Tanja Jokumsen

SALT ON A SNAKE´S TAIL

A3

In salt on a snake´s tail there are severe difficulties between the white community and the immigrant community. We hear about it from the very beginning of the text, When Jolil is held back after class, and he is worried to walk home alone. Normally the immigrant boys walk home together as a group, that way they can take the short route home, through the white neighbourhood without having to be afraid of being beaten up. Because Jolil is held back after class, he has to take the long route home, so he wont have to pass any white children on his way to the flat where he lives. His family discusses the issue on the first night of the story, his older brother says that there will be war, after a Bengali teen has been stabbed by white teens. Jolil has big issues with the way his father deals with life in general in the UK, for one, he keeps Jolil home from school whenever his help is needed in the family business, which is sewing . This off course has resulted in Jolil having big problems reading and writing in English, which again makes things difficult for him. The father doesn't speak proper English, and it seems to bother and embarrass Jolil.
Jolil and his father go to a market to buy two chairs for Jolil´s mother, and the salesman, who is white, is extremely rude to Jolil s father, but because he doesn't understand the nuances in the English language, he doesn't pick up on it, only Jolil does. That a sales person in that way insults potential customers, tells us that there is absolutely no respect for the immigrants in this community. On their way home they are attacked by two white teens, who beat up Jolil, and take the two chairs that they have just bought, and instead of fighting back, his father tells him to run. again it says a lot about the community that two teenagers attack an elderly man and a little child, just for walking down a ´white´street. Later that night Jolil s father gets out of bed, fetches a knife from the kitchen, and stab one of the teens that attacked them that afternoon. to me it seems that maybe that was the last drop in almost full cup of mutual hatred. Tania jokumsen C2

It´s no secret that there are immense problems with immigration almost everywhere in the world. In Denmark it´s only been an issue for about 45 years, when we started inviting workers from other countries, to come and fill the positions in the work place that we Danes didn't want, or were able to fill. They were mostly men, mostly Pakistani and Yugoslavian who sent their earnings home to their families in their home country, and they were very welcome until Denmark had a severe financial crisis in the 70´s.
Because of unemployment issues, housing issues and so on, the guest workers were now a burden instead of a helping hand in the eyes of many Danes. because of our welfare system,the men could send for their families, and get housing and welfare and hospital visits and so on for free for the whole family here, and so most stayed on, and what we now refer to as ghettoes started to form. In numbers, the 60´s immigration rush cant compare to the 90´s, where in 99´ alone 9.678 immigrants obtained permanent residence permit on grounds of family reunification. This immigration has spawned a lot of hatred in Denmark. Both from the Danes towards the immigrants but for the past 10-20 years certainly also the other way around. I don't think the immigration itself is the problem, I think it s the lack of integration. From the very beginning most immigrants in Denmark have been placed apartment buildings in specific areas in the big cities, and by doing that, the Danish government have unwillingly contributed to making ´ghettoes´ . We are now on the 3rd generation of these immigrant s, and it seems that the 2nd and 3rd generation settle down in the same community as they grew up in.
This seems to frighten many of us Danes , but it´s exactly the same when we stay in the city, and neighbourhood we as Danes grew up in. When I state that immigration isn't the problem, but integration is, I mean that if there had been made a bigger effort from our side to in fact integrating the first wave of immigrants for instance by teaching the whole family to speak Danish, making

room for the wives in the work place and so on, things would look different now. A lot of the 1st generation immigrants were never taught to speak the language, and as a result they have never been able to help their children with their homework, talk to the teachers, even shopping was a problem. If you cant speak the language where you live, you're of to a very bad start, and no wonder they isolated themselves with people who spoke the same language and had the same beliefs. Many of the problems we as a country have with immigration could have been avoided from the start .