DAR AL HARB - DENMARK: KHADER HAS ASSIMILATED TO THE POINT THAT HE IS NOW GOING TO WORK TOWARDS DENMARKS COMPLETE ASSIMILATION INTO DHIMMITUDE

Muslim Politician Is Messenger of Change
By Manfred Ertel

In Denmark of all places -- the country with Europe's toughest immigration laws -- a Muslim member of parliament has become a rising star on the political scene. Now he wants to shake up traditional Danish politics with his new party.

Is this the kind of man Danish voters are pinning their hopes on? The sort of man who is causing an upheaval in the calcified political atmosphere between Århus and Copenhagen? He is casually dressed, and his black hair and bronze skin reveal his Arab roots. He also happens to be a Muslim.

Naser Khader, 43, sits in his makeshift office in Copenhagen's old town surrounded by boxes, laptops and loose cables. "It was so boring here, with absolutely nothing going on," he says. "I am very pleased that we have managed to get some movement into politics."

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Khader and his story personify the most hotly debated question in Denmark today: How many foreigners should be allowed into the country, and how many immigrants and refugees can the Danish welfare system bear? No more than are already there, argues the xenophobic Danish People's Party (DPP), and especially not any Muslims. As far as the DPP is concerned, Muslims are nothing but forms of "cancer" whose goal in life is to murder the "real Danes."

The populist right-wing party managed to get Europe's toughest immigration laws on the books because Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his center-right minority government needed its support. Even the Council of Europe has criticized Denmark for promoting "an atmosphere of intolerance and xenophobia."

Khader wants to fight the right-wing populists. He also wants to secure more power for himself, as a member of a new center-right government. The country's immigration policy must change, he says: "Our borders must be open." But, he adds, "our social security funds should be closed."

The parliamentarian is currently riding a wave of sympathy. His offices are literally teeming with young volunteers, who see Khader as a kind of pop star. As Redington has discovered, the newcomer derives much of his support from more well-educated and higher-earning voters, who are tired of high taxes and Denmark's poor reputation. "For them," says Redington, "he is the message of change."

Khader doesn't see his role as being quite so revolutionary. "We are not a protest party, but a people's party," he says. "We are the first party of the new center." When asked if he sees himself as an Arab Dane, Khader, who holds a Master's degree in political science, responds: "I have faith, but I'm not religious. And I am a fanatical democrat." And yet there is much about the politician that makes him far more Danish than many a Dane: his blonde wife, their summer home on the island of Seeland and the Danebrog, or Danish flag, fluttering at his door.

"But I also fight for my mother," the politician insists. She is a conservative Muslim who regularly visits the mosque and wears a headscarf -- right in the middle of Khader's modern Denmark.

"Integration is a life-long process," he says, "and I am still in the middle of it."



Pertinent Links:

1) Muslim Politician Is Messenger of Change