Shortly after the Danish Court announced the passing of Prince Henrik, a lot of members of the government, including the Prime Minister, expressed their condolences to the Danish Royal Family.
While the Danish Minister of Culture and Church, Mette Bock, did so on her Facebook account, she also posted a message calling out Danes on their hypocrisy regarding Prince Henrik. Indeed, she denounced the way some Danes criticised Prince Henrik a lot during his lifetime but were now praising him after his death was announced by the Court.
She said: “The man and the princess:
Once upon a time, there was a man named Henri. He met a princess named Margrethe. They fell in love and got married. So the man did not only get the princess, who then became queen, but also a whole country in addition.
It was a happy love story. But an unfortunate cultural meeting. The people didn’t really like the man. He was different. Came from another country. Never learned to speak Danish fluently, as we like it best. And then he was interested in the fine arts. Music, Sculpture, art, literature. Very strange. So he was bullied. And when he started to express his desire to preserve his own identity, it went completely wrong. French Henri did not get all the way to Danish Henrik, even though we forced him to change his name.
Now the man is dead. And bullies will today post obituaries about this amazing human being who was exciting, different, exuberant and completely himself. The hypocrisy will not end.
Fortunately, we’re good at the stories about love. On the other hand, we need to get better at cultural meetings.
We can do that if we want to. And we will. Because we have to.
Let’s honour Prince Henrik’s memory. Nice person. Big personality. His own. ”
This post sparked a lot of reactions, mainly about the bad timing of this publication, only a few hours after the Court’s announcement. A lot of people disagreed with the Danish Minister of Culture in the comments of her post, saying that while Prince Henrik was indeed criticised, it doesn’t mean that the Danes can’t acknowledge and appreciate everything he did for Denmark and the great man, husband, father and grandfather he was. However, some people agreed with the Minister about the hypocrisy of the media about Prince Henrik.
What do you think about the Minister’s post? Should she have waited until after the mourning period to express her views or was she right to do it today?
