{"id":548,"date":"2012-06-05T23:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T23:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=548"},"modified":"2012-06-06T00:36:32","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T00:36:32","slug":"happy-grundlovsdag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/06\/05\/happy-grundlovsdag\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Grundlovsdag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of Danes had a welcome day off today, as the country celebrated its <span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><strong>grundlovsdag<\/strong><\/span> (Constitution Day). <span style=\"color: #808080\">(Well, most places people actually had half a day off, working until 12 o\u2019clock\u2026)<\/span> One and a half century ago, on <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">June 5th 1849<\/span>, Denmark got its first constitution. This was something Danish defendants of <strong>frihed<\/strong> (freedom) had been dreaming of for decades: King <strong>Frederik 7<\/strong> putting his quill to a piece of paper, agreeing to share his power with a <strong>regering<\/strong> (government) that was to be elected by the citizens. It was the end of <strong>enev\u00e6lden<\/strong> (Absolute Monarchy, literally \u2019the absolute monarchy\u2019), and the beginning of democracy in Denmark. The King was still there to sign laws and wave to people from his cart. But he was no longer a dictator.<\/p>\n<p>Today most Danes are happy about their <strong>grundlov<\/strong> (literally \u2019basic law\u2019), but don\u2019t spend much time thinking about it (unless they\u2019re stuck in a lawsuit!) Life is easy in Denmark, and I guess that\u2019s one of the reasons we don\u2019t go around celebrating our constitution with the level of pomp seen in countries like Norway or the US. Of course there are problems in Denmark too, but generally the fights of the past have been laid to rest as people concentrate on celebrating the freedom of the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Still, you\u2019ll find most of the shops closed on <strong>grundlovsdag<\/strong>, the <strong>Dannebrog<\/strong> (Danish flag) flying from the <strong>flagst\u00e6nger<\/strong> (flagstaffs, singular form: <strong>flagstang<\/strong>) with subdued pride. In every <strong>by<\/strong> (town, city) there are ceremonial get-togethers with politicians holding speeches and eventually some veteran laying down a wreath at the local war memorial.<\/p>\n<p>What is\u00a0<strong>danskhed<\/strong> (Danishness) actually? Sharing a common history and culture, or is speaking Danish enough to make you a Dane? Since 9-11 these questions have occupied a lot of space in Danish TV and newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>Organizations working for the well-being of <strong>nydansker\/e<\/strong> (New Dane\/s, that is, immigrants to Denmark) have been using the <strong>grundlovsdag<\/strong> to promote diversity. In Copenhagen, \u00c5rhus and Odense there was an alternative \u201dNudansk grundlovsdag\u201d (\u2019Now-Danish Constitution Day\u2019) today, to tell society that being Danish does not depend on the colour of your skin or the things you believe in at home.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"TODAY IN HISTORY -  Denmark&#039;s Grundlovsdag,Father&#039;s Day; UN World Environment Day  05 June 2010\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZdzV3j2sLjw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the quick version. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of Danes had a welcome day off today, as the country celebrated its grundlovsdag (Constitution Day). (Well, most places people actually had half a day off, working until 12 o\u2019clock\u2026) One and a half century ago, on June 5th 1849, Denmark got its first constitution. This was something Danish defendants of frihed (freedom)&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/06\/05\/happy-grundlovsdag\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[89881,5256,89892,89894],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-traditions","tag-flag","tag-freedom","tag-grundlov","tag-nydansker"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}