By Maia Chakin
Denmark is known as a progressive socialist nation with a robust welfare system, yet this small, homogenous country does not serve all of its citizens equally. In the name of encouraging participation in Danish culture and reducing crime, the government has instituted a plan to eliminate the areas that it deems ghettos or “parallel societies” by 2030. This plan was originally put in place by right wing powers in 2018, yet, the center-left coalition currently in power has continued these policies while referring to the communities they are destroying as “parallel communities,” rather than ghettos.
Map of development plans for Denmark housing. Source: Politiken Grafik
The criteria for a neighborhood to be characterized as a ghetto/parallel society bluntly reveal the anti-immigrant sentiments behind this law. These neighborhoods must have at least half of the population is from non-western origin or descent (including both those who were not born in Denmark, and those who were born of immigrant parents) and at least two of the following characteristics: low income, low education rates, high unemployment rates or conviction rates of three times the national average. In areas that meet the above criteria, social housing levels need to be reduced to a maximum of 40 percent by 2030. A further statement by the Danish government in 2021 claimed that the goal of the parallel society policy was to reduce the percentage of people with non-Western backgrounds in a given residential area to 30 percent by 2030. Other elements of the government’s parallel societies initiative includes a policy requiring young children in areas deemed vulnerable to attend Danish preschool for at least 25 hours per week in order to learn the Danish language and values.
Danish officials justify this policy by claiming a lack of integration and participation in Danish society from these immigrant populations. The government’s One Denmark without Parallel Societies report claimed that there were “holes” in Denmark’s map where citizens were not taking “sufficient responsibility” because they did not “actively participate in the Danish language, society, and labor market” or “embrace Danish norms and values.” The government seems to believe that these non-westerners are taking advantage of Denmark’s social welfare system without giving back to the country. This assimilationist rhetoric discounts the importance of Non-western cultures and villainizes some of Denmark’s most marginalized populations.
A section of housing in Mjølnerparken. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
The parallel societies plan is forcing largely non-western and non-white populations in Denmark out of their homes, which will be demolished and resold to wealthier (mostly non-immigrant) people. Although some people are fine with, or even happy about, being relocated to different neighborhoods, many residents are devastated to be forced out of places they have built their lives in. Mjølnerparken, a residential area in Copenhagen with one of the highest percentages of non-western residents, has faced extreme measures by the government, with some entire blocks of residents being forced-out.
Some officials claim that these policies are being put in place in order to provide people living in these low-income enclaves with better opportunities, but how is forcing people out of their homes the best way to achieve this? A quote in the New York Times by a woman from a social housing organization in Denmark makes the desires of those who live in these parallel societies clear: “If they made the program voluntary, most people would like to stay. The experiment would have failed.”
Works Cited
Bubola, Emma. “Denmark Aims a Wrecking Ball at ‘non-Western’ Neighborhoods.” The New York Times, October 26, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/world/europe/denmark-housing.html?smid =nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare.
“How Denmark’s ‘ghetto List’ Is Ripping Apart Migrant Communities.” The Guardian, March 11, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/how-denmarks-ghetto-list-is-ripping-apart-migrant-communities.
John, Tara, and Susanne Gargiulo. “Denmark Is a Liberal Paradise for Many People, but the Reality Is Very Different for Immigrants.” CNN, July 20, 2020. https://cnn.com/2020/07/20/europe/denmark-ghetto-relocation-intl/index.html.
Wenande, Christian. “Forget Parallel Societies: Is the Ghetto Plan Stuck in a Parallel Universe?” The Copenhagen Post, October 17, 2022. https://cphpost.dk/2022-10-22/news/forget-parallel-societies-is-the-ghetto-plan-stuck-in-a-parallel-universe/.
