There have been many good and interesting people over for lunch at our place this past year and a half, sharing their thoughts, experiences and observations about what is happening around us - and most of them leave something lasting behind.
Today was one of the ones I will remember afterward - because what was placed on the table was neither opinions nor reports, but something a man had carried on his own body.
His story I will think about for a long time.
It also concerned an association - @[100063685806885:2048:Foreningen Frafalden] - and everything that lies behind it.
About people in this country trying to leave their religion - Islam - and discovering that it is roughly as difficult as for a gang member to step out of that environment.
For the ordinary Dane it sounds almost incomprehensible that such a thing exists in Denmark, or in Europe - we can hardly believe it - but it is not the exception, it is everyday life. And in several countries the punishment for apostasy is still death.
It made me think, while we sat and talked.
We have a system that helps with almost everything, that can afford neon benches, bicycle taxis and electric scooters on every corner.
But an association helping people out, often under threats most Danes cannot imagine - with a thoroughly documented, widely described problem across the entire world, concerning people's lives and fates - must on the other hand manage on seven or eight hundred thousand a year.
Listen.
To multiply that amount by ten could barely be measured.
And it is People we are talking about. People who no longer want to believe what they were raised or set to believe, or who have arrived at believing something else, and who are persecuted for it.
What?
We often speak of religious freedom as if it means the right to believe. But the freedom that truly costs something is the right to STOP believing.
And that must be protected with EVERYTHING we have.
That is the premise in the Western world. It is not up for discussion or negotiation. And it does not become different here.
Because if we do not have that, then we do not have Freedom.
If one wishes to live in such an order - then it does not just take place outside Denmark, but outside the boundary where the Western order ceases. There is no room for that here. And that is that.
Come on, friends.
❤️🔥🪽
