Quartz: In Denmark and throughout Europe, assimilation is becoming mandatory

Critics claim the measures essentially represents a parallel system of laws that overwhelmingly target poor, Muslim migrants—an interesting choice of language, given the government’s policy of calling the ghettos “parallel societies.” Sociologist Amro Ali, writing in Time Magazine, claims that “the legislation reads like a 19th century missionary enterprise, a colonial experiment to civilize the brown folks.” One thing is clear: Denmark’s new laws are part of a broader European trend of attempts to use the law to make assimilation mandatory.

Key to Denmark’s plan are early childhood development measures that attempt to assimilate the children of immigrants into Danish culture and public life. Proposals include mandatory day care for a minimum of 30 hours a week for children up to six years old living in one of the 25 residential areas, which includes courses in Danish values “​​such as gender equality, community, participation and co-responsibility.”That’s a different rule than the one governing Danish parents who are legal citizens, who are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six. Another rule would instate targeted language tests in the first year of primary school in schools where more than 30% of students come from one of the 25 “ghettos,” in order to ascertain that children are reaching Danish language benchmarks.

Some measures appear explicitly punitive. One targets primary schools with a large proportion of “ghetto children” who miss certain achievement criteria for more than 3 years in a row. Those schools will now incur sanctions, including a possible shutdown or government takeover. Another proposal involves withdrawing social benefits from parents whose children miss more than 15% of the school quarter. Perhaps the most striking is the last measure, which involves a possible four-year prison sentence for immigrant parents who take their children on “extended visits” to their country of origin in a way that the Danish government determines compromises the children’s “schooling, language and well-being.” The measure does not quantify what makes for an extended visit.

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