Rotten in Denmark

I'm happy for people to publish political and religious cartoons but I'm not happy about people walking around in T shirts that advertise violent criminal groups. I think that's the majority opinion of people in most modern countries so you'd better get used to it. It's a simple fact of life that most people find the promotion, glorification or advertisement of criminal activities very offensive.

Just think of the children and highly impressionable young adults who might see such shirts.

So what about T-shirts from bands such as cradle of filth? (the "popular" one depicting a nun enjoying a crucifix, with the slogan "Jesus is a c***") Or T-shirts with Che Guevara? Are they okay? I mean we don't want to corrupt our kids do we?

A T-shirt is just a T-shirt.

If I make myself a George Bush/Tony Blair T-shirt. Or a pro government, or pro Iraq war T-shirt would that be ok? Those T-shirts would glorify criminals too.

No doubt you'd have called for ANC T-shirts to be banned 20 years ago.....

I don't recall any ANC T shirts 20 years ago, but I doubt if I'd have called for them to be banned as the ANC was unknown to most UK people then as now, virtually nobody had any views about it one way or the other and hardly anyone would have taken offence at such T shirts. I'm very tolerant generally - for example I don't mind youngsters wearing T shirts with Che Guervara on them or the CCCP acronym. Kids will be kids and the chances of anyone in this country being offended by someone wearing a T shirt with the face of a long dead, Latin American, terrorist, loutish bully boy or the acronym of a recently ended totalitarian, murderous, genocidal empire that killed few Bits is remote.


In Denmark however, people have been killed by violent terrorist groups in the very recent past, so it is not surprising that T shirts advertising violent, terrorist, criminal groups are not that popular.


Try walking through Warrington town centre with an IRA T shirt on if you want to grasp what I'm going on about.

Considering the strength of the anti-apartheid movement, I'm sure more people knew what the ANC was 20 years ago than would be able to identify FARC or the PFLP now.

The USA only took the ANC of its list of terrorist organisations this year.

a terrorist who is involved in armed struggle working with a political objective (often to do with little bits of lands and borders) stops being a terrorist when they have a clearly identifiable uniform.

Now this doesn't mean they put in orders to the sweatshops for funky camuflage fractal designs, or like the best & worst of the late 20th century go to the army surplus store and trust in the snazzy balaclava & black beret finishing touches. Nope. things have moved with the times. A t-shirt can identify group identity & purpose perfectly. So............... a bunch of whatevers in matching t-shirts holding AK's are one step closer to identifying themselves as a militia or territorial armed force in rebellion, war of self-determination or insurgency if they are all wearing the same t-shirts with matching slogans and logos. One step closer to that status is one step further from terrorist status. Of course it's not an idea which appeals to guerilla warfare strategists. But it is one which gets attention from propagandists and politicians. In many ways it's being going on a long time too. During Ireland's war of independence in the 1920's De Valera (the politician) insisted the then IRA launch a uniform wearing attack on British forces - to fulfil the conditions to the sensible opposition of the commanders who knew it would be a near suicide venture. But it did satisfy an international community of "political status". You could write books about it, but your hopes of selling them would be slim as too many have already been written and ignored.

a t-shirt is never just a t-shirt.

¶ Liliana López Palacio, alias Olga Lucía Marín was arrested in Madrid earlier this year and has been released on conditions similiar to bail awaiting further processing for alledgedly supervising the funding of FARC in Europe. There was no Danish nor Interplod involvement in the case. Evidence was presented through supposed analysis of the "Raul Reyes" computers, he who was assassinated in Ecuador by Colombia in early Spring. That was really when indymedia readers were asked to ponder the FARC story. It's not really been a priority since so the back links would be indulgent at best or putting other people up to ideas at worst. The only nordic or scandinavian connection with FARC in either propaganda or at its most tenous funding is the siting of a news service, radio and till that period of Spring 2008 considered the principle interlocutor or conduit of the group. In any case FARC never really went beyond the army surplus gear in photos and mostly relied on the armbands details rather than beret accesories.

¶ We have though recently looked at Denmark specifically, its freedom of speech issues and its secret services and the importance of one of the few whistleblowers to have the courage to shop their governments for collusion with the illegal war on Iraq.

so plug that ↩
"Support Danish WMD Whistleblower Frank Grevil" 9/9/08  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408390.html

¶ As regards selling t-shirts to promote smaller groups in the Levant; be they in the occupied territories of Palestine or the Lebanon or Sinai - or perhaps more appropriately selling dinky little headbands which do seem more the contemporary side of groovy group guerilla wear - the well established groups already demonstrate perfectly the paradigm I touched upon in the last comment. For example whe we talk about Hamas or Hezbollah in number terms we can go several ways. Hezbollah are the most dramatic & not competing on site, in the fashion terms we're talking about, with the iconic Palestinian scarf which of course has gone beyond all ideology or knowledge (just like the Che Guevara image somebody mentioned above). In traditional paradigm terms they are merely dealing as a militia with political wing on the local front with a state military which cuts deals with them and having the regular showdown with the IDF. Let's leave out all of those sides backers & presume they take up enough collection money to pay the seamstresses enough to sew up the recognisable gear. But how many are we talking about? The grim gothic morbid lot who announce their willingness for martyrdom on their headbands? or the hundreds near thousands around them who wear the t-shirts? I suggest the t-shirt lot are the army & the grassroot support is the quarter of a million people who heeded their call in March 2005 to answer Bush's "cedar revolution" in the wake of Hariri's assassination with its people power of 30,000 or less than one eighth. As we know the "mad mullah revolution" outlasted the "cedar revolution" because when the Syrian army went up the Valley road to Damascus, they weren't needed anymore. T-shirts are in a way a fashion statement and also a sub cultural language & we may see they also play the part, an important part in the development of movements which combine politics, military activity, religion, ethnicity and all the stuff which the 21st century is going to do in many places....... Going to do....... not going to see done. Some t-shirts are now part of the scene whether you like them or not. Some old scarves aren't ever going to go away but a millionaire in jeans on dress-down Friday on a Harley ------ a biker cooking meth ------- doth not make.

I reckon we should go on keeping an eye on the rotten Danes. Yes. But criticise them for the right things. I wouldn't have promoted those t-shirts in the same way I promoted the "Kill Bush" t-shirt which used the Kill Bill movie image. & you know - those t-shirts never sold out.