The Great Nordic Thread

[politicus]

Two men have been arrested for planning to kill Danish Minister of Defence Nicolai Wammen. One with Somali and one with Pakistani background.

[politicus]

Not sure it interests anybody, but continuing my Icelandic party description:

Iceland has a public monopoly on sale of strong beer, wine and liquor through the state owned Vínbúðin (wine store) chain and there is a Pirate Party proposal for it to be abolished, but it will likely fail. A typical libertarian-communitarian issue, which illustrates the difference between the traditional left and the new "postmodern progressives" and the typical rural/urban cleavage between PP and IP. Also clear gender and, especially, generational differences.

"Should alcohol sale be legal in "food stores" (supermarkets and general stores)?"


No 55%
Yes 45%

Men: 50/50
Women: 39/61

18-49: 56/44
50+: 32/68

Yes:

IP 61%
Pirates 54%
Bright Future 50%
-----------------
SDA 30%
PP 30%
Left Greens 25%

[politicus]

The Pirates are back to being the second largest party in Iceland in new Kjarninn poll, so the 29%+ MMR poll was probably an outlier.

Left Greens 10.2%    
SDA 16.1%    
Pirates 23.6%    
Bright Future 10.1%    
PP 11.0%    
IP 24.8%    
Others 4.2%

[politicus]

Danish death penalty poll:

20% of voters are in favour of reinstating the death penalty (none of the parties represented in the Folketing support it)

Pro death penalty:

DPP 36%
Liberal Alliance 34%
Liberals 32%
Conservatives 22%
SocDem 9%
SPP 8%
Social Liberals 4%
Red Greens 4%

Liberal Alliance is the most surprising. Combined with their voters strong opposition to feminism and support for tough immigration policies it seems that the party that mostly originated in the Social Liberals now (mainly?) attracts genuine right wingers.

[politicus]

Capacent Gallup poll confirms the pattern of a strong Pirate Party and that the 29'% poll was an outlier. Now three polls on 21,7, 21,9 and 23,6, which starts to look like a credible interval. Seven micro parties above 0,5%. Mostly from the old crash-era Citizens' Movement, which seems as divided as ever. Right Greens is an attempt to unite xenophobia, libertarianism and environmentalism. One of the most bizarre parties in Europe.

Píratar (Pirate Party)  21.7% ↑6.5%
Vinstri græn (LG) 10.1% ↓1.1%
Samfylkingin (SDA) 15.8% ↓1.3%
Björt framtíð (BF) 10.9% ↓2.4%
Framsóknarflokkur (PP) 10.8% ↓0.2%
Sjálfstæðisflokkur (IP) 25% ↓1.1%

Frjálslyndir (Liberals) 0.6% •0%
Borgarahreyfingin (Citizens' Movement) 0.6% ↑0.1%
Hreyfingin (The Movement) 0.6% ↓0.4%
Samstaða (Solidarity) 1% ↓0.3%
Hægri grænir (Right Greens) 0.9% ↓0.3%
Dögun (Dawn) 0.8% ↑0.2%
Lýðræðisvaktin (Democracy Watch) 0.9% ↑0.2%
Others 3.2% ↓0.3%

[politicus]

Wait so before last election; Movement, Citizen's Mt. and the Liberals all merged to form Dawn and they all epically failed. So it makes sense they sulkily split apart, but what crazy weirdo is trying to keep Dawn going with no constituent parties? Imao

Short answer: Money (party aid).

Dawn was always an artificial entity because the Liberals was a populist, low tax, no regulations and soft anti-immigration party akin to the Progress Party in Norway and the others were direct democracy/anti-corruption activists with a mostly leftist outlook. It was founded solely to pass the threshold and also  attracted people from other parts of the anti-establishment citizens movement than the three founding parties. After the election the right wingers left and reestablished the Liberals, and the sensible thing would have been to keep the rest together. But apparently there were too many personal grudges.

It is not so odd that Dawn continued because it looked like the best bid to get in next time and they had better finances (you receive public party aid according to votes). The weirdest thing was to reestablish the original Citizens Movement, which was mostly an empty shell after the leadership leaving to form The Movement. But apparently personal grudges decided that.

Generally everybody with a bit of political talent has moved on to the Pirates (Birgitta Jonsdottir is ex Citizens Movement/The Movement), Left Greens or BF. So you only got no-names and amateurs left with a high concentration of cranks, querulous types and contrarians.

The fact that Democracy Watch, which was a single issue party created to continue the constitutional process, lives on is also weird. I had expected at least a couple of the micro parties to fold, but it seems all 2013 parties still exist.

Solidarity is a true leftist splinter from LG and makes better sense - even if there is also an ideologically similar more working class and northern party called Rainbow.

[politicus]

Klaus Rifbjerg is dead. RIP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Rifbjerg

[politicus]

Latest Norwegian poll from Norstat:

Centre Party 5.9
Greens 4.3
Labour 41.7    
Socialist Left 2.6
Red 1.8

Liberals 3.8
Christian Democrats 6.5
Conservatives 22.3
Progress Party 10.0

Others 1.1

Norway is starting to resemble Iceland in that the centre-right government seems stuck on a 30%+ level with no ability to bounce back (and after a populist party called the Progress Party has collapsed). Socialist Left below the threshold in the seventh poll in a row, but the Greens above. Liberals also just below 4%.

[politicus]

This is a bit long, but on the subject of how the Danish right wing (not just the far right, but conservatives in general) sees Sweden as a dystopia - or at least a country headed down a wrong path - I think this editorial by editor-in-chief Jørn Mikkelsen from our most right wing broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten (of cartoon crisis fame) describes Sweden is illustrative:

"The exception Sweden

The debate about an explosive attack on the courthouse in Malmö was a striking example of the Swedish state of emergency. It expressed outrage not over the nature of the crime, but rather of the fact that the courthouse is located in a place where it can pose a danger to its surroundings. Translated into Danish: When justice is attacked physically, it is better that the legal system gives way. We wouldn't want to harm people.

The latter is rhetorical. Shooting dramas and physical abuse have long been part of particularly the nightly hours in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm and other major cities in Sweden. People are actually hurt, and meanwhile the institutional basis for the Swedish democracy is sliding. As the Swedish journalist and foreign correspondent Richard Swartz wrote in the newspaper Information recently, elementary journalistic principles are neglected when stories are about people with an immigrant background. Presto, the media transforms themselves into shepherds for the good cause and don the expected self-censorship so that no one can understand what the news is about.

Formally there are still freedom of speech and parliamentarism in Sweden. But the real situation is highly segregated. Either you are inside or out in Sweden. This is not just political correctness, but also parliamentary practice, since the normal political competition is inoperative for the next eight years thanks to the infamous 'December Agreement' concluded between the Riksdag parties minus the Sweden Democrats.

The shaming of this one party and its 800,000 voters, which the opinion polls show to be more and more, is fully conscious and deliberate, and comparison between today's fainthearted criticism of immigration from Islamic countries and Jew hatred in 1930s Nazi Germany is normal imagery on the other side of the Kattegat.

In Sweden the normal becomes extreme, and the exception the rule. While Latin America and other parts of the world are moving towards ever more political and economic freedom, the Swedes lose their freedom because they have made themselves and each other into slaves by a moralistic purity that obscures everything. The secular goodness ideology in media, politics, culture, industry and the Swedish education system over the past decades have been imposed with a speed and heaviness, so even the biggest skeptics have been surprised. There is an overwhelming systematic hubris that can lead the country into a longstanding crisis - not only economic. States can tolerate many beatings, and it would be premature to predict a collapse. But Sweden is moving step by step towards less control over the social, political and demographic order. Where it leads, no one can know for sure, but even now it can be seen that the asylum system is about to collapse under the growing burden of a de facto free immigration to Sweden. Just below the surface this raises concern among even Swedish Social Democrats, but the criticism is hushed up.

The outgoing Prime Minister, the Moderate Fredrik Reinfeldt, outlined the choice quite frankly shortly before the autumn elections to the Riksdag: Either we choose the welfare state as we have known it, or we choose to become an immigrant nation. Reinfeldt preferred the latter and lost to a red bloc that thinks they know that a generous welfare state must go hand in hand with the historically unique and rapid immigration to Sweden from the cultures and countries most alien to Sweden. The immigration issue part the waters throughout Western Europe. But nowhere is the answer so dogmatic and naive as in Sweden."

(my translation)

http://jyllands-posten.dk/debat/leder/ECE7600842/Undtagelsen-Sverige/

[politicus]

Well, this would be partly neutralized if the Liberals end up outside of parliament too.

Could we see some consolidation behind the Greens as the new mainstream left wing party?

[politicus]

On March 25 the Greenlandic parliament had its first hearing of a bill that will introduce (both civil and church) gay marriage and full gay adoption rights using the Danish rules (their registered partnership act is identical to the old Danish one and technically the bill is an amendment to the registered partnership act).

Nobody seems to object to this and the long delay of gay marriage in Greenland has primarily been due to a long line of bureaucratic slip-ups (like a Greenlandic translation of a clause being delivered a couple of hours too late to parliament last spring)  and the fall of Aleqa Hammond + election campaign, which removed the matter from the parliamentary agenda.

There will be a second discussion and a vote on May 15 and the law will take effect on October 1, leaving the Faroe Islands as the last Nordic country without gay marriage. Since the left wing has been in the lead in Faroese polls for over two years and the present centre-right government looks doomed this may change as well after their parliamentary election in October.

Around 70% of the Faroese are in favour of gay marriage and all of their cente-left and Liberal parties parties, but the unionist/separatist cleavage and a tradition for majority governments means that Faroese governments almost always includes one of the 2-3 parties that are against it. All post-1996 governments have included the separatist and Conservative Peoples Party, except a seven month SD led government in 2008, which included the small Christian Democratic Centre Party.

This time it looks like a SD led coalition with the left nationalist Republic, so it looks like the pro-gay pieces will finally fit together. Former SD PM Joannes Eidesgaard has suggested a formal Red Alliance between the two parties, but current SD leader Aksel Johannesen has refused that, but he is still interested in a coalition deal. Hopefully they will add the Social Liberal Home Rule Part if they need a third partner instead of replicating their 2008 coalition with the Centre Party.

The fact that the current coalition is a classic centre-right coalition (between two opposites on the unionist-separatist scale) makes it more likely that it will be followed by a centre-left coalition. (Faroese politics looks almost normal at the moment )

[politicus]

Icelandic news site Stundin has outed PM Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson's personal assistent Jóhannes Þór Skúlason as the bass player in the punk band Vafasöm síðmótun (Questionable later development) whose members are masked when appearing in public and never named.
JTS confirms he is a member, but claims he hasn't played with them "for a long time".

It is a bit controversial because after Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson got elected leader of the Progress Party and led it in a nationalist and populist direction the band won a punk contest with the song Fokk Ísland slamming the ignorant and bigoted peasants in PP - plus their greatest hit Sigmundur ironically praises SDG as "the God of Iceland" and "a haven and a savior for the nation".

In a caps-filled statement on their facebook the three other members of Vafasöm síðmótun write that they are now forced to kill Jóhannes Þór Skúlason. They claim not to have known that he worked for "thefascistracistpussies" in the Progress Party and say that they are now looking for a new bass player. Only requirement: Not being Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson's assistent!



http://grapevine.is/news/2015/04/12/pms-assistant-was-in-punk-band/

Jóhannes Þór Skúlason is presumably out of a job..

For Scandinavian posters: Their facebook statement includes the "word" Framsóknarskítadrullubarnaníðingaflokkstussuna!

[politicus]

General strike seems unavoidable in Iceland. The unions want the minimum wage raised to 300,000 Icelandic kronar (2,150 dolllars) a month. The current minimum wage is 201,317 raising to 214,000 (1,535 dollars) after four months employment and most manual labourers never get above 220-225,000.

Iceland has very high prices and wages for ordinary people have not been adjusted since before the crash - so it is a fair demand, but a big raise.

All labour unions within SGS – 50,000 workers – will hold work stoppages on April 30, May 6 and 7, and May 19 and 20. If that fails to persuade employers the general strike will begin on May 26.

http://grapevine.is/news/2015/04/12/general-strike-looking-more-likely/

[politicus]

Minister of Foregin Affairs Martin Lidegaard refuse to recognize the Armenian genocide:

He states that it should "be left to historians to answer the question of what actually happened, and whether the events of 1915 can rightly be described as genocide."

As if any serious independent historian is in doubt about that nowadays.

"Historical interpretation should not be the business of politics  and legislators, but left to the freedom of research and public debate"

So just rephrasing Turkish talking points. What a fycking tool!

It is one thing that great powers such as the US and UK don't recognize it, but no need for us to follow their lead.

Danish diplomats already called it a genocide in their reports back home in 1915 and Danish missionaries played a big part in helping the Armenian refugees afterwards, but Scandinavia does not have a good record on genocide recognition in the modern era. Only Sweden recognizes it.

World recognition map (Czech Repulic has done it since):


(light green is partial recognition. Which is a bit absurd: In the UK Wales, Scotland and NI has recognized it and Spain Catalonia and the Basque Country + Navarra and Baleares and so on.)

[politicus]

In related news the Turkish embassy is up in arms about a nine meter tall sculpture called  »The Draem« (Danish Remembrance Armenian Empathy Messenger) by Armenia-American  art studio Invivithat that the borough of Copenhagen has ordered to be placed on Kultorvet in central Copenhagen for ten days in May to commemorate the centenary of the genocide.

[politicus]

Our Queens is turning 75 today. Happy birthday Daisy!



(This also means that it will be possible to call an election from now on. Major backlash from royalists against HTS if she had allowed the election to interfere with the celebrations)

[politicus]

With a 97,5% majority (sounds impressive, but it was 40-1 among 1,443 members - Pirates are such slackers..) in a membership vote the Icelandic Pirate Party has decided to leave Pirate Parties International (PPI) saying it no longer works as a forum for  collaboration and do not represent their values.

The Australian and UK Pirate Pirates have also left PPI, and the Belgians have suspended their membership, so there is a story here. Do any Aussies or Brits know the background?

The Icelandic PP is still above 20% in polls and clearly the most successful PP at the moment.

[politicus]

Add Austria to the list.

Someone has already updated the map. Czech Republic and Austria are both on now.

[politicus]

Are you really surprised? That newspaper was supporting fascists and Nazis during the 30's, too.

Which is a bit hyperbolic (at least the Nazi part) and rather irrelevant. You can find lots of conservative papers across the continent being somewhat sympathetic towards Mussolini and Hitler in the 30s. It says little of their modern incarnations (and doesn't normally mean they wanted democracy abolished in their own countries. Just that thy considered order a higher priority for backwards (Italy) or chaotic (Germany) countries than freedom. It is like when modern right wingers think a military coup in Brazil might sort out the economy and halt corruption. Italy was viewed like developing countries are today by 30s Scandinavian (and British/Dutch/Swiss etc.) Conservatives.

Anyway, trying to paint JP as far right would be missing the point.

@Gustaf: Trying to view this as a report and grading it as if it was a school paper is pointless. Rhetoric and imagery is what matters here. The gut feeling that Sweden is a lost case and "no longer a Nordic country".

The interesting thing (and the reason I posted this) is that Sweden has disappeared as an actual country for the Danish right wing and the counter jihad circles in Norway (stretching well into the Progress Party hardline wing). It exists as a symbol of what they don't want to be more than as an actual place.

On facts: Measuring the level of violence, threats and abuse by referring to the homicide rate is rather pointless. All homicides are reported whereas other forms of violence and abuse are very underreported. So the wrong yardstick to use.

[politicus]

Here is another one from September written by psychiatrist and blogger Henrik Day Poulsen (more on the LA right wing than a conservative)  in the other mainstream centre-right daily Berlingske Tidende:

http://daypoulsen.blogs.berlingske.dk/2014/09/08/sverige-har-udmeldt-sig-fra-norden/

(a much poorer writer than Mikkelsen, no imagery here, but he cuts to the core)

"Sweden has opted out of  Scandinavia

Sweden has now renounced itself from Nordic cooperation. Berlingske Monday could tell that Sweden is planning to receive 340,000 mainly Syrian refugee over the next four years and it is expected that many of these will quickly obtain Swedish citizenship and thus a Swedish passport. This means that they are free to travel to Denmark and enjoy the privileges that Nordic citizens have had for many years; Also before Denmark joined the EEC in 1973.

Nordic co-operation draws on a community of language, culture and values. The Nordic Council is not particularly powerful, but a symbol of the longstanding community of the Nordic countries.

Sweden already has Scandinavia's largest number of Muslim immigrants. Many of these are poorly integrated and especially Southern Sweden is affected by major social problems that occasionally flares up. In Sweden it is publicly known that the media are characterized by self-censorship. Berlingske Sunday could enlighten me about a concept I did not (previously) know, namely filtering. This means that you can not mention a criminals ethnicity, since it can be interpreted as racism. In Denmark filtration according to the newspaper's information takes place in Politiken and Information, but in Sweden it is used in all media. Censorship is un-Nordic. So here Sweden is already far away from a traditional Nordic perception of free speech.

340,000 Muslims are just as much as the entire population of Aarhus. That's a lot. Also, so many that it would eventually change the Swedish culture. Sweden thus moves in a completely different direction than the rest of the region and thus away from the Nordic community. I'm not saying that a Sweden that looks like Beirut or Cairo, is bad, it's just different and in no way Nordic.

As a Dane I do not share common values with a Syrian woman in niqab who is Muslim and speaks very bad Swedish. She grew up with completely different values than I do and does not know Hans Christian Andersen, Strindberg, Nobel or Edvard Munch. She does not know the principles of the Scandinavian welfare model and as many immigrants, only want our money and not our heritage.

There is soon going to be an election in Sweden and all political parties except the extreme Sweden Democrats support that Sweden should receive 340,000 refugees.

If this decision is enforced, Denmark needs to look at whether we can continue to give special privileges to Swedish citizens. For with a Swedish passport one can live the same way in Denmark and Sweden.

Sweden has by itself opted out of the Nordic cooperation. I regret it because I like the Swedes, Stockholm and Abba. Strindberg I can still see at the Royal Theatre.

I wonder if they really are aware of what they are doing "hinsidan" (on the other side)?"

[politicus]

Third Icelandic poll with Pirates around a third... This time reliable MMR from June 16:

Left Greens 11.1%    
SDA 11.8%    
Pirates 34.5%
Bright Future   6.7%    
Progress Party 11.3%    
Independence 21.2%    
Others 3.5%

Pirates 2% above the two government parties combined... LOL And BF might get in trouble with the threshold soon if they continue to slide.

This is not a fluke anymore.

[politicus]

Faroese PM Kaj Leo Johannesen (Union Party) deliberately misled the Lagting in a case regarding a tunnel between the two largest islands - according to a report by Ombudsman Hans Gammeltoft Hansen. No news of political consequences as the Lagting does not meet before July 29, but after a fairly bad Folketing election for Johannesen and with Lagting election on October 29 there seems to be growing pressure for him to step down. The current government has been behind in the polls for nearly a year now.

http://sermitsiaq.ag/undersoegelse-lagmanden-forsaetligt-vildledt-lagtinget

[politicus]

Since no one mentioned it: The Greenlandic parliament unanimously decided to legalize gay marriage on May 27 by adopting the Danish rules. Gay marriage will be legal from October 1. Adds a bit of territory to the same sex marriage map..

[politicus]

Former  NATO SG and Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen hired as consulent for giant Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with defence ministries and arms producers are main areas. He is starting to look more and more like Tony Blair.

[politicus]

Except for party chairman Mette Frederiksen, who leaves The Network and is now officially neutral, all Danish SD MPs have now joined a faction (the so called coffee clubs). The left wing Rust Knockers have folded after their leader Minister of  Housing Carsten Hansen failed to get reelected and the remaining six members have joined a new coffee club called The Lunch Club under former Mayor of Århus and Minister for Europe (and ex spokesperson for finance, foreign affairs etc.) Nicolai Wammen. The Lunch Clubs is centered on a network of former student politicians from Århus, whose SD chapter is traditionally moderately leftist. This marks a comeback for Wammen who is a former SD wonderboy, but was sidelined by Thorning because he was a potential rival and a stronger alternative to the dominant right wing Breakfast Club.

Danish SDs thereby continue their tradition for being extremely factionalised (and choosing extremely bland names for their factions - The Lunch Club vs The Breakfast Club is bordering on self parody).

The breakdown is:


The Breakfast Club (20):

Henrik Sass Larsen, Morten Drejer, Mette Reissmann, Trine Bramsen, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Nick Hækkerup, Benny Engelbrecht, Bjarne Corydon, Thomas Jensen, Henrik Dam Kristensen, Mogens Jensen, Leif Lahn, Christine Antorini (once Crown Princess in SPP), Julie Skovsby, Karin Gaardsted, Anette Lind, Pernille Schnoor, Maja Panduro, Erik Christensen, Astrid Krag (ex SPP).


The Network (7):

Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theill (ex Red Green - long time ago), Peter Hummelgaard Thomsen, Jesper Petersen (ex SPP), Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen, Flemming Møller Mortensen, Mogens Lykketoft (former Chairman), Jens Joel.


The Lunch Club (19):

Nicolai Wammen, Kirsten Brosbøll, Dan Jørgensen, Christian Rabjerg Madsen, Kaare Dybvad, Magnus Heunicke, Rasmus Horn Langhoff, Lea Wermelin, Rasmus Prehn, Simon Kollerup, Yildiz Akdogan, Daniel Toft Jakobsen + Former Rust Knockers: Mette Gjerskov, Bjarne Laustsen, Jan Johansen, Lennart Damsbo-Andersen, Orla Hav, Karen Klint + Ex SPP (and ex Communist): Mattias Tesfaye.


A few surprises:

HTS joining the Breakfast Club knowing that she can never lead it (Sass Larsen would never allow that),which seems to indicate she plans to stay in Danish  politics for some time.

The three former Workerite SPPs (Krag, Petersen and Tesfaye) joining three different clubs, which is seen as a tactical move to maximize their influence.

Newly elected outspoken left wing critic Peter Hummelgaard Thomsen joining The Network.

The breakdown after the 2011 election was:

Rust Knockers: 8
Network: 16
Breakfast Club: 18
HTS and Corydon officially neutral. Corydon joined the Breakfast Club earlier this year.