COPENHAGEN – Denmark woke up on Friday to the words “racist fish” scrawled on the base of the “Little Mermaid”, the bronze statue honoring the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen that perches on a rock in the sea in front of a pier in Copenhagen.
Police said they had not yet identified the perpetrators. The 107-year-old sculpture, which is visited by 1 million tourists each year, has been smashed before, including by anti-whaling activists and pro-democracy activists, twice suffering from beheading.
“We consider it vandalism and have started an investigation,” said a Copenhagen police spokesman.
Protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement around the world have demonstrated in recent months against statues of historical figures who played a role in racist oppression, such as slave traders and colonialists.
The Little Mermaid has not been a part of this debate, but last year a new Disney version of the 1989 animated film of the same name was controversial after African-American actress Halle Bailey was cast for the central role.
“I am having a hard time seeing what is particularly racist in the fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid,'” Ane Grum-Schwensen, a researcher at the HC Andersen Center at the University of Southern Denmark, told local media outlet Ritzau.
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