We make a habit of idealising Scandinavia. Living in Britain, a country of damp sandwiches, dilapidated housing and extortionate gas bills, makes it easy to fantasise about places like Denmark, with its generous welfare state and 37-hour working week. We laud its social philosophies, binge on its politics as dramatised by TV’s Borgen.
The idealised version of this looks like a social democratic utopia in which the state takes care of your worries. It does not look like the experiences of Muhammad Aslam, a taxi driver I spoke to recently while visiting Denmark. Aslam’s story is one that proponents of the Nordic model do not want you to hear. It reveals a darker side to this cosy ideal. And it shows that when the state considers you an outsider, its generous provisions can be swiftly withdrawn and something dystopian can take their place.
