A quote from Danish historian Lars Hedegard at the Snaphanen blogspot, 23 October 2007

The government is currently considering ways to increase immigrants’ participation in the job market. And no doubt the situation is serious. It is estimated that the number of “new Danes” will triple over the next fifteen years, and, if their socioeconomic behaviour is not brought into line with that of the “old Danes”, the welfare state is likely to crumble under the pressure of having to finance a vast third-world population it was never intended to support.

But again, the extent to which these socioeconomic anomalies can be described as Muslim problems is a matter of conjecture. We are basically left to rely on anecdotal evidence. However, it is striking that one never hears of any disproportionate burdens on state coffers caused by the presence of a great number of Buddhist Sri Lankans or Vietnamese, Hindus, Sikhs or Chinese. Nor do we hear stories of second- or third-generation immigrants from these groups filling our prisons.

Even the number of Danish Muslims is unknown. Statistics Denmark does not keep track of religious affiliation, and estimates vary wildly - anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 or more. In May 2006 the now famous daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten estimated the number of Muslims in Denmark to be 207,000 although it didn’t specify the method whereby it came to that figure. However, I am inclined to believe that the number - slightly over 4 percent of the population - is correct. It corresponds well with the figure I reached in August 2004 based on a count of male first names. I came to 191,000 as of January 2004 - a figure that had risen 25 percent since 1998. [...]

There is growing talk of “parallel societies” in Denmark, ie a situation where the country ceases to function as a unitary polity due to the physical, cultural, religious and politico-judicial separation of non-Muslims and Muslims into incompatible, antagonistic enclaves. Such a two-society development would be akin to recent experience in the Balkans and to Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

The other aspect, closely connected to the Muslim disinterest in integration with Danish society, is the realization that vast segments of the Muslim population may not consider themselves as a minority at all, but rather as part of the 1.3 billion strong world umma. Recent anti-Danish animosity over the Mohammed cartoons throughout the Muslim world has probably strengthened many Danish Muslims’ sense that they are part of the worldwide umma, not part of a minority in Denmark.

So increasingly, it appears, the real future minority in Denmark will be the Danes. [...] How will the “old” Danish and nominally Christian population react to this metamorphosis? That will largely depend on what organizing principle will determine the character of the Danish parallel society. Two possibilities stand out: “Danishness” and “Christianity”. The former option would probably entail a society founded on a nationalistic or ethnic myth; the latter model might be more ethnically inclusive and stress society’s Christian roots.

In either case it is difficult to see how the secular state could survive, because parallel societies within the confines of one nominal geographic entity will not be free to define themselves or to determine their own political systems or modes of governance. They will constantly be forced to maneuver in response to “the other’s” long-term objectives and immediate actions - as has been the case in the recent examples of parallel societies such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and the Basque provinces.

Nothing indicates that Denmark is any worse off regarding the harmonious integration of its Muslim population than other European countries, so we shall probably see the same pattern repeated throughout the continent within no more than twenty to thirty years (the 2005 uprising in the French suburbs is likely a harbinger of worse to come).

Under these conditions the modern system of sovereign territorial states could well break down, although it is impossible to predict what might replace it. It seems highly unlikely that a European Union can fill the void if it remains based on state structures that are no longer able to exert sovereignty over their own territory. The territorial states might not even be replaced by anything resembling a permanent structure or order.