A quick mention here of the interesting recent article from the Amsterdam weekly De Groene Amsterdammer about the evolution and impact on Danish politics of the Dansk Folkeparti, or Danish People’s Party. That’s the main anti-immigrant party there, which nonetheless in the mere 15 years since its founding has attained a powerful and even respected position within the edifice of Danish politics, as the article describes very clearly.

But just don’t take my word for this, even if you can’t read Dutch. In fact, I first became aware myself of this piece from an English translation posted on the Presseurop site. There’s just one main discrepancy that I can see, though. That Danish People’s Party: why would De Groene Amsterdammer happen to be writing about them just now? Silly – there’s a general election about to occur here in the Netherlands on June 9, and one of its biggest sub-plots is how favorable the results will turn out to be for the PVV or Party for Freedom, which, yes, is the main anti-immigrant party in this country. Indeed, the lede to De Groene Amsterdammer’s piece cites the Dansk Folkeparti as “a beautiful source of inspiration” for Geert Wilders, the PVV’s leader.

On the other hand, the Presseurop piece makes no mention at all of the PVV! I must ask: why? Because English-language-only readers should not have their intellects burdened further with an additional consideration such as this? Because it would just not be “politically correct,” due to the PVV’s shady reputation in many circles, to mention what is – after all – the really sole motivation for why this particular article appeared in De Groene Amsterdammer at this particular time? I hate to break it to the Presseurop editors but, although the Dutch and the Danish feel quite a bit of common cultural make-up between them, the Dutch (at least) are not terribly interested in the details of the Danish political system or its workings for most of the time!

OK, OK, we’re back to serious again, although we remain in Denmark. The main serious thing that is happening there currently is that there’s an election campaign going on, heading for a vote scheduled for February 8. Here is CNN’s coverage if you want a little background; basically the incumbent premier, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is currently doing well in the polls, is required to hold a general election sometime this year, and so would to prefer to do so now.

But I don’t expect you to care. Shoot, I don’t care myself. If you send your web-browser to EuroSavant expecting at all to read Danish election coverage on any sort of regular basis, well, then you clearly misunderstand the wildly-scattershot quality that is central to this weblog’s self-conception. (Look, I’ve got eight languages to cover – don’t forget to include English! – and a focus that, if it even merits that name, shifts abruptly and unpredictably with my very whim.)

No, we don’t care about the upcoming election to the Danish Folketing (that’s their unicameral parliament) per se; what we might care about is the remarkable or even silly things that the pressures of such an election campaign might move Danish political parties and/or politicians to utter. And we have a prize specimen here today, from Politiken: Danish People’s Party Wants to Forbid Other Languages. (more…)

The Danish (female) politician Pia Kjærsgaard gave an interesting interview, published yesterday (The Next Election Campaign Should Also Be About Foreigners), to David Rehling of the commentary newspaper Information. Now, Kjærsgaard is not even in the current Danish government, but the tacit support of the Danish People’s Party (Danish abbreviation “DF”) that she leads keeps the present governing coalition in power and has enabled it to go forward with its electoral program.

That’s only as long as the governing liberal-conservative coalition includes in that program the DF’s pet initiatives, of course, which mainly have to do with making Denmark a more unfriendly place for the non-tourist non-Danish. (more…)