One such desperate voice belongs to Marie Krarup, daughter of long time member of parliament for the Danish People’s Party (DF) Søren Krarup. He is retiring this year but the next generation is ready to take over, to continue the fight for “true conservatism.”

Klaus Wivel interviewed her for Weekendavisen and her statements played in a similar key to that of the Zizek quote brought up in Che vuoi? A spinning top made out of pork:

One becomes a full member of a community not simply by identifying with its explicit symbolic tradition, but only when one also assumes the spectral dimension that sustains this tradition, the undead ghosts that haunt the living, the secret history of traumatic fantasies transmitted “between the lines,” through the lacks and distortions of the explicit symbolic tradition […]

In my own sloppy translation, Marie Krarup said the following:

The values represented by my father and Jesper [Langballe] are a well considered conservatism, where you feel rooted in Denmark and want to fight for God, King and country, and where you have the arguments to support it. The value of my father’s and Jesper’s presence in parliament has sprung from their ability to precisely formulate the feelings of the silent majority that we do not want to be a multicultural society; we do not want to lose our identity; and we do not want to be shut down by the EU. […] What the Danish People’s Party represents is the ordinary danishness that people are unable to specify.

Do these repeated references to a lacking ability of the silent majority to precisely formulate a national identity not revolve around the spectral dimension sustaining an explicit symbolic tradition? Or some sort of desperate necromantic conjuring of ancestral ghosts to revive a faded symbolic tradition that no longer seems so explicit and coherent? A necromantic conjuring that turns into hysterical cries of an obscurantist hocus pocus when realising that it has forgotten the proper incantation?

“My father and Jesper” were the ones able to communicate with the ancestral ghosts and Marie Krarup is ready to assume the role of shaman. But she seems daunted by the task and aware of her own impotence. The paternal generation was supposedly able to speak for the “silent majority” but, at the same time, the vast majority is brainwashed. Not to be brainwashed is to be an exception, part of the resistance:

Luckily, not everyone is brainwashed. Not everyone finished their higher education in Denmark

“Not everyone…” The few, those happy few, who are not brainwashed but persecuted by the inhabitants of Denmark. Where does the silent majority fit in? They are the real Danes, the ones not brainwashed by the globalised, multicultural elite, the one who feel that “What is Danish is not great enough. We have to be international, global, and such fancy stuff.” The silent majority was silenced by the elite nomenclature, the journalists, the scholars, the artists.

This blurred opposition of silent majority versus cultural elite nomenclature is felt all through the interview:

We also have communists. It is also a part of Danish culture to be convinced by such atrocities. Of course, Danish culture is many things. But luckily, the dominant mood is to support Denmark and its flag – a community surrounding the flag, the church and the queen. We still have that. It is just that only few appreciate it.

The dominant mood is only appreciated by the few. The true essence of Denmark – the flag, the queen and the church – still persists, but only among the few. She acknowledges that this is because Denmark has changed:

Yes, and I want to fight it. I want to fight the brainwashing, the internationalization and multiculturalism that seeks to demonise danishness.

The silent majority shall be liberated from the reigning majority, the crushing elite nomenclature and its brainwashing demonising of all things Danish. This demonising, perhaps, consists not in the active disavowal of the spectral dimension but the refusal to sacralize it. Not revering the tabu and its flag totem, this multicultural internationalist heresy, turns the protective paternal ghosts into demons. No wonder, then, that the “next generation” seeks to revive the shamanic powers of the fathers, the ability to talk to ghosts, revive the spectral foundation, vanquish the dominant heretical blasphemy and liberate the unseen, silent majority of true believers. Believers in what? The flag, God, Queen, the Church and country? They are but the fetishist’s stand-ins for the spectral dimension. Believers in what, then? Only the ghosts know.

One such fragment is the following:

One becomes a full member of a community not simply by identifying with its explicit symbolic tradition, but only when one also assumes the spectral dimension that sustains this tradition, the undead ghosts that haunt the living, the secret history of traumatic fantasies transmitted “between the lines,” through the lacks and distortions of the explicit symbolic tradition […]

This passage can be read twice in the 2008 edition of The Fragile Absolute (pp. vii-viii and 58) and once in The Puppet and the Dwarf (p. 128).

In all three instances, the text adequately describes “Judaism’s stubborn attachment to the unacknowledged violent founding gesture that haunts the public legal order…” (ibid.). Zizek’s goal is to rid society of this spectral haunting and its obscene superego legal supplement, which is why he hails Christianity as the revelation that “there is nothing – no secret – behind it to be revealed” (Puppet p. 127); that “with this “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?,” it is God-the-Father who, in effet, dies, revealing His utter impotence, and thereupon rises from the dead in the guise of the Holy Spirit [the community of believers = communism] (Puppet p. 126).

The problem, of course, is not that “One becomes a full member of a community […] only when one also assumes the spectral dimension” but that, from time to time (and the time is now), “One” is required to become a full member of society in order to avoid austricism. This scenario is inherently comical as the spectral dimension to be assumed remains disavowed. This is why the Danish People’s Party, apart from its more overtly violent gestures, tend to think of weird stand-ins for the special “it” that will make you authentically Danish.

The greatest of these fantastic ideas was the proposal that municipal institutions such as kindergardens and retirement homes should serve a diet containing a minimum of 20% pork, as pork is supposedly a cornerstone of the Danish culinary tradition. The idea was not to indicate that any decent Danish person naturally abides by this peculiar requirement, but that pork is an integral part of Danish culture and as such, anyone unable to assume this random stand-in for the disavowed spectral dimension would provably have disavowed Danishness itself.

It was a hysterical demand for a Shibboleth: “Say the word and say it right or we will know that you are not one of us!”

Requiring not that you abide by the Law but by its hidden spiritual content, its spectral supplement, is developed even further when the same party states that all criminal foreigners should be deported. Such an argument hinges on the crime not being an act of legal trespass but an act of desecrating the spectral essence of the community.

What is the reason for these hysterical attempts at elevating the obscene superego injunction of the spectral dimension to capriccious acts of Law? Could it be that the Law is losing its validity, its symbolic coherence, and thus relies on hysterical evocations of its disavowed foundation for survival? If so, does the pork proposal not constitute the obsessional neurotic’s ritualistic attemps at avoiding complete symbolic disintegration, the spinning top in Inception that guarantees the continued existence of reality?

What one should avoid here is the Foucauldian misreading: the produced subject is not simply the subjectivity which arises as the result of the disciplinary application of knowledge-power, but its remainder, that which eludes the grasp of knowledge-power.

The thing is, that this is not an adequate rendition of Foucault. It might be ascribed to Althusser for whom the subject was constituted solely by the interpellation of ideology but for Foucault the remainder is exactly what characterizes the subject.

One indication of this remainder is found in Foucault’s desciption of his attempt to analyze power:

It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point.²

In order to understand power as well as subjectivation we should study resistance, the remainder. Foucault, of course is althusserian, and he acknowledges the transition from the individual to the subject as a a result of power but even then, there are two meanings to the word ‘subject’:

It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the word “subject”: subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to.³

Both meanings suggest power and the production of the subject by power but in one, power takes the role of agent whereas the second is a matter of subjective response. The remainder is completely immersed in various power structures but, nonetheless, it remains a remainder.

This is exactly what constitutes Foucault’s notion of Freedom:

Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free. By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments, may be realized. Where the determining factors saturate the whole, there is no relationship of power; slavery is not a power relationship when man is in chains.⁴

Subjectivity according to Foucault is precisely characterized by some splinter of freedom, by what Zizek calls “its remainder, that which eludes the grasp of knowledge-power.” The foucauldian misreading turns out to be Zizek’s misreading of Foucault.

By deciding to declare von Trier persona non grata for the current competition, the festival loses much of its credibility. Treating von Trier’s remarks as a political position to be taken seriously and drawing extensive consequences from it misjudges the situation in which von Trier made the remarks, as well as his work as aesthetic context.

I completely agree. Yes, Trier said foolish things, he has apologized, now let’s get on with it. Anyone taking his remarks at face value and thus considering him a true Nazi is a blithering idiot. So there.

But now, according to Danish newspaper Politiken, French/German television channel Arte threatens to pull further sponsorship for von Trier’s movies. They have financially supported several of his films but, apparently, they now feel that the remarks, although acknowledged as a failed joke, enter into conflict with their overall identity and purpose.

From Politiken:

“We know it was said for fun. But it was simply not funny. We found Trier’s statements crude and very shocking. We need to reconsider whether we can continue to support his films,” says Arte Film Director Michel Reilhac.
[…]
Arte was originally created by the then French President François Mitterand and Germany’s Helmuth Kohl as a way of signalling an end to historical enmity and in order to show through culture that European countries share the same ideals about humanity and generosity.

“Lars von Trier’s statements do not fit in to that perspective,” Reilhac says.

Arte hereby loses all credibility as a producer of quality cultural content. This reaction reminds me of the time Janet Jackson showed a not quite naked breast during a Super Bowl performance. To be shocked by Trier would require the same nervous frailty as the woman who claimed substantial psychic damage three years after being inflicted by Jackson’s breast. It is a feigned shock, designed to show… I have no idea! Does it demonstrate moral superiority to say “We know he didn’t mean it but, nonetheless, we were profoundly hurt”? This is the reaction you would expect form the tabloids, from the small town idiots who gossip about their new next door neighbour, not from what is supposed to be a powerhouse of cultural television.

I don’t normally do that sort of thing, as I believe we should all be allowed some guests and some beers from time to time. What triggered this first accusing knock, however, was a simple discussion between three people. I think the topic was US involvement in certain geopolitical matters and how these are taught and communicated. One particularly effective argument was the following: “Listen, listen, listen… I can only say that when I have to tell my kids about American intervention, I’ll say that they only do what’s best for themselves!”

A wonderful silence of almost five seconds followed this immensely astute observation of American foreign politics. Then the shouting recommenced.

I love drunken debates, I really do. I love having a shouting match about Hegelian traits in Nietzsche when I am so thoroughly sloshed that I have forgotten my complete ignorance of the matter. But listening to others doling out their dime-store apothems is auditory torture well beyond any preteen a cappella rendition of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.

I think we should agree – drunkard to drunkard – that if three people debate in a private room, and you still have to shout “Hey… Hey… Listen!” in order to get a word in, you really need to find a bar loud enough to allow for such lung effort or shut the fuck up.

Sarah Palin on Twitter

On February 10, Sarah Palin tweeted a public birthday greeting to Glenn Beck: “Happy B’day Glenn Beck! Ah, the wisdom of our elders…” Apart from the feigned folksiness of the word “B’day” and the astonishing attributing of wisdom to Glenn Beck, the tweet primarily declares an attempted strategic alliance. Self-professed “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck soon reciprocated by suggesting one of the few strategic alliances described by the American Constitution: “Happy belated birthday to my younger friend Sarah. Let’s just have a combined party in 2013, to save the WH pastry chef some work.” So, however jokingly it may have been put forth, we now have the proposition of a Palin/Beck ballot in 2012.

This twittering mating game may not disclose actual political plans and aspirations on behalf of Glenn Beck but Palin has declared herself ready and willing if not rough and ready, she has publicly cuddled up to elderly wisdom, and the wise old man is apparently going along as far as the ride will take him. Both twitterers seem to be flaunting blatant political opportunism in a giddy, frivolous manner indicating that whatever they are doing, it is working.

This, of course, annoys the purist. Self-declared founder of the Tea Party movement and undisputed “President/Founder” of www.TeaParty.org, Dale Robertson, recently warned his fellow teabaggers against the Republican “NeoCon” attempts at taking over the movement:

“I am sending an alarm to the Tea Party membership! Be alert to turncoats and deceivers being herded into the Tea Party by usurpers from the weakened Republican Party for the sole purpose of capturing our populist movement. Our political ideals were once theirs and our immense growth has created a lusting for their good old days!

Sarah Palin’s well delivered speech and her attractive demeanor is little more than a veneer for her less attractive political philosophy. She seems more like a duck out of water among true Conservative Constitutionalists. Palin demonstrates her NeoCon flippant viewpoint and her naïveté as she seems envious of the swelled numbers of Patriots pledging their allegiance, to of all things, AMERICA and not to a kool-aid ridden political dinosaur.”

Glenn Beck on Twitter

The enemy here is the Republican Party, a “political machine that erodes the fabric of our Patriotic soul.” The Tea Party movement, on the other hand, is described as an independent, spontaneous group of “like minded Patriots, not the actions of one person, but countless Patriots acting as one.” The GOP worries about stealing votes, while the Tea Party “places restoring the Republic and returning America to common sense government as our core platform.”

It is interesting that the GOP is presented as running on Kool-Aid. As is explained on Wikipedia “Drinking the Kool-Aid has become a common phrase owing to the beverage’s alleged role in the Jonestown Massacre, and is used to insinuate that one has mindlessly adopted the dogma of a group or leader without fully understanding the ramifications or implications.” If the “republican elite” are nothing but wolves in sheep’s clothing, trying to steel the momentum of the teabaggers, they are surely better described as cynical, whereas the “countless Patriots acting as one” in the hailing of non-negotiable core beliefs seem more thirsty.

“The common thread running the length and breadth of this government is a Common Sense Constitutional Conservative Approach to self-governance.” Maybe you actually need to drink some of the tea-flavoured Kool-Aid in order to make sense of that concoction of coltishly confused alliteration. “Common sense,” in its populist usage, is nothing more than a feeble attempt to hide “nonsense,” while trying to express a “no bullshit” approach to, in this case, that most sacred document (for teabaggers at least): The U.S. Constitution.

Dale 'Tea Bag' Robertson

The “common sense” “core beliefs” mean to portray themselves as the very authenticity of the American soul. It is the tireless defense of “time tested conservative principles.” It is the original American Dream vs. spectacular republican mirages ¹. It is “the greatest thing going since 1773″ and the GOP is trying to get in on the teabagging action. This is why Dale Robertson repeats the phrase “I say NO and HELL NO!” three times, and the term “non-negotiable” five times. The political stratagems of Sarah Palin do not comply with the purist stance, seeing that she supports “Open-Boarders McCain.” (for more info, read this). She is not loyal, she is more interested in her own strategic position than promoting the “countless Patriots acting as one,” she did not drink the Kool-Aid.

But of course, once your non-negotioable core beliefs claim absolute authenticity, your movement will soon need purification by steadily ostracizing any single individual who dares speak on behalf of the “countless Patriots acting as one.” Because, evidently, they do not act as one. This is why there are so many warnings about straying too far, cf. a commentary on politico.com:

“I say again, be careful, Tea Party Nation. You are being infiltrated. You are being compromised. You are being neutered. Stick to your principles. Stick with the Constitution. Keep opposing unconstitutional, preemptive wars. Keep calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. Keep fighting for less taxes, reduced federal spending, and states’ rights.”

Common sense is nourished by fear, the unifying force of the fear that all that is solid melts into air and that evil others are contaminating your self-evident truths. This is also seen in Glenn Beck’s 9.12 project and his attack on the book The Coming Insurrection ². Teabagging as a patriotic pursuit is an act of fear expressed through the desperate search for a world that makes sense. And so common sense – the one “we” have in common and which distinguishes our authentic “we” from the spectacular elite others – is found in the non-negotiable principles of the Constitution and the Bible. The second amendment and Leviticus 20:13 tell us that guns are good and gays are bad, end of discussion. It is the pursuit of an authentic unifying identity by means of readily available ideological bric-à-brac: National and religious origins all rolled up in to that one weird concept Patriotism.

The interesting bit in this excessively banal phenomenon is that it is exceedingly widespread in the western hemisphere. France is debating national identity, Denmark is debating national identity in a slightly less formal but every bit as ignominious way. This is why teabagging as a patriotic pursuit should not be ignored. It might be banal, it might be so innately inconsistent that it is doomed to slowly collapse like a flan in a cupboard, but the movement is presently uncomfortably real. Should the political system succeed in their current attempt at tapping into the Tea Party energy it will create a political force to be reckoned with. And then a Palin/Beck ballot suddenly seems like more than frivolous flirtations and twittering temptations of two tea tray twirling twits.

“Hvis nogen efter en tår over tørsten havde forsøgt sig med at lancere påstanden om, at de missionske boller deres døtre tykke, eller at førtidspensionister driver hjemmebordeller med mindreårige, som et seriøst indslag i debatten om noget som helst, havde alle og enhver trukket på skuldrene over det rablende fjols, uanset hvilken forening han eller hun var formand for. Men adskillige fuldvoksne danskere har nu i ugevis seriøst beskæftiget sig med Lars Hedegaards påstand fra denne skuffe.

Anne Knudsen mener altså, at Lars Hedegaard har været udsat for en noget pedantisk behandling, der ikke var tilkommet nogen anden i en lignende situation. Altså udgør “adskillige fuldvoksne danskeres” barnlige reaktion en overfølsomhed over for enten Lars Hedegaard eller enhver kritik af Islam. Dette argument er tidligere fremført af Søren Krarup:

“Jeg tager hele historien som et vidnesbyrd, om den position Trykkefrihedsselskabet har fået i offentligheden, som har generet så mange fra venstrefløjen og – hvad skal vi sige – den kulturradikale mediemafia. Man ønsker for enhver pris at få ram på dem” ²

Mon ikke Anne Knudsens begreb om Kulturracisme udspringer af en tilsvarende irritation over den evigt besværlige og moraliserende kulturradikalisme, som den opfattes af pastor Krarup?

“Naragtigheden ved det hele” kommer ifølge Anne Knudsen af, at de “fuldvoksne” og “velmenende mennesker” drager i felten for at proklamere, at Lars Hedegaard tager fejl – “Muslimer voldtager ikke deres døtre” –, hvorved de udbreder den fordrukne tåbelighed i både tid og rum. Lars Hedegaards ytringer skal tilsyneladende – af hensyn de omhandlede grupper naturligvis – bare ties ihjel.

Sædvanen tro synes Anne Knudsen at have misforstået et eller andet. Skulle et fordrukkent fjols lancere tåbeligheder med tårevædet blik rettet mod flagstangen hjemme bag ligusterhækken, er det trist, men måske ikke årsag til stor ståhej. Når formanden for Trykkefrihedsselskabet udtaler sig tåbeligt om “ideologien bag Islam,” optræder han derimod som nøgledeltager i en debat, der tidligere har haft muhammedtegningerne som bidrag: Hvad har man ret til og hvad kan man tillade sig at sige om andre? Når lederstaben i DF derefter går ud og støtter op om det fordrukne vrøvl, er der rent faktisk tale om en politisk debat. Det fordrukne vrøvl bliver gentaget på parlamentarisk niveau.

Når de “velmenende mennesker” drager i felten er det således ikke for at sige, at Lars Hedegaard er fuld af løgn, men for at pointere, at prominente kræfter rent faktisk finder den slags udtalelser legitime. Det er ikke en afvisning af udsagnet, der for ethvert rationelt mennesker annullerer sig selv, men en kritik af de instanser, som proklamerer udsagnets sandhed ³.

Ifølge Anne Knudsen er “de arme muslimer”, der nu lider under det fordrukne udsagns evindelige gentagelse i medierne, gidsler i oppositionens forsøg på at splitte VKO-regeringen og dermed øge sine chancer for sejr i et kommende folketingsvalg. Muslimernes “angivelige venner” forsøger altså en gang Del og Hersk uden hensyntagen til de muslimske ofre. Spørgsmålet er, om ikke det snarere er Anne Knudsen, der forsøger at delegitimere den “velmenende” kritik generelt? Den “moraliserende” afstandtagen er jo ikke Anne Knudsens kop te. Den vover nemlig at stille sig uden for “det store vi” og påstå muligheden af andre fællesskabsformer. Kulturracisme?

There is a funny double entendre in the French original, which is sadly lost in translation. The sentence has three members. The first one is perceived as a question even though it has no question mark. The second member states that someone said something, this something being the third member. The ambiguity arises in this last member, which can be read as both a direct and an indirect quotation. Either someone repeated the question in the first member – “What matter who’s speaking” – or someone said that, in fact, it matters who is speaking.

The funny bit, of course, is the “someone” claiming the importance of identity. Who speaks at aleph.dk? Both an “I” and a “we.” Certainly, only one person writes all this garbage but there is a difference between the “someone” holding the pen and the “someone” who speaks through what is written. As Foucault once said: “Dans l’écriture, il n’y a pas de la manifestation ou de l’exaltation du geste d’écrire ; il ne s’agit pas de l’épinglage d’un sujet dans un langage ; il est question de l’ouverture d’un espace où le sujet écrivant ne cesse de disparaître.” ²

There are a lot of theoretical subtleties in this argument and, unfortunately, it would derail our argument too much to pursue the disentanglement of their respective threads. Suffice it to say, that it is no longer theoretically viable to uphold the romantic notion of the text as direct imprint of the authoring soul.

The effacing of the authoring authority is, “I” feel, a healthy exercise, which is hopefully at the core of our present authoring function. The friendly questioning of “our” use of personal pronouns resulted, i.a., from our critique of Anne Knudsen’s usage of the term “the greater we” (“det store vi”)³. What is the difference between her “we” and our “we”?

Our “we” is completely empty. It is an empty megaphone, it is the “no hay banda” of Mulholland Drive. Every word needs an articulating mouth and our mouth opens wide for one single statement and is then closed forever. Anne Knudsen’s “greater we,” on the other hand, along with the usages of the “we” demonstrated in We the people, is a doxological “we.” It is the exclusive society of good Danish citizens. It is the obscurantist hailing of a never existing Danish spirit as the only true identity of the good Danish citizen and subsequent attempt at legally ostracizing anyone who dares not to comply.

The consistent question “What matter who’s speaking” and the anonymous “someone” of whoever claiming the importance of the speaker are part and parcel with another of Beckett’s characters. The first person narrator of The Unnamable tried in vain to take the motto “De nobis ipsis silemus.” ⁴. Maybe, in stead of the obscurantist declaration of who “we” are, “we” should accept ourselves as merely “someone” with an anonymous voice, not searching the fixating of identity through language but the opening of a space where “someone” is identity enough.

Anne Knudsen

Anne Knudsen indleder sit juleevangelium – sin sædvanlige tilsvining af alle, der ikke smertefrit træder den gode produktive borgers sko og marcherer i takt med “det store vi” – med et julemysterium: Hvordan kan det være, at der år efter år bliver flere værdigt trængende, når arbejdsløsheden stadigt er lav. Det mystiske ved mysteriet er naturligvis ikke selve mysteriet, som ikke er et mysterium, men proklameringen af mysteriet. Mysteriet har jo rent faktisk mulige forklaringer, men som sædvanlig foretrækker Anne Knudsen at insinuere uforklarlighedens utilladelighed, ligesom hun afviser “forvildede unge” og “moraliserende lovovertrædere”, fordi muligheden af, at de skulle have legitime motiver, ligger uden for den tidligere antropologiske forskers fatteevne ¹.

Julemysteriet er naturligvis relateret til gaven: “Riges omsorg for fattige mennesker er imidlertid en af de dyder, den moderne velfærdsstat har gjort en del for at udrydde; man fandt det nemlig uværdigt, at private fattige skulle (eller bare kunne) sige tak til private rige.” Statens gavegiveri er således “endnu et skridt på vejen væk fra det personlige ansvar og frem mod staten som det eneste voksne samfundsmedlem.” Den patroniserende stat skal altså afløses af de riges patronat. I stedet for en eftergivende stat skal de fattige børn få en anden kærlighed at føle.

Anne Knudsens gaveevangelium afslører dernæst denne kærligheds hemmelighed: ”Giveren af gode gaver giver aldrig rigtig slip på gaven, og modtageren kan aldrig helt glemme giveren. Det er en social grundlov […]” Nu vides det jo ikke, hvorfra Anne Knudsen udleder denne grundlov, dette gavereglement. En noget tendentiøs læsning af Marcel Mauss måske? Men hvad blev af f.eks. Derridas begreb om gaven som det, der ikke kan gives? Giver du bare, hvad du har i overskud, udgør det ingen gave. Gaven er at give husly, når du ikke har plads, at tilgive det utilgivelige.

Næh, ifølge Anne Knudsens juleevangelium er gaven ”aldrig uden betingelser.” Den fattige skal gøre gengæld ved at bedre sig, ved at holde op med at besmudse ”det store vi” og træde den goder borgerlige vals i takt til musikken. Når den fattige modtager et par balsko, skal de på fødderne med ydmyg tak, om de passer eller ej.

Anne Knudsen fortsætter: ”Glæder man andre af et godt hjerte, må man give modtageren lov til at gøre gengæld; det er hårdhjertet at nægte at tage imod taknemmelighed.” De riges gavmilde patronat giver jo af godt hjerte. De vil jo det bedste, og de ved, hvad de snakker om. De er jo rige! De forvildede mennesker skal ledes ind på den rette sti, de skal indlemmes i ”det store vi,” om de vil eller ej, og når de modtager gaven har de pligt dertil.

Gaven er nemlig pligt uden ret: ”Rettigheder er fine, men hvis man har ret til sin gave, bringer den ingen glæde. En gave er netop det, man ikke har ret til.” Den fattige har ingen ret til at modtage, men når gaven falder, skal der rettes ind. Ellers er det ud i kulden. Glædelig jul!

Hvis man anerkender menneskerettighederne, hvilket Anne Knudsen jo foregiver, giver det ikke mening at relativisere og hierarkisere dem. Menneskerettighederne betragtes vel som ubestridelige, som a priori strukturer i menneskets konstitution. Er ytringsfriheden vigtigere end artikel 6, der fremstår lettere overset i de politihandlinger, som Anne Knudsen hylder: “Ethvert menneske har overalt i verden ret til at blive anerkendt som retssubjekt”? Derudover er menneskerettighederne jo en “anerkendelse af den mennesket iboende værdighed og af de lige og ufortabelige rettigheder,” hvorfor de som fundamentale menneskelige elementer er evige. Skal man absolut give dem en historie, springer 1948 i øjnene som åbenlyst pejlemærke for alle menneskerettighederne, hvorfor det igen er meningsløst at tale om “ældste.”

Sætningen “Ytringsfriheden er en af de ældste og vigtigste blandt menneskerettighederne” er i den 12-åriges kladdehæfte en banalitet, der skal straffes med rød blæk og et overbærende blik, men i Anne Knudsens tilfælde fremstår den prioritererende affirmation af menneskerettighederne som del af en politisk vederstyggelighed, der bliver stadig mere fremherskende i det lille dannevang.

Efter denne foruroligende lancering af selektive rettigheder proklameres ytringsfriheden som bolværk mod “autoritære og vilkårlige” politiske systemer. Nu kan vi selvfølgelig diskutere, hvad der kendetegner hhv. frie og autoritære samfund, og hvorvidt de vestlige demokratier er godt i gang med at brænde alle friheder af under flugten fra en imaginær fjende, men det forstyrrende ord er “vilkårlige.” Hvad pokker karakteriserer et vilkårligt politisk system? Det nævnes ikke direkte, men læseren får efterhånden en anelse.

Ytringsfriheden gennemsyrer naturligvis COP15, og Anne Knudsen fremhæver, hvor fantastisk det er, at “enhver” har adgang til diskussionerne i form af 45.000 delegerede. Her har vi igen den selektive universalitet. Over for disse “uafhængige meningsdannere” har vi “aktivisterne” – dem, der bare skal lukke røven, dem, der absolut vil bryde ind i Bella Center, hvor “enhver” jo allerede er forsamlet.

“Aktivister” er for Anne Knudsen, dem der vil bryde ind I Bella Center. Det er dem, er kompromitterer sikkerheden af de forsamlede statsledere. Det er “de forvildede unge med “Klimalømmel” smukt trykt på designerjakkerne.” “De forvildede unge” er formentlig at ligne med “de moraliserende lovovertrædere,” som Anne Knudsen med foragt benævnte dyreretsaktivisterne i sin leder Dyr og dyr. Disse to grupper er ikke omfattet af ytringsfriheden, for de spiller ikke efter reglerne. Eller er det fordi, de bærer designertøj?

Nu er det formentligt svært at påvise en særlig fremtrædende brug af designertøj blandt disse larmende uromagere. Det er naturligvis blot genbrug af Lene Espersens gamle beskrivelse af de forkælede unge, der bare skal holde kæft og acceptere fars tilbud om en BMW. I stedet for som en træt skolelærer, der for tyvende gang skal forklare klassens absolut langsomste pige, hvordan man lægger to tal sammen, at demonstrere påstandens usandsynlighed, er det lettere at påpege, at selv velhaverbørn er inkluderet i menneskerettighederne. Måske ikke Anne Knudsens version, men den oprindelige udgave.

Anne Knudsen er for massedemonstrationer. De er udtryk for forsamlingsfriheden:

“Men hvis almindelige mennesker skal turde demonstrere i gaderne, skal de være trygge ved ikke at blive blandet ind i vold. Det har det danske politi omsider lært, hvordan man sikrer, så vi indtil videre har været stort set fri for de vante rædselsscener; aktivisterne har hidtil kun haft held til at brænde ni privatbiler af.”

Igen selektionen: “Almindelige mennesker” (hvem de så end måtte være) har politibeskyttet ytrings- og forsamlingsfrihed, medens aktivisterne forsøger at ødelægge det hele ved at smide med mursten og brænd alting af. Det er selvfølgelig teoretisk muligt, at Anne Knudsen er så hamrende tåbelig, at hun rent faktisk tror på den distinktion. Alternativet er naturligvis, at hun er grænsefascistoid i sine gentagne forsøg på udgrænse og stigmatisere ethvert forsøg på kritik af status quo. Den trætte skolelærer må igen betragte Anne Knudsens kladdehæfte med regnestykket “aktivist = forkælede, veldesignede voldspsykopater” og give hende frit valg mellem karakteren “tåbe” eller “meget, meget ubehageligt menneske.” Er der andre muligheder? Forslag modtages gladeligt.

Aktivisternes brøde består bl.a. i en krænkelse af ejendomsretten, der også er blandt “de oprindeligste menneskerettigeder.” Vi påpeger kort den selektive, lettere strategiske brug af menneskerettighederne og går skyndsomt videre: “Det er en antidemokratisk handling at øve hærværk, fordi det krænker en grundlæggende menneskerettighed.” Udover en hurtig rød streg under den tvivlsomme logik, må man naturligvis indvende: Hærværk er ulovligt, er det ikke nok? Hvorfor skal de “forvildede unge” med designerjakker pludselig stilles for menneskerettighedsdomstolen?

Anne Knudsens sidste opstød er rettet mod “den stadig mere bizarre Naomi Klein,” som “aktivist” kun har politisk fantasi til opfordringer til vold. Igen er det vist svært på redelig vis at fremstille Naomi Klein som voldsagitator. Problemet med Naomi Klein er jo netop, at hun ikke er radikal nok. Hun er klichéen på en nordamerikansk venstrefløjsaktivist med lidt for mange tomme gloser og fad polemik og lidt for lidt skarp analyse. At betragte Naomi Klein som en stadigt stigende kurve af “bizar” er vist tegn på en ualmindeligt sphincteranstrengt småborgerlighed.

Anne Knudsen afslutter med bravour: “Det flotte ved politiets indsats i København de seneste uger er netop, at det store vi, som kan respektere andre menneskers rettigheder, faktisk har haft fred til at ytre sig.” “Det store vi.” Alligevel! Her bekendes trods alt kulør med en vis tydelighed. “Det store vi,” der er inden for rettens beskyttende og beskyttede sfære over for de “bizarre,” der mener at menneskerettighederne ikke kan deles i “os” og “dem”. Her ser vi endelig, hvad Anne Knudsen mener med “vilkårlige politiske systemer.” Det er de “forvildede” ukontrollerbare, “bizarre” mennesker, der kræver en anden verden.

Anne Knudsen hævder, at de kommer fra “Den anden planet.” Dette er eneste tilfælde af logisk stringens i hendes indlæg. Det er de umælende, men larmende dyr, der råber op til gene for anstændige mennesker. Ytringsfriheden i Anne Knudsens selektive udgave er netop en værn mod sådanne ubehageligeder. Spørgsmålet er, hvor langt hun vil gå for at fremstille stemmerne, der påstår muligheden af en anden verden, som stemmer fra en anden planet.