Being Foreign in a Country That Doesn't Know How to Deal With Foreigners

The Danish relationship with Everything Not Danish can at times be strained, to say the least. We all blame the weirdo right-wingers for saying absurd and maybe even racist things, but somehow seem to miss that it's not just the weirdo politicians. It's all of us, and a lot (too much) of the time. The latest thing around Aarhus appears to be that Eastern Europeans aren't let into nightclubs, solely on the basis of being Lithuanian, Bulgarian or whatever. Some of the people affected are furious, while others pull the ”it's private property so who cares and I'll just go somewhere else” argument, (even though there are some convincing arguments that it might be illegal. I don't know the giurispudence, but I'm fairly sure this particular way of discriminating guests won't hold in court.) But this is just the latest example of often tiny things that make people feel not welcome. How does it feel to be foreign in a country that does not know how to deal with foreigners and would rather have them go away so as not to think about them?

Global Citizen

About a month ago this picture popped up in my facebook newsfeed. It was posted by Occupy Wall St and reposted by a friend, and it went viral, as these things do. It is, as you can probably see, a draft for a passport for a global citizen, a citizen of the world rather than of any particular state or nation. Now, I do understand what they're trying to say, and I appreciate the effort, but the picture left me thinking. What is actually being said? And what would be the implications? Is it even possible to speak of global citizenship?