Imagining the Nation

Danish Citizens and Muslim Others

Their religion has attacked our system. Back in the fifties, during my childhood, there was only one way to consider the world and how life should be lived, but now there are many aspects to be considered [laughs sarcastically], many cultural riches. Many immigrants have come in the sixties and seventies, and they have made their footprint in our culture and society.

— Holger, German teacher, Engby School

FOLLOWING THE HEBDO INCIDENT in Paris and the violence in Copenhagen in early 2015, there has been an upsurge in talk about the "integration" crisis in Europe and the threats to the values of freedom and democracy. These events reveal that fears of extremist violence and the recruitment of youth into organizations like ISIS are not unfounded. However, what seems to be missing from this conversation in the dominant discourse is a critical analysis of what is really meant by the term integration. Listening to media stories, we hear of the shock of a community when Muslim girls — described as "good students, modern, well-integrated, well-adjusted kids" — from a British private school are recruited to Syria (Shapiro 2015). European notions of integration change shape depending on the speaker and context but seem to rest with an understanding that well-integrated Muslims and immigrants do not display high levels of religiosity or emphasize their ties to their native countries. In addition, they should feel comfortable making public proclamations about feeling "British, Danish or French." In an article responding to the events in Copenhagen, a New York Times reporter wrote, "As in many other European countries, Muslims in Denmark may coexist with their non-Muslim neighbors, but they often cling to the values and conspiracy-driven mind-set of their home countries" (Higgins 2015). Echoing through such media and dominant discourses is an age-old story about enlightened Western Europeans and barbaric Muslims, a history that I briefly trace in this chapter.

Thus, the "integration" crisis is presented as the problem of Muslim immigrants and citizens who insist on holding on to their culture, language, and attachments to home countries, stubbornly refusing to embrace European values. As Lena, a teacher in my study, explains about the immigrant girls in her class, "They have to be part of the jobs and the education system, to be open minded to what is ... where I can no longer live in my little safe world where I did what my mother did, and she did what her mother did. The more we can try to open them up the better it will be for their integration as a whole." There is an implicit idea that Muslim youth set themselves apart from society,