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A wave of anti-Muslim sentiment has bolstered far-right parties in some European countries since Sept. 11 and left the continent's large communities of foreigners wondering how long their welcome will last.
The changing mood has found its fullest political expression here in Denmark, where an anti-immigrant party won 12 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in November, nearly doubling its showing from the previous election. Its campaign posters featured a picture of a young blond girl and the slogan: "When she retires, Denmark will have a Muslim majority."
Now the Danish Parliament is considering a bill that would close many doors to the country, long known as one of Europe's most receptive to foreigners. It is host to about 300,000, most of them Muslims.
Danes have a long history of tolerance of other religions and lifestyles, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a group of Washington Post reporters and editors in Washington this week, citing the country's protection of Jews during World War II and its hosting of Cold War refugees. But today Denmark is having serious problems integrating its immigrants, he said.
Roughly half of them are unemployed, he said, and many have no education. Moreover, there is cultural friction. "Many Danes feel that too many immigrants do not respect Danish values," he said.
Opinion polls show that increasing numbers of the 5.3 million citizens of Denmark, an affluent, predominantly white and Lutheran country, resent foreigners' heavy reliance on the welfare system. Many also blame the newcomers for crime and worry that their communities harbor terrorists.
Immigrants counter that they are being targeted unfairly and routinely face discrimination. "We all just feel uneasy and afraid," said Ali Khan, 34, who moved to Denmark from Pakistan in 1998 but has not found steady work. "People just want to get out of here, to Britain or Canada or the United States."
Some refugees are becoming desperate. In December, a 16-year-old who had fled to Denmark from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan set himself ablaze with gasoline after he was ordered deported. He is recovering from his burns.
Elsewhere in Europe, anti-immigrant parties have continued to gain support. Earlier this month in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, a branch of the Livable Netherlands party won 17 of 45 seats on the local council, attracting more votes than any of the three parties in the national coalition that governs the country.
In Italy and Germany as well, anti-immigrant groups are growing in strength as they tap long-standing fears about security and the dilution of national identity.
Advances by the far right have exerted a gravitational pull on establishment parties, which are responding to perceived public demands to increase internal security, curb the arrival of newcomers (especially nonwhites) and limit the rights of migrants already in the country.
Long before Sept. 11, many white Europeans had deep-running concerns that their countries were involuntarily becoming multicultural as guest workers and refugees, mostly Muslim, established themselves in residence. There are about 15 million Muslims in Europe, making Islam the the continent's largest non-Christian religion.
The post-Sept. 11 concerns underscored a paradox that has cycled through European politics for years: The continent needs foreign workers to gird an aging workforce but is queasy about accepting them, especially if they are Muslim. "There is this fear for national identity combined with a fear of Muslims that has fueled this debate on immigration," said Jan Niessen, director of the Migration Policy Group, a research organization in Brussels.
In a report on the fallout in the European Union from the terrorist attacks against the United States, the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna said the decision by some countries to link immigration and anti-terrorism measures has created "an atmosphere of insecurity and intolerance, especially in cases where Muslims are presented as an 'internal security threat.' "
Before the September attacks, far-right parties running on anti-immigrant themes had scored notable successes at the polls in Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Norway, where votes from the far-right Progress Party have provided the government with a working majority in parliament.
The attacks seem to have heightened the popularity of such parties. In the Netherlands, a country with a rich multi-ethnic texture and 800,000 Muslims, nearly 50 percent of the country's young people want no more Muslim immigration, according to an opinion poll for the weekly publication Nieuwe Revu.
Political analysts in the Netherlands say that Livable Netherlands and a faction loyal to its former leader could end up as kingmakers in parliament after elections this year.
"I think 16 million Dutchmen are about enough," said the former leader of Livable Netherlands and author of "Against the Islamization of Our Culture," Pim Fortuyn, in an interview with the newspaper De Volkskrant. "This is a full country." He said that Islam is a "backward culture" and "Moroccan boys never steal from Moroccans. Have you noticed that?"
In Hamburg, where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers lived, the Party for a Law and Order Offensive got 20 percent of the vote in state elections after the attacks on the United States. The party's leader, Judge Ronald Schill, became the state interior minister. The German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Schill as saying during his campaign that he wanted to bring the "black African drug dealers and the knife-stabbing Turks" to justice. Schill now says he may launch a national campaign.
At the same time, the main conservative opposition in Germany is threatening a court challenge after passage last week of the country's first major immigration bill, saying it does not do enough to curtail the influx of foreigners. About half of the 7.3 million foreign residents in Germany are Muslim.
In Italy, the government of Silvio Berlusconi has introduced a bill calling for the expulsion of immigrants who enter the country illegally.
In Denmark, the far-right Danish People's Party aimed much of its campaign for the November elections at a foreign-born population that is 70 percent Muslim. The campaign was marked by "a fierce and . . . xenophobic debate on the issue of foreigners," according to the Danish Refugee Council.
The party's member of the European Parliament, Mogens Camre, was quoted in the newspaper Politiken as saying, "All countries of the Western world are infiltrated by Muslims -- some of them speak to us politely, whilst they wait until they are enough to kill all of us."
Retiree Vivian Nielsen, 51, said she voted for the People's Party because of its stance on refugees. "They don't even want to learn the language," she said. "The true refugees don't have enough money to come here, and I believe we should help them in their home areas."
Denmark's mainstream parties rejected the language of the People's Party during the campaign. But the conservatives swept out the Social Democratic government on the promise of clamping down on immigration, even as the Social Democrats were promising to restrict the population of foreigners.
"The message is clear: Stay out," said Mohamed Hassan Gelle, a Somali who is head of the Ethnic Minorities Federation in Denmark.
There is no open immigration in Denmark, but about 13,000 foreigners entered last year, mostly through family reunification, and another 6,000 were granted asylum. The new government is introducing legislation that would restrict family reunifications, cut welfare benefits for foreigners and extend the wait for permanent residency from three to seven years.
The government also intends to largely eliminate humanitarian asylum, with the aim of reducing Denmark's 43 percent acceptance rate of asylum-seekers, the highest in Europe.
According to Bertel Haarder, Denmark's refugee minister, who is responsible for getting the legislation passed, the measures are necessary to end freeloading by immigrants and refugees, 50 percent of whom are on welfare, a rate that rises to 90 percent among such ethnic groups as Somalis.
"The over-unemployment among immigrants and asylum-seekers is way beyond what we normally accept in this country," Haarder said. "We are not counting [the number of foreigners] and saying that it is a problem that we have such and such percentage. . . . In fact, we want more with special qualifications to come and help us. What we count is the number on welfare."
Rasmussen, the prime minister, said that Denmark wants to encourage immigration by people who have needed qualifications, without regard to their country of origin.
But immigrants such as Khan say they face habitual discrimination in the labor market in Denmark, where the national unemployment rate is about 4 percent.
Kahn came here reluctantly four years ago after marrying a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin. The electronics engineer wanted his new bride to stay in the Pakistani city of Lahore, where Khan worked for Motorola Inc., managing computer systems in the customer-service department there for the U.S. electronics giant. But his wife insisted that his degree in electronics, his fluency in English and his work experience with a multinational leader in the information-technology field would lead to the good life in the West.
In his first six months in Denmark, as he studied Danish, Khan applied for 630 jobs, including entry-level positions, he said. He didn't get called for a single interview.
"They don't want to employ foreigners, particularly Muslims," said Khan, whose only work experience in the country so far has been as a room cleaner in a hotel. "It's not all the fault of foreigners."
Haarder said he acknowledges that Danish companies need to do more to employ foreigners and that he wants to create incentives to encourage them. The integration of foreigners is his goal, he said.
But the mood in Denmark is so sour that there is increasing anecdotal evidence that foreigners who can leave are doing so. Immigrant groups say they are receiving more queries from people who want to depart; two of Khan's friends have left for Britain in recent months.
"People who don't look Danish are looked upon as an unnatural part of Danish society," said Bashy Quraishy, president of the European Network Against Racism, who has lived in Denmark for 31 years. "The politics of hate has crept into the body politic of Denmark and its main characteristic is an anti-Muslim feeling. I'd like to say it was September 11, but now I think they always hated us."
Some Danes said they were embarrassed about how their country has reacted.
"Denmark is such a rich country with so many economic and human resources that I fail to see the threat that the [People's Party] is talking about," said Peter Sloth, a 27-year-old student. "If one of the richest countries in the world can't make an extraordinary effort for the world's poorest, then I don't see who should."
"The paradox is that the majority
of the [People's Party] voters are located in the countryside with very
little contact with the new inhabitants," Sloth said. "I want to apologize
to world society on behalf of my ignorant fellow citizens."
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