Happy Birthday, (re-)united Germany!

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

Very early this morning, 22 men of that group of Iraqi refugees have been sent to Iraq, despite everything that Kirkeasyl and even Amnesty International have tried. In my humble opinion, this is a very bad day for the reputation of the Danish society, which everyone once thought was open minded, tolerant, friendly, hospitable, and happy.

Obviously, this country is not a good place to be if you’re not white AND well educated AND from a so-called 1st world country. It is really making me upset to see that the danish government step by step establishes a two-classes foreigners system, and the utmost of the people would just sit back and watch it.

The Copenhagen Post – Iraqis sent home

All of a sudden, this piece of art of the Danish artists group Superflex from 2002 comes into mind again: Foreigners please don’t leave us alone with the Danes!

They say about the criticising reactions: “If you are angry about the fact, that Denmark is developing into a broader ethnic society and if you are proud to be Danish, you might get provoked. But the poster does not say that the Danes are not good. It just says that it is not enough just to be Danish or to have a Denmark which is only for the Danes.”

The Danish newspaper Politiken (probably rather left than right wing oriented on the political agenda) has an interesting collection of articles about the chronology of the Iraqi’s asylum case. It’s all in Danish, so it’s only for a limited audience, I’m afraid, but it gives a really good reading to learn what happens, what opinions people (and politicians) have, and what could all go wrong when a country becomes too rich and too unconcerned, if not blasé about the directions of their political leaders (and the latter is my personal opinion only, of course.) Read it all here.

The New York Times:
Raid in Denmark to Dislodge Iraqi Refugees Leads to Protests and Hunger Strike

The church Brorsons Kirke in Copenhagen had been shelter for a number of Iraqi refugees who were not accepeted by the Danish government. This week, the police removed these persons from the church to send them back to Iraq. This action made a number of Danes protest against it by blocking the streets through which the bus should transport the refugees away. What you see in the video is how the police brutally and violently tried to get the protesting people out of the way.

One thing is of course the law of asylum that says under which circumstances refugees would be accepted or not. And if we would assume that the Danish governement went by the books, there would be one or another reason why these refugees couldn’t be accepted. However, they searched asylum in that church, and there were people who cared and helped them, which is a good thing under any circumstances.

I am not a “believer”, I am just brought up in a society that calls itself a Christian society, and thus I am brought up with what you could call Christian values. But being grown up and having met people from all over the world, I have learned that those “Christian values” are basically the same as those values that probably any other religion in the world supports. And what happened here in Copenhagen this Thursday the 13 of August is an incredible proof of how badly the Danish government and its executive powers failed again in considering “Christian values”.

I really hope that this is going to change with the next election, and that the Danes will wake up and realise that they are going the wrong way here.

I’m aware that anything sponsored by companies in this way may look suspicious, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t care personally, at least not in this case, because of my own experiences with the topic (I’m suffering from tinnitus since around 1989.) And I’d rather have hearing aid producing companies sponsoring such initiatives than increasing the number of hearing problems amongst the “iPod generation” causing a lot of additional expenses in the health care systems of our home countries. Which might become relevant even for the US in the foreseeable future…

So, please take a look at http://hear-the-world.com

So, vrpr.org is online again. After some months without a proper home for all my thoughts and activities, I will continue with this site. I plan to share any news about my band Everpure, any other music I might be involved in, and a lot of other stuff that I might find interesting enough to tell you about. Feel free to comment, share and spread the word!

All the best, Henry