I was planning to write another post about how Denmark is resisting the woke religion when I saw a new update by Peter Rasmussen, an indefatigable critic of the ideology he calls “the American disease.” “Woke, as is well known, is an aggressive form of Monty Python,” writes Rasmussen on Quora, “and in the first half of 2022, our sorely tested little country was subjected to it more than ever.”

Frederik V before being drowned. Photo: “Anonymous graphic artists”

Canceling king, “black,” “woman,” and norms

Rasmussen cites the five craziest woke events (DK) of the period:

• The Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen, home of the Royal Danish Art Academy, removed from its walls all the paintings of Danish Golden Age painter C.W. Eckersberg because of the risk of vandalism by Art Academy students and faculty after the firing of Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, the head of the Academy. Dirckinck-Holmfeld, together with a group of students, had thrown a bust of King Frederik V into Copenhagen Canal as an artistic “happening.” Charlottenborg was built in the 1670s by U.F. Gyldenløve, who owned a ship that was thought to transport slaves (DK) to Denmark’s Caribbean colony. A century later, Frederik V gave Charlottenborg to the Royal Art Academy.

• The Danish chapter of Greenpeace had waged an effective campaign to brand fossil fuels such as coal and oil as “black energy” (sort energi). But it has now dropped the expression because its racist connotations can provoke uncomfortable feelings “in certain groups.”

• Henriette Laursen, the head of KVINFO, the state-supported Danish Center for Research on Women and Gender, bemoaned the images of the war in Ukraine because they depicted men and women in stereotypical roles—fighting and fleeing, respectively. “It’s crap,” said Laursen.

• Previously, the far-left Red-Green Party’s chapter in Aarhus, Jutland, had identified its members as either “man,” woman,” or “other oppressed gender.” This year, at an extraordinary general meeting, it did away with the category “woman” because it couldn’t agree on its meaning. Speakers were asked to identify themselves as “man” or “non-man.”

• A new handbook, Norm-critical evaluation culture in daycare, published with support from the Danish daycare workers’ trade union, is intended to teach daycare staff how to be norm-breakers. One of the dominant norms in Danish society, the book explains, is “whiteness.” An exercise in the book asks daycare staff to draw a circle on a piece of paper, label it “whiteness,” and position the kids in relation to it according to their skin color. If there are difficulties with children, the staff is to understand that it is owing to their distance from the circle.

No ruined careers or street skirmishes?

I find this list rather disappointing. If these are the most outrageous examples of progressive fanaticism, they only seem to underscore the unwoke condition of Denmark. They can hardly compare to the achievements of Anglo-American wokeness such as automatic gender affirmation that permanently medicalizes children’s bodies; and “antiracism” whose indiscriminate vandalism destroys many black-owned businesses. They’re not even amusing. Here are two more instances that suggest that in Denmark the backlash is usually stronger than the woke grievance.

A daycare center in Næstved Municipality canceled an “Indian party” (DK) because one person associated with the center objected that it might be culturally offensive. The center’s leaders were reportedly scared by the criticism and changed the name to “summer party.” Several politicians, both local and national, as well as parents objected to the center’s capitulation to what they called hypersensitive hysteria. The municipality decided to investigate whether it needs to formulate a policy in this area.

“Arise, black vengeance,” quoth the Moor

The Royal Theater was scheduled to produce the ballet Othello by the American choreographer John Neumeier, but the dancers objected to a scene (DK) they believed was racist. The scene portrayed a tribal dance in which the dancers behaved like apes, they maintained. Since Neumeier refused to delete or change the scene, the company’s ballet master, Nikolaj Hübbe, made an “artistic decision” to replace the production with another ballet based on Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Critics felt that the dancers had misinterpreted the scene, ironically, since the piece itself was critical of racism, and that Hübbe shouldn’t take orders from his dancers, who apparently aren’t woke enough to object to the term “master” in Hübbe’s title.