10.

The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark:

From Emancipation to Ethnocentrism?
Lars Dencik

D enmark, like Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, is today a

highly developed society, fully committed to progress and modernization.
Individuals, as in the other Scandinavian countries, are granted extensive social
rights. Denmark is also characterized by being a stable democracy organized as
a comprehensive and well-functioning welfare state.1
Measured by GNP per capita, Denmark belongs among the most affluent
countries in the world. The Gini-index of income is low, meaning that there is
a fairly equal distribution of wealth among the population. There are no sharp
divisions in terms of social class, and the population as a whole is well educated.
Recent studies have also shown that all the Scandinavian countries rate among
those having the best quality of life in the world.2 Other studies show that the
Danes, not least its youth, rate as the world’s most satisfied citizens.3
Not only is egalitarianism highly valued in Denmark, as in the other
Scandinavian countries, but these countries also have had—up until recently—an
extraordinarily high degree of ethnic homogeneity. With very few exceptions:
• All citizens belonged to the same state-governed Lutheran church.
• All citizens spoke the unique language of the country, a language spoken
by all inhabitants of the country but spoken almost nowhere outside the
country.
• All citizens shared the experience and consciousness of a long and unified
national history.
However, in the wake of the radical modernization that has taken place in
the Scandinavian countries over the last decades, two processes relevant to the
discussion of secularism in society have taken place:

125
126 Secularism & Secularity

1) The church as an institution, and the influence of religious thought on

politics and social affairs in general, has lost influence.
2) Increased migration and cultural globalization has significantly affected
the fabric of social life.
Actually, the weakened position of the church and of the influence of
religious ideas in society has a longer history. It goes back to the early 1930s, to
the breakthrough of rationalism in connection with building a modern welfare-
state society. In the decades after World War II this process became radicalized.
This did not have as much to do with the experiences of the war or of the
Holocaust as with the dynamics of social modernization itself.
From a social psychological view this has meant a process of de-tradition­
alization.4 In matters such as family life and childrearing, people adapted to
radically modern life conditions by no longer doing what had been the “normal
thing to do,” but rather felt a need to “invent” new ways they perceived as more
adequate to the new conditions.

Where Tradition Had Ruled Reflection Took Over

Today, Scandinavians travel at great speed towards an ever-more radicalized
modernity—unknown as to form and content, yet carried along by the same
processes that created modern Denmark and the other Scandinavian welfare
states: rationalization, individuation, and secularization. These processes have
continued to act as transformational forces in society but now with modernity
itself as the point of departure.
• Rationalization implies that effectiveness, utility, and profitability are
superior considerations in all spheres of life.
• Individuation has meant that individuals have become singled out
socially, and “disembedded” from their social background, as the noted
British sociologist Anthony Giddens5 puts it. Nowadays they are—
ideally—treated as representatives only of themselves, not of any ascribed
collective, be it kinships, ethnic group, or religious affiliation.
• Secularization has opened up the opportunity for critical questioning of
established values and religious traditions.
Thus, each contemporaneous modernity is in turn replaced by the changes
that further modernization brings about. Individuals live in an era of continuous
modernization of modernity—an “era of shifts”—that implies a constant
rad­icalization of modernity.6
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 127

Change and shifts are communicating vessels. As conditions change indi­

viduals as well as social and cultural collectives, artistic groupings as well as
organizations, must continuously find new ways to cope with their existential
predicaments in order simply to remain in their current positions in society. The
need to find a new balance between continuously shifting orientations, strategies,
and attitudes—in short, of social identity—and the need to keep one’s integrity,
becomes a significant part of one’s existential game.7
This is the essence of a post-traditional world, a world in which both
knowledge and traditions can be found and cultivated but no longer function as
obligatory and controlling cultural patterns for the individual. Rather, there are
opportunities for choice and for creating a mix that suits the individual.
Understanding individuation is necessary to understanding secularization.
A seemingly paradoxical tendency occurs in the wake of radical modernization:
some people evince a propensity to religious and/or national fundamentalism—
what I in another context have labeled the tendency towards “neo-tribalism.”8
Individuation is one side of a psychological coin, the other side of which
is a yearning for belonging. Thus radicalization of modernity from the point of
view of the individual tends to create two seemingly contradictory but, in reality,
deeply connected tendencies. On one hand, the individual becomes increasingly
socially “disembedded,” free to, but also forced to, choose among an increasing
number of life options. On the other hand and by the same token, the indi­vid­ual
also becomes increasingly “existentially lonely,” prone to involve her or himself
in anything that glimpses at an experience of belonging, a sense of “we-ness”
—such as a family, a gang, a nation, or a religious grouping.

Secularization
Now to the issue of secularization. How is this defined in the modern
Scandinavian welfare states? Three partly overlapping points cover the common
understanding fairly well:
• Social affairs should be handled in a “rational” way, meaning that no
religious or other “metaphysical” belief systems should be allowed to
interfere with—not to say govern—political decisions. Nor should
religious values, feelings and interests be given special considerations in
the handling of social affairs.
• There should be no interference of religion in the political, social,
educational, and scientific fields.
• Religion is privatized and should be regarded and handled by citizens
purely as a question of a person’s “inner” beliefs.
128 Secularism & Secularity

Yet in this context a remarkable fact is that during the whole process of
modernization the state-church system in Denmark and Sweden has remained
intact. Denmark today maintains a state church, and Sweden separated church
from state only at the turn of the millenium. The present state-church system in
Denmark implies:
• According to the constitution (§54) the Evangelical Lutheran Church is
the Danish People’s Church (Folkekirke) and is as such supported by the
state, which means that the Lutheran religion and its institutions and
churches are given a favored place among religions in Danish society.
All tax-paying citizens, regardless of their personal religious beliefs, thus
contribute to the priests and bishops of the Folkekirke.
• According to §56 of the constitution the King (or the Queen if she is
the Head of State, as is presently the case) has to belong to the Lutheran
Church.
• The governmental system includes a “Ministry for the Church” headed
by one member of the Danish government (at present the person in
charge is also the Minister for Education). The Danish government
appoints the leading officials of the Folkekirke, such as the Archbishop
and the bishops.
• Every year the official opening of Parliament is accompanied by a
Lutheran religious service in the annexed church (Slotskirken).
• Practically all citizens are automatically members of the Folkekirke from
birth. Not to be so included requires that the citizen takes an initiative to
leave the church. At present 83 percent of the Danish population belong
to the Folkekirke.
• The public community schools (Folkeskolen) all teach “Christianity
classes.” Only when pupils reach the senior classes are they taught about
other religions. When the children reach the 7th or 8th grade they are
given 48-56 lessons at their school in order to prepare for their religious
confirmation.
• Most, if not all, official holidays in Denmark, such as Christmas,
Easter, Pentecost, Christ’s Ascension, etc. follow the Lutheran Church
calendar.
There rests a strange paradox in this: from one point of view Denmark
is clearly a Christian country—as are by more or less the same standards the
other Scandinavian countries. Looked at from another point of view, however,
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 129

Denmark, as well as Sweden, is a highly secular society.

In the wake of the infamous publication in the fall of 2005 of the Muhammad
cartoons in Denmark’s largest daily newspaper, Jyllandsposten, there arose an
intense debate about the status of religion in Danish society. The Prime Minister,
Anders Fogh Rasmusen, leader of the liberal-conservative coalition government,
is one of President Bush’s closest allies on the international scene. According
to several serious analysts his behavior on the diplomatic scene following the
publication of the caricatures was an active cause of subsequent events in the
Muslim world:
On February 15, 2006, he made the following statement on Danish Public
TV: “We shall be careful not to allow religion to fill up too much in the public
space.” A little later, he clarified his position in an article titled “Keep religion
indoors” in the leading Danish daily newspaper Politiken. In that article he
stated:
We shall keep religion and politics separate. In the Danish State of Law
it is the laws proclaimed by the Parliament that rule—not the Bible,
the Koran or other holy texts.
He continued:
Less religion in the public space implies that the believers keep their
dogmas for themselves—and allows others the right to believe and
think something else.
And he added:
Religion may release human beings from freedom and responsibility:
This is particularly true when holy texts are presented by legalistic
religions that prescribe in detail how the individual believer shall lead
his or her life.9
In a speech given at the occasion of the Danish Constitution Day, June 5,
2006, he elaborated on this matter, saying:
Religion is and remains a personal matter between the individual and
the God the person may believe in.... In Denmark neither the Bible nor
the Koran nor any other holy book is elevated above public debate....
It is dangerous when personal beliefs become substituted by a religious
law according to which the individual human being should subordinate
himself to pres­crip­tions that are thousands of years old. And society be
arranged according to religious decrees.
130 Secularism & Secularity

Given the context, the Prime Minister’s implicit attack on “legalistic (law)
religions” clearly refers to Islam. It is noteworthy that in the article quoted above,
the prime minister also proclaimed both that the Danish state does not have—
and shall not have—any religion, and that he is a warm supporter of the existing
Danish state church system, the Folkekirken. Thus he wrote:
Religious beliefs of course affect a person’s attitudes to many of the
topics that are debated in the public space...in that way religious faith
influences both attitudes and actions...in that respect religion will always
be present in the public space.... The Danish history and culture and
Danish society is penetrated by Christian thinking—simply because
most Danes are Christians…. In that regard religion and politics can
not be separated.
On the same occasion the speaker of the Danish Parliament,10 a member of
the same political party as the Prime Minister, in his speech stated:
Denmark is an old Christian country. This has been imprinted in gen­
erations. We see it in the arts and in the literature. We can note it in
our flag —the cross-banner.
The Vice Prime Minister and leader of the Danish Conservative Party,
Bendt Bendtsen, on the same occasion reiterated the same line of thought and
warned that:
Pushing our religion—Christianity—into the backyard.... We enjoy
religious freedom in this country, but religious freedom does not mean
equality among religions. Christianity has and shall have a favored
position.
Two days later, the vice prime minister, in an interview in the largest Danish
morning newspaper, elaborated on his position:
Christianity is under pressure…rather than abolishing religion in
the public space it may be timely for us to strengthen the Christian
foundations of our society.... Denmark and Western Europe rest on a
foundation of values that build on Christianity.... Christianity is in the
public space, and I acknowledge the values that Christianity give me as
a person and as a politician, and I don’t want to hide that.11
It should be noted in this context that neither the prime minister nor the
vice prime minister approve of the idea that religious symbols—be it a Christian
cross or a Muslim hijab—should be prohibited in public.
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 131

“We have a society based on Christianity, and this means that there is room
for Muslims to cultivate their religion. I do not approve of prohibitions and law
regulations on this field,” he said.12
It may be noted here how sharply the Danish, and in a larger context, the
Scandinavian, interpretation of secularism, differs from the more well-known
French understanding of this, as summarized in the concept of laïcité.

A Secularized Lutheranism
In Denmark, as in the other Scandinavian countries, an institutionalized Luth­
eran Christian belief system today exists in symbiosis with dominating secular
values. In these countries the values and system of democracy have strong
popular backing, as do the ideas of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly,
and the right to individual choice—for instance in religious beliefs and practices.
These “secular” notions extend to the ideas of gender equality, children’s rights,
and that each individual has the right to choose romantic partner(s) and to shape
his or her sexual life style according to personal preferences.
This amalgamates into what I, for want of a better notion, label a dominant
cosmology of secularized Lutheranism. Although Denmark (and Sweden) is a
country in which most of the citizens by tradition belong to the Lutheran state
church Folkekirken, Christianity as a practiced religion does not characterise the
life of a large segment of the population.
The number of churchgoers on any regular Sunday is below 5 percent of
the adult population13 and even on the religious holidays (with the exception
of the traditional Danish Christmas Eve service) doesn’t rise much above that.
A good 80 percent of the population can be characterized as “secular” in the
sense that religious practices do not have any place at all in their daily lives.
Nor do they in any substantial part support the Christian-Democratic political
party—in Denmark that party attracts hardly 2 percent of the voters in general
elections (in Sweden a little over 4 percent).
Paradoxical as it may seem, still most of the citizens are members of the
Folkekirke. The church is used by a large majority of the citizens only for lifecycle
events—entry and exit services—birth/baptism, confirmation, weddings (to a
lesser extent) and death/burials.
However, even if religious practices have a remarkably weak hold on the
vast majority of Danes and Swedes, and even if secular values are strongly
held, the everyday world view and daily life ethics of most Danes and Swedes
are profoundly coloured by certain Christian, or rather Lutheran, values: the
Protestant ethics14 of hard work and diligence, combined with a preference for
handling human affairs in a “rational” way. In an analysis of the formation of
132 Secularism & Secularity

the modern Danish and Swedish welfare states three intertwined processes
have been pointed out: rationalism, secularism and individuation.15 Religion is
regarded as purely a question of private inner beliefs.
Within the cosmology of secularized Lutheranism virtually everything is
measured according to its utility, nothing is really ”holy,” and religiosity should
play no role in social affairs. This penetrates the Danish and Swedish societies
to the extent that the very categories by which one organises and evaluates social
affairs in Denmark and Sweden are tinted by the tacit values and viewpoints of
the secularized Lutheran cosmology.
Nearly a year after the infamous so-called Muhammad Crisis, when Danish
embassies and flags where burned in several Muslim countries, Danish Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen reiterated and underlined this attitude.
We should regard each other as citizens and as human beings and not
as Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Buddhists. Religion should be
erased as a criterion when organizing the activities of public institutions
and in the construction of laws.16
Even if not as outspoken as in some other countries, such as the Jewish state
of Israel and the Muslim Republic of Pakistan, there prevails in Denmark an
intriguing relationship between religion and nation.
Looking at the Danish society from the point of view of the sociology
of religion, it is quite striking that regardless of a citizen’s stand on religious
issues, the vast majority of them are members of the Folkekirken. They are, of
course, also Danish citizens, and also share what may be called a perspective of
Danishness, referring to the certain cultural prism through which one experiences
the world.
These three factors, secularized Lutheranism, Danish citizenship, and Danish­
ness as a prism of experiencing, constitute three cornerstones of a triangle into
which any Dane can be placed.

So What About Danishness?

At present in Denmark what constitutes Danishness, and how—if at all—a non-
native Dane may achieve that, is a very hot issue.
In order to illustrate the mechanisms that constitute a cultural prism I want
to give an example that I know from my own experience and that at present
is much less disputed than Danishness—the cultural prism of Swedishness.
By growing up in Sweden, by having Swedish as one’s mother tongue, and by
having spent one’s formative years in a Swedish school—as I have—one acquires
a Swedish way of perceiving the world.
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 133

This may manifest itself in the way one perceives society and interprets
social justice, but also with a rather special affection, bordering on religious
devotion, for nature as such. There is a way of appreciating wild forests, red
cottages, empty landscapes, and beaming sunshine that is more or less “typically
Swedish.” The fact that the songs of Swedish folklore and the special products of
Swedish cuisine evoke positive associations and feelings among some Swedes is
only because they are Swedish.
Over the past two decades cultural globalization has challenged whatever
Danishness has meant to Danes. In particular, the migration of Muslim groups
into the Danish welfare state. Today, approximately 6 percent of the inhabitants
of Denmark are immigrants or children of immigrants, not all of them Mus­lims
but most of them refugees from Turkey, the Middle East, and to a lesser extent
workforce immigrants from Pakistan. Their presence in Denmark has become a
major issue on the contemporary political scene in Denmark. Having for long
been a country of extraordinary cultural homogeneity––the very phenomenon
of a culturally “deviant” presence in the Danish society, and in particular the fact
that it is a Muslim group, has sharpened the awareness among Danes of their
own cultural heritage, life-style, and values.
This has, to some extent, led to a strengthened awareness of, and stress on,
Denmark’s Christian heritage. Christianity in Denmark may be said to have
developed into an ethno-cultural demarcation sign. The situation has also meant
that the Danish Government has launched commissions to define a Danish
cultural canon in all fields of the arts, including stating which Danish literary
works should be compulsory readings in schools.
But more significantly in this context, this has meant a sharpened ar­ti­c­u-­
la­tion of the secular values modern Denmark celebrates: political freedom,
freedom of expression (including the right to criticize and even to ridicule
religious and other “holy” texts and symbols), individualism (also within the
family, for instance with respect to children’s rights) and every individual’s right
to live according to one’s own individual preferences, sexual liberalism (includ­
ing relaxed attitudes to homosexuality, to being “daringly dressed” in public,
to pornography, etc.), and women’s rights and gender equality in all spheres
of life.
Not only have these secular values become more clearly articulated than
before, they are nowadays also launched, at times aggressively, as values that
express the very essence of contemporary Danishness. One implication is that
those who, for cultural and religious reasons, cannot accept these values become
targeted for being non-Danish, and at times even harassed for representing
values basically antithetic and hostile to Danishness.
134 Secularism & Secularity

As in other European countries the success of what might be called

“traditional secularism,” advocating the independence of politics, education,
science and social affairs from religious dogmas and institutions, in Denmark
has served as a vehicle for emancipation and democracy. The question is: what
social role does traditional secularism serve today, given the context of cultural
globalisation and migration and given the content of the secular values advocated
as characterizing contemporary Danishness?

A “New Xenophobia” and the Neo-Tribalist Backlash17

Finding an answer to the question posed above requires broadening the per­
spective both in time and space.
During the last decade a virtual inversion of the traditional image of Den­
mark as an overly tolerant and humane and liberal society has taken place.
Globalization, increased migration, and enhanced mobility within Europe have
contributed to diminishing the congruence between Blut (blood) und Boden
(soil), to use a renowned and infamous German phrase, on the European
continent. This in turn has had repercussions in a wave of “new xenophobia,” a
xenophobia, paradoxical as it may sound, in the name of tolerance, and populist
politics in several European countries. The terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001 accentuated these trends and caused
latent anti-Muslim sentiments to be voiced openly in public debate.
Two tendencies that have become manifest in the aftermath are, on the one
side, a strengthened emphasis on national unity and national culture, such as
Christianity and secularism, and on the other side, increased militancy of those
groups that feel targeted by this new xenophobia.
The way immigration from non-European and mainly Muslim countries
into Europe has been handled over the last two decades has contributed to this.
In the wake of the failure—or perhaps, rather, unwillingness—to let these immi­
grants become integrated into their host countries a strengthened tendency
towards a “new nationalism” in several European states has emerged. Populist
political parties such as Front National in France, Jürg Haider’s nationalist
Freiheitspartei in Austria, Lega Nord in Italy, Vlamske Front , now Vlamske Belang,
in Belgium, Pim Fortuyn’s Party in The Netherlands, and Dansk Folkeparti
(Danish People’s Party) in Denmark have more or less successfully exploited
this.
With some variations between the countries, the policy these parties have
launched could be described as a kind of “diet version” of Blut und Boden. The
tendencies these parties express have not been confined only to these and similar
outspoken populist parties and movements; well-established and “decent”
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 135

democratic political parties and groupings in some of the countries mentioned

have jumped onto the hyper-nationalist band-wagon.
Denmark, one of Europe’s most advanced liberal welfare states and most
enlightened countries, is a case in point. Denmark is not just a small, ethnically
homogeneous, and seemingly peaceful country on the Nordic edge of the
European continent. Denmark is also the European country that today has been
judged by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)
as having the most xenophobic public debate and government policies.18
One significant reason for this is the influence of the populist Danish
People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti ). This political party, whose leading spokesmen
on these matters are two priests in the Folkekirken,19 combines a strongly
Islamophobic, anti-immigration, and anti-asylum-seeker position with political
protection of central aspects of the social welfare state system, granting the
Danes such goods as free medical care, relatively generous allowances in case
of unemployment, sickness, retirement, etc. The political platform of the party
may be described as ”welfare state chauvinism.”
In the last elections the party gained approximately the same following as
many right-wing populist parties in other European countries, about one eighth
of the vote. But in contrast to what has happened in many other countries, the
populists in Denmark have gained a dominant influence both on the public
debate and on government policies as far as immigrants, asylum seekers, and
foreigners are concerned. Contributing to this has been the strategy chosen by
the two major established political parties in Denmark, the Social Democrats
and the Liberal Party (Venstre, headed by the present prime minister), in
combating the challenge posed by the up-and-coming Danish People’s Party. In
what, at best, could be understood as an attempt to pre-empt the challenge, they
co-opted the anti-immigrant and anti-multiculturalist arguments put forward
by the Danish People’s Party—thereby in effect legitimising the very discourse
launched by the populist agitators.
This discourse has now become very influential in Danish politics and many
of the measures taken by the government in these matters. The underlying,
but also publicly expressed idea is that the coherence (sammenhængskraften ) of
Danish society is threatened by the very presence of these “strangers” (fremmede )
in Denmark. Islam, and by the same token, Muslims, are pictured not only as
basically incompatible with both Danishness and democracy, but also as posing
a threat both to the Christian and the secular culture.
This development was greatly helped by a populist tabloid press and by
a certain brand of Danish publicists and intellectuals, many of whom were
previously active on the extreme left, and were influenced by the ideas of the
136 Secularism & Secularity

popular 19th century Danish Christian priest, writer, and philosopher Frederik
Severin Grundtvig.
A celebrated notion in his philosophy is the notion of “the people” (folket).
In his understanding “the people” is synonymous with “the Danes”—entrusted
with a particular folkesjæl (soul or spirit of the Danish people) and constituting
a certain folkestam (the tribe of Danes)—that by implication is Christian but at
the same time also secular.
The political exploitation of such ideas apparently has deep cultural reso­
nance among the Danish population. When referring to the celebrated notion
folket, what is denoted is the Danish ethnos, rather than a demos corresponding
to the “the inhabitants of Denmark.” As a consequence, much of the political
discourse in Denmark today centers around blatantly ethnocentric and
outspokenly anti-multiculturalist propositions.
A corresponding tendency towards neo-nationalism now penetrates also
into the sentiments of some of the other “indigenous” European populations.
There are similar tendencies towards developing an ethnically and/or religiously
defined social identity among some of the newly arrived groups on the European
scene.
Taken one by one, each of these tendencies is potentially xenophobic and
at times also manifests itself in xenophobic attitudes and actions.20 Paradoxically
enough then, considering the ongoing European integration within the eco­
nomic and political spheres, in its shadow a kind of neo-tribalism within the
social and cultural spheres seems to be emerging.

“Ethno-Christianity” and “Militant Secularism”

On one hand one can notice a tendency towards a strengthened Christianity-
colored neo-nationalism celebrating secular values within some of the estab­lished
European nation states. On the other hand, an equally strong tendency exists
towards increased ”Muslim militancy” within the very same European societies.
These tendencies are not unrelated; on the contrary, they reinforce each other.
A political spiral is set in motion: neo-nationalistic tendencies encourage
increased marginalisation of the growing numbers of immigrants (regarded
as “strangers”) in European countries, which then engenders increased ethnic
radicalism, (Muslim militancy) among them, which in turn breeds even more
xenophobic sentiments in several indigenous European populations. Intriguing­
ly enough, this kind of “new” xenophobia argues its case in the name of tolerance
by focussing on the murderous intolerance of its target group. Thus cases like
the following serve to underpin this standpoint:
 10. The Paradox of Secularism in Denmark 137

Denmark: 9 found guilty in ‘Honor killing’. A jury in Copenhagen

con­victed nine people, all family members and friends, of murder or
accessory to murder in the killing of a 19-year-old woman. The woman
was gunned down by her older brother last September, two days after
her wedding, because her Pakistani family disapproved of her choice
of husband.... Besides her brother, the defendants included her father,
three uncles, an aunt and two family friends.” 21
As has become the case in Denmark, but also in other European countries,
events like this feed a kind of “ethno-Christianity” amalgamated with a militantly
secular neo-tribalism. Even if Muslims and other religiously and culturally
“deviant” groups are not all fundamentalists of the kind illustrated by this case,
the fact that such things actually take place fosters not only hostile attitudes
towards these groups in general, but also a sense of self-sufficiency among those
who feel they embody the “righteous” secular values of tolerance. In Denmark
this, by extension, now manifests itself in hostile attitudes to immigration from
Muslim countries and “strangers” in general, against giving asylum seekers
refuge, and against—in actual practice—granting equal human rights for all,
regardless of origin, religion and ethnicity.
Thus, the paradox occurs whereby the hegemony of a secularized Luth­
eranism combined with the valorization of contemporary secular values (at
least in ethno-Christian Denmark) can serve in effect not only as a vehicle for
individual emancipation, but also, as an effective instrument for a militant
ethnocentrism.

Endnotes
1. Esping Andersen, Gosta. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, (Cambridge:
Polity, 1990).
2. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Quality of Life Index. 2005. The Economist. April
1, 2007. http://www. economist.com/media/PDF/Quality_OF_LIFE.pdf.
3. Global Youth. 2007. Kairos Future. April 1, 2007. http://www.kairosfuture.com/en/
international/projects/globalyouth or http://www.kairosfuture.com/en/node/1012
4. Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity, 1990).
5. Ibid.
6. Dencik, Lars. “INTO THE ERA OF SHIFTS—How everything gets designed in
an increasingly non-designed world” Ed. Lars Dencik. SHIFT: Design as Usual or a
New Rising, (Stockholm: Arvinius, 2005), pp. 6-29.
7. cf. Dencik, Lars. “Transformations of Identities in Rapidly Changing Societies” Eds.
138 Secularism & Secularity

Mikael Carleheden and Michael Hviid Jacobsen The Transformation of Modernity.

Aspects of the Past, Present and Future of an Era, (London: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 183-
221.
8. Dencik, Lars. “ ‘Homo zappiens’—A European-Jewish way of Life in the Era of
Globalisation,” Eds. Sandra Lustig and Ian Leveson. Turning the Kaleidoscope—
Perspectives on European Jewry, (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006) pp. 79-105.
9. “Keep religion indoors.” Politiken 19 May 2006.
10. His name is Christian Mejdahl.
11. Jyllandsposten, 7 June 2006
12. Vice Prime Minister Bendt Bendtsen in Jyllandsposten 7th of June 2006
13. Gundelach, Peter. Danskernes værdier, (København: Hans Reitzel, 2002).
14. Weber, M. (2004) Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, in Max
Weber Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie I, Tübingen (1934), pp. 1-206.
15. Arvidsson, Håken, Lennart Berntson, and Lars Dencik. Modernisering och Välfärd.
Om individ, stat och civilt samhälle i Sverige. (Stockholm: City University Press,
1994); Dencik, Lars and Per Schultz Jørgensen. Børn og Familie i det postmoderne
samfund, (København: Hans Reitzel, 1999).
16. Politiken 1 March, 2007.
17. This section is in parts based on a corresponding section in my article “‘Homo zap-
piens’—A European-Jewish way of Life in the Era of Globalisation,” Eds. Sandra
Lustig and Ian Leveson Turning the Kaleidoscope—Perspectives on European Jewry,
(Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), pp. 79-105.
18. In a poll published 5. June, 2003 by Jyllandsposten, the largest morning daily in
Denmark, more than 80% of the Danes admit that in Denmark “racism” now pre-
vails against those that have arrived in the country as refugees and immigrants.
19. Søren Krarup and Jesper Langballe, who also happen to be cousins.
20. Thus, e.g. the radical Muslim group Hizb-ut-Tahrir is active in Denmark where
they, among other things, have set up a web-site and distributed pamphlets referring
to the Jews proposing: “And kill them wherever you find them, and expel them from
wherever they expelled you.”
21. “World Briefing: Europe: Denmark: 9 found guilty in ‘Honor killing’.” New York
Times 28 June 2006.