Denmark - Oh! To be Danish. An Essay

It is difficult to be a Dane. Seen from the outside, most would say that the opposite was true: That being Danish is the easiest thing in the world. The country is well run, well organised, there is very little difference between high and low, rich and poor, the social safety net is securely in place, etc., etc. Even so, we still feel that something isn't quite right. We don't, for example, travel abroad with the same air of nonchalance as a German or Swede or an American. We are a little more unassuming, we don't raise our voice in restaurants or other public places. Mentally, I suppose you could say we stand there with our hat in our hand, apologetic, a little self-effacing. Except when we do find a role we're comfortable with - and there is little doubt that the football 'roligan' phenomenon could only have come from Denmark! As roligans we fell safe, and the rather dull-witted image doesn't seem to bother us. A roligan is a nice guy with a bottle of lager in one hand and a bit of a beer-belly. He might be wearing a cap, and he'll certainly be wearing a big smile (or a grin) which signals to all and sundry that here comes a guy who likes having a good time and doesn't want any trouble. No-one seems to mind that the term roligan is influenced by Swedish. When it comes down to it, however, it's the Swedes we'd really like to give a good hiding.

Some may therefore say that it is sheer nonsense to claim that it's difficult to be Danish. But if we turn once again to the world outside Denmark, we notice that many people immediately focus on the one subject we don't like to bring up: The high incidence of suicide. We shudder a little and refer to the strict accuracy employed when compiling the statistics. "In a Catholic country, they'd never allow all suicides to be registered!". Foreigners haven't just got eyes for the Little Mermaid; the most popular quotes when it comes to describing Denmark and the Danes come from Shakespeare, and the oldest clichés refer to Hamlet's melancholy and fickleness. And we all know, of course, that there is "something rotten in the state of Denmark".

If we look at the country's history and geography, then two things have been decisive in making us what we are: We are surrounded by water, and we've lost all the wars we've fought since the year dot. If we look at a map of the Great Roman Empire, there are a few white areas in the north where the Cimbrians, the Lombards and other barbarians lived and shivered with cold. There was once talk of shivering Vikings whose impatience drove them to seek other shores in search of the sun and all the wonderful things they had heard of. Rumours of these foreign shores had managed to reach even the Vikings, who spent most of the year knee-deep in water or seeking shelters from winds which tore across the country from the west.

Since the time of the Vikings, however, this deep-seated need to conquer has almost disappeared or mostly had tragic consequences as witnessed by the record books. Most Danish kings have consistently managed to support the losing side. Every time the country threw itself headlong into battle, defeat was guaranteed. It cost us our Swedish possessions, the loss of Norway and the duchies in the south, and when the Napoleonic wars arrived, we not only had to hand over our navy to the English, but our allies were so kind as to come to our assistance, giving the Spanish mercenaries the chance to burn Koldinghus to the ground. In 1864, the Prussians and the Austrians captured a large part of South Jutland, and if anybody thinks that the Three Years' War was a "real" victory, they need only look at the records which tell a very different story. During the German occupation between 1940 and 1945, there were twice as many people engaged in active service on the German side than there were members of the resistance. Attempts have since been made to convince the population that the resistance movement won the war, but deep down we know that isn't true. The thing that brought us almost unscathed through the Second World War was a policy based on compromise and compliance, common sense and a well-developed ability to recoup outward losses by inward gains.

This is one area where our unease becomes a little more bearable, even though many would deny it. We have learned by our defeats, and the lesson has not been 100% negative, quite the contrary in fact. One of the best traits in our national character is our unsentimental conviction that it is unnecessary to take recourse to violence in order to stake your claim in the world. Instead of resorting to greed, we have learned to use our expertise to get ahead. It might sound a little dull, but it's highly recommendable and our special ability to use our head instead of our fists did not simply fall down from the sky (as the Dannebrog flag is said to have done), but has been mastered over the centuries. It has been a long, hard struggle, and it has hurt, and it hurts so much even today that some people are actually ashamed of being Danish - which is not very constructive in the long run when trying to build up a national spirit.

Many would rightly say that Denmark is a consensus society. But is that really true? A country or a nation or a people are not always the same in all contexts. If that was the case, then any attempt to create a definition would always have to resort to clichés. The Danes were not the same people in the 13th century or in the 19th century, just as the Danes who live on the west coast of Jutland are not like the ones who live on Stevns, and we can safely say that the people living in Copenhagen are quite unlike any others. Seen from the outside, however, there is still a common feature which many people in history have tried to identify without any real success. Well, almost without any success.

In a letter to a friend, the English author George Orwell described his complete lack of interest in ever visiting Denmark. His reluctance was based on a feeling that Denmark is a boring place. In an article on the yearly Nobel prize, The New Yorker wondered who the unknown (Danish) nominees Johannes Vilhelm Jensen and Henrik Pontoppidan might possibly be. A French diplomat described the Danish climate as "eight months of winter and four months of bad weather". A German newspaper described the country as a place where every town has a Co-op, two restaurants with the same (expensive and very bad) menu and a Social Security office where everyone can go to get money. It is hardly a cheerful picture, but there is a grain of truth in it. Denmark and the Danes are not "exciting". The question is, what are we? If we are unequivocally boring, we might as well get out a rope or a bottle of sleeping tablets now.

But the truth is, of course, somewhat less cut-and-dried. If we examine the way we "see" ourselves and the country in which we live, "as we see it", we might just come up with something.

During the Romantic period last century, the certainty that our grand and noble past had come to an end finally began to sink in. This realisation saw the birth of our national spirit, and the Danish landscape was suddenly brought to our notice as never before. Poets and artists were suddenly busy depicting the scenery in various parts of the country. Hans Christian Andersen is a good example: He travelled all the way to the very top of the country, describing all the wonders of nature which are perhaps only visible to those who love them. For the past 200 years we have, in other words, been told to view our native country as something valuable and beautiful and deserving of our care. Although the notion has admittedly been drummed into our heads, it must be true in many ways for us to have heeded it. Denmark is a beautiful country, but you have to look at the details to find the beauty. There are not many natural phenomena here which inspire breathtaking awe, since almost all the available land has been cultivated. But that may just make it seem even more of a miracle: Nature is still here, and it may even be more beautiful because of the way it interacts with the cultural landscape which we are part of and, of course, responsible for.

It may be worth considering this for a moment: In countries which are much larger, the common culture is a far more fleeting notion than it is in Denmark. Our closeness has enabled us to nurture a real sense of community and, when push comes to shove, genuine solidarity. As has been said before, history was a hard but helpful master. We know we have no call to join in when the loud and boastful nations start gloating. We have no atomic bombs to drop on anyone, no dream of conquest or imperialism. The problems we have with the "colonies" we still "possess" (Greenland and the Faroes) are so great that we would gladly leave them to their own devices were it not for the obligations that "ownership" brings.

"Too much pomp and striving will bring us no rest / keeping our feet firmly on the ground is the best", wrote one of our great bards, N.F.S. Grundtvig, some time during the last century - no doubt to the annoyance of many an ambitious soul. Even though he was a romantic, he was very down-to-earth in his view of Denmark and the Danes. He was in no way against spiritual advancement. In time, Grundtvig became one of the pioneers of the spiritual movement which created the Denmark of today and shaped the spirit of the Danes. Another figure who was instrumental in shaping the soul of the nation was the Jewish literary historian Georg Brandes, who was the exact opposite of Grundtvig in terms of temperament.

Two important paths merge at this point: The first concerns popular education and national revival, the other deals with internationalism and a new, more open approach. They both lead to a more radical way of thinking, which opens the door to a wide spectrum of new ideas: The cooperative movement, the liberation of women, social equality, sexual emancipation. In other words, the creation of a democratic society "where few have too much and even fewer too little".

Getting a radical experiment to succeed in a modern welfare state such as Denmark requires a great deal of talent. There is every chance that you will end up in a grey area between general boredom and stark depression. But perhaps the price we pay for success is that "normality" spreads, and that the unusual and the extraordinary must take a back seat. Or we could turn the whole thing on its head and say that it is in this normality that genius lies buried, inasmuch as the majority of us would prefer to wake up every morning to a normal life rather than to bombs and grenades and bellowing dictators, or to repeated performances of Wagner's operas or tales of great destinies that ended in flames.

One thing is certain: We haven't produced any of the great dramatists. On the other hand, Denmark has fostered excellent prose writers and poets, philosophers and scientists and a handful of composers who, on closer inspection, also turn out to be poets. Which is also true of our painters.

So what kind of national self-image does all this produce? Is it even possible to delimit and define a national self-image? The answer is a cautious yes, and the image must be a little blurred round the edges. All the same, we can discern a faint outline: A Dane is a creature with a big heart and an equally big inferiority complex. The latter is for external use only and shows, paradoxically, that we are finally becoming more successful outside Denmark and have made it to the front pages of the international press. To the amazement of absolutely everyone. To think that it was possible! To think that we little insignificant Danes, with our successful well-organised social structure, our sound economy, our high level of education, our women's lib and our sexual tolerance have come all that way!

There is an inherent contradiction here which borders on the comical, or is at least mildly amusing: A Dane, confronted by a satirical view of himself, will laugh even if it hurts. It is a disarming trait which often turns out to be a good weapon in a tricky situation. Humour always wins in the face of conceit and arrogance, and those who push Denmark and the Danes too far, or have the audacity to actually invade us, will find that humour is just as harmful a weapon as sugar in a petrol tank. It creates a sense of unease because of its very complexity. It is particularly useful when you want to say a lot or to get a particularly important point across without having to resort to big words or raised voices.

If it is possible to talk about such a thing as national intelligence, then the Danish national intelligence is remarkable because of its willingness to doubt itself. When others become cocksure, the Danes tend to allow themselves a moment of doubt. This doubt is often highly productive, inasmuch as the definition of intelligence is the ability to solve problems and act effectively in unfamiliar and difficult situations - there have, as we have seen, been quite a few of those in Denmark's history and if we look closely, the problems have almost always been solved in a sensible way. If that brings us admiration from the outside world, then we should accept the compliment without further ado. Let us not worry when some silly American journalist mocks Johannes Vilhelm Jensen and his Nobel Prize, or when a foolish German who has spent a week here declares that all Danes are a bunch of boring peasants. Because we know better - even when it comes to the weather!

Sure, it can be grim, and now and then we might want to turn our collar up and jump in the river. But then the light suddenly changes and there's a melody in the air, a whiff of spring to come, the smell of the sea and a blackbird singing on a rooftop. And then you walk on holding your head up, feeling just a little proud. Even of being a Dane.

Klaus Rifbjerg