I’ve been thinking about how the law in Denmark has affected us. There have been so many laws passed hurriedly of late, and I am no longer amazed at how little this affects the overwhelming majority of people who live here, Danes might be aware of changes being made on their behalf, but they aren’t making any great moves to stop them. We are having our rights rapidly legislated out of our reach, and very little is being done to counteract these changes in the law. There is little visible protest.
The new law ‘lømmelpakken’ that allows the police new powers of arrest has threatened to wipe out any further protests in Denmark.
The law as it was has been working, we were afraid to speak out. Denmark 1, Foreigners, Activists, Dreamers and Oddballs: 0.
I found out about the demo’s relating to COP15 through word of mouth and chance encounters. I hadn’t planned to attend any open protests or demonstrations. I have seen the way protesters are handled here, it is a worry, and then came the new law, adding insult to injury.
But what is it I was afraid of?
Honestly? At the front of my mind was that I have a health condition that requires me to receive treatment on the spot should I need it, and I’d seen how the police here handle protesters, roughly – would I survive that?
I had a nightmare image of myself firstly getting arrested for just being at a protest, secondly getting pepper sprayed due to reacting to being arrested for just being at a protest and thirdly then dying on a cold cement floor due to not getting the medical treatment when I needed it.
I was also afraid of losing everything through getting into ‘trouble’. Not just the being arrested sort of trouble, but the being known as a protester sort of trouble. I was too afraid of the repercussions to actually get out there in all seriousness. Of course I was joking when I said that Denmark needs a kick up the arse, please, don’t write that down.
I did, however, attend a small demo recently, in another part of Denmark, and noticed straight off, the laughably obvious plain clothes policemen and women milling around the pre gathering space (a busy train station) and eyeballing the colorful teenage anarchists and revolutionary types before they moved onto the start of the little march. This concerned me, because I was also being eyeballed. It must have been my big wooly hat. Oh shucks, is that me fucked then? Is that me on some kind of list??? I certainly hope not. After all, I am innocent.
I stood and listened to the initial speeches, did the march, kept my mouth shut abstaining from any chanting or shouted calls for revolution, and then slipped away when the march reached its conclusion and so didn’t stay to hear the follow up speeches.
That was about as much as I could ‘risk’. I was glad to meet the people who did march on. Though a small gathering, there was a great atmosphere within the ranks of the protesters, but peering out to the shopping crowds who lined the streets to let us pass, I saw a lot of disgust on the faces of the Danish populace. Grey lined angry faces openly sneering, making remarks. Old and young, they sneered. I haven’t encountered such unanimous hostility before. That shocked me, because there was such a contrast between the rainbow loving vibe of the marchers and the grey horror of the spectators.
I am not going to judge anyone for not taking part in a demo, because it does take some sacrifice to do such a thing. But my concern is that protest is being crushed altogether in Denmark, there is too much resistance to being disobedient. We need to remember to protest. To be brave where we haven’t been brave before.
COP 15 will end, and those of us who have set up home here will be left with what we’ve got. Without the international influence, the legendary 100,000 people strong march on the 12th in Copenhagen would not have happened.
See, protest in Denmark has long been a paltry affair. The Danes do stand up now, but only in small numbers and then they sit down quickly. If they don’t, they get beaten by the system one way or the other. How can I prove this? By compromising the trust of the people I know who have been beaten into submission here, by telling stories of threats from above and sanctions being placed and families and jobs at stake? Nah. So, I guess you will have to take my word for it if you don’t already know for sure. Stepping outside the system in Denmark takes more than just guts, it takes support, hard cash and nerves of steel. Most of us buckle and cow tow.
The fear in protest here was not brought about this month, Denmark’s been hard on protest for a long while.. I remember on a visit to a friend in Århus in 2006, stumbling across an anti racist march. It was certainly only a very small group of harassed looking young people.
I was taken aback because I saw the police before I protesters, they were out in force, so many of them, and their vans parked in a peculiar formation to one side, and a line upon line of politi to the other. And such a small group of kids!
I approached one of the marchers, a more mature looker, and asked him very naively why he hadn’t organised them into a bigger group to warrant the police attention? He did smile, it was a joke after all, but his face was strained. He walked on with the group. I remember the fear in his eyes and the way he kept his daunted gaze on the police gathering.
The way the politi had placed themselves and their vehicles, it was confrontational. Jokeworthy if it hadn’t of been pantcrappingworthy. I seem to remember hearing dogs barking from within vans too. It was over the top.
Fear and tension permeated the air, and I decided to ask a politi man what was up with the dramatic police presence. I asked him why the police were there in force, and responded to his reticence by telling him I assumed it was to protect the children so they could have their wee demo in peace. I’d heard there was a nazi demo in town the same day, and the nazis in Denmark do a fair bit of ‘perker-lover’ battering, alledgedly. How NICE of the popopoliti to protect the protesters. I said.
Anyway, the policeman was well tense and he got a bit annoyed with me. I had essentially joined the protest. He basically told me to hop it. Said I was preventing him from doing his job, which was, um, towering above a bedraggled gaggle of teenagers in his stab proof vest.
The rumor was that the nazis that day were treated differently, that they got a police escort, where the anti racists got the police presence. I have to believe what the anti racists say, because let’s be frank, they are the sanest.
The Danish police are under fire for what they have done. Yet they are under orders, from the top. The Danske Folke Parti (Danish Peoples Party) have been too quiet since COP15, this I don’t get, but my suspicion is that they have been sitting back with popcorn.
The Danish press have shown photo series that appear to glorify the police role in the protests. This is an attempt to make the police people look good, when in fact, they look very very bad.
On a one to one basis, I’ve never been badly treated by a policeperson, in fact, they always seem to be on my side, but right now, that doesn’t mean I will resist the urge to protest where possible. In future I hope to add my support in person to the people who dare.
I’d rather be the person falling from the top of a police van, after having his brains beat out by a policeman, than the policeman who is standing watching the falling guy with a sneer of satisfaction shown visibly behind his helmet mask. And yes, the numbers were clear.
What I won’t continue to do, is to sit in fear.
The ‘lømmepakke’ demo arrest law giving the police the powers to detain people with no due cause may have frightened a good many of us off momentarily (many are scared off), but who can listen to reports of friends being attacked, and not stand up and do or say SOMETHING?
Thankfully, the word is now out, draconian methods of control are at work here, as revealed in the excellent article by Bibi van der Zee for The Guardian: ‘Activists reveal tactics used by police to ‘decapitate’ CPH climate protests’.
There are many who are shocked and scared into being quiet and submissive in Denmark, and yet there is likely to be a number of people who have been radicalized by the recent proceedings and politi-ical brutality.
This could be a wake up call. Sure we are losing rights, but that doesn’t mean we are finished.
So..um…Take the power back.
*runs for the border*
