Letter From Abroad: Copenhagen, Denmark

Fabian Arzuaga Guest Writer

Inside the Danish Parliament building, three striking statues stand apart from the overwhelming collection of regal art that celebrates the 1,000-year-old Danish monarchy. Situated at the rear of Parliament’s conference hall, the white marble statues enshrine the sacred triage of Danish society: the farmer, the fisher, and the industrial worker.

Although the Scandinavian state has been a constitutional monarchy since 1849, Danish society has always held the commoner in esteem equal to that of their royalty. However, Denmark’s long tradition of social equality and tolerance is beginning to be profoundly questioned, as tides of new immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa flock to the social-democratic kingdom. For the past decade, there has been a backlash against these “new Danes” from a small group of reactionary ethnic-Danes, causing a firestorm within Parliament.

Denmark is described by admiring economists as the “bumblebee that can fly.” Its generous social welfare benefits and enormous public sector coexist peacefully with its powerful, dynamic economy. In fact, the World Economic Forum has deemed Denmark the fourth most competitive economy in the world behind Finland, the United States, and Sweden. While Republicans and most Democrats in the U.S. balk at the generous welfare systems, Danes and other Scandinavians proudly (and rightly) claim that their social democratic societies are the most egalitarian and economically sound in the world.

Analysts explain Denmark’s seemingly paradoxical economy with the idea of “flexicurity”—the union of flexibility and security. The welfare state eliminates the need for employer pensions and employment guarantees negotiated through the labor market, resulting in an efficient, flexible, and stable economy.

But Denmark is not exactly the leftist paradise that the statistics indicate. Although the small Nordic state has had a reputation of tolerance for foreigners and traditionally marginalized groups, rapidly increasing immigration during the last 30 years has shaken and fractured Denmark’s harmonious society.

While the seven active parties within the Danish Parliament represent a wide spectrum of ideologies, the Dansk Folkeparti (the Danish People’s Party—DPP) has gained tremendous power over the last ten years with its flagship platfrom on anti-immigration. The DPP is currently part of a coalition minority government of other right-wing groups. The DPP has successfully put its anti-immigration agenda at the forefront of political discussions, and has increasingly radicalized the acceptable rhetoric about Middle Eastern immigrants.

In a recent newspaper article about the enlistment of a Lebanese-born Danish immigrant, Kheder Nayef el- Awadh, in Denmark’s Home Guard (comparable to the American National Guard), the rhetoric was scathing. DPP member of Parliament Hans Christian Skibby was quoted as saying; “This Kheder character should be kicked out. For all we know he is a rabid Muslim. Is that who we want protecting us in the event of a terror attack? No way!”

Since the present government took power in 2001, Denmark’s doors have become nearly sealed off to new immigrants. The amount of new immigrants have halted to a trickle and Danish citizenship for current immigrants already inside the country has become extremely difficult to attain. Since 2002, the number of people granted citizenship has dropped by 77 percent. The DPP has called this a great victory, while leftist parties, including Communists, Socialists, and the once powerful Social Democrats, call it a stain on Denmark’s egalitarian history.

While non-Western “foreigners” within Denmark represent a mere 5.8 percent of the 5.3 million Danes, the media and government consider immigration and integration one of the most important, and sometimes most threatening, issues within Danish society.

As the debate over who is and who is not a “Dane” continues, the statues in Parliament should serve as a reminder: the people, no matter their backgrounds, stand as equals. Only when Danes more vigorously shun the increasingly racist rhetoric that spews from the DPP and its supporters will positive change occur. Only then will Denmark return to its bedrock ideals of true egalitarianism.