As the year comes to an end, I am reminded of the title of Eric Hobsbawm’s book, The Age of Extremes. Under this title, Hobsbawm painted a stark picture of the ravages of war, and the failures of both capitalism and socialism during the “short century” from 1914 to 1991. The book includes a chapter on The Golden Years from 1950 to 1975, but what stands out is Hobsbawm’s overall pessimism.

Hobsbawm was a Marxist, but he rarely found a synthesis flowing from the dialectic interplay of thesis and antithesis as Marxists would expect. Instead, he found extremes.

I am neither a Marxist nor am I a historian capable of generalizing about European and world history. But, when I look back at the year 2024, I see a year filled with unexpected, unprecedented, threatening, alarming, and ill-boding events. Even from my perspective as a retiree living in Wonderful Copenhagen, where the occasional pick-pocket and rogue cyclist are the main hassles to most tourists, it has been a year of extremes.

Photo: On April 16, 2024, the old stock exchange, Børsen, caught fire. Børsen is located right next to the Danish parliament seen to its right. The building was under renovation to celebrate its 400-year jubilee. The plan is to reconstruct the building by 2025. Photo taken by Stig Toft Madsen.

At the same time, I think it is fair to say that the centre in Denmark still holds. The Danish state faces challenges, but it responds. Currently, this takes place under a centrist coalition government formed in 2022. Based on a “national compromise” to handle the crises arising from a dangerous environment, the coalition is headed by the Social Democratic Party, flanked by The Liberal Left Party Venstre, and by the Moderates led by former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

It has not been a popular government, and it may disband before its four-year period is up, but its creation shows that even though threats may be extreme, the political response may be centrist.

In several European countries, the right and the extreme right have gained power. The Danish government, too, may sometimes speak a rightist language, but it does so from the political centre. For example, the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen has been able to find common ground on immigration issues with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, even though many Social Democrats distance themselves from Meloni’s ultra-rightist position.

In what follows, I will offer examples of extreme events that occurred in 2024, and of the ways in which organs of the state have responded by building dykes and bulwarks to handle the challenges. I am using the image of dikes and bulwarks keeping in mind that in October 2023, coastal areas of Denmark were flooded in what was described as a 100-year year event, or even as a 500-year event. Such rare events may happen more frequently in the years to come. In fact, Danish meteorologists expect 100-year events to occur every two or three years by the end of the century.

I will start with issues of national security, and then turn to crime, corruption, and the courts. Finally, I will turn to the natural environment. My focus is on Denmark, but I will also look at Sweden and, briefly, Finland and Norway as well. The reader may find these countries inconsequential in the global context, but large issues may also be discussed with reference to smaller places, as the recently deceased Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen would have it.

As 2024 has been a long year, this review will be a long read. I hope the reader will stay on board to the end.

War and security: Russia, Ukraine, USA and China 

In 1962, all households in Denmark received a pamphlet called If War Comes (Hvis krigen kommer). It was only in 2024 that the Danish Emergency Management Agency (Beredskabsstyrelsen) found it necessary to release an updated pamphlet instructing the public to stock enough food and essentials for a three-day crisis.

In a related move, a new ministry called the Ministry for Societal Resilience and Contingency (Ministerium for Samfundssikkerhed og Beredskab) was created.

2024 is also the year in which the government set aside an extra USD 28 billion as defence expenditure. On November 16, the Minister of Defence, Troels Lund Poulsen, proposed that a further USD 43 billion should be allocated to meet future requirements. If he were to choose between security and pension reform, his choice would be security, he averred at the annual meeting of his party.

In Christmas interviews, Prime Minister Frederiksen reiterated the dire message of a dark future. Even if the war in Ukraine were to stop, military budgets would soar, putting an end to the long period during which the Danish state has run on a surplus.

Denmark was not alone in preparing for emergencies. In neighbouring Sweden, the pamphlet, If Crisis or War Comes, was updated and circulated to all citizens. 2024 was also the year in which Sweden joined NATO, thus ending two centuries of neutrality.

Photo: Signalling Solidarity: Twelve Swedish and one Danish fighter jet in “Christmas Tree” formation over Copenhagen, December 9, 2024. Photo taken by Stig Toft Madsen.

These developments were all defensive measures spurred by the war in Ukraine. So far, Denmark and Sweden have not been directly attacked by anyone, but the war feels close. The explosions in the North Stream gas pipelines in 2022 felt like an act of war no matter who carried them out.

More recently, in November 2024, two fibre-optic cables carrying data between Finland and Germany, and between Sweden and Lithuania were damaged. A Chinese ship named Yi Peng 3 is suspected of having carried out an act of sabotage. The ship anchored just outside Danish territory, where the Danish navy cannot legally board the ship. Instead, negotiations have been initiated between the Chinese and the Swedish governments, while Yi Peng 3 remains surrounded by a Danish navy vessel and by coastguards from Germany. 

As a consequence of this incident, the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has suggested that Poland, the Baltic countries, and the Nordic countries create a joint marine force to monitor the Baltic Sea. A similar force already exists as regards the air space. Such a move may sound extreme, but according to the head of the German foreign intelligence, Bruno Kahl, the Russian hybrid war has already reached a level, where NATO may be forced to consider activating Article 5.

To illustrate the tense environment in which Denmark finds itself, I cannot help revisiting the arrest of the former head of the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, Lars Findsen, and the severe accusations levelled against the former Minister of Defence, Claus Hjort Frederiksen.

In 2021, Findsen was unceremoniously jailed on suspicion of having shared information about fibre-optic cables passing through Denmark. It appears that Denmark had secretly given the Americans access to some of the cable traffic. Findsen, allegedly, had broached this subject within family circles, including with his 84-year-old mother.

Hjort Frederiksen was accused of the same offence. He had hinted at the agreement between the USA and Denmark in one or more TV interviews. The information he shared was already publicly known in some detail. Among others, Edward Snowden had revealed it. Yet, Hjort Frederiksen was put under investigation, suspected of being a traitor. This was extreme. As a Danish journalist involved in the case told The Guardian: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that something like this was possible in Denmark.”  

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that the trial of Findsen and Hjort Frederiksen should not be conducted for fully closed doors as the state prosecutors had demanded. The Defence Intelligence Service then withdrew the case against the two, arguing that a partly open court case would reveal secret information and compromise the security of the state.

Findsen was later awarded damages by the court after his private residence had been bugged. In 2024, he sued the Danish Security and Intelligence Service – which he had himself headed from 2002 to 2007 – for having shared details of his personal sex life with members of parliament, who were confidentially briefed by the police in connection with the main case against him.

Meanwhile, Findsen started as a political commentator. In his first piece, he criticized the creation of the new Ministry for Societal Resilience and Contingency as an inefficient reform driven by a fear-mongering government. Between the lines, he is saying that the case against him was also an overreaction on the part of a jittery government.

Photo: Strengthening the bulwark next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Copenhagen. Photo taken by Stig Toft Madsen.

War and security: Israel, Palestine

The wars in the Middle East have left large footprints in Denmark and Sweden in 2024. The Danish government considers Israel a close friend and accepts Israel’s right to self-defence, but at the same time, it agrees that the International Court of Justice can issue arrest orders on Israeli leaders.

The Danish government has affirmed its determination to protect the Jews in Denmark. Other political parties agree with the government, but one party, the leftwing party Enhedslisten (The Unity List) has been caught in the crossfire.

This eco-socialist party was formed in 1989 upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has long supported the Palestinian cause, inter alia by backing the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). When it became apparent that the DFLP had been part of the October 7 attack on Israel, Enhedslisten halted further collaboration with the DFLP.

However, a Trotskyite faction within the party called Rødt Venstre (Red Left) has repeatedly argued in favour of resuming collaboration with DFLP. In response to this, Enhedslisten’s governing board wanted to change the constitution of the party to make it easier to exclude the Red Left from the party.

On December 14, at a general body meeting of the party, the delegates reaffirmed their unconditional condemnation of terror against civilians, allowing no exception for the DFLP.  The activities of the Red Left fraction were deemed harmful to the party. Its members would be excluded should they refuse to toe the party line in future. The centre held.

As elsewhere, the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall be Free” has also repeatedly rung out on the streets of Sweden. The demand for a ceasefire in Gaza has frequently been phrased in the Swedish language. However, according to investigative journalist Inas Hamdan, the same demonstrators, who demand a ceasefire in Swedish, may praise Hamas and call for continued war in Arabic. After exposing the double talk of the demonstrators, Inas Hamdan has come under threats from a crowd assembled in front of her residence in Malmö, Sweden.

Antisemitic threats to Jews in Denmark have markedly increased, but physical attacks have been rare. However, in May, the furniture was set on fire on the balcony of a Jewish woman in Copenhagen. The police considered it an act of terror, and a young man has been accused in the case. Apparently, he is a member of a proscribed criminal gang called Loyal to Familia. The incident was seen as an illustration of the possible integration of organized crime and Islamic terrorism.

In October, two hand grenades were thrown at the Israeli Embassy near Copenhagen. Two Swedes, aged 16 and 19, were arrested. The involvement of young Swedes in crimes in Denmark escalated in 2024. Evidently, criminals operating from Sweden increasingly put out contracts for various crimes on the Internet. Thus, an assassination in Denmark may earn a Swedish hitman 500.000 Swedish crowns (approx. USD 46,000).

Since April, Swedes have been investigated in Denmark in 30 cases of this kind. The “child soldiers” and others engaged in this new commercialized form of “crime as a service” are not necessarily Muslims. In fact, many of them are native Swedes.Because this border-crossing form of organized crime with links to operators in countries like Turkey and Spain risks pitting neighbours against each other, Sweden and Denmark have increased police collaboration. Among other things, it has been made legal in Denmark to use facial recognition technologies to monitor movements across borders.

Photo: A bombed building in Ukraine. Photo by Nelia Zabalostska-Siennikov, OCHA.

Seen in a Danish historical context, the security of Jews in Denmark is a larger issue than it may first appear. During the Second World War, the Danes helped the Danish Jews to escape to Sweden. Of the 7,800 Jews in Denmark at the time, 7,220 escaped alive. To many Danes, this event is still the relevant background on which the current rise of antisemitism and antizionism occurs.

In other words, within living memory Denmark has gone from being the European country that saved the lives of Jews during the Second World War to being one where Muslims in Copenhagen celebrated the October 7 attack by honking horns and flying Palestinian flags, scaring the small minority of Israeli Jews living in the city and making them wonder, when they would have to flee the next time.