Denmark’s Happy Muslims

Last Sunday, I was watching 60 Minutes and saw Morley Safer report that Denmark is the happiest place on earth.

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In the report, Safer interviewed a Danish journalist named Sebastian Dorset:

Dorset says that contentment may stem from the fact that Denmark is almost totally homogenous, has no large disparities of wealth, and has had very little national turmoil for more than a half a century. “We have very little violence. We have very little murders. So people are, feel very safe,” he says. (cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main383397.shtml)

Apparently, someone forgot to tell some of Denmark’s Muslims they lived in the cradle of contentment. When the broadcast aired on February 17th, “youths” were in the midst of engaging in more than a week’s worth of rioting. For a country that sees very little violence these young Muslim whippersnappers happily overturned cars, torched schools and even bombed a tanning salon. You would have thought riots in a country that seldom sees them would have merited a mention from Safer. But why let a few burning garbage cans get in the way of a good story? If that wasn’t enough, on February 20th, Danish police arrested eight people at a free concert by hip hop artist Akon at the Fields Shopping Mall in Orestad, just on the outskirts of Copenhagen. The arrests were made after police were pelted by bottles and rocks when they attempted to evacuate people in response to a fire alarm was set off early in his set (which turned out to be a false alarm). It is worth noting the American born rapper is Muslim and no doubt many of his Danish fans in attendance were as well. Muslims only comprise 4% of Denmark’s population but seem to cause 95% of its problems. To give Danes their due they are a contented lot who do not suffer fools gladly. After all, this is a country that in WWII stuck its neck out to save its Jews rather than have them sent to concentration camps. Denmark is the one of the few countries to have partaken in both the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Two years ago, Denmark briefly became as despised in the Muslim world as the United States and Israel when cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed were published in Jyllands-Posten. Violent outbreaks against Danish institutions accompanied an international boycott. Yet both the Danish government and press stood firm in the name of freedom. They stood firm again earlier this month. On February 12th, Denmark’s security and intelligence service arrested three men – two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan origin – plotting to kill Kurt Westergaard, the man who drew the cartoon depicting Mohammed’s turban as a bomb. The following day, several Danish newspapers, including Jyllands-Posten, reprinted the cartoons in solidarity with Westergaard. The reprinting of the cartoons as well as accusations of police harassment have been blamed for the violence which has been centered in “immigrant” neighborhoods in Copenhagen. And by immigrant neighborhoods, the press means Muslim neighborhoods. The good news here is the Danes have little tolerance for nonsense. The same day the 60 Minutes segment aired, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, “We must make clear that the youths are responsible for this and their parents.” He added the anger at the reprinting of the drawings did not bestow “the right to burn others’ cars or to burn down schools and institutions.” Rasmussen also said the parents should be held financially responsible for the damage done by their children. This no nonsense approach crosses the political spectrum in Denmark. Villy Sovndal, leader of the Socialist People’s Party, when interviewed by Jyllands-Posten said, “If they want to live in a religious dictatorship so badly, they can go to those countries in the Middle East where such dictatorships exist.” Sovndal was specifically referring to an international organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir which wants to establish a caliphate and impose Shari’a law in Denmark and the world over. In response to a demonstration Hizb ut-Tahrir held after the reprinting of the cartoons, Sovndal said they could “go to hell.” (cphpost.dk/get/105747.html) Could you imagine a left wing political leader anywhere else in Europe telling an Islamic organization to go to hell? Could you imagine Barack Obama telling CAIR to leave America if they want to live in a Muslim country? I am not suggesting the 60 Minutes story paints an entirely false picture of Denmark. Indeed, 60 Minutes is not the first national news show to do a story on Denmark’s status as the happiest place on earth. In January 2007, the ABC News program 20/20 also did a story on Denmark narrated by John Stossel:

Hanging out with other Danes just may be their happiness secret. Ninety-two percent of Danes belong to some kind of social club, dancing, singing, even practicing laughing with other Danes. Get a few people together who enjoy model train building, for example, and the government will pay for it. In Denmark, even friendship is subsidized. ( abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id-4086092)

I cannot say I am on board with the idea of the government subsidizing a model train building club. But this does illustrate an important point. There is a strong sense of community amongst the Danes. This strong sense of community is in no small part due to the homogeneity of Danish society; something pointed out in both the 60 Minutes and 20/20 reports. Wherever Muslim communities have congregated in Europe they have made a concerted effort to isolate themselves from the community at large and Denmark is no exception. Not only do many Muslims living in Denmark want nothing to do with their fellow Danes they want Denmark to be an Islamic country as articulated by the Hizb ut-Tahrir. Simply put, Muslims living in Denmark do not want to build model trains with their fellow Danes. In all likelihood, many of them would just as soon blow up these model trains. It is worth noting that a study released by the World Economic Forum in January 2008 observed that 79% of Danes considered more interaction with the Muslim world as a threat. That number represented the highest level of distrust of the Muslim world by any of the 21 countries studied, including the United States and Israel. If Denmark is indeed the happiest country on earth a majority of Danes believe increased interaction with the Muslim world through greater immigration is a threat to that happiness. Yet these same Danes ranked number one when they were asked, “Is the quality of interaction between the Muslim and Western world important to you?” More than three quarters of the Danes surveyed answered in the affirmative, narrowly edging out the United States. (weforum/org/pdf/C100/Islam-West.pdf) So it is not question of Danes being unwilling to interact with Muslims. Danes simply want to interact with Muslims in the same way they do with other Danes. They want Muslims living in Denmark to join them in building model trains. If Muslims living in Denmark were to build model trains with their fellow Danes there is reason to believe they would be just as happy as the rest of their countrymen. Or so the logic goes. Denmark’s happiness train will continue to make stops in the Muslim neighborhoods. It is up to the Muslim community to tell their children to lay down their weapons, grab a herring sandwich and climb aboard. Aaron Goldstein was a card carrying member of the socialist New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP). Since 09/11, Aaron has reconsidered his ideological inclinations and has become a Republican. Aaron lives and works in Boston.