Midweek mayhem

Returning from the blissful weekend to a fiery Denmark was quite odd, and now today a bomb went off in a tanning salon about 200m away from where my host mom works. Does it have anything to do with the republishing of the Mohammed cartoon? Most people say no, that rather it is an cry for attention by the nydanskere (the new Danes). This particular group of second generation immigrant youth's are caught in cultural identity limbo. That is to say, they are Danish citizens, born in Denmark, but their mothers and fathers are not. They are mostly from Turkey, Pakistan, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, and various other areas affiliated with the religion of Islam. The crisis for these youths is that they are not considered Danish mainly because the way they look, and they can't relate to the cultural traditions of their parents because they were born in Denmark.Brief story here

I don't know if the fires and the bombing that took place today are related, or whether any of it is organized in any manner, but the racial tensions between the immigrant population here and the 'ethnic Danes' is growing. On my way home from school on Monday there was a warning being displayed periodically on the LCD screen of the bus that mentioned the word 'nydanskere'. Of course it was in Danish and I couldn't read the rest of it so I don't know what it meant.

I don't really know if there is a solution to this problem except for changing the mental portrait of the nydanskere in the minds of the Danish population. Fires, bombs, and other acts of violence are obviously not the way to be doing this. It's hard for me to understand why they don't realize that the only thing that vandalism and arsonry is going to create is more prejudice and discrimination in their own daily lives. The topic could be, and will be debated in the coming weeks I'm sure, but for now I'm going to focus on other things...


Our group finally came up with an idea for the presentation and paper we having coming up on March 3rd. We're going to be looking at the kindergarten and after-school programs that are offered in the area of Christiania. It will be interesting to see if and how children are taught or treated differently in the notoriously unique area of Christiania versus the way it is being done in the greater Copenhagen area. On the right is a picture of the colorful Dr. Seuss-esque playground of Christiania's kindergarten, located right on the lake. I don't know how easy it will be to accumlate information about this topic due to the fact that everyone who lives in Christiania is usually pretty selective on who they talk to, and don't really take too kindly to strangers. Oh well, should be fun anyways...

I've decided to take an overnight ferry to Oslo, Norway this weekend with a group of DIS students. The cruise-style ship sails from Copenhagen harbor on Friday at 4:30 overnight, arriving in Oslo sometime in the morning -hopefully it will be around sunrise, it would make for some beautiful pictures. I'll be spending all day in Oslo and then sailing back that night and returning to Copenhagen on Sunday. I'm going with 3 people I met over the short study tour to Western Denmark who are all in the same Psychology and Child Development program as me.

(Adam looking over the lake surrounding Christiania)

I mentioned earlier in the blog about a song entitled "Dream inside a Dream" that I was writing, and it's progression is continuing into one of the most beautiful things I've written so far. I'm also working on completing "Beautiful Lies", which is also blossoming into a fantastic song. I might get a chance to record them before I leave for the March Euro trip, so be on the lookout!