Danish Society and Immigration

Out of the many discussions with the Danish students during my trip, one of the most interesting and thought-provoking discussions was about immigration into Denmark and the sentiments that were expressed by the Danes regarding this issue. I was surprised to hear quite a few of the students say outright that they were not in support of immigration into their country, particularly from non-Western countries such as Turkey and Somalia. The students reasoned that the immigrants from these countries were only coming to Denmark to live off the welfare system and did not do anything to contribute to Danish society. I remembered that in another instance before this conversation had taken place, one of the students pointed out a group of Somalian women to me and told me that women like them sat at home all day and didn’t work, being supported by the Danish welfare system. Seeing this and hearing these statements did not sit well with me, having been brought up to reject any form of racism or judgment based on someone's background or appearance. However, for this assignment I am suspending my judgments and using cultural relativism to understand why the Danish students would say or think this coming from a relatively tolerant society.
To understand this issue, I researched the history of immigration into Denmark. Denmark has always had some type of flow of immigration into the country. However, most of these immigrants had mostly come from other Scandinavian or Western countries and had been assimilated into the culture after only a few generations. Most recently, people from Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia have been making up the majority of the immigrant population in Denmark. Because these immigrants come from very different cultures with different norms and social practices from the Danish culture, it can be said that complete assimilation into Danish culture would be less likely to occur. Then the question must be asked: Why is it important in Danish society for immigrants to be able to assimilate into their culture? Why did the students think that because the immigrants are from different cultures that they would disrupt the welfare system and the egalitarianism of their society as a whole?

Migration Information Source
2007 Denmark: Integrating Immigrants into a Homogenous Welfare State. Electronic document, http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?id=485