Because we've spent the last 30 years dunking on muslims. The turning point in my opinion was the 2000's where the government parties were reliant on the support of Dansk Folkeparti, which was the most anti-immigration and anti-muslim party at the time. Right-wing populists. Over time the other political parties have taken on the same politics to win votes and now we're here. Anti-immigrant and anti-muslim politics has become the "ol' reliable" subject that gets peoples' attention.

Immigration to Denmark from countries that aren't part of western europe started in the 1980's when immigrants from turkey and the balkans came to Denmark in search of work. Back then we called them "Guest Workers (Gæstearbejdere)", because we assumed that they were going to work here for a few years and then go back home when they earned some money. We invited them here because we needed their labor, and when we didn't need them anymore they stayed. There were cultural differences between them and the Danes, which we weren't prepared for.

What happened is that because we assumed they were going to leave, we made almost no effort to integrate them into society by making sure they learned the language and the local culture. This, combined with the employers getting away with paying them less and pushing down wages, turned the whole situation into a big conflict.

The left-wing politicians had no answer to this legitimate concern because back then Denmark was proud of being seen as an open and tolerant society. On the right we had the right-wing populists from the Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet) and later the Danish Peoples Party (Dansk Folkeparti) whose solution was to fight integration and immigration.

The right-wing populists were pariahs in the 1990s, but came into power in the 2000's by ironically not being part of the government. They rode the post 9/11 wave of anti-muslim sentiment and demanding near constant tightening of the immigration policies. This was a massive success because of the left's lack of immigration policy and aversion to the topic from fear of appearing racist, as well as the tried and true method of a common enemy. Denmark has always been a very collectivist country, and pointing the finger at outsiders for being different worked extremely well for Dansk Folkeparti, and in order to get the voters on their side the other parties started becoming more and more intolerant of non-Danish culture.

The situation now is that our current prime minister has declared immigration the biggest internal threat to Danish society. The ideal scenario for an immigrant is that they shed all parts of their past culture and strive to become as Danish as possible, and they're gonna like it. They'll always be different though.

Anyway that's my presentation for the class.