It’s official. The Danes are the happiest people in Europe. We outsmile our fellow Scandinavians, the Netherlands and indeed the UK by quite a margin. In a recently published Cambridge University Study, where 20,000 Europeans were asked to rate their country on a scale from naught to 10 on a variety of issues, the regions in Denmark all score eight or above. And the happiest of all joyful places in Denmark is Ringkobing, where people just can’t stop smiling. They love each other, party all year round, hold hands with their neighbors and rejoice every time a visitor comes to town — not!
I’ve been to Ringkobing and if this is the happiest place on earth, please show me the exit. Ringkobing is the Bible belt of Denmark. Located on the midwestern outskirts of Jutland, this is an area that can brag of being almost void of cultural activities. The population is probably 99 percent white. The town center is virtually a ghost town from 5 p.m. onward, but no doubt Ringkobing’s churches are full on Sundays.
Ringkobing County is under the political control of Venstre — the prime minister’s center-right party. On the county website the mayor, Hans Ostergaard, is indeed smiling and so are the other elected officials, but they wear strange suits that resemble those the British soldiers captured in Iran were forced to wear, and one can’t help wonder if President Ahmadinejad might indeed be behind the happiness rating. Maybe there’s some kind of plot afoot where the good people of Ringkobing were forced to say they were hysterically happy?
Actually the very fact that Ringkobing was identified as the happiest place in Europe raises serious questions about the whole scientific exercise of trying to measure quality of life in the respective European countries. I’m not saying that the people of Ringkobing are not nice people or that they are not leading good and secure lives, as are most citizens in the welfare society of Denmark. But is this survey seriously suggesting that the people of Ringkobing have a higher quality of life than say the people of Tuscany, the French Riviera or Monaco? It all boils down to the questions asked. Those taking part in the survey were asked a number of questions about their views of government, schools, the police, etc. In this part of Denmark, people are traditionally modest and hard-working. Complaining about one’s hardships is not common practice. If you ask a person who’s been going through a rough spell how he or she is doing, they will probably say “I have no reason for complaints”. This is by tradition the Danish Lutheran attitude and it is this attitude that is reflected in the survey. Of course, there is plenty to be happy about in Denmark. We are going through an unparalleled patch of economic prosperity, enabling people to buy new kitchens, hi-fi’s and computers. The property market has skyrocketed in a way that compares to London and life expectancy is still relatively high (although significantly lower than in Norway and Sweden) and the towns and cities are clean. All the essentials for leading a good and meaningful life are there. And I think it’s fair to say that one would expect Denmark to be in the upper half of such a survey.
But we have serious problems as well. On the BBC’s website the Danish ambassador to London, Birger Riis-Jorgensen, explains that while many other nations view globalization as a threat, the Danes see it as a challenge. This is an ambiguous truth. It is true that in terms of business we are doing OK, but the thought of too many foreigners coming to Denmark sits uneasily with the prevailing monocultural sentiment. The Danish Employers Association recently called for more foreign workers to come to Denmark, but the fear of foreign cultures, especially Islam, has led to a political deadlock on the issue that is bad for business and has nothing to do with embracing globalization.
On the issue of migration the good people of Ringkobing are running scared and seeking protection in their local community, as indeed are many other Danes. The Prophet cartoon crisis underlined the fact that Denmark is not a coherent society, but rather a society split in two. One side is fighting to maintain Danish values, while the other strives for internationalism.
There is also a generation problem, which was evident during the recent riots in Copenhagen. It seems there are many equations defining happiness in very different ways, but nonwhite visitors to Denmark will certainly not be met with smiles and open arms — that is not the Danish way.
Still the result of some of the survey does make sense. The welfare society, in part a Danish invention, is still in place. Kindergartens and schools are pretty good, but not brilliant. They are good in the sense that there are less really bad schools in Denmark than, say, in Britain. On the other hand, we don’t have world-class institutions that compare with Oxford and Cambridge. Egalitarianism is prevalent and that in many ways is a good thing, but unfortunately not very dynamic and therefore, it could be argued that there’s not enough flux in Danish society. In effect, the only real challenge to the social-democratic consensus is the libertarianism that is gaining ground, not to mention the reactionary nationalism represented by the Danish People’s Party. The other day, Soren Krarup, a vicar, nationalist and MP, likened the Muslim headscarf to the Nazi insignia.
Denmark is good country and we have much to be proud of. But to suggest that Denmark is the happiest nation — indeed that Ringkobing is the happiest place — in Europe speaks volumes about the problems of using a uniform questionnaire in relation to very different parts of Europe. It is quite likely that a person sitting in the shade of an olive tree in Tuscany drinking a glass of chianti might complain about the hardships of the world, while someone from windblown Ringkobing will be dancing for joy. But maybe he’s not dancing, but trying to keep warm.
