In Denmark and throughout Europe, assimilation is becoming mandatory

  

The Danish government is introducing a new set of laws that would regulate all aspects of life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves known as “ghettos”–a controversial move that aims to promote assimilation into Danish society and singles out families with young children.

According to Quartz’s Aamna Mohdin, “there were about 50,000 people with non-Western backgrounds living in Denmark in 1980”; “today, that figure is nearly half a million.” The proposal put forward by the government of Liberal prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen includes 22 measures that Danish policymakers say are aimed at integrating immigrant communities and breaking up the so-called ghettos by 2030. Many of the measures have already been approved by a parliamentary majority, with the rest slated for a vote this fall.

Critics claim the measures essentially represents a parallel system of laws that overwhelmingly target poor, Muslim migrants—an interesting choice of language, given the government’s policy of calling the ghettos “parallel societies.” Sociologist Amro Ali, writing in Time Magazine, claims that “the legislation reads like a 19th century missionary enterprise, a colonial experiment to civilize the brown folks.” One thing is clear: Denmark’s new laws are part of a broader European trend of attempts to use the law to make assimilation mandatory.

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Some measures appear explicitly punitive. One targets primary schools with a large proportion of “ghetto children” who miss certain achievement criteria for more than 3 years in a row. Those schools will now incur sanctions, including a possible shutdown or government takeover. Another proposal involves withdrawing social benefits from parents whose children miss more than 15% of the school quarter. Perhaps the most striking is the last measure, which involves a possible four-year prison sentence for immigrant parents who take their children on “extended visits” to their country of origin in a way that the Danish government determines compromises the children’s “schooling, language and well-being.”

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