Unwanted in Denmark

A quick glance at a map of Europe will tell you that Denmark falls between Germany and Sweden. But, you probably knew that already. You might not have known it, but Denmark has demonstrated a decidedly less welcoming attitude toward Muslim migrants.

For all I know, it might have something to do with the fact that the Danes have closely observed the effects that migrants are producing in Germany and Sweden… and have decided that they do not want any of that in their country. This tells us that Europe is increasingly being divided between the Western countries that are being destroyed by their migrant populations and the Eastern countries that have successfully kept the migrants… along with their rape culture, their criminal gangs, their misogyny, their homophobia and their anti-Semitism… out.

The Danes have accepted a certain number of migrant refugees into their country, but it has strictly segregated them from the rest of the population. It is apparently trying to persuade them to leave. It is not allowing them to live among the Danes, to work among the Danes or to feel comfortable in Denmark. According to Nicholas Mirzoeff in the Nation (via Maggie’s Farm) the country’s policies are markedly intolerant and ought to change. He has painted an awful picture of desolation, the better to gin up international pressure on Denmark.

It will be interesting to see if it works. In the meantime, Denmark has made it clear that it will not accept unassimilable migrants into its communities and its cultures.

Think of Denmark and you probably conjure up a mix of mid-century design, hygge, and people riding bikes. But as viewers of the noir TV series The Bridge know, it’s also a country marred by institutional xenophobia. Denmark has a network of camps and detention centers for asylum seekers. It has legally defined ghettoes, meaning urban areas with populations of “non-Western immigrants.”

But while something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark, it’s far from an exception in Western politics. What’s happening in this former bastion of liberalism is the normalizing of white hostility to immigration. Denmark is building on Australian and Israeli tactics to form a new strategy: to disappear the refugee from society.

The Danish immigration minister Inger Støjberg has said that she intends to make conditions for people in the asylum system unbearable.And if my recent visit to Sjælsmark Detention Center, outside Copenhagen, is anything to judge by, she’s succeeding.

Sjælsmark contains people whose applications for asylum have been rejected but cannot be returned to their country of origin (technically “non-deportable rejected asylum seekers,” according to EU law). The upscale suburb has no shops or other amenities for the detainees. It is suitably remote from the city, nearly two hours by two buses and a train. By car, it’s just 30 minutes, but no one has a car.

He adds:

If the Danish settler colony once wanted to extract labor from its colonial subjects in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, all it wants now from their descendants is that they go away. To that end, Sjælsmark residents cannot work or claim benefits. They are not allowed to cook, to have furniture (other than a bed, one table, and hard chairs), or to decorate their rooms. No carpets or rugs are allowed. There is no television or Internet service. Residents live in cold, spare rooms with very high ceilings. Having committed no crime, the asylum seekers are nonetheless being punished.

So, Eastern Europe, Australia and even Israel have adopted draconian and not-very-pretty ways to persuade migrants to return to their home country. Or else, to seek asylum elsewhere. But not in Denmark.

Increasingly, Western cultures are dividing according to whether or not they are willing to welcome migrants. Having seen up close the results of Angela Merkel’s open arms policy and the situation in Sweden… Denmark has chosen to put up a wall.