Curling and cajoling

At the recent Roskilde music festival, when the mob of waiting attendees was let onto the grounds, many apparently had to fight hard to get a good location for their tents, and some were rather young. It’s common for high school kids to attend this week-long communal experience. It’s an initiation ritual, and adherents with many years’ experience ensure us that they are happy to help and watch out for the noobs. This year there was an outcry on Roskilde’s Facebook page by parents complaining to the festival management that their children had been pushed aside by older youths and denied the location that their position in line had entitled them to. Immediately came a equally strong reaction condemning the parents for trying to micromanage their children’s lives.

In Denmark they’re called “curling parents,” who sweep away the smallest obstacles before their kids – shelter them, cater to them and indulge them; in the US, I think the phrase is “helicopter parents.” This episode resuscitated a recurring debate in the media about just how spoiled Danish kids are and childrearing in general. The short answer is very – perhaps the most pampered and protected on the face of the earth. They enjoy the highest standard of living, an extensive safety net of social benefits, a flexible educational system, generous maternity and paternity leave, subsidized day-care, free college, stipends for studying, and unemployment benefits upon graduation.

The age of affluence

Material prosperity is certainly a large factor. It comes partly because both parents usually work, and that means childcare is outsourced to a greater degree. If the parents experience time pressure, work pressure or peer pressure themselves, it’s often easier to address an immediate need by doing something for a child than training the child to do it herself.

The left wing calls attention to the existence of disadvantaged children whose are socially stigmatized because their parents cannot afford to send them to sports clubs or buy a birthday present for a classmate. This segment has grown lately because of cuts in welfare benefits for immigrants, and the stigmatizing effect is real because of the high average level of prosperity. But the percentage of children in poverty is much lower than the US, partly because joint custody and child support for children of divorce seem to function well generally.

The gentleperson’s C

Danish schoolchildren’s performance on international tests has fallen sharply in the past 20 years to middling among developed countries, despite the most expensive school system in the world. A few years ago there was a TV documentary that followed two ninth-grade classes, one Danish and one Chinese. The latter clearly outperformed the Danes, not only in rote learning but also in the Danes’ purported forte, creativity. One explanation for the decline is the idealistic reforms from more than a generation ago that abolished segmentation by ability in the name of egalitarianism.

The criticism is that teaching was geared toward the lowest common denominator but the poorest students still didn’t perform up to the standard and were never allowed to flunk a grade. Up to 20 percent were carried along through ninth grade as functional illiterates, and some of the better students became bored and disaffected. A rapidly increasing percentage of students attend gymnasium, which is high school on a college-prep track, because they don’t want a vocational trade, and teachers find them unprepared. Afterward, almost all of them now take a gap year or two or three to find out what they want to do with their lives.

The number who attend university is also rising quickly. It’s about 50 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. Although they shy away from STEM programs, their professors also find them unprepared and lazy. Since only a minority live in dormitories, the rise in attendance has contributed to the housing shortage in Copenhagen, and many parents need to buy apartments for them to live in. They’re the oldest in the world, on average, by the time they finish their studies – around 28 – and when some graduates cannot find a job in their field, they unashamedly prefer unemployment benefits to a service job.

Future shock

In their defense, these young people are also said to suffer from elevated stress. They complain about pressure to perform academically and social pressure to be physically perfect and share nude photos. They are of course technologically sophisticated digital natives. They grew up on PlayStation, Xbox and iPad and got their first cell phone at a tender age. They’re always on call. They reply to every text message immediately, even at the dinner table. They check Facebook updates compulsively or whatever is the latest app. An increasing number are diagnosed with hyperactivity and medicated, although not to the same degree as in the US. Others suffer eating disorders and experiment with cutting. Many start drinking after confirmation at age 14. Half the cases of high school dropouts are owing to weed.

Demographically, they are not as lucky as the baby boomers who enjoyed decades of steady growth and property value appreciation after World War II and whom the millennials will now need to support in retirement. They are said to be anxious about the future, the uncertainties of the labor market with jobs being lost to offshoring, robotics and  software, and political uncertainties in an age of terrorism and mass migration. But most seem to have little concern about their economic future or the stability of their society, nor are they very curious about revolutionary developments in bioengineering or AI.

Mea culpa

Personally, while I side with the critics of curling in principle, I must confess to belonging to the guilty camp of enablers myself. Of course parents should instill discipline, responsibility and aspiration in their offspring. My failing came not as much from an anxiety to shield my son from ordinary vicissitudes as from impatience, frustration and expedience. By their mid-teens, their indifference, contrariness and complacency can be so ingrained or resolute that if you make a request or give an order three times, they’re still able to forget the obligation or rationalize it away. It’s easy to let your good intentions get worn down and say fuck it, wait until he hits the next level of socialization and has to face reality and its consequences. Most of them seem to turn out all right in the end, but an unnecessarily large share fall by the wayside.

Immigration in Denmark 2017

In the preceding post I sketched the process of acquiring citizenship in Denmark, alluding to the controversy about recent restrictions on immigration. This time I want to make a broader survey of the issue of immigration itself, even though it is likely to seem grossly inaccurate, inadequate and biased to all sides. Cynics might accuse me of sending up a trial balloon for target practice just to see whether anyone is even reading this blog.

Integration Minister Inger Støjberg’s cake scandal was not her most recent or serious one. She has been charged with violating the procedure for the treatment of child brides –refugee couples that include an underage partner – and lying about it. The sequence of events still seems confusing. Støjberg apparently decided, despite warnings from Integration Ministry officials, that these couples should be placed in separate living quarters without the prior hearing they had a right to. Afterward she gave suspect and shifting explanations to a Parliament committee. The parliamentary opposition, which sees this as an arrogant disregard of human rights and part of a recurring pattern of discrimination, doesn’t want to let it go with a slap on the wrist this time.

No room at the inn

Støjberg had been unrolling the 50 restrictions since the June 2015 election brought the right wing back to power on a rise of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment after the Valentine’s Day terrorist attack. The xenophobic Danish People’s Party became the second-largest in Parliament, and Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made reducing the number of refugees that Denmark accepts a key objective. The first measures included reducing the amount of assistance refugees receive by around half and publishing an announcement in Middle Eastern newspapers informing prospective refugees and their smugglers of the reduction.

State of emergency

Then came the huge stream of refugees and migrants in Europe. As they reached Denmark and many kept walking toward Sweden, the mood shifted and became more conflicted. Some Danes, embarrassed that the country was being compared to Hungary for its lack of hospitality, drove refugees to Sweden or to a rail station, technically becoming human smugglers themselves and risking criminal charges.

With the shocking sight of the drowned Alan Kurdi in a red t-shirt on the Turkish shore, the prime minister relented by agreeing to take about 2,000 additional refugees, an insignificant fraction but enough to draw criticism from his supporters. The refugees were distributed throughout the country to share the expenses and to promote integration, but the counties couldn’t find housing for all of them and had to use idle kindergartens and rent bedrooms in private homes.

 

With the reports of sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve 2015/16 and fake Syrian passports, the mood swung back toward caution. In early 2016, Denmark's infamous “jewelry law,” which empowered the police to confiscate refugees’ cash and valuables above a certain amount, tarnished the country's reputation further, although it was hardly ever implemented. Pegida, the anti-Islamist group that originated in Germany, held marches regularly to protest immigration, and the radical-left Autonomous Movement held larger, more aggressive counter-demonstrations, occasionally rioting and damaging property, usually in poorer districts of Copenhagen.

The new normal

After the crisis subsided, the influx turned out to be smaller than had been feared, and in the past year, the campaign has been achieving its objectives. The number of people applying for asylum in Denmark has declined sharply, and the number of applicants who leave voluntarily has increased, as has the number who are denied asylum and go underground. A report from the Council of Europe criticized Denmark for erecting barriers to family reunification such as requiring fees and longer processing time. The number of people living in poverty has risen sharply, to some degree because of lower social benefits for unemployed foreigners.

The public has become polarized. There is a widespread perception of a rise in racism and intolerance. After a report showing that “ethnic Danes” were in a minority in a few municipalities, an extremist political party began handing out fake tickets home to immigrants. A recent survey of Danish Muslims showed that a third felt they were looked down upon, a third thought their background made it difficult to find work, and 80 percent believed that the views on Islam and Muslims had worsened in recent years.

Greenland’s inordinate thirst

The left-wing opposition has become increasingly vocal in accusing the administration of fostering an atmosphere of intolerance. In a recent column entitled “Give Me Back the Denmark That Had a Heart,” David Trads, a prominent political commentator, highlights as symptomatic the remark of a soccer coach whose team had just clinched a position in the top division: “My players will surely be as drunk as Greenlanders tonight” (which says as much about the country’s attitude toward alcohol as its views of Greenlanders).

The coach was reported to the police for racism, he apologized immediately, and his apologists came forward complaining of political correctness and Denmark’s runaway “victim culture.” Noting that the main targets of discrimination in Denmark are the abstemious Muslims, Trads asked a founder of Black Lives Matter what Europe should do to prevent racism in Europe from becoming as “violent” as in America. Fight for humanism, diversity and peace, she said.

On the other side, critics of immigration point out that the number of immigrants and their descendants in Denmark is still rising, particularly in Copenhagen, where they represent 24 percent of the population and present difficulties for the schools. Controversies have arisen about pork in lunch programs and segregated swimming instruction. They note that a relatively large number of radicalized Islamic State volunteers has come from Denmark and that certain imams are still promoting “hate,” while Denmark is and must remain a Christian nation. They also point to a huge increase in the past year in the number of refugees who are ready to work – from 3 percent to 51 percent – and advocate using the savings from the decline in refugees on development programs close to conflict zones.

Can’t get there from here

There is of course seldom agreement on this issue. Policies swing back and forth like a pendulum depending on the parties in power. Sweden was far too idealistic in welcoming migrants and refugees, they could not be processed or integrated in an orderly manner, crime has risen sharply, and the reaction has set in. Denmark’s integration problems are not as bad as those in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands or France, probably because there has been a slight right-wing majority in Parliament for most of this century. Defenders of the restrictions maintain that the conditions of refugees and immigrants in Denmark are still generally better than elsewhere, while others are dismayed by the rise of xenophobic populism in the West generally and want to resuscitate Denmark’s humanitarian tradition.

In envisioning genuine integration, it is hard to get past the problems inherent in a fundamentalist adherence to Islam, which as in the US the politically correct are loath to question. As long as a significant segment of the Muslim population assents even tacitly to sharia law and practices such as forced marriages, honor killings and female genital mutilation, there will be insuperable barriers to understanding and cooperation. One of the more favorable developments in Denmark was the creation last year of a Facebook page for ex-Muslims. The founders and proponents, who put themselves at considerable risk of reprisals for their apostasy, have opened a small but important channel for moderate Muslims to establish a presence and promote values that could enable real integration.

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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Happiness watch resumed: It’s the little things

This blog began in early 2016 when Bernie Sanders argued in the Democratic Party’s primary campaign that the US should emulate the social policies of Denmark and other Nordic countries. The purpose was to make a more detailed comparison from the perspective of Denmark’s ranking as the happiest country in the world. Around the time it became apparent that Sanders was out of contention, I stopped posting, except for a couple of pieces around the election, partly because the issues seemed less consequential under the likely Clinton Redux administration, which would continue Obama’s centrist course.

The blog wasn’t partisan, although I thought Sanders the least evil of the three leading candidates if only because of his basic integrity. But it needn’t have stopped, because the issues remained relevant. Indeed, they have become more urgent under Trump and Republican rule because America’s social compact is threatened and the social fabric is unraveling in economic and ideological polarization.

So after several months of inactivity, the blog will now resume, with the same general objective as before: What can America gain from the lessons of Western European social democracy? The short answer is still yes, people would be better off if the US could adopt some aspects of this culture, not only its governmental policies. But it’s also important to understand the context of the differences, which sometimes explains why Scandinavian institutions and customs can’t simply be imported into the US.

Domestic civilities
These are small countries, for starters, and maybe it’s the small things that add up to happiness or life satisfaction. For example, you should always take off your shoes when you enter someone’s home, except on formal occasions. If you’re going to stick around a while, bring a pair of slippers. If that doesn’t make America kinder and gentler, at least it will be cleaner, and fewer will leave home with holes in their socks. After a meal, always say “Thanks for the food” to the host or cook. When you meet someone you have visited or socialized with, say “Thanks for last time,” and she responds “In the same way,” meaning “Right back atcha.” Just thank people for various things at every opportunity.

Do you still use a single large blanket on your double bed? You should each have your own down comforter. Consider how much sleep has been lost collectively from tugging on blankets that are slipping away. (This hasn’t been proved to reduce the divorce rate, though. Denmark’s is even higher than America’s, but that may be partly because single mothers can manage better financially here.)

Public decorum and small monuments
If you ever happen to be a pedestrian, don’t forget to stand and wait for red lights to turn even if there’s no car in sight, even at three in the morning after a huge snowstorm. Time is not money. Help inculcate respect for civil order by conforming to the pack at the intersection, and meditate on the costs and benefits of a strong belief in authority when a breakaway jaywalker tests the resolve of the law-abiding citizens.

And generally, cultivate an appreciation for things on a smaller, more modest scale. The number one tourist attraction in Denmark is the Little Mermaid statue sitting on a rock in Copenhagen Harbor beside a promenade. It derives of course from a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and through the generations survives all the kitsch that Disney can heap on it. Hardly more than a meter high, surrounded by little besides a sausage vendor’s cart and Japanese shutterbugs, it vanishes in comparison to monuments like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.

There’s no admission charge and no security guards, and in its humble, low-security setting it also provides a convenient, miniature forum for political debate by vandalism, most recently doused with red paint to protest whaling in the Faroe Islands. This multipurpose, hybrid creature certainly earns its keep, needing only occasional cleaning or re-attachment of its severed head.

These measures might not make headlines, but they cost nothing (almost nothing, with starter comforters from IKEA) and can be implemented immediately while you’re waiting for single-payer health insurance.

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