{"id":136829,"date":"2021-04-25T22:47:31","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T22:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=190806"},"modified":"2021-04-25T22:47:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T22:47:31","slug":"ethnic-engineering-denmarks-ghetto-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/25\/ethnic-engineering-denmarks-ghetto-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethnic Engineering: Denmark\u2019s Ghetto Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The very word is chilling, but has become normalised political currency in Denmark.  Since 2010, the Danish government has resorted to generating \u201cghetto lists\u201d<\/a> marking out areas as socially problematic for the state.  In 2018, the country\u2019s parliament passed \u201cghetto\u201d laws to further regulate the lives of individuals inhabiting various city areas focusing on their racial and ethnic origins.  The legislation constitutes the spear tip of the \u201cOne Denmark without Parallel Societies \u2013 No Ghettos in 2030\u201d initiative; its target: \u201cnon-Western\u201d residents who overbalance the social ledger by concentrating in various city environs.<\/p>\n

The \u201cghetto package\u201d, comprising over 20 different statutes<\/a>, grants the government power to designate various neighbourhoods as \u201cghettos\u201d or \u201ctough ghettos\u201d.  That nasty formulation is intended to have consequences for urban planning, taking into account the percentage of immigrants and descendants present in that area of \u201cnon-Western background\u201d.  One Danish media outlet, assiduously avoiding the creepier elements of the policy, saw it<\/a> as the \u201cgreatest social experiment of the century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bureaucrats consider the following: the number of residents (greater than 1,000); a cap of 50% of \u201cnon-Westerners\u201d; and whether the neighbourhood meets any two of four criteria, namely employment, education, income and criminality.  Doing so enables the authorities to evict residents, demolish buildings and alter the character of the neighbourhood, a form of cleansing that has shuddering historical resonances.  Central to this is an effort<\/a> to reduce the stock of \u201ccommon family housing\u201d \u2013 40% in tough ghettos by 2030 \u2013 supposedly available to all based on principles of affordability, democracy and egalitarianism.<\/p>\n

The problematic designation of people of \u201cnon-Western background\u201d is also a bit of brutal public policy.  It is a discriminatory measure that has concerned the UN Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Council of Europe\u2019s Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (ACFC).  In its concluding observations<\/a> on the sixth periodic report of Denmark from 2019, the CESCR urged the country\u2019s adoption of \u201ca rights-based approach to its efforts to address residential segregation and enhance social cohesion.\u201d  This would involve the scrapping of such terms as \u201cghetto\u201d and \u201cnon-Western\u201d and the repeal of provisions with direct or indirect discriminatory effects \u201con refugees, migrants and residents of the \u2018ghettos\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of \u201cdescendants\u201d also suggests the importance of bloodline that would have seemed entirely logical to the Nazi drafters of the Nuremberg Laws<\/a>.  The German laws, announced in 1935, made no reference to the criteria of religion in defining a \u201cJew\u201d, merely the importance of having three or four Jewish grandparents.  Doing so roped those whose grandparents had converted to Christianity and the secular. First came the sentiments; then came the laws.<\/p>\n

This irredeemable state of affairs has solid, disturbing implications, though both the CESCR and ACFC tend to be almost mild mannered in pointing it out: You did not belong and you cannot belong.  It is less an integrating measure than an excluding one.  Denmark\u2019s \u201cGhetto Package\u201d, as the ACFC puts it<\/a>, \u201csends a message that may have a counter-effect on their feeling of belonging and forming an integral part of Danish society.\u201d  It also urged that Denmark \u201creconsider the concepts of \u2018immigrants and descendants of immigrants of Western origin\u2019 and \u2018immigrants and descendants of immigrants of non-Western origin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

For its part, the Ministry of Interior and Housing finds the package all above board, a mere matter of statistical bookkeeping.  Using \u201cnon-Western\u201d as a marker adopted to distinguish the EU states, the UK, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, the Vatican State, Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand.  \u201cAll other countries,\u201d the Ministry curtly observed in a statement<\/a>, \u201care non-Western countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Mj\u00f8lnerparken, a housing project in Copenhagen\u2019s N\u00f8rrebro area, became the subject of intense interest in the application of the Ghetto laws.  With 98 percent of the 2,500 residents being immigrants or the children of immigrants, a good number hailing from the Middle East and Africa, the \u201ctough ghetto\u201d designation was a formality.  Apartment sales were promised, effectively threatening the eviction of the tenants.<\/p>\n

These actions were proposed despite ongoing legal proceedings against the Ministry of Interior and Housing by affected residents.  Declaratory relief is being sought, with the applicants arguing<\/a> that the measures breach the rights to equality, respect for home, property and the freedom to choose their own residence.<\/p>\n

Three rapporteurs from the United Nations also warned<\/a> that the sale should not go ahead as litigation was taking place.  \u201cIt does not matter whether they own or rent all residents should have a degree of security of tenure, which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such policies tend to consume the reason for their implementation.  Disadvantage and stigmatisation are enforced, not lessened.  Former lawmaker \u00d6zlem Cekic suggests<\/a> as much.  \u201cIt is not only created to hit the Muslim groups and immigrant groups but the working class as well.  A lot of people in the \u2018ghettoes\u2019, they don\u2019t have economic stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ministry has reacted<\/a> to the protests with proposals that ostensibly reform the legal package.  The word \u201cghetto\u201d, for instance, will be removed and the share of people of non-Western background in social housing will be reduced to 30% within 10 years.  Those moved out of the areas will be relocated to other parts of the country.  According to Nanna Margrethe Kusaa of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, \u201cthe ethnicity criteria has a more sharpened focus on it than before.\u201d  Officials have merely refined the prejudice in one of Europe\u2019s most troubling instances of ethnic engineering.  To this, Cekic has an ominous warning<\/a>: \u201cHow can you expect [immigrants] to be loyal to a country that doesn\u2019t accept them as they are?\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was posted on Sunday, April 25th, 2021 at 3:47pm and is filed under Denmark<\/a>, Discrimination<\/a>, Human Rights<\/a>, Immigration<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The very word is chilling, but has become normalised political currency in Denmark.\u00a0 Since 2010, the Danish government has resorted to generating \u201cghetto lists\u201d marking out areas as\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3208,879,6,1383,4],"tags":[20603,883,755,18146],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136830,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136829\/revisions\/136830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}