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Denmark’s famous Little Mermaid statue defaced with ‘racist fish’ graffiti, authorities baffled as to why

“In general, with literary works, you can read them with various glasses. However, I do find it a little difficult to see, what would be especially racist in the adventure 'The Little Mermaid’,” Ane Grum-Schwensen, an academic, said

Denmark's famous Little Mermaid statue in the entrance to Copenhagen harbor has been vandalized with graffiti that said “racist fish.” Reports said the incident has left police and commentators baffled on Friday, July 3, as they were unable to understand the message behind it. They also did not know who was behind the vandalism.

“We can confirm that The Little Mermaid has been vandalized sometime before 9:00 am this morning. An unknown person has written the words 'Racist Fish' on it. We are investigating the case,” Copenhagen police said in a statement as reported by The Daily Mail.

The Little Mermaid is a 107-year-old statue, which is inspired by a character from Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairytale of the same name. It was made by sculptor Edvard Eriksen and weighs around 175-kilogram (385 pounds).

This is not the first time, the monument has been vandalized. It has been ruined several times over the years. Its head was stolen in 1964 and 1998 while in 1984, an arm of the mermaid was cut off. And more recently, in January this year, someone wrote “Free Hong Kong” on the rock on which the 1.65-meter bronze statue sits. However, this recent incident that apparently hinted towards racism has left some scratching their heads. “Of course, in general, with literary works, you can read them with various glasses. However, I do find it a little difficult to see, what would be especially racist in the adventure 'The Little Mermaid’,” Ane Grum-Schwensen, an expert employed by the H.C. Andersen center at the University of Southern Denmark, told broadcaster TV2.

Reports claimed that local police have said several monuments around Copenhagen have been vandalized with “various phrases”. The vandalized statues included one of missionary Hans Egede, who launched Lutheran mission efforts to Greenland, and another of Mahatma Gandhi in the northwestern part of the city. Police also said that on June 16, the statue of Danish King Christian IV, who ruled between 1588 and 1648, was painted with the word “racist”.

A number of statues and monuments around the world, and especially in the US, have been destroyed in the recent weeks following the May 25 death of Geroge Floyd. Floyd, an African-American man, was allegedly killed by a former Minneapolis officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The death of the 46-year-old sparked nationwide protests in the US against racism and police brutality.

In June, demonstrators in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, dismantled the bust of slave owner John McDonogh and threw it into the Mississippi River. Local police said in a statement on June 13 that protestors at Duncan Plaza first dragged the monument’s bust into the streets and then loaded it into a truck before dumping it into the Mississippi River. McDonogh was an American slave owner. He made a huge amount of money by forcing his slaves to work for their freedom. Mayor LaToya Cantrell reacted to the incident and said in a tweet that the city “rejects vandalism and destruction of city property. It is unlawful”.