April 1, 2002	Monday	Muharram 17, 1423

COPENHAGEN: 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 per cent 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 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 harbour ‘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 last 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 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.

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 per cent 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.

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.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.