🚀 go-pugleaf

In order to illustrate what kind of thing i meant when I said that
I am normally concerned with *fighting* nationalism, I should
like to emphasize that this is in Denmark, where overt discrimination
against foreigners has been introduced in the legislation and where the
political agenda is set by the extreme right. The governing
social democrats (roughly equivalent to the Spanish socialists)
are also becoming "neat". A specialty is their token immigrants in
town councils and the like - these are always interviewed by the media
whenever some "immigrant problem" is being discussed, and like
good Uncle Toms they never miss an opportunity to acquit the massas
and blame the (often non-existing or media inflated) problems on the
immigrants themselves.

    A few excerps from a report on the increasing Apartheid I am
translating:

Lubna Elahi's own ambiguous immigrant policy has repeatedly stabbed
immigrants in the back and now she reaps the Camre sown by herself and her
party. In 1995, she thus left SF and entered the Social Democratic Party
with the following argument:  The social democrats are more realistic in
their immigrant politics. I have helped developing that of SF, but I have
changed my mind and today I totally agree with the no-nonsense line of for
instance Minister of the Interior Birte Weisss.  (Ekstra Bladet, September
8, 1995).
(Lubna Elahi is one of the "token immigrants" discussed above).
The  no-nonsense line  for which Elahi praises Weiss is actually the long
line of tightenings and infringements implemented by the former Minister of
the Interior before she was replaced with the hardliner Simonsen (routine
imprisonment of certain asylum-seekers who have not committed any crime
whatsoever and deportation as an exclusive punishment for refugees for
certain offendes). Elahi is, like Weiss and Simonsen, a precise expression
of the common social democratic view that equality before the law does not
include immigrants and refugee and that official discrimination is no more
than an element in the obvious  no-nonsense line  which citizens with
certain ethnic backgrounds apparently have to endure. Elahi, Weiss and
Simonsen are not racists, but they and their party unhesitatingly manage a
regular discrimination politics whose next step may alarmingly easy develop
into something very similar to racism.


In  1987, for instance, Per Madsen, social democratic mayor of Ishxj,
declared:  We se a  Khomeinyzation  of the immigrants, we se more women with
headscarfs and long skirts. The immigrants don t integrate. If the Iranians
act as if they still were home in Iran and the Turks as if the were in
Turkey they ll have to go back where they came from. It can t go on this
way. We haven t had any clashes yet but they will come.  (Politiken, August
19th, 1987).

In 1989, members of the Danish League attended a rally with Per Madsen, and
the league s magazine Danskeren (the Dane) prints the summary  which was
presented to Per Madsen for correction and approval  and which is printed
with the mayor s permission. Here he declares, among other things:  Muslims
live at a medieval stage with a degradation of women and female culture
which is unheard of in this country. Women are bargained with like cattle,
and they are flogged and maltreated.  (Danskeren no. 1, 1989, p. 3).

In 1994 Kjeld Rasmussen,  social democratic mayor of Brxndby, supported
his colleague in Ishxj:  Every time Per Madsen said anything, people said it
was exaggerated. Even when they fetched their cousins from the same
district, and they had degenerate children and so forth. And people said:
This is withour foundation. But that s just the way it is, and those
statistics are   what s it called now?   Glostup Amtssygehus, and the county
mayor   not the present one, the former county mayor   has been able to
document that a lot of children were sent there. They couldn t see if they
actually were the same family or not, of course, but we did get a lot of,
shall we say, handicapped children at the time.  (Quoted by John Reynolds,
vice county mayor of Albertslund, in Politiken August 23rd, 1994).

In June 1990 a report with the long title  Danish contribution to the
report from the European Community s enquiry committee about racism and
xenophobia for following up the meber states of the joint declaration of
councils, commissions and Parliament of June 11th, 1986  becomes available.
In this report, the practise of the local authorities of Ishxj, where
refugees and immigrants are denied the right to public utility apartments if
the concentration of  foreigners  is estimated to be too high, is
characterized as  a frigtening example of administrative racism , and the
excuse, that it serves the best interest of the immigrants, is  rejected
as  the universal argument for Apartheid.

In 1997 Kjeld Rasmussen, social democratic mayor of Brxndby, declared:  Now
I m sitting with our housing committee and renting apartments. And since
February, not one individual from the hot countries has entered Brxndby
Nord. We re also throwing out all the criminal idiots if they don t behave.
We re weeding out for the benefit of the citizens and the housing societies.
The citizens have a right to keep the Danish housing environment.
(Berlingske Tidende, November 9, 1997).
The social democrats are weeding out.

In 1997, Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen thus stated:  We will not put
up with the illegal crimes of the illegally immigrated welfare freeloaders."
(Berlingske Tidende, November 17, 1997). Is this an impartial account   or a
continuation of mayor Kjeld Rasmussen s strategy of  weeding out ?
Please note that it has never been documented that immigrants should be
particularly more criminal or prone to swindling or "freeloading" than
others - so why do our
PM say this?
    Perhaps to avoid losing votes to the extreme right by embracing their
ideas.
    Yes, this is disgusting.
    And what a nice climate this kind of statement creates for these people!
:(

Hope you will bear with me, but following Iqaki's (and Javier's) answers to
my question
I thought the point might bear elaboration.
    Not a lot of good news to tell about the development in "rich and
tolerant" Scandinavia,
alas!

    regards,

    Carsten
--
The Torch: http://www.faklen.dk/en