Will Aarhus Keep Smiling?

by Agnieszka Sobień

Aarhus is at the centre of Europe in the coming weeks, but perhaps not relishing the particulars.

While toting itself as the ‘city of the smile’ (smilets by), the next couple of weeks may lead to more frowns than smiles in Aarhus. A small city on a European scale, while at the same time second largest city in Denmark, Aarhus is at the heart of Europe this March. Hosting both an EU summit on a common European immigration policy, as well as a gathering of the European Defence League, and counter demonstrations against them, this oasis of peaceful and orderly life is certainly getting its share of media spotlight.

The first demonstration took off yesterday in Bispetorvet under the banner of “Aarhus for tolerance” (Aarhus hylder tolerancen) and  has been organized by the city authorities. The event resembled more summer festival rather than a serious political demonstration.  However, that was the aim of the organizers: to celebrate tolerance with music, lectures and movies. The idea is to show the anti-immigration Defence Leagues, gathering in Aarhus on March 31, that the city does not subscribe to their radical points of view. The happening was fully supported by the mayor, Social Democrat Jacob Bundsgaard, who emphasized that his city does not identify itself with the far-right movements and condemn all sorts of ideological extremists.

The Aarhus for Tolerance event on March 21 was organized in order to show that the rally, hosted by the European Defence League (EDL), is not supported by the local authorities. On March 31 up to 1000 anti-immigration and far-right activists from around the Europe will arrive at Aarhus to take part in the European Counter-Jihad meeting. Though claiming to be peaceful demonstrators, all of EDL’s events are connected with some kind of violent actions. EDL is also supported by some very unsavory characters such as Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who last year killed 77 people attending a youth camp organized by the Norwegian Labour party. The question thus arises whether the citizens of that calm, coastal city of Aarhus should be afraid of that demonstration of hatred or maybe are they going to go out at the streets and support them.

“Ask the People” demands this billboard,

part of a current campaign of the Danish People’s Party

 to get a referendum on the Euro-Plus Pact

The choice to hold the summit during the Danish presidency is more than a little ironic since almost 12,3% of population, in the last elections, supported anti-immigration, Danish People’s Party, and the country also has an opt-out on immigration policy in the EU as part of its general opt-out on Justice and Home Affairs. Nevertheless, heads of European governments will come to ‘the capital of Jutland’ to discuss the most important immigration’s issues.

How is the Danish Presidency going to reconcile all those points of view and how the relatively small city of Aarhus and how are its citizens going to handle that amount of important and extreme events within such a short time? These questions and many more will be answered in the next two weeks. Perhaps the people of Aarhus will do well in remembering that the old Chinese saying “may you live in interesting times” was not meant as a blessing.