21
votes
Denmark's plan to eliminate parallel societies has drawn criticism as ethnic discrimination. Others in Europe may be watching.
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- Title
- Opinion | Denmark's model for assimilation: Send in the bulldozers
- Published
- Jul 1 2024
- Word count
- 1010 words
I want to point out that Denmark's policy is clearly racist. The first thing to note is that it only applies to those not from mostly white countries, i.e. the policy is set on criteria that are intended to be ethnic as opposed to some objective criterion which applies to all neighbourhoods – a white Danish "parallel society" with poor outcomes wouldn't be affected. The second thing to note is it's actually fine to not want to totally assimilate into your society. I think there are some vital things which should be encouraged (learning the language of the country to a proficient degree, general tolerance for other people) but beyond that I don't think there's anything that makes e.g. Danish culture "superior" to the other ones.
The UN Human Rights Office also points out that the policy is racist, tl;dr
To all those who argue "well what's your solution then"
On one final note which applies more broadly – there's a great article in Berkley Law Review called "Feminism versus Multiculturalism" in which one of the central observations is
which I think applies quite broadly to a lot of the current assumptions that "Muslims don't share our values" – when Muslims do bad things (e.g. misogyny) this is assumed to be a result of culture (of course, in some cases this may be true); there's a double standard where this doesn't apply to white Western people. For example in Britain the Office for National Statistics estimates 4.4% of those over 16 – i.e. ~2 million people – were victims of domestic violence in the year ending March 2023 and yet people don't suggest that white Britons have a "cultural problem" with domestic violence.
Note that the ONS also estimates that white Britons have higher rates of domestic violence than either Black or Asian Britons.
Everyone in Denmark already has access to education. It's free for everyone. And everyone also gets paid to attend - anywhere from 3000-10000 kroner per month depending on your situation.
Infrastructure is already really good, too. Denmark has some of the world's best and most reliable public transport, and these areas are no exception.
Everyone can also access state welfare. One of the problems typically stated by politicians is that over half the population in these areas are on welfare. Being on welfare is no fun - I would know - but it's survivable.
I can't answer all the rest though, except to say that yeah, these policies are extremely racist.
I haven't read the details of the law, but given that the category is "Non-Western", would it also be the case that, say, a white American "parallel society" with poor outcomes also wouldn't be affected? That seems to me to be the case from the wording and if so makes the explicitly racist nature of the policy very clear to me, but I'm not sure if I'm wrong and it is indeed applied equally to all who aren't "ethnically Danish".
I believe the definition is
from the UNHR press release on the original law.
Sorry, you are correct! I have updated my comment.
Lee ask "If Denmark wants to tackle criminality and low income, employment and education, why not do that without stigmatizing residents by national origin?" I can not help but wonder, are there any example in the western world that have effective dealt with parallel societies?
I am asking course in Sweden, where they where open to migrants, its going bad. The criminal rate from Middle East and North Africa countries is also significant higher [1] in Denmark also.
If the solution is not the Danish policy what is?
[1]https://integrationsbarometer.dk/tal-og-analyser/kriminalitet
I suspect the real answer is “not be European”. The United States has much less of an issue of parallel societies because, nominally, anyone can be an American, even if you are fresh off the boat/plane. The same doesn’t seem to be true for most European countries. You could be a third-generation immigrant, and still be considered not Danish/French/Italian. If you don’t consider even those who’ve made an effort to be European, European, then what point is there in integrating?
A potential secondary point to examine would be the median incomes of identical cohorts in Denmark versus the United States. Middle Eastern immigrants to the United States trend wealthier, and poverty and crime are strong correlates.
I think the key thing is that European immigration = integration whereas American immigration = diversity. Things like Chinatown, Little Italy are examples of parallel societies and considered to be a very bad thing in Denmark.
And about ME immigrants to the US, I can only assume that the ones you do get are the wealthy and well educated because of the high price of crossing the ocean to get all the way over there.
Then ultimately European immigration is bound to fail, as the (I’ll be nice and say heavy-handed) emphasis on integration will result in significant alienation from European society at large. In any case, the ethnic enclaves in American cities are much looser than in Europe, or even in the United States 100 years ago.
Can't disagree with any of that. I don't know that I really have an opinion, either - I was mostly just pointing out the differences 😊
MENA immigration in Northern Europe is still rather new. It didn't start happening until at most 3 generations ago in the 1970's where Turks were invited to come as so-called "guest workers". I can only assume that in another 50 years (100 in total), it's going to be different from now - probably much more like how it is in the US now?
I can only base this on the US, but I think that you a) let people that really want to live in those societies due so, without permitting them to impose those rules on others who don't want to participate and b) eliminate barriers to jobs/income/school/etc. so that the parallel societies that form dissipate in the next generations. If people can't participate in the majority culture fully due to those barriers they're more inclined to stay out.
And I'm only considering subgroups there from ,immigrant neighborhoods to the Amish, but the US arguably could be considered to have any number of parallel societies - rural Appalachia and Manhattan are vastly different and have different social norms and laws. I don't know where that dividing line really is. But I'm just spitballing.
This just does not work though, because those barriers are imposed on the next generation by the previous. This is what's happening in France and part of the reason RN has had so much success in the election just now
What stops the younger generation from leaving the parallel society? Parents can certainly influence this but what's actually stopping an adult, second generation or 3rd generation immigrant from integrating? I'm well aware that America both has plenty of faults and has a lot of fundamental differences from Europe, so I am not saying we have the one true way or anything. This is fully genuine questioning.
Because we do have, for example, the Amish here, and we don't forcibly dissolve their societies and towns. But we also have immigrant neighborhoods that have broadly integrated into American society, or do over time. (We use food a lot in America for that tbh). So if a young adult wishes to leave is it just the socialization that stops them? Or are there other systemic barriers in place keeping them out of the majority society?
My understanding of the issue is that it's not necessarily 100% a problem with the immigrant or their family, rather it's the "original" ethnic nationals that largely contribute. Like a 1st-gen or even 2nd-gen or 3rd-gen immigrant in France (the two latter being born in France) may want to integrate and assimilate, but they may face issues from the ethnic, white French who are 10+ generations deep who are more influential with the levers of power. The latter doesn't view the former as "True French," even though the former have only known a single country and culture, that of France. There may be barriers to education, employment, welfare, safety, etc. So there are systemic issues at play.
To use your Amish example, that does happen where people leave their community and enter the mainstream culture. But none of us in the mainstream culture care. We're not trying to stop Amish young people from leaving their communities. We're not stopping them from moving into the big cities or studying in college. If I were a hiring manager, someone's Amish upbringing wouldn't even factor into the decision.
Personally, I'm a US-born child of immigrants in the US. No one has ever questioned my American nationality. They may initially assume I'm not American (which is its own issue), but once I tell them that I was I was born in the US, that's the end of that. No one says I'm not a Real American. Unfortunately, it tends to not work that way in Europe and other "old world" countries.
It could be but now we're just two Americans throwing our assumptions at each other. I'm hoping to get my assumptions challenged because the odds that I have this all figured out are nil
I don't think the immigrants are really why the far-right has so much support in France, I think "immigration concerns" are basically a dog-whistle they use for "racism" and people are really voting for them on that basis.
Those barriers are imposed by white French people on the descendants of immigrants to a far greater extent than they're ever imposed by previous generations of immigrants. The reason RN has had so much success is far less "immigrants policing their own parallel societies" and far more "lots of white French people being racist and xenophobic reactionaries" -- anything else is just straight-up victim blaming.
Any reason to focus on "the western world" specifically?
Because Singapore has been fantastically successful in integrating its parallel societies, especially the historically poorer and less educated Malay ethnic group. And they did it exactly the way Denmark tries to use now: every neighbourhood, down to single apartment buildings, must approximate the ethnic make-up of Singapore as a whole. No segregation, no ghettos, no parallel societies.
It worked extremely well. But Singapore always made sure to have the leadership of the Malay group deeply involved in decisions like that, and those rules also got applied to the (historically richer) Chinese, Indian and Eurasian ethnic groups.
Has it worked extremely well? In my experience Singapore has a very strict ethnic heirarchy, where those ethnically Chinese are at the top and everyone else towards the bottom.
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