Bring out your truth

Today the Danish Right-wing party Dansk Folkeparti will raise a question in parliament about the alledged cooperation between then-primeminister Scavenius' girlfriend and the Germans during World War II.

This is the latest development in an ongoing discussion about the Danish policy of cooperation with the Germans 1940-43. Dansk Folkeparti has been turned down on an earlier suggestion about starting a 'Truth Commission' along the lines of the South African one to get to the bottom of the Cooperation Policy.

It seems that they have left out that the Commission in S.A. also has another purpose, namely that of 'Reconciliation'. That commission is meant to heal the country, not widen the gap. This is certainly not the case in Denmark. It reeks more of 'we were right, you were wrong'.

It is an interesting case to show how violent history is never forgotten, but also to show that (modern) politics can be obsessed with an ideologic battle of sorts still.

And in that aspect the present Prime Minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen has unleashed the hounds himself as he used the Cooperation Policy in his legitimation for a new and more activist Danish Foreign Policy.