Do Denmark discriminate foreigners?

Jonas Nielsen · 2013-08-11T14:40:31

[background stuff] Now I have never really liked to start a thread here in the lounge, but this time I feel that I have something on my heart to tell and share with you. I and my family currently live in Denmark, Copenhagen where I have my little thing with game development going on and a small webmaster job. Now all is fine even though the gov here is rather right wing with its language policy and assimilation policy toward all foreigners living in Denmark. I had read about all this in the newspapers and followed it from a distance for many years as I and my family lived in Sweden for many years. Now we live in Denmark and have two kids. They both speak the danish(mother tongue) and mandarin fluently. Our girl on 7 years old is one of the best in all classes(elementary 2nd. next week) so no problem here I guess. In fact she is way beyond the level of the class she has been attending(teachers own words). [/background stuff] Now what is the problem then? Well we received a letter this morning from the local government of Copenhagen: Dear Parents I have been informed that your child, (insert name here) born on the x. February 2010, does not attend kindergarten. Children who do not attend kindergarten must take part in a language assessment. Children with another native language than Danish must attend language stimulation classes if they do not speak Danish. To learn whether your child is in need of language stimulation classes, we invite you to a meeting on xx..xx.2013 at xx:xx a.m. for a conversation about language assessment and language stimulation with the educators from the Language Stimulation. What the (some bad word here) O_o Now I then called them and told them that our child indeed DO speak Danish and that their mother tongue is Danish. He then excuse it with that because my wife is a Swedish citizen(Chinese origin) they had sent this letter due to the fact that many kids who had lived in Sweden and moved to Denmark did not speak Danish. I then corrected the person telling him that Swedish and Danish is almost the same and very much related. He then apologized and said it was a mistake and that the letter should not had been sent for us. Now I have checked out this "law" and found out it was forced through by a nationalistic right wing party in our parliament a few years ago. A something for something so to say. I also found out that if foreigners like Americans, Chinese etc. do not show up for this "conversation meeting" the local gov holds its right to cancel all further child money payments. For me it is fine(do not really them anyway). Now what is all the fuzz here about then? Well for me this letter is a great insult to many fine hardworking foreigners living here in Denmark. How dare the gov play the language police like that? How dare the gov demand that homes with small English(or other languages) speaking kids not even reached the age of 4 years "must" attend language stimulation? The so called "language stimulation" is around 30 hours running around in a kindergarten. That should never be demanded but only put as an offer. In fact I find this letter to be very disturbing and feel sad for many foreigners in Denmark with kids who wish to see their children grow up around them while they are small and not putting them in a kindergarten. Have any of you out there seen something similar in your countries? Is this the language and assimilation policies of your nations? Do you feel this is discrimination of foreigners? Feel free to speak your opinion but keep it civil Also read this article about the assimilation issue: http://www.heptagonpost.com/node/51 edit: missed a "not" and a "own" misspelled, also added a link for a fine article about the assimilation issue in Denmark

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by Dwarf King August 05, 2013 12:52 PM

36 comments, last by Dwarf King 11 years, 3 months ago

Dwarf King

Author

2,130

August 11, 2013 02:40 PM

Coming from Sweden where they don't enforce this policy to the same extent (though it does exist) I think it's a good thing. Not being able to talk the same language as the local populace segregates the population and creates problems where there shouldn't be any.

Sweden got plenty of areas where Swedish is not the fist language. You got the samir people who has their own language. You got a Finish minority as well. Of course the Swedish gov cannot enforce this policy. That would be foolish to do so. Here click me learn something about your great nation. Sweden is a awesome place to be as a bilingual person. Sweden even acknowledge double citizenship, which has been a great thing for many fellow European citizens who worked, lived in Sweden and/or married Swedish people.

Oh and their is nothing wrong in being a patriot. Hence nazi != patriot. Patriots are allowed to like other cultures as well while the bad word mentioned before had some serious issues with democracy and human rights.

All I'm saying is that I think it's good that immigrants learn the language of the nation they move to. We get a lot of immigrants here that don't work and stay in their groups and never learn a single word of Swedish. Of course we get a lot of immigrants that don't, too.

Nothing wrong with being a patriot, no. But in Sweden it isn't something you say out loud. In some cases showing the flag or singing the national amthem can be considered rasist too. I'm sure you know of Rosengård. Try showing yourself there with the flag and you'll get lynched.

I know that area. I had a good friend living there for some time. He rarely saw any problems there. It is more like 100+ idiots making noise, throwing rocks at buses and burning garbage buckets down. They then see their actions on news in TV and feel proud. The journalists play along and give them what these bullies want.

Most of the people in Rosengård are friendly and mind their own business. Do not let wanna be gangsters bad behaviors change that fact. Also the people who find the Swedish national anthem to be an insult should need a good shrink as the lyrics is so soothing and peaceful. It could very well fit any Northern Europe nation

Then again wannabe gangsters often need a shrink

Oh and I have seen many occasions in Rosengård where a Swedish flag was used. No one would be lynched because of a Swedish flag there. Remember that many kids there celebrate their birthdays