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PARTISAN REVIEW
within sixty years, the small, reactionary Progress Party proposed eject–
ing "all Mohammedans" from the country.
Immigration was the number-one issue in the campaign. And the elec–
tion proved historic. It marked the fall from power of the Social Democ–
rats, who since
I920
had been Denmark's largest political party, and it
gave Denmark a new prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose
campaign posters had featured the slogan "Time for a Change" over a
picture of a "second-generation immigrant" who had been convicted of
violence. In late November, Rasmussen promised a new policy under
which immigration would be reduced and resources focused instead on
a vastly improved integration program.
A post-election article in
Aftenposten,
on November
24,
vividly
summed up the current state of affairs in Denmark. "Our integration
has not gone well," admitted a teacher. "I had a class in which nineteen
of thirty-three children couldn't say anything in Danish, even though
they were all born in Denmark.... It's a catastrophe for Denmark,
what's happening." A young Copenhagen woman who had been a
gung-ho supporter of "multiculturalism" said that she now felt uncom–
fortable in her own country: "When someone like me thinks this way, it
doesn't bode well for the society."
In Norway, anyone who dares to voice legitimate concerns about the
immigrant community's prejudices and self-segregation risks being
branded a racist by the political and media establishment; but in Den–
mark, it appears, those legitimate concerns have in many cases degener–
ated into genuine racism. In Denmark, alas, as elsewhere in northern
Europe, many natives seem hamstrung by an inability to disentangle ide–
ology from race-and to distinguish their own frankly racist discom–
forts ("It is simply a little
strange
to live in Denmark surrounded by so
many people from other countries," one woman told
Aftenposten)
from
their entirely justifiable unease over the prejudices and the resistance to
integration that accompany fundamentalist Muslim ideology. This is, of
course, dangerous: honest critical thinking of the sort proffered by the
likes of Shabana Rehman and Hege Storhaug is vitally important if inte–
gration is to be made to work in northern Europe.
If
the only permitted
way of talking about the topic is to reiterate insipid cliches in support
of "the multicultural society," Europe is doomed.
In English we have a word for fear of foreigners:
xenophobia.
It is a
rare word, seldom seen in print, almost never actually spoken, and
probably unfamiliar to most English speakers. Most of the languages of
northern Europe have words that mean the same thing. These words are
frequently used in conversation and are familiar to virtually every native
