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"The once homogenous population has been forever altered by a rapid and massive addition of people from vastly different cultures and value-systems. 26,8% of th

"The once homogenous population has been forever altered by a rapid and massive addition of people from vastly different cultures and value-systems. 26,8% of the population is now foreign-born or with at least one foreign-born parent, and the national census bureau estimates that some 150 000 per year will arrive to the country of just 9,8 million residents. There simply is no possible way to absorb and assimilate such volumes of people, period. Then you are merely creating ethnic enclaves, which due to incompatible language, culture and job skills become ghettos, which in turns brews crime, misery and extremism. Once the inflow has exceeded the capacity for absorbtion, further immigration only makes the problem worse. " I don't know the author, but this sounds like it belongs in a Pegida handbook.

sfjailbird 11y ago
People here in Scandinavia are very worried because their cozy little village of a region is being infused with massively different cultures. Can't really blame them, and to be sure crime and social costs are higher as a result of immigration. That said, there is every reason to believe that these effects will diminish over time as immigrants start to integrate, even some beneficial effects are already showing. The problem is that 'integration' takes generations, and a very large influx jeopardizes this process. So the adverse effects remain very visible and most people are too short-sighted to take the long view. At the same time Europeans are so hypersensitive about 'racism' that the topic can't even be discussed in polite company (which leaves it to actual racists to even talk about the issues).
- jerf 11y ago
  What a shocking expression of cultural imperialism and contempt. "Yes, your culture is being disrupted by massive immigration that I freely admit you can't assimilate very well, and is causing significant problems. But it's OK, go ahead and suffer through the negative effects that are frontloaded into your lifetime, because I'm sure that in a few generations, after you're dead, it will all work out." Are you really surprised that with a pitch like that that Europeans aren't falling over themselves to shape up? Especially if they lack your great and frankly historically baseless belief that their culture and their children are guaranteed to have a place in it?
- _delirium 11y ago
  Here in Denmark, in my opinion much of the worry is not based on first-hand experience with actual immigrants who have moved to your town and are not integrating well, but rather with a more generalized worry that the culture in some sense is threatened. That's harder to solve with practical measures like integration assistance, because it's not based on specific daily problems but more general ideological worldviews. If anything it seems anti-correlated with presence of real live immigrants. The largest group of immigrants to Denmark go to Copenhagen. But Copenhagen isn't where you find the strongest anti-immigrant sentiment, as you'd expect if anti-immigrant sentiment were caused by contact with immigrants. Such sentiment isn't absent, but Copenhageners are comparatively okay with immigration and the majority take moderate views, focused on practical issues like programs to improve integration. The strongest worries and the more "militant" style of anti-immigrant politics comes from rural and small-town areas which do not really see large-scale immigration. I believe this is also the case in a number of other European countries, for example in Austria and Switzerland, where immigrants go mainly to the cities, but anti-immigrant sentiment is concentrated in the rural areas and small towns. Some of this probably has nothing to do with immigration per se but is a result of preexisting cultural splits between cosmopolitan, liberally oriented cities, and more conservative countrysides (a 19th-century sort of romantic nationalism is very strong in rural Scandinavia).
  - dimitar 11y ago
    Are you sure that an European equivalent of white-flight hasn't happened? People who are less likely to like living with immigrants are likely to move to suburbs or not move to the cities in the first place. Enclaves are caused by "tipping" in a Schelling check-board model. It would be interesting to check the data to this type of model.
    - simongray 11y ago
      The only flight we see in Denmark are people fleeing the quiet rural areas and moving to the big university cities, primarily Copenhagen and to a lesser degree Århus.
  - MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
vog 11y ago
> I don't know the author, but this sounds like it belongs in a Pegida handbook. Indeed, it's alsmost the same that we hear from nationalists in Germany, France, etc.
shas3 11y ago
I think 'belongs to Pegida handbook' in itself doesn't say much. It would be ideological (as opposed to evidence-based) political correctness to avoid stating the obvious: it is almost impossible to absorb huge volumes of immigrants, especially when a country has been largely homogeneous and insular for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It does behoove new immigrants to learn the language of their adopted countries. This does not have to be at the expense of their native cultures, insofar as it doesn't run contrary to humanistic principles (e.g. mistreatment of women and FGM are both 'cultural' and 'religious' for sure, but they still have to be repudiated.)

sfjailbird 11y ago

People here in Scandinavia are very worried because their cozy little village of a region is being infused with massively different cultures. Can't really blame them, and to be sure crime and social costs are higher as a result of immigration. That said, there is every reason to believe that these effects will diminish over time as immigrants start to integrate, even some beneficial effects are already showing. The problem is that 'integration' takes generations, and a very large influx jeopardizes this process. So the adverse effects remain very visible and most people are too short-sighted to take the long view. At the same time Europeans are so hypersensitive about 'racism' that the topic can't even be discussed in polite company (which leaves it to actual racists to even talk about the issues).

jerf 11y ago
What a shocking expression of cultural imperialism and contempt. "Yes, your culture is being disrupted by massive immigration that I freely admit you can't assimilate very well, and is causing significant problems. But it's OK, go ahead and suffer through the negative effects that are frontloaded into your lifetime, because I'm sure that in a few generations, after you're dead, it will all work out." Are you really surprised that with a pitch like that that Europeans aren't falling over themselves to shape up? Especially if they lack your great and frankly historically baseless belief that their culture and their children are guaranteed to have a place in it?
_delirium 11y ago
Here in Denmark, in my opinion much of the worry is not based on first-hand experience with actual immigrants who have moved to your town and are not integrating well, but rather with a more generalized worry that the culture in some sense is threatened. That's harder to solve with practical measures like integration assistance, because it's not based on specific daily problems but more general ideological worldviews. If anything it seems anti-correlated with presence of real live immigrants. The largest group of immigrants to Denmark go to Copenhagen. But Copenhagen isn't where you find the strongest anti-immigrant sentiment, as you'd expect if anti-immigrant sentiment were caused by contact with immigrants. Such sentiment isn't absent, but Copenhageners are comparatively okay with immigration and the majority take moderate views, focused on practical issues like programs to improve integration. The strongest worries and the more "militant" style of anti-immigrant politics comes from rural and small-town areas which do not really see large-scale immigration. I believe this is also the case in a number of other European countries, for example in Austria and Switzerland, where immigrants go mainly to the cities, but anti-immigrant sentiment is concentrated in the rural areas and small towns. Some of this probably has nothing to do with immigration per se but is a result of preexisting cultural splits between cosmopolitan, liberally oriented cities, and more conservative countrysides (a 19th-century sort of romantic nationalism is very strong in rural Scandinavia).
- dimitar 11y ago
  Are you sure that an European equivalent of white-flight hasn't happened? People who are less likely to like living with immigrants are likely to move to suburbs or not move to the cities in the first place. Enclaves are caused by "tipping" in a Schelling check-board model. It would be interesting to check the data to this type of model.
  - simongray 11y ago
    The only flight we see in Denmark are people fleeing the quiet rural areas and moving to the big university cities, primarily Copenhagen and to a lesser degree Århus.
- MrBuddyCasino 11y ago

vog 11y ago

> I don't know the author, but this sounds like it belongs in a Pegida handbook. Indeed, it's alsmost the same that we hear from nationalists in Germany, France, etc.

shas3 11y ago

I think 'belongs to Pegida handbook' in itself doesn't say much. It would be ideological (as opposed to evidence-based) political correctness to avoid stating the obvious: it is almost impossible to absorb huge volumes of immigrants, especially when a country has been largely homogeneous and insular for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It does behoove new immigrants to learn the language of their adopted countries. This does not have to be at the expense of their native cultures, insofar as it doesn't run contrary to humanistic principles (e.g. mistreatment of women and FGM are both 'cultural' and 'religious' for sure, but they still have to be repudiated.)