Het volgende tekst is een hypothetisch worst case scenario die leiden tot een burger oorlog in Denenmarken.
Introduction
As in all those parts of Europe with large and growing Muslim minorities, Denmark had experienced great difficulty in the early years of the 21st century in trying to maintain its historic freedoms and cultural traditions in the face of the increasingly strident demands of its Islamic population. However, due to a variety of factors including the unhealed scars of the Muhammad Cartoon Controversy (hereafter referred to as the MCC) and the manifest incompatibility of native Danish culture with Shari’a law, the situation worsened considerably in the years immediately after said controversy. The Danish government had some success in slowing the rate of growth of the Muslim population through its new restrictions on granting citizenship on the basis of marriage. However, by the outbreak of the civil war in 2013, that fraction of the population accounted for by Muslims was estimated to be 11%, pushed upward as it was through continued immigration and higher fertility rates among Muslims. Emigration from Denmark, particularly on the part of university-educated native Danes in their 20s and 30s, exacerbated the demographic situation.
In June 2008, a simultaneous suicide bombing destroyed five buses in Copenhagen, killing 68 people and wounding 174. Though condemned by all prominent Muslim groups in Denmark, opinion polls made it clear that a significant fraction of Muslims in the country sympathized with the bombers, who had issued martyrdom videos saying that the Danish presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the MCC had left Muslims ‘no option’ but to strike back. In a pattern seen in the UK after the 7/7 bombings there, Muslim groups became more confident than ever in pressing their demands for concessions of various sorts. Insisting that, however terrible the bombings might have been, they would not stop until Muslims felt their grievances against the Danish state had been addressed, Muslim advocacy groups pushed forward with a series of initiatives designed to drive foreign and domestic policies in directions considered more amenable to Islamic mores.
In response to these challenges, the Danish government adopted a policy of granting key concessions in what can only be considered an attempt at appeasement. During this initiative, which lasted from early 2009 until July 2012, the Danish government introduced a raft of measures to try to placate Muslim opinion in Denmark. The most important of these were as follows:
Autonomous Cultural Zones]
Certain geographically limited urban areas with majority Muslim populations were recognized as Autonomous Cultural Zones. Here, local councils were allowed to pass certain supplementary laws in accordance with the cultural demands of the inhabitants. As these areas all had Muslim-majority councils, this was essentially a rubber stamp for certain Shari’a legal provisions to be introduced without having to make the nature of the concession explicit. Provisions introduced included the prohibition of the sale or consumption of alcohol or pork products and a strict dress code which prohibited the wearing of T-shirts or other ‘revealing’ items to men and women alike. Though ostensibly enforceable by the police via on-the-spot fines, in practice the police presence in these areas dwindled from little to nothing in a matter of weeks. This allowed local Muslim enforcers to step well outside the newly established boundaries, demanding far greater adherence to the Shari’a than had been legally mandated. In combination, these developments drove virtually all non-Muslims and significant numbers of Muslims out of these areas.
Shari’a Courts
The Danish government allowed the creation of Shari’a courts to allow Muslims to resolve marriage, divorce and inheritance-related issues in accordance with Shari’a law. Strictly speaking, participation was optional, with any Muslim being free to insist on dealing with these matters via the existing court system. In practice however, community pressures up to and including the threat of violence forced many Muslims, particularly women, to deal with the Shari’a courts against their will. In addition to effectively stripping thousands of Muslim women of their rights under Danish law, the new courts were not long established before their advocates started demanding that the scope of their activities be expanded, to allow them to apply Shari’a rulings in relation to crime as well. These attempts were still underway when the events of July 5, 2012 took place.
Muslim Foreign Affairs Advisory Council
A sum of $10 million per annum was set aside to fund the activities of the Muslim Foreign Affairs Advisory Council, a body dedicated to researching how Denmark could enjoy better relations with the Islamic world. Though lacking any official authority, the level of funding awarded, the prestige afforded the new body, and the degree of access it enjoyed to decision-makers marked a significant coup for Muslim activists in Denmark.
During the approximately three years it was in existence, the MFAAC generated an unceasing flow of proposals. Whether recommending the cessation of diplomatic ties with Israel, the donation of 1% of GDP per annum for aid to the Muslim world, or formal apologies from Danish ambassadors for the MCC in Muslim countries, the focus of the MFAAC on pursuing Muslim interests led it to be viewed by many as an active fifth column.
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The events of July 5, 2012 stopped these developments in their tracks. A public press conference due to feature key Cabinet members and representatives of leading Muslim groups had been scheduled for the purpose of reaffirming bilateral support for the ailing concession-based policies. At 11:58, two minutes before it was due to start, a massive truck bomb was driven at speed into the security detail at the entrance of the government building in downtown Copenhagen where the conference was due to be held. Estimated to have contained over a tonne and a half of high explosive, the blast obliterated the venue, also destroying two medium-height buildings across the road and causing significant damage to every structure within a 200m radius. The attack claimed the lives of 346 people, wounded 1,500, many of them seriously, and caused $900 million of damage in total. A previously-unknown Islamic terrorist group claimed responsibility for the atrocity, which it said had succeeded in its twin objectives of striking a blow against the Danish Crusader regime and also at those apostate Muslims who recognized its authority.
Needless to say, once the ensuing political chaos had abated somewhat, the sitting government and its concession-based approach to things Islamic had fallen out of favour. An election held on September 23 was unprecedented in Danish history for the picture of polarization it presented. Radical Islamist parties captured a majority of the Muslim vote. Though their platforms differed, they showed thematic similarities, ranging as they did from demanding regional autonomy to advocating outright secession on the basis of a geographically consolidated Muslim bloc in possession of key infrastructural items such as ports and airports.
On the other hand, the newly formed strongly centre-right coalition advocated a set of draconian anti-Islamization, if not anti-Islamic, policies. These included the deportation of any Muslims without Danish citizenship, the drafting of new legislation prohibiting the implementation of any aspect of Shari’a law in Denmark, indefinite detention of any Muslim suspected of supporting political Islam in any form, and the repeal of all legislation introduced by the previous government to support its policy of concessions.
On election day, the coalition swept the board to attain a huge majority in the Danish Parliament, a result which prompted riots across Denmark, not only of Muslims, but anarchist and hard-left groups. As the riots entered their second week, a state of emergency was declared and the Danish military was ordered to maintain order in key urban areas with large Muslim populations. Copycat riots in other European countries, though smaller in scale, prompted European governments concerned about their domestic Muslim populations to urge the Danish government to show restraint and ‘reach out’ to its embittered Muslim minority.
Of course, events in Denmark were not taking place in a vacuum. The election of the centre-right coalition and the growing realization on the part of European publics (if not yet their governments) of the magnitude of the divide between Muslim and non-Muslim Europeans did not go unnoticed in the Muslim world. Despite initial displays of sympathy from Muslim governments around the world following the July 5 attacks, retaliation against the Danish state (or the Danish Entity, as Danes themselves now humorously referred to it) by the Muslim world was swift. Having learnt valuable lessons during the MCC, the new Danish government had increased security and withdrawn non-vital personnel from its embassies throughout the Muslim world immediately upon being elected. However, Danish diplomatic and business interests were attacked in Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, and Iran, resulting in dozens of deaths and the almost complete withdrawal of Danish corporate activity from Muslim-majority countries. Danish citizens were warned against travelling anywhere in the Muslim world, though the number who would have felt inclined to do so was presumably negligible by then anyway.
Moving into 2013, it was still far from clear how events would play out, but a number of trends made it obvious that there was little hope that things might improve. Various key trends merit discussion here.
Increasing Segregation
Violence and intimidation directed towards non-Muslims living in or around areas dominated by Muslim populations saw a dramatic rise during the Seven Month Calm (as it is now called), from September 23, 2012 to April 23, 2013. At the same time, suspicion, hostility, and violence directed towards Muslims also increased sharply, inducing many of those who lived outside the ghettoes to relocate back in.
Genuinely well-integrated Muslims gained attention during this period for the unusually cruel nature of their plight. Trapped as they were between the choices of a forced embrace of the mushrooming Islamic fanaticism in the ghettoes and the now almost-universal hostility towards them and their religion amongst other Danes, several prominent Muslims made high-profile exits from the country. It would be hard to say which side missed them the least.
Declining Authority of the State
Islamic claims that the Danish state had no authority were hardly a novelty in Denmark, following on as naturally as they did from the universalist claims of the Shari’a. However, native Danes were also becoming increasingly vocal in their complaints that the entire apparatus of state had failed to carry out its most basic responsibilities to the people it was elected to serve. From trenchant criticisms of decades of Danish immigration policy to the huge jump in gun purchases and the formation of informal militias, there was suddenly an abundance of evidence supporting the notion that Danes now viewed their government as an incompetent blunderer at best, an active enabler of Islamization at worst.
The rot went deeper than mere scepticism about the merits of specific parties. Having obtained power in September, the new government was struggling to carry out its election pledges. The planned deportations were proving to be a legal and logistical minefield, with government lawyers finding themselves hamstrung by EU Human Rights Legislation, and opposed at every turn by domestic and international human rights organizations. At the same time, the Danish kroner and stock markets, hit hard by July 5, continued to struggle due to the ongoing political crisis, and Danish trade with the Muslim world had dried up entirely due to boycotts. It was far from clear what the current government, or indeed any government, could do to extract the country from the predicament it now faced.
Heightened Militant Activity Among Muslims
In Denmark, as in all European countries, intelligence services had been monitoring the activists of Islamists for many years. However, an alarming spike in Islamist infiltration and activity was clearly visible during the Seven Month Calm.
Osama bin Laden’s successor and former second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had issued a video statement immediately after the July 5 bombings congratulating the terrorists and saying that Europe was tottering and would soon fall into the hands of Islam. There was speculation among intelligence communities in Western nations that this was a coded message to Islamic terrorists around the world to converge on European countries. Either way, it was soon clear that infiltration into Europe of Islamic militants with experience fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries was surging, as were the criminal activities associated with them; drug dealing and credit card rackets to supplement their foreign funding, and arms and explosives smuggling for purposes it was difficult to be sanguine about.
Analysis of the relevant data showed that Denmark was a key target for these infiltrators to a disproportionate extent. This bias, though slight, was a source of concern for Danish intelligence. However, the open borders of the EU made it difficult to control the movement of Islamic radicals effectively.
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April 23
Though it is not yet clear exactly what happened on April 23, 2013 to trigger the momentous events that followed, a broad outline can be offered here with some confidence. At approximately 19:30, a native Danish couple were taking a stroll at the edge of one of the ex-Autonomous Cultural Zones in Copenhagen when they were approached by a group of four or five young Muslim men. The men insisted that the Danish girl should cover her head or leave the area. She refused, leading to a violent altercation between her companion and the men, which resulted in him being knocked unconsciousness with a fractured skull. The girl herself was dragged off into a nearby alley and gang raped, after which the Muslim men left. Still in shock, the girl called her brother, who then made two phone calls. The first was to the ambulance service, as both the girl and her boyfriend were in urgent need of medical attention. The second was to the leader of a small Copenhagen militia of which he himself was a member.
It seems that the ambulance service and the eight members of the militia arrived at the scene at the same time. The militia members, heavily armed with semi-automatic rifles and in vehicles, ignored the attempts of two policemen who had happened upon the scene to placate them. After ensuring that the young man and woman were being treated and asking for a description of their assailants, they drove off in the general direction they concluded they must have gone, back into the ex-ACZ.
Details of what ensued are difficult to ascertain. However, it seems that the militia members quickly encountered two men whom they considered a good match for the descriptions they had received. Disembarking nearby, they challenged the men and, after a brief verbal altercation, shot and killed them. Having chosen, for reasons that are not clear, not to leave the area immediately despite the unfavourable attention they were now receiving from a growing crowd of angry Muslims, they came under fire and returned it. Given the aforementioned crowd, and the militia’s high capacity military-issue rifles, chaos quickly ensued, with dozens of Muslim casualties.
Though property damage in the surrounding area, caused largely by fire, destroyed much of the existing CCTV hardware, footage from those left untouched was later combined with that automatically transmitted to police headquarters to provide a gripping, though fragmentary, depiction of the last stand of the surrounded militia members. For approximately an hour, the gradually dwindling band tried to fight its way back out of the ex-ACZ it had entered, inflicting scores of casualties on Muslims armed with firearms and Molotov cocktails. The end, when it came, was gruesome. After running out of ammunition, the sole surviving militia member, with a gunshot wound clearly visible in the left side of his abdomen, was surrounded and torn to pieces by an enraged Muslim mob.
This final footage was time-stamped 21:37, April 23, 2013, as good a moment as any other to mark the start of the open warfare that erupted across the entire country as word of the battle spread.
April 24
In a marked departure from earlier Muslim riots in Europe, the Danish riots that commenced the night of April 23 had a much more serious character from the start, and nowhere was this more visible than in the nature of the violence. Though there was the predictable amount of Molotov cocktail-throwing, car-torching, and raw physical violence on the part of Muslims, there was also a large amount of firearm violence. Crude and largely ineffectual though it tended to be, it caused a number of casualties throughout the day. Suspicions of some degree of organization and preparation were to be proved correct by subsequent events.
More striking was the response of the other side, particularly the militias. The sheer scale of the violence, its geographical range and the number of people involved made it impossible for the police and the army to seal it off from the country at large. Though the violence was focused in and around the Muslim ghettos, the lack of any boundaries between these areas and their surroundings turned virtually every urban area in Denmark into a potential battle zone.
In response, as the government entered an emergency session to formulate a response to the situation and the police and army were deployed in strategic locations, many Danish citizens, most of them members of one of the large number of militias, fought back against Muslims with startling ruthlessness. The ready availability of firearms in Denmark coupled with the high average level of firearms training in the country meant that the militias were in a strong position to contest the situation. Violence raged across great swathes of urban Denmark as scores of Muslims were killed by gunfire across the country. Arson attacks by Muslims numbered in the hundreds, and fire departments struggled to combat what was being turned into a weapon of war by the more poorly armed Muslims.
April 25 — May 2
Violence continued in a similar manner, with both sides ignoring the calls of the government to cease fighting. Tense confrontations between armed citizens and the police were common, as the militias, already showing increased organization and purpose, disputed the authority of a government that had, they felt, failed so completely to safeguard the security of the country. Vicious street-fighting throughout areas bordering Muslim ghettos had driven people living in those areas to retreat — Muslims further into the ghettos, non-Muslims out toward solidly non-Muslim areas. This gradual creation of a no-go zone between the combatants only reinforced the sense for some that this was a war, however unconventional. Television crews from around the world streamed into Denmark to report on the situation, almost inconceivable in a Northern European country.
May 3
Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting brought about by the increasing physical separation of the combatants and a day of unusually poor weather, the Danish police and army moved to encircle all substantial Muslim ghettos in the country. Sporadic fighting continued where the state presence was light. Militia leaders insisted on retaining forces in strategic positions and being consulted on developments. TV crews were now camped on both sides of the front line, broadcasting both sides of the unfolding crisis around the world.
May 4
The situation by noon on May 4 had largely stabilized as follows: All major and most minor Muslim ghettoes were now surrounded by an as-yet chaotic mixture of army, police and militia forces. The abovementioned no-go zones, a series of rings between one to three blocks in thickness around each ghetto, were now empty of people, with many of the buildings having been gutted by fire and looting. The political scene was still in flux, it being unclear to what extent civilian leaders retained effective control of the military or police forces, which made few serious attempts to disarm the militias. The situation inside the ghettoes was known to the world through the broadcasts of the TV crews inside, many of them from Arabic-language news channels such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. A steady stream of Muslim suffering, threatening, and ululating was transmitted around the world. The Danish kroner and stock market had now both collapsed, prompting leaders of business and industry to act decisively to pull the country back from the brink. What exactly might accomplish this was unclear, however, given that the authority of the government itself had been greatly weakened.
May 6
The Danish Prime Minister announced his intention to dissolve the government and step down from his position. Various key members of the Danish parliament struggled to put together an emergency caretaker government. The Danish police and army started to see significant numbers of defections to key militias. Leaders of the most powerful militias, backed by one of Denmark’s most senior generals, issued a joint statement on national television declaring that the caretaker government being hastily cobbled together by key Danish members of parliament would be illegitimate should it even be formed. They declared their intention to deal with the Muslim situation in their own way, thereby guaranteeing the continued existence and security of the Danish State. Significantly, they issued two further proclamations: that no Danish citizens would be subject to punishment by law for using reasonable force to defend themselves, their loved ones, or their property, and that Muslims were no longer to be considered Danish citizens unless pronounced so by the militia councils then in the process of being formed.
May 8
The consolidation of political control of the vast majority of the ghettoes by radical elements, many of them Al-Qaeda affiliated, was made clear by the rebuffing of all attempts to establish formal contacts with the ghettoes, formal or informal. Indeed, one militia member approaching a ghetto through the surrounding no-go zone under cover of a white flag was shot and killed by a sniper. TV broadcasts from the camps continued, providing a stream of coverage 24 hours a day from both Muslim and non-Muslim news crews. However, it gradually became clear that they were being censored, if not directed, by extremist Muslims, consisting as they did largely of exhortations to jihad and footage of dead and wounded Muslims within the ghettoes. A number of TV crews managed to make their way back through the no-go zones to the Danish side. They spoke of the growing squalor and rapidly-depleting food supplies within, and the total control that militant Islamic elements now enjoyed.
May 9 — May 10
A well-organized, double-pronged night attack from within one of the larger ghettoes temporarily pushed through the no-go zone to give Muslim elements control of a three-by-three block segment of a Danish area. Using small arms fire, RPGs and a certain amount of light machine gun support, an estimated fifty fighters expelled Danish forces from the area by midnight. Though a concerted counterattack spearheaded by an armoured unit forced the Muslim militants back out of their positions by early the next morning, total casualties taken by the Danish forces (militias and army elements) were heavy. This spoke volumes as to the infiltration of Denmark by experienced jihadis, and the extent to which Muslims had armed themselves in preparation for some sort of societal breakdown.
May 13
A demonstration of some 20,000 international peace activists was staged in Århus. Declaring their intent to enter the no-go zone to deliver a message of peace and goodwill, the demonstration organizers ignored the insistence of the Århus militias that they would not allow it to proceed. Around midday, the already rather chaotic crowd of demonstrators arrived at the Århus ghetto constituting its destination, only to rapidly disintegrate when anarchist infiltrators and militia members started to clash. Molotov cocktails, stones, and baseball bats on the one side were met with gunfire on the other, resulting in heavy casualties (though few fatalities) among the demonstrators. Dozens of anarchists and related elements manage to make their way through the no-go zones to join the ‘anti-imperialist’ cause of their Muslim ‘comrades.’
May 15 — May 23
A day of demonstrations planned by Muslims throughout Europe to display solidarity with the ‘new Jews’ spiralled out of control, leading to huge riots in major European cities. Riot police were unable to regain control of the situation in parts of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden, where key Muslim ghettoes saw a complete breakdown of law and order following their ostensibly temporary abandonment by the police. Rocked by these events, the Swedish and Dutch governments denounced Denmark for its heavy-handed approach to the ‘unrest’ it was facing. In contrast, the French government issued a statement of unequivocal support, and declared its intention to maintain the security of the French state at all costs. Due to the physical proximity to Denmark of the now uncontrollable Malmö region of Sweden and the notable lack of Scandinavian solidarity on Muslim issues, Denmark closed its road and sea connections with Sweden. Militias and ex-navy elements stepped up patrols of the Danish coast near Malmö to prevent the possible infiltration into Denmark of radical Islamic elements in Sweden.
May 26 — June 4
Multiple suicide bombings in European cities claimed thousands of lives in public buildings and on public transport. Paris, Birmingham, Amsterdam, Seville, Rome and Brussels were particularly badly hit. The inability of the security forces of said countries to break up the plots is considered to be largely due to the exponential growth of unaffiliated cells of self-motivated Islamic fanatics. Increasing polarization along Danish lines started to become more visible throughout Europe, as European governments found themselves swept along by the same forces that resulted in the eventual disintegration of the Danish government. At the same time, Muslim governments around the world moved towards adopting, more or less willingly, hard-line stances with respect to all European nations, threatening dire consequences if Muslims in the Danish ghettoes continued to suffer.
June 7
Smoke drifted high above the ghettoes as Muslims were forced to start cremating the corpses of the many hundreds, if not thousands, of Muslims now dead from wounds, disease, and starvation. The inter-ghetto coordination evident in this (strictly un-Islamic) activity prompted speculation that it also served as a propaganda tactic, but of the increasingly dire situation in the ghettoes there was by now little doubt. The electricity supply had been almost completely cut in the early days of the crisis, as had the telephone grid. The mobile phone network still covered the ghettoes to some extent, thereby allowing a degree of communication, but deliveries of food, medicine and other supplies were kept to a bare minimum by militias. The cremations were covered widely by the international media, with some commentators, particularly in the Muslim world, drawing comparisons with the Nazi death camps and the Warsaw ghetto.
June 9
The militias increased the electricity supply to the ghettoes, simultaneously announcing a plan to start gradual evacuations of Muslims to safe areas where they can be prepared for deportation to their countries of origin. Within hours, the OIC issued replied with a counter-statement saying that its member states would not participate in the ethnic cleansing of their fellow Muslims from Europe, and would close their airspace to Danish flights attempting to deport Muslims. Danish construction companies officially started work on a complex of internment camps across the country for the purpose of holding and pacifying the country’s Muslim population until a permanent resolution to the crisis could be found.
June 10
Remarkable scenes ensued on the Muslim side of the no-go zone in Odense as approximately fifty Muslims, mainly women and children, marched out into the zone holding white flags and banners saying ‘We Surrender’ in Danish. The leaders of the group were seen to become involved in a brief altercation with two masked Muslim men, an altercation which ended when one of the men drew a handgun and carried out a point-blank execution of three Muslim women. Its progress thus halted, the group was forced to return to the ghetto.
June 19
A joint militia council announced a plan to sweep all ghettoes one by one, crushing all armed resistance, and relocating all Muslims to the rapidly growing internment camp complex, women and children in one set of camps, males aged 16 or over in another. These plans were announced by loudspeaker into every ghetto in the country, with supplementary information to the effect that resistance of any sort would not be tolerated. As the announcement was made, all water, sewage, electricity, gas, phone, mobile phone, and Internet services to the ghettoes were cut, as were all deliveries of food and medical supplies. Muslim leadership elements announced their intention to fight off the assaults, inshallah.
June 20 — June 23
An Al-Qaida cell consisting of white converts, having infiltrated Denmark from Germany, unleashed a sarin nerve gas attack on the Copenhagen public transport system, killing 98 and leaving a further 2,000 in need of medical attention. Punitive counter-attacks on ghettoes by militias, their ranks swollen by a fresh batch of army and police defectors, caused thousands of casualties as strategic areas of key ghettoes were cleansed of Muslims in scenes of extraordinary brutality.
June 24
The Reverend Jesse Jackson arrived outside the largest ghetto in Copenhagen as a self-appointed peace envoy. His convoy was destroyed by large-calibre sniper fire as it crossed the no-go zone. Both sides claimed responsibility.
