Omar El-Hussein was born in Denmark, but did he consider himself a Dane in any way other than geographically? Unlikely. He almost certainly grew up in a Muslim area and was taught Islamic values, including the distaste that the “best of people” (Qur’an 3:110) should have for the jahiliyya, the society of the “most vile of created beings” (Qur’an 98:6) — unbelievers. He clearly rejected the freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and probably a great deal more of what most Danes would consider part of what it means to be a Dane.
Yet for Rufus Gifford, he was as Danish as Hamlet and Kierkegaard — reflecting a dogma of the Left, that sociocultural values are the same everywhere, and thus it is only geography that makes for nationality. Move a Russian to Poland, and presto, his children will be Polish. Gifford and his ilk (that is, virtually all of the Western intelligentsia) believe that if Omar El-Hussein’s parents move to Denmark, and Omar is born there, that Omar will grow up Danish, with Danish values — and that if he doesn’t, it is the fault of Danish authorities, who declined to allow him to assimilate because of their racism. The idea that Omar’s parents and other Muslims in Denmark might have had no interest in assimilating is not allowed to be discussed.
Meanwhile, if a group of Danes moved to Syria and established a small enclave, a Little Denmark within Syria, and had children born in Syria, would their children be considered Syrians, open and shut, without question? Would MSNBC and Rufus Giffords refer to them as Syrians, as in “a Syrian man, Tobias Nielsen”?
“Scarborough: Like Radical Islam, ‘Ultrafundamentalist’ Christianity Could Also Lead to Violence,” by Mark Finkelstein, Newsbusters, February 16, 2015:
…The US ambassador to Denmark was also interviewed. Rufus Gifford was the Finance Director of President Obama’s 2012 campaign. Following the lead of the president who appointed him, Gifford, when asked by Mark Halperin who the enemy is, couldn’t bring himself to mention Islam in any form. Instead, he spoke only of the threat of “radicalization” and “extremism.” For good measure, the oh-so-diplomatic Gifford referred to the man who murdered two people in Copenhagen yesterday and injured others as the “gentleman.”
In addition to being an Obama fundraiser, Gifford’s ambassadorial credentials consist of having worked for Davis Entertainment, an independent film production company whose oeuvre includes such immortal works as Little Monsters and Aliens vs. Predator. Come to think of it, perhaps that was some relevant experience….
MARK HALPERIN: Mr. Ambassador, who’s the enemy that the United States and Denmark is now fighting? How would you define them?
RUFUS GIFFORD: Look, I mean, for me, this is — I’m from Boston, guys. I mean, we saw this similar situation come up in Boston. This is the gentleman — and we’re learning more and more from — on a day-to-day basis but this someone who is a Dane, born and bread [sic] in Denmark, similar to what I think, what we saw in Boston. Of course, you don’t want to make comparisons right now but the enemy, it’s not to oversimplify it. The the enemy is radicalization. The enemy is extremism. And we do have to fight that through a variety of different sources and forces.