App. 150 years ago this amazing new trend started in Copenhagen, it had all the typical trends of a jewish development; radical intellectualism, full of conflict, individualism, extremism in its time. It was lead by an intellectual beacon called Brandes. He was there, whipping up the waves in the duckpond, hated and admired in his time.
His brother started a new political party called “Det Radikale Venstre”, and Brandes started a newspaper called “Politiken”. The tradition continued with his heir Poul Henningsen who were as creative as Brandes and perhaps a bit more ethical. When the nazis gained in power he was one of the first to challenge their ideology, and as one of the very ungraceful moments of Politiken he got fired. But Poul Henningsen survived, he went to Sweden and returned to Denmark after the war, where he, as the only one, critizised the danish people because he thought they treated the german refugees in a unhospitable manner.
This is the tradition I have been brought up with, my heroes so to say. They were the Socrateses of their time. Now the absurd tradegy of today is that Seidenfaden, who is the most vile and antiisraeletic person in Denmark is the editor of Politiken. He has followed the party into its grave. Ten or twenty years ago the party and the newspaper were extremely respected because they somehow managed to be friends with both sides of the left/right spectrum of politics. Ok, some critisized it, but the intellectual level of the party was always respected, and Politiken with its history of uncompromising intellectualism, was newspaper number one, when it came to intellectual respect and integrity.
Things change, the political balance of yesterday might not be the political balance of today. For many years the political balance was on one hand socialism and on the other hand democracy. Social justice on one hand and freedom on the other hand.
The balance has however changed. Today it is Islam at one hand and western civilization on the other hand. Sharia/Kalifat/Islamic republic on one hand Rule of Law/Democracy on the other hand. The liberal/socialists tend to support the islamic camp, the conservative camp tend to support the western civilization camp. The party Radikale Venstre was torn in two pieces, one was extremely supportive of Islam, one was more balanced and tried to understand Islam on its own terms. The party broke in two, the girls and the boys. The boys supported the new party structure with a more modern balance they called it “Ny Alliance”, the girls went into an absurd praise of Islam. The newspaper Politiken followed the girls, abandoning the boys. Now the boys were fooled by an imposer called Naser Khader, I never really trusted him, something was wrong, he was not qualified as a leader, the voters looked through his ways and realized his incompetence, and the boys project all fell to the ground.
Now both the boys and the girls are finished, Seidenfaden, with his hubris and his lack of intellectual integrity has used all the political capital the newspaper used to have. Today nobody takes him serious anymore, nobody takes the party serious anymore, and the boys are all in the grave.
All there is left is me, the lone Socratic figure, left out in the cold because I had the moral integrity to say the right things at the right time. So the legacy of Brandes and Poul Henningsen is still alive, and could perhaps reemerge, if I ever get the chance to participate in the debate. When Garibaldi left Rome, he said Rome might fall, but as long as he was still alive, Rome was alive in his heart. So is it with the traditions of the Radikale Venstre, I might be the only one left, but the traditions is all alive in my heart.
