Imagine two elegantly dressed young Danish couples strolling along the foothills of Mount Vitosha on a warm summer’s day. They join the queue for one of the best nightspots in Sofia. The couples are looking forward to a night of dancing, chitchat and cocktails. They quickly get in line and wait their turn, in a…
Imagine the death of the welfare state. Imagine it being replaced by a new system. Not a jungle dictatorship like Pol Pot or an elaborate one like Gaddafi’s but a custom-made and articulate dictatorship right in your own Danish backyard, where money will sit on the throne, dictating to the masses how they should live…
On the first of May, I could be forced into homelessness due to the actions of Aarhus Council’s integration department. I was invited to Denmark under the ‘Freetown arrangement’ of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) , which lasted until March 2012. When that arrangement expired, I became a political refugee. Since being in…
Riding the bus in Denmark gives one a chance to observe a microcosm of Danish society up close. There are several silent and unspoken rules that one must observe inside a Danish public bus, lest one be judged by odd stares and condemned to stereotype in silence. The first, and most important rule, is that…
Didn’t the famous Danish thinker and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once say: “It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things that it cannot understand …” Art can therefore help us understand the world around us and gives us a unique opportunity to examine how artists view the world around them.…
Dear Minister, I have chosen to address this matter publicly because I have come across a costly oversight in the Integration Act. In my personal experience, it fails to recognise and support foreign innovators and inventors living in Denmark and aims to create mainly employees and not employers. Remedying this could create long-term employment and…
Denmark and Zimbabwe are countries that are worlds apart, but share similarities when it comes to populist right-wing politics. Zimbabwe is run by a now 88-year-old dictator named Robert Mugabe. On the other hand, for a decade, Danish politics was controlled by a right-wing populist party called Dansk Folkeparti (DF), until recently headed by 65-year-old…
In life, history and society will try to define who you are. Those who have the power and means to suppress you will call you what they want, without your consent. But it’s not what they call you, but what you answer to. There are several terms that have acquired a negative meaning based on…
I have been struggling for quite some time with the integration policy of the city of Aarhus. It is difficult to prove discrimination in this case because it is in a piece of Danish legislation and is enforced by a cabal of people, who in my opinion have no compassion or understanding of refugees. …
Life away from Denmark? We asked Danes what they miss the most when they travel abroad. Give them a bit of fresh air and their dark bread, they’ll be alright.
I didn’t think the heavens of the body and soul would once again open up like when I met well-being king Ole Henriksen from Nibe and his world-famous ‘Escape to Tranquility’ concept in Hollywood, Los Angeles 20 years ago. But it happened anyway recently at AIRE Ancient Baths (www.beaire.com) in Vesterbro, of all places. The…
Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s apology for “not acknowledging responsibility” for the toxic workplace culture at several of his Mikkeller locations is not enough, say whistleblowers. This investigation traces the fall of the Danish brewery giant.
