1/13/16
Studying abroad in Denmark put me so close to the Syrian refugee crisis. In Denmark, it was hard to miss. Denmark is a highly homogenous country; it’s incomparable to the United States. People in Denmark easily notice an influx of people who look different than they do. I find the Danish relationship to “others” to be incredibly fascinating. Denmark’s history makes it so clear as to why the country is the way it is and why Danish society functions the way it does. In 1864, Denmark lost the majority of its territories (which is why they’re so tiny now). They turned inwards to focus on themselves as well as to stay out of global tensions and interactions. Denmark became a tribal nation of solidary and developed their welfare state because of this, which many feel is being threatened in the present day. For Danes, it’s not purely racism or nativism that would make some oppose refugees coming into the country, it’s also about the pressure put onto their very integrated system. The US doesn’t have any sort of welfare system that compares to Denmark. I mean, getting paid to go to university? That’s an unbelievable concept to Americans. Learning about the Danish welfare system helps me understand Denmark’s dilemma and how complex it is.
The refugee crisis was all over the news in Denmark and then one day when I got back from a trip, the central train station in Copenhagen was packed with refugees and stations set up to help them in their arrival. Fellow students who traveled to Hamburg had trouble getting back to Copenhagen because the trains were full of refugees. Denmark had issues with refugees walking on their freeways to get to Sweden where gaining asylum is easier. Then I would go talk to my friends from back home about the situation and they wouldn’t know much about it. This bothered me at first, but then it made sense. The U.S. is very much able to keep itself distant from global issues like the refugee crisis. The U.S. isn’t a major landmass connected to another major landmass, like Europe. Despite feeling distant from the refugee crisis, the U.S. is still going to have to deal with the situation. The U.S. will have to play a future role in taking in refugees, like people from the Marshall Islands.