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This law would limit neighbourhoods to 30% "non-western" immigrants, which definitely means non-white. And then apparently they also have proposed laws for doubling the punishment for crimes committed in predetermined ghettos that are made up of mostly immigrants. Is this what "Scandinavian Socialism" means?
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Holy shit. Doubling the punishment for crimes in immigrant areas? They're just, like, blatantly saying, "Yes we have a two-tier justice system."
OK, that was my reaction from the headline. I have to add this:
In these neighbourhoods, misdemeanours carry double the legal penalties in place elsewhere, and daycare is mandatory for all children over the age of one, or family allowances are withdrawn.
Is that some kind of forced acculturation program? I'm having a hard time thinking of why else they would force every family to use daycare or else take away their family allowance.
Here's an article about it if you're interested. But yeah it's disgusting and they say this is part of their plan to be "ghetto free". The proposed crimes for double punishment are, you guessed it, property crimes. Because it couldn't be more obvious what the law cares about. And yeah there's no opposition in the government for measures like these because the Social Democrats support them.
People in the US thinking, "we create a two-tier system by things like over policing certain areas and cash bail. Imagine what we could do with a formal designation of Double Punishment Areas?"
Seems like a monkeys paw type situation, where a Bernie supporter prayed for Modern Danish Social Democracy, and instead of free healthcare you just get our Racist party, or our Mega-racist party.
If you don't want ghettos maybe they should fix the neighborhoods to be nicer so that they're not ghettos anymore instead of penalizing indicators of poverty
You can partly thank the EU for that. Public housing has to be run at a profit in order to provide a "level competition" with private actors. So if an area becomes known as shit it will just continue to deteriorate unless an investor comes in and wants to gentrify the area.
That is not exactly true for Denmark. Social housing is run based on a break-even principle where nobody is supposed to profit. The buildings are owned and maintained by housing associations where tenants are members. The housing associations are governed by a board elected indirectly by tenants.
This system works to a large extent. Because there is no profits and because a housing association maintaining tens of thousands of units can be run more effectively than a private landlord operating tens of units rent in social housing is significantly lower than in private housing.
What prevents the building of affordable housing is two other factors. One is how municipalities are reluctant to assign lots to social housing, especially if it is cheap, as they would rather have more housing built for middle and upper income households who generates more tax revenue.
But the real roadblock to more cheap housing in Denmark is the funding of new construction. Social housing is funded by government-guaranteed 30 year mortgages. The cost of paying those is part of the rent tenants pay. This means that unless the law is changed to allow longer running mortgages, or unless some of the funding is changed to a direct subsidy, newly constructed or newly renovated social housing can never be affordable to low-income households.
Profit was a bit of a misnomer, but the problem is that they have to balance the books. My axe to grind with the EU is mostly from a Swedish perspective. We have a shitload of our low income housing stock from the million programme (which there is a need for a new wave of imo). The problem is that they're approaching 50 years old, and a lot of it is in dire need of replumbing, renovated balconies etc. These buildings weren't run with that in mind over the horizon, so there is no saved up capital to finance it, so when renovations happen rents often have to be raised by 50% or more to finance it forcing out low income earners. This includes tenants associations and housing cooperatives. Fortunately I live in a housing cooperative which has been able to tackle the major renovations without too much of an issue, but it is a major problem.
There is no real political will to build affordable housing anymore, and private actors sure as shit won't build it. At least market rents haven't been put in place (yet), though they're currently working on putting it in for new builds (thank you very much succdems).
Is this the case in Vienna? I know they have a fairly successful public housing program.
You could offer the same perks to all developers, which is the Vienna solution. The main thing is that private and public actors have to play by the same rules in a mixed market.
Well here in the USA any of these fucking programs would be an improvement from
"Let's just build a ton of luxury condos and hope that the price reductions trickle down to the poors"
If you don't want "ghettos" you should build cheap housing in more than a few areas. Build some nice affordable social housing in the neighbourhoods where the rich live.
Eliminate rich neighborhoods entirely
Make them all nice places to live :)
To your edit, I guarantee there's a forced acculturation aspect to it. Denmark has previously made it illegal for parents to send their children back to their home countries for "extended periods of time".
m sorry for commenting so much on these posts sayig the same thing but what the actual fuck, there goes my lib "this shit cant happen in current year" assumptions out the fucking window what the fuck
Oh don't worry I keep saying what the fuck to myself every time I read more. It's reassuring to know I'm not alone in being disgusted by all this
Yes. That is exactly what it is. Those kids are supposed to learn Danish language and "Danish values" by force so they don't become welfare moochers and Isis terrorists goddammit.
And it's not just racialised kids, it's all kids living in the area. So they're also forcing Danish-speaking kids in daycare so they can learn to become proper Danes.
As a parent living in a "ghetto" or a "hard ghetto" (these are actual official labels btw.) you are also limited in what kindergartens you can send you kid too. It has to be non-"ghetto" kindergartens. This rule also applies to Danish kids.
So in its racist rampage the Danish political consensus is racialising Danes as evil dangerous Muslims.
Guys my citizens don't have any jobs, what do I do?
SocDems: I gotchu bro bulldozes state housing
We only need 1 state provided house because our means-testing has determined only 1 person needs it, everyone else can engage in the free market
You have no idea how close that is to the actual state of affairs here.
The only difference is that they will only bulldoze your apartment building if enough of your neighbours are muslim-looking
Yeah its a fucking travesty. Lets take some of our weakest citizens, who are struggling more and more for every year that passes, and solve the problem of high crime in the "ghetto" by simply demolishing the buildings where they live.
I can't tell you how right you even are about my European country. North and Western are all following the same path. Social Democrat parties are just neoliberals now.
This is not exactly what Scandinavian social democracy is. There are differences between Scandinavian countries. In Sweden the established parties refused to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats which has until now delayed the decline there.
The reactionary nature of Danish politics is a more recent development. Denmark used to be a progressive place regarding economic as well as social issues. Basically the danish social democrats played themselves when the emergence of the far right populist Danish People's Party caused them to lose many of their traditional voters. Instead of standing their ground on the antiracist sentiments they once had they adopted a strategy of winning back voters from the far right by appeasing the DPP and trying to triangulate their way into a position that was racist enough that they would come back. Meanwhile the established Danish right wing saw the possibility to gain power by allying themselves with the DPP.
This led to a political climate where the major right wing parties gave the DPP and their racist views the legitimacy they once lacked. Meanwhile the social democrats, the major "left" wing party, didn't put up a fight but promoted a lesser racism instead. This leads to the Overton window shifting to the right and with it came the spineless social democrats.
The strategy didn't work well for the social democrats. Racists were voting for the real thing anyways. In 2015, following an electoral defeat for the social democrats the current Danish PM Mette Frederiksen became chairman of the party. She and the people around her understood that just being the lesser racist was not going to cut it. Racism had been the right 's electoral super weapon for decades. To cancel it out the social democrats had to be just as racist as the DPP.
The strategy worked. The commitment to racism coupled with strategic promises of welfare improvements to select voter groups and the incompetence and petty corruption of the incumbent right wing government gave the social democrats a landslide victory in the 2019 election.
Now we have a situation where Danish politics had become a competition between the right wing and the social democrats as to who can be the most racist. The parliamentary left can do very little about it. They are massively outnumbered, the social democrats can get comfortable majorities for the racist and reactionary stuff with the right wing and if the left were to force the government out of office by a vote of no confidence the result would either be a right wing government or another social democratic government.
Goddamn thanks for the write up that's really interesting. It really goes to show how dangerous compromising positions in regards to issues like this can be. I hope some sort of left movement can break this trend before it gets even worse but I won't hold my breath.
A while ago a user here wrote an article with a mathematical proof of how centrist triangulation is a losing strategy. I think Denmark is a very good example of that.
I can't think of a single country in Europe that ISN'T a good example of this. The US too.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/02/how-centrism-loses-even-when-it-wins-a-mathematical-model
De jure housing discrimination in my socdem role model state? It's historically more likely than you'd think
This just sounds like apartheid but with extra steps. What the actual fuck.
anyone else remember that tweet screenshot of AOC talking about how she wants to model Denmark and not scary Soviet type socialism, I can't find it
Same reaction I had, like it's so mask off at this point. I'm scared for the future at this point seeing what's happening with Macron, Hungary/Poland, and this. Of course this won't get much backlash in western media but this shit is disgusting.
I'm scared as well. The future doesn't look bright for European Muslims.
I think the goal is for them to die or become assimilated. They previously suggested a mandatory curfew for "ghetto children" after 8pm, but it wasn't passed because it would be too hard to enforce (except some politicians suggested using ankle monitors to do so). If you wanna see what the intentions of these laws are look at the quotes from Danish people supporting these laws near the bottom of this article.
Officially they will be assigned replacement housing. It sounds nice but they can be moved to the other part of the municipality, be assigned an apartment that is too small, where the rent is too high or that is placed far away from the schools and workplaces of the residents.
This is not due to racist bias in the rehousing effort but simply because larger Danish towns lack cheap public housing. Municipalities has prioritised more expensive privately owned housing that attracts wealthier citizens and generates more taxes.
But I thought the West was civilized and enlightened? What do you mean that is a lie?
Further examples of Danish state racism:
- Municipalities mandating "Danish food culture", ie. pork, in kindergarten lunches
- Religious communities are mandated by law to publicise Danish translations of all sermons publicly.
- Religious communities are not allowed to receive foreign funding.
- Welfare recipients who has spent one of the preceding seven years living abroad receive dramatically reduced benefits that lands them in abject poverty.
- Any kind of criminal conviction excludes you from becoming a naturalized citizen for life. There are examples of people being denied citizenship over a speeding ticket.
- To become a naturalized citizen you have to jump through a bunch of ever narrower bureaucratic loops. And you have to physically shake the hand of the mayor. Even now, during the pandemic. This rule was introduced because "Islamists" presumably are against handshakes.
- The government can seize jewellery and valuables from asylum seekers to pay for their upkeep
- The minister of integration can summarily revoke the citizenship of a naturalised citizen of he thinks they has been "acting to seriously damage vital national interests"
- The government is working on establishing a Nauru-style offshore concentration camp where all Danish asylum seekers will be processed. If they are granted asylum it will be in the country the camp is located in. The government has recently abandoned the requirement tha the concentration camp should be placed on a democratic country.
🔥🇩🇰🔥Dania delenda est 🔥🇩🇰🔥
And that's only some of the racism that is on the books. I've not even begun talking about all the systemic racism that permeates Danish society without being a stated policy written down somewhere.
You think it can't get worse than stealing their valuables then BAM, you get hit with
The government has recently abandoned the requirement tha the concentration camp should be placed on a democratic country
Well... actually the law about stealing jewellery has never been used AFAIK. It turns out that refugees are not very wealthy people and that whatever valuables they might have had has already been stolen long before.
This didn't prevent the then-sitting government from using the example of an asylum seeker arriving with a suitcase full of diamonds as justification for the law.
If they are granted asylum it will be in the country the camp is located in. The government has recently abandoned the requirement tha the concentration camp should be placed on a democratic country.
What. The. Fuck.
Imagine you're a gay man being persecuted for your sexuality. And then you're granted asylum. In Morocco.
Also you've been held in a concentration camp for 5 years before that. Truly evil shit.
How would that really impact gay men? Just don’t fornicate in public.
The name refers to integrating foreigners into Danish society. He's responsible for matters concerning immigration, asylum and that kind of stuff.
A more honest name would be minister of racism.
In Sweden they made a certain kind of welfare for asylum seekers unavailable if they choose to live in certain areas. Some counties chose the entire county :agony:
Compared to Denmark's approach which I haven't seen before it doesn't even look that bad but I really don't think threatening to take away their money helps at all. Especially because it fails in practice when the disadvantaged areas are that much cheaper to live in so people move there anyway
And people say that leftists have confusing tendencies, wtf is this shit
I just learned about the "left" party thing a short while ago. Is it because they used to be republicans?
It dates back to before the formation of modern formalised parties. "Right" was a circle of conservative parliamentarians representing large landowners while "left" was the group representing farmers and smallholders.
The left group was volatile and was split into smaller groups. One of them centered around Lars Bjørnbak was pacifist, believed in unity between workers and peasants and were the first to raise women's and workers' issues in parliament. Bjørnbak was a member of the first international but severed ties in 1872 as a reaction to riots that started when police attacked striking workers at a rally called by the Danish branch of the First International which would later become the social democratic party.
If you go back in history far enough all Danish socialist parties descend from the social democrats. For instance the communist party which was a founding member of the Red-Green Alliance but who are today very tiny, was founded in 1919 when the youth organisation of the social democrats left the party.
The mainstream right-wing "Left" party is the ancestor of four other parties in parliament ranging from the "kill the poor"-libertarian Liberal Alliance to the leftist, green and outspokenly antiracist New Greens.
