Immigration, integration og racisme

: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence

In Denmark, there are people originating from more than 200 countries. The largest group of immigrants have a Turkish background. Two-thirds of all immigrants have kept their foreign citizenship.

Here’s the big dilemma: we should all be considered equal. Nobody chooses where they come from, their parents, or their upbringing. Unfortunately, not many people think that way, but some of those people do have their own reasons not to.

I had never held anything against immigrants, until I one day was cycling home from school, and a bunch of Turkish boys stopped my bike, took my backpack, and emptied all my belongings on the ground. My school books, my mobile phone, everything was splattered in the mud. I ran home crying that day. I was eight.

But even after this story, I am not racist. Many people have probably experienced their own unpleasant story with immigrants, but the real question is: Do you let it get to you? Or are you capable of being the better person, and not generalize all immigrants just because this one thing happened, that one time?

Something that really crushed me is when I heard about immigrants in Germany that had raped around eight hundred women. If a country is generous enough to let you in, you do not take advantage of that! When a person moves to another country, it’s simple manners to learn their habits and culture, and what’s right or wrong. Just because women are oppressed in your home country, doesn’t mean they are in ours. Our relationship with the immigrants is never going to change until they learn to adapt.