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The last 25 years in Denmark have seen growing racism and a deterioration in welfare and social security for the vast majority of the population. Racism and neoliberal policies have gone hand in hand and complimented each other.
In the beginning the far right was isolated
In the late 1990s, a member of the far right Danish People’s Party, speaking in Parliament proposed deporting Somali refugees by putting them on a plane and parachuting them over Somalia. Others suggested sending them to a deserted island. At that time, one could shrug one’s shoulders because they didn’t have political influence. In 1999, the Social Democratic Prime Minister rejected any cooperation with the Danish People’s Party and they were isolated.
September 11, 2001 changed the political agenda. Muslims all over the world were made scapegoats for the attack on the World Trade Center. In Denmark, the government was replaced by a center-right government headed by Anders Fog Rasmussen, who later became a general secretary of NATO. He was only too happy to cooperate with the Danish People’s Party. He also brought Denmark into the coalition of the willing with Bush and Blair, and joined the Iraq War in 2003. Denmark became a belligerent power, many of whose soldiers came home in coffins, killed in terrorist roadside bombs. Denmark has followed the US and NATO in Afghanistan all the way: in Libya and back to Iraq in 2014, when the Islamic State was to be fought there.
Racism hardens
In 2005, the “Muhammad crisis” unfolded – triggered by the Muhammad cartoons in the newspaper, Jyllandsposten, which depicted the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist followed by a comment that Muslims had to learn to tolerate mockery and ridicule. Freedom of expression became the big and only important issue – religious freedom, respect and tolerance became subordinated to ‘freedom of expression’.
Since May 2009, all workers in the EU have had the right to live and work in Denmark. Migrant workers from Eastern Europe are affected by racism every day in their daily lives. Employers have used them to lower wages and working conditions for everyone. Unfortunately, trade unions have been very slow to allow migrant workers into the unions and support them in resisting attacks from the employers.
There are also a large number of Inuit people living in Denmark. Denmark incorporated its colony, Greenland, in 1953. Since then they have had the right to live and work in Denmark. Racism against the Inuit people has always existed.
There are a total of 200 different nationalities living in Denmark. They have come here over the years as refugees from Hungary, Chile, Vietnam, Palestine and Bosnia or as migrant workers from the former Yugoslavia, Pakistan,Turkey and the EU. The vast majority have made a living in Denmark and now the make up about 11% of the population.
Racism becomes mainstream
In the aftermath of the financial crises, racism started to become mainstream. The right-wing parties grew and the mainstream parties adapted to them, copied their policies, and began to cooperate with them. This paved the way for them.
In 2013, teachers were defeated after having been locked out by their employers. Social democracy governments called for an end to the strike and forced through new working conditions.
The 2014 EU parliamentary elections resulted in a frightening advance for the right-wing nationalist forces everywhere, and also in Denmark. The Danish People’s Party received 26.6% of the votes. In the 2015 general election, they received 21.1% of the votes. The DF is a typical right-wing populist party, which claims to speak on behalf of the entire people – ordinary people and the nation – against a small elite that only promotes their own narrow interests.
In 2015, the Liberal Party went into the election with a number of “asylum brake” proposals – and won. The Danish People’s Party again became the government’s support party and they won huge concessions. When an immigration measure – Restriction 50 – was passed, the Minister of Integration, Inger Støjberg, was jubilant and made a public celebration of it with a cake. When immigration Restriction 100 was passed, the leader of the Danish People’s Party also put on a celebration for the media.
Harsh measures
Some proposals are pretty brutal – such as the jewelry law which grants Danish police the right to seize asylum seekers’ valuables or cash which exceed 10,000 Danish crowns (€1,340). This kind of blatant discrimination creates a terrible divisive atmosphere. Other measures are even worse and involve taking away from asylum seekers rights and opportunities in society. These include having to pay for interpreters and for Danish language lessons, fewer integration benefits which supposedly motivates people to work, longer waiting times for the right to child support and family reunification.
Denmark has now stopped taking in its quota of refugees from the UN. Rejected asylum seekers must live “as insufferably as possible”, according to the Minister of Integration, in isolated “departure centers” which will make them want to return home.
These 100 austerity measures are always accompanied by a clear message: the injunction to integrate and become Danish – something which is made almost impossible by these very measures.
Ghetto labelling, temporary residence, and emigration
2018 started with violent attacks on public housing areas, and new strict criteria for labelling housing areas as “hard ghettos”. Immigrants from non-Western countries were made scapegoats for social and human problems and special coercive measures were imposed against them. These housing areas were called “black holes” by the liberal prime minister. Thousands of good affordable flats have now been demolished and the residents forced to live elsewhere.
Until December 2018, integration and permanent residence was the norm for refugees which derived from basic human rights. Then a broad majority in the Parliament, The liberal Government, the Danish People’s Party and the Social Democrats, adopted the ‘Paradigm Shift’.
Now the perspective is emigration and temporary residence. Already now, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis and Syrians are being forcibly sent back. The ‘paradigm shift’ violates basic human rights and forces refugees to live on the margins of society in a temporary state with little money and few opportunities. This has created enormous insecurity and fear among the 20,000 Syrian refugees who arrived in 2015.
Continued attacks on refugees and “non-western” citizens
Since the “Paradigm Shift” refugees and “non-western” citizens have been the butt of continuous attacks.
In 2021, the state began to reconsider the right to stay in Denmark for Syrian refugees in order to send them back, since the war was over.
In 2022, a “Commission for the forgotten women’s struggle” tried to forbid the hijab in public schools.
At the same time Denmark made an agreement with Rwanda to establish a refugee camp in order to outsource the asylum procedure. It was never implemented, but Denmark is now working with Italy and other countries in the EU to make it happen.
Compulsory work for “non-Western” women only has been introduced. An ‘action plan’ which does not even mention muslims has been introduced. The definition of anti-Semitism has been agreed as that based on International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Social benefits are restricted for those who have arrived after 1968. There is a special vetting of social pensions if you live in the “ghetto” areas. There are restrictions for refugees in “departure camps”, which means it is impossible for them to visit friends and family. Anyone without citizenship – 10% of the population – may be hit with deportation orders.
Resistance
There have been large mobilizations in solidarity with refugees and ethnic minorities.
In 2015, thousands of Syrian refugees arrived on foot to Denmark. There were national protests against the “paradigm shift” in 2018-19. In 2020, when the murder of George Floyd set off the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, it also spread to Denmark and mobilised thousands of young people on the streets as part of the fight against racism in Denmark.
The “ghetto laws” were met with resistance. Local networks in the communities are still organizing protests. Last year The Advocate General for the European Court of Justice ruled that the Danish “ghetto law” constitutes “direct discrimination on grounds of ethnicity”, given that it leads to fewer “non-Western” people in certain, vulnerable residential areas, and given that ethnicity constitutes the main parameter for whether the state labels areas “ghettos.”
We had a big fight to stop the Syrian refugees being sent back in 2021-22 – involving the Syrian themselves but also workplaces, schools and communities and we won 75% of all “cases”.
This was the mood on a national demo in support of the Syrians in September 2021.
We are a very large and diverse minority who actively defend human rights, help and support refugees, and asylum seekers. We protest against the government and the right wing. We know from our campaigns that many more support us and agree with us.
The really big crowd are the local “Friendly Citizens Groups”, who give all kinds of support to refugees.
Then there are the humanitarian NGOs like Amnesty International etc. Traditionally, they are not political, but work to promote integration and human rights. To some extent the trade unions, who organize migrant workers, are also part of the struggle. The International Socialists in Denmark, of which I am part, also work with the local anti racist groups and together we organize meetings, events, demonstrations. We work together in a national organisation called “United against Racism and Discrimination”. We are also part of the international organisation World Against Racism and Fascism.
We see it as an important task to build anti-racist networks in all cities/areas and to unite these into a nationwide network. We see ourselves as a people’s movement and representing the majority. But we need more unity and deeper organisational networks if we are to have the strength necessary to beat back racism and the far right.