Flag Freedoms, Postal Reforms & Nordic Diets in Denmark: LWID S1E1

In this very first episode, hear Journalist Wizzi Magnussen chat to Founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis George Matache about this week's newsletter headlines and what the people of Denmark have been talking about.

Topics covered include:
(00:38) Flag Freedom in Denmark

(08:45) A Free Postal Market in Denmark

(10:54) Nordic Dietary Guidelines

(16:53) A Gradeless Educational Experiment in Denmark

(23:15) LGBT+ across Western and Eastern Europe

Produced by Wizmedia.

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Chapters

• 1:11 Flag Freedom in Denmark
• 9:18 A Free Postal Market in Denmark
• 11:27 Nordic Dietary Guidelines
• 17:26 A Gradeless Educational Experiment in Denmark
• 24:04 LGBT+ across Western and Eastern Europe

Transcript

Wizzy

Welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. I'm your host, Wizzy Magnussen, and I'm here with founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis, to discuss this week's news and offer you extra insight into what's been happening and how it could affect you. Now, let's jump in. Narcis, hello, how are you today?

Narcis

Hello and good morning. I'm really excited to do this project together with you. I mean, time to move from written form to audio form, right?

Wizzy

Absolutely.

Narcis

Reach more audiences with our project.

Wizzy

What are the top headlines this week?

Narcis

Well, I would say that the top headline for US internationals because they might be a bit different from what the top lines are for the. The people in Denmark would be that now we can all hoist our flags, our national flags on the flag pole in our garden or anywhere else freely. So simply, from now on, we shouldn't have to worry about our neighbors or so someone else, you know, telling the police that we have done that because one guy from Kolding called Martin, a mechanic, decided that he really wanted to be free, to harbor. You can also say that the American flag, right? So he went all the way to the Supreme Court to, to prove that he should be allowed to do that. And he won. He literally won yesterday. It was like, yesterday will be like Friday evening. By the way, we're recording this on a Saturday, so you understand why we're saying this. So, yeah, he won. He went all the way there and he, He won. And the Supreme Court actually said that the royal decree from 1915 doesn't really apply. It's not a legislation. So for many, many decades we actually could have done that if someone will actually bothered to, to fight for this right of hoisting their own national flag. And you can imagine how happy were the minorities in the south of Denmark. Because the German minority has asked for a long, long time to be allowed to hoist their own flag without needing to ask a special permission. Because, you know, even though most of the national flags are not, were not until now allowed to be hoisted. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, they had an exception from that. And it was a bit strange for German minorities that. Okay, it's okay for the Swedish minority, Norwegian minority to have their own flag out, but what about ours? Why can't we do that?

Wizzy

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Narcis

It was how it was, you know, and it's, it's. It's. I'm just wondering if a German minority person will have went all the way to fight this. Will he have won in the Supreme Court, or it was thanks to a Danish person that he has made this efforts to, to kind of free the flag, to call it in a way.

Wizzy

That's interesting. So the flat flags are freed. That is a big bit of news. And it's, it's going to affect a lot of people's sort of feelings about how they can celebrate their own cultures within Denmark, isn't it?

Narcis

Well, it's. I mean, we have to understand that, you know, the Danish flag is being used with every occasion, right? So we, when we have lived here for, I don't know, three, five, ten years, we also kind of perceive the flag more like a... A way to celebrate and not so much a way of showing pride for our nation. So we kind of change perspective because right when we are in our own, our original countries, let's just call them like that. In there, we see flag as a way for, you know, patriotic days and to show how nationalistic you are and soon. And it's many times that symbol is being taken by far right. And it's, it's being used as a way for them to market themselves. While here in Denmark, you know, the flag is not about that. The flag is simply a way to, to celebrate. It's... It's a, it's symbol of, of the, the unity between the people that live in the same territory. So that's why I think people also started to perceive their own national flags in that way. That maybe it's. It's not so much about the, the. The nationalistic feelings behind, but it's a way to celebrate. Say it's. It's my birthday, right? And you are Polish. Well, you just go up in your garden and you hoist a Polish flag because all the neighbors will know that it's your birthday. It'll be kind of weird to do that with the Danish flag, right? You're not Danish, but the tradition says that if you want to let everyone know in the neighborhood that your birthday, you go and put the flag up, right? So now you can go and do that with your Polish flag or with your Romanian flag or with your whatever, Somalian flag and so on. So it's, it's... It's more about, you know, it's. It's actually a fusion of cultures, right? We take these different traditions that are in Denmark and do in different ways, new perceptions over like a, like object, which is the flag, and then we match it instead of—well, of course it will be complete assimilation. If you will just take everything, including the object itself, which is the Danish flag. But instead we take the form. Right, right. The—The purpose of it, and then we replace it and keep our own flag in a way to still maintain our identity within, you know, this Danishness, or Sea of Danishness as you can call it.

Wizzy

Do you think it's important for the international community to keep their own identities from their own cultures when they're living in Denmark? Do you think it's important to a lot of people?

Narcis

I'm not sure if it's important. Especially not in the beginning, for sure. I mean, when you come here in the first place, five years, I don't think that's even a question that you put yourself. That's more something. Once you have the feeling that, okay, I'm feeling like I'm settling here, what are the chances I'm moving away in the next 20 years? Quite slim. That's the moment when you start wondering, okay, what language will my children be speaking in the next generation? What language? How is my level? Because, you know, if you don't practice your own language, even though it's your native language, it. It declines, it deteriorates. I can notice that with, with the language that I'm not using as well. So people start looking for ways of, of using more their native language as well. They're looking to reach out to other people from the same community after. After a while, and they're trying to start building institutions around. Right. Because now that you're looking for a place for your children to speak the language, maybe you meet other parents who want to do the same thing. Then you start making a little community. That little community, you know, starts building other institutions like associations. Festivals were to represent the cultures. So in a way, it's all about. It starts with the desire to maintain, in a way, the language. And then from that on, people get together because they get together, other ideas are coming and so on. So that, so it's a quite natural process. You can say, this happening. 

Wizzy

Yeah, sounds it. So what have the day. What are the people in Denmark been talking about this week? Perhaps if we steer away from the newsletter for a moment in our own content. What else is in the news?

Narcis

Well, I, I think what's—what's interesting right there right now is. And what many Danes are quite concerned about is the postal service. It seems that the government is planning or they are still negotiating and discussing with the rest of the parliament, but they would like to kind of free the market in a way that the PostNord, you know, they don't have like a monopoly over it because PostNord is like a public company. At least it's half owned by Denmark. Half. Well, little bit less than half. Mostly owned by Sweden and then 30% by Denmark. But the point is that now the Danish government would like private actors to enter the market and try to maybe provide, I don't know, cheaper, if it's possible somehow. Cheaper. But so in a way they want to kind of reform the entire postal service so that they don't just give this universal guarantee that people, every post box in Denmark, you should be able to reach it through PostNord right? That was the guarantee that they were giving before. So now they allow. Let's say that I'm Dao and I decide that of the entire. Of Aalborg, I'll be the one delivering the mail, right? And then it's. It's a private actor who takes care of that further on. And maybe there will be 10 private actors who want all Aalborg that they want to take care of. Right. So it's, it's, it's all. It kind of opens an opportunity, especially for international entrepreneurs. If you're listening to this, if you have a delivery company and you can provide a better price or a better service quality, depending on. Try to look at for the tenders are going to be published if this reform, of course goes on. Because it's one way to enter the market and create new possibilities.

Wizzy

I mean, could create job opportunities as well, couldn't it? If we open up the market, when will we know if this has gone through?

Narcis

That we will not know until October. You know that the parliament is in vacation right now, so they cannot pass any laws anyway, right now they use usually the summer vacation. Well, vacation. It's a very long vacation if you think about it like four months. So until October. They mostly the politicians use this time to negotiate different laws, deals, anything that they might want to start, you know, voting on once the new. The parliament opens up again in October. So right now they are negotiating and discussing, okay, how should this reform look like. And in a way, they look a lot at the electric, the electricity market, right? The moment they have freed up the electricity market, in a way they say that the price has gone down. That can be true, but that can also be not true because during crisis times, when you have, you know, free market, that can affect the population quite heavily, as you probably have noticed as well last couple of years.

Wizzy

Yes, we, we've all noticed that, I think recently, haven't we? In recent times? Especially since 2019. 2020. 

Narcis

Yeah, exactly. So I'm always wondering what will Happen if there is a crisis on the postal service, let's say that it's so expensive to deliver to instead in the outskirts of Denmark. Would anyone actually want to take that? What will happen then? Right? Can I still send mail to that area? But luckily enough they are discussing that the islands and sending letters outside of Denmark, they will be still done by PostNord. So there's certain exceptions, let's just say so for us as internationals, if we are worried that our letters might not reach, you know, when we send back home or when we are in touch with other people from other countries that will not be affected by this reform. It's only about postal service within Denmark. So sending from Aalborg to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen to Aarhus. But as you can see, probably a lot the private actors have started to make a move quite heavily lately, right? The press, it's already done, or at least delivered by private actors like DAO or no Use Case or so on.

Wizzy

Now, one headline that did catch my eye was the Nordic dietary guidelines have taken into account the impact of the food we eat on both our health and the environment. I just wondered if you could give us a little taster of what the findings of this research are and maybe a sort of summary or tips on how to live a healthy life.

Narcis

[laughs] I mean, I'm not an expert on the field, as you can imagine. The best I could do is to look at what the press release was about and what they were telling us as users, consumers to do. So I. Well, all I can do is say what their conclusion were. And their conclusion is that, well, it's not a surprise we have to eat less meat. And that we have, we have heard that again and again and again. And it started of course with the vegetarian associations, vegan associations. We started with the, let's just say the, the climate activists who started to talk about this, but not even five years ago, 10 years ago, it was seen as a. Not, not something that's common, right? Like people were like, ah, they're just some extremists, people who just want to cut, take away our right to eat meat. Well, now it seems that the entire debate, the entire discussion is moving to be a normal thing, that we eat less meat and that we try to find alternatives to it. And actually eating less meat doesn't mean. Does eat less red meat, right? It means eating less meat point. Like eating less chicken as well, doesn't mean that just because you don't eat, you know, cows, because everyone thinks of red meat. Okay, I'm not going to eat as much red meat anymore. And actually if you, if you go to the stores and you, you look around, you notice red meat in itself, it's much less often seen in the, in the fridges compared now with pig or with chicken and so on. So you can see that the consumption has clearly decreased just by open, by, by the naked eye. But I would say that, I don't know like the, what, what are they trying to say now is that simply don't try to replace the meat with other meats, try to replace it with more plants. And actually that's because of the environment. Because until now you always thinking about the health aspects but now for once they also fought for the first time, not for once they have also thought of, okay, what will be the, the impact on, on the environment, the way we eat in the Nordics? Because this is a Nordic dietary guidelines, it's not a Danish one. You know, Denmark also has its own. And most likely they will be influenced by the Nordic one. But I'm, I'm just, I'm just wondering here, like, do you, do you care about this dietary guidelines? I mean, does anyone actually read this think?

Wizzy

I'm sure some people do actually because we, I think most of us want to do the ethical thing. We want to live in an ethical, sustainable way. So if there's guidelines on how to be more environmentally friendly with our diet as well as healthier for our bodies, I think that is of interest. I think people will, I would look at that. I mean, that's why I picked it out, because it stood out to me. I thought, oh, okay. Because I'm from the UK and I think there's more plant based sort of dieters in the UK than there are in Denmark. I don't think I've met many vegetarians in this part of, in this part of the world and in Copenhagen where I am and there seems to be quite a lot more meat around. But then I do see lots of plant based alternatives. My wonder is what's, what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks of plant based alternatives like meat, like foods, you know, fake sausages and fake burgers and fake. Because I don't know how healthy those are for you. Is it more that we need to eat more fruit and veg and salad and more stuff straight from the ground? Because I would have thought that would be a better diet. I don't know what the guidelines say. What do they say about meat replacement products?

Narcis

They are not, definitely not including that. I know that for vegans they seems to be a. The greatest solution to the meat problem, as they call it. But the guidelines do not even touch that subject because it's not a natural way of eating this fake meat and so on. So I would say what, at least what they say is that we should try to, you know, increase the intake of vegetables, fruits, berries, legumes. They're. They're big on that lately. Potatoes actually are quite, quite okay, at least. Well, not the deep fried ones. Don't misunderstand. Just because you go to McDonald's and start eating like two kilos of potatoes, it does not. 

Wizzy.

Yes chips everyday!

Narcis

You're not respecting the guidelines every day. Yes. No, they have to be some sort of baked and boiled and it has to have a low, low content of salt, which is. I'm starting to think that all of these things are kind of logic by now. I think everyone knows salt is bad. Everyone knows sugar is bad if it's too much. I think everyone knows now by now that too much meat is bad. And. And I see now that also the fish is only recommending to eat once. Only once a week. Right, right.

Wizzy

And that's different, isn't it, from what we've heard before? Because a while ago, you know, they would talk about eating fish instead of meat. And that's much. It's much healthier and it's. But that's actually been proven not to be so true anymore, isn't it?

Narcis

Yeah, that's true. Because you have to think of on the overfishing, right? Because they're also looking, as I said, the environment. There's only so much fish out there and they cannot keep up. The fish populations can simply not keep up with the demand that we have for fish. So eating too much fish, I mean, fish is healthy, yes, clearly, but eating too much fish doesn't really makes you even more healthier. 

Wizzy 

Which goes back to your point that it's just common sense, isn't it? Because eating too much of any one food group or type of food or drinking too much or, you know, doing anything too much is bad for you, isn't it? So it is kind of. A lot of this is common sense, I think. Shall we move on to another headline that picked my interest? So, eight schools will participate in a national experiment for two years during which they will not grade the students. Do you want to just expand on this a little bit and give us your thoughts on this feedback? First experiment. Do you think it will make for happier kids? 

Narcis

To be honest, when I was a youth activist a couple of years ago, quite a lot of Years ago, this was quite of a common, let's just say, request from the youth towards the legislators that grades does not really improve anything. Like it only adds stress to you. I mean, do you remember, do you think that the grades you obtained in primary school, in secondary school have influenced your life or your skill set in any way? Besides adding the extra stress or reasons to be even bullied because of low grades or being, you know, in a way, outcast? Because, you know, I, in my class, for example, I remember that the kids with lower grades will always be like the outcasts in compared to the rest, right? Because everyone will know that's a really bad student. They don't want to be around bad students because that means they will not do well in life for some reason. 

Wizzy

And there's almost, there's almost a lessening of valuing that human because they've got lower grades, which is despicable, isn't it? 

Narcis

Especially because I'm just wondering, like right now we have this very mainstream education systems that are trying to kind of fit everyone in the same mold. So they're not trying, they're not really adapted to who you are as a person. What can you really do? What can you not? It's basically that you have to see whoever fits the mold imagined by the state. That's the people who do really well in school and have very high grades. But that's not equal. That doesn't really mean that afterwards that person will be someone who creates value in the world. It's not a guarantee. It doesn't say anything. It just says that this person fits the vision that the government has for the young people. That's the only thing it says. So is it really necessary to have grades? What's the purpose of it? Just to see rankings? Why? I mean, you're there to learn. You're there to obtain new skills as a human. You're not there to compete against others. It's not, what do you get? Okay, you're number one. And? Does it mean that you'll, I don't know, cure cancer tomorrow? That's not a guarantee. So what's the purpose? 

Wizzy

I remember when I was at school, I was at. I was at quite a sort of fancy school. And I got told by the teachers that if you don't aim for 10A stars at GCSE and get 10 A stars at GCSE, there's no point in you being at school. And I didn't get 10 A stars. I got two A stars and four A's and I thought I was really thick. I thought I'd failed school. I thought there had been no point in my education whatsoever because I didn't get 10 A stars. I left school thinking I was a complete idiot. But it turned out I just wasn't in the 10 a star club. I didn't fit that mold. I was different. I was a bit off the wall. I had. I had extracurricular activities. I was well into trampolining and karate and ice skating and like, things, things like that and hanging out with people outside of school. And it just, it. It has affected me. You know, I've never forgotten being told that, that if I didn't get 10 A stars, I was useless. And it has a lasting impact. So I think you make a good point?

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Narcis

I mean, we start with this eight schools. Let's see how it goes. I really hope that the research or because they're like a pilot, right. They want to see will this work out, will the quality whatsoever will decrease somehow of the students. So it's hard to say. These eight schools might be the heralds of a new education system and maybe even for the whole of Europe because, you know, they inspire each other quite a lot here in Europe, from one state to another. Or it can also somehow it can fail this experiment and then it will put this to bed for quite a while. Yeah, moving forward. So it's. It's interesting to see what happens. That's why they are testing other things. I don't know if you have seen, but they're also testing to see maybe they will add another grade. I'm not sure that's another direction to go to somehow. Not only great knowledge, but great effort. How hard did you try? Well, you hard. Tried really hard. Well, you deserve an extra grade somehow to raise your probably general level. I'm not sure to be honest how I feel about this.

Wizzy

The problem I see in that is the comparison between the grades. If you get an F for actual the work you've done and you get an A for effort, are you gonna think, all I did, I got an A for effort. So I put all the effort in and I still failed. Which means I must, you know, I don't know. That's what I think of straight away. Like. So I don't know if adding more grades is the right way to go about it. I, I'm interested to see about this experiment. Let's, let's watch the space.

Narcis

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm definitely looking at it because I think once this, if this works out, I think it will be used as an example for the rest of Europe because as I said when I was in the youth organizations, we were talking about this, that grades in general should be completely phased out. And I think we need to move in a direction where instead of receiving grades, you should receive feedback. And actually that's what they're going to do in this case as well. They're going to provide detailed feedback to the child how to improve. What do we do well and what do we do bad? What can you improve? And that's the only purpose that you should have at the end. Right, because, and that's why I like, I really like this, this direction. But anyway, let's see how it goes.  

Wizzy

Yeah, absolutely. So what else can we expect from the newsletter this week and anything else you'd like to discuss today? 

Narcis

Well, I'm not sure if you have seen, but if we are to look outside of Denmark a little bit and how much you, you look at the whole LGBT+ environment, but it seems that it's, it's a very strange situation. You know, it used to be that Western Europe used to be the lead in this field, but now it seems that Eastern Europe is taking the lead because Estonia, I don't know if I've seen, but they have legalized same sex marriage. And it seems that there's an overwhelming percentage of the population who supports marriage equality. And it seems this development has, has happened in the past decade, barely. But then you look now at Spain, right? They just had local elections and they had this nasty far writers from Vox who got elected in different places, small villages or bigger villages around Spain. And now they're inspiring themselves from Poland, right, with this LGBT free zones where you know, you cannot, for example. Yeah. Talking about flags you cannot hoist a rainbow flag and you cannot have anti-sexist protests and so on. It's, it's quite strange, right? What are we talking about? Spain.

Wizzy

That seems bizarre, doesn't it? It seems. We thought it was a sort of forward thinking, inclusive place. And what's happened here? Why is this happening? 

Narcis

It's, it's hard to say to be honest, but I feel like it's a reactionary, it's a counter reaction movement to the current, let's just say progressist movement because Spain has been quite, I'm not sure, aggressive, but it has been quite, has been developing quite fast towards being a very, let's just say, feminist nation. It has been run by leaders who had very strong feminist views and they have done interesting progresses. You know, like for example, you know that in Spain is one of the, I'm not sure if it's the only country, but it's one country where all the menstrual products are free. They're subsidized by the government. Something that I don't see in other countries, at least I don't know about other countries, but I heard about them being one of the first ones, you know, and other moves like that from the, from the government in the past six, seven years has kind of, in a way, I don't think it has not. The entire Spain moves on the same speed in terms of progress. So some people kind of felt this change to be too fast. So they kind of now found refuge in the counter reactionary movements, the ones who want less progress, who want back to the, the way it used to be. Because our people are scared of, of changes. And that's why now you, you give a fertile ground to far right movements like, like vox. So right now we are talking, we are in a space because you have to understand progress never happens without sacrifice. And then all these progressive movements in the, in the last 10, 20 years have kind of pushed more and more and more the norms without too much resistance, I would say. But now the resistance everywhere, you, you see it all over places. There is a split in society and there has to be a fight. There has to be a battle between the two views. Will it be bloody? We don't know. It might be in history if we look, it always is. 

Wizzy

Yeah.

Narcis

But there has to. The, the society needs to go through a shock. It's like a shock during which one view has to win over the other. Whatever that view is, once that happens, that's the moment when things will become accepted and we can move on to a new stage in humanity. But that's just, you know, that's the sad nature of humans, you can say.

Wizzy

Always has been and ever will be, I guess, won't it? Humans are humans.

Narcis

That's, that's true. And, and I don't know how to, how to look more at this, to be honest. Besides the fact that I guess Eastern Europe will become even more accepting because they, they're taking it slower. There is also a lot of setbacks in there of, for example, the Polish LGBT free zones. They kind of given up quite quickly when the EU said, well, no LGBT, no money. Ah, no money. Okay, let us rethink a bit our opinions about this. It's not so important actually. Let's just step one. I mean, sometimes, you know, when you don't have a functioning water system or something and you need more money for that, sometimes you just have to put a step back on the views on culture or societal norms and be like, okay, we need running water for everyone. And that's more important for us than having a strong stance against one thing or another.

Wizzy

Narcis. Thank you for joining me today and giving us such insight into the week's news and a roundup of all that's been going on in Denmark. Where can we find the newsletter and when's it coming out? 

Narcis

Well, it's always coming up at 12 o' clock on, on Sundays and it's coming to your mail. So all you have to do is just write Last Week in Denmark on Google and you'll find a sub-stack and you can just put in just your mail, no other information, and then you'll get it on your mail every Sunday. So it's, it's quite simple, quite accessible. It's always free, it's always going to be free. So it's a way for you to stay connected to Danish society. It's a way for you to have something to talk about at lunch. Of course, the things that we have covered in this podcast, it's not everything that we have, it's written in the, in the newsletter. So you'll, you can get a much, much deeper, let's just say, understanding of what's happening around you. And there can be opportunities, there are new ideas can come to you just by reading the newsletter. You might start a new business just based on the information you receive, or you have something to talk at lunch with your co workers and so on. I mean, there's many ways to use the newsletter and if you have, if you have some, some, some ideas of what we could do better, you can always write to us, of course. And I'm really happy that we managed to do this, this, this, this podcast. It's first time and we're learning. We're trying to see. Okay, what's the best way to go forward.  

Wizzy

Fantastic. Well, thank you once again. You've been listening to the Last Week in Denmark podcast with myself, Wizzy Magnussen and Narcis, founder of Last Week in Denmark. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

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Did you know that the Last Week in Denmark newsletter is available in eight languages? Hey there. This is Fionn from the Last Week in Denmark podcast. And every week you guys are tuning in to hear me and my fellow co hosts talk about the top news of the week in English. But let's be real, we're all internationals, so not only are you speaking English every day, you're probably also speaking a bit of Danish, but you've probably also got your own native language as well, like the multilingual master you are. So why not treat yourself to the luxury of being able to read Danish news each week in your own native language? So head on over to last weekdk.substack.com that's last weekdk.substock.com and sign up for our newsletter, delivered to you every single Sunday.

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