Our good friend Mohamed is back.
You've probably read about it elsewhere, but let me give you my thoughts, after listening to the whole thing and thinking about what the good man actually said.
First of all.
Inger Støjberg had brought a check to the studio.
33,952 kroner. To cover the cost of eight individual tickets to Djibouti. She had even postponed the departure a bit, so the family could have time to pack, and everything had been thought of - two large suitcases per person and a carry-on.
You can say a lot about Støjberg, but she is thorough. It is probably the first time in Danish history that a party leader has sat in a podcast studio and read out the baggage rules at Kastrup for a man she wants to get rid of.
Also in the studio sat B.T.'s debate editor Joachim B. Olsen as host, and Mohamed himself was on the phone.
And Joachim had also prepared. He had been in checking out the housing market in Djibouti. For 3.5 million kroner - which corresponds to over seven million in local purchasing power - you can get a house of 170 to 200 square meters, three to six rooms, parking, courtyard and often a terrace, in a nice neighbourhood. Couldn't something less do, he asked.
Something less could not.
Because Mohamed Abdi Kahn must have 3.5 million. Not 3.4. There are thus 3,466,048 kroner between the parties, and they are not meeting in the middle.
It's a bit like with Islam.
There is NO MIDDLE to meet in.
There is only the whole package.
And Mohamed knows that.
They tried, though. They read out the Danish repatriation scheme, which turns out to be a whole little travel catalogue - 161,000 kroner per adult, 50,000 per child, transport of belongings, business equipment, transport of the business equipment, health insurance for up to four years. All paid for by Denmark. A family of eight gets away with several hundred thousand kroner in their pocket.
Not enough, came the answer. Mohamed also rejected the check itself on the grounds that his car costs five times more than the flight tickets.
Inger, a sensible North Jutlander, wondered along the way where the money for all of it actually comes from - the man travels regularly to both Somalia and Djibouti, and you don't normally do that sort of thing on a fifteen-hour flex job? The answer was that it is a human right to travel freely. That wasn't quite what she was asking about, but never mind.
I must admit I sat wondering about the same thing. But that may of course be because I have just spent six weeks in North Jutland, and that sort of thing sticks. You start to calculate.
He will, on the other hand, not answer why his work capacity stops at fifteen hours a week - that sort of thing is a personal question. The car's price, the family's benefits and the precise demand for 3.5 million are conversely information that he gladly shares. But the fifteen hours are between him and the municipality... Discretion is a virtue, and like all virtue it must be dosed with care.
And here it actually became a bit interesting. Because of the 3.5 million, half a million is to go toward starting his own business in Djibouti. Self-employed. Entrepreneur. Inger noticed that too, and she asked him directly whether he is actually quite sure that his work capacity only extends to fifteen hours, when it apparently extends to running a business in East Africa!?
One could have wished they had just called Thorborg or Jesper Buch and asked what the probability of knocking something sensible together on fifteen hours a week is, but unfortunately they didn't. It could otherwise sound as if Mohamed could really use a different startup coach than the one Allah has appointed.
But there actually exists a man whose work capacity is fifteen hours a week north of Kruså - and full time with personnel responsibility south of the Sahara. To my knowledge, this is the first time medical science has encountered a condition that adjusts according to latitude.
He didn't answer that. It was personal.
And before anyone gets outraged about the wrong thing, let's get his story in, because it's better than any satirist could have invented.
He was actually on his way to Norway - back when he ended up here with us. He had chosen the country himself, he explained, because "the people in Norway are equal".
Equal - that is, in the way men and women are in Islam, one must suppose.
But also because it is easy to get Norwegian citizenship.
He was in transit, was stopped at the airport, and he himself tells in the podcast that he said to the police that he did NOT want asylum in Denmark - but the convention determined that he should.
He did not choose Denmark.
Denmark happened to him.
On a layover.
At this point in the story we must assume that this was Allah's plan for Mohamed. And thus also indirectly for us.
And here one must pause for a moment, because the theology in this case is actually the case's most interesting part.
Mohamed believes as is well known - as every true Muslim does - that God's law stands above human law. That is the entire premise of the faith. He has said it publicly and repeated it in the podcast. The Quran is more important than all human laws, including Danish law. That is his firm, unshakeable foundation. And respect for that.
But now follow what actually happened.
Allah, in his inscrutable wisdom, sent his servant toward Norway. And on the way another power intervened and redirected him - a power that in this story proves to stand above both Allah's plan and Mohamed's own will - the UN refugee convention.
The man who believes that no human law can bind a believer was stopped at Kastrup by a human paragraph. And he has complied with it for eleven years. And this is where it becomes a bit strange.
Because he obviously does not do so reluctantly.
But devotedly.
He quotes it more often than he quotes the Quran. He is, as far as I can judge, Denmark's most literal adherent of the human rights convention - a document written by humans, adopted by humans and enforced by humans, which he invokes with a fervour most Danish People's Church priests would envy.
God's law stands above human law. EXCEPT in cases concerning grounds for residence. There Strasbourg applies.
Then they asked him whether he was grateful that Denmark had received him, and for everything he has received here.
No, he said. He said that he is grateful for the European human rights, which protect him and his family against Denmark.
Against.
Read that word one more time, because it is not a slip of the tongue, and it is not anger. It is a precise description of a legal relationship. In his sentence Denmark is not the one who gave him something. Denmark is the counterparty in his inner narrative. And what protects him is - and hold on to something here, and find a wet newspaper or your dog's best stick to bite hard on - a legal construction that Denmark itself has signed, itself finances, itself has translated into Danish law and itself enforces against itself.
I don't know for certain. But it sounds so stupid that it is almost unthinkable that Lars Løkke has not been involved. Although there is not a single wind farm in sight.
We have built a house where the guest can report the host to the police - from the host's own phone and on the host's bill. And now we are astonished that someone actually calls.
And Denmark is, one must understand, moreover not a pleasant place to be assigned to. He has described us as "an Islamophobic and sick society". He followed up on 15 August with a public status update that if we choose to, quote, fuck each other from both front and back and drink alcohol and eat pork, then that is our own choice, but such impure values their (that is, Islam's) young will never adopt. The man who is not the least bit grateful for Denmark thus follows along in Danes' bedrooms with an attention and a level of detail that many married couples would envy.
Eleven years in the country - and that is what he has noted about us. Yes well then. Each to his own focus.
Regardless.
One should by the way be fair and grant that his lack of gratitude is theologically completely consistent. In Islam all provision comes from Allah alone. Rizq, it is called.
Humans and states are merely the channels the provision runs through, and the channel is not due any thanks. So when the Danish state transfers nineteen thousand kroner every month, it is in Mohamed's cosmology not Denmark that gives. It is Allah who provides for his servant - via Payment Denmark.
The municipality is, spiritually speaking, a postman. And one does not thank the postman for the package.
One does not thank a paragraph either. One invokes it. And that is precisely what he does, completely by the book, and he is honest enough to say out loud what the book - which is the one we ourselves have signed - means.
Even Joachim B. Olsen had to note afterward that there is something completely wrong with the system, and that he feels ridiculous. He is of course also from North Jutland. It may be why he sees so clearly something that many in the Capital have great difficulty even spotting.
But notice that his anger went to the same place as Mohamed's gratitude - not toward a person, but toward the arrangement. The two actually agree on the diagnosis. The conventions determine. One rejoices over it. The other rages over it.
Neither of them can change it. And until now all decent politicians, with decent opinions and decent voters agree that we cannot just change that.
And then, at the very end, when they asked what would actually be required, he gave them the answer. And it was not 3.5 million. He said it himself, calmly and without evasion -
If Denmark withdraws from the UN refugee convention and the European human rights, then the family will travel for free.
There we have it. The whole summer's negotiation, the check, the suitcases, the housing ads in Djibouti, the flex job and the endless Facebook posts - and then it turns out that the ticket has been free all along.
Allah sent him toward Norway. A paragraph sent him to us. And only the paragraph can send him onward.
That means one thing.
And one thing alone.
It is not Mohamed.
It is the signature we are paying for.
How about we consider - with a bit of North Jutland common sense - whether there might be just a little reason in getting that signature annulled and withdrawn?
Well, it's just a thought.
🤓🤷♂️
