We are indeed popular these days, we the knights. We are seen as symbols of progress and purity. This has not always been so, and the ideas of knighthood have been ridiculed and not respected. As many other faiths, knights are expected to be true to their own ideals, otherwise they are really met with disregard. We need to be the ideal that we strive to meet.

For me, being a knight is not really a goal, it is me. I come from this beat down socialist family. With all the vices of such a project; broken family, multicultural nightmare, my father was from Bangladesh, my mother was a Dane from a Jewish/Christian family.

Basically it was all just mixed up. When I was a child, I did not have many friends, I grew up in ghetto, and a little intellectual person like me was respected somehow, but then again also seen as something really weird. To escape all the violence and the insecurity that such a place offered a little boy like me, I started to dream.

We had this wonderful library in the ghetto. Not that is was much visited by the other children, but for me, it was a safe haven. In there, there were no threats, and I had a wonderful world to pick and choose from. All the stories, all the adventures, all the grand ideas. It found fertile ground with smallish Asger. I read Prince Valiant, I read c.s. Lewis, I read Tolkien, I read fantasy novels and space science fiction. You could say, that instead of having a father to show me the way, I had the books, to give me direction and value.

So I wanted to be a knight. I always loved the stories about the knights, his valor, his straightbacked defense on all the good things in life.

In school I became more and more different, while as the other kids started stealing and beating each other up, I started treating the girls with dignity and respect.

I don’t know, at the same time I must admit, that I was like a closed book to others, it happens, when your have to protect yourself against all the crime in the ghetto, you get calloused.

But inside, my dreams flourished, and when I went to bed, I always took a book with me, and read long after bedtime, often under the bed sheets to hide from my mother.

Years went by, and as all other people I grew up. I left the book, I left the ghetto, got a university education, entered the job market and then things went really wrong. The corruption around me, the hypocracy, the faithlessness I just could not take it. So I decided I wanted to change it, to fight the corruption in business and in the world at large. So I returned to my books once again. I realized that the most influential persons on the world are the writers, and it wanted to change the world, so the choice gave immediate sense.

I started with a book on leadership. It was a beautiful little book, a modernization of Aristotle fused with business. It was all littered with classical paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Jean luc David. Everybody else had left the ideals of beauty and good, I wanted people to return to those ideals. To believe again.

The book did not sell at all, but it really changed my life. I entered the political world, and to my amazement all the strongest old school businessmen really loved it. They all put it, with deep reverence on their book shells, and they really did believe in the wise words of Aristotle.

After a while in politics, I got a call from a strange man. It was a bit like a dream. He said he was from the order of the knights Templar, and he wanted to meet.

You know, for me knights were basically stories, and apart from rumors on the net, I did not really believe they still existed. But they do.

At that time, I was contacted by almost all the players in the secret world, so it was a bit overmuch, I could not really handle being five different things at once, but they kept coming. After a while, I settles with the order of St. John, the Maltese knights, where I am, proud to say a leader of a small fraction. White cross helped the Copts in their independence fight, and has been quite active in the Middle East, protecting Christians.

So, this is a long story, and I hope I have not lost you. Here comes the point. Why and what is it to be a knight?

It is a matter of virtue or honour. A man is nothing without his honour. What is honour? Honour is a set of principles connected to virtue. Like respect, honesty, truth, precision, openness, love. All virtues that I try to uphold in my daily life. Not always with succes, but it gives me direction. When other people succumb to corruption and are bought this way or the other. I refuse to let go of my principles. This is why I am so successful, and yet so alone. Because in a corrupt world, the honest man will be lonely, because he is a threat to other people who are corrupted.

To me this often all I have left. Sometimes I have no money, often I have to sleep at friends when I am out, because I cannot afford a hotel. We live more or less below the level what is normally considered possible to live under. Basically we are pretty poor. But to me, this is ok, because I still am rich in another sense, I have my honour, I never compromised in the world of politics.

Personal

When I was brought up, my mother was a crazy feminist, she forced me to do all kinds of chores, and scolded me for not doing it well enough. She really hated men, and she wanted to make sure I did not end up being one of these patriarchal, evil, dominating men she did not like. So I had to clean, wash the clothes, make food, and many, many other things.

I guess it was her way of showing the world, that she was a good socialist. To me it was just another insult added to all the other I met in the ghetto.

So, when I had my first real girlfriend, I had absolutely no idea what to do. I could not do it, I was not a man, I was a woman.

To get rid of the feminist values I grew up with, I really tried to be macho. Well, that did not work either, because the poor girl I dated got really pissed and hurt.

All in all, I just did not know what to do. So I decided to write another book on the problem. This was the book where I proved the existence of G-d, so it was more than just that. But after reflecting on it for a long, long time, I realized that to be a man, you do not have to be abusive. On the contrary, you have to be protective. But you have to be strong at the same time. How do you do that; you are strong when it comes to your principles, your honour.

This is basically what all serious women are looking for; a man of honour. Someone who are ready to stand up for something. Who are willing to sacrifice his time and money on a cause and an idea. To be a knight not only on the outside, but also on the inside. To treat your wife with respect, and when you start fighting, keep focus on the principles, so that the end result or what you fight for is not to hassle or put your wife down, but to make a stronger and better marriage.

It works, at least in my marriage. My wife really respects me for my idealism. She is not agreeing with all I believe in, but she respects me for fighting for a better world. She accepts the sacrifices, and all the problems that follows me wherever I go.

And it is good for my child, she loves me, not just because I am her father, but also because she knows she can trust me, and I will protect her.

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This is knighthood on a daily basis. Not just in books or as a forgotten ideal, but in daily life, as a guide to be a man, and to be an honest and good person.

G-d bless the will to obey the principles of faith.