Citizenship and cake-slinging

As in the rest of Europe, immigration and integration are the most important and contentious issues in Denmark. They flared up during the refugee and migrant crisis in 2015, which led to restrictions by the right-wing administration. They are also bound up with the general debate on the welfare state: What should the requirements regarding residency and civil status for receiving social benefits be? Do lenient requirements promote and perpetuate the “parallel society” that remains stubbornly unintegrated and outside the labor market?

The focus of debate is often the requirements for citizenship. This matter took a turn for me personally and many others when Denmark, after long deliberation, adopted a policy of allowing dual citizenship. It came, apparently, not so much from the laments of foreign nationals who had lived many years in Denmark but were loath to give up citizenship in their country of birth but rather from petitions of Danes living abroad who wished to participate more fully in their local societies. The political parties in Parliament agreed on the terms in late 2014, and the new policy took effect in 2015.

Becoming a world citizen

Before this, I had never considered renouncing my American citizenship in order to adopt Danish citizenship, even after all the irritations of FATCA, which imposes cruel and unusual financial restrictions, reporting burdens and draconian penalties on US citizens living abroad. But afterward, there was no reason not to take advantage of the opportunity.

For people with a permanent residence permit, the additional rights and benefits of citizenship are not extensive, and the greatest advantage may be that it also constitutes citizenship in the European Union and thus allows free movement, work and residence in a growing number of countries. But the application process takes a long time, and you never know whether future conditions might make citizenship more valuable. Indeed, after Trump proposed his travel ban, a couple of countries retaliated by imposing visa requirements on American citizens. I began the process before a Trump presidency became a real threat, but subsequent developments in the US have only made me more grateful for the opportunity.

Testing knowledge and patience

Indeed, in a post just before the 2016 presidential election, I went so far as to suggest, for those who had been thwarted in their desire for the thoroughgoing reforms proposed by Bernie Sanders, that they simply move to Denmark or a similar country. “Simply” meant that it was a simpler recourse than effecting such changes in the US, but of course it’s not entirely simple. In any case, here is a brief summary of the process of acquiring citizenship for those who may be curious. It’s probably about the same in most countries.

You must fulfill a residence requirement (the specific number of years changes fairly often). You must also be self-sufficient (that is, not receive public support) for a certain number of years. You must pass a citizenship test and a language test. You must undergo an extensive interview with the police. And then, after fulfilling all the requirements, you must wait up 18 months for the application to be approved (by the Justice Department in my case and later by the new Ministry of Integration). Your name is then placed on a bill sent to Parliament semiannually, and after three hearings, it is made law. In January of this year, I received a letter informing me that I had become a Danish citizen on December 27, 2016.

Moving the goalposts

The citizenship test is revised by every incoming government administration. Before the 2011 election, under the preceding right-wing government, it was difficult, requiring a knowledge of historical facts, such as the rule of medieval kings, that few so-called “ethnic Danes” possessed. I took an easier test under the center-left government in late 2014. It concerned predominately practical matters of using social services. Since the right wing returned to power in the 2015 election, the test became even more difficult than before, so much so that it was subsequently moderated. The language test is actually more thorough and also requires practical knowledge of living conditions.

If you jump through these hoops, you are invited to Citizenship Day at Parliament, which turned out to be a very pleasant and even moving occasion. The introduction came from the Chair of Parliament, who happens to be Pia Kjærsgaard, the long-time Chair of the Danish People’s Party and the country’s most prominent opponent of immigration. Her talk was a gracious invitation to participate in Denmark’s functioning democracy and egalitarian social and cultural life, and the mood among the predominately Middle Eastern attendees was one of gratitude and celebration.

Access to the powerful

The most remarkable aspect of the program was that all of us new citizens were able to meet the leaders of the political parties in person. Prime Minister Løkke Rasmussen posed for hundreds of selfies with a stiff, practiced smile, while only a couple of secret service types stood nearby scanning the periphery. The second-most-popular politician was the gatekeeper herself, Inger Støjberg, the Minister of Immigration. She had just recently been vilified in the media for celebrating the adoption of the administration’s 50^th measure to restrict immigration by posting a photo with a cake on Facebook, prompting the obvious comparisons with Marie Antoinette. The new citizens didn’t seem to hold this against her, though, perhaps because they had now passed through the eye of the needle and she had made their club more exclusive.

Another barrier to entry

As a curious epilogue to this minor scandal, only a couple of weeks later, the left wing managed to effectively shut down Uber’s operations in the country and celebrated with its own cake. This cake was presumably a reference to Støjberg’s, but the propensity to commemorate many events, such as birthdays at the workplace, with baked goods is so widespread here that it could have been included on the citizenship test. In both cases –  keeping people from the developing world out and keeping the share economy out – the cake eaters are fighting a rearguard battle against the future. How will they celebrate when the obesity epidemic arrives and they have to keep cake out too?

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