I left the hotel in the morning for a walk and maybe some coffee. On the way out I spotted the taxi driver from the previous episode and he spotted me. After some small talk, he agreed to take me to see the Grand Mosque of Copenhagen. The actual name of the place is the Hamad Bin Khalifa Civilisation Center, but I doubt anyone calls it that. My new Afghan friend was thrilled that I was interested in seeing the mosque. Muslims really do think they will conquer the world, so any little sign of advance is exciting to them.
The mosque is located in Outer Nørrebro, which is what Americans would call a suburb, but it is more densely populated. Europeans cities tend to put their undesirable populations in apartment blocks outside the city center. In America we have tended in the other direction, building urban reservations for blacks. My guess is Outer Nørrebro used to be a working class Danish area so the rulers dumped the Muslims there. That seems to be the popular thing for rulers everywhere. They dump their problems in the poor areas.
I’ve been through the Muslim areas of Detroit so Outer Nørrebro had a similar vibe, more white faces than I expected, but the same feel. You get the sense that there are many more eyes on you than there are people on the street. The mosque itself is not much to look at, to be fair. Maybe they should not have used the word “grand” this time. Perhaps in a generation, when they can build something like the Islamic Center of America, they can then use the word “grand” to describe it. Right now, the mosque is quite modest…
After what proved to be a boring adventure into a notorious Muslim stronghold, I took to the streets for a walk. I was hungry so I found a place selling pizza and burgers. I had to laugh. The menu looked like every pizza shop menu you see in America. The proprietor spoke only Danish and Arabic, so ordering was more of an adventure that my trip to the mosque, but in the end I had what looked like pizza. Actually, it looked like the stuff I recall as a kid getting at the summer fair. It had that weird orange oil slick on it.
Copenhagen is considered one of the most livable cities in the world and it does not take long to see why this is the case. For starters, it is extremely white. It’s also very middle class. It is the ideal that American Progressives imagine for their enclaves, even though they never put it that way. A city full of smart, middle-class white people, with just the smallest dash of diversity, is a great place to live. It’s certainly why Copenhagen is always high on the list of the happiest places on earth, along with other white cities.
Walking around the city, the peacefulness of the place is striking. In ghettos, of course, the noise and the throbbing tension of vibrancy makes it impossible to relax. But even in tourist areas of nice America cities like Boston and New York, there is an energy to the place. Copenhagen is like a dark version of San Diego. It’s strangely quiet for a city, other than those damned bicycle bells. The city is ruled by cyclists, which is fine, but the ringing of bicycle bells does start to grate on your nerves after a while…
I decided to make the walk over to Christiania Freetown, which is a bohemian village of sorts, founded by drug addicts and bums in the 1970’s. They squatted on government property that had been a military base. Over time it became a sort of Hamsterdam for the Danish drug culture. For reasons I cannot quite fathom, the Danes seem a bit scandalized by the place. I walked over the bridge and followed the line of people. It’s a beautiful walk and the surrounding area is very quaint. I recommend the walk along the canal.
Freetown is pretty much a dud. One of the things that has always been true about weed culture is its falseness. They have spent decades trying to conjure a culture around smoking weed. It’s all fake and stupid, ripped off from various bohemian cultures, by people all but yelling, “Look at me! I smoke weed as a lifestyle choice!” How barren is the soul when the point of life is getting high, eating salty snacks and watching cartoons all day? Freetown is a Potemkin village for Potemkin bohemians….
Walking around the city, I could not help but notice that the Danes apparently cannot regulate their body temperature. It was in the mid-60’s today with a gentle breeze. I was in jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. The locals were in winter coats and scarves. I saw a girl wearing gloves. I suspect they simply like their ‘hygge’- mode more than they let on. The first signs of fall mean the party will be moving indoors. It’s the reverse of what we see in the early spring, when everyone is quick to tear off their clothes as soon as it hits 50…
I noticed a curious thing while hiking around the city. I wanted to buy some things to bring home and maybe a cap or sweatshirt as a reminder of the trip. Nowhere did I see the sorts of shops you tend to see in tourist areas. This is a difference between Europeans and Americans. We go on vacation so we can feed our faces and buy stuff to take back to our overstuffed houses. Europeans go on vacation to see things and enjoy themselves with friends in strange places. For them it is about the living, rather than the acquiring.
This is something I did not appreciate well into adulthood. Having fun stories to tell about your adventures is the best part of travel. It’s the best part of living. I lived an unusual young life so I took it for granted, perhaps, but it was only into my thirties when I figured out that life is for living, not ticking boxes. I guess that is why I find the minimalist style of Scandinavia, so appealing. There’s an uncluttered quality to life here that makes it easier, at least for me, to enjoy the experience. Bring on the Law of Jante…
Having been somewhat disappointed by the lack of vibrancy in Copenhagen, I took a trip to the official mall, figuring I would get a look at the dark underbelly of Denmark. For some reason, shopping malls are the canary in the coal mine. As soon as diversity appears in a community, the nearest mall becomes a no-go zone. It’s not just an issue of imported diversity, as in the over the horizon type. If an apartment complex goes Section 8, within a year the local mall is thumping with ghetto tunes and young vibrants.
From the outside, the mall looks a lot like every US mall. Inside, it looks like the closet of a goth girl exploded and they built a mall around it. It’s a series of clothing stores selling black pants, black shirts and black coats. The radical store sells gray. The sports shops sell the same official team crap you see in America. I looked everywhere but I was unable to find caps, shorts of jerseys for the local teams. It was all American sports teams and American sports apparel brands. That and hip-hop music. Every store, hip-hop music.
That’s the thing. Inside the mall is wigger culture from top to bottom. Every store is playing some sort of American black music. I walked the entire mall, all floors, and as I toured the place I was increasingly aware of my American identity. I kept thinking that the locals would figure out that I was American and then decide to string me up for my country’s rulers imposing the poz on them. This is one of those things that only an American can truly appreciate. The reddest red pill is seeing Danes listening to rap music at the mall…
Finally, the Danes seem to have developed an obsession for the cheeseburger. It seems like every restaurant has their version of the perfect burger. I take a back seat to no man in my appreciation of the cheeseburger. I had some fantastic examples in Copenhagen. I also enjoyed some great fries. They put a vinegar sauce on their fries and they serve them with mayonnaise. These people clearly live in the favor of Odin. Even putting aside the other wonderfulness of the city, the burgers and fries will bring me back soon…
As for the issue of drugs, weed is legal in my state now and all it appears to have done is make a few sleazy people rich and hugely increased the rate of accidents and crazy
Granted this is California so crazy is the terrain but still, it hasn’t helped
Its obviously not possible now I’m starting to come to the conclusion we need a vaccine for most of these drugs to be administered at age 12 or so and kept updated free of charge.
This probably won’t help with pain killer addiction as people might need that option legally but the rest of got to go as they are making it increasingly harder to have a functionality society
Good mayo on good fries is delicious, better than ketchup.
For a good overview of how Jante Law has driven feminism, and lack of exceptionalism, read Roosh’s “Don’t Bang Denmark”.
“Bring on the Law of Jante…” smh.
“It is the ideal that American Progressives imagine for their enclaves, even though they never put it that way. A city full of smart, middle-class white people, with just the smallest dash of diversity, is a great place to live. It’s certainly why Copenhagen is always high on the list of the happiest places on earth, along with other white cities.”
The real Stars Hollow. Did you see Lorelei at Luke’s Diner?
Not sure how many of you are into techno. But you’re surely into the Techno Viking, yes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCdB5p2v0Y
Techno Viking is awesome,thanks Frip.
I scoffed at mayo with fries till I tried it. Mixed with a bit of dill pickle relish,it’s addictive.
I always order a side cup of Ranch and squeeze a good bit of yellow mustard in it. Mix it up and dip fries. I never liked ketchup because I’m sophisticated as hell.
I often order mayo with fries. Its tastier than ketchup. I’ve tried it with dill pickle relish, we call that tartar sauce around here and serve it with fish BTW. I’m not as fond of it.
Great travelogue, Z-man. When I visited Copenhagen in 1985 it was the punk capital of the world, seemingly. Nothing but lacquered, dyed mohawks in the public squares. This was after that fashion trend had already peaked in the UK and the States.
Mayo on the fries – yep. Real good version to be had in Amsterdam too.
Z: ” I looked everywhere but I was unable to find caps, shorts of jerseys for the local teams. It was all American sports teams and American sports apparel brands. That and hip-hop music. Every store, hip-hop music.”
Foreigners like to gripe that Americans think the rest of the world is thinking about them. I used to buy that line and feel kinda guilty. Then I saw the rest of the world, and watched their TV shows (ours) and watched their news (about us), and realized the rest of the world really does think about us a lot. I was truly amazed at just how much.
We Americans are like that mysterious crazy second cousin that occasionally rolls into town and turns everything topsy-turvy. Then we leave and everyone gets back to normal, but tries to figure out what just happened. That’s why they love us, hate us, and are fascinated by us, all at once. They are also often glad to see us go, to be honest.
Trump is the galactic hyper-version of that same thing.
Funny. Yeah, politics aside, it would’ve really sucked if America was represented by Hillary Clinton. Just debilitatingly uncool. Like, taking your sister to the prom uncool. The land of Robert E. Lee, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, and Steve McQueen, now presents you with…fat ass in a pantsuit.
Good point on the weed culture. My minimal college experience with the weed was that one gets fascinated with the most trivial and mundane things, and the pointless becomes awesome. I was reminded of the days when I was moving wifey’s car out of the garage, and some moronic woman on NPR was going on about how death is a reversion to the soil, and back to nature’s rhythms, and recycling your body, and how thrilling it is to know this, and blah, blah, blah. All I could think of was “stoner chick”. Turns out it was a TED Talk and she was some sort of tenured academic who was self-styled as an expert on death. I so look forward to our stoner nation future—not.
Your observations about the presence and influence of hip hop music is more pertinent than perhaps you realize. In the most fundamental sense, this archetype exists because it works. By that I mean that it is a highly effective methodology for subliminal mental infection. Syncopation, inflection, and repetition are highly tuned to resonate within the mind’s neuronal rhythms and thereby create mental habits at the most basic level. The tedium of urban living creates systemic boredom because of the extinction of existential threat. Hip hop fills this void by simulating the sounds of the jungle.
I read somewhere relatively recently that China banned hiphop in conjunction with a mass deportation of 50,000 illegal invader Africans. Someone is paying attention to the mechanisms of the destruction of the West, and how to prevent it from happening to them.
“How barren is the soul when the point of life is getting high…”
Zman, you just made a thousand Libertarians cry. BTW, I absolutely love your travelogues. I hope there will be more to come. Any chance you’ll visit Hungary, Czech or Poland?
We spent a few days in Copenhagen on the way to Spain…it is indeed remarkably quiet, and very white. We were there in the winter, when the sea mist permeates every piece of clothing you have, so very cold..I have to admit that, apart from visiting the famous Mermaid, there was not a lot to do in central Copenhagen. It rather reminded me of Munich, but with less activity.
As for the Freetown, only hicks are scandalized by it. The greatest scandal is that the inhabitants live almost rent free on one of the most desirable locations in Copenhagen. For insiders, the scandal is that this ostensible hippie commune are ruled by greedy dictators.
Personally, I’d like to take a bulldozer to the place, restore the bastions and the moat, make it into a park, maybe keep a few of the restaurants. As you noted, the area is astonishingly beautiful, especially for a location that close to the city center.
The problem is that the Copenhagen bourgeoisie like to have a place where they can get their drugs without having to deal with street pushers. Legalize pot, get some cozy coffee shops and Christiania will be history inside five years.
I like the cut of your jib.
The vibrancy of Nørrebro depends very much on the time of day. From 7-9AM, it’s almost strictly Danes on their way to work, and as the main street, Nørrebrogade, is one of the major arteries for bicycle commuters, there’s a lot of whiteys. The locals only start to come out about noon.
maybe the white boys are working.
How right you are about malls! I was in Cologne 3 months before the infamous New Year’s Eve sexual assaults. Staying in a businessy, not too bad neighborhood. Went to the local mall in the late afternoon. Like in every country, teenagers were hanging out in front of the mall. The mall is just the center of teenage and young adult community life. Perhaps that is white: if a neighborhood “goes”, it is the teenagers and young adults who “go” first.
I could see two kinds of young people: white girls and brown boys. Perhaps the brown girls were just not allowed out by their parents, as they are not allowed to talk to any male non-family-members anyway, but where were the white boys? Did the brown boys promise them a beating if they show up or they just chose videogames over trying to outcompete the brown boys at flirting with the girls?
At any are they are growing up with the firm knowledge that they are sexually, and socially, and generally just as a man, in their manliness, inferior to brown boys.
I’ve been to Scandinavia twice. It was boring. Twice.
I’ve never heard of anyone else putting mayo on fries. My dad started doing it in the nineties to annoy my mom. Is that a thing or just some Danish thing that got warped by the trip over the pond?
Trip over which pond? Denmark can be reached overland from Belgium, the home of French fries. Adding mayos sounds a little like Quebec’s version of French fries: poutine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
Many Germans do it too. It’s a disgusting abomination.
It’s a Belgian thing, the vinegar is a British import. When I was young, it used to be remoulade.
Yes, enjoyed the Belgian mayo on fries on a trip in the 1980’s. Lovely place, pre invasion.
To each his own, as almost every language has this expression.
The only true outrage is vegetarianism. Disgusting!
I think it started in the nineties with the mayo on fries. Prior to that it was remoulade or ketchup. Ketchup is still used by many. cold/hot sauce bearnaise is also used by some.
I read about mayo on the fries long ago in Holland. I tried it and its pretty good.
Your link to the Islamic Center of America is interesting. I have driven down the main road near it many times and viewed it from afar with disinterest. Still not interested enough to get closer. Most of Dearborn has been surrendered and go off the beaten path and you can’t even read the signs.
Boy, that’s the truth about malls. Having lived in and around Atlanta most of my life, I’ve seen the death of many malls. In Atlanta, it’s not just diversity in the area, the devastation also follows rapid transit.
I looked at the “livable cities” link. I noticed that most brag about their diversity.
In most lib towns diversity consists of a few well-behaved coloreds and foreigners accompanied by a plethora of restaurants with exotic foods. True vibrancy and cultural enrichment are unknown or quietly supressed.
Same in the Chicago area, where I grew up. The only malls that have survived are on the Northern lake front, where the real estate prices keep the vibrants from living there. Every other mall in the Chicago area goes through a short lifespan until it becomes too vibrant to survive. And even the upper class malls I mentioned will slowly be undermined by the diversity coming up from the city, or from the poorer suburbs. Auto theft from the parking lots is already rising, which is one of the first signs.
MARTA (Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta) has done its work well.
The progressive may want a city full of smart, middle-class white people, with a dash of diversity…
What they always seem to get (in the U.S. at least) is a nice city center full of rich people, with the truly poor a few blocks away. The middle class is pushed out to the perimeter by crime and costs.
If you want to see some diversity you need to cross the bridge into Malmo. I used to spend a lot of time there in the late ’90s and early ’00s. I don’t believe I would recognize the place anymore.
I have lived in Nørrebro for 4.years. Most of the buildings are from 1880-1900 and was a area for the working class. Between 1960-1975 some of the worst buildings were taken down because they purely built and did´t have any toilet facilities. They were replaced by newly built social housing. So, you have in Nørrebro islands of social housing projects from that periode that is inhabited with 3.rd world immigrants. The older buildings the 19-century are privately owned and inhabited by danes. Many young and progressives live there but many move when they start to have a family. Close to Nørrebro you have Østerbro that historically was for the middel class. There is no social housing built there and almost no immigrants. The same with the city center that is more expensive. Most 3.rd world immigrants in northern Europe live in social housing projects built in the sixties. Most of them are in the suburbs of the cities. In Sweden they came up with a plan for social housing in the fifties called “the million programme”. They wanted to built one million new apartments for the working class. The problem was that the raising working class did´nt want to live there but wanted their own private properties. It was the same in Denmark. Many of these social housing projects was empty in the seventies and it was planned to take some of them down. In the beginning of eighties 3.rd world immigration though asylum stated and there was a demand for these social housing projects. Because most of them are in these suburbs to the cities and often are cities on their own people could live almost segregated from the immigrants. This is changing because these suburbs are filled up and the problems from them starts to spill over to the rest of society. 3.rd world immigration was only a problem for the working class who had to live close to them for decades but now it starts to effect the middel class because it cannot be contained in these suburbs anymore. I think it is the case for most of northern Europe.
That explains a lot. Some was fery nice some not very nice. Seemed like an odd place to put a mosque.
There are several mosque on Nørrebro. Historically most of the have been in abandon production facilities. Within the last last decade two new mosque has been built from the grund. One sunni mosque with money from Qatar and it is known to have strong connections to the muslim brotherhood. The second one is a shia mosque paid by Iran. I don´t think many persians come there. I think it mostly used by Shias from Iraq. The Turkish state has recently subsided several mosques but I think it is in cites close to Copenhagen.
Once a year the shia muslims have their Ashura parade that goes though Nørrebro and though the center of the city. I think the majority of them are from Iraq. I saw several times when I lived there and it was funny to see the face of many progressives when the saw it. Many looked quite scared. 3.min video of it here from Nørrebro;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUeKN2GPj5E
Thank you for your insights, and for posting that video.
I have mentioned before that I come from a very diverse family. I have first cousins that are of Scandinavian and other European descent as well as Blacks and Asians, and have spent time on every continent but Australia and Antarctica. Once in Europe we had occasion to visit one of the compounds outside a major city that I think was built for the purpose of housing immigrant labor. The place looked like a prison from the outside, was surrounded by chain link fence topped off by barbed wire, and we entered through a closable gate, although I never saw it closed. The apartments were of formed concrete that looked like a rush job. I saw no duct work or vents. All the windows in the place seemed to be open, and there were space heaters in the main rooms that looked like they had been purchased as used goods. Walls covered with family photos and old wardrobes because no closet space. This was close to twenty years ago, so there was a dark underbelly to Europe before all this refugee crap and unfettered movement brought about by the EU.
We also visited downtown apartments occupied by immigrant labor. Better built, but very small.
There are parts of Europe no tourist is supposed to see. And maybe not even Europeans. After the last several years, perhaps everything one sees there is a Potemkin village.
Europe’s foreign labor problem dates back long before the EU. Large numbers began arriving in the 1950s economic boom, as a way to curb the power of the labor unions. Further increases happened in the 1970s as a way to appease Arab nations to ensure oil supply. Contraception and feminism were now reducing fertility.
Arguably it extends even further back, to the days of the First World War when colonial troops were brought to France, and a large number of Chinese coolies were brought in to fill support roles.
There’s a similar Ellis Island type myth that the “hard working immigrants rebuilt Europe” after the war. Welfare dependency data shows this to be a lie. Foreign labor is a child of the Marshall Plan.