9 ms·

In Denmark, Harsh New Laws for Immigrant ‘Ghettos’

43 points by jboynyc 8y ago

new_guy 8y ago
At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion, it's simply not possible to maintain a first world civilisation with third world people. Instead of allowing immigration and destroying western society why don't we just stop bombing these peoples homes so they don't need to move to start with?
- te_chris 8y ago
  You deserve to be downvoted to oblivion because your comment is racist nonsense which multiple countries the world over can discredit.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Where did he mention races? He mentioned third-world people (more specifically their cultures), irrespective of races. Racism is a real problem but bringing it up all the time doesn't solve anything and actually discredits arguments against real racism.
    - brailsafe 8y ago
      I agree, but he didn't specify cultures.
    - te_chris 8y ago
      You’re going to have to explain to me how denying obvious racism doesn’t discredit ‘real’ racism.
      - Rjevski 8y ago
        I don't consider cultures nor religions as races, simple as that. The original comment didn't mention any races, so I interpret his "third-world people" as meaning those people's cultures instead of their skin color.
        te_chris 8y ago
        How convenient that you get to minimise these people’s lives and experiences in order to make your own more simple, colour-blind
  - classicsnoot 8y ago
    And yet you decided not to list any of those countries and instead called the poster racist. I'm not saying you are wrong about there being some definite examples that support your position, but do you think there may also be some counter examples that go against it? Which side, your argument or the opposite, has the preponderance of evidence? This is how an honest and productive argument should proceed: assertion(s) is made, rebuttal is introduced with supporting evidence, back and forth commences until no new evidence can be introduced, contenders stop posting, posterity decides. But that is too dangerous, isn't it? There is always the chance that the unthinkable might just end up being the most plausible. And whenever the status quo is predicated on perfection of specific perception there is no benefit to be gained by entertaining forbidden notions. Because you declined to suppor your own argument coupled with the personal attack ("racist" should be a technical description but thanks to comments like yours that ship has sailed), you have surrendered any technical moral high ground for a breastworks of Virtue Signaling that seems tactically sound at the moment. Pray to the gods you may have abandoned that your enemy doesn't discover ideological "tracked vehicles" before your team does.
- Traubenfuchs 8y ago
  Your first sentence is completely correct. Immigration that does not benefit us needs to be prevented.
- ddnb 8y ago
  Are you trying to say the place of birth somehow decides what capabilities you are born with as a human being? Are you saying people born in third world countries are different than people born in first world countries? Because that seems to me to be absolutely ridiculous.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    The people, no. The cultures? I believe so. If you're taught your entire life that X is completely acceptable, and you arrive as an immigrant and don't want to adapt your beliefs/values to your new country's then it is a problem. Replace X with anything that you would find inappropriate in your current country - forced marriages, India's caste system, etc and I think you'll see what I mean.
  - BigJono 8y ago
    I didn't get that from his comment at all. Sounds like you're conjuring up a straw man here. 30,000 babies and 30,000 adults with a lifetime of experiences are two very different things. It's perfectly possible to believe that immigrants from heavily-Muslim countries cannot realistically integrate with first world societies without believing racist rubbish like genetic inferiority.
    - foldr 8y ago
      >It's perfectly possible to believe that immigrants from heavily-Muslim countries cannot realistically integrate with first world societies without believing racist rubbish like genetic inferiority. I don't see how it would be possible to believe this at all, given the abundant examples to the contrary.
      - supreme_sublime 8y ago
        Unfortunately there might be an argument for some form of genetic inferiority. Considering how many first cousin marriages there are in certain Muslim communities. [0] >Although British parents of Pakistani origin account for 3.4 per cent of all births nationwide, they also account for around 30 per cent of children born with recessive gene disorders. I'm not really a fan of government force, and don't really care who other people marry, but this is obviously a problem. The risks associated with inbreeding (especially over many generations) are pretty well known. [0] - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/4014743/Warning-over-births-to-first-cousin-marriages.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/4014743/Warn...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- minipci1321 8y ago
  Possible, just costly. Seems for the moment people are not ready to agree to pay the expenses. Funny how everybody seem to ignore your second point -- about bombing.
- eecc 8y ago
  Several "Third World" cultures were doing pretty well and would be still be faring fine if the "First World" hadn't depredated them over the course of the last couple centuries. It's pretty arrogant - colonial - to assume that societies must resemble our own to be credibly successful.
- drukenemo 8y ago
  Such a simplistic view. No one is bombing Mexico, for example. Illegal immigration in Europe has been often attributed to economic migrants, not refugees.
- sctb 8y ago
  Please stop trolling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tyfon 8y ago
I live in Norway and we have similar problems with some immigrant children starting in the regular school without speaking Norwegian. It drains resources and takes away from the children that has learned to speak the language. Denmark and Norway is quite similar and it's extremely common to have the children in daycare while both parents work. This is common across the board and low-income families get this for free (at least here). Daycare is a good place to learn the language and obligatory daycare could be a solution to this. HOWEVER, I am very disturbed by the statement that they will be forced through religious practices. In Norway, all religious activitys in daycare / school are optional. My children are not participating in these things since we are atheist, so are many others due to various reasons. I hope that the article is misrepresenting this and that is the same way in Denmark. Maybe some Danes can enlighten us.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  I live in the Netherlands and we have ways to deal with people moving into the country whose kids don't speak Dutch. In every county and/or cities, the local elementary schools pool their non-Dutch speaking children in one or several classes, focusing on Dutch for the first 1-2 years the children live here, or however long is necessary to get them up to speed.
  - tyfon 8y ago
    This is also a solution and one which works also for those not born in the country but are moving in when they are older. It does put a drain on the school system though and at least here in Norway the budgets are pretty tight already. And considering we do not pool students like you it also means that the rest of the class has to wait or that you have to leave those that do not speak the language behind the curve. I guess it still comes down to prioritisations of the politicians. A combination of training in daycare and making separate pools in the school would be good.
- nkobber 8y ago
  I just quickly read through the proposal (https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-danmark-uden-parallelsamfund.pdf https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-dan...) I do not see religion mentioned
grk 8y ago
I used to live in Tingbjerg, and could witness firsthand how the immigrants abused the welfare there. The laws may seem harsh, but on the other side you have people who take pride in cheating the social security system.
- sgift 8y ago
  How many, how often? How do you know they abused it? Anecdote, data and so on.
Rjevski 8y ago
It was about time, but I am not sure the situation in Denmark is bad enough to warrant this - I wish other countries had this though, like France where the complete rejection & hatred of French values & culture by "ghetto" residents is quite worrying.
olau 8y ago
The "ghetto" lists have been a thing for a number of years now in Denmark. There used to be a couple of areas in the city where I live, in cheaper community housing like this https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?moduleAction=displayDepartment&departmentNo=25&companyNo=99 https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?mod... This was perceived as a huge problem for the housing associations renting out the apartments, so they've been doing a bunch of different things, including hiring social workers, courses to try to get people in a job, networks, giving the buildings a serious makeover destroying some and building new in an effort to get a better mix of low-rent and high-rent inhabitants. But also getting permission to decline new renters on welfare payments. In the end, all housing associations where I live managed to get off the ghetto lists, so aren't affected by this new law. I think the new law is probably more about signaling a hardliner attitude than actually solving problems. On the other hand, no doubt people gathering in small closely-knit enclaves ends up being a problem for many of those living there. In a nutshell, if you need a job, networking with people who don't have one doesn't help.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  How much is it actually a problem as far as crime is concerned? I know some countries where it's really bad but haven't heard of this issue in Denmark so can't comment.
  - bausshf 8y ago
    Crime is lowering actually, so I guess it's less concerning than it was say 10 years ago.
jcrei 8y ago
Ok, I don't want to go down the road of "this is backwards and shouldn't be happening in Denmark" and I'm already tired of comments saying "it's about time, wish they did that in my country"... So I'm asking the smart people of HN. What could be good solutions for the problem they are trying to fix? Children of families that come from other countries don't speak the language when they enrol in 1st grade.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Mandatory education. Focus on mandatory. It is already in place and could be extended. You can run additional required courses, paid in taxes. This is almost exactly this rule except with more restrictions.
- lgbr 8y ago
  Create a culture of migration. The United States and Canada are examples of countries where integration is wonderfully successful [1][2][3]. New citizens to the United States and Canada are welcomed in huge stadiums adorned with flags, families celebrate by making signs, and most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the country as any native born person. Attitudes among native born persons really make a difference, where even the United States' fairly conservative Republican party touts its immigrant supporters at their conventions. Leaders in Europe have recognized the need for this attitude in the past, but they've acknowledged that it hasn't quite worked out [4][5]. Making the transition from a country with very long family lineages just requires a lot more convincing of the local population. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimilation-nation/309518/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimil... 2: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-top-in-integrating-immigrants-survey-says/article568517/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-to... 3: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/for-immigrants-america-is-still-more-welcoming-than-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/fo... 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994 5: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-...
classicsnoot 8y ago
I wonder how the Danish immigrants in Lebanon are fairing under the government and society in place.
- pjc50 8y ago
  The few Danes in Lebanon are almost certainly doing alright. It's the refugees in Lebanon that aren't; there's 1.5 million Syrian refugees there, which is causing similar social and economic tensions on a much larger scale. (The headline article mentions that several of those interviewed are refugees, presumably from the previous civil war in Lebanon.)
  - classicsnoot 8y ago
    I posted that comment to be snarky, but your earnest response has compelled me to elaborate on the motivation behind the crassness. I imagine any Dane in Lebanon is doing quite well because, barring the exceedingly unlikely but not impossible chance of human trafficking, Danes in the Levant are there by choice and persons of considerable means (or privileged volunteers subjecting themselves to unnecessary hardship for a plethora of potential reasons). Denmark hasn't experienced a war since 1945 and hasn't had a home front war since ~1860. They don't generate refugees, and by and large neither do their neighbors. This is not magic. This is not a product of colonialism, or racism, or slavery. This is because certain cultures made a concerted effort to stop repeating a cycle and chose to operate differently. Having the means to do this was a lucky break in history (Nazis loved the Danes but the Danes never publicly reciprocated so they got all that sweet Marshall Plan cash) as well as some incredibly forward thinking and talented people who wanted their ethnostate to be happy, healthy, and productive. The last place Europe sent a bunch of refugees (outside of Europa) was Palestine. This led directly to a diaspora of Arabs and others out of the Levant. Guilt opened Europe's borders, foolishness propped the door open, and cognitive dissonance will claim it is the right thing to do. Denmark, or any country, that attempts to transfer culture through enforced education (as opposed to child rearing, intermarriage, social pressure, or the quite effective but completely contemptible method of attempted genocide) is doomed to fail. It is just a matter of time. The author of the article tried very hard to paint the immigrants as hapless victims with a sthole on one side and stty people on the other, a poor young mother desperate to be accepted by the country she wishes to be a part of. And this may be true for her. It could be true for many of the immigrants in Europe currently. But history is very clear about what mass migration does to native populations, regardless of the initial power dynamic between immigrant and native, nevermind the motivation for immigration (European immigrants to North America were fleeing widespread violence, scant economic opportunity, and oppressive religious suppression as well). Color, Creed, and chronology are irrelevant. The advantage lies with the more aggressive in almost all conflicts, regardless of whether or not each participant acknowledges that the fight is occurring.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
In ghettos they see less need to learn the local language, as everyone speaks their own language and all services are provided without needing to learn much. Considering that immigrants chose to go to x country, I see no racism in making them integrate, otherwise that country will become like the old one pretty soon. Now jailing parents for "forcing" kids to visit the old country and other measures are out of line and most likely not needed. Just learn the local language, go to school and learn /abide by the values. Or else...this country is the wrong match for you. Try another country or go back to the old one.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  The ghetto issue is separate and the only solution seems to be to force resettle people. Immigrants gravitate towards cheap housing and people speaking the same tongue which makes integration harder. You could skip this issue by skipping a generation of course.
pjc50 8y ago
"Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  It isn't, because it isn't private life when it is managed by government. The spirit of Article 8 is to not mess with private life, not to place no limits on it. Specifically, it is a time bound on private life and private time which is not disallowed. This is a restriction "in accordance with law". The restriction is not unreasonable nor hard to comply with.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>"I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8. " The law says ..."except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." Otherwise I can decide not to school my children.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    It looks like this is subject to the decision in Wunderlich v Germany which appears to be ongoing; I had no idea that homeschooling was illegal in Germany, it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education.
    - onetimemanytime 8y ago
      >>it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education. and "adequate" is the key word. The letter and the spirit of the law makes it clear that the state has a very legit interest in educating people--including and maybe, especially, immigrants.
mirimir 8y ago
Well, in contrast: https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut-english-instruction-law/ https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut-eng...
trextrex 8y ago
This reminds me of other similar attempts that have happened in the past to help "assimilation" and "integration": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
onyva 8y ago
As an Israeli who had gone through an education system almost exclusively dedicated the history of Eastern European Jews and the holaucaust, I think it’s wonderful that we can now have real time and in color footage documenting how a so called “enlightened” and “advanced” society, pigs out and turns into brainless pack of animals that follows orders. I would personally would like to see Israel’s prime minister going to Denmark to protest, the way he did in Poland.
aibrahem 8y ago
As an immigrant from a Muslim majority country into a European country, I find this approach very troubling. I completely agree that most of the immigrants have a lot of trouble integrating into the host countries but I believe it’s as much as a problem of the hosting culture as it is the of the immigrants coming in. It’s not just the Muslims, though they might be the most pronounced case (just because the sheer number of immigrants), immigrants from India, China, and even Eastern Europe face similar issues. Anytime there is going to be a mass immigration to a specific place there is going to be a concentration of immigrant communities in certain places, it happened with the Irish and Italians in the US, and still happening with a lot of different areas in America (Michigan is one of the heaviest populated areas by Christian Arabs). The reason being is that when you first immigrate to a new place it’s a lot easier to stick to the people you know and share behaviors with than to go out and make a new social circle. However, the culture of the host society plays a big role in the acceptance of foreigners, for example, people in the US and Canada are usually a perceived to be lot friendlier than most typical Western Europeans, it’s a lot easier to chit-chat with an American than to a Dutch, German, or French person..., It is also very easy to get to know people in the US, meanwhile unless you’ve really gotten to know each other it’s very difficult to get close to a typical European. Norwegians usually joke that if two people get on the bus one of them is going to set at the front and the other all the way in the back. Another culture tidbit that could contribute to this is that conformity plays a very huge part in the European culture, and they just confirm to a very different set of values than the ones where these immigrants are coming from, find someone walking naked down the street, that’s completely normal but finding a women wearing burqa on a beach and suddenly a lot of heads are turning. Although this might also happen in the US but with the American stress on individualism it’s always reassuring that it’s OK to be who you are, rather than the typical European mindset of why don’t you just take it off and be like everyone else. Also The Hollywood effect, immigrants coming to America usually have a base understanding of what to expect coming in from watching movies, TV shows or even the news and are usually touched in one way or another by the American culture, meanwhile it’s very difficult to understand the culture subtleties when you don’t understand the language and haven’t been exposed to this culture before and add that to the stress on conformity as mentioned before and very quickly you become an outcast in your social circle. My point is that brute forcing people to integrate is simply the incorrect approach to solve this issue, culture intricacies needs to be studied and incompatibilities with the immigrant and host culture needs to be addressed to reach an effective solution, otherwise what you’ll have is a very angry socially inept minority that could sing Jingle bells.
RestlessMind 8y ago
This law makes sense to me (and I say that as an immigrant myself). Immigrants are flocking to Denmark because it is a stable, prosperous society with generous benefits. But that stability and prosperity wasn't conjured up from thin air. It was built by the Danes for a homogenous group of people. If you want to join them, I find it perfectly reasonable for Danes to demand assimilation into Danish culture. If you have problems with that, then don't go to Denmark. But it is wrong to fail at building your own country, seeking refuge in a better place and yet insisting on playing by your own rules in the new place.

43 points by jboynyc 8y ago

At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion, it's simply not possible to maintain a first world civilisation with third world people. Instead of allowing immigration and destroying western society why don't we just stop bombing these peoples homes so they don't need to move to start with?

te_chris 8y ago
You deserve to be downvoted to oblivion because your comment is racist nonsense which multiple countries the world over can discredit.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Where did he mention races? He mentioned third-world people (more specifically their cultures), irrespective of races. Racism is a real problem but bringing it up all the time doesn't solve anything and actually discredits arguments against real racism.
  - brailsafe 8y ago
    I agree, but he didn't specify cultures.
  - te_chris 8y ago
    You’re going to have to explain to me how denying obvious racism doesn’t discredit ‘real’ racism.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      I don't consider cultures nor religions as races, simple as that. The original comment didn't mention any races, so I interpret his "third-world people" as meaning those people's cultures instead of their skin color.
      - te_chris 8y ago
        How convenient that you get to minimise these people’s lives and experiences in order to make your own more simple, colour-blind
- classicsnoot 8y ago
  And yet you decided not to list any of those countries and instead called the poster racist. I'm not saying you are wrong about there being some definite examples that support your position, but do you think there may also be some counter examples that go against it? Which side, your argument or the opposite, has the preponderance of evidence? This is how an honest and productive argument should proceed: assertion(s) is made, rebuttal is introduced with supporting evidence, back and forth commences until no new evidence can be introduced, contenders stop posting, posterity decides. But that is too dangerous, isn't it? There is always the chance that the unthinkable might just end up being the most plausible. And whenever the status quo is predicated on perfection of specific perception there is no benefit to be gained by entertaining forbidden notions. Because you declined to suppor your own argument coupled with the personal attack ("racist" should be a technical description but thanks to comments like yours that ship has sailed), you have surrendered any technical moral high ground for a breastworks of Virtue Signaling that seems tactically sound at the moment. Pray to the gods you may have abandoned that your enemy doesn't discover ideological "tracked vehicles" before your team does.
Traubenfuchs 8y ago
Your first sentence is completely correct. Immigration that does not benefit us needs to be prevented.
ddnb 8y ago
Are you trying to say the place of birth somehow decides what capabilities you are born with as a human being? Are you saying people born in third world countries are different than people born in first world countries? Because that seems to me to be absolutely ridiculous.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  The people, no. The cultures? I believe so. If you're taught your entire life that X is completely acceptable, and you arrive as an immigrant and don't want to adapt your beliefs/values to your new country's then it is a problem. Replace X with anything that you would find inappropriate in your current country - forced marriages, India's caste system, etc and I think you'll see what I mean.
- BigJono 8y ago
  I didn't get that from his comment at all. Sounds like you're conjuring up a straw man here. 30,000 babies and 30,000 adults with a lifetime of experiences are two very different things. It's perfectly possible to believe that immigrants from heavily-Muslim countries cannot realistically integrate with first world societies without believing racist rubbish like genetic inferiority.
  - foldr 8y ago
    >It's perfectly possible to believe that immigrants from heavily-Muslim countries cannot realistically integrate with first world societies without believing racist rubbish like genetic inferiority. I don't see how it would be possible to believe this at all, given the abundant examples to the contrary.
    - supreme_sublime 8y ago
      Unfortunately there might be an argument for some form of genetic inferiority. Considering how many first cousin marriages there are in certain Muslim communities. [0] >Although British parents of Pakistani origin account for 3.4 per cent of all births nationwide, they also account for around 30 per cent of children born with recessive gene disorders. I'm not really a fan of government force, and don't really care who other people marry, but this is obviously a problem. The risks associated with inbreeding (especially over many generations) are pretty well known. [0] - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/4014743/Warning-over-births-to-first-cousin-marriages.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/4014743/Warn...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
minipci1321 8y ago
Possible, just costly. Seems for the moment people are not ready to agree to pay the expenses. Funny how everybody seem to ignore your second point -- about bombing.
eecc 8y ago
Several "Third World" cultures were doing pretty well and would be still be faring fine if the "First World" hadn't depredated them over the course of the last couple centuries. It's pretty arrogant - colonial - to assume that societies must resemble our own to be credibly successful.
drukenemo 8y ago
Such a simplistic view. No one is bombing Mexico, for example. Illegal immigration in Europe has been often attributed to economic migrants, not refugees.
sctb 8y ago
Please stop trolling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tyfon 8y ago

I live in Norway and we have similar problems with some immigrant children starting in the regular school without speaking Norwegian. It drains resources and takes away from the children that has learned to speak the language. Denmark and Norway is quite similar and it's extremely common to have the children in daycare while both parents work. This is common across the board and low-income families get this for free (at least here). Daycare is a good place to learn the language and obligatory daycare could be a solution to this. HOWEVER, I am very disturbed by the statement that they will be forced through religious practices. In Norway, all religious activitys in daycare / school are optional. My children are not participating in these things since we are atheist, so are many others due to various reasons. I hope that the article is misrepresenting this and that is the same way in Denmark. Maybe some Danes can enlighten us.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
I live in the Netherlands and we have ways to deal with people moving into the country whose kids don't speak Dutch. In every county and/or cities, the local elementary schools pool their non-Dutch speaking children in one or several classes, focusing on Dutch for the first 1-2 years the children live here, or however long is necessary to get them up to speed.
- tyfon 8y ago
  This is also a solution and one which works also for those not born in the country but are moving in when they are older. It does put a drain on the school system though and at least here in Norway the budgets are pretty tight already. And considering we do not pool students like you it also means that the rest of the class has to wait or that you have to leave those that do not speak the language behind the curve. I guess it still comes down to prioritisations of the politicians. A combination of training in daycare and making separate pools in the school would be good.
nkobber 8y ago
I just quickly read through the proposal (https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-danmark-uden-parallelsamfund.pdf https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-dan...) I do not see religion mentioned

grk 8y ago

I used to live in Tingbjerg, and could witness firsthand how the immigrants abused the welfare there. The laws may seem harsh, but on the other side you have people who take pride in cheating the social security system.

sgift 8y ago
How many, how often? How do you know they abused it? Anecdote, data and so on.

Rjevski 8y ago

It was about time, but I am not sure the situation in Denmark is bad enough to warrant this - I wish other countries had this though, like France where the complete rejection & hatred of French values & culture by "ghetto" residents is quite worrying.

olau 8y ago

The "ghetto" lists have been a thing for a number of years now in Denmark. There used to be a couple of areas in the city where I live, in cheaper community housing like this https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?moduleAction=displayDepartment&departmentNo=25&companyNo=99 https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?mod... This was perceived as a huge problem for the housing associations renting out the apartments, so they've been doing a bunch of different things, including hiring social workers, courses to try to get people in a job, networks, giving the buildings a serious makeover destroying some and building new in an effort to get a better mix of low-rent and high-rent inhabitants. But also getting permission to decline new renters on welfare payments. In the end, all housing associations where I live managed to get off the ghetto lists, so aren't affected by this new law. I think the new law is probably more about signaling a hardliner attitude than actually solving problems. On the other hand, no doubt people gathering in small closely-knit enclaves ends up being a problem for many of those living there. In a nutshell, if you need a job, networking with people who don't have one doesn't help.

Rjevski 8y ago
How much is it actually a problem as far as crime is concerned? I know some countries where it's really bad but haven't heard of this issue in Denmark so can't comment.
- bausshf 8y ago
  Crime is lowering actually, so I guess it's less concerning than it was say 10 years ago.

jcrei 8y ago

Ok, I don't want to go down the road of "this is backwards and shouldn't be happening in Denmark" and I'm already tired of comments saying "it's about time, wish they did that in my country"... So I'm asking the smart people of HN. What could be good solutions for the problem they are trying to fix? Children of families that come from other countries don't speak the language when they enrol in 1st grade.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Mandatory education. Focus on mandatory. It is already in place and could be extended. You can run additional required courses, paid in taxes. This is almost exactly this rule except with more restrictions.
lgbr 8y ago
Create a culture of migration. The United States and Canada are examples of countries where integration is wonderfully successful [1][2][3]. New citizens to the United States and Canada are welcomed in huge stadiums adorned with flags, families celebrate by making signs, and most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the country as any native born person. Attitudes among native born persons really make a difference, where even the United States' fairly conservative Republican party touts its immigrant supporters at their conventions. Leaders in Europe have recognized the need for this attitude in the past, but they've acknowledged that it hasn't quite worked out [4][5]. Making the transition from a country with very long family lineages just requires a lot more convincing of the local population. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimilation-nation/309518/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimil... 2: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-top-in-integrating-immigrants-survey-says/article568517/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-to... 3: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/for-immigrants-america-is-still-more-welcoming-than-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/fo... 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994 5: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-...

classicsnoot 8y ago

I wonder how the Danish immigrants in Lebanon are fairing under the government and society in place.

pjc50 8y ago
The few Danes in Lebanon are almost certainly doing alright. It's the refugees in Lebanon that aren't; there's 1.5 million Syrian refugees there, which is causing similar social and economic tensions on a much larger scale. (The headline article mentions that several of those interviewed are refugees, presumably from the previous civil war in Lebanon.)
- classicsnoot 8y ago
  I posted that comment to be snarky, but your earnest response has compelled me to elaborate on the motivation behind the crassness. I imagine any Dane in Lebanon is doing quite well because, barring the exceedingly unlikely but not impossible chance of human trafficking, Danes in the Levant are there by choice and persons of considerable means (or privileged volunteers subjecting themselves to unnecessary hardship for a plethora of potential reasons). Denmark hasn't experienced a war since 1945 and hasn't had a home front war since ~1860. They don't generate refugees, and by and large neither do their neighbors. This is not magic. This is not a product of colonialism, or racism, or slavery. This is because certain cultures made a concerted effort to stop repeating a cycle and chose to operate differently. Having the means to do this was a lucky break in history (Nazis loved the Danes but the Danes never publicly reciprocated so they got all that sweet Marshall Plan cash) as well as some incredibly forward thinking and talented people who wanted their ethnostate to be happy, healthy, and productive. The last place Europe sent a bunch of refugees (outside of Europa) was Palestine. This led directly to a diaspora of Arabs and others out of the Levant. Guilt opened Europe's borders, foolishness propped the door open, and cognitive dissonance will claim it is the right thing to do. Denmark, or any country, that attempts to transfer culture through enforced education (as opposed to child rearing, intermarriage, social pressure, or the quite effective but completely contemptible method of attempted genocide) is doomed to fail. It is just a matter of time. The author of the article tried very hard to paint the immigrants as hapless victims with a sthole on one side and stty people on the other, a poor young mother desperate to be accepted by the country she wishes to be a part of. And this may be true for her. It could be true for many of the immigrants in Europe currently. But history is very clear about what mass migration does to native populations, regardless of the initial power dynamic between immigrant and native, nevermind the motivation for immigration (European immigrants to North America were fleeing widespread violence, scant economic opportunity, and oppressive religious suppression as well). Color, Creed, and chronology are irrelevant. The advantage lies with the more aggressive in almost all conflicts, regardless of whether or not each participant acknowledges that the fight is occurring.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

In ghettos they see less need to learn the local language, as everyone speaks their own language and all services are provided without needing to learn much. Considering that immigrants chose to go to x country, I see no racism in making them integrate, otherwise that country will become like the old one pretty soon. Now jailing parents for "forcing" kids to visit the old country and other measures are out of line and most likely not needed. Just learn the local language, go to school and learn /abide by the values. Or else...this country is the wrong match for you. Try another country or go back to the old one.

AstralStorm 8y ago
The ghetto issue is separate and the only solution seems to be to force resettle people. Immigrants gravitate towards cheap housing and people speaking the same tongue which makes integration harder. You could skip this issue by skipping a generation of course.

pjc50 8y ago

"Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8.

AstralStorm 8y ago
It isn't, because it isn't private life when it is managed by government. The spirit of Article 8 is to not mess with private life, not to place no limits on it. Specifically, it is a time bound on private life and private time which is not disallowed. This is a restriction "in accordance with law". The restriction is not unreasonable nor hard to comply with.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>"I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8. " The law says ..."except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." Otherwise I can decide not to school my children.
- pjc50 8y ago
  It looks like this is subject to the decision in Wunderlich v Germany which appears to be ongoing; I had no idea that homeschooling was illegal in Germany, it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    >>it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education. and "adequate" is the key word. The letter and the spirit of the law makes it clear that the state has a very legit interest in educating people--including and maybe, especially, immigrants.

mirimir 8y ago

Well, in contrast: https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut-english-instruction-law/ https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut-eng...

trextrex 8y ago

This reminds me of other similar attempts that have happened in the past to help "assimilation" and "integration": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

onyva 8y ago

As an Israeli who had gone through an education system almost exclusively dedicated the history of Eastern European Jews and the holaucaust, I think it’s wonderful that we can now have real time and in color footage documenting how a so called “enlightened” and “advanced” society, pigs out and turns into brainless pack of animals that follows orders. I would personally would like to see Israel’s prime minister going to Denmark to protest, the way he did in Poland.

aibrahem 8y ago

As an immigrant from a Muslim majority country into a European country, I find this approach very troubling. I completely agree that most of the immigrants have a lot of trouble integrating into the host countries but I believe it’s as much as a problem of the hosting culture as it is the of the immigrants coming in. It’s not just the Muslims, though they might be the most pronounced case (just because the sheer number of immigrants), immigrants from India, China, and even Eastern Europe face similar issues. Anytime there is going to be a mass immigration to a specific place there is going to be a concentration of immigrant communities in certain places, it happened with the Irish and Italians in the US, and still happening with a lot of different areas in America (Michigan is one of the heaviest populated areas by Christian Arabs). The reason being is that when you first immigrate to a new place it’s a lot easier to stick to the people you know and share behaviors with than to go out and make a new social circle. However, the culture of the host society plays a big role in the acceptance of foreigners, for example, people in the US and Canada are usually a perceived to be lot friendlier than most typical Western Europeans, it’s a lot easier to chit-chat with an American than to a Dutch, German, or French person..., It is also very easy to get to know people in the US, meanwhile unless you’ve really gotten to know each other it’s very difficult to get close to a typical European. Norwegians usually joke that if two people get on the bus one of them is going to set at the front and the other all the way in the back. Another culture tidbit that could contribute to this is that conformity plays a very huge part in the European culture, and they just confirm to a very different set of values than the ones where these immigrants are coming from, find someone walking naked down the street, that’s completely normal but finding a women wearing burqa on a beach and suddenly a lot of heads are turning. Although this might also happen in the US but with the American stress on individualism it’s always reassuring that it’s OK to be who you are, rather than the typical European mindset of why don’t you just take it off and be like everyone else. Also The Hollywood effect, immigrants coming to America usually have a base understanding of what to expect coming in from watching movies, TV shows or even the news and are usually touched in one way or another by the American culture, meanwhile it’s very difficult to understand the culture subtleties when you don’t understand the language and haven’t been exposed to this culture before and add that to the stress on conformity as mentioned before and very quickly you become an outcast in your social circle. My point is that brute forcing people to integrate is simply the incorrect approach to solve this issue, culture intricacies needs to be studied and incompatibilities with the immigrant and host culture needs to be addressed to reach an effective solution, otherwise what you’ll have is a very angry socially inept minority that could sing Jingle bells.

RestlessMind 8y ago

This law makes sense to me (and I say that as an immigrant myself). Immigrants are flocking to Denmark because it is a stable, prosperous society with generous benefits. But that stability and prosperity wasn't conjured up from thin air. It was built by the Danes for a homogenous group of people. If you want to join them, I find it perfectly reasonable for Danes to demand assimilation into Danish culture. If you have problems with that, then don't go to Denmark. But it is wrong to fail at building your own country, seeking refuge in a better place and yet insisting on playing by your own rules in the new place.