A Danish row on British shores

How a row between two Denmark-based academics broke out on newstatesman.com. Here Hans Hauge respond

By Hans Hauge Published 07 December 2007

It is somewhat strange to find oneself attacked by a colleague, Tabish Khair, in The New Statesman.
Khair teaches English literature in the University of Aarhus, Denmark. I teach in the same institution.

Frequently he voices his criticism of Denmark in various English newspapers. He apparently dislikes the country. A few months after the Muhammad cartoon crisis he complained to The Guardian that there was no space left for him in Denmark. The popular Danish-Palestinian politician, leader of the party New Alliance, Naser Khader, was silencing him. An absurd claim. Nobody silences Khair.

Later Khair characterised Denmark as an atheist country without any sense of spirituality, something he found quite disturbing. He himself, however, regards himself an atheist.

Recently he has attacked me and the cultural climate at large in this article for newstatesman.com: 'Reds under Danish beds'.

He labels me quixotic because I have pointed out that Marxists, or whatever one is allowed to call them these days, still dominate universities, the arts, and the media. He cannot spot any. I see many; he sees none. We can’t both be right. Who is the most reliable witness?

All polls show unequivocally that the student body and a majority of university teachers vote for parties on the left, even the far left. Where does he think his own head of department belongs politically? I shall inform him next time we meet in the canteen.

The fact of the matter is that if, like me, you do not belong to the Left you are the odd man out. Writing, as I do, a weekly column for the newspaper Jyllands-Posten doesn’t make things better.

It is true, as Khair notes that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been voted back for the third time. Khair brands his liberal-conservative government a "conservative-liberalist". It isn’t liberalist. The Danish People’s Party supports the government. That party is an old-fashioned social democratic one that defends the nation state. Khair calls it “xenophobic”, but conveniently fails to mention that Naser Khader’s New Alliance also supports the government.

As to the universities he is on most points simply ill informed. No one, he says, read Marx, Adorno, Althusser and Fanon. If they do they are being weeded out. It is again an absurd remark. The fact is that if you want a job in the humanities you had better write about such people. Why does Khair think he was hired?

He is partly right when he says universities here, as elsewhere, are being restructured, but he is wrong when he says along neo-liberalist lines. It is done according to the principles of New Public Management.

He claims there is opposition against this. Indeed. We are a small group, including me, who keep protesting, but Khair is silent.

He then mentions gender and post-colonial studies. They are “less funded” than in other countries. Again he is wrong.

Aarhus University was one of the first universities in the world to institute post-colonial studies. It began with an Institute of Commonwealth Literature back in 1964. 1971 saw the first conference on Commonwealth literature with Wilson Harris, Shiva Naipaul, Sam Selvon participating. The Aarhus-based journal Kunapipi was a leading post-colonial one. I have just published a book of post-colonial essays. One of Khair’s colleagues refused to co-edit the book with me because it wasn’t Marxist.

Khair finishes his contribution with a number of anti-globalist phrases about “democratic international socialism”, and he sounds pretty much like the feisty Indian communist Prakash Karat. (CPI-M). For Khair and Karat globalisation is Capitalism.

Denmark is closed to non-European immigration, he writes, and I read that statement the very day a fairly large number of Indian doctors arrived in this part of the country to work in the region’s hospitals.

Tabish Khair mentions the “contradictions of Capitalism”. It is, indeed, a contradiction that the Danish state pays him so generously for spreading the message of international socialism, let alone why he happily accepts being paid by such a state. But, surely, one day, he hopes he can return to Britain. Oh, to be in England.

Hans Hauge is a political commentator for Jyllands-Posten and senior lecturer at the Scandinavian Institute, University of Aarhus, Denmark

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7 comments

Fri, 2007-12-07 14:15 — T KHAIR

There was an ideology that once claimed that a lie told a hundred times becomes the truth. It appears that the ideology might have been marginalised in recent years but the principle goes on.

I did not, as Hans Hauge claims, attack him in New Statesman or anywhere else. He attacked me in Jyllands Posten, after sharing friendly cups of coffee with me. I responded in defence, and simply because his attack contained various misrepresentations, as does the above article.

He repeats one of the misrepresentations by pointing out that I wrote (in the Guardian) that Naser Khader silenced moderate Muslim voices. He leaves out, as he did in his Jyllands Posten article, that I ACTUALLY wrote that BOTH Islamists and people like Khader help silence certain moderate voices. Islamists because of their screaming and burning, people like Khader because they enabled parties and individuals in Denmark from facing some of their own prejudices.

I did not criticise Denmark for being atheistic. I criticised 'mechanical atheism' shorn of philosophy along with 'mechanical religion' shorn of spirituality. The phrase can be found in my review of Peter Høeg's THE QUIET GIRL in New Statesman.

Aarhus University was -- as I have pointed out elsewhere -- a pioneer in post-colonial studies, and I am proud to be a part of the university today. However, this was about 20 years ago. Since then, universities in other countries have overtaken Danish universities and the number of full-time postcolonialists in Copenhagen and Aarhus has stagnated or declined.

My point about immigration -- again presented in half by Hauge -- was that first world capital is much more mobile than third world labour. In this sense, it vindicates Marx's statement that under capitalism it is capital that enjoys the advantage of easy mobility. A few thousand Indian doctors do not disprove anything. 99 percent of Third World labour will never be allowed to enter places like Denmark, but 99 percent of Danish capital can be invested elsewhere if and when it suits the investors.

I can continue the list. Hans Hauge has made a habit of presenting only half of the story. I have no wish to engage in a discussion at this level. All I can add is that Hauge's opposition to 'leftist' ideology does not extend to his own participation in publications, statements etc in honour of people and issues associated with the Right in Denmark.

Fri, 2007-12-07 14:31 — T KHAIR

PS: It is true, as Hauge claims, that nothing can silence me. Except death, of course. I was threatened with death by Islamic fundamentalists and Hindu nationalists on two different occasions in the past (in India), and I have received emails and phone calls from Danes who, like Hauge, want me to leave Denmark. No death threats yet, though. As I have many Danish friends and like a lot of things in Denmark (despite its recent political climate), I hope death threats will not spoil my positive experiences of this place. So alas, it looks like I won't oblige Hauge by silencing myself.

Fri, 2007-12-07 20:46 — Bageren

Khair, your keep going on with your foolish remarks about Denmark and the terrible capitalism.

1) Even if Hauge "attacked" you first, it was due to your ridiculous statements in an english newspaper about Denmark. And now, he writes due to the hopeless piece you published in newstatesman.

2) Nobody silenced you during the cartoon-crisis. You could say exactly what you wanted to. But my guess is, that nobody cared about your "analysis" and continuing "racisme and xenophobic" allegations.
Khair, maybe you are the one who should face your own prejudices - prejudices about DK, the danish government and the marketeconomy.

3) Yes, capital is much more mobile than labour - and so what ? It will always be like that, it is given by nature.
Of course most 3.world labour would never be allowed to enter Denmark (or any other country) - why should the danes let them, Denmark has no need for them. And it isn't a human right to get to live in Denmark, and enjoy the wealth and the welfaresociety there.
First of all, Denmark is the country where the danes can live. The pakistanis can live in pakistan and the somalis in Somalia. Why should the danes let their country be colonized by poor people from other places, why should the danes let themselves be forced to abandon their culture which of course would happen with massive immigration from 3.world.
It makes no sense.
And why exactly should 3.world labour be allowed to enter places like Denmark. 3. world labour should create decent soiceties in the places where they live.

Besides, it is wrong to state that danish capital can be invested elsewhere if it suits the investors. Only if the other countries are accepting foreign investmenst. That is there choice. Besides other countries can invest in denmark as well. There is no hypocrisy in this distinction between labour and capital. Denmark benefits from foreign investments, but has no advantage of immigration of 3.world labour. Everybode benefits from the mobility of capital. Only a marxist keeps denying this fact in the 21. century.
Furthermore it cant be that hard tfor you to understand, why the people of a well-functioning country wants to protect themselves and there culture. Exactly what is wrong with that?

4) Political climate
ohh, my god. I hope you are not about to write more about the n"eoliberal and almost fascist government and its terrible xenophobic and racist policies" in DK. Your analysis of the danish society are so far out of proportion that it makes most people in DK laugh - maybe that is the reason you feel silenced ?

Thu, 2007-12-13 21:21 — Sune Borkfelt

It is uncanny how Hauge disregards the truth and leaves out the nuances about Denmark and Danish Politics that would weaken his argument:

"Khair brands his liberal-conservative government a "conservative-liberalist". It isn’t liberalist. The Danish People’s Party supports the government. That party is an old-fashioned social democratic one that defends the nation state. Khair calls it “xenophobic”, but conveniently fails to mention that Naser Khader’s New Alliance also supports the government."

1) Hauge calls the Danish People's Party 'old-fashioned social democratic'. Though the party has tried at times to pass itself of as such, its actual politics paint a different picture, as - among other things - their support for the current government, made up of the country's leading liberalist party and the leading conservative party, testify to.

2) He uses the position of a party not in the government (Danish People's Party) to show that the government is not liberalist. Even if he had been right about the values about the Danish People's Party, this tells us nothing about the values of the actual governing parties, the liberals and conservatives. Their government is indeed liberalist.

3) He forgets to mention that while it is true that Khader's New Alliance supports a liberal government (to draw influence away from the Danish People's Party), Fogh Rasmussen's government does not need - and never has needed - the support of Khader's party (which is a recent invention that Danes have only been able to vote for on one election so far) to carry out it's policies. Furthermore, that New Alliance and Danish People's Party support the same Prime Minister doesn't mean that because one party is not xenophobic, then the other can't be xenophobic. Indeed the Danish People's Party does have xenophobic tendencies.

Hauge of course knows all this, being a Dane living in Denmark and being able to understand the political system. But writing for an international publication such as this, he suddenly leaves out the nuances that most Danes will easily see are missing, but which many foreigners are likely not to know about. Thus falsely strengthening his argument and deceiving most readers not intimately acquainted with Danish politics.

Sat, 2007-12-08 15:40 — gnuneo

"The Danish People’s Party supports the government. That party is an old-fashioned social democratic one that defends the nation state. Khair calls it “xenophobic”, but conveniently fails to mention that Naser Khader’s New Alliance also supports the government."

up until this point i had though you were being balanced - this one remark makes me question ALL of your article however.

the danske folkepartie IS xenophobic - it even makes a virtue of this racism, using it as a springboard to capture votes.

nor in any way does it matter if 'new alliance' also supports the govt - this can have absolutely NO basis on whether or not the folkepartie is racist and xenophobic, and i find it extraordinary that a supposed university lecturer can make such a blatant logical error!

Fri, 2007-12-14 01:57 — Bottinger

“Denmark is closed to non-European immigration, he writes, and I read that statement the very day a fairly large number of Indian doctors arrived in this part of the country to work in the region’s hospitals.”
I would also like to add that although Hauge mentions the arrival of Indian doctors, he omits the recent ethical debates in DK concerning the hypocrisy of outsourcing professionals and educated workforces. DK accepts its sporadic migratory tidal waves, yes, but predominantly when it benefits from the cream of brain gain. In this case, the irony of Bageren’s comment (“Why should the danes let their country be colonized by poor people from other places”) stands out. Au contraire, Mr. Baker, perspectives can be reversed: brain drain has its own new colonialist tendencies. Tabish Khair deserves respect for championing global equity and highlighting the adverse effects of globalization.

Mon, 2007-12-10 19:52 — S. McT1

It is very disgusting that Tabish Khair insinuates that Hans Hauge whats Khair to be threatened or killed.

But Tabish Khair stays true to himself by his blatant use of infantile and predictable portrayal of the poor Marxist lecturer as a victim. Poor Khair, dry your eyes mate, have a cookie.