14.10.2006 11:19

Yesterday there was the "Kulturnatten" here, that's something like "Lange Nacht der Museen" and "Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften" combined in one thing. So there Science institutes, museums but also other institutions like the Scandinavian Yoga Center, and most of the shops in the city center are all open for the public until midnight. Me of course I don't like Copenhagen and I love Berlin therefore I have thousands of reasons why "Lange Nacht..." is much much better. ;-)
The most important ones being that in Berlin it is more focused. Here as allways if there is something going on there is everybody. So the city center was packed and there were queues all over. And for that reason it was actually not enough to have this Kulturnatten batch to get in to the interesting places, but you needed to make a reservation and to pay in addition there. The one exception being the main hall of the Copenhagen loge of "Den Danske Frimurerorden" which is a huge fascist-like looking building and the immediate neighbour of Niels Bohr institute.
The main reason why I went to Kulturnatten was actually to go in there, because it's kind of the thing that calls on your attention when you pass by.

So now I can tell you that they very much rule the world, or maybe ruled it. There was a photo gallery with famous freemasons just some I remember: Several danish kings, all of them called Frederik or Christian of course, Charles VI, Prince Philip (the Prinzgemahl) Churchill, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Th. Roosevelt, Louis Armstrong (the only black in the gallery), Lindbergh (the flying guy), Amundsen (the south pole guy), James Cook (the Australia guy), Voltaire, Conan Doyle, Goethe and Oersted.
But not Niels Bohr. One of us had heard somewhere that Niels Bohr actually was member. When we asked them, one said yes, the next one said no and the third said he didn't know, and there was no picture in the gallery. Hence I conclude he wasn't because if he had, he would have been a member of their very loge and they would know it.
Well their behaviour towards our questions was actually quite revealing. Because first they would easily claim that he was, then when we insisted they became unsure about it and when we said that we were not sure he was eligible as a member at all, because his mother was jewish (though it seems he was baptised) (Baptism is in entry requirement in the danish order) they became much more unsure. It seems that there are so many famous and influential members that they readily claim somebody if he is famous.
All in all I found it rather dispisable: It's this kind of men's society, where they gather to have a good time together and feel important, \begin{sideremark} without woman, that the one I talked to instisted very much, it sounded like "finally here we can meet without this silly and stupid women, kind of in an insulting way, it seemed to me. If you just meet to discusse and do charity then I don't see why it should be a problem having women discussing and doing charity. Of course the wives of the members can still come to a party from time to time and serve coffee to the public at kulturnatten\end{sideremark} They don't actually seem to do a lot except for charity. So all in all, it seems to be more like a "Studentenverbindung" a place for social interaction and a place to be networking and make informal contacts to people in higher social institutions which will eventually help your career \begin{sideremark_again} Of course _there_ you don't want to have women \end{sideremark_again} Just that the social structure is probabely different than in a ordinary Studentenverbindung, and it maybe is less right wing though here in Denmark it seems to be very much about Christianity and Danish Leitkultur. But otherwise there is no need for freemasonry nowadays it's not like in the 18. century where you needed a place to discuss and promote enlightenment ideas or so. Nowadays you could do this on the open street without a gigantic fascistic building full of halls, decorated as perfect stages for Faust II.
Somehow I felt a bit pity for those guys standing around in this ridiculous dresses wearing medals which most of them don't mean anything, you just buy them. Why do they need this masquerade? Men, uniforms and conspiracy.