Muslims feeling less religious, more Danish

There are fewer strictly religious immigrants in Denmark, and more who feel Danish. The distance between the political debate and reality is incraseing, researchers claim.
While the government is dealing with the burka ban which had come to notion and is increasing requirements for foreigners who want permanent residence in Denmark, integration is going ahead, according to new data from the Catinét analysis institute, which researched a big group of refugees and immigrants regarding their relationship to religion and Danish-ness. Religion is taking up less space, and the percent of immigrants who feel Danish is increasing, the data shows.
Indeed the distance between the political debate and reality among immigrants is increasing, professor and integration researcher Ulf Hedetoft of Copenhagen University thinks.
"Thers is a very weak link between reality and the very marginalizing debate, in politics and in the media. Often with an unbalanced focus on individual cases," says Ulf Hedetoft, who is also head of the Nordic Migration Research, an association for researching immigration to the Nordic countries.
According to the study, the percent of immigrant who don't feel Danish at all, dropped from 30% in 2005 to under 20% in 2009. More and more feel both Danish and foreign or mainly Danish.
And regarding religion - about 80% of the participants were Muslims - the percentage who describe themselves as "most possibly religious" dropped from 19.8% to 10% in that period. At the same time, the groups of "least possibly religious" and "only a bit religious" grew.

Source: Islam in Europe and Kristeligt Dagblad (in danish)