As immigration presents a problem for nations throughout the western world, policy towards immigrants reveals commitment to claimed values. In Denmark, xenophobia – which finds support from both government and the people – seems to have won out over liberalism.
In his 2018 New Year’s Eve speech, Danish Prime Minster Lars Lokke Rasmussen said that ghettos, areas designed by the government for having a high concentration of poor immigrants, “reach out their tentacles into the streets where criminal gangs create insecurity.” A few lines later, in the same speech, the prime minister continued that these ghettos are coming “into society at large where Danish values such as equality, broad-mindedness, and tolerance are losing ground.”
The policies that back up the prime minister’s remarks are a better indicator of Danish values than are their loud claims of tolerance. Danish policies explicitly target immigrant communities labeled as “ghettos” and mandate forcible assimilation of residents from “non-western countries.”
Already, as reported by the New York Times, there are twenty-two proposals to the Danish parliament, many of which have already been passed. One such measure requires children living in one of these government defined “ghettos” to spend at least 25 hours each week in government daycare learning Danish values and language – starting at 12-months old. Another would allow for different sentencing for the same crime depending on where a person lived.
Although the prime minister looks to be correct in saying that Danish values of broad-mindedness and tolerance have lost ground, it is the government, not the immigrants, who are eating away at these values.
Immigration has tested Danish values and, as evidenced by rhetoric, policy, and public support, the commitment to liberalism shattered. As other countries, including the United States, struggle to find a balance between national interest and our stated values on the question of immigration, Denmark should be a clear negative example. Sacrificing values in the name of promoting those same values leaves us with no values at all.
