This sweep of Xenophobia, affecting the US and western Europe, this is not
all based on Capitalism, is it? This is fear of the other. You could find it
back when the people in one cave were afraid of those in another.
Miriam
Denmark Imposes New Restrictions on Immigrants
Nyhavn, a waterfront district and popular tourist destination in Copenhagen,
Denmark. (Lars Plougmann / Flickr Creative Commons)
Denmark is requiring residents in 25 majority-immigrant enclaves to send
their children to mandatory Christian and Danish values classes or risk
losing their welfare benefits. It's the latest in a series of
immigrant-restricting proposals not only from the Danish government, but
from far-right politicians across Europe who are revising government
policies regarding immigrants.
In June, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban implemented the "Stop Soros"
law (named after Hungarian philanthropist George Soros), which bans
individuals and organizations from providing aid to undocumented immigrants.
As Vox explains, " [The law] is so broadly worded, that, in theory, the
government could arrest someone who provides food to an undocumented migrant
on the street."
Also in June, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini proposed a census
of the country's Roma population, drawing parallels, as CNN observes, "with
race laws approved during the regime of Benito Mussolini." It's not yet a
law, but as Al-Jazeera reported Sunday, local authorities cleared a Roma
camp of approximately 450 people shortly after Salvini called for the
census.
Denmark's laws, however, are particularly striking, both in terms of how
they target specific areas based on immigrant population, and in the
severity of punishments for noncompliance, which in some cases can result in
jail time or loss of the country's extensive welfare benefits.
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The Danish government, The New York Times reports, is "introducing a new set
of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves,
saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country's
mainstream, they should be compelled."
The series of laws, also known as "the ghetto package," includes proposals
to double jail time for certain crimes committed in the neighborhoods and to
punish parents for sending their children on long trips to their country of
origin. One proposal that was rejected for being too radical would have
banned certain immigrant children from the 25 enclaves from being outside
their homes after 8 p.m.
The proposal requiring mandatory Danish and Christian values education,
however, was passed by the Danish parliament last month.
From the time children are 1 year old, the Times explains, they "must be
separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including
nap time, for mandatory instruction in 'Danish values,' including the
traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could
result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to
choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six."
Danish Minister of Education Merete Riisager explained the reasoning behind
the law to The Copenhagen Post, saying, "There are a number of parents who
come from the Middle East who have a totally different understanding of
pedagogy, childhood and school than their Scandinavian counterparts."
In addition to Danish and Christian education for preschoolers, Time
magazine reports that 5- and 6-year-old students in 24 Danish schools will
be " 'guinea pigs' for a new policy aimed at integrating non-Western
immigrants into Danish society. From 2019, it will become law for schools
that take more than 30 percent of their students from "ghetto" areas to
force their students to take language tests."
Denmark has long struggled with how to balance its generous welfare state,
intended to serve a small, mostly white, Christian population, with an
influx of immigrants, many of them Muslim. The white Danes the Times quoted
were as supportive of these new laws as they were disparaging of immigrants.
Anette Jacobsen, a retired pharmacist's assistant, praised the welfare
benefits that gave her and her four children free education and health care,
saying that "she felt a surge of gratitude every time she paid her taxes,"
but maintaining that she and other white Danes are deserving of Denmark's
benefits, unlike immigrants, who Jacobsen believes abuse the system. As she
explained, "There is always a cat door for someone to sneak in," and, she
continued, "their culture doesn't fit here."
Never mind that, as Rokhaia Naassan, a daughter of Lebanese refugees and a
resident of an affected neighborhood told the Times, not only does she speak
fluent Danish, she talks to her children in Danish, so much so that her
children's grandparents complain that they can't talk to their grandchildren
in Arabic. In addition, Naassan and her sisters said, they'd move out of
their neighborhood if they could afford to.
When they were growing up, the sisters said they rarely encountered
Islamophobia. Now, Rokhaia's sister Sara wonders, "Maybe this is what they
always thought, and now it's out in the open." She added, "Danish politics
is just about Muslims now. They want us to get more assimilated or get out.
I don't know when they will be satisfied with us."
Ilana Novick
