How Denmark took a hard line on Immigrants | Foreign Correspondent

[Music] it's not all pastries and boat trips in the state of Denmark there is something rotten going on here okay could you please take the 700,000 mussels from Denmark just take them with you to your neighborhood in Australia the country that famously saved its Jewish population from the Nazis in World War two has turned against its minorities [Music] yeah they call me ninja but also terrorists and a lot of other stuff freedom-loving Denmark is having an identity crisis when do you feel Danish what is Danish what feeling do you have when you Danish [Music] [Music] it's nudging the high 30s in Denmark today and our producers had the frankly inspired idea of sending me to a cozy 17th century Danish tavern in the countryside for four courses of crime Danish pork the choice seems to be pork with eggs pork with fish or pork with pork [Music] but pork in Denmark these days is no laughing matter I've come here tonight to meet a Dane who's very proud of this tradition thank you Wow Frank no guard is a local politician it takes pork pretty seriously Frank is a member of the right-wing Danish People's Party can you tell me what all of this is what am i eating you're eating pork for Frank what's served up on plates is now a matter of national importance even national identity we have to be aware of who we are and and what we are going to in the future when a local kindergarten took pork off the lunch menu because Muslim parents didn't want their kids nearest Frank and many others were upset yeah you think it's a a part of being Danish his council passed regulations which in many ways reflect a broader seismic shift underway right now in Denmark they're forcing pork to be offered in all public institutions I will eat pork from now on and to my desk but I also fights for that my children and their children will be able to eat pork in intake in eldery centers everywhere do you feel like as a politician you've sort of targeted one group of the community and said you know you must live like us if you want to be integrated and accepted they must also accept the way we live [Applause] things are pretty free and easy in the capital Copenhagen it's midsummer and just about the whole country's on holiday Denmark led the way in being free the first country in the world to legalize porn this place is every bit the Scandinavian stereotype [Music] Denmark is probably about as close as you can get to a high functioning society everything here just sort of seems to work they're healthy they're wealthy and officially some of the happiest people on earth but something quite radical is happening here this country has introduced some of the most draconian laws on the planet targeting migrants and Muslims so how did this country of fairytales and great design and tolerance find itself here [Music] for all its historic charm this is a very modern dynamic place Denmark's been on a real journey in recent years and so today I'm going on one to meet le Jokers stand-up comedian rocker Muslim and the music you've just been hearing that's her that's a convenient name for a comedian okay I know that's your real name [Music] Elly stars with her pink taxi in a popular YouTube series she talks to conservative Muslims and right-wingers prominent people with the point of view [Music] the pink taxi I Drive around people that I find interesting people that has a story people that has something they want to share [Applause] and I take them for a ride very often these days the big topic is migrants in this small country of nearly 6 million people around 700,000 have arrived in the last 14 years around 300,000 a Muslim and a lot of Danes have now decided they don't like it some like this extremist politician rasmus pollutant are spinning the numbers and calling for Muslims to be expelled altogether how do you handle it when it's people that for example don't want you in the country people that don't like Muslims don't like migrants happy for them to get in the cup yeah I meet people that are different than me most often and I try to get to the bottom of how did they become extreme Muslims extremist right-wing or whatever does it sit comfortably with you that some of them don't even want you here yeah like one thing that is very important to remember is I was brought up in a democratic country and if they have an opinion about they want me out then I challenge them and say so if you want me out how do you want to throw me out and then when you talk to them you kind of find out that they don't really have an idea they have a wish or their Jessica angry about something else that is bothering them massive fractures are appearing in Denmark's once cohesive Society yep that's us hi and Rasmus pollutant is a symptom of that he leads an extreme right-wing political party it's called strum course which means basically hardline today he's standing in a quiet Park in a multicultural suburb of copening this has got to be one of the most absurd things that I've ever seen there are riot police everywhere even in vans down the alleyways and inside two rings of police tape he's a fully grown man making social media content claiming that he wants to express himself I was a very very famous person during the election Denmark I guess I still AM a pretty famous person here and that means that many religious fanatics Islamic terrorist and such they want to kill me because they think I have I have desecrated their Quran in different ways this seems to be how Rasmus works do something provocative like throw Quran in an area with a big Muslim population wait to see what happens and then create some content to feed into the alt-right online stream he stages these stunts regularly [Music] in April he did it and riots flared across Copenhagen in the first four months of this year he cost the Danish taxpayer more than nine million dollars in security causes and while he failed to win a seat at the election it has put him on the map politically he scored enough votes to secure electoral payments of nearly half a million dollars a year for the next three years you know when you throw that that that's highly offensive to to Muslims of all varieties yes so what's the what's the intention the intention is to explain to them and make them understand that that is a premise of being a citizen in a democratic society for instance when they tell me that they're just as much Dane as I am I find that extremely offensive even if they're born here well that doesn't matter but isn't someone born here that's a Danish citizen a dime no no the Danes are an ethnic group and and we are are hailing from the Germanic tribes that came here many hundreds of years ago we're an ethnic group together with the Swedes and the Norwegian and and to a lesser extent the Icelanders and so forth now nothing much happens here today Rasmus packs up and leaves and so to to the police but as we hang around to film the area afterwards we get a glimpse of how fragile it is here and I guess that shows that underneath this very friendly face that Denmark shows you there's something much darker it's a public space a group of extreme leftists anti-fascists appear almost out of nowhere to let us know we're not welcome don't step in front of the countess's okay we'll see you later oh we can see how quickly things turn in Denmark today that was really just probably five minutes I think since the police left the same and those people were really angry and really agitated and I've got to say pretty threatening and for all of the things that Denmark projects itself as as friendly as open as tolerant I guess it's that kind of thing that obviously exists not very far below the surface [Music] political change a bit like the weather in a Danish summer is sweeping through here quickly both national and local level [Music] now we're not just talking about a few tweaks to policy here and there we're talking about a wholesale change in the way that Denmark used migrants and Muslims and last year this country celebrated passing 100 new laws reflecting just that among them strict new controls on all migration they're even offering money to people already here to go back to where they came from the children of migrants are being put through Danish cultural training from the age of 1 there's an effective ban on the burqa and the niqab and migrant areas are being officially designated gear hose and earmarked for bulldozing the burka ban was introduced to encourage integration but it's pushing some people quite literally behind closed doors today I'm going to be I show she's 20 and was born here in Copenhagen to Turkish parents the face cough is called a niqab and hits cough which I wear around my face is called a hijab yeah tell me how did you decide to start wearing the veil I started wearing wearing the veil two or three years ago and I started wearing it because I wanted to get closer to God it's like a sign of dedication and love for him ayesha says no one certainly not any man has forced her to do this but the conscious choice she's made is having a huge impact on her life [Music] when some look at me with hate you can see it automatically for some day you with hatred but they also say stuff say mean stuff and racist stuff to you yeah like what like ninja fantastic that's the you know cute one like we yeah yeah they call me ninja but also terrorists and a lot of other stuff under the burka ban she leaves her home wearing the veil she faces fines starting at $200 I used to work and go to school before this bad but now I'm all like all the time at home you know how does that make you feel makes me feel sad because I was born and raised in this country I love this country so I think it's important that we remember that we are in Denmark and in Denmark does freedom of speech and freedom of religion I have the right to practice my religion and wear the cool thing that I want to wear and ayisha's right Denmark is a place where freedom is paramount this is a country that prides itself on equality and tolerance so the current push against Muslims and migrants is provoking some serious soul-searching to see how they got to this point it might be worth going back to where it all began at the doorstep of a little church in the Danish Heartland in a giant glass case is a large bag from the Viking era it's called the yelling rune stone the big rock that everybody comes here to see is known as Denmark's birth certificate King Harald Bluetooth had it struck back in 965 AD and crucially on the back there's the depiction of Christ and a crucifix and that symbolized that this had become one United Kingdom that was Christian now it was Harold's great powers of communication that had United what had been warring tribes and it's for that same reason that some 1000 years later we name some new technology after him Bluetooth then mark remained largely wide and Christian for a thousand years up until the 1960s when the first wave of migrants arrived mostly from Turkey some like Ellie's family from Iran were pretty much pioneers so where are we going today Ellie we are going to see my mom your mom my mom okay tell me about your mom right yeah Ellie's mom he arrived here when she was 28 she started from scratch building a new life with her young family yeah we are make it 400 person for tomorrow hundred to put turning up yeah she's a wedding planner now a business she started eighteen years ago it was one of the first catering for Muslims tomorrow is on LaVon okay yeah don't have any men here they'd fled from Iran after the Revolution in 1979 they helped the Jewish family escape and the secret police were after them if we stay so I was 100% sure and my husband come and may hang up they were hanging hanging I was really very sure the only thing we had was the clothes that we wore we walked for days to Turkey what was your first impression when you got to Denmark it was very good and people was very kind they weren't sure us you aren't there maybe you are safe and you put us and we are we are here and help you do you think that Denmark as a society has changed since then from that time yeah they don't even accept us some vanish but I feel I'm Danish how does that make you feel having lived here for you I feel I am home my country here is my country I live in here but I don't know I don't know maybe tomorrow has come with some Louis if you are much going back we've done is that really what you think yeah this it's not only me I know many people I didn't know if you had an urge to become a Dean no she wanted to be a Viking when do you feel Danish what is Danish what feeling do you have when you Danish isn't it just getting along with people getting along with your neighbor isn't that being just a human being what is it that is so important for us human beings that we feel like we have to claim a country and say this is my place I define myself as a kid a gray zone kid because people like me are not accepted by the Danes and not accepted by the Muslims or the Persians so I make fun of all of this [Applause] [Music] so what has turned Denmark against people like Ellie and her mom it wasn't just 9/11 when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 causing riots to flare around the world 200 people were killed and the violence shocked many Danes it set the country on a very different course I want to make one man who is central to all of these negotiating a lot of the new anti-immigrant laws Martin Henrickson is spending summer at his farm he was in Parliament for 15 years with right-wing people's path to acknowledge that some Muslims that have lived here for a very long time here were citizens good upstanding citizens now feel less welcome because of these policies well basically know you told you knowledge that no I know that somebody has that feeling and I won't deny that people are having those feeling but I actually think that the bait is very strange because a lot the debate is about how Muslims are feeling I think that the base should be about how things are feeling about that they are treated like foreigners in some areas of their own countries there's the debate that we should have and what makes Denmark even more interesting is that it's not just the right-wing parties a new social democrat government has just been elected the left to is embracing these policies [Applause] [Music] did this year's election in Denmark prove that you cannot win an election here you cannot form government unless you convince the public that you're going to be tough on migrants and tough on Muslims have to be you have to be tough on migration or you have to elite act like you're tough on migration and that's one of the reason why the sources Democrats will come into power in my view couldn't have won without doing that I don't believe so no no I don't believe so [Music] this is volts Merson officially it's a ghetto one of 29 across the country with high migrant populations low incomes and high crime rates if you commit a crime here you get double the punishment soon a thousand families will be evicted and the homes demolished to promote integration [Music] the boys at vamos a boxing club are trying to fight off that stigma Ali is already a champion boxer because I made make my family I make a lot of people who follow for me so I'm also probably [Music] do you like it here I like it and I don't know I want to move in any place but the politicians want to bulldoze this place I know yes about another good idea why because the other thing is it will help with the crime and violent can you fix the problem by knocking down the buildings no no we need to take this people that are criminal and have them not the teeth of all people in the cosmos do you think that everyone here is being punished the extremist politician Rasmus polluting pulled a few stunts advanced moso during the election campaign so the boys have seen Denmark's new politics up close so all people that will never be Dennis innocent he said it to your face some systems from my face are some of the other to my friends so I use citizen I am burning them like you how does that make you feel actually I don't give a [ __ ] because I'm with a lot of people like him and I use it Ali may challenge what many Danes think it looks like to be a Dane but next week he'll do something that he thinks will prove the doubters wrong he's joining the Danish army do you think they want you to do this they want no no I think I think I prepare them I want to they want to show the people that we form down I do the opposite I learned in the other from boxing that I would never fall down every time I fall down I would stay up rasmus pollutant may sit on the extreme but he is shaping much of the political conversation so I want to understand what he actually wants you are without a doubt the most culturally Marxist journalists from elsewhere that I've ever met it turns out this is less interview more a repeat performance could you please take the 700,000 Muslims from Denmark that you love so much just take them with you to your neighborhood in Australia I would be very much in your debt what you should have done in those interviews instead of being there complacent white-slave what you should have done is this stuff dragged on for an hour or so a torrent of abuse and hate speech and it turns out well it was a performance of sorts he was recording the whole thing himself to put online and feed into the alt-right universes he'd schooled an Australian journalist apparently but in truth it was clearly about getting a reaction and I will speak very highly of a mich forever okay [Music] today Elly's recording a comedy part a character is being told not to use her Muslim name or her ghetto accent in a new job at a call center Elly is using humor to navigate and explain this cultural divine like the call center boss who wants the new arrival to fit neatly into the Danish way this country is trying to figure out just how much change it can tolerate it's something the country and the current crop of leaders is struggling to answer do you think Denmark needs today to find leaders that have that ability to communicate to to sort of bring the different tribes together of course I think that we need some we need some leaders in Denmark that can connect us that can build bridges that's like one of the main things so the Danes over here the Muslims are over here and they're kind of not really know they don't really know how to communicate does it make sense yeah like a modern-day King Harald the blue tooth yes no I don't think I'm a hard blood no I just mean just crazy praising Dane whatever deaf army held two tens well of uses it's even too menial turn more you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 829,186

Rating: 3.7685053 out of 5

Keywords: foreign correspondent denmark, denmark, denmark immigration, denmark migrant, ellie jokar, ellie jokar den lyserøde taxi, rasmus paludan, ellie jokar rasmus, the pink taxi, stram kurs, antifa in denmark, antifa, danish people's party, Inger Støberg, Martin Henriksen, european migrant crisis, islam in europe, islam in denmark, muslim in denmark, hard line, denmark ghetto, Vollsmose, vollsmose denmark, ghettos in europe, hard right in europe

Id: 9A1LtmxkAYk

Length: 30min 2sec (1802 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/tijdverdrijf]

Australians complaining about a country having a hard line on immigrants, lol

[u/PacifistPsychopath]

Jeg havde faktisk regnet med nogle gode pointer, men det er godt nok noget uprofessionelt makværk fra så stor en kanal. De interviewer vitterligt kun Martin Henriksen og Rasmus Paludan på den “onde” side. Dansk Folkeparti gik voldsomt tilbage ved sidste valg, og Paludan kom slet ikke i Folketinget - og fik kun stemmer fordi hans 15 minutes of fame tilfældigvis faldt sammen med valget. En fame der primært skyldtes at folk gerne ville se en forstyrret person gå ud og kalde bølletyper for homoer.

At de tager til den anden ende af jordkloden for at filme tårene på en muslim over at Paludan siger “rejs hjem”, det virker absurd når man kommer fra et land der sender militær-skræmmevideoer ud til flygtninge og placerer dem på Nauru under forfærdelige forhold. Danmarks udlændingepolitik skal da bestemt være til debat, men den dokumentar er et dårligt udgangspunkt

[u/[deleted]]

Dear Australia, you literally have an island with a concentration camp far away from your mainland. Maybe shut up.

[u/[deleted]]

Det var et fladpandet lorteprogram. Han karkateriserer Danmark som om vi kun er venlige på overfladen og som om vi allesammen er nogle skøre kugler der bare hader alle andre. Det gør han fordi han bliver konfronteret af nogle Antifascister der er sure over at Paludan lige har spillet femkoran. Den her journalist er simpelthen ude hvor han ikke kan bunde.

[u/Tyros43]

Selvfølgelig kører de Pauludan, han kom jo ikke engang over spærregrænsen den lille lort

[u/CruelLincoln]

Også Berlingske har opdaget dokumentaren fra Australien. De perspektiverer til den strøm af dårlig international presse, den danske udlændingepolitik har fået de sidste år, og afslutter med dette hårdtslående citat:

»Hvis politikerne overhovedet går op i Danmarks internationale omdømme, så er det måske på tide, at de fokuserer på det signal, de sender til resten af verden,« skriver den engelske kommentator Alex Forest i The Spectator.

https://www.berlingske.dk/internationalt/australsk-tv-dokumentar-haenger-danmark-ud-der-foregaar-noget

Sidst den danske udlændingedebat vakte international opsigt, var omkring årtusindskiftet, hvor internationale aviser også flokkedes om de horrible forhold i Danmark.

Efterfølgende kastede dén bølge en lille bog af sig:

Hans Jørgen Nielsen: "Er danskerne fremmedfjendske?" Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2004.

Det er der til stadighed intet, der tyder på skulle være tilfældet.

Her er forlagets egen beskrivelse af bogen:

Der er sagt mange skarpe ord om danskerne i udenlandske medier. Die Woche i Tyskland henviste til titlen på en nazistisk kampsang, når det skrev om en dansk "Die Fahne Hoch"-mentalitet og i The Guardian i London hed det, at i forhold til højrefløjens fremmarch i Danmark virkede nazismens fremmarch i Tyskland sløv. Dagsavisen i Oslo bragte i november 2001 et foto fra København af en nynazist med strakt arm, med henvisning til at den danske valgkamp var præget af fremmedhad.

Er danskerne fremmedfjendske? følger den udenlandske omtale af den danske debat om indvandringen tilbage til 2000, og det giver en vigtig pointe: Billedet af Danmark som fremmedfjendsk var udbredt længe før regeringsskiftet. Udenlandske medier citerer igen og igen forslag til stramninger i udlændingepolitikken, og henvisning til "Die Fahne Hoch"-mentaliteten er fra februar 2000. Derimod tav man med, at Danmark - sammen med Norge - havde rekord i tildeling af asyl og gav højere sociale ydelser til indvandrere end næsten alle andre lande. Allerede da berettede man om det, der passede med en skabelon om danskerne som fremmedfjendske, og udelod det, der talte imod.

Samtidig sammenligner bogen debatten i Danmark med debatten i nabolandene. Der er klart mere sordin på i Sverige og Tyskland. Dermed kan den danske debat forekomme barsk for svenskere og tyskere. Derimod er det svært at se en større forskel mellem debatten i Danmark og debatten i Norge.

Endelig viser bogen, at internationale holdningsundersøgelser slet ikke tyder på, at danskerne skulle være specielt fremmedfjendske. Vi stiller skrappe krav om, at indvandrere skal tilpasse sig landets normer, men modsat er vi også det folk i EU, der stærkest ønsker at inddrage indvandrerne i det politiske liv. Hvad man fremhæver, afhænger af, hvilken skabelon man bruger.

Historien gentager sig.

[u/SkatSutterSvindlere]

Nogen med en tldr? 30 min er lige i overkanten for mig