The silence of Danish cultural institutions on Gaza is staggering

There is culture in the streets — but silence in the halls.

Across the country, since October 2023, we have witnessed a civic engagement unseen in decades. In hundreds of peace demonstrations, poetry readings, local fundraising events, and digital campaigns, citizens — young and old — have insisted on using their voices for Gaza. It is the people who now carry the moral pulse of culture. Gaza is the scene of a brutal and ongoing war that has so far claimed more than 59,000 lives — the vast majority women and children — and wounded over 140,000. In addition come those who have died from starvation, lack of medicine, and medical care, and the thousands still missing under the rubble. Gaza is being bombed and starved before the eyes of the world. Gaza is the Holocaust of our time. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has directly called what is happening a genocide. The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to prevent it. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented extensive war crimes. And in March this year, Denmark was sued by three major NGOs — ActionAid Denmark (Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke), Oxfam Denmark, and Al-Haq — for complicity in war crimes through its export of weapons components to Israel. And yet: silence. Libraries, museums, theaters, art foundations, academies — every bastion of Danish culture — have remained silent. No condemnation. No public talks. No solidarity. No sense of responsibility. The very institutions that are quick to raise their voices for women’s rights in Iran or rainbow flags in Qatar suddenly have nothing to say. The empathy they claim to build their legitimacy on turns out to be selective. It extends only to those it is convenient to support — and vanishes when it meets resistance. This is not neutrality. It is moral dissonance. A dissonance that has become increasingly visible because the people, through their actions, have exposed it: The cultural elite that loves systemic critique — as long as the system being criticized is not the one they depend on.

Writers, filmmakers, and musicians have shown the way

In 2024, the Danish Library Association chose to boycott an international library conference in Dubai due to human rights violations in the Emirates. It was a principled stance.
But why such backbone in one case — and silence in another? The UN calls it genocide. Denmark is being sued for complicity. What more will it take? Why does Gaza mark the boundary where culture ceases to be culture — and becomes an institution? Amid the silence, parts of Denmark’s art and literary scene have fortunately shown the way.
Over 600 filmmakers, 200 authors, and more than 1,000 people from the music industry have, in open letters to the government, clearly denounced what is happening in Gaza. These are not just strong statements — they are living examples of how culture’s actors can and should respond when humanity and conscience are under threat.They remind us that courage an d empathy need not conflict with artistic and cultural integrity — they are its very essence. And that is precisely why the silence of cultural institutions stands out so starkly.

Strategic and conditional humanism

The people act. The artists speak. The institutions hide — behind strategies and budgets. But culture is not a strategy. Culture is conscience. And if Danish cultural institutions do not soon rediscover their conscience, they will lose not only their relevance — but their soul. At Roskilde Festival, the Irish band Fontaines D.C. ended their concert with the words “Free Palestine” on the big screens. It was not the festival’s official policy; it was an artistic expression. Yet, the festival immediately faced political backlash and condemnation in the media. That says it all: A few words on a screen trigger more outrage than 59,000 deaths. And that is why many institutions remain silent — not because they don’t know better, but because career, funding, and reputation mean more than the values they claim to uphold. Their humanism is strategic. Their ethics are conditional. Their empathy is measured by how politically safe it is to express. Danish cultural institutions have not only failed Gaza. They have failed the Danish people — the very citizens they are meant to serve through knowledge, reflection, and spaces for spirit and conscience. Today, they no longer fulfill their enlightening, democratizing, and elevating role. They have become cautious instead of courageous, strategic instead of truth-seeking, thereby depriving society of the spaces where meaningful change can begin. If Danish cultural institutions wish to regain their credibility, it will not happen through more strategies. It will require courage — the courage to stand where it is not comfortable, the courage to speak when it costs something, and the courage to understand that silence, too, is a statement — and right now, it is the wrong one. If they fail to do so, they are in the process of writing themselves out of history.