsten Nielsen all seem to prioritise climate change in questions of development aid, with the latter specifically mentioning new technologies. Margrethe Auken and Bendt Bendtsen both say there should be more integration between environmental questions and development aid.

Health is not mentioned by many: Jens Rohde mentions the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS, just as Karsten Skawbo from the Conservative. Lasse Grønning from Radikale Venstre direktly links health and poverty as the core areas of development aid.

Interestingly, Johannes Lebech from Radikale Venstre is the only one who links development aid to one of the core issues in Europes' borders, namely immigration policy.

I think that if anyone is going to decide his or her vote solely on the issue of development cooperation (which I personally won't, but it does nevertheless play a role for me), they should consider one of the candidates I have mentioned above. The rest, in my view, have a too limited opinion on the issue (at least in what has come out and what I have been able to find).

Reasons to vote for some candidates

2009-05-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

In Jyllandsposten today, I read a funny article that inspired me for the following post. There are some candidates that you may want to vote for if you have some particular or special interests.

If you really find it important that candidates just show up to the European Parliament to get their allowances, but not participate in the meetings, you may consider voting for the Social Democrat Mr. Ole Christensen who has been notable for a two-minute sign-an-allowance-form meeting.
The influence of lobby groups in Brussels is an often-mentioned feature of EP politics; lobby groups tend to approach MEP's to promote their own special interests by offering tempting and lavish gifts. If you want to vote for someone who will be firm like a rock against such temptations, you may consider voting for Mr. Bendt Bendtsen, who has never fallen for such cheap tricks as politician in Denmark.
Mr. Bendt Bendtsen has during the campaign mentioned time and time again that he is against Turkish membership of the EU. But other candidates are focusing much more on this, and hardly talk about anything else, for instance Karsten Skawbo and Morten Køpke Christensen from the Conservatives. So if you are really nervous that Denmark in 30 years time will be overrun by fez-wearing Turks in big moustaches, then you can safely vote for any of these guys.

There are of course other candidates who are focused on single-issues, so that you can be sure they will work on nothing else in the European Parliament. Mr. Fathi El Abed from SF has hardly talked about any other issue than the Arab-Israeli conflict. So, if you don't care about consumer-rights, CO2 quotas, agricultural policy or your rights as a patient, but really want peace in the Middle East, then you can vote for Mr. El Abed, who will surely manage to reconcile Israelis and Palestineans if he gets elected.

As Denmark is the most important country of the EU (others may not know it, but here in Denmark we do), you may want to consider some of the many Danish candidates who will be going to Brussels to defend Denmark. Here, Mr. Jens Rohde is a tempting choice, as he will be the (self-proclaimed) defender of the Danish people in the EP.
Of course, in this regard you also have to consider Morten Messerschmidt, who under the slogan "We want Denmark back", will bring all of it back to our proud little nation.

If Messrs. Rohde and Messerschmidt are too extreme for you, but you still want someone that at least says what you want to hear as a Dane, you may want to consider Mr. Benjamin Dickow from Liberal Alliance; on the one hand he wants Denmark to remain its own, and on the other he will want to liberalise health services and cut taxes. If you want inconsistency, vote for Mr. Dickow.
Another ultra-liberal candidate is Ms. Charlotte Antonsen from Venstre, who views the right to use a prostitute as a human right, and thus you can be sure that you can count on her if anyone in the EP is threatening you urge for a hand-job.

Finally, if you really don't have an idea about any issue, but you enjoy looking at yourself in the mirror, why don't you just vote of a candidate who is running his campaign to appeal to people like you?
Morten Løkkegaard from Venstre would here be a a perfect choice; a former TV presenter who looks good on TV and has hardly participated in the debate with anything of any content.

There are so many candidates, I am certain all tastes can be satisfied! Just remember to vote!

Weekly Update on the EP Elections Part III

2009-05-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

-The elections are running into the final 10 days of campaigning: the media has taken up the elections with some good debates and information pages on the web. However, now the lack of interest is being blamed on the great weather in Denmark. Are even the gods of weather against this election?

-In this last attempt to draw attention from voters, a group of Danish candidates have pushed for Danish MEP (and former Prime Minister) Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to run as President of the Commission. If Turkey is the irrelevant subject of the Conservatives, this runs the risk of becoming the irrelevant subject of SF and the Social Democrats.

-Some candidates in Denmark have proposed to penalize men who purchase the services of a slave-prostitute. The candidate from Venstre, Charlotte Antonsen, has refused to do this, as she finds that it is not possible to distinguish between prostitutes for the customer, like it would be if you buy stolen goods: "Man ved godt, at hvis man får et meget dyrt B&O-anlæg billigt i en baggård, så er det nok stjålet."

-A very humane approach, Ms. Antonsen.

-Ms. Antonsen may in fact get elected as she is listed top on Venstre's alphabetic list, because her name starts with A. Anne E. Jensen, an experienced MEP, may not get elected as she is 8th on the same list. Whoever said people are uninterested in politics?

-In one of the first TV debates between top candidates on DR, Benjamin Dickow in his presentation stated that getting to the EP would be extremely interesting for him. I think we should all consider whether we will vote for a man to promote his own interests. That is not extremely interesting for me...

-At a debate in Berlingske tidende between Bendt Bendtsen and Morten Messerschmidt agree on most things, so since they will both apparently get elected, they can get to hang out in Brussels and Strasbourg playing golf over the next few years.

-Turkey-fixation of the Week: Hans Gert Pöttering

-Candidate of the Week I would like to hear sing a song: Emilie Turunen from SF, "Fame"

-Candidate I would have a beer of the week with: Lotte Roed from Radikale Venstre and "Ung Kuld"

Weekly Update on the EP Elections Part II

2009-05-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

-I was in Sweden this week, and when asking a candidate campaigning for the Green Party in Gothenburg, she said that in Sweden they were not expecting more than 50% of people to vote. Just like everywhere in EU, the interest for the things that are relevant seem to be low in Sweden.

-The Swedish "Pirate Party" seems to be sure to get into the European Parliament, arguing for the free right to copy and distribute music, software, films... It seems that their base is among young voters.

-At least these youngsters show interest in the elections, something that they don't seem to have in Denmark.

-The Danish Prime Minister from Venstre, Mr. Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been forced to come out to say that Venstre is still a party that has high regards for the European project. This came as Jens Rohde from Venstre is increasingly becoming a champion of EU scepticism, to such a degree that Hanne Dahl, from the EU-sceptic Junibevægelsen, has accused Mr. Rohde of stealing their voters.

-With so few votes going around I guess theft is a problem.

-Danish EU-scepticism is being led by populism: Mr. Benjamin Dickow from Liberal Alliance appears a combination between a Dansk Folkeparti-member (but badly dressed) and Margaret Thatcher.

-I guess it is hard to get attention in the populist rhetoric, so Britta Thomsen from Socialdemokratiet, who has had little attention at all, has tried getting some attention by saying that there should be free internet for everyone in the EU.

-No connection has been made to the Pirate Party.

-And amid elections, nobody thinks of the European Commission: Mr. Manuel Barroso has complained that MEP's should stop taking all the credit for all the good things in the EU.

-Turkey-fixation of the Week: Karsten Skawbo-Jensen, Conservative party.

-Song of the week I would like to hear a candidate sing: Morten Messerschmidt, "Gi' mig Danmark tilbage" (Natasja).

-Candidate I would most like to have a beer with this week: Michael Christensen from the Conservatives.

Piedritas en mi ventana

2009-05-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Today, one of the greatest poets, not only of Latin America, but of the entire world, Mr. Mario Benedetti passed away, 88 years old, in his home in Montevideo, Uruguay. I have for many years carried his poem "El Sur También Existe" with me in a notebook, and one particular poem that I have always loved:

"De vez en cuando la alegría
tira piedritas contra mi ventana
quiere avisarme que esta ahí esperando
pero me siento calmo
casi diría ecuánime
voy a guardar la angustia en un escondite
y luego a tenderme la cara al techo
que es una posición gallarda y cómoda
para filtrar noticias y creerlas
quien sabe donde quedan mis próximas huellas
ni cuando mi historia va a ser computada
quien sabe que consejos voy a inventar aun
y que atajo hallare para no seguirlos
esta bien no jugare al desahucio
no tatuare el recuerdo con olvidos
mucho queda por decir y callar
y también quedan uvas para llenar la boca
esta bien me doy por persuadido
que la alegría no tire mas piedras
abriré la ventana."

R.I.P.

Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil

2009-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I am going to be very honest now: I am ashamed to say that I once voted for this politician, who with time, has become a sell-out. And now, as the European Parliament elections approach, Ms. Rosenkrantz-Theil has become a populist turnaround as well: in the P3 radion station, where she weekly has a place in a popular radio-show, she has again trashed the EU elections.
It is basically fair enough to say that you are against the EU, which she does, putting her firmly in the Folkebevægelsen mod EU, but she insults every single candidate, even her own political allies (be they social democrats or from Folkebevægelsen) when she calls the European Parliament a Mickey-Mouse-Parliament.
Besides this, such a comment stands in contrast to the actual facts about the European Parliament, where I am certain Ms. Rosenkrantz-Theil knows that 80% of legislation on a long list of things are made; things that I am certain even Ms. Rosenkrantz-Theil would consider relevant to her life.

Basically, her comments stands alongside Mogens Camre's comment on Eastern European Parliamentarians, as one of the most derogatory comments of this election (coming from a politican).
But hey, who knows? Ms. Rosenkrantz-Theil has turned right before, so she may be anticipating things to come?

The given election beforehand

2009-05-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

In one of the first polls on the coming election for the European Parliament it has been confirmed that the winners will be the already known politicians, notably Bendt Bendtsen from the Conservatives, Jens Rohde from Venstre and Morten Messer Messerschmidt from DF. While this is greatly disappointing, it confirms that in an election that people find of little interest, the ones who will vote will vote for whatever face they have been mostly exposed to, and not ask too many questions. Thus, these candidates, don't need to engage to much in a debate; don't need to answer serious questions; don't need to show up at voters meeting; don't need to study the subjects at hand. And in this regard, these candidates also display a meager interest in even making people interested in EU politics! These candidates are the sole beneficiaries of apathy about politics, and many dictators will surely agree that the easiest way to power is by people's apathy.

The saddest part of all, is that I doubt that any of these candidates will work seriously and eagerly for the benefit of their voters. Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe a guy like Bendt Bendtsen is in it for the personal benefits - his behaviour can convince me of nothing else.
There are many people in the parties of these three candidates who deserve to be in the European parliament, and it is a real pity that these three are taking the attention away from the candidates from Venstre, Conservative and DF who really work hard for the election.

Weekly Update on the EU Elections, Part 1

2009-05-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

-Danish national TV (DR) was going to cut most debates and information on the EU elections (but has decided to include it anyway after some parties complained). You cannot blame them: if Berlusconi can do it, why not Danish "public service"? I will do my tiny part that the elections are a little more in the media, so here are some observations of the EP election in Denmark this week:

-Danish newspapers have started their "which candidate do you agree with" sites on the internet, and as always, the question are completely irrelevant. "Do you agree that the CAP should be reformed?" always yields the same answer as "Do you believe this question is stupid?"

-And why the hell does everyone keep talking about Turkish membership, in particular the Conservatives Bendt Bendtsen, Jan Køpke or DF's Morten Messerschmidt, who all seem to have a complete Turkey fixation? By the time Turkish membership becomes relevant in the job of an MEP, these gentlemen will either be in a retirement home!

-Jens Rohde from Venstre has said that he doesn't see it as his job to inform Danes on what happens in the EP, but to bring Denmark to the EP. Well, it does sound tempting to send him to a place we know nothing about and hear nothing from him any more.

-DSU has sent out a campaign poster reminescent of an old Danish Morten Korch movie, where the opposition candidates are the villains, and the Social Democracts are the heroes. The poster is hilarious, and the most unrealistic part of it is Dan Jørgensen as the victor of the financial crisis. But you have to give it to them: it is about the most serious media exposure Dan Jørgensen, Mikkel Schøler or malou Lunerød have had in the campaign.

-Went to a campaign meeting at Copenhagen University where six candidates were supposed to show up, but Claus Larsen Jensen from the Social Democrats never showed up. I wonder if he will do the same in the EP, where money is given for showing up?

-Song of the week I would like to hear a candidate sing: Mette Abildgaard, "Follow Da Leader" (SoCa Boys).

-Candidate I would most like to have a beer with this week: Louise Feilberg from Venstre, because she surprised me positively.

Why why why!?

2009-05-15T02:20:00.000-07:00

I cannot stop thinking about why nobody is interested in the EU elections here in Denmark (and from what i hear from other countries, it is in the entire EU). Why do people have such an interest in Folketings-politics when it is sooooo boring!? Is it because it "is closer to home"? But people are not interested in local politics either!
And what about the US elections!? People were completely caught up in an election in a country on the other side of the ocean, whose outcome was at the most only of interest to us! Mr. Obama, as competent as he is, has no influence on our consumer rights, energy security, health protection, food security, identity rights or financial protection!!!!! But the European Parliament does!!!!!

Many people say it is just because it is too boring. Some candidates have even said that (why the hell do they run then!?).
Well, we can choose to see politics and democracy as a duty or as another entertainment show, but sometimes a duty can be fun and interesting, while entertainment shows are increasingly dead-boring.

Wake up Europeans.

Meetings with Danish EP candidates

2009-05-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

Today I took the entire day off to participate in events about the EP elections. I had some difficulty finding the given events, as they are unfortunately not widely published in the media, and largely found them by surfing around on the web. I find it a pity that they are not disemminated more widely!

The first meeting at Ældresagens' offices in Nørregade in Copenhagen, had good attendance, and I was happy to find out that among the assembled crowd of ministerial functionaires and experts on consumer protection were a few people with basic curiosity just like myself. I will here give a listing of the impression each candidate gave me:

Ms. Anna Rosbach from DF: Did not fulfill any of the nationalistic-naysayers stereotypes of a DF person as she sounded more as a moderate Euro-sceptic, and her message was largely based on the fact that we should cooperate on consumer protection, but that EU should not decide over Denmark
Mr. Bendt Bendtsen from the Conservatives: I have long had the impression that Mr. Bendtsen is a populist. He criticized the proposed consumer protection directive, but when asked what he disliked about it, he had nothing to say, underlining that he seems like a man who will say anything to get elected to a Parliament where lobby-industries are ready to coddle parliamentarians.
Mr. Benjamin Dickow from Liberal Alliance: If I had not known, I would have thought that Mr. Dickow was the representative of the extreme right at this meeting. His only point in the entire debate was that EU should not decide over Denmark on consumer protection, something that is not really the issue here... He displayed no knowledge nor interest on the issues.
Christel Schaldemose from the Social Democrats: Ms. Schaldemose is a current MEP. During the debate she underlined that she has worked a lot for consumer rights and that she has been widely quoted in Denmark on EU issues. I must admit that I have heard little about her, and in that regard, I have been critical on her remaining in the Parliament. I take that back since I felt that she was very serious and hardworking, but I felt that she is just too boring and speaks too much technical language to appeal to an average voter. I will surely want to study her programme a bit more now.
Ms. Ditte Staun from Folkebevægelsen mod EU: Ms. Staun is an anti-EU social liberal. In an election where anti-EU sentiment has largely retreated to become Euro-scepticism (as represented by Junibevægelsen's Ms. Dahl and DF's Ms. Rosbach), her overall anti-EU message seems incompatible with her statements that she will vote for increased consumer protection in the EU, where she displayed good knowledge on the issues. She seemed to me to be falling in a trap of advocating more of a Euro-sceptic agenda, in line with for instance Ms. Rosbach or Ms. Dahl, where she wanted minimum-standards to be the norm.
Ms. Hanne Dahl from Junibevægelsen: Holding an infant baby in her arms during the whole debate, Ms. Dahl was one of the candidates that came out the best. Together with Ms. Auken she seems to be a hardworking and very knowledgeable MEP, who is passionate in her overall aim of being a guardian against the EU machinery. She displayed great knowledge of consumer protection and of the EU machinery.
Ms. Louise Feilberg from Venstre: This is also a candidate I was positively surprised about. Having seen her homepage and looked her up on different net-sites on the elections, I didn't get any impression: her opinions seemed to follow the general trend of her party, and there was little to distiguish her. An easily forgotten candidate you may say. But over the two debates (she was also at the second one I participated in) she came out as a very passionate young politician, with some knowledge of the issues, including consumer protection (where she specifically mentioned hormones), but also that she seemed to have reflected a lot about what it means to represent her electorate in the European Parliament, something I do not get the impression any other candidate in Venstre has ever thought of. I sadly doubt that she will get elected, but will hope that she will continue in politics.
Ms. Margrete Auken from SF: Excellent speaker, with humour and eloquence, as well as passion and knowledge of the issues. As current MEP she gave good examples of work there - I am in fact surprised that not even Ms. Auken can make people more interested in EU politics, and it just shows what an uphill struggle all EU candidates are against! Although all candidates could agree on consumer protection, there is an ideological difference that only Ms. Auke expressed clearly: she will work for high standards in ALL of the EU, while most of the other candidates were proletizing on "minimum-standards", as Denmark is (supposedly) of higher standards in everything... Ms. Auken is a European politician, and I really hope she gets elected, but may be fighting a nationalist electorate.
Sofie Carsten Nielsen from Radikale Venstre: A good presentation where she managed to appear passionate and underlined the relevance of consumer protection for everyone. In this regard, she presented a new campaign on what products people should be wary of, and in general seemed like a liberal promoting consumer choice in the EU.

In the afternoon I went to another debate I had only seen by coincidence at the LIFE institute of Copenhagen University in Frederiksberg. It took place in one of the large auditoriums, but sadly only 15 people showed up to hear the five candidates (they were supposed to be six, but one didn't show up, so remember how reliable the social democratic candidate Claus Larsen Jensen will be as a member of parliament!).
Morten Messerschmidt from DF was supposed to be there, but was replaced by Ms. Rosbach. Thus, there were three candidates I had also seen at the meeting in the morning.

Ms. Ana Rosbach again came out as a "Europeanized-DF", whatever that means, and even had some insinuations on the controversial comments of some more charismatic members of her party who talk much less about the issues than Ms. Rosbach. Her main message is that EU countries are too different to integrate, but that she favour cooperation.
Ms. Sofie Carsten Nielsen came out much better in this small crowd, and I really hope she gets in the EP: she was not ashamed to say that she was European and Danish; that she understood the paradoxes and intermingling, but that she refused to set up "hypocritical fence posts." She talked a lot that she would work for EU-wide maternity leave, which doens't really interest me, but nevertheless almost won me over.
Ms. Loiuse Feilberg from Venstre again seemed more relaxed than in the first meeting. There was much agreement on many of the overall issues, but she also specifically said that she will be a candidate of her constituent, and not disappear in Brussels.
Ms. Emilie Turunen from SF: The 25-year old number 2 on SF's list also surprised me positively. She is passionate and young, but didn't seem naive about the challenges if she gets in the EP. In line with her party she talked about working for high consumer and environmental standards in Europe, but also emphasized the overlapping of issues. She was competent and well-spoken, and I also hope to see more of her in Danish politics.
Mr. Christian Wedell-Neergaard from the Conservatives: Mr. Wedell-Neergaard seems to be everything that the number of of his party list Bendt Bendtsen is not: very well-informed (particularly on agricultural issues where I would consider him one of the most knowledgeable of all candidates), serious about the questions and the voters, and apparently a commitment to working for his constituent if he made it to the EP; he amusingly said that he wanted to become "Mr. Europe", and push the debate on EU politics in Denmark. I hope he managed to do it, because he would surely be a billion times better than Mr. Bendtsen.

The debates have been interesting, and in general I was positively surprised by some candidates (Ms. Feilberg, Ms. Rosbach, Ms. Turunen, Ms. Nielsen), and only outright appalled by two (Mr. Dickow and Mr. Bendtsen). I hope to be able to go to one or two more, but I already have a shortlist of some six candidates I am considering to vote for. It will be marginal issues and personality that will determine my choice in the end.

Prediction for the results of the EP election in Denmark

2009-05-13T02:22:00.000-07:00

I have engaged in an in-depth analysis of all candidates for the EU Parliamentary elections. While I have already sent all the people I will potentially give my vote to a number of questions, I have also made some reflections on this election, in particularly related to the fact that nobody is interested in the election: there is little about it in the media and some of the most important issues are only discussed if you really search for it (try to find anything on consumder protection or energy, some of the most important issues the Parliament will work with!). I have also been trying to find debates with the candidates that I can participate in: tomorrow I will go to one, but some of the main ones seem to be reserved for journalists (wonder why since they never write about this!), business-men (smell some lobbyism...?) and active members of the political parties (I am member of a party myself, but they seem to take it for granted that I will vote for them since I have not received a single thing on the EU elections).

While the media is partly to blame about the lack of interest, I am developing a certain suspicion that some of the candidates also have an interest in not promoting interest or debate on the EU elections. Sadly, a low turnout will benefit only the ones with a populist message and/or who already have a face in the media.
This includes all the top candidates from the parties, many of whom are already known politicians, and some are already MEP's. Whenever any of these candidates say something about Turkey or Danish participation in the Euro, they get all the attention, but more often than not, they don't engage in a debate on the subjects.
But the few people who will bother voting will only look at whom then have been exposed to the most, and many of these politicians know this, and thus will not want to upset the precarious balance of disinterest for the elections.
Who knows what might happen if voters start asking questions?!?

Thus, I sadly think that many of the younger and very competent candidates have little chance of getting elected. In fact, I think that the elections will be pretty predictable: with a turnout below 50% (just like in 2004), I predict that the candidates that will get elected are:

Margrete Auken, SF
Morten Messerschmidt, Dansk Folkeparti
Jens Rohde, Venstre
Bendt Bendtsen, Konservative
Søren Søndergaard, Folkebevægelsen mod EU
Sofie Carsten Nielsen, Radikale Venstre
Hanne Dahl, Junibevægelsen
Dan Jørgensen, Socialdemokratiet
Britta Thomsen, Socialdemokratiet
Morten Løkkegaard, Venstre
Johannes Lebech, Radikale Venstre
Emilie Turunen, SF
Christel Schaldemose, Socialdemokratiet

Of course, other outsiders are Jan Køpke Christensen (Konservative), Charlotte Antonsen, Venstre , Benjamin Dickow (Liberal Alliance), Keld Albrechtsen (Junibevægelsen), Kenneth Kristensen (Dansk Folkeparti), Hanne Severinsen (Venstre), Anne E. Jensen (Venstre).
But it truth, I doubt that many beyond these have a chance as long as the debate and turnout is so poor. However, I do think that in light of current Danish politics, SF and Socialdemokratiet will do well, while the explicitly anti-EU movements will likely do poorly when turnout is so low.

Let us see on June 7th how wrong I am!

Elections for the European Parliament: Who should I vote for?

2009-05-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

On June 7th 2009 Europeans in all 27 EU member states will go out to vote on the largest transnational election of all time, for the European Parliament. The interest level for these elections among the electorate is at an all-time low. On a Eurobarometer survey, barely a third of voters said they would vote, and 19% said they were certain they wouldn't.
Here in Denmark, where people otherwise are eager to vote on national elections, is no different from the rest of Europe: hardly anyone cares, and information about the elections are conspiciously absent from the news, except when some candidate says something about Turkish membership. All this seems rather odd (not to say hypocritical) to me, since so many people in Denmark complain about lack of democracy in the EU, and then they refuse to vote. And also, people know that the European Parliament is increasingly important for Danish law, but then refuse to even study more about the issues.
While I agree on the general premise that the EU is not good at being transparent and accountable, this fact becomes compounded and justified by the lack of interest: why in the world should the EU be more transparent and accountable if people are so indifferent to it!?
I refuse to fall into this trap, and before I go out to vote on June 7th, I want the candidates to try to charm me; to explain to me what they want in the EU; to show me that they care, and that if they get elected, they will not disappear into a bar in Place Luxembourg for five years (one of the saddest things about MEP's, at least here in Denmark, is how, when elected, you barely hear about them again in any national debate about the EU for the following five years).

I have always been extremely interested in EU issues, and in all modesty, I have an outstanding knowledge of the EU. In this regard, I also have an opinion about the EU, which is probably in line with the center-left in the political spectrum. But this will not determine my vote! I will gladly vote for someone I disagree with as long as I feel that they are hardworking passionate and honest about their work in the Parliament and that they can argue their cases - even if I disagree with them.
Because one thing I know, is that there are no definite answers to anything:
While I understand the need for the Lisbon Treaty and would vote yes to it, I am appalled that they didn't let me vote for it.
While I would vote yes to the Euro, there is nothing bad - and perhaps it is even better - for Denmark not to be in it.
While I want open borders and a more just immigration policy, I understand the weariness of many Danes.
While I think the EU should be a voice of reason in world affairs, I am weary of the superpower tendencies.
While I think EU should expand and be inclusive, I am weary at the prospects for integration in depth.
While I support all initiatives at renewable energy, I am worried about the short-term prospects for EU energy security.
While I think health standards are hugely important, I am worried that they can be hijacked by protectionists.

There are no easy answers!

I have therefore over the last few days started to study the candidates for the EP in Denmark.
I am sure I will not vote based on party affiliation, but will want to give a personal vote. Also, as I mentioned, I will not necessarily decide on someone I agree with, but will look at their arguments.
I started my research on the Altinget website, where there is information on all candidates from the nine registered parties/movements (in Denmark seven traditional parties are running, and two movements, Folkebevægelsen mod EU and Junibevægelsen, which are basically anti-EU movements of diverse political affiliations). There is a link to each candidate where they have been asked a series of very general questions (and some very irrelevant) which is a good starting point; some candidates have not bothered to reply, which immediately disqualified them for my consideration. Some candidates have added comments to their replies, which can be read, which make them more interesting.
Then each candidate has the opportunity for a statement. Many don't, which is ok, but some do, which is a good introduction nevertheless to some of the candidate's main ideas.
Finally, there are links and contacts: many of the younger candidates are on Twitter, Facebook, and most of them have blogs and homepages, some of which are their own, some of which are under the given party. Many homepages are very poor, and some are very good. I have at this point visited every single of the webpages trying to get an overview of the candidates and their opinions.
There are some initial considerations I have made when initally going into this:

I am more critical of known politicians, either current MEP's who are running again, or members of the Danish Folketing, who are running. The latter often seem like people who are "winding down" with the EP, and they often disappear completely in Brussels (a notable exception to this is former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen), and seem to display little practical knowledge of the EU. Conservative Bendt Bendtsen has a very good homepage, but seems out of touch with reality in political life (and this I say because of his "Turkey-complex" and the recent scandal of his trips while minister).
For current members of the Parliament I was even more critical: candidates like Christel Schaldemose (Social Democrat) or Anne Jensen (Venstre), whom I was aware were in the EP, but whom I didn't hear a word from for the last five years! I was not even going to bother with them - although I did visit their web-pages. Others, like the Social Democrat Dan Jørgensen, whom I was not going to bother with either, had such a well-developed and argued page, that i decided to include him anyway.
Hanne Dahl from Junibevægelsen and Johannes Lebech from Radikale both had excellent web-pages with huge amounts of information. Include Margrete Auken from SF, and these three Danish MEPs have been more visible the last period, and are committed and very knowledgeable of the EU and their work. In my view, these three all deserve re-election (that doesn't mean I will vote for them.... I only have one vote!)!

I have a special fondness for young politicians, and as a rule looked at all the candidates under 35. What I was looking for here was if I sensed some passion, which they almost all displayed to a certain degree, but some more than others: Mikkel Schøler from the Social Democrats (really nice and personal homepage), Mette Abildgaard from the Conservatives (who is excellent at using her blog and making it personal, although I did miss some more depth), Lotte Rod from Radikale, and Rina Ronje Kari from Folkebevægelsen mod EU.
Other youngsters were not as passionate, but displayed great knowledge and very clear ideas of what they wanted, where I most liked Sidsel Homann from SF, but also was positively surprised by Dennis Flydtkjær from Dansk Folkeparti. These were much better than some of the young front runners like Emilie Turunen from SF (whose page is boring and with little activity), Sofie Carsten Nielsen from Radikale (whose web-page is a mess where it is really difficult to find any concrete information) or Morten Messerschmidt from Dansk Folkeparti (last time I checked his web-page was not working).
Finally, some of the youngsters were just too boring or with too little depth, and may have to learn more for the future: Louise Feilberg from Venstre seemed nice, but boring; Julie Broe from Conservative focused a lot on free trade, but was otherwise not too clear on other things; Christian Høgedal from Radikale had no working webage, but in everything else I saw about him, he just seemed to be saying all the politically correct things and just smiling a charming smile (may work with the teenagers, but I am more critical); Bente Kronborg Holst from Dansk Folkeparti did just not seem up to date with developments, with little relevance, and too many spelling mistakes on her web-page to make me want to read on.

I also did consider some of the issues and how much they participated in the debate, and on what issues. Some of the top candidates from each party are the ones that are most in the media, albeit with a very superficial and populist message, notably Bendt Bendtsen from the Conservatives, Jens Rohde from Venstre, Søren Søndergaard from Folkebevægelsen and Morten Messerschmidt from Dansk Folkeparti. The top candidate from Liberal Alliance, Benjamin Dickow is notably absent from much debate, and has little information on his party's web-page (he could learn from his party colleague Peter Hjortkjær who has a very nice and informative page).
On some of the issues I have made some limitations, although I remain open to my principle that I will consider all, even if I disagree with them. I did nevertheless make my first cut on the Conservative party, where the only candidate without a "Turkey-complex" seems to be Christian Wedell-Neergaard. Notably the Conservative member of the Folketing Jan Køpke Christensen seems to want to get elected on something he is unlikely to get to work anything on while in the Parliament! Tove Videbæk from the Conservatives is similar, but I decided to include her in my considerations since she did have some clear (but politically correct) issues she wanted to work with.
The inclusion of which issues they want to work with, and the consistency with their opinions was something I tried to look at, but it turned out a mixed thing whether I looked at it. Folkebevægelsen mod EU was an interesting list to look at: they have the longest list of candidates, but half of them have no information at all (I find this strange, although it could be because they just don't want to show up at the parliament) and thus notably absent from the debate. Of course, exceptions are Søren Søndergaard (who is nevertheless not very focused), but also Ditte Staun and Karina Rohr, who both seem balanced, knowledgeable and eloquent, as well as very willing to engage in a debate. This is more than can be said of many in their movement, where there also seem to be many inconsistencies in their viewpoints that range from right- to left-wing (which nevertheless is fair enough, since they are not a party. In fact, they underline my point that this should be a personal vote).
Some candidates display more knowledge of the EU in general than others, and are more detailed in dwelling into some of the issues that they surely will get to work with.
Britta Thomsen of the Social Democracts (who is already in the EP) is focused on health and energy; Anna Rosbach Andersen from Dansk Folkeparti works in the EP already (but her webpage is poorly, "still under construction"); Hanne Dahl from Junibevægelsen on patient-rights and water quality; Lasse Holm Grønning from Radikale on drugs and foreign policy; Bent Claudi Larsen from Venstre on health and energy; Margrete Auken from SF on climate and health (this is common for all front-candidates of SF).
These are all candidates that are passionate and knowledgeable on particular issues and know they can work with them in the parliament. If a person is interested in any of these particular issues and the choice of vote made to depend on this, they are good options.

There are many more candidates that interested me for different reasons, from consistency, particular issues, media-awareness and so on, for instance Morten Løkkegaard from Venstre (a known TV journalist who may attact votes for his fame, but also gives the impression of being quite well-informed); Christine Sidenius from SF (surely the cutest webpage, simple and clear, using her experience being an assitant in the EP); Einer Lyduch from the Social Democrats (who is not well-known, but seemed focused); Kasper Elbjørn from Venstre (who has an excellent blog); Peter Norsk from Conservative (who focuses on international liberalism on his web-page); Anna Elizabeth Kamstrup from Radikale (an apostle of free trade, agriculture and the third world are her main things) and Christian Juhl from Folkebevægelsen (nice web-page with a lot of information on international socialism and labour unions, but less so on EU).

It is very interesting, and gives an overview of the many candidates, but the lack of media attention and informaiton, requires more work before I make a decision.
My next step is to contact each of the candidates I will potentially consider to vote for with a series of specific questions of issues that I feel a personal attachment to and interest for: a few general questions (on the Euro, the Lisbon Treaty and enlargement); on EU's role in the world; on agricultural policy; on fisheries policy; on consumer and health policy; on energy and climate change (which is one of the main issues on the agenda for many of the candidates in Denmark).
Knowing myself, the questions will probably be huge, but that is the idea, and I would like to see how the candidates will react to such questions; at least get a feel that these are issues they consider and have thought about, beyond my personal vanity of wanting to hear their opinion.

Worrying about the swine flu virus

2009-04-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

The spreading swine flu (or the less catchy official name, H1N1, in order not to unsult our pig-cousins) is something to consider and pre-emptively plan about, but it is not something to panic about, something that the press at least seemed to do in the start of the epidemic (A Danish newspaper had a cover-page last week about 15,000 will die...). The media may have toned down their panicky-talk since people in general are more easy-going and resilient to get on with life than the press and politicians think, but still people worry.
A pandemic is not about people dying from the virus, but about the speed that it spreads - it could be a pretty harmless virus. This one seems to spread pretty fast, and many may be infected. The danger of spread of such a new virus is that it may mutate or recombine to be more dangerous. Many people day every year of flu, and this one may not be different, except in the fact that perhaps for the first time in history, humanity has never been better prepared! Mass communications, international cooperation and intricate knowledge of virus-strains has given us the upper hand against the little bugger! We are facing an elusive enemy, but I will not worry more (or less) than I worry about the many other relevant risks in our world!

Ownership of development aid

2009-04-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

I recently went to a seminar at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), for a presentation of two books. Firstly, The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors, edited by Ms. Lindsay Whitfield, a book that is the result of a three year research project on "ownership" of international development assistance, using the case of eight African countries: Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, Ethiopia, Mali, Rwanda and Zambia (if they had included Uganda, they would have had chosen all the countries that are chosen for nearly all studies on aid in Africa...).
I must admit that I have not yet read the book (but ordered it), but still found the presentation quite simplistic, and overly academically looking at development aid, an area that is too dominated by academics and pop-stars.
In the presentation summarizing the the book, it was said that "ownership" was greatest in Ethiopia and Rwanda, due to the specific conditions there. However, it never problematised the concept of ownership, and clearly meant government ownership (the presenter at one point talked about sovereignty, equalizing it with ownership, something that in my post-modern view of the world is quite old-fashioned, not to say naive), which is quite problematic when the presenters later found "bad governance" as being a problem in many of the countries.
Also, there seemed to be no consideration (at least in the presentation) on "ownership" and development outcomes; some of the countries found to have next to no ownership, such as Ghana or Mozambique, have shown great strides in economic development over the last years, and this could lead one to ask whether "ownership", as defined in this book, matters at all...?
As I mentioned, I have not read the book, but will - hopefully they consider many of the questions I came out with from the presentation, in which case it was an excellent marketing of the book!.
Still, I think that some of the final recommendations from the seminar, about donors having to reconsider how they work with "ownership", totally misses the point: what needs to be reconsidered is whose "ownership" we talk about!

"Ownership" is crucial, indeed. It is common sense that people will always want to improve their own lives, and that this is not done on command. But when you speak of the development of entire countries, you cannot just look at the government, in particular in countries where these governments don't have full legitimacy and/or are not fully accountable to their people, or where large groups are not even represented!
Having worked in Africa some years, I have a big problem with governments and donors talking about ownership. In truth, to the poor people in a poor rural community, it could matter less that the "poverty reduction strategy" is elaborated and decided in some African or in some European capital; both are at the other side of the world! (let me illustrate this by the community of Nivali, in Mozambique, where I worked)
There are indeed alternative definitions of "ownership", in particular among civil society groups, than the ones presented at the seminar. I think that there should be more consideration on concepts such as accountability, and more broadly, on "ownership from below" - it is only from there that real change will be initiated and sustained, no matter who "owns" the strategies!

Why were they there in the first place?

2009-04-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

The UN conference on anti-racism started in Geneva today. There has been a lot of talk about this conference prior to its start, as a long list of countries, including the US, decided to boycot the conference due to the fact that it had been hijacked by a number of more or less dictatorial regimes who use it as rambling against Israel, most notably Iran, whose president Ahmadinejad was the only world leader present at the conference. In his opening speech at the conference, he opened with what anyone should have expected to be a rambling about Israel's racism against Palestineans. Protesting against this, a number of diplomats from countries that decided to participate, walked out. This included France, Canada, Finland, Denmark...
But why were they even there in the first place!? They must surely have heard Mr. Ahmadinejad speak before?!? What were they expecting?!?
The true protestors are the countries that decided to stay away in the first place

Notwithstanding that it is completely out of place to make Mr. Ahmadinejad keynote speaker at a conference against racism, the whole idea of an anti-racism conference is ridiculous, and the way the world is becoming evermore divided, it is regrettable that the world community apparently lets such an important issue be hijacked by a UN Conference that, like all UN conference, would otherwise be nothing but a cocktail party for diplomats and experts that ends with a report nobody will ever read.

People are inherently good; racist people don't exist; they have never existed - only the evil leaders who appeal to people's most primitive tribal instinct to incite hatred throughout history. Thus, the fight against racism is way too important to be left to politicians, most notably the UN.

European Parliament Elections

2009-04-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

I just heard that a new Eurostat poll found that only 1 in 6 Europeans know there are elections for the European Parliament on June 7th. Here in Denmark, the interest is at an all-time low, and know wonder the interest is so low: there is absolutely NOTHING in the media on the work of the European parliament, and the candidates are quiet as graves.
Perhaps they are all being quieted by the crisis debate, but all the more strange that nobody uses such a forum for a campaign. As people complain so much about lack of transnational democracy, the European Parliament is in fact the only transnational European institution whose members are directly elected from the people, although it does seem that these people, when elected, do not seem to work or do anything useful for the people that elected them, or even less communicate with their electorates.
I would love to have seen the person I voted for at the last European election participate more in EU debates in Denmark, but instead, this person was just not heard from as soon as elected.
Sadly, this is what Euro-parliamentarians seem to do, so it is understandable that people should care less.

I am an interested and committed person, and I will vote, but I have to make an extraordinary effort to actually care.

Iran's nuclear programme

2009-04-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

Let me start this post on what I agree on: the spread of nuclear weapons is dangerous and should be stopped; the anti-Jewish/anti-American and nationalist rhetoric of the current Iranian regime is very dangerous; Iranian support to rather questionable regimes/groups is worrying.

That said, in international politics trying to be empathic is a crucial element to try to solve problems, and I think we need to try to put ourselves in the Irani's place to try to solve the problem of them trying to get nuclear weapons.
Firstly, Iran, a proud and millenarian nation in the form of Persia, may be facing a geopolitical threat: north the Russians, and the American/Arabs from the west and eastwards another American threat.
Secondly, Iranians seem to be oriented towards the modern, but fiercely independent. That is important to understand by a Western world that is increasingly seeing all Iranians as terrorists (but has any Iranian ever participated in a terrorist strike?).
Thirdly, history may not be so kind: centuries of fighting off foreigners must have left a mark, and when foreigners supported the overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh government in 1953, to support the take-over of a friendly Shah, it must have left even more marks on the influence of foreigners. When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, in spite of the mess, it must have hit them hard that their passenger planes were being shot down by Americans, who was also supporting Saddam Hussein in using chemical weapons against Iranian civilians.
Finally, in the context of Middle East politics, nuclear weapons are already in place. Israel has them, undoubtfully, and their programme has never been the subject of any international pressure on their nuclear weapons at Dimona or anywhere else. If we accept the fact that nuclear weapons are constructed when you feel threatened by your adversary (which I personally consider a very valid point for Israel's nuclear capability), then maybe Iran's weapons are a logical choice where they are facing nuclear powers to all sides (Pakistan, Russia, US and 'Israel').

Again, I think diplomacy should focus on understanding all the possible motivations of a country trying to get nuclear weapons. I think Iran should be stopped from having them, because spread is dangerous (I am not going to give guns to the entire population because of a rise in crime!) - but stopping them must be relied on understanding Iran, more than on demonizing, which sadly seems to be the general tendency in the West!

Nuclear-weapon free world

2009-04-06T04:09:00.000-07:00

Nuclear weapons have been with us since the end of World War II with the horrible and devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which changed the whole calculation of warfare as a political tool.
The American scholar Bernard Brodie probably said it the best way when he said that nuclear weapons would change the nature of war itself, and he seemed vindicated as the US and USSR faced each other threatening doomsday destruction.
When the cold war ended the threat from doomsday destruction changed to become one of trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, not only to countries, but more so to terrorist groups that would not threaten doomsday, but would threaten to kill thousands or even millions, number far beyond the "absorptive capacity" of western countries.
There seems little doubt that while atomic doomsday has become less likely, the prospect for the use of a nuclear bomb has become more likely. Although non-proliferation initiatives after the cold war made countries such as South Africa, Libya, Argentina and Brazil abandon their nuclear weapon programmes, new countries were added to the list of official nuclear powers in the form of India and Pakistan in 1998. At the same time, North Corea and Iran are likely to soon develop nuclear weapons.

This week, the US president Mr. Barack Obama has in a speech in Prague stated that he will pursue the total elimination of nuclear weapons from the face of the world, and that US policy will actively work to achieve this.
I have no doubt that Mr. Obama is a political pragmatist, and that the statement carries more political discourse to appease pacifist European audiences (who have been used to a belligerent American president) than reality.
Firstly, nuclear weapons cannot simply be uninvented; the knowledge is out there, and there will always be people pursuing power, and nuclear weapons are a tool in this. The interesting thing is that the devastation power of a nuclear device makes it so threatening that one doesn't even need to have a bomb to spread panic! Just the thought of a potential weapons in the hands of your enemy, will make you want to have a bomb.
Like Kenneth Waltz once said, the bombs usually come in pairs.
Secondly, there is an inherent hipocrisy in what Mr. Obama says: it is somewhat easy to ask all to give up nuclear weapons, when you have the most powerful army in the world yourself. In this regard, nuclear bombs have become a poor-mans weapons, as they are the only defense that countries that feel threatened (rightfully or not) by the almighty US armies have. Thus, any real commitment to eliminate the weapons would have to eliminate the perceived threat by the smaller countries.
Thirdly, the threat of nuclear weapons is much less relevant in relation to the US than it is to other (existing or coming) nuclear powers. I don't think that the next time we see the threat of the use of nuclear weapons it will be the US that will be involved, but rather, it will be a stand-off between other nuclear powers: Pakistan versus India, Israel versus Iran, or North Corea versus South Corea. Of course, the US, as the greatest power in the world, could risk to become involved, but the point is that the initial threat or even (God forbid) use of nuclear weapons, would come from other "lesser" powers.
In line with what I mentioned before, the US (and the west) thus needs to retain a nuclear deterrent.
Finally, while the thought of a weapons-free world where all people lived in peace is a beautiful and hopeful idea, it is a utopia, only to be imagined, like in the John Lennon song.
It is simply not achievable: while nuclear weapons must be controlled, their elimination is nothing but a nice idea, but impossible to achieve.

Humanity already put this scourge upon itself, and we must learn to deal with it without killing ourselves or each other; not talk about utopias.

New Danish Prime Minister

2009-04-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Today, after much haggling about the post, Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark's sitting prime minister, became the new Secretary General of NATO, where he will succeed Mr. Jaap de Hoop Schefer. Notwithstanding my personal opinion about Mr. Fogh Rasmussen's fit to the post (which he managed to get amid strong Turkish protest, where I have no doubt the Turks by flexing a risky political muscle, have managed to force some concessions), it is perhaps much more interesting for observers of Danish politics that Mr. Lars Løkke Rasmussen is to take over the post of Prime Minister.
Mr. Løkke Rasmussen is not popular and has faced strong attacks from the opposition, who ahead in the polls have called for a new election. Nevertheless, Mr. Løkke Rasmussen has the support of the Conservatives and Danish People's Party to take over the post without elections, and get two years to increase his present low popularity.
I have no doubt that Mr. Løkke Rasmussen is a competent political strategist, and the opposition will have to be very careful when attacking him - surely now is the best time, as he will surely build up an aura of competency around himself. Still, the new Prime Minister is also facing more daunting tasks than a feisty opposition and allies that will be seeking concessions for supporting him: the crisis is bound to hit Denmark harder still, and that will put pressure on him.

No matter what, a new time has come to Danish politics, and that is somehow refreshing.

Drowning migrants

2009-03-31T02:08:00.001-07:00

Today I read in the news about some 300 would-be migrants to Europe drowning on a small fishing boat off the Libyan coast. There is hardly anything that depresses me more than reading about people looking for a better life, dying while they pursue this hope and this dream that we in the Western drug-addicted materialist ego-society take for more than granted, and are not even large enough to want to share with anyone else.
Sadly, what happened is "just" what has been happening for many years on EU's southern borders, protected by a feisty sea as the natural wall.
Of course, if we didn't have this natural wall, we would probably build one.
When is Europe going to wake up!?

Overseas Contingency Operation

2009-03-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

So Mr. Obama became president, and all expected huge changes, and now a big thing has taken place: the "war on terror" from the Bush-days has been renamed to the less populist and more bureaucratic name "Overseas Contingency Operation."
What a change...
At least it clarifies some things that were not so clear in the "war on terror": it is definetly outside the US as "overseas" makes it pretty clear.
"Contingency" is not so clear though: contingency against what!? Just like "terror", this is pretty vague.
And operation is even vaguer; at least with "war", we knew that the US was up against something and meant it. This "operation" thing could be anything...?
Mr. Obama should be judged by what he does, and this change of wording doesn't mean anything; instead more soldiers are sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan is still bombed.
But hey, it's an "Overseas Contingency Operation"...

When is the abbreviation going to become mainstream? O.C.O?

South African shame

2009-03-23T07:18:00.001-07:00

In the 90's South Africa stood for a country that peacefully made a transition from repression to multi-racial freedom. Today, South Africa increasingly sadly stands for corruption, intolerance, violence against foreigners and bad government. And now add to that petty Machiavellan hipocrisy: today South Africa refused visa to the Dalai Lama, who was to attend a peace-conference in South Africa, in order not to damage relations to China.
What a pity, what a shame, for the country of great men like Mr. Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, to have fallen to these levels.

I have never been a supporter of the 2010 football World Cup being given to South Africa, and would just like to add this to the many reasons: besides them not being prepared for it, South Africa simply does not deserve to hold an event that should more than anything symbolize the peaceful competition among nations.

New NATO general secretary?

2009-03-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

As the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is constantly referred to as possible candidate for next secretary general af NATO, a lot is heard in the news about this.
Notwithstanding that most people (in Europe or in Denmark) can hardly mention who is NATO general secretary (currently, it is de Hoop Schefer, from the Netherlands) nor what one does, in Denmark Mr. Fogh Rasmussen's candidature of course represents much more, as he would have to step down as Prime Minister.

Although Mr. Fogh Rasmussen doesn't comment on the rumours, there seems to be support for his position, even from the US - or perhaps because of it? Mr. Fogh Rasmussen was a staunch supporter of president Bush's war on terror and supported the invasion of Iraq (Denmark still has troops there).
Is a man who has such a record of military action the one we would want to chair the most powerful military alliance in the world...?

Besides this, Mr. Fogh Rasmussen completely mishandled the so-called cartoon crisis, leaving Denmark in a weak position in Muslim countries, and reinforcing the signal of an intolerant and self-centered country in much of the world (Mr. Fogh Rasmussen has also presided the most discriminatory policies on immigration in the world, with support from the Danish People's Pary).
Is this a kind of diplomat who we would like to head a military alliance that increasingly sees threats from the Muslim world...?

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen has led a pretty stable government in Denmark for many years now, but there have been talk of his impersonal and unkind management style, as well as clashes with his minister of foreign affairs. To chair an international organisation like NATO, one needs outstanding diplomatic skills as well as cultural awareness and social skills.
Is Mr. Fogh Rasmussen the kind of person we would like to chair important meetings between military leaders from different countries?

Although Danish media increasingly say that Mr. Fogh Rasmussen will become the next general secretary of NATO, some stumbling blocs still remain: apparently Turkey is threatening to veto his candidature for exactly some of the above reasons.

I have no doubt that Mr. Fogh Rasmussen is competent. But as a world citizen I think that the position as NATO secretary general is too important for a man like him; it would entail to reward his (huge) international flops mentioned above. However, as a Dane who thinks that Denmark is in an urgent need of change of its political power, the prospect of Mr. Fogh Rasmussen going to Brussels is rather refreshing.

The greedy state sponsored incompetents

2009-03-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

In this time of economic crises we are again and again getting reminded of the greed of the incompetent thieves of the private sector that led us normal people to this. I really thought we had seen all about how grotesque it all is, until I saw that the insurance company AIG is paying bonuses USD 165 Million to its executives, after the company has broken all records in losses of almost USD 160 Billion. This is a greater amount than most African countries GDP, and the company has received USD 170 Billion in US government loans to stay afloat.
At a time when Mr. Bernard Madoff is being called the greatest (financial) villain of all time, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail, it seems grotesque that such Madoffesque villains and crooks as the ones in AIG should be made millionaires because of their sheer in incompetence. They are proof that in this world, only incompetence and greediness is respected and paid for, and that for millions of normal people in this world, other rules apply...
These crooks from AIG should just have a kick in the ass - that is all they deserve.

Celebrities and development

2009-03-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

The world of development and poverty reduction is finding it difficult to reach the explicit aim of reaching the MDGs. It is a difficult, serious, and very complicated matter, that requires that people from all over the world work together to solve these massive problems.
As the world is today, the use of the mass media to catch the attention for an issue among a sea of information, one needs to market it, and one way some international development organisations have used, is by involving celebrities. Bono has been prominent in debt-relief; Angelina Jolie in refugee issues, and even ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwel is UN goodwill ambassador on maternal health care.
Surely these are not experts, and are surely only brought forward to bring attention to issues far more important than themselves, which, unfortunately, the western media shows little interest in: who cares that 1 in 16 African women die giving birth, when all the Spice Girls have cute little babies...?
Unfortunately, it is the world of today: if you need funds, you need to market yourself, and for that, celebrities are useful clowns.

It thus seems strangely naive to read in a blog, that the development debate needs "...to be taken away from western celebrities and rock stars and given back to the researchers and policy analysts. Not only that should it not go a step further and be driven by the developing country researchers and policy makers and even ultimately by the developing country poor everyone wants to help?"
Well, it seems researchers and policy makers have not done much to alleviate the problem over the last 50 years... And although ironic, I cannot see that the useful celebrities are causing any direct damage: on the contrary, they are bringing attention.
If "researchers and policy makers" in the field of development cannot bring themselves to use the support of the celebrities as part of overall strategies, I wouldn't trust them on "global coordinated strategies to achieve the MDGs".

Omar Al-Bashir and the ICC

2009-03-10T01:34:00.000-07:00

There is much hipocrisy in the Western world: many standards that are set through international political discourse are not really followed. More often than not, the rules set for the weak ones, do not seem to apply to the strong ones.
It is a pity that such an argument can be captured by such a man as Sudan's president Omar Al-Bashir, whom the ICC has recently issued an arrest warrant against. He is the first sitting leader to be issued an arrest warrant against by the ICC (Arrest warrant was issues against Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, while he was Serbian president).
It is fair enough to say that other leaders need to tried as well, but that is no argument against any crook like Al-Bashir being tried. Since the ICC only came into operation in 2002 (and has not been joined by such countries as the US, China or Russia), this ia daring and refreshing dynamic to its work on behalf of international law and human rights. It needs to start somewhere, and Mr. Al-Bashir should be served with this arrest warrant because it is the right thing to do, and political motivations should not interfere in the decision of the ICC.

Tennis: Sweden-Israel

2009-03-05T02:55:00.000-08:00

I have heard a radio-broadcast about coming massive demonstrations in Malmø against the fact that Sweden and Israel will be playing a tennis match in this southern Swedish city. Of course, the demonstrations are against Israel, due to the troubles in Gaza, and there have been calls for a boycot of the match.
Notwithstanding that I understand that people want to send a message, I have never really understood the boycotting of sporting events. Instead, wouldn't it be better to proceed with the event and then hope that the Israeli tennis-players will get their asses kicked by their Swedish counterparts?
Not that it would make any difference to the conflict not for the many victims there; but neither would a boycot nor the demonstrations - instead they are risking of taking the attention away from the suffering in Gaza to people with too much time in their hands in a wealthy Scandinavian country.
Just let them play.

Ghandi's stuff

2009-03-02T02:23:00.000-08:00

Mahatma Ghandi was undoubtfully one of the greatest men in history: a peace fighter who never shook in his beliefs in humanity until it cost him his life.

Now, some 60 years after his death, many of his personal belongings are to be auctioned as collectors items in New York. Notwithstanding the grotesque situation in the fact that the items of this poor man will bring thousands of pounds to some low-level capitalist speculators who probably have next to nothing of Ghandi's humanity, the reaction of India has been interesting: Mr. Ghandi's grandson has been trying to raise money to buy the items back for India, while there have been offers for the Indian government to buy it.
But why can't India's government just buy these items for a few thousand dollars!? Should this be such a problem for a country that spends some 20 Billion USD on military per year and plans to increase it!? Should this be such a problem for a country that only in 1997 jumped out as a nuclear power!?
I am sure Mahatma Ghandi would have been proud to see that the country he fought to liberate by peaceful means, is now one of the foremost military powers of the world, with an immense destructive power.

I am very well aware of the "security imperatives" of a country like India, and I have no illussions about any country's peaceful intentions (India today is perhaps more aptly described as the India of Narayan Apte rather than the India of Mahatma Ghandi...), but wouldn't it be a sign of respect to the memory of the grand old man that the Indian government spend some 300,000 USD on purchasing these items? It would represent one fifth of the cost of one Israeli Barak-Missile system, which India is apparently planning to buy 300 of.

I hope Mr. Ghandi's items return to India, but it would hopefully help for people to reflect on Ghandi's message rather than his stuff.

The holocaust denial

2009-02-20T04:13:00.000-08:00

There has recently been controversy about some dinosaur priest, Mr. Williamson, who in a quite shocking interview on Swedish TV has completely denied the holocaust, even denied that there were even gas chambers on some very questionable evidence.
In general, holocaust denial is plainly stupid: it denies such a wealth of historical evidence, from official documents (of the perpetrators themselves) to first-hand witness accounts (from both perpetrators to victims), that people who deny the holocaust are either plainly stupid or, more plausibly, have a hidden agenda. Now, the hidden agenda can only be to create hate - they would be at the forefront of a new holocaust (and deny it ever happened...?).¨

That said, prohibiting holocaust denial is stupid. The interview with this "priest", clearly shows that he uses his victimhood (consciously or unconsciously) as a man who is not allowed to "speak the truth", calling himself something as appalling as a historical "revisionist" (which is surely no the same as a negationist...). He sees himself as a speaker of truth, and by prohibiting him from talking just gives him credibility - and honestly, I think the Catholic Church, by the pope's rehabilitation of him, must believe in his apparent "evidence" of holocaust denial (well, let us admit it, the Catholic Church has never really been known for respecting scientific evidence or for major tolerance).

Prohibiting someone from saying their opinion gives them credibility in a world where freedom of speech and manipulation of information go hand in hand.
There is such ample evidence that it happened, that people to deny it should be welcome to come with their fabricated evidence and made to be the fools they are.
Holocaust denials are idiots with a hidden agenda - let us expose them as such.

The comforting absence of love

2009-02-13T08:54:00.001-08:00

Valentine's day should not be such a fuzz: Scientists are working to discover the brain-circuits that make us in love: happy, delirious, passionate, unhappy, miserable... All these feelings that characterize this strange thing, love, that has formed and been part of every human life at all time in all its strange intricate forms.
So, it is nice to hear that it is nothing but a chemical reaction in the brain; nothing big about it, just some fluids up in our big chunk of meat and nerves that is our head.
It shouldn't be such a big deal!
Thank god we got scientists!

Prime Minister in 30 years

2009-02-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

I was listening to a programme on Danish Radio P3 today and people could send messages in with suggestions about who they thought would be Danish Prime Minister in some 30 years.
In fact I enjoy these all-out predictions about the future - it is kind of a humorous social science fictions - as one is forced to consider where one thinks the world is going in some 30 years time....
So, my ideas....:

Christian of Denmark, or whatever - in case Denmark may not be a monarchy any more - will probably be President.
Mr. Anders Fogh-Rasmussen is still Prime Minister, as he will never leave, and get some gene-therapy operation for rejuvenation that will make him live forever (or maybe he will just be governor-general in the Scandinavian EU-province).
Mr. Nasser Khader (a very much talked about politician in Denmark after a documentary was aired on the failed "Ny Alliance" party, which he led) unlikely to be Prime Minister - I am sorry, but I don't even think that Denmark will be ready for a foreigner even in 30 years....
Mr. Christian Jensen is the Danish Minister of Taxes.... He is a big-shot youngster in Danish politics, but he is the most boring politician in the world, and honestly, I think there will be need for a little bit more populism in 30 years.
Mr. Søren Pind is a populist but rather unpopular since he is too arrogant to admit a mistake, so I wouldn't think he would make it any further than a ministry, and in 30 years all alcoholo will be prohibited, so his past will catch up with him.
Perhaps or not unlikely, we should consider someone from the Danish People's Party; of course, only if Mrs. Pia Kjærsgaard is alive in 30 years since there isn't really anyone else in that party (And thank God for that!)
Mrs. Pernille Rosendahl-Theil: Denmark has never had a woman prime minister, and maybe we will have a frog before.... Mrs. Rosendahl-Theil is more likely but still unlikely; although she of course is moving to where the power is and may end up in the most powerful party of Denmark in 30 years: what party would that be....? The Beer Party!?
Mr. Mærsk McKinley-Møller is the most powerful man in Denmark, and although he will be some 120 years old, he will probably still be made Prime Minister and mummy.
I have no idea who the director of Microsoft Denmark is, but when Mr. Bill Gates has taken over world domination, he will make someone prime minister.
The Terminatrix is a good option; the world will have been taken over by machines, who will have made Arnold Scwazenegger into the Leader.
Mr. Martin Sheen: Everyone loved him in that TV show, so he could, if he wanted, run for Prime Minister of some small country in 30 years time.
Mr. Michael Laudrup: I don't know if Mr. Laudrup will ever go into politics - but if he is not coach of FC Barcelona, and decides to go into politics, I will surely vote for him.

Ghana's challenge

2009-02-11T23:05:00.000-08:00

Having many resources but being poor is a paradox that many developing countries suffer: this is what has been called “the resource curse” by many reserachers and policy-makers who have tried to dwell into this apparent contradiction.
In an article in 2006, the American writer and columnist Thomas Friedman formulated “the first law of petrodollars”, where he took the “resource curse” further, linking it to the demise of democracy in oil-producing countries: using examples of Iran, Russia and Nigeria, he argued that higher oil income in these countries had provided money for regimes to buy off opponents, invest in security forces and censure the media.
Mr. Friedman’s argument is strong, considering that of all countries whose economy largely relies on oil (as a percentage of their GDP), not a single can be said to be democratic. In fact it can be said that some of these countries, as for instance Nigeria or Equatorial Guinea, have had deteriorating democracy or deteriorating conflicts situations after oil was found.
European and American companies had been drilling for oil for many years off the Ghanaian coast, as the prospects for oil were considered to be realistic, since the “black gold” has been found in nearby waters in Nigeria, São Tomé & Principe, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. In June 2006 the British company Tullow announced that it had found oil off-shore in Ghanaian waters.
Ghana has been the success-story of West Africa for many years. While its regional neighbors have been fighting with conflicts, dictatorships and corruption, Ghana in December 2008 succesfully completed its third presidential election since the return to democracy in 1996, where the opposition National Demoratic Conress candidate, Mr. John Atta-Mills, won in a close contest against the candidate of the ruling party National Progress Party, Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo.
With a stable and growing economy, and being one of the few countries well underway to reach the millenium development goals of halving poverty by 2015, Ghana has been hailed as Africa’s hope and with the recent find of oil, the question of whether Ghana will succeed in managing its oil-riches, or become yet another failed African resource story, becomes evermore relevant as Ghanaians had pitted their hopes on the coming oil-riches, as mentioned by Kennedy Kelechi Halams: “I am concerned that a new corrupt rich class may emerge from Ghana’s oil wealth. I am concerned that the sanctity and tranquility of Ghana may become a thing of the past. These are my personal feelings. As I harbor these fears I just hope for the better. I hope and pray that the Ghanaians will utilize this gift from above for their betterment.”
The former Ghanaian president, John Kuffour, celebrated the oil-find, stating that Ghana was “going to fly”, since Ghana was already doing well, but many sceptics remain, pointing out that Ghana will still need to improve accountability and transparency in the extractive industries in order to manage the resources.
Historically, this has not always been easy for Ghana, who has often been compared to Malaysia: both countries gained independence from Britain in 1958, and had a similar socio-economic structure and were on a similar level of development. But while Malaysia embarked on a succesful development process, a series of military coups and rampant corruption shattered the high expectations for Ghana, who stagnated and in fact became poorer.
By the change of the century, Malaysia’s average income was tenfold that of Ghana.
Ghana’s primary export, cocoa, was after independence managed so badly that by the 1980’s the entire cocoa production had almost collapsed. However, massive reforms of the State Cocoa Board, has since re-established Ghana as one of the world’s most important cocoa-producing countries.
Other resources, notably timber, has been badly managed; deforestation has been a serious problem in Ghana, and corruption has been a huge problem in the timber sector.
On the other hand, Ghana’s questionable experiences when it comes to cocoa or timber may translate into positive appraoches for the oil sector. One huge advantage Ghana currently has over any other African country that has found oil is the strength of its democratic institutions and the mere fact that Ghanaians are actively debating the consequences of the prospective oil revenues, point to an open society that is aware of the risks.
Furthermore, although corruption has historically been a problem in Ghana, and still remains a problem, Ghanaians are rightfully proud of their record on anti-corruption: over the last ten years, the country has achieved steady improvement in Transparency Internationals’ Corruption Perception Index (CPI), and was in 2008 ranked as number 67 of 180 countries, ahead of Mexico, Brazil or China.
Ghana is not expected to start earning from its newfound oil until 2010, and only time will show whether Ghana can prove that oil may not be a curse, but a bleesing.

Crazy pyros

2009-02-10T06:31:00.000-08:00

There are many terrible things in this world, but the Australian fires are particularly so: dying by a burning fire seems one of the most horrible deaths imagineable - nobody deserves to die like that. It is all but impossible to imagine the speed with which this burning hell has been moving to swallow people so desperately trying to flee.
Who is so sick as to starting a fire when things are so dry and winds so changing!? We have seen it in Spain (I lived in Spain during some serious fires in the south) and in Greece, and in the US; but what is it that makes people so careless, so crazy, so brainless?
Recently Danish media showed pictures of some teenage Danish boys pouring gasoline and burning a live hamster. The most disturbing is how much they laughed and seemed to enjoy the little thing suffer.
These are the kind of people who start those fires in Australia, and well, the kind of people that make me ashamed to belong to the same human species as them.

Israeli Democracy

2009-02-08T22:05:00.000-08:00

Democracy can be defined in numerous ways, but conventional Western understandings of democracy say that it is government with three main and interrelated characteristics:

Competition between individuals and groups for votes, supports, decisions, without the use of force.
Participation that is equal, non-discriminatory and broad-based.
Guarantee of individual rights, such as freedom of information, freedom of expression, right to vote and be elected, etc.

Although one could argue that this is an ideal (eg. voting age or citizenship limits on participation), there is nevertheless some common sense agreement that a democratic government institutionalises procedures in order to maximise these conditions.

Tomorrow there are parliamentary elections in Israel. This will happen in the shadow of the conflict in Gaza, where Israel has been involved in a problematic conflict (to say the least) where Israel's response seems to have been completely out of proportion to the perceived threat.
Much of the conflict seems to be perceived in terms of some religious tribalism: Jew versus Muslim or Arab versus Israeli.
But what is it to be Israeli? I asked this once many years ago to a rather secular Israeli, who said that it was not about being Jewish. In fact, some 20% of Israel's population are Arabs, and they have parties and opportunity to participate in Israeli politics, as citizens. For an outsider, this is a cadeau to Israeli society, where democracy's ideals have been institutionalized, in spite of the never-ending conflict raging around it.

But reverses to democracy do happen, and it seems to be happening now in Israel.

A great danger to democracy is that it becomes a "Tyranny of the majority". In Israel it seems that is they way they are going: Arab Israelis have been almost pushed to apathy and anger, and participation in the voting among Arab Israelis is expected to be very low. At the same time, the tone from leading Jewish Israelis has worsened to become pretty much explicitly discriminatory: Mr. Avigdor Lieberman has emerged as leader of the right-wing with a tone of explicit discrimination against Arab Israelis, wanting them to be thrown out, and limiting the rights of Arab Israeli lawmakers.
Israel may tomorrow elect a right-wing government, led by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mr. Lieberman is set to become a central figure in that government.
If this happens, it may well mean a slide back in the democratic ideals outlined above: not only will already shaky guarantees of rights suffer (such as freedom to vote and be elected), but also the crucial aspects of equal participation (Arab Israelis are set to become even less equal...) and competition may in fact become all but a farce.

I have no idea what it is to be Israeli, but I have the impression that Israelis would give very different responses.
But I can say that as an outsider who worries about democracy and the prospects of more intense conflicts in the world, the tendency towards a "tyranny of the majority" in Israel is very worrying.
Although I once heard an Israeli politician say that Israel didn't need the world's sympathy, I would argue that sympathy is a strong asset in international politics, perhaps even more so than a couple of nuclear bombs....
Israel should be careful not to lose this asset.

The voting age

2009-02-04T00:47:00.000-08:00

The voting age in Denmark is 18. It is therefore refreshing that for the coming Communal elections in Køge (south of Copenhagen) the minimum age will be reduced to 16 as a test case, and perhaps, for a wider change in Denmark where 16 years will be the voting age.
I have always though 18 was too arbitrary: when I was 16 myself I am sure I knew much more about politics and society than most elders, and I am quite certain that the following generations are even better educated and reflect more about the issues around them. It is thus a welcome time for reducing the voting age.

Perhaps we should eventually consider taking the whole thing a step further: what about setting an age limit for when people shall not be allowed to vote any longer?
Politics is about looking forward and thinking about the future; there is a time when old people simply don't do that, and tend to be too cynical, conservative and self-centered.
So since the future belongs to the young, the voting age should be set down, and an upper-age-limit should be set.

Oh well, it will probably not happen, but I certainly like the idea.

Michael Phelps

2009-02-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Michael Phelps is one of the greatest sports-men of all time, and in the 2008 Olympics he was one of the sports-men I most admired.
Now, it seems to have caused much controversy that Mr. Phelps was caught smoking marihuana from a bong during a university party, and he has subsequently been made to apologize.

Notwithstanding the silliness of the illegality of smoking marihuana (everyone does it... the hipocrisy is amusingly illustrated in the TV Show Weeds), it seems even sillier that we expect Mr. Phelps, an exceptional sportsman of only 23 years of age to behave like a role-model for all of us filthy older and younger people who have done much worse things, yet never done something as amazing as he has.
Because he is a great swimmer, people expect him to be more than human, but truth is, he is no more and no less, and this just shows that he should be allowed to be a young man - and not be annoyed by hipocritical tabloids.

Michael Phelps is an average person, like any of us, but an out-of-this-world sportsman. Let us not expect anything else.

The new best friend

2009-02-01T05:08:00.000-08:00

Just a week ago the Spanish king visited Libya with a large business delegation, keen to gain investments in Libya's huge energy reserves. Everyone seems to be converging on the Gadaffi now: it started with Tony Blair visiting in 2007, and visits to France, the EC in Brussels, and in particular striking agreements with Berlusconi's Italy, but nobody seems to remember that Gadaffi has been a sponsor of terrorism and is still considered to be a despot.
Apparently not enough for us to criticize him any longer, as we must satisfy our energy needs.

Spain has presented a particularly cyinical approach to its energy needs; besides Libya, Spain has dealt openly with Equatorial Guinea's longtime despot Nguema, who in 2006 was even welcomed by the self-same king who has just visited Libya.

What is wrong in Italy?

2009-01-30T01:17:00.000-08:00

Italy is a great country: interesting history, incredible monuments, magnificent nature, delicious food, and above all, charming and great people.
So what the hell is the problem that I keep hearing about intolerance and outright racism in Italy?!?

First, banning non-Italian food from cities? Has otherwise delicious Italian food become so bad that it cannot compete against others? Or did all the good Italian restaurants simply open in all other cities in the world...?
And all this from a right-wing government that more or less openly promotes and uses the inherent racism for its own political purposes.
However, the gross generalisations seem not only to be limited to the right-wing, but can be brought to the left-wing trade-unions, who recently called for a boykott of Jewish businesses in support of Gaza, rather than Israeli...
But worse of all is the lynch-mentality approach to Roma people, with mobs converging to burn down refugee camps?
What is this?!?

Outrightly blaming an entire population for the crimes of a few is something we Europeans have historically been sadly good at, so I guess the Italians are just living up to our proudest and long-standing European values.
And here I am myself guilty of generalizing.

Iceland to the EU?

2009-01-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Iceland's economy has crashed like a viking ship in a storm, and the country as the government has just stepped down, negotiations are ongoing between a Social-democratic and Green alliance to form a new government.

A main issue the government will face is whether Iceland should become a member of the EU. After years of being close to Europe, Iceland has nevertheless not wanted to join the EU, partly because of fear (more or less justified) that the EU would go right after the lifeblood of Iceland, its fishing industry, but also because Iceland's nationalism, only having achieved full independence from Denmark in 1944. Icelanders are similar to other Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Norway in that regard: "as long as we are doing well, what do we need the rest of the world for...?"

It seems that now that times are not so good in Iceland any longer, EU membership is considered an option (isn't that nice? Shun others when times are good, but when times are bad...), and the coming government will apparently want to hold a referendum on EU entry already in May. Application for actual membership may even be submitted before that, while the current Commission is still in place (a new Commission is set to take office in the fall), to commence negotiations during the Swedish EU presidency in the fall of 2009, rather than later, during potentially not-so-friendly presidencies by Spain and Belgium in 2010 respectively.

The enlargement fatigue that has somehow hit the EU after the 2005 enlargement and the popular rejection of the draft constitutional treaty is unlikely to have repercussions on the EU: with only 320,000 inhabitants, Iceland would be the smallest member of the EU (less than Luxembourg or Malta), so this would unlikely pose the challenges for vertical integration that for instance Turkish membership does.
Furthermore, with a healthy degree of Scandinavian pragmatism, acknowledging the dependence on their largest trading partner, Icelanders have already implemented most EU legislation into national law. This would mean that eventual application for EU membership would be made easier, since negotiations for the application of EU, the most important pre-condition for membership, would not be as prolongued as is the case with for instance Turkey.

I have no doubt that if Iceland decides to apply, they will soon join the EU, something that nevertheless should not be overestimated: the large advantage will be for Iceland more than for the EU, who will nevertheless gain a beautiful country with great people!

A note on the most important unimportant thing in the world

2009-01-27T02:32:00.000-08:00

Football is the most important of all unimportant things in the world, and since I am an avid football fan, I must make an observation on FC Barcelona. They are leading the Spanish league by 12 points and having scored 63 goals they are on the way to beat all records: 45 of the goals are scored by three players alone: Messi, Henry and Eto'o, which is more goals than all other clubs have scored in the entire season.
But the best is the beauty with which they play, and what can I say about Messi...?
He is simply amazing, a joy to watch.

Perle or "perker"?

2009-01-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

I think this has been one of the most amusing incidents in Danish language history; something which not even Monty Python could have made up. I better tell this in English; although it is easier to understand in Danish, it is nevertheless somewhat related to the recent turmoil about Prince Harry's racist comments, but this is much more ridiculous.
During recent demonstrations in Copenhagen against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, a Danish police-man was caught on camera shouting "perker" at a demonstrator. "Perker" is a very derogatory racist term, actually the very worst one can say in Danish, and the case immediately went out to the media.
I would not be surprised that a touchy Danish police force where foreigners are a rarity, use this expression widely, and this should be no surprise. However, the quasi-comical reaction was surprising: the policeman denied he had said it and was fully supported by the Police Director of Denmark.
What is heard on the recording then?
"Perle".
This means "pearl", and has exactly the same meaning and usage as in English.
So apparently, the policeman, in a heated situation with demonstrators, decided to call the demostrator something that I would think is usually reserved as an endearing adjective?

What would you think if a guy in uniform called you "Perle"?
YMCA.

Nevertheless, the police insists that is what he said, and in the attempt to support each other, another policeman has insisted that "pearl" is an adjective policemen always use on people.
Of course, police-spokesmen have added that even calling people "perle" is not something that should be done.

I don't know you guys, but I think Danish police should find a more neutral expression: "Sir"? "Mister"? And well, if they don't want to seem to be insulting anyone, they should perhaps consider "Skat" (Danish: "Treasure") which runs less the risk of being confused with "perker".
Because of course all policemen in Denmark say "Perle" to people...

Yeah right.

Turkey, Cyprus and the Nabucco pipeline

2009-01-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

EU is dependent on external energy, and the recent row between Russia and Ukraine showed just how much! Knowing about this dependency the Russians have been apt at playing the energy card as a political item, something that has obviously annoyed Europeans, who are now trying to diversify away from Russian energy: "let us start to get our energy from other places than Russia!"
Europe already receives important energy deliveries from Norway and from North Africa (Algeria, Libya and Egypt), and for the latter in particular, there is hope and expectations to increase much more.
Also Central Asia and the Middle East are hoped to become a major source of EU energy, with the huge potential in places like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and even Irak.
Part of this plan, is in fact to build pipelines that deliver oil and gas to Europe, that go around Russia. One of these projects is the so-called Nabucco pipeline, which intends to connect existing pipelines from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East, via Turkey all the way to Austria.
The bulk of the pipelines will go through Turkey.

Turkey, who obviously has an all-important strategic position in relation to the construction of the pepeline has now apparently decided to follow Russia and other countries using their energy-leverage with the EU: on a recent visit by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to the European Commission to the European Commission in Brussels, the construction of the pipeline was discussed, with Turkey introducing the question of the pipeline as leverage in the ongoing negotiations on EU accession (which are, to be fair, at a VERY early stage). Also, there has even been talk that Turkey could use the Nabucco-card as leverage on relations with Cyprus.

As it seems, this issue will not progress further as the EU-Turkish relations are much closer than many would apaprently think. However, all this does point to a much more problematic issue for the EU: the increased dependence on energy is a huge vulnerability, especially as more and more countries that is some way have some leverage on EU energy needs (either as direct suppliers or transit hubs) will use this "power" to get concessions from the EU. It is a modern form of black-mail, and the EU is very susceptible to it. At the same time, many countries that are suppliers of energy are not democracies, but have regimes with great propensity towards taking advantage of this situation.

Europe has a sad history of black-mail and imperialism, but may be entering an era where the cards will be dealt more equally.

Sarkozy to replace Bush

2009-01-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

Some things will be missed about George W. Bush: his language acrobatics, with absolutely great comments like "...the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice!" or "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend" (when visiting Denmark), or his many funny faces, will give less humorous flavour to political satire of the world.
So since world politics need an object to be a punch-ball of satire, I would hereby like to nominate French president Nicholas Sarkozy; he is a very funny man, about whom weird stories abound, and who has had strange appearances (I don't know if he really is drunk, but he does appear hilariously confused!). I have recently been watching the French TV show Les Guignols, and they have hilarious satires of Sarkozy.

I guess we lost Bush to make fun of, but I think Sarkozy will continue to provide material!
Merci!

Mr. Obama's inauguration

2009-01-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

Mr. Obama gave a great speech as expected yesterday, when he was inaugurated as president of the United States. He gave hope to the Americans, but without downplaying the difficulty of the tasks ahead; he reached across racial, religious and political lines, really underlining the global post-modern era he already represents.
Mr. Obama also reached out to the world, saying the USA is ready to lead, and not only by its force, but by its example. Just by showing its capacity for renewal by electing Mr. Obama, I also think that USA has the legitimacy now, and not only the force to lead: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."
It is hard not to get caught up in the expectations and quasi-hysteria!

However, immediately after saying this, he also said something that I beg to differ on, and which still remains to be seen: "To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
History is pretty non-judgemental as to its right or wrong sides when it come to "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent." I don't think all people judge their leader on what they build. Some peoples' minds are simply aimed at destroying, and some leaders who did nothing but destroy are sometimes remembered quite fondly. I think we still have many 'peoples' today who for different reasons (be it nationalism, lack of education, historical hate, brainwashing...) would rather see their leaders destroy, and who would rather have a dictatorship of the majority, rather than democracy and freedom.
History has no rights or wrongs as it depends who tells the story. And history has also shown that people are only too often willing to follow someone aimed at destroying rather than building.

However, Mr. Obama does represent the stubborn human capacitythat it may not necessarily have be like that.

And a comment on Europeans and Barack Obama

2009-01-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

I find it rather amusing how popular Barack Obama has been all over Europe. Notwithstanding that this popularity comes in part from dislike to George Bush, it also comes from how Europeans like to see the US: It was/is the land of dreams which many Europeans emigrated to. North Americans are "our cousins" who realised their dreams by leaving poverty and war in Europe.

Barack Obama is a symbol of how Europeans think the US should be, although a man like him would never have a chance of getting elected in Europe. If a politician talked about "Hope" in Europe, he would be laughed at!

It is ironic that here in Europe we are so cynical when it comes to our own politics, but we love it when the US shows the way with hopes and dreams, because it could never happen in Europe!

Barack Obama

2009-01-20T01:11:00.001-08:00

Today Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. I was in the US when he was elected, and the atmosphere was amazing, full of contageuos hope and optimism (and I must admit that I never doubted he would win: the media was in frenzy just talking about Mr. Obama!), which I imagine must be similar these days.
The first African-American president, although I must admit that I have found that entire race-thing quite strange. I know it is me, since I have had numerous people trying to explain it to me, but although I understand the historical precedent, I find him just a competent man: I cannot understand why people would vote for colour, although they do. I am still amused by a lady on Danish radio (DR) saying in a very provincial accent why she would vote for him (freely translated): "Because I think the negroes have had it really hard."

Mr. Obama is half-white, half-black. That is the reality of the world; is it really such big an issue?!?

Anyway, as to his coming presidency, I am a carefully optimistic sceptic: he is not a savior I think, in spite of his obvious competency, and he will have a hard time from the outset. There is a financial crisis; there is terrorism; there is crisis in the Middle East; there is a war in Iraq and in Afghanistan (and Mr. Obama wants to upgrade the latter), etc., and none of these problems will be solved in the near future, although I may agree on much of the approach Mr. Obama apparently will try. Still, the point of comparison is with Mr. Bush's problematic presidency, so that may not be difficult!

I do nevertheless fear that expectations are so high to Mr. Obama, that he can almost only disappoint (he did, I think, insinuate this in his acceptance speech). But I hope he does well. The world needs a good leader, and the US needs hope. The US has shown its unique capacity to change itself with the election, which is what makes the US unique!

Thailand and slandering the King

2009-01-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the western world loves going to Thailand for its friendly people, interesting history, wonderful nature, and not least its beaches. Nobody really thinks about some old-fashioned laws existing there which are very contrary to the very ideals of freedom of speech that I am certain most westerners adhere to: you are not allowed to say anything bad about the monarchy.

This has just led to a ridiculous jail sentence against an Australian gentleman, Harry Nicolaides, who in a book that sold the incredible amount of seven copies, apparently had a paragraph that slandered the King of Thailand.

While this has existed for a while, and has recently also been discussed in regard to all the recent instability in Thailand (I read about it in the Economist). The point is that Thailand, an otherwise wonderful country, undermines its own credibility as a stable democracy when such things happen; Thailand seems more like a feudal autocracy than the modern Asian economy that it actually is.

Reflections on the slave trade

2009-01-18T02:21:00.000-08:00

“Nor can I imagine why they should be despised for their colour, being what they cannot help... I cant think there is any intrinsic value in one color more than another, that white is better than black, only we think it so, because we are so, and are prone to judge favourably in our own case”
The above line would seem to be written by some liberal thinker, a defender of rights, of the equality of people’s of all races. It refers exactly to the hypocrisies about one group of people seeming better than others.
It thus seems cruelly ironic that the line comes from Thomas Phillips, a captain of a slave ship, sailing between Africa and the Americas in 1694, when the trans-Atlantic slave trade was well-entrenched, but had not yet reached its peak.

I have been reading a lot about the trans-Atlantic slave trade recently – don’t know why – I got hold of some books and have always been interested in history, but what mostly stroke me were all the paradoxes, the hypocrisies, the contradictions inherent in this shameful chapter of human history.
In an evil, paradoxical way, the transatlantic slave trade was globalization, both commercially and culturally: through this horrible trade and practice, societies, economies, cultures were changed, blended, created, destroyed… all in a long period that completely changed the world, and was directly related to what we see today.

And the historical paradoxes abound: for instance, the slave captains, as Mr. Phillips above. To be a slave captain one had to be cruel, cool-headed and stubborn; never show weakness, in negotiation nor in punishment. And ironically, as in France, slave captains were therefore to be recruited from the highest of the intellectuals. And even more ironically, many read a lot of books, also about anti-slavery. And even more ironically, many slave captains, especially in the 18th century, went to become abolitionist – after they had made their fortune….

Opposition to the slave trade was not such a rare thing in spite of it all, even at its height. In fact, it can seem interesting that the initial opposition was won over: in states in southern France, it was declared that no man, no matter color, could be a slave, but that was later changed when the business grew.
In Northern Europe slavery had been destroyed in the 15th century, and was generally abhorred, but it resuscitated with the growth in the trade
In Spain and Portugal, no Christian was allowed to be enslaved: in fact a Papal letter of 1607 forbade enslaving anyone who had been baptized. Still, the Portuguese baptized all their on board the ships from even before that, and continued doing it until the 1800’s…. In fact, every official Portuguese slaver normally had a priest on board to provide Christian lessons to the captives.

This may be an example to us, to our time, that money does, indeed, take precedent over any moral imperative.
I think the known American slave trader Henry Laurens put the prevalence of money over morals very well in 1763: “I have often wished that our economy and government differed from the present system, but alas, since our constitution is as it is, what can individuals do? Each can act only in his single and disunited capacity, because the sanction of laws gives the stamp of rectitude to the actions of the bulk of the community. If it were to happen that everybody… were to change their sentiments with respect to slavery, and that they should seriously think that the saving of souls was a more profitable event than the adding house to house and laying field to field… those laws which now authorize the custom would be instantly abrogated.”

I often fear that we are no better today…

Slavery was about money. In fact, there was a lot of money in the slave trade (otherwise it would never have taken off!), but it was also risky business: slave revolts, doing business in Africa, storms… the investments were enormous, and while the profits were also good if it went through, loss of a ship could cause serious damage. And in the first years of the slave trade, this was often the case.
Another highly ironic fact was that in many of the nations mostly trading in slaves, it was a highly regulated market, and not the liberalised market it may seem; governments were very involved. In fact, for countries like Spain or Portugal, the trade was a state monopoly, with huge duties and state support. The Spanish would usually sell its monopoly to a company, in a kind of franchise, but for many years such a company was unable to get a profit...
The government control, in particular in Spanish America, cases led to widespread corruption and smuggling.

But business it was, and so, the usual argument came in: goods had to be of good quality, and goods should not be damaged. While one should have no illusion of the barbarities, there was taken care of giving them food and water to survive the trip; in fact, in some of the major slaving countries (particularly Portugal) there was even legislation as to living-space, food and water rations for the captives.
It is thus in another ironic twist of history, that the Liverpool institute of tropical medicine, a leading institution in fighting tropical diseases, was set up because of the desire to equip every slaver with a surgeon, to keep the slaves alive during the journey (note that Liverpool was the biggest slaving port in the world for most of the Transatlantic slave trade and can trace much of its wealth to that period).
Note that this was done not for philanthropy, but for profit. Another paradox of the slave-trade…
This importance of keeping the “goods” in a condition for sales also had the consequence that many captains and officers on board of the ships were provided with “bonuses” for every slave brought in alive. This is another irony: for some years, because of the priority to bring in live slaves, the death rate among crews was higher than among captives. In fact, being among the crew of a slaver was a dangerous and badly paid job. Because of this, in Liverpool, crews formed some of the first unionized labor in the world, demanding better conditions for the workers on the slavers as well as better pay.
Another irony of the slave trade: a shameful trade in humans led to the organization of other men to seek labor justice.

And well, race is always brought forward as the main part of the slave trade: of whites seeing black people as sub-humans. This is indeed how it developed, particularly in the United States, but that is not how it was: just the fact that the Portuguese were baptizing their slaves is an irony to show that they indeed considered them humans souls worthy of a “Christian salvation” through baptism (in spite of the Pope having prohibited baptized Christians from being enslaved), but just not of human freedom….
In fact, slavery had for generations prior to its sickening climax of the transatlantic slave trade, been considered a normal part of life: up until the 16th century slaves were also purchased from Eastern Europe, as well as Moors from Northern Africa, and regularly kept in households in Spain or Portugal. Some were even brought to the Americas. A few of these were blacks, but also some free blacks took part alongside the invasion of the Americas; one of them going with Hernán Cortes on the conquest of the Aztec Empire, even became one of the main landowners in New Spain.
Up until the 19th century Europeans were also kept as slaves in Muslim countries (mainly in the Ottoman Empire), but this just never happened in the systematic “industrialized” way it did in the Americas.

Spain was at first weary of bringing Africans to the Americas. A small authorization was provided for some invaders, but otherwise the locals, the "Indians", were to be used as slaves. Two things influenced this though: one is the well-known Bartolomé de las Casas, who influenced that Indians should not be enslaved (must be mentioned that they were anyway but in name, and in many parts of South America, people who could not afford black slaves, would more or less openly enslave Indians instead), but the other was also the massive death rate of the Indians, and the apparent efficiency of the Africans.
This last is an important factor: the invaders, the Europeans, were looking for profit, and thus, an efficient workforce for their plantations. The "Indian" natives were, besides lack of physical resistance, not comfortable with domestic animals nor as knowledgeable of European agricultural techniques as many of the Africans (of course, depending on where in Africa they came from, but an example is how many Africans from the Senegal-Gambia area were experts at handling horses).
Thus, with time, the horrible industry developed into racial segregation.

Still, many slavers were partly crewed by slaves, as well as freed African. In some countries like Angola or Brazil, trade with time became a monopoly of mulatoes, fruit of white slave captains and slave women, who were raised into cruel experts of the trade. In fact, the entire trade in Angola became a monopoly of mulattoes in the 18th century, and these traded directly with Brazil.
Here must also be mentioned that many Africans became immensely rich from trading their co-Africans for slaves. One worth mentioning was Dahomey, in today’s Benin: The King of Dahomey was at one point estimated to be the richest man in the world, and regularly sold even members of his family to whoever would pay.
Africans must have seemed everything but too eager to sell each other in corrupt bargains or go raiding each other’s families. Seldom did European slavers have to do the “dirty” job of actually capturing people, as plenty of Africans were eager to trade.
Entire empire-states surged in today's Angola, Congo, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Nigeria, purely based on selling their fellow African prisoners of war, common criminals and whoever ran out of favor. Ironically, after the slave trade was prohibited by the British, some African leaders complained of the loss of trade, among them the aforementioned King of Dahomey: “Nothing will compensate me for the loss of the slave trade (…). If I cannot sell my captives taken in war I must kill them, and surely the English would not like that?”

It is an irony of the transatlantic slave trade that immense wealth was created in Europe, Africa and the Americas. While many countries benefitted from the inhuman commerce, Africans and Europeans, only in Europe did the slave trade to what economists would call “economies of scale”.

Some European slavers created quite warm interracial trade relations with their African counterparts to continue this horrific trade. Still, many Europeans, way into the debate on prohibition of the slave trade, tried to justify slavery of Africans with the argument that the Africans were far better off in slavery in the Americas than in the “wretched African freedom.”
Not even the many revolts and suicides on board slavers could convince them otherwise.

Giving altruistic reasons to continue the all-out dehumanization of human beings is something we should perhaps remember today when we want to talk about infringing people’s freedom and rights or accepting torture, “to protect freedom”…

In spite of the before mentioned interest to keep slaves alive and reasonably healthy for subsequent sale, one must never forget that this was a trade on human beings, based on capturing people against their will, and subject them to extreme physical and psychical violence to break their will; to make them docile slaves.
Most slaves were captured in the interior of Africa (In much of the interior it was rumored whites ate blacks: why else would they need so many captives…?), and made to walk to the coast to be traded with Europeans. The treck with these slave caravans could take years, and was where most captives died.
The stronger ones who did survive to be sold to cross the Atlantic ocean were most often already weak and broken…
When this was not the case, rebellious slaves were most often put down with extreme cruelty. Inflicting horrible and painful punishment as an example was widely practiced on every slaver.
“Everyday” life was also full of cruelty: in many plantations in the Americans, and even more so in the mines of Brazil, Perú and Bolivia, slaves were only expected to survive a few years. Children, not deemed a good labor investment were often put to death immediately.
Slaves were all branded with hot irons and beatings, mistreatment and rapes were the order of the day….

The Danes were the first to forbid the slave trade, and the English forbade it shortly after in 1807, which had great importance for the subsequent trade.
Howeverm while they forbid the trade, they didn’t forbid slavery (Britain was the first European power to actually forbid slavery in 1833), and this led to cruel consequences: trade increased! With huge growth of plantation in Cuba, Brazil and the southern USA, demand for African slaves grew, and so did smuggling, although the British tried to put up their fleet to capture slavers.
Another irony was that all seemed to be involved: while the British were prosecuting and putting their fleet after slavers out of business, British traders were eagerly providing cloth for exchanging slaves and banks and insurers were investing on new slave trips from the USA, Cuba and Brazil.

Merchants contributing to the trade is surely something we have learned nothing about today, as multinational companies continue exploiting trade ahead of human rights. These are the direct inheritors of the slave trade.

The British government’s crusade against the slave trade after 1807 also led to fascinating conflicts in international diplomacy, which in many instances resonates today: while some countries continued trading, the British tried to persuade them not to, by threats and incentives. This led to great bitterness of British intervention in other countries' affairs, in some instances worked against the stopping of the trade.
Britain was seen as hypocritical country (everyone knew they still made money on the trade) that wanted to intervene in other countries' affairs behind the smokescreen of stopping slavery.
In spite of some countries associating themselves with the British blockade against slave trade, problems on the sovereign rights of ships emerged: in particular the US was adamant that no ship sailing under US flag should be searched by British - even if these ships were found to be flying the US flag illegally to avoid British search.
The US flag was more holy than cooperating with other nations in stopping the horrific trade (something the US otherwise agreed on), even if evil men were taking gross advantage of this. Does this sound somewhat familiar today…?

While countries increasingly cooperated on stopping the illegal trade, it took many many years to stop the trade in human beings from Africa to the Americas: Brazil and Cuba only forbade slavery in 1889 and 1886 respectively, and until then, although they had officially stopped trading, smuggling still continued until the end of slavery itself, in particular from Angola to Brazil.
Also, while the transatlantic trade was eventually reduced to be stopped, new markets emerged for the enterprising slave dealers: In the last half of the 19th century, slave trade grew a lot in East Africa, as the Middle East was becoming a lucrative market as trade to the Americas decreased.
Markets have it, also today, with emerging in new places.

The emergence of new slave markets were a contributing factor to a new episode of European imperialism, this time hidden behind the good intentions towards the Africans they had enslaved for centuries: with the American colonies gone and the invention of new medicines making Europeans more resistant to African diseases that had previously held them outside of the continent, Europeans turned their heads to Africa…
While the previous humanitarian argument had been that Africans were better off in slavery in the Americas, the new argument became that Europeans should bring “civilization” to Africa and stop the intra-African slave trade and the trade to the Middle East.

This led to a new era of European conquest and imperialism in Africa (and Asia), where the locals were slaves in everything but in name.
As Rudyard Kipling would famously say arguing for colonialism,
“Take up the White Man’s burden,
Send forth the best ye breed,
Go, Bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need”
It must here be added that Kipling said this arguing for US annexation of the Philippines. But it shows the hypocritical excuse of conquering “to save the wretches from themselves”…)

This led to many, many atrocities, killings, continuing the “proud European traditions” from the transatlantic slave trade. Perhaps the most extreme examples of this was the Belgian King Leopold in Congo; while being praised as a philanthropist in Europe, who had taken Congo to bring “civilization” and stop slavery, he in fact largely enslaved the entire country as “indentured labor”, and grossly murdered, destroyed and robbed the Congo’s resources.

Thus, a new era of atrocities was created with the excuse of terminating another atrocity.
And maybe that is also something we should think more about today.

Some countries only forbade slavery very late: Saudi Arabia in 1964 or Mauretania in 1980…
Today, I think everyone agrees on the stopping of slavery, of the shameful horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. This is fine, it was horrible, and should be remembered as such.
But if we are to learn from it and not simply state “it was evil and done by evil people”
It was a system people lived under.
And we must remember this as a system with all its ironies, hypocrisies and contradictions, because this is what we can truly learn from today: these ironies, hypocrisies and contradictions are surely alive and well today.
We need to know and identify them, and maybe our past history can teach us something to help to change them.

France, Sarkozy and Rama Yade

2009-01-16T04:42:00.000-08:00

Rama Yade is France's Minister for Human Rights. In Sarkozy's popularity-seeking style he made this young, beautiful Senegalese-born woman minister, but otherwise it seems that he has had a difficult time keeping her in line with French "national interests": When the Libyan leader Ghadafi visited France, she said that "France was not a doormat where leaders could wash their blood."
This did not amuse the president, and one must indeed wonder what position human rights has in French foreign policy, especially when it comes to good energy contracts in Libya?
As Ms. Yade has spoken out against tyrants and on behalf of human rights, she seems to increasingly have become an annoyance to Sarkozy, who incited her to run for the European Parliament, but she refused.
I don't know why exactly she refused, but what better way to silence someone than to send them to the European Parliament, which is only listened to in Brussels offices, but hardly as much as the spokesperson on human rights from a country that should symbolize it much more than it does by Mr. Sarkozy's apparent hypocrisy.

A poll about the Gaza conflict

2009-01-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

As war and destructions coninues in Gaza and we are bombarded with in in the news, it was interesting to read about a poll made by Megafon/TV2/Politiken about what people in Denmark thought about the conflict. In spite of having a biased media, an unfocused and censuring Israeli government and little media coverage in general, Danes seem to have a quite pragmatic approach to the conflict; a majority of respondents say that both sides are to blame for the conflict.
This is in fact a quite insightful and understanding position, but I also think that it comes from what I have mentioned before: people are tired of this conflict, of nobody understanding nor wanting to listen to one another, both sides arguing interminably back and forth. I recently heard a programme on BBC's World Have your say, where in particular the Israeli gentleman didn't answer a single question, but kept rambling on how Hamas had attacked civilians (and he indirectly said that ALL Palestineans were responsible), while Palestineans largely calling Israelis murders who had no right to defend themselves. It just showed how much nobody understands one another: it is just hate and I would also say that both sides are to blame.

The Ghana "colony"

2009-01-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

In a recent article in a Danish newspaper about the recent presidential elections in Ghana, a Danish newspaper called Ghana "a former Danish colony".
If one takes the definition of a colony of being a territory under the control of a given state or government, nothing could be further from the truth: Denmark never "colonized" Ghana - in fact, over the almost 200 years during which there was a Danish presence in Ghana, the Danes never managed to settle the area. Rather, the Danes who ventures down there, hardly ever survived for more than a few months, and there is a large cementery full of Danes in Osu in Accra.
The Danish presence would better be one characterized as trading posts for purchasing slaves. The Danes built some 8 forts along today's Ghanaian coast, that were used for storing and shipping of slaves. And these slaves were not raided or taken by Europeans: they were supplied by local chiefs who were only happy to sell fellow men to the Europeans. In fact, these local chiefs were so powerful, that they could easily control the trade: at one point, the largest Danish fort in Ghana (Christiansborg, or Osu Castle) was overrun by a local chief, who was angry that the Danes had not paid the rent for the land on time.

The Danes sold their last fort in Ghana to the British in 1848. It took some years before the British managed to subjugate present-day Ghana (there were several wars with the fierce Ashanti, who were only defeated in 1905) and then actually make it a British colony, that gained its independence as present-day Ghana in 1958.
But it was never a Danish colony.

Does the EU need to promote democracy to ensure energy security?

2009-01-11T01:53:00.000-08:00

The recent Ukranian-Russian energy dispute has again exposed the EU's vulnerability in terms of energy: as an importer, the EU has again shown itself highly vulnerable to one source, and the need to diversify sources of energy becomes more acute: this is both in terms of producing more energy from renewable energy sources, as well as increasing the share of energy from other countries vis-a-vis Russia.
The whole thing has led me to reflect on the possible conflict between ensuring energy supplies and the promotion of democracy, as a time when there is talk of "resource curses" and "First law of petropolitics".

A geographic diversification will require some hard compromises that the EU needs to consider when trying to elaborate a common European energy policy: Most countries that produce energy have a shaky relation with democratic ideals - is this the type of countries the EU wants to deal with? And if so, would the EU want to support democratic reforms in these countries at the expense of energy deliveries?

Shold the EU care at all about democracy and governance in countries, as long as we get the energy?

I believe that democracy, in its different forms (dependent on the context), is the form that best promotes the welfare and basic rights of people in a country. It is the least inefficient way of government.

Why even bother with the question? Why not just producing renewable energies?
This is still not an option: there are not enough fossil fuels to cover needs in the EU, and the development of renewable energies is not going to replace fossil fuels in the next 50-100 years at least.

So the EU must surely look elsewhere for its energy supplies.
Norway is an important supplier whose deliveries are reliable: they do not vary with changing governments and it is quite clear what there is available, the costs, and internally in Norway, there is a national consensus as to where the income goes, that is unlikely to cause conflict. There is little prospect for a military coup in Norway.
This may sound silly, but it is to illustrate the point.
To take more extreme examples: conflicts in Nigeria and Algeria did cause disruptions to EU energy supply. But was this because of lack of democracy? In Nigeria the link between democratic deficit and conflict may be more clear, as lack of transparency and corruption diverts money, creating an internal lack of consensus on who should benefit from the oil boom.
In Algeria, the link is less clear: a cancelled election led to a long civil war, and democracy has not fully returned. It can be said that a non-democratic regime created a stability that ensured supplies for the EU.

Perhaps it is not about democracy, but about stability.
Saudi Arabia is hardly democratic, but remains an important ally to all Western countries; a stable country, and as long as it is stable, oil flows will continue.
Otherwise, what is the alternative?
In Russia Putin has created some sort of political stability from the chaotic oligarch days of Yeltsin that now ensures flow of oil to Europe: Germany doesn’t seem to mind as much as the Eastern European countries, who in Putin’s aggressive foreign policy see Russia’s need to control them, and less so a source of stable energy supplies; since Russia has already used this as an instrument, there is a (in my opinion justified) feeling that Russia is unreliable as a sole supplier of energy.

But if Saudi Arabia is reliable, why isn’t Russia? There are surely historical elements, but the point is that they are stable, and thus stable sources (surely as Germany tends to see Russia).

So, to ensure energy supply, we just need a strong and stable regime, that reliably supplies the energy needs of Europe. This need not be democratic?

History, I believe, has proved that democracy is the least bad option for long-term stability: while a dictatorship may be stable in the short- to medium term, reforms are generally not enacted; a lid is put on things, instead of actually trying to address them, as would normally happen in a democracy.
When drastic changes happen (eg. the death of a dictator) the lid is opened, and sudden conflicts may create a disruption of supply.
Thinking about stability without considering democracy is not to think long-term.

However, democracy may also cause disruptions. As many theorists will tell you, democracy does not happen from one day to another. Thus, a transition will cause instability, and some sort of disruption as long as the transition is ongoing.
While promoting democracy, any country supporting a change, can or should not choose to ignore the possibility of a violent transition – in fact, prepare for it. In many energy producing countries, leaders hang on to power by way of repression and nepotism; this may be stable, but it often entails a rather weak stability.

Promoting democracy is not only about considering the context for the transition and thus, possible disruption of supply, but also of the possible regime that follows: one that is on good terms with the EU!
If we assume that democracies have good relations (As some theories say, that democracies don’t go to war), this would, all things being equal, better be a democracy….

In short, the challenge for someone supporting democracy from outside will need to consider the stage of transition or of democracy, but at the same time, balance the impact of regime change on energy supply….
We are talking not just about democracy or not, but also about the quality of democracy.

Although it would be wrong to consider energy as the only factor on supporting democracy in a country or not, it would also be drastic to say that democracy must be supported at all costs (also because democracy needs to be built from within and takes a long time).

My answer is yes, with the above reservations, to the main question: I believe the EU needs to promote democracy to ensure long-term reliable energy security, but that it needs to happen considering the specific context where it will not cause drastic disruption of supplies.

Gay Olympics

2009-01-10T06:40:00.000-08:00

I was just reading a Danish article that the 2009 gay Olympics are to be held in Copenhagen in august.
I find this fine, as it will bring a lot of tourists and money to Copenhagen. Nevertheless, looking purely on the sports side of it, I must admit that I am somehow surprised: are gays not allowed to participate in the Olympics? Or does being gay entail a handicap to participate on equal footing as the heterosexual participants? (like there being Olympics for people with disabilities?). Are heterosexual able to participate in the gay Olympics?
What are the requirements?!?
All these questions came to mind. And while I may understand that the event is more to bring attention to the discrimination against gays in society, I find it strange that a sporting event like this should do it: doesn't it do more to tell that gays are in fact so different that they cannot participate on equal footing with heterosexuals?

The pirates versus the world

2009-01-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Today, Somali pirates released the Saudi oil-tanker, the Sirius Star, for a USD 3 Mio. ransom.

When I was a young man I loved reading and movies about pirates. And it is funny how these guys, who were surely scoundrels and murderers (often sponsored by European governments) have now become romantic figures full of myths; how one of Britain's heroes, Francis Drake, was nothing but one of these pirates.
I remember reading in one of those books how they said piracy had disappeared because of increased security and control of world waters...

Well, now piracy seems back with a bang! In 2008, reported piracy attacks were even more than the previous year. In the waters around Somalia, a bunch of Somali's in small fishing boats with GPS's and AK-47 manage to hijack oil-tankers of the most powerful companies and nations in the world, in the noses of the most powerful navies in the planet: NATO, Australia, India, and even China, who had never before sent their navy on missions so far away, are there to protect one of the vital trade routes of globalization.

While the world cannot agree on a common definition of terrorism, or of when to stop a genocide, or on when to invade a country, in our globalised world there seems agreement to stop these pirates, who nevertheless seem to make fools of these great navies, as well as international law, that still has not envisaged how to treat nor where to send captured pirates for trial.

As the "world community" is creating yet another more powerful US-led international navy force to counter the pirates, and even though more and more countries are sending escorts, the pirates just seem to be growing bolder.
But why shouldn't they benefit from globalization as well?
Somalia is a country that has existed in absolute anarchy for many years now. UN, US, or a recent Ethiopian invasion has not helped, and sadly, the only thing that seems to be alleviating some poverty in the port of Eyl, is the presence of these pirates.
And as huge ships stand in the harbour of Eyl, one has to wonder who is looking as the biggest fool in all of this...?

The pirates in Somalia are probably scoundrels, just like the pirates of the Caribbean, the European pirates, always were.
But who knows?
In some 300 years, people all over the world may be making movies about their bravery and how these romantic Somali pirates stood up for freedom against the mightiest capitalist powers of the world.

The UFO and the windmill

2009-01-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently, a wind turbine has been destroyed by a UFO in Lincolnshire in England.
These guys flew across the universe just to crash into a wind-mill. You have to wonder about the navigation skills.
Still, it happened at night, under reduced visibility, so they may be excused.

Although a UFO may be the most rational explanation, we have to wonder of the alternative explanations:
-Why not a flying squid?
-It may have been Ukrainians trying to tap electricity from the windmill in the cover of the night?
-An Israeli smart-bomb?
-The crash of a financial system?

No matter what: it may be time to seriously consider alternative sources of energy than wind-energy, since it apparently has serious repercussions on the visiting from other planets.

The conflict I will never understand

2009-01-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

So... More conflict in the Middle East. I grew up with this, hearing about it all the time. There has been war in the Middle East all my life.

At one point I wanted to understand it: I read all I could find about it, studied it, followed it in the news, and when I had the opportunity to meet people from there (both Israelis and Palestineans), I asked, and wanted to know; to understand!

The only thing I realized, is that apparently they hate each other.

I will never understand. To such a degree, that I almost say I could care less about what Palestinians and Israelis do to one another.

If it only weren't for all the innocent people dying, I could actually say that I don't care.

Still, I don't understand it. I am an outsider. I am not Isreali nor Palestinean; I have never been there, and so anyone might say that I should not say my opinion, because I don't know about it.

I admit it: I don't.

Still, I apparently need to take a position since I seem bombarded by this conflict in the news all the time: Hamas bombing Israelis because they are all the same. Israel bombing Palestineans because they are all the same.

They are the same: they are all people.

Naive me!

I am sorry I am saying it so outright (specially because of the many innocent who die), but it seems to me there are none of the sides that want peace!

They all say they want, but they don't (oh!!! It is so easy to want peace!!! Specially if the pre-condition is that there should not be anyone else around!!! "Nothing is more peaceful to have killed your enemy", they all seem to think!).

Because to want peace, you have to compromise. And none are willing to compromise; they are only willing to keep firing rockets and not-so-smart-bombs at one another.

Revenge and hate is the only thing that characterizes the people in this war.

Russian energy supply

2009-01-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

It is a cold winter in Europe, and in some countries it will be even colder, as homes seem in danger to be without heating, as the second Ukrainian-Russia gas dispute is taking place: Russians have closed for the gas pipes to the Ukraine, and since much of European gas imports from Russia use this way to get to us here in the EU, and an interruption in gas supplies is already being felt in a number of countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece and Slovakia are all on the brink of declaring an emergency on gas supplies.
Apparently supplies are being interrupted as far as Italy and France, and this just confirms what has been said for a while: EU's huge dependence on Russian energy, and how a dispute between Ukraine and Russia is having such an effect on EU countries.
I must admit I have no idea whether the Ukrainians or Russians are right, and whether the Ukrainians have indeed not paid for the gas the own Russian, but the point for is that no matter what, the Russians are disrupting energy far beyond Ukraine.
This is not the first such disruption to the EU, and just confirms the EU's need to reduce the dependence: both on types of energy, by developing renewable energies, even nuclear (apparently Bulgaria is now even considering re-starting nuclear reactors that were shut down as part of EU accession), but also on sources of energy: the building of infrastructure and agreements to get gas from other places than Russia.
It is not because it is Russia: I must admit that I have no problem on getting all EU energy from Russia, as long as we could rely on it coming! But during a winter like this, to stop supply because of a problem that in principle has nothing to do with the EU, simply sends the signal that we need diversification as soon as possible (and that said, it will surely take many years...).

No matter what, this should also send the signal to EU leaders for the urgency of starting acting together when it comes to energy relations with Russia and with the wider world. While there has lately been a tendency for a higher degree of coordination, and EU has in fact agreed in principle to work towards an EU policy, the urgency just seems more pronounced with what is going on now.

The Spring 2009 Czech EU Presidency

2009-01-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

The Czech Republic has just taken over the rotating presidency of the European Union for the first six-month period of 2009. This happens after a very active French presidency, where an over-eager Nicolas Sarkozy has been here, there, and everywhere amid financial crisis, war in the Caucasus, and the apparent urgent need to find away past the impassé created by the resounding Irish "no" to the Lisbon Treaty.

Only a member since 2005, this is the first time that the Czech Republic holds the EU Presidency, and in some media there has been expressed some reservations about the small central European country holding such an important post at a time of such turmoil: there is no doubt that the presidency will be a challenge for the Czechs, who seem already to start the Presidency with a row over Russian energy deliveries to Ukraine.

This is surely not to be the only challenges the Czechs will face: financial crisis and recession in Europe, war in the Middle East and preparation for a climate deal are just some of the

While many hope for a strong and resolute leadership, there seems to have been more talk about what will happen with the Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who besides being a self-declared EU-skeptic has been heavily critiziced for not wanting to fly the EU flag.

What horror! Not flying the EU flag!

But truth is that Mr. Klaus power is largely ceremonial, and although some may get annoyed at his lack of respect for EU-protocol (where he actually may be, sadly, more in line with EU citizens....), the real setting of the agenda is done by the government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek.

While a problem will be that his government seems weak at home, I think that there is no doubt that the Czechs will do their best for a good presidency, and may actually turn some of their apparent weaknesses into strenghts: it has before been good when small states are presidents of the EU, as they tend to promote agendas that more promote a common good, than just the interest of the bigger states. Also, at a time of crisis it may be good to have a new member state at the helm of the organisation, as they may give a fresh look to things.

And in spite of Mr. Klaus' sometimes extravagant (like his position on climate change...) his Euro-skepticism is just an expression of a Czech population who also has Euro-skeptic presidencies. But as everyone knows, they are not the only Euro-skeptics in the EU: even the French voted no to the draft constitution!

There is no doubt that it will be a challenge, that it will be interesting, but I think the Czechs will live up to their responsibility as the center of the EU for the next six months.