July 18, 2021

"When I arrived I was told I should leave political correctness back in the UK, because in Denmark you have the right to say whatever you want, whenever you want and however you want... In Denmark, you can hear the N-word or you can see a Nazi gesture in the name of fun."

Said global studies professor Michelle Pace, who moved from Britain to Denmark 15 years ago. She's referring to the way, in Demark, people joke about race and say you don't have a sense of humor if you object. Using that Danish term "hygge" — for a Danish sort of coziness — Pace calls this "hyggeracisme" (that is, cozy racism).

Quoted in "After jumpers and hygge, ‘cosy racism’ may be Denmark’s next big export/Asylum requests have fallen dramatically thanks to policies that belie the country’s liberal image. No wonder Priti Patel is watching closely" (London Times).

That bit about hyggeracism is a very limited part of an article that is overwhelmingly about Demarks efforts at controlling immigration. Priti Patel is the British home secretary, and she's spoken of fixing Britain's "broken asylum system."

Despite Pace's prompt, the comments at the Times are generally supportive of freedom of speech and restricting immigration.

1 comment:

Ann Althouse said...

Temujin writes:

"Words have meaning, and changing words can change the meaning. The phrase 'immigration restriction' is a turn around on the actual process of 'controlling' or 'managing' immigration. In this case 'restriction' is used as a negative to imply that evil 'right wingers' want to stop all immigration and must hate all immigrants. Just as 'restrict' is used to call requiring voter ID or handing in your own ballot as 'restricting voter's rights'. It would be an insane, almost suicidal action by any government to not control or manage the immigration into their country. And almost every country does. The only ones who do not are those undergoing massive cultural problems, such as Angela Merkel's Germany and Joe Biden's USA. What are your standards for allowing people into your country? Do you have any standards or is everyone allowed in? And if so, how many at a given time? How many people, speaking other languages can you allow into your country at one time? How many people with higher skills do you need to bring into the country to help move it forward? How many people of lower skills do you need to bring in to help the labor markets? Or...do you just open the doors and completely change the domestic labor markets?

"More- how are you set up to handle people who come with nothing, who are dependent on your government to support, care for, provide health and education to? Who pays for all of that? How does that change the demographics of your country? The very culture? How are you set up to filter out those whose goal is to undermine your society, and your culture. Here in the US it seems our current administration, the military, and our national security apparatus has it's aim pointed at its own citizenry, not the borders.

"And speaking of culture: Is it racist to be proud of and want to teach all citizens about your culture? Is it wrong to expect incoming immigrants to learn about and become a part of YOUR culture, rather than staying apart and aloof from your culture, maintaining their own mini versions of the very countries they just left?

"Managing immigration is a segment- a large segment of national security. And national security- not managing what is taught in the schools, not real estate, not demanding people get a vaccine- is the top priority of this and any government."