I don’t feel foreign at all in Denmark. Of course I have had some bad experiences with Danish people, but I have also had bad experiences with other nationalities. It is not really about Denmark or Danes but about the individual person.

I need the freedom to be myself. I want to listen to the music I like, and I want to look like I want to. I refuse to restrain myself just because I stand out from the crowd. Here in Copenhagen, I do feel at home.

I have dyed my hair and I also have tattoos. A lot of people think I have distanced myself from the Iraqi culture, but for me it is an expression of my
newfound freedom.

I am a metal freak, and I also play in a metal band. My music means everything to me. When I lived in Iraq, I spent years and a small fortune on buying the kind of music I like. But it was well worth it. I
feel completely happy when I am playing music. I will never forget the first time I visited the music library in Odense. I had only just arrived in Denmark, but I thought I had arrived in heaven. I borrowed as much sheet music as I was allowed to and copied them all, because I feared that it was an awesome dream I might wake up from. I just couldn’t understand that it was real.

Music has also helped me make friends here in Denmark. Just when I arrived I had a neighbour who didn’t speak English, and I couldn’t speak Danish, so we communicated through music, and we would often sit and jam together.

Allan Alansari / male / in a relationship / children / educated petroleum engineer from Iraq and a masters degree from ITU /self-employed web
designer / Copenhagen NV / from Iraq / came to Denmark in 1999 / residence permit in 2000

I ceased being a refugee when I started school and began to work. I have only ever fled once. But I am 100% foreign. Even if I had been born in Denmark I still wouldn’t be Danish. To be a Dane you have
to look like a Dane, and I just don’t. Most people assume that I come from a small village and that I am not used to modern life, but I come from Damascus, a city with 1,7 million inhabitants. So I haven’t had any difficulties with integrating, and I know I can manage on my own.

After two years in Denmark I got a 12 in Danish at the VUC course.When I left the asylum centre I decided to move to Copenhagen. Three hours after arrival at Copenhagen Central Station I had a job
and three days later my own room.

Most of my family is still in Syria. I fled with my mother, but at the station in Malmö we became separated and I ended up going to Copenhagen while she stayed in Sweden. I miss my family awfully.

In Syria I spent all my time with them or with my friends. I feel a huge void. It has been difficult getting friends here in Copenhagen. Most of my friends are also Syrian refugees and a few from Venligboerne refugee network. But I am young and I like to go out and party. It is not that I don’t meet people when I go out, but it never seems to go
beyond being Facebook friends.

Building a new network as a 26-year old is difficult, inasmuch as most people seem to have a close-knit network, where new friends are often perceived
as a sort of invasion.

Amer Biro / 26 years / male / single / student / Copenhagen NV / from Syria / came to Denmark in 2014 / residence permit same year

I don’t feel foreign. Discussions about integration are often inconsistent, because what are you supposed to be integrated into, and what does it mean to be Danish? I have experienced one Denmark in the Jutland countryside and another Denmark in Copenhagen. Just like Denmark, Danishness is a diverse and complex mass.

When I was 15 I saw my dad being beaten up by a group of Serbian soldiers, and I decided to go to war. The following years I lived with war very close by and with an awareness that life could end any
time. After having been shot in my arm, the doctor who examined me diagnosed me with cancer with only a month to live, but it didn’t touch me. I had become used to the notion of death, and life had no longer any value. I thought about returning and spending the rest of my life fighting. But at the same time I tried to try find treatment abroad,
and I finally ended up in Denmark. Two years later a doctor at the University Hospital in Copenhagen announced that I had recovered and I took another decision.

I would give something in return. Someone had given me a chance. It wasn’t Allah and it wasn’t Jesus. It was the University Hospital. It was the
Danish welfare society. I will rather pay high taxes than being able to afford a fancy car, because I believe in the community, the Danish model, and the welfare society. Unfortunately society seems to develop in a direction with less solidarity, and the most vulnerable are blamed for all the problems
in our society.

Dzevad Ramić / 40 years / male / in a relationship / children / union secretary / Copenhagen S / from Bosnia-Hercegovina / came to Denmark in 1994 / residence permit in 1997

10 years ago I would probably have said that I was zero percent foreign, but today I think I approach 30%. The political climate has changed, xenophobia has become legit, and I see some chilling parallels to the time just before WWII and the wars in Bosnia and Lebanon.

I do not think we will learn from past mistakes. My grandparents emigrated from Palestine and my parents from Lebanon. We came to Denmark by chance, and in our minds we are still refugees, so should the development in Denmark escalate, we are mentally prepared.

I hope that we in ten years’ time have finished talking about refugees and immigrants all the time, so that we can start talking about the real issues. I would like to talk about how we ensure the survival
of the welfare state, and how we ensure a generally well-educated population with a wide horizon and the ability to look beyond their own interests. My high school time has influenced me. It may sound
a bit hippie-like, but I did learn something fundamental about humanrights and various ways of looking at the world, and it made me think
of how we can get people to find strength in diversity.

I consider myself a feminist, and I was on maternity leave for six months with my son. The first few months offer you a chance to get a unique relationship with your child, so I think some of the
time should be earmarked for men.

Some will claim it is not the man’s job to look after children, but man has evolved, and we no longer live like we did a century ago.

Mohamad Ibrahim / 31 years / in a relationship / children / strategic partner / Brøndby Strand / born in a refugee camp in Lebanon / Palestinian
background / came to Denmark via family reunification in 1990

I actually felt more foreign in Syria than I do here. In Syria I was rejected not only by the government but also by the Kurds and the opposition. The Kurds hated me because I did not engage sufficiently in the Kurdish cause. The opposition hated me because I did not believe that Syria’s problems could be solved simply by replacing the
government. And the government hated me because I was constantly critical of it. As I already lived in exile, returning home is not even an
option and it has no meaning. Home is not necessarily where you are born, but where you feel free. Through my literature, I have created
a mental space, which is my home, and which I can enter regardless of where in the world I am.

I worked as a journalist in Syria, but I was expelled from university because of my political activities. I spent 107 days in a prison in Damascus, where my fingers were repeatedly broken during interrogation. Those days became the turning point of my life, and I made a pact with myself that nobody would ever use their power to control me again. I am interested in subjects like Islamophobia, Orientalism and Occidentalism. I want to understand these times in the light of history, and I intend to work artistically and scientifically to change the Western view of the Orient and vice versa.

When Nietzsche declared that God was dead, people started talking about things they had never previously talked about. In the same way I aim to inspire a new debate and create a dialogue which can change established world views. I write to put words to the things people are afraid to talk about.

Jan Pêt Khorto / 30 years / male / in a relationship / writer and political science student / Copenhagen NV / from Syria / Kurdish background / came to Denmark in 2009 / residence permit in 2010

I was a Kurd in Syria and now I am a Kurdish Syrian in Denmark. I am used to feeling foreign. I never tried anything else, so for me that
is the norm.

I left Syria on my own. As a conscientious objector I had lived in hiding for a long time, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before they would find me. So I decided to flee to Europe, where I
got stuck in Greece and spent six months in prison because I didn’t have any identity papers. Those six months were the worst of my life.

It was like living in a tin of sardines, and food was stale and moldy. I would probably still have been there if it hadn’t been for this man I met in prison. I helped him keep his money safe while he was in
prison, and as thanks he helped me get the legal aid that I needed.

When I finally left Greece, I was stopped at Copenhagen Airport. I was terrified and was convinced I would go to prison again. But the
police just smiled and talked nicely to me. Was I hungry? Did I need this and that? But I was too scared to talk to them.

After I got a residence permit I felt very alone. One day I visited the network house here in Gentofte, and it soon became my second home. I used all my
spare time here, and I hated returning to my empty flat.

It was my job to repair the bikes in the house, and it felt nice to be able to contribute with something, to feel useful again. But it wasn’t till I met the woman who was to become my wife that I felt at home again. I miss my own family of course, but I am now starting my own.

Jandill Bshar / 27 years / male / couple / educated economist / craftsman / Gentofte / from Syria / kurdish background / came to Denmark in
2013 / residence permit in 2014