About Denmark - and the world surrounding us
Hello,
Thank you for all your questions! I've seen so many relevant comments so I think I'll have to answer little by little!
You ask me if Denmark is a conservative country? Ten years ago, I would have said absloutely no. We have been living with a social democrat government for many years, and this is a welfare state with not many really poor people , and not so many very rich ones either. But things have changed to the worse lately, and a so-called liberal government has taken over. You see - Denmark is a small country and we're almost like a tribe. Newcomers are not always treated well. Because of the global wave of migration from bad conditions, political refugees or for economical reasons, Denmark as a state is trying to protect itself from too many foreigners. It is very hard to obtain permission to live and work here, unless you already have a job offer.
Also, we have a welfare system based on a very hing income and consumption tax, and we have an increase of unemployment - so if people do not earn a living and still need to get the welfare goods, there will be less hands to feed the masses.
And, we're now in a situation that more and more hard work is sent out of our country to be executed with low wage workers elsewhere. Fsrmers in Denmark try to employ illegally immigrated workers from Poland or Lithuania under the minimum salary and may get punished by a fine, and the illegal workers expelled from Denmark.
I cannot blame those who think that we need to think of our own people first of all. But this is not how today's world look like. We're all confronted with poverty, diseases, war or disasters affecting people all over the world. and we're carrying a great responsibility to help a more even distribution of fundamental goods, such as food, clean water, health care, safety and schooling for everyone. I think this is a dilemma; how can we care for our own close neighbours, as well as for others who live far away? Is constant growth of consumption recommended? Can our climate, for example, tolerate unlimited pollution from transport and production?
Travelling has opened my eyes to many differences in life conditions and cultures. What do you think?
posted by Upstream Advanced @ 11:38 AM
4 Comments:
Hi! You are speaking like a real politician. Do many people in Denmark take part in political life or you are simply a member of a political party?
Hi Antony,
Your question about membership is very relevant. In Denmark we have one of the older democracies, with many parties (I think about eight are represented in our Folketing). For the past ten or more there has been less and less people inscribed as members of parties; but recently, four party leaders have rejected to be re-elected, and thus a fresh interest in direct influence by membership has developed among people.
although I'm not a member of any political party myself, and never was, I do have a strong interest in social and political matters. My husband is a former politician , and we don't always agree completely, so we have some quite lively discussions at the dinner table.
Are students in Minsk often engaged in some sort of political movement?
Hello. I'm a passional believer that people shouldn't be crazy about the idea of helping other nations. Of course it's extremely important to support the poorest population of the planet, but this humanitarian assistance shouldn't be like a TV show. \If some people feel that they could help others, please do it, but do not make a show and global cultural expantion.
Belarus is not a democratic country. The majority of the students are opposite to the modern political regime. Our independent political parties are too weak, because the soviet traditions are still in power. All the official public organisations provide soviet ideology.
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