Democratic Muslims

THE restaurant, unpretentious and vaguely chic, and the weather, cold and rainy, were as they should have been in northerly, elegant Copenhagen. The watchful plainclothes policemen were not. These are strange, unsettling times in Denmark: quiet, orderly, peaceful, nothing-happens-here Denmark; hated, reviled, infidel, embassies-in-flames Denmark. I was having lunch with Naser Khader, a Syria-born member of the Danish parliament for the Social Liberals (the party of Denmark’s metropolitan elite), a brave, engaging man who has discovered that, in today’s Denmark, for a Muslim to speak his mind about Islamic extremism means immense popularity-he’s probably the country’s most acclaimed politician-and a life under police protection.

When we met he was emerging from the brief period of seclusion that followed the release of footage shot for French TV in which Ahmed Akkari, one of Denmark’s militant imams (the very notion of militant imams in Denmark—Denmark-would have been ludicrous a decade or so ago), appeared to suggest that if Khader became a minister in the Danish government he should be blown up. It was, Akkari claimed later, a joke. Ha ha ha.

About the Author

Andrew Stuttaford

Andrew Stuttaford is the editor of National Review's Capital Matters.

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THE restaurant, unpretentious and vaguely chic, and the weather, cold and rainy, were as they should have been in northerly, elegant Copenhagen. The watchful plainclothes policemen were not. These are strange, unsettling times in Denmark: quiet, orderly, peaceful, nothing-happens-here Denmark; hated, reviled, infidel, embassies-in-flames Denmark. I was having lunch with Naser Khader, a Syria-born member of the Danish parliament for the Social Liberals (the party of Denmark’s metropolitan elite), a brave, engaging man who has discovered that, in today’s Denmark, for a Muslim to speak his mind about Islamic extremism means immense popularity-he’s probably the country’s most acclaimed politician-and a life under police protection.

When we met he was emerging from the brief period of seclusion that followed the release of footage shot for French TV in which Ahmed Akkari, one of Denmark’s militant imams (the very notion of militant imams in Denmark—Denmark-would have been ludicrous a decade or so ago), appeared to suggest that if Khader became a minister in the Danish government he should be blown up. It was, Akkari claimed later, a joke. Ha ha ha.