Cannibals and integration politics

I heard a curious story on the radio yesterday. Thought it might interest you. Or at least put a little smile on your face.

Seems a travelling circus toured Denmark about a hundred years ago, or so. One of the main attractions were three cannibals recently captured and brought home from some obscure Pacific Island.

One night the circus director steps into their cage, and the next morning all that’s left of him is bare blood’n’bones. His clothes sits in the corner, neatly folded and stacked. And the cannibals? The cannibals look just a trifle more pleased than they have been doing since they were brutally taken away from their homeland.

Outcry! Police constables and ministers alike want them prosecuted – and for once they have the unanimous support of the people. Yet a notorious homosexual(!) writer and journalist of the time, Georg Brandes, rushes to the defence of the cannibals. How were they to know that it’s not acceptable for people to eat each other in Denmark?

A fiery public debate ensues. Brandes argues that since the cannibals were removed from their distant home against their will, and since no attempt were made to properly understand them and their culture, or teach them about the culture of the country in which they had arrived, they should be exempt from punishment.

Unfortunately for the debate (luckily, however, for the circus director), the case is closed when a magician appears, and restores the bloodied bones to life. It was all but a trick, a coarse yet elegant practical joke, and once more peace reigns supreme in the quietude of Denmark.

Now, with all due respect, doesn’t that just sound like a perfect allegory of today’s integration politics in Denmark? People arriving here against their own will, being largely misunderstood by a disinterested public, and then scolded for their ”abnormal” behaviour?

I guess anybody eating anybody in the world of today would probably run into some kind of legal difficulties, but how about speaking different tongues, wearing different clothes, cooking different meals? And if anybody should happen to show up at our front door with a somewhat unhealthy inkling towards human flesh, mightn’t we just serve him up a good steak, and tell him to kick the habit until he’s back in wherever? Sure beats letting him have a bite of the hostess’ shoulder, and then locking him up in a deep dark dungeon for the rest of his life. I’m sure he would agree. Wouldn’t you?