http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/opinion/who-says-youre-a-dane.html 2016-10-17 16:35:35 Who Says You’re a Dane? With the rise of far-right, anti-immigrant politics in Denmark, the issue of ‘Danishness’ is hotly disputed. === COPENHAGEN — An exchange in a recent debate on national TV was emblematic of changing times in Danish politics. An 18-year-old high school student named Jens Philip Yazdani was “This is not how one becomes Danish,” he said, starkly forcing to the fore the old question of what is “Danishness.” In that moment, the nationalist politician signaled an end to the uneasy truce that has long defined the immigration debate in Denmark. By rejecting the very possibility of ever “becoming” Danish, even down several generations, he effectively shelved the political project of integration of immigrants. “One can’t say that just because one brings the whole world to Denmark,” Mr. Henriksen went on, “and they then get some children, that those children become Danish. This is a simplification of the debate, and one that is insulting to those generations that have built this land.” What surprised many viewers is that in an earlier era, Mr. Yazdani would have been considered a poster boy for successful integration. Born to a Danish mother and an Iranian father, he speaks Danish fluently and is Some hear in this an ominous echo of Germany’s late-19th-century romance with “blut und boden” (blood and soil) as the marker of national identity. Martin Krasnik, a columnist with the newspaper Weekendavisen, noted how this biological identification of “the people” can be used to erase the rights and legalities of formal citizenship. He recalled how Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, The new brashness in immigration politics has been emboldened by the widespread talk of a “migrant crisis” said to be choking Europe. This, despite the fact that Denmark’s The migrant, nevertheless, is the new figure of loathing. At the recent convention of the Danish People’s Party, one of its rising stars, Cheanne Nielsen, The party chairman, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, admitted that some of the speakers had perhaps An anti-immigrant stance in Denmark is now neither masked in clumsy euphemisms nor accompanied by halfhearted gestures of conciliation toward the “New Danes,” as the old assimilationist term put it. The message is now delivered rough and raw by a new generation of outspoken politicians. Humor has been weaponized. The ability to joke and deploy sarcasm is increasingly claimed as a sign of essential Danishness. But there’s nothing self-deprecating about this joking; it is hostile mocking, aimed at the most vulnerable in society, a way of putting migrants in their place. That anti-immigration politics is more influential than ever is borne out by the emergence, just weeks ago, of a With the boundaries of acceptable discourse constantly prodded and pushed, Danish society is becoming ever more inured to xenophobia, says If there is a silver lining in the new political reality, it is that it has forced much more public discussion about what it means to be Danish. Perhaps the best response to this debate was captured in a satirical