5 ms·

So, here's what I don't understand? If it causes societal trouble why let all these troublesome groups in? Does Denmark have some long history as a "nation of i

So, here's what I don't understand? If it causes societal trouble why let all these troublesome groups in? Does Denmark have some long history as a "nation of immigrants" like the United States does or is this some sort of self-inflicted punishment?

nextos 9y ago
Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated. The problem comes from the recent wave and semi-open borders within EU that make it easy for some mafias to move into the country to commit crime. It's a tought problem.
- rsync 9y ago
  "Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated." I met a group of young, liberal, well-educated Danes on a trip to Japan once and later, accepted their invitation to visit Denmark, where I stayed for about ten days. Make no mistake - these were picture-perfect Copenhagen Danes with exactly the liberal and progressive bent that you would expect and they were quite well educated and relatively wealthy (one of them even had a car!). These people did not beat around the bush: they can't stand "the turks", they don't understand why they are there or why they behave the way they do and they cannot believe that their society has been infiltrated in this way. It wasn't hateful, or even racist per se ... just a very pragmatic rejection of events. This was in 2004 - I can't imagine they feel any better now.
  - RobertoG 9y ago
    A few months ago I had a similar conversation with a Norwegian guy complaining about the number of immigrants in Norway. The funny thing is that the guy was living in my country. Of course, in his eyes he was not an immigrant, but an expatriate. A little of effort trying to understand others can make wonders. Most immigrants behave, a few not. Of those, a few are just bad persons, but most are just poor an uneducated and probably they would prefer to be in their home countries. If immigrants are so problematic, maybe we should be looking into what, in many cases, our governments are doing (or not doing) in their native countries.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
We have historically been very welcoming of immigrants and "guest workers" (despite some inherent racist attitudes), and a large number of them are so well integrated that we don't even notice anymore. Unfortunately we've had a series of governments with increasingly bad integration policies, leading to ghettoes and increased friction.
mrweasel 9y ago
As others point out we did have guest works, we also had Vietnamese boat-refugees, Bosnians refugees from the Balkan wars. The thing is: there was never that many of either groups. So no, Denmark isn't a nation of immigrants, not even close. Both left and right leaning governments have failed to implement good integration policies. The parties on the left have been to naive and assume that things would naturally work them selves out: They trusted that the people coming into the country would want to learn the language, integrate and become Danes. On the right the opposite was assume, that the policies should be to not let people feel welcome, in the hope that they would leave. Troublesome groups are let in, because Denmark is legally required to. But the evaporation of trust in others isn't purely an immigration issue, it happens between Dane as well, and that's worse because we're not entirely sure why it's happening.
- fxmc 9y ago
  As a German, I'd say that this perfectly describes the situation in Germany as well, including your last paragraph. The erosion of trust among Germans has also started a long time ago, no later than the early nineties.

nextos 9y ago

Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated. The problem comes from the recent wave and semi-open borders within EU that make it easy for some mafias to move into the country to commit crime. It's a tought problem.

rsync 9y ago
"Denmark got a first wave of immigration in the 60s. Mostly Turkish people. They are reasonably well integrated." I met a group of young, liberal, well-educated Danes on a trip to Japan once and later, accepted their invitation to visit Denmark, where I stayed for about ten days. Make no mistake - these were picture-perfect Copenhagen Danes with exactly the liberal and progressive bent that you would expect and they were quite well educated and relatively wealthy (one of them even had a car!). These people did not beat around the bush: they can't stand "the turks", they don't understand why they are there or why they behave the way they do and they cannot believe that their society has been infiltrated in this way. It wasn't hateful, or even racist per se ... just a very pragmatic rejection of events. This was in 2004 - I can't imagine they feel any better now.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  A few months ago I had a similar conversation with a Norwegian guy complaining about the number of immigrants in Norway. The funny thing is that the guy was living in my country. Of course, in his eyes he was not an immigrant, but an expatriate. A little of effort trying to understand others can make wonders. Most immigrants behave, a few not. Of those, a few are just bad persons, but most are just poor an uneducated and probably they would prefer to be in their home countries. If immigrants are so problematic, maybe we should be looking into what, in many cases, our governments are doing (or not doing) in their native countries.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

We have historically been very welcoming of immigrants and "guest workers" (despite some inherent racist attitudes), and a large number of them are so well integrated that we don't even notice anymore. Unfortunately we've had a series of governments with increasingly bad integration policies, leading to ghettoes and increased friction.

mrweasel 9y ago

As others point out we did have guest works, we also had Vietnamese boat-refugees, Bosnians refugees from the Balkan wars. The thing is: there was never that many of either groups. So no, Denmark isn't a nation of immigrants, not even close. Both left and right leaning governments have failed to implement good integration policies. The parties on the left have been to naive and assume that things would naturally work them selves out: They trusted that the people coming into the country would want to learn the language, integrate and become Danes. On the right the opposite was assume, that the policies should be to not let people feel welcome, in the hope that they would leave. Troublesome groups are let in, because Denmark is legally required to. But the evaporation of trust in others isn't purely an immigration issue, it happens between Dane as well, and that's worse because we're not entirely sure why it's happening.

fxmc 9y ago
As a German, I'd say that this perfectly describes the situation in Germany as well, including your last paragraph. The erosion of trust among Germans has also started a long time ago, no later than the early nineties.