Thinking of the U.S. from Copenhagen

Most of my family and loved ones are on the West coast, thousands of miles away from Hurricane Sandy destruction. Several close friends are in New York and DC but luckily I've heard from most of them. It goes to show how dominant the idea of the nation and national belonging is that I have been approached by so many people here, asking if I'm ok, if my family is ok. It seems to me that international interest in the storm is about as compounded as possible due to first and foremost the magnitude of the disaster but also the perceived impenetrability and immortality of New York City, and the anticipated impact this will have on the election. I honestly can hardly imagine US election coverage being any more ubiquitous than it is here in Denmark. Right now on the online "DR"site - Denmark's public news source - there are four tabs at the top of the screen: Sandy, weather, the US election, and 'crime'. The election and Sandy are definitely important. But it is still so unsettling to me that my country gets such preferential coverage and meanwhile in Haiti Sandy worsens the cholera epidemic. 

Danish/German articles about hurricane Sandy and the US election:
In Danish:
Politiken article on destruction of NY transit
Politiken on the impact to the US economy
Danish public news on Obama's response to Sandy
The US election

In English:
Spiegel International on the final stages of the US election


And now for something completely different.... some photos of some old/touristy parts of Copenhagen by night:

Maryam al-Khawaja and Bahraini human rights

This weekend I had the extraordinary opportunity to meet Maryam al-Khawaja, a Bahraini-Danish human rights defender. Born while her family was in exile in Syria due to her father's decades long struggle for human rights in Bahrain, Maryam came to Denmark when was was two and lived here for twelve years until her family was able to return to Bahrain. Today Maryam is again based in Denmark because her family has been brutally targeted by the Bahraini regime. Her father has been imprisoned and tortured numerous times and remains in prison today along with his brother and daughter, one of Maryam's three sisters. Their life sentences were upheld this September.

Maryam heads the foreign division of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights... she speaks with an incredible passion and conveys the political nuances at play domestically and internationally in Bahrain with insanely articulate ease. The Humanity in Action Senior Fellows network in Denmark (I'm on the board) invited Maryam to come present her work and life's story in an informal lecture setting.

Here's an article that Maryam wrote about the misinformation about Bahrain that is rampant in Western media: Beneath Bahrain's Shia-versus-Sunni narrative, only the tyrants benefit. Maryam poignantly explained how over the past 80 of popular uprisings against repressive Bahraini regimes, the dictators have portrayed the people calling for human dignity and rights as whatever happened to be the international enemy of the day - Marxists, Communists, terrorists, and now Iran-sympathizers. Yes, that wasn't a typo - EIGHTY years of uprisings about every ten years. Today another false narrative paints the uprising as a wild mob of Shia Muslims revolting against a Sunni minority when in fact the revolution in Pearl Square was about demands for freedom, not religious sectarianism.

Maryam's father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, received the Politiken (one of Denmark's largest and most influential newspapers) Freedom Prize this year for his bravery and activism. Anders Jerichow is one of the editors of Politiken as well as the chair of HIA Denmark's board, and so invited HIA Senior Fellows to join the event this afternoon honoring al-Khawaja and sharing his story. I have more to say but... I'm quite sleepy so more soon....

More Nørrebro...

This was one of the most fun camera-wanders I've had yet in Copenhagen. Again I was in Nørrebro, which is in my opinion the most photographically interesting part of Copenhagen - but I was further north in the neighborhood than last time. The first several (with the obvious red patterned square) are from Nørrebro Hallen near Nørrebro station, a public space that opened in 2003 and was just renovated this past year. Throughout the square you can find celebrations of different minority communities in the neighborhood such as a mural of former Chilean President Allende - it's the black stencil drawing on the red wall.

Alright, I'm tired so that's all for now - enjoy the photos :)

Fitting in is overrated

The song for today: Fladt Land - Pato Siebenhaar feat. Danni Toma. I'll explain why below...

Yesterday was a big day for me and safety.

While I was waiting for my dear friend Lotta to meet me at a museum I finally found a bike shop with helmets in my size. It's been no trouble locating tiny helmets decked out with dinosaurs and super scary monsters or princesses but the adult set has been a bit more elusive.... it's fair to say that the vast majority of adult Copenhageners don't wear a helmet when they bike. And if they do it's black or brown... and maybe the occasional blue. I was planning on fitting in but that's just not worth my time AND ultimately futile so I got a vibrant turquoise helmet. In the cool Copenhagen style though. I also got some heavy-duty magnetic activated bike lights. Seeing as the helmet is bright enough to act as a third light and I also have two reflectors on my wheels... I think it's fair to say that the streets of Copenhagen are safer today.

A photo of me at the CPH history museum WITH my fancy new helmet.

For months now I have been trying to remind myself to go see Copenhagen museums because it's easy to forget they're there once you move to a place. During exams I made a list of must-see museums and all their free entrance days to keep me motivated through studying (nerd alert!!! yesss!). First stop, the Museum of Copenhagen. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a third of the museum is dedicated to the theme of "Becoming a Copenhagener" - the history of immigration, cosmopolitanism and identity politics in Copenhagen. Not like I'm interested in that enough to do a two-year masters program related to it or anything. The exhibit has been up since November 2010 and will be around through the end of 2012. From Lotta's perspective even having an exhibit in an official museum that acknowledged and explored immigrant experiences and multiculturalism was a striking difference from what one would find in Helsinki. Lotta has worked as a social worker with refugee communities in Helsinki, particularly the Somali diaspora. As always I love getting her broader perspective on the Scandinavian/Nordic context.

Photo slideshow: Wanted and unwanted immigrants to Copenhagen

A theme that surface continually throughout the displays was the sense that non-ethnic Danes often feel unable to be "Danish" but readily identify as Copenhageners. And indeed I could see myself feeling like a Copenhagener after a couple years here - it's a very open city in many ways - but I would never feel like a Dane no matter how blond I am and how permanent the visa in my passport claimed my stay was. Part of the exhibit included a little area where you could write down what brought you to Copenhagen and add to a collage on the wall. I waxed eloquent for quite some time. Ha! Before the museum yesterday I was meeting with my project partner at a library and we ran into a friend of hers who is from Seattle! He asked what I was up to here and one of the first things we started talking about was visas... shop talk? We eventually realized that we're not only fro the same area, but he had my Uncle Ralph for a math teacher at Garfield High School. He recalled a couple bars from the song some friends of his in a band made about "Mr. Minor". Surreal.

Speaking with a dear friend from the the HIA program this summer, Kashay, last night got me fired up to write about all of this... she is interested in minority experiences in Europe - particularly the concept of "blackness" as an identifier. I think she's really on to something - especially in Scandinavia - when she notices that the dialog is so dominated by ideas of the clash of Islam and Christianity, the Muslim other that the experiences and potential point of prideful collective identity around blackness is much less visible. I'm excited to see where her thoughts and interests take her on this one.

"Fladt Land" is off Pato's first Danish-language album. As such, he decided to play with the idea of being Danish - what it means or could mean, who is included and excluded, how to be a part of making the Denmark he wants. The song takes inspiration from Gi' Mig Danmark Tilbage (Give Me Denmark Back), Natasja's hit single that busted wide open the idea of Denmark belonging to any one ethnicity. She was born and raised in Denmark to a Danish mother and Sudanese father and became a beacon for political activism and Danish music. About "Fladt Land, Pato says that he wanted to acknowledge first that no one needed to give Denmark "back" to him because it was never taken away, it was always assumed that as an ethnic Danes, Denmark was his. He talks about growing up with hi grandmas, coming into the world in a public/community hospital, eating rød grod med flød. One of the lines is "I was born in the open sandwich nation". hahaha... I won't claim to understand all of it but he is speaking clearly enough to catch the main idea. The big refrain is - no matter what if you're a Dane you were born in a flat land. The featured guy, Danni Toma, was raised in Aalborg by a Danish mother and Palestinian father - he's younger, closer to my age. He says you're kidding yourself if you think being Danish is just about eating rød grod med flød and that Danish politics can be embarrassing but he loves his country because he has his base there, it's his place. The thing about "amerikansk" - he says he finds it bizarre how they're gone from Danish to American values - meaning, not into equality.

Hahahha...

Hej hej for now... i'm off to take some photos of the world, it's a beautiful day.

And today in "Alice mauls the Danish language":

Theme song for today: Madder Red

A couple weeks back I was practicing my Danish with a Danish friend. Doesn't seem like I'd need to make that distinction... but sometimes I practice with Norwegian or Canadian or Swedish or Finnish friends and it does some pretty funky-fresh things to my accent. I was trying to talk about Bosnia, my trip there this summer, the religious situation there.... but instead of saying "There are many Christians and a large Muslim community" I said, "There are many Christians and a huge male-mouse population". "Musulman" is French for Muslim... Mus mænd is Danish for male mice. Sometimes I mumble French words into my Danish. Sometimes I speak them with confidence and authority, which is even probably even more confusing.

On the night we celebrated our exams being finished I tried to tell Hege that I was so happy she's in my life.... but I actually said, "I'm looking forward to having you".

Last night I had a friend Theis over for dinner and I was telling him a story from the weekend. I kind of have to explain for it to make sense - I spent the night at my friend's place because she lives close to where I clean so it saved an hour commute time in total - but she was out until 7 in the morning so I used her key to get home earlier than that seeing as I had to leave for work at 8. I kept trying to tell Theis that it was okay, I got into the house because I had the key - but I really told him that I used my hooves and claws to get into her apartment. French key = clé, pronounced 'clay'. Danish hoof = klov, claw = klo.... So I tried to danskify "clé" and it backfired.

My most charming language-learning moment is - and I think will always remain - the time I told my friend's host brother in the Dominican Republic that, "Ahora, cuando hablo español estoy embarazada, pero todavía estoy excitado". I was trying to let him know that my Spanish was improving so I was a bit embarrassed when I spoke but still excited to be speaking Spanish.... instead I let him know that even though I was pregnant I was still very turned on.

I finally made it to Københavns Sprogcenter to sign up for an interview for free Danish classes!!! Which means I'll probably be having more of these little magic language moments as I hiccup my way into speaking this crazy lil thing called dansk. I've found that Danes are often not terribly friendly or helpful to foreigners when on the phone. I spoke with the office a couple weeks ago and she was really cagey, telling me I had to come in with my passport, proof of residence, work permit, and CPR card in order to even set up an interview time. When I got there, however, the guy just asked for my CPR number and told me to come back in a week and have a good one. Similar thing this summer... I was speaking with a company that rents flats out and she basically told me that there's no way I'd ever be able to live in Copenhagen... and then I gave her to my Danish friend and all of a sudden I was lined up to be living somewhere in six months. I don't really know what the deal is. Obviously it's not all Danes, but I do find that in general Danes are extremely nice to me in informal settings and a bit brusk in official encounters.

Here are some more photos that have nothing to do with what I'm writing about - but are lovely all the same!

From the exit of Vestre Kirkegård.... um, creepy?

The next few are from a bridge that goes over the main train lines through the city just before Enghave station, which is in the western part of Vesterbro.

The old Carlsberg factory

That bridge is only open to foot traffic and bikes - it heads into Vestre Kirkegård. The first time I went there was an accident, when I was still trying to take a different route to school every day to get to know the neighborhoods better.

The red ones are the 'typical' Copenhagen trains... I'm not sure but I think the grey/silver is a more regional train.

Carlsberg factory in the background there...

Outside the language center in Vesterbro... just some Danes rockin' the Danishest of fashion statements: BigScarfTightBlackPantsBikeBun.

Found in Hege's apartment... Haha she's mentioned more than once that if we really wanted to make the Danish flag really look nice we could just go ahead and add a blue cross.

Views from Hege's on Vesterbrogade! Super active area, as you can obviously see. Lots of great restaurants, cafes, fun businesses, hipster-y things. and also where the prostitution in Copenhagen happens.

annnnd about two hours later.

Out with Global Refugee Studies friends after we finished exams! My camera isn't really made for indoor / bar photos so I put it away after this.

Rådhuspladsen! The town hall square.

That's the actual Town Hall building on the right there.

Industrial Copenhagen... This is near Dybølsbro Station / Fisketorvet.