Hi. Again.
It´s been a year since I have written anything here. The reasons for the lengthy pause are many, but principal among them is the fact that summarising the downsides of your country is pretty hard work. Not because of the amount of registered shortcomings that pile up on one’s desk during the process, but because it gets difficult, if not impossible, to go about your daily business among your countrymen without blending those realisations into the equation. You constantly have to remind yourself that the downsides of Denmark don’t apply to the individual Dane, but to the national character as a whole. At some point that circumstance just got unmanageable. So I needed at break.
But now something has happened that has reinvigorated my interest in the keyboard. Actually, it’s more pertinent to say that something has happened that has so filled me with anger and disgust that I’ve decided to change the focal point of this blog from just describing the absurdities of Denmark to sounding an urgent warning to everyone: Keep as far away from Denmark as you possibly can!
The triggering factor is as follows:
Right now, our parliament Folketinget is negotiating the fiscal plan for our country for the next 10 years, the so-called 2020 Plan. In relation to this, it is of course expedient to calculate the expected income and expenditure, so we know what we’re dealing with. And it’s equally prudent to break down the income and expenditure into different budget headings so you know which knobs to turn up and down to make everything balance.
But this time the MPs are using a calculating principle hitherto unseen. Government officials from five different ministries have made a report splitting up the income and expenditure into different ethnic groups.
No, your eyes do not deceive you. Government officials from five different ministries have actually made a report splitting up the income and expenditure into different ethnic groups. According to this report “immigrants and descendants from less developed countries” (Danish new-speak for ‘Muslims’) “constitute 15 billion kroner in expenses for Danish society” whereas “immigrants and descendants from more developed countries” (Danish new-speak for ‘everyone other than Muslims’) “constitute 2 billion kroner in earnings for the Danish society”.
Now, if I really – I mean REALLY – extend my lenience to include some sort of sense in making this account, I would conclude from it that Denmark has been failing totally in absorbing Muslim immigrants into the labour market, since paying taxes from wages is the most efficient way to contribute income to a society.
But that’s not the conclusion the Danes are deriving from this arithmetical problem. According to the Minister for Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs, Søren Pind, (I’ll explain the ‘ø’ in a later post) we should use this report to conclude that “It is not inconsequential which people arrive in our country. I have no scruples about introducing additional immigration barriers to those who we can suspect of intention to lay burdens on Danish society.” According to today’s newspapers, a substantial majority of MPs agree. The spokesman on the subject from the leading opposition party, Henrik Dam Kristensen even “welcomes the initiatives.”
I’ve always intentionally avoided using the word ‘racism’ here on Downsides of Denmark because calling anyone a racist stops a potentially fruitful dialogue instantly. But there are no other words to describe this attitude. Using the report to advocate the opinion that Muslims come to Denmark with the expressed intention of being a burden to society is nothing else than good old-fashioned bigotry.
So there you have it. Danes have finally fallen over the ledge and gone from casual racism to government-sponsored racism. And from this position, there is no way back. I see no other future for Denmark than the process so depressingly and concisely described by Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the City Club of Cleveland on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his colour or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies – to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear – only a common desire to retreat from each other – only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.”
For Denmark, this situation is not a question of ‘when’. It’s a matter of ‘right now’.
27 Comments
26 Comments
As Goebbels said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” And systemic discrimination will become popular.
Stay away from Denmark compared to where? I’m an American living for the past several years in “the Hate State”, Arizona, where the absolute consensus among legislators and the Governor toward Mexican immigrants is that they are exactly “those who we can suspect of intention to lay burdens on Arizonan society.” That assumption is made without any basis in economic facts and is entirely due to nothing but old fashioned bigotry.
It’s ironic you would quote Kennedy in that respect, as though he represented some kind of American tradition. His words have no meaning at all here. Mexican immigrants are to huge numbers of Arizonans what Jews were to Hitler’s Germany; the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong in this state. They are being used as an excuse to gut the education system, and to make hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts in public healthcare. And the state is seen as the example to the rest of the country that other states are following.
So for me at least, I think I’d still take Denmark any day.
@ken: It’s even more ironic that Sen. Kennedy was shot and killed 2 months later.
I do not think that your arguments stands the test of logic, though. In short one could cut down your comment to: “Since Arizonians use Mexicans as scapegoats for their misfortunes, it’s okay for Danes to use Muslims as scapegoats.” That’s an argument often used by Danes, when you confront them with the downsides of our country. “It’s the same in other countries!” It’s a common fallacy known as the ad populum argument.
Ken,
I hate to break the news to you, but I don’t think Denmark wants you either, despite you’re American, white and all.
Interesting points but I beg to differ. I just went through all the nonsense for family reunification, to include having the language test sprung on me in November just days before I was to apply and pay my Danegeld to be a temporary resident. There is nothing racist in what the govt is doing. White, purple, pink, black Somali’s cost the Danish government money. White, purple, pink black Americans give more than the take. Now, the intergration program and many other things I have endured waiting for my authorization are going to anger and radicalize Muslims who come to Denmark and are a complete joke, but people from the 3rd world come to Denmark and are a drain. That is a fact. unless you are saying the numbers are falsified to make thrid world immigrants appear to be a problem and I misread you. To those of you who are so upset about this let me ask you this question. How much time or money have you given to the local Mosque to help with this problem? How many third world immigrants do you mentor or provide help to? And no your Pakistani friend who was raised here and went to University with you dos not count.
C. Alexander: I think you’re missing some pieces of the puzzle. The policies are hitting everyone but they were created for one group. The DK gov’t doesn’t want to create an outright racist law because it would be thrown out due to it going against certain wording in the constitution. Nonetheless, since the DK gov’t doesn’t mind losing skilled labor from countries that are “preferred. They say they want skilled labor, but they don’t. Actions speak louder than words and their actions say “Get out!”. The handful of recent cases of nice Americans or Canadians or Australians getting kicked out because of problems with integration law are chalked off to “Oh well, sucks for you. Have a nice trip back home”. They don’t give a damn. That’s part of why it’s too late. DK is going to be irrelevant fairly soon, if not already. There is a fairly kinder neighbor in the north that actually has happier foreigners and will welcome skilled labor with better taxes, etc. There are so many better places to be. The only suckers caught in the “preferred” box that get screwed are spouses and let’s just say that most spouses end of duking it out on their own; struggling over whether to leave or grin and bare it. In the end, it won’t matter. Danes still regard other danes as Nydanskere. That says it all.
C Alexander, there are three kinds of lies – lies, damned lies and statistics.
http://www.information.dk/266824
It is very easy to make numbers say anything you want them to say, but that does not mean that particular angle is the correct representation of the topic under discussion.
It is extremely racist what is happening here. Even as a Caucasian westerner, I’ve been subjected to epithets, lack of civility and looks of disgust due to having accented danish, not dressing like the locals, not eating the proper danish foods and most especially, for not swilling down beer at any and all times of the day. So far, the immigrants I’ve personally met who are happy here are those who are here for only a couple of years and those who are racist to begin with. The others are aware of the problems and either leave for greener pastures, or are trying their best to fight against the racism and injustice to make Denmark a safe and just place for their fellow humans.
Some more info, this time from the Economists that are responsible for the numbers that are now being used by the government to justify racist policies.
http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/628911-denmark-debates-cost-immigrants?1
I’ve been watching a series on Japan’s history on DR K. Last night’s episode was about the point in Japan’s history when they were forced (by the U.S, under threat of war) to open trade to foreign countries after 200 years of banning all foreigners (except a select group of Dutch traders that were isolated and not allowed to hang with the Japanese). 200 years of isolation left Japan unable to defend itself once the U.S arrived. They were behind on weapons, they were behind on medicine, they were…behind and very vulnerable.
Isolationism is never the long term solution.
What upsets me the most is that we are talking about *children* costing the State money. The figures may be right but “non-western” immigrants+descendants include many more children than “western” immigrants+descendants.
Valuing a DNA-Dane-Dane child over a “non-western” tosprog anden-generation Dane child IS totally racist and very ugly. What kind of government keeps a balance sheet like that?
(All children cost x DKK but the brown ones don’t deserve it because the pink ones are “culturally” superior)
So, part of the reason “non-westerners” cost more is because they are in børnehaven/school/hospital being born and because they need vaccinations and other startup-medical costs etc etc.
The reason “western” immigrants cost less is because they are the imported wives of Danes or the skilled-expat group. As in, THEIR governments have paid for their education, health care, security etc etc.
Denmark is exposing itself as very greedy. Not only is it unable to educate the people already here to the levels it needs and so intends to pull them away from the countries that paid for their education but it refuses to act in even the most basic humanitarian manner by taking in the less fortunate.
PS Alexander, I do homework help volunteering for Dansk Flytningehjælp, is my opinion more valid than Peter’s?
This is the result of a welfare state. In the end everything becomes a matter of income for the state.
This is not racism. You use the word “racism” incorrectly. Religious, ethnic or national discrimination are based on other factors than human race.
I agree with your conclusion that “Denmark has been failing totally in absorbing Muslim immigrants into the labour market, since paying taxes from wages is the most efficient way to contribute income to a society.”
I only want to say that success in absorbing immigrants into the labour market is not only the matter of well-thought short-term policies. You might call it racism again, but I think that it is reasonable and healthy to acknowledge that people differ culturally. Some of them come from societies where it is normal to have several women with no personal income behind 1 working man, societies with very strong traditions at that.
It is strange to think that their mindset will change the moment they land in Kastrup.
Even a language course with more focus on culture than now would barely help against strong family/community beliefs.
I wrote it not because I support the initiative that triggered your post. I am very close to really agreeing with you, mainly because I never support immoderate generalizing, and in this case there is an assumption, that coming from a muslim country defines a person and his mentality completely (which is fundamentally bullshit).
It’s just that your argumentation is flawed.
I am very very glad that you showed up again, I showed your posts on hygge to everyone that could appreciate and I love the way you write. Please get angry more often
@Peter. Sorry but @ken’s logic makes sense and yours doesn’t. @ken did not say that because it is done in other places it is ok to do it in Denmark. He said if you think you should not live in Denmark because of how the state of affairs are there, then were would you go? – “Stay away from Denmark compared to where?”
@Yulia
It might be worth checking out this excellent piece on “Cultural Racism” where the unfashionable (and often illegal) idea that different “races” are lesser and should be treated badly has been supplanted with different “cultures” are lesser (and should be treated badly.)
http://www1.geo.ntnu.edu.tw/~moise/Data/Books/Reach%20of%20culture/cultural%20racism.pdf
Hey Peter, thanks for your response.
If I could clarify what I see as the difference between Denmark and Arizona in this respect: here, the presence of Mexicans is used as an excuse to make massive spending cuts on things which benefit everyone but which conservatives here consider “socialist”, like public education and healthcare.
Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t get the sense that’s happening in Denmark.
@kel Thanks for the article, I’ll read it for sure.
As unpleasant as it may seem any society will have to discuss the question of income and spending. In many ways this discussion is similar to the keytopic of the 2020-negotioations: How large part of our lives will we have to work to maintain our present level of welfare? If you have any given number of taxpayers there can only be so many spenders. Thus, for as long as the vast majority of politicians evade the question of radical changes to the system and insist that money must constantly be moved between citizens via state in order to uphold services in areas that should be left to the individual and to maintain equality, we will have to regulate the number of spenders and take interest in groups that have proven to be costly to society. The price of the system is that you cannot leave it up to freewill where to settle. If we did so the system would collapse. Now, to me any person anywhere in the world in need is equally important – but thats not the thinking of the welfare state. National taxation is essentially the ultimate national chauvinism. If you live within its boundaries your important and hold extensive rights. If you live outside the boundaries your subject to collects and sympathy. Hence, this is not a question of racism (ok – you would have to look into the minds or souls of each decisionmaker to say this for sure)but of chauvinism. The politics are all logical consequnces of this one fact. And at the end of the day the welfaresystem demands limitations to immigration, later retirement etc. How many persons from groups that we know on average are spenders can we allow? Thats the quintessential question. Denmark to me is a far richer country today than it was 30 years ago – not so much in a fiscal way maybe (that too), but in cultural way. The ethnic versatility has been doing wonders. So lets welcome many more: Only, we can’t pay them not to work. If we continue to do so – anyone can calculate when we have to hit the brakes.
Just a thought for Ken from Arizona, or anyone else whose response to this was effectively, “so what, every government is racist?”
The crucial difference for me is that Denmark won’t own its racism. At least Arizona has a reputation (at least within the US) for being–sorry–a desert filled with crazy rednecks who patrol the border in their free time. Those rednecks make no apologies for being rednecks.
Most Danish media outlets, and indeed probably most Danes, in contrast, don’t ever stop reminding themselves and visitors how spectacular and progressive they are in every way (see Peter’s previous posts). Even Søren Pind pretends to make it about rational economics instead of pure disdain for anything less Danish than he.
As long as Denmark stops laying claim to being the Magical Land of Perfect Happiness, and the rest of the world just allows it to rot from its own inbred core and self-defeating isolationism, instead of idealizing it because of a few windmills and some hot women on bicycles, I’m cool with it.
It’s not only Denmark that won’t own its racism. In the UK during the last decade we encouraged immigration from the less affluent corners of Europe because, as one government minister said, ‘who else will do the jobs that British workers aren’t prepared to do?’ The subtext is that Slavic peoples are not fit to bargain on equal terms with other Europeans due to their supposed lack of education, poor economic status and low expectations.
At the same time we kept adding to the anti-discrimination legislation and spewing out fresh initiatives to combat exclusion. Laws and politically-motivated research may help a government with an agenda but they don’t change the mass of public opinion and, at the end of the day, it’s people who decide, not politicians.
I think we are always wary of waves of immigration (in the UK we have had successive waves since the empire collapsed) but we soon learn to get along and these groups add something to indigenous culture (which was never homogenous to begin with). Thankfully the East Europeans have integrated well and displayed a great deal more ambition than the cynical politicians gave them credit for. Rather than picking fruit and doing all the trades that got neglected in our shift to a ‘knowledge’ economy, they own businesses, shops and even a couple of football teams.
My only concern is not qualitative but quantitative. We are a small island with a huge population and I cant see how the upward trend could continue at present rates without reaching a crisis point. Then again, I live in Scotland and there’s plenty of space and natural resources and we have a declining population.
In my opinion the real danger facing Denmark is a temptation to depart from the long-standing welfarist model due to panic, greed and political expediency. Neo-liberal consumer culture has ruined British society and culture more than any rate of immigration ever could.
@Gordon:
You raise some interesting points.
I have a hard time imagining a Denmark where the majority celebrates the diversity and richness afforded by different waves of foreigners coming into the mix.
For one thing, it’s a society that is routinely told in its media how happy and perfect it already is (political parties generating controversies in order to besmirch their opposition notwithstanding). The claim is that Denmark is so consistently envied by everyone else on the planet–so what would they stand to gain by admitting a bunch of less-contents?
Further, Denmark doesn’t have the “melting pot” narrative of New World countries like the US or Cananda, or Australia, nor the experience in bringing home new blends of peoples and traditions through colonial conquest like so much of the rest of Europe.
The chapter on immigration in my Danish cultural primer assigned by my language and integration courses stops describing immigration to Denmark in a positive (or at least neutral) tone in about the 1840s. After that it’s all hopeless refugees that SOMEBODY had to take in, and guest workers who–presumptuous bastards–decided never to go home.
Integrating here isn’t simply a matter of hammering out the language and saluting the flag. National identity really is about being–or imagining yourself–a direct descendant of the vikings, where things like how blonde you are and how much pork sausage you can eat really count for something. Those foreigners with darker complexions (or worse, those whose religion forbids them from eating pork!) seem never accepted as fully Danish–even generations later. It seems even when speaking about a 2nd- or 3rd-generation Copenhagen-born child with Middle Eastern roots, people habitually label him/her as a “non-ethnically Danish Dane.” That’s a far cry from “African-American,” where at least the citizen’s blood purety and belonging isn’t inherently questioned by the terminology.
Anyways, what is a Scot doing reading this blog? I thought it was for frustrated expats stuck in Denmark who found it amusing to read Peter, their unique source of Danish dissent.
@Gordon: In case that wasn’t clear, I ask out of friendly curiosity how you came to the blog–it sounded kind of like indignation after my diatribe:)
I think you should leave. There is no place in Denmark for people who question Danishness x
Sorry it took so long to reply Peter. I hope you didn’t think I was sulking over your perfectly friendly enquiry. It’s an interesting question for me. I think I feel the same frustration towards my own culture as you seem to experience with yours, but for very different reasons. I’ve been keen to get away from the UK for some time now and began taking an interest in Denmark and Danish culture. I’ve started learning the language (though I wont insult you by attempting any Danish here) and joined the Danish-Scottish society. Also we have a Danish Cultural Institute here in Edinburgh which holds regular events.
I can see how some aspects of your culture can be exasperating but given a choice I’d choose Denmark over the UK any day. My only hope is that Scotland achieves independence as we are increasingly looking in a more Fenoscandian direction. The alternative is being dragged further into the mire by a bunch of consumerist zombies who think that heaven would be to be recognised as the 51st state of America.
Want to swap?
I came to Copenhagen for my research sabbatical from Sydney. A short visit, two-months, just long enough not to be a tourist anymore. I have been severely disappointed by what I have seen, what I have heard. “Integration Day” should be renamed indoctrination day. The level of unfriendliness my family experienced in Denmark is beyond what we ever experienced, and we have traveled a lot.
Good luck to Denmark. My sympathies for people who are trying to change the direction Denmark is heading.
As for me, I doubt I will ever come back to Denmark and my impression of Danes I might meet will be forever tainted.
Peter Andreas, how come you’re such a racist?
I am a scandinavian non-dane that have lived the last 12 years in the US. My family relocated to DK 2 yrs ago, and already at Heathrow moving here we were wondering what made us make this decision. My wife was pregnant and trying to move as fast as she could down the aisle to our seats while being pushed away by frustrated danes wanting to get to their seats. Our 2 year old crying because of her sinusitis and sleep deprivation after an 11 hr flight from the US. We were lucky there was an english gentleman on the plane that offered help.
We have never met such arrogant, squarish, and unhelpful people as the danes before in our lives…seriously. Half of population, though, seems friendly, it is just that the other 50% is just so outrageously aggressive and unfriendly. That makes it unbearable to stay! Now we are luckily soon out of here…
I sometimes still wonder why the police asked me “are they danish?” …when I had enough and reported that a couple of teenagers gathered to drink, fight, and scream until midnight outside our apartment waking up our 2 children. I am still so puzzled by that question. They were screaming in danish, but I couldn’t see them. I was about to ask ” does it matter?” but as I wanted the police to deal with the problem I said ” I have no idea…they are fighting and screaming, breaking bottles etc waking up my kids but I can’t see them or hear what they are saying.” Would they have come if I would have said “yes they are blond and their language is danish”?
Hey Ken Jacobsen, if you hate America and living in Arizona so much, and you would take Denmark any day.. Why dont you just pack up all your stuff and leave then? Oh, and by the way, its not immigrants from Mexico, its illegal immigrants from Mexico
One Trackback
[...] at få ret. Men jeg forstår godt, hvorfor han har skrevet sit indlæg under overskriften: “It’s too late for the Danes“. Related Tags: df, dkpol, racisme Previous Topic: Facebook bortcensurerer britiske [...]