So if the Danes are so happy, why would they be so gloomy? I think the reason is that they are afraid of strangers, particularly of Muslims. Typically, when you listen to Danish news, they will tell you that an Arab man or an immigrant youth has robbed a grocery story or mugged an old lady in the street. Swedish news will never say that. In Sweden, TV and radio will report that a grocery store was robbed or that an old lady was mugged, but they will never say that the perpetrator was an immigrant.

Anyway, the fact that Danish news keeps reporting that immigrants and Arabs commit all sorts of crimes against the Danish society means that many Danes feel threatened and scared. Because of that, Danes hit back against the Muslim world in ways which sometimes backfire rather badly. One example was the Mohammed cartoons, which were published in a Danish newspaper and which led to violent protests in large parts of the Arab world:

[Linked Image]

Ann