How to Be Danish: A Journey to the Cultural Heart of Denmark by Patrick Kingsley Page B
Authors: Patrick Kingsley
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people at the top. “I love the Danes,” he says, “and I love Denmark. There is a good welfare state. If you’re out of work, you get benefits. There’s free education, free medical care. But for me, I don’t feel accepted by the politicians. I want acceptance of my identity.”
Wasim claims that his complaint is common among many other cosmopolitan “New Danes”, or Danes of foreign origin. “There are many, many foreigners who tell me: ‘Wasim, this is not my country.’ They’re well-educated,from Danish universities, and they’re saying, ‘Well, okay, if they don’t accept me, I have a Master’s, I can get a job somewhere else.’ ”
Wasim constantly mentions how many Muslims he knows at university, and how employable they are. This is refreshing, because a stereotypically bigoted criticism of immigrants in Denmark is that they are uneducated and work-shy. It’s true – the stats aren’t great. As noted in the previous chapter, only 52% of foreign-born men and 43% of foreign-born women were in work in 2011, around 20 percentage points below their Danish-born counterparts. Before the financial crisis, immigrants’ net contribution to the welfare state had almost reached parity, but this has since dropped again. As a result, there is a perception that Denmark and its glorious welfare state can only work as a monoculture unsoiled by outsiders.
This isn’t particularly fair, says Michala Clante Bendixen, a campaigner for immigrant rights and a board member of the charity Refugees Underground. “We consider the welfare system to be perfect, and that if anyone wants to join it, it’s their problem to get into it,” argues Bendixen. “They have to find their own way, and if they don’t succeed, it’s their fault. They’re not doing it well enough. They’re lazy. But we’re not looking at integration as a two-way system where we also have to open up to get new people into the system. We just say ‘they should do more to integrate’. If you don’t speak the language perfectly, if you don’t have the connections, the experience, the education – you’re left out.
“Danish society has actually done very little to try to find out what the problem is. Why is it difficult for immigrants to enter the labour market? How can we help them to enter the labour market? Can we give them the resources to work, instead of hitting them on the head and saying, ‘You don’t want to work’? Can we prepare the work market better? Maybe it’s not absolutely necessary to speak fluent Danish in order to have certain positions within a company.”
Part of the problem is that some immigrants don’t have the grades to get into university, and so can’t find employment within Denmark’s highly skilled jobs market. One answer is to change the way applicants are assessed – so that they’re judged on potential, rather than just exam results. Another left-field option comes from Nille Juul-Sørensen, head of the Danish Design Institute, who wants the government to help young New Danes to set up businesses. “Many are top-notch students, but many are not the guys who go through academia,” he argues. “But they’re really good at trading. You want good vegetables, go to Nørrebro. This is actually a golden pot for entrepreneurs. So why don’t we take their kids and say: ‘We believe in you, we believe you can do the start-ups, it’s in your culture.’ If they don’t want to do maths, can we help them set up a company selling music?”
Alev is hopeful that things will change. “There’s a development, a process going on. Look at the professions young people [of foreign ancestry] are taking. They’re not juststudying medicine or engineering – they are more and more confident. They’re studying archaeology, anthropology. People say that immigration has destroyed the fundaments of our welfare society, but these immigrants are going to boost up the Danish economy and we’ll be better funded than
Wasim claims that his complaint is common among many other cosmopolitan “New Danes”, or Danes of foreign origin. “There are many, many foreigners who tell me: ‘Wasim, this is not my country.’ They’re well-educated,from Danish universities, and they’re saying, ‘Well, okay, if they don’t accept me, I have a Master’s, I can get a job somewhere else.’ ”
Wasim constantly mentions how many Muslims he knows at university, and how employable they are. This is refreshing, because a stereotypically bigoted criticism of immigrants in Denmark is that they are uneducated and work-shy. It’s true – the stats aren’t great. As noted in the previous chapter, only 52% of foreign-born men and 43% of foreign-born women were in work in 2011, around 20 percentage points below their Danish-born counterparts. Before the financial crisis, immigrants’ net contribution to the welfare state had almost reached parity, but this has since dropped again. As a result, there is a perception that Denmark and its glorious welfare state can only work as a monoculture unsoiled by outsiders.
This isn’t particularly fair, says Michala Clante Bendixen, a campaigner for immigrant rights and a board member of the charity Refugees Underground. “We consider the welfare system to be perfect, and that if anyone wants to join it, it’s their problem to get into it,” argues Bendixen. “They have to find their own way, and if they don’t succeed, it’s their fault. They’re not doing it well enough. They’re lazy. But we’re not looking at integration as a two-way system where we also have to open up to get new people into the system. We just say ‘they should do more to integrate’. If you don’t speak the language perfectly, if you don’t have the connections, the experience, the education – you’re left out.
“Danish society has actually done very little to try to find out what the problem is. Why is it difficult for immigrants to enter the labour market? How can we help them to enter the labour market? Can we give them the resources to work, instead of hitting them on the head and saying, ‘You don’t want to work’? Can we prepare the work market better? Maybe it’s not absolutely necessary to speak fluent Danish in order to have certain positions within a company.”
Part of the problem is that some immigrants don’t have the grades to get into university, and so can’t find employment within Denmark’s highly skilled jobs market. One answer is to change the way applicants are assessed – so that they’re judged on potential, rather than just exam results. Another left-field option comes from Nille Juul-Sørensen, head of the Danish Design Institute, who wants the government to help young New Danes to set up businesses. “Many are top-notch students, but many are not the guys who go through academia,” he argues. “But they’re really good at trading. You want good vegetables, go to Nørrebro. This is actually a golden pot for entrepreneurs. So why don’t we take their kids and say: ‘We believe in you, we believe you can do the start-ups, it’s in your culture.’ If they don’t want to do maths, can we help them set up a company selling music?”
Alev is hopeful that things will change. “There’s a development, a process going on. Look at the professions young people [of foreign ancestry] are taking. They’re not juststudying medicine or engineering – they are more and more confident. They’re studying archaeology, anthropology. People say that immigration has destroyed the fundaments of our welfare society, but these immigrants are going to boost up the Danish economy and we’ll be better funded than
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