Abstract
This chapter employs Byung-Chul Han’s distinction between disciplinary and achievement subjects, and his critique of obsessive transparency, to examine two contradictory views of Denmark: as a law-abiding, democratic nation of trusting citizens and as a nation in the forefront of the recent European backlash against immigrants and multiculturalism. We look at political events, such as the Nørrebro Riots and the Danish Cartoon controversy, and recent legislation in order to highlight the subtly differing ways in which the Danish state trusts or mistrusts some of its citizens, and the role Islam plays in it. We note that the nature of ‘new xenophobia’ makes it easy to overlook that trust and accountability are not equally shared across the nation’s (multi)cultures.
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Notes
- 1.
Colson, Thomas. ‘Seven reasons Denmark is the happiest country in the world,’ The Independent, London, 26 September 2016. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/7-reasons-denmark-is-the-happiest-country-in-the-world-a7331146.html Accessed 9 August 2017.
- 2.
Barrett, Michael. ‘Racism plays a role in migrants exclusion in Denmark: Report,’ The Local, Copenhagen, 10 May 2017. https://www.thelocal.dk/20170510/racism-plays-a-key-role-in-migrants-exclusion-in-denmark-report. Accessed 9 August 2017.
- 3.
Established legally and visibly by President George W. Bush ’s administration in 2002 during the ‘War on Terror,’ the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. As its inmates were detained indefinitely without trial and several inmates were reportedly tortured, the Guantanamo camp is considered a serious breach of human rights by Amnesty International.
- 4.
Dreyer, Pernille. ‘Stress romaerne ud af indre København,’ Berlingske Tidende, 22 May 2017 from https://www.b.dk/nationalt/pia-kjaersgaard-stress-romaerne-ud-af-indre-koebenhavn. Accessed 3 August 2017.
- 5.
Reimermann, Jens. ‘Optøjer på Nørrebro skader indvandrere,’ Information, Copenhagen, 9 November 1999. https://www.information.dk/1999/11/optoejer-paa-noerrebro-skader-indvandrere Accessed 9 August 2017.
- 6.
Hansen, Anne, V. O. ’Skarp debat skader integrationen,’ Information, Copenhagen, 22 October 2009 https://www.information.dk/debat/2009/10/skarp-debat-skader-integrationen. Accessed 9 August 2017.
- 7.
‘Muslimer føler ikke, de kan tage deres tro med i skole,’ Kristeligt Dagblad, Copenhagen, from https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/danmark/2014-09-09/muslimer-f%C3%B8ler-ikke-de-kan-tage-deres-tro-med-i-skole. Accessed 9 September 2017.
- 8.
All the quotes below, under A, B, C, and D, referring to Danish family and marriage rules, have been downloaded from the official source, https://www.nyidanmark.dk//en-us/coming_to_dk/familyreunification/spouses, accessed 23 March 2013.
- 9.
While newspaper accounts focus on troubled teenagers and ‘immigrant’ criminal bands—containing youth born and brought up in Denmark—the cultural scene seems to mostly accentuate the difference positively. A new generation of documentaries ( Ghettodrengen, Mit Danmark) and films ( To kvinder) show us the ‘immigrant’ character as having grown away from a certain personality type (subdued, very much attached to their root, traditional) found in films made up to the late 1990s.
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Khair, T., Petiot, I. (2018). Transparency, Trust, and Multiculturalism in Cosy Copenhagen. In: Yaqin, A., Morey, P., Soliman, A. (eds) Muslims, Trust and Multiculturalism. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71309-0_7
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