Within two weeks of its
December 1 publication, Danish bookstores
sold out two printings of Hedegaard's Groft Sagt ("Roughly
speaking"), a collection of 109 of his 2,000-plus columns for Berlingske
Tidende. The book also includes 26 cartoons by Kurt Westergaard,
73, renowned for Jyllands-Posten's September 2005 Mohammed
cartoons---which the Muslim Brotherhood blamed for the January 2006 worldwide riots,
murders and embassy attacks they instigated. But Hedegaard, too busy
with two other book projects, does not plan to translate the work into
English.
The book cover (and page 35)
feature a Westergaard caricature of former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen,
reviled by the Danish populace for opposing the original cartoons.
Ellemann-Jensen is kneeling by an inkwell labeled "freedom of
expression," which also contains an explosive-laden (presumably
Islamic) fanatic. For his courage, Hedegaard has received great blog coverage, but not much
American press notice beyond that of Washington Times columnist
Diana West.
Overall, the press and Western leaders have had "yet another missed opportunity"
to stand up "and call madness what it is," in the words of scholar
Robert Spencer. During World War II, however, Denmark was the only
European nation to save virtually all its Jewish citizens.
In that Danish tradition, Hedegaard recognizes "the fragility of freedom."
In an exclusive interview with Alyssa A. Lappen, Hedegaard announced
the December 21 formation of International Free Press Society (IFPS),
following the lead of Denmark's Free Press Society,
established in 2004. The founders chose Hedegaard as their president,
and Diana West as vice president. Among the organization's Board of
Advisers is Fitna producer Geert
Wilders.
Hedegaard: Of
course, many more people are involved in this....
We are trying to create an organization that will defend free speech in
the Western World, on the assumption that if free speech goes down
where we live, it will be doomed in the rest of the world as well.
The organization will be built up over the next few months. I am the
president of the Danish Free Press Society, created in 2004, and a very
successful organization. The enemies of free speech are organized and
well financed and we have to counteract their activities. The new
international organization will lead the fight for free speech on a
global basis. We will then set up national organizations where they do
not exist, as sisters to the Danish organization. We have very
ambitious plans to recruit people. We already have a board of
directors, and want to recruit for the board of advisors. We will set
up a website and will pull together all we know about relevant issues,
that is, attacks on free speech everywhere.
AAL: How do
you
defend against an onslaught against free speech
that is so prevalent and widespread?
Hedegaard: You
make the public understand that free speech is
under attack. That was why we thought of [forming the Free Press
Society] in Denmark. We found ourselves in Denmark in a situation where
most of the press was not telling the truth and not dealing with real
issues.
AAL: How
exactly
does Denmark's Free Press Society help?
Hedegaard: It
is
a fact that we exist. Even that alone [has made
us successful]. The membership is 500 to 600, which is quite big for a
country of our size. Membership is growing all the time. The very fact
that we have the audacity to organize ourselves gives our members
courage to express themselves. The biggest fear is that anyone thinks,
"here, I am, Joe Schmo. I am all alone and no one thinks like I do. I
can't see anyone who expresses the same opinions or fears as I do, so I
am probably crazy."
My family tells me that I am insane.
So the fact that we did this gives people courage. We have big
conferences in Copenhagen, and frequent meetings that are very well
attended. The press is there and we always fill the hall. And we invite
all kinds of speakers. Like Geert Wilders.
We have had Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Kurt Westergaard, Daniel Pipes, Roy
Brown, Chahdortt Djavann, Shabana Rehman, Samia Labidi, Bruce Bawer,
Henryk Broder, and anyone who is in fear for his or her life.
Copenhagen gives them a hearty welcome and it makes a difference. In
February we'll have the pleasure of meeting [Dutch cartoonist] Gregorius Nekschot.
That's how we operate. We also have friends in government and in
parliament. Many do not say they are our friends, but that is quite an
accomplishment. So if we stay the course, true to our convictions and
do not waver, there is hope. I am optimistic.
AAL: Yet many
Europeans are coming to North America because they
think Europe is dead.
Hedegaard: Europe
is not dead. What does it mean, "we're dead?"
You know the true resistance against tyranny and Islam and bullshit is
here in Denmark. It is. I do not like to brag, but this is where it's
at. I do not feel that we have lost.
The backbone of all this is the Danish population of 5.4 million, of
which about 5 million are Danes. It's always been the backbone of our
identity and our nation. Never the upper class, never the rich or
famous or the nobility. It's always been the peasant, the man in the
street, the working class, and I do not have the sense that they are
giving up. The upper crust are willing to sell out. They would sell us
out for anything. Jesus. Of course there are exceptions and these brave
people are more than welcome in our midst.
AAL: The same
kind of people are selling out in the U.S. and
Canada, too.
Hedegaard: It
is
happening all over. It is a disease. It is a
sickness. The upper crust, the upper classes are simply opposed to the
idea of the West. They hate our freedoms. They hate our culture. We saw
it in the '30s, with the British aristocracy [alliance with] Hitler. We
saw it in the U.S., where many members of the political class were
Stalinists, Alger Hiss and what not. Books were written about that. And
again now, we see it. It's a very mysterious thing. But you could go
back even to the Roman Empire where a guy named Tacitus wrote a book
about the barbarian Germans (my own ancestors, by the way), and his
admiration for these people. The Roman upper crust admired barbarians.
When some, a certain class of society get all they want, money, sex,
power, it's like they have gotten bored.
AAL: They seem
to think that they will not be targeted and do
not understand that they, too, will have nowhere to go.
Hedegaard: They
can't imagine that. They do not think that way. They start hating their
own people. Why has practically every Danish political party backed
immigration of Muslims into the country. We have taken in 10,000s
people from the back woods, goat herders and the like who could neither
read nor write. For what purpose? Why have they done that?
I am talking about things that I have thought about constantly for
seven or eight years. Every day I question how they could have done
this. What is the purpose? Why are the universities going along? Why
haven't they warned politicians about what would happen? Why have the
journalists, the artists, everyone who should be in the know, failed to
tell the truth? Not only that. They have actively encouraged this
influx of enemies into our midst.
AAL: The
press
has committed a dereliction of public duty.
Hedegaard: You
cannot trust any Western world institution. Mark
Steyn wrote a book, America Alone.
But in fact America will not defend itself either. There is no
difference. I have been to the U.S. three times in the last three
months. America is even more stupid when it comes to facing up to
reality than Europe.
How can you allow some Taliban idiot to parade on Fifth Avenue with a
sign saying: "Death to all Juice"?
He's not talking about orange juice but about finishing Hitler's
project. In the middle of the biggest Jewish town in the world. What a
disgrace.
AAL: Why are
you
so optimistic, then?
Hedegaard: I
am
optimistic because I have experienced the
difference made by what you do. You can accomplish a lot by organizing
and telling the truth. What you absolutely must not do is sit back and
despair. You mustn't do that. That is what the enemies of free speech
want you to do. Everyone that I know is telling the truth. So as long
as we can tell the truth, and work, and talk and write and make waves,
we are not dead. There may come a time when we can do nothing, none of
what we're doing now, and then we will be really dead. Let's not give
them the chance.
And also, despite the fact that I am probably one of the most hated men
in Denmark, the enemies of free speech don't know really where I am
coming from. My views are noted. Hardly a week goes by than I am not
talked about. "He's an idiot. He's an asshole. He's evil." But as long
as you annoy them, you're okay.
AAL: I had
2,200
attempts to break into my website the week
before last week alone.
Hedegaard: Well
they fear you, and that is to your great
credit.
Keep it up. I have been asked, Do you fear for your life. The answer is
no. I don't know why. I have given that answer to others. I am sure
that there are all kinds of plans to eliminate any one of us, but we
are going to die any way. So let's have some fun in the meantime.
I tell my family, "How would you like to live after I am gone. It won't
be a hell of a lot of fun, if we lose. " I think adults have an absolute
duty to stand up for what is right.
AAL: Why
aren't
you translating this book into English?
Hedegaard: I
don't have the time, and I'm not sure that my
Danish angles on the concrete issues would be appreciated by an
English-speaking audience. And if you have to provide footnotes for
your pieces, it's not very elegant. I can get things into the
mainstream press. I won't write any more for the paper that fired me in
September, just as a matter of pride. I have no problem publishing. But
I am more engaged in the work to set up the international organization.
And I am also engaged in writing a couple of books now. The first one,
I will finish in about three or four months, is on war theory and the
concept of Holy War.
...
The other book that I've been working on for the last six or seven
years, is on the Danish left wing.
For the time being, I feel very relieved not to have to write a daily
column for any newspaper. I am sure I will be back to write something.
But I am not in need of any immediate communication.
AAL: Are the
Westergaard cartoons directly related to the
content?
Hedegaard: Every
one of the cartoons is directly related to content. The cartoon labeled
Adolf Laban relates to the text on page 29, written on Dec. 19, 2005,
just [before] the cartoon [riots] took off in January 2006. A group of
Danish imams was then traveling in the Middle East trying to stir up
trouble. There was also a request by a number of Danish imams,
including the most influential imam and chief organizer of trouble at
the time, Ahmed Abu Laban, to atone for the cartoons with a Mohammad
week in Danish universities. Several university presidents were
receptive to the idea. My point was that this monopolization of
Muhammad would
leave other institutions chagrined. But they shouldn't despair. So far
no university had thought of celebrating Hitler's birthday, so why not
do that? However, the organizers had to make sure that the two
arrangements didn't collide - especially because they would largely
appeal to the same audience.
Laban is dead. He died [in
February 2007] of some disease [cancer].
On page 82, there's a cartoon
proving a woman may rape a man. It is based on a column entitled "On the peeing front,"
that is absolutely true. [In Sweden, activists at Malmoe's Free Women's
University attacked "the root cause of sexual inequality - the fact
that men stand up when they urinate whereas most women tend to sit
down." In August, 2007, the university offered a three-day course in
Upright Urination for Women and university director Aasa Staahl noted
in the daily Sydsvenska Dabladet that women could "either use a
funnel-like device" or "direct the jet by means of a special squeeze
with their fingers."]
AAL: You don't have to make this up.
Hedegaard: No I don't.
On
page 18, we find "Jews and Yogurt," a January 2006 column written after
Hamas won the Palestinian elections. "The Europeans have been pumping
lots of Euros into creating a representative government that would
reflect the will of the Palestinian majority.
And now they have succeeded as the great majority of the Palestinian
voters have backed a party that favors the eradication of Israel. Now
the big Arabian riddle is who will last longer? Danish yogurt in Saudi
supermarkets or Jews in the tiny strip of land between the Jordan River
and the Mediterranean.
And although the prospects are bad for both Jews and yogurt, "Roughly
Speaking" would put its savings on the Jews. For even though Hamas
leader Mahmud al-Zahar, speaking to the Italian daily Corriere
Della Sera in
July 2005, rejected co-esistence with Israel, he was magnanimous enough
to grant the Jewish State a respite of 5-10 years before removing it
from the face of the earth. ... That is better than nothing, and
'Roughly Speaking' therefore believes that it is only a matter of time
before the European countries gathered around the EU's idealistic
foreign policy spokesman Xavier Solana will accept Hamas' extended hand
and put some billions into it. That will also give the European
countries time to consider what to do with the Jews of Israel. In view
of all the commotion it would cause among our Arab friends, the Jews
would be wise not to settle in Europe. But in the 1930s there was a
plan to settle them in Madagscar. Perhaps the EU would be well advised
to reconsider that option."
On
page P. 43, "Uhort Klarsyn," means "Unheard of perspicacity." The
column, written on April 29, 2008, concerns the fact that the Danish
court authorities have decided judges can wear the hijab. A Supreme
Court justice has ruled that there is absolutely no problem with women
wearing Islamic garb when serving as judges or jurors. The important
thing, according to this upholder of due process, is that veiled women
signal neutrality. And they do. Otherwise they would be exposed before
they were hired for the job.
Now the point of the commentary is that the Danish courts must have
discovered a method to expose the Muslim use of taqiyya
- which implies that the true believers are advised or required to hide
their real intentions when it benefits Islam or the individual Muslim.
"This newly discovered method - which Islam's neighbors have been
trying to find for the past 1400 years - enables the Danish courts to
determine whether or not the veiled woman speaks the truth. ... Would
the court please be kind enough to inform the rest of us how they have
accomplished this feat, particularly in view of the fact that this must
be of great interest far beyond our Danish borders?"
Kurt's cartoon shows that the real wielder of power is this jerk hiding
behind a screen of legality. By opening our legal system to the hijab,
we're bowing to the leaders of the Islamic ummah, or "nation."
On
page 104, another column entitled "Revealed law" concerns Islamic law,
supposedly revealed by God, and the competing system in the European
Union, which is also revealed law. Nobody knows where it came from, and
no one has ever voted for it. There is, however, an important
distinction between the sharia - Islamic law - and EU law in that no
new revelations have come down since the death of the Prophet in the
seventh century, whereas our European law-givers are constantly
receiving new revelations from someplace they have never told us about.
I never asked Kurt what to draw or what his drawings mean. He had an
absolutely a free hand. We took every drawing he did and put it into
the book.
AAL: What do
you
conclude about newspapers and the press?
Hedegaard: I
have the better part of my life ahead of
me.... Newspapers have the better part of their lives behind them. No,
the newspaper business is dead and deservedly so, because they gave up
on news and independent commentary and analysis many years ago. There
is this brotherhood of journalists. It's like a monastic order engaged
in the business of educating the populace.
I learned that the hard way when I was chief editor of the Copenhagen
high-brow daily, The Information,
in the late eighties. The paper grew out of the Danish resistance
during the German occupation and I thought that would be a wonderful
place for real news that mattered. I found out, however, that if there
is anything journalists hate, it's news and independent analysis.
They rarely write to keep their readers informed about what's really
going on in the world. They write to indoctrinate the public, to give
them the right PC perspective.
AAL: The
public
must be reeducated.
Hedegaard: Yes, that's
what they teach in journalism school.
In August 2007, I devoted a column, "Topskat, mon Amour," to a Danish
pun.
The pun on page 22 is lost in translation. In Danish, 'Skat'
means both honey or beloved and taxation. Danish is the only language
in the world where tax and honey are the same. You couldn't say this in
German, English or French. 'Schatz' means honey is German, whereas
taxes are called 'Steuer.' So it wouldn't make sense to address your
girl friend as 'my Steuer" if you wanted to keep her. We have created a
perfect system in Denmark, where willingness to pay to the state is the
same as sex.."
[Westergaard's clever accompanying cartoon shows an oversexed fat lady,
picking the pockets of the common man.]
By the way, the system is very effective. Denmark has just captured the
top spot as the country with the world's largest public sector. And the
more it grows, the less effective it becomes.
As I told Bruce Bawer, on which he quoted me in While Europe Slept,
journalists think that they're conducting this sort of finishing
school. The common man has been brought up by his mom and pop but
journalists know more than them, and want to educate people and mold
them into Manchurian candidates, whom they can control. Common men and
women hate that. So why the hell should they read the papers? They're
all the same.
AAL: They
should read your book instead.
Hedegaard: In
Denmark they are doing that. We have sold a great
number of copies. The first edition was sold out before it came out and
the second one was also sold out. I am so happy and so is my bank.
AAL: What is
the
most important thing?
Hedegaard: It
is to underline that we're taking steps to go
international. People are going to hear from us. We are undeterred, We
are on the offensive. That is the most important thing.
---------------------
Copyright © 2009 Right Side News Please email
editor@RightSideNews.com
This e-mail address is being protected
from
spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
for
reprint and republishing permissions.
---------------------
International membership is open to all for Denmark's existing
Free Press Society - founded in 2004. Anyone interested in supporting
the unconditional struggle for free speech against any threat anywhere
may apply. The membership fee is $80 US a year. Applicants must write
to:
trykkefrihed@trykkefrihed.dk
,
stating their full name, postal address and telephone number.
--------------------
Alyssa A. Lappen, a freelance investigative journalist, is a former
senior fellow of the American Center for Democracy, former senior
editor of Institutional Investor, Working Woman and Corporate
Finance and former associate editor of Forbes. Her work has
also appeared in FrontPage
Magazine, the Washington
Examiner, Washington Times, Pajamas
Media, American
Thinker, Human
Events, Midstream and Revue Politique.
Her website is http://www.alyssaalappen.org/.
