Yesterday, I took Prøve i Dansk 3, a 5-hour government-sponsored exam designed to test my written and spoken knowledge of Danish. The test resembles The Advanced Placement tests given to high school students in the US with essays, reading comprehension and an oral component (which I will take in a few weeks). In the final part of the test there was an essay which asked students to explain whether society has a responsibility to protect its people by creating laws and rules. It cited examples like whether people should be forced to wear their seat belts or there should be a limit on how old adoptive parents can be.

Since this was a test of grammar rather than civic awareness, I answered the question in the most straight-forward way possible, but as I left the testing site I couldn't get the question out of my head. Denmark has had its fair share of rules and regulations instated over the past year designed to limit immigration and, in the eyes of some politicians, keep undesirable immigrants out and make the country a more safer place. The result has made it difficult for non-EU citizens to legally stay in Denmark and has caused many people to either voluntarily move or be deported. Luckily, my immigration status is safe because of a loop-hole in the law which allows non-EU citizens who moved from another EU country (Sweden, in my case) to be treated like Europeans for immigration matters. Still, I can't help but think of these immigration rules when considering my essay topic.

So here is my real answer to the question, which I will direct to Denmark's Integration Minister, Søren Pind.

Dear Mr. Pind,

In your department's recent Prøve i Dansk 3 exam you asked "New Danes" to explain what society's reponsibility should be in creating rules and laws to protect its people. Should people be responsible for their own safety? Is there a point where society creates too many rules? Judging by your ministry's recent activity, which has created laws which come closer and closer to effectively halting immigration to Denmark all together, I can assume your answer to the questions would be "Yes" and "No," respectively. But as a person for whom these rules determine my livelihood in this country and the cohesion of my family, I can't help but disagree..

A 26-year-old Australian man with two Danish children will be deported in August after Denmark's immigration department told him that his "attachment" to Denmark was not as strong as his attachment to Australia. Furthermore, his 23-year-old Danish fiancee does not have the right to marry him in Denmark, because she is too young to marry a foreigner under Danish law. The man has taken and passed all Danish exams and has worked in Denmark for several years (and paid astronomically high Danish taxes). But despite having a Danish fiancee (who he wants to be his wife) and two children who are Danish citizens, he is more "attached" to Australia in the eyes of the Danish government and thus can not stay in Denmark.

And why must he separate his family, force his child to move, and force his wife to leave her job? Because Danish society wants to protect its people. Because statistics supposedly show that immigrants are the majority of the people committing the crimes, crowding the jails, and taking the handouts, and the Danish government thinks the best way to stop this is to throw up walls, man the borders, and keep away as many outsiders as possible.. History has shown that this is not the best strategy, but Danish politicians think it is their responsibility to impose laws which tell citizens who they can and can't marry, when they can marry, where they can live, and how they can live.

So in response to the original question asked by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I don't think it is society's responsibility to tell a Danish citizen that, at 23-years-old, she is too young to marry the love of her life, a man with whom she already has a child. Nor do I think it is society's responsibility to determine which country she or her children are "most attached" too. It is not society's responsibility to tell its citizens that they can't marry a foreigner without an education (especially when the Danish politician pushing for the law doesn't have a higher educations herself) or a job and it is definitely not society's responsibility to break up families and take small children away from the only culture they know.

Society instead has a responsibility to teach its people how to coexist with one another and thus have enough self-awareness to cope with the evils of the world. This includes giving people the tools to understand other cultures and religious beliefs and choose for themselves which lifestyle fits their own and which person is best to share it with. Borders, laws, and restrictions may serve to temporarily keep the undesirables away, but they will not serve to make the Danish population ready to coexist within a global society that is inevitably part of everyone's lives - whether they like it or not.

Sincerely,

Me

An ode to Spring

A slideshow by Smilebox

This is Chicken? | Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Banning the junk

My kid is obsessed with ketchup, and I might go so far to say it's an addiction.

Yes, Estelle has found her new favorite food: tomato paste, vinegar, and sugar in a plastic bottle. She dips potatoes, eggs, vegetables, crackers and bread in it. When the food's all gone she eats ketchup with a spoon and if a spoon isn't handy she just licks it off the plate. When she walks into the kitchen and decides she's hungry, she opens the fridge and grabs the ketchup bottle and brings it to me. She would live on three square meals of ketchup if I let her.

I can't really complain about Estelle's eating habits. I follow the philosophy that if a kid is hungry she will eat and if she isn't hungry she won't. Therefore I don't cook special food for Estelle. She just eats what we do (with a dallop of ketchup on the side, where appropriate). Sometimes she doesn't eat (or just eats the ketchup) and goes to bed perfectly happy while other days she eats three bowls of lentil curry and asks for more (with ketchup). She hasn't consistently picked out a food she doesn't like, just some she doesn't feel like that day. She eats salmon, cod roe, liver paste, rye bread, spicy thai curry - whatever we throw in front of her.

I've been greatly inspired by chef Jamie Oliver's "School Dinners" TV documentary, which was filmed in England six years ago and is being shown on Danish TV this month. In it, Oliver attempts to transform school lunch programs from serving processed re-heated chicken nuggets, burgers, and french fries to cooking real, wholesome food. Oliver's philosophy is that there are no picky eaters, just those who have haven't been given the opportunity to try new things. Over the course of a year Oliver got kids from the unhealthiest town in England to go from not even being able to identify a potato or carrot to eating all the nutritious meals that were put in front of them at school. In the end, all children were eating Oliver's meals at school and he worked with Tony Blair and other political leaders to transform England's school lunch program. (A similar program, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, was filmed in the US and was less successful when he couldn't even find schools willing to participate.)

The county where we live in Denmark doesn't have this problem. We have a strict "sugar policy" which states that any place receiving government funds (schools, daycares, swim halls, sports clubs, etc.) can't serve crap food. They can't have sugary drinks, candy, soda, chips, etc. At Estelle's daycare we aren't even allowed to bring in birthday cake - just raisons, rolls, fruit sticks, cheese, or popcorn. The swim hall serves whole wheat turkey wraps and fresh fruit smoothies and (GASP!) kids drink white milk instead of chocolate. Of course kids do have candy and junk at home and on special occasions, but the temptations to buy them in public institutions are gone. Furthermore, Denmark is the only country in the world to ban partially hydrogenated oils:

Denmark became the first country to introduce laws strictly regulating the sale of many foods containing trans fats in March 2003, a move which effectively bans partially hydrogenated oils. The limit is 2% of fats and oils destined for human consumption. It should be noted that this restriction is on the ingredients rather than the final products. This regulatory approach has made Denmark the only country in which it is possible to eat "far less" than 1 g of industrially produced trans fats on a daily basis, even with a diet including prepared foods.^[76] It is hypothesized that the Danish government's efforts to decrease trans fat intake from 6g to 1g per day over 20 years is related to a 50% decrease in deaths from ischemic heart disease. (Wikipedia)

I've been told I'm lucky to have a kid who will eat anything, but if Jamie Oliver's model is true then it isn't luck, it's just the absence of any other option for Estelle to eat. I will say when we brought her to Applebee's for the first time around Christmas she practically inhaled a kid's cheeseburger and fries - faster than I've seen her eat anything else. And on the special occasions where she has had sweets, the plate is usually licked clean. So the natural instinct to eat sweet and salty foods is definitely in her.

But for as long as I can I think I'll follow Oliver's advice and "ban the junk," keep the processed foods on the shelf in the store, and not give my kid any option but the healthy one. . . with a little ketchup on the side.

"Let them eat Cake"

One of the advantages of having a highly-educated population like Denmark does is that people are extremely clever. I see this cleverness in Danish humor, design, and infrastructure every day.

I think the Danish education system lends itself to creating clever kids. I am currently studying education and learning as an exchange student at Roskilde University, and much of it involves learning about how Danish schools function. They're based on a democratic system where kids have a lot of choice and freedom in how their education is structured. The teacher is not supposed to be the all-knowing authority, but a participant and leader in the democratic process of the class. It's a system I like and one that I can already see in my daughter's daycare (which all three of us continue to be impressed by). The demphasis on rote learning and memorization in early childhood fosters creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

Which brings me to this antedote. Last week the mainstream press discovered that leaders of The Danish People's Party, a minority party who are mainly responsible for the new tightened immigration policies I wrote so strongly against last week (and whose leaders apparently didn't get the memo in school about this open-minded democracy stuff) published an article in their party newsletter complaining that all the Muslim immigrants in Denmark were bringing in their big families and eating all the free cake and drinking all the juice in hospital waiting rooms - forcing hospitals and doctors offices to give up on having free goodies.

The idea was seen as completely absurd and ridiculous by many Danish people. But did they just whine and complain? No, they took action in a creative way. If the leaders of the Danish People's Party were starving then the Danish people would take care of them. That's the Danish way, after all. They, like Marie Antoinette suggested so long ago, said to "let them eat cake."

And so they sent them cake . . . and more cake . . . and more cake. Packages of cake have been arriving at the headquarters of the Danish People's Party all week. They are drowning in cake to the point where a spokesperson for the party said that they have to explore options of what to do with all the cake before it goes bad. The hospitals won't take it because of possible contamination. A Facebook campaign has hundreds of photos of letters of protest attached to cake ready to be mailed. Sarcastic apologies for the extra slice people slipped in the last time they visited their dying uncle in the hospital, letters from children asking for forgiveness and explaining they used the last of their allowance to buy new cake . . . cake! cake! cake!

In my mind the Great Cake Quake is a fine example of Danish sarcasm and a way to make a personal statement of opposition to party leaders without hurting or offending. As a former journalist, it also lends itself to so many excellent headlines... too many to write here!

It's hard out there for an Udlænding

Rarely do I post negative things about Denmark and even more rarely do I post about Danish politics, but with new immigration laws that will affect myself, my friends, and future expatriates, this has become personal.

Denmark is a country that has been revered around the world for a social welfare system that can be unmatched. Documentary makers, news shows, and even Oprah have come to this country to tout its free healthcare, generous maternity leave benefits, and an excellent unemployment system. Danish people pride themselves in thinking of everyone as an equal regardless of how much money they have or what they do for a living. It is a society and system that I strongly believe in and one that has impressed me in the 16 months I have lived here. It is, as some Americans would call it "a socialist paradise."

Unfortunately, the Danish happiness and security so widely publicized has one catch: you can only have access to it if you are a purebred Dane. Foreigners coming into this country, even those married to Danes like myself, are not entitled to unemployment money or student allowance. They can't exchange drivers' licenses and, at least in the eyes of the current government, foreigners are not equals to Danes.

Last week, Denmark's most conservative minority party, Danske Folkeparti, pushed the government to create laws governing Family Reunification Visas, or those that apply to foreign spouses and children of Danish citizens. The laws now state that in order to be allowed to stay in Denmark on these visas one must take a 70-question oral and written exam in Danish about Danish culture, history, and values. Thirty-minutes are allowed for this test and 40 questions must be answered correctly. Moreover, immigrants must have work experience and be educated. In other words, if you are poor or have had a hard life they don't want you here.

In effect, these laws will serve to keep out not only the lazy folks looking to mooch off the system but all other foreigners as well. Danish is a difficult language to learn even for people who already live in the country, to have to learn it on your own in your home country is nearly impossible. The test will serve as a roadblock for many who are even thinking of coming to Denmark and will effectively push away the little diversity this country has.

I have put my faith and my heart into the Danish system since I moved here. I have made every effort to learn the language, abide by the cultural norms, get an education, and find employment. I have touted Danish values to my relatives when I returned to the States for vacation. I believed in Denmark, but Denmark never believed in me.

I find it difficult to see how I will be able to raise my daughter in a country whose government believes that foreigners, like her own mother, are a nuisance to society. I do not know how I can teach her about the values of diversity and the importance of multiculturalism in a country that uses tricks to bypass EU rules and keep anyone who isn't 100% Danish out. Denmark has hurt and betrayed me.

I still love Denmark. I love the laid-back attitudes of the Danish people, the collectiveness of society, and the commitment to environmental policies that will make the world a better place. But it is increasingly difficult to live under a government that ostracizes me and people like me. I have tried so hard to become one of the people, but the government's sneaky ways of edging foreigners like me out could one day put me over the edge.

Estelle at 1 year: Learning 2 languages, 1 word at a time