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Liberal Netherlands Grows Less So On Immigration
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| imokruok |
From my short time living in Europe a few years ago, I've seen the very problems with which this article discusses. It's nice to see that the Dutch (and other nations, like Denmark) are waking up to the realities of mass immigration by people who have no desire to work or share in the native society.
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After a report projecting a majority nonnative population by 2017, Rotterdam voted this month to limit poor newcomers.
By Jennifer Ehrlich | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
December 19, 2003
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - Within sight of this port city's historic soccer stadium, the largest mosque in Europe is going up. When complete, its 164-foot-high minarets will tower over the arena.
A decade ago, few would have objected to such a large Islamic imprint. But now, worried that the mosque is sharpening ethnic tensions in the city's working-class Dutch neighborhood, city leaders are calling for a design that is "less Arabic."
"There's no reason the minarets have to be that high - it will not be Rotterdam; it will be Mecca on the Maas (river)," said Ronald Sorenson, leader of Leefbaar Rotterdam (Livable Rotterdam), the largest party in the city council.
The controversy is emblematic of larger concerns in the Netherlands that the growing immigrant population - which is mostly Muslim - will dominate more than a skyline. In a nation known for its liberal views and openness, the days of multicultural tolerance may be fading as residents question the numbers of foreigners and the social-welfare costs of integrating them.
Earlier this month, citing a need to restore long-term balance in a city projected to have a majority-immigrant population within 15 years, Rotterdam's city council approved restrictions to close the door to poor and unemployed newcomers.
"It is as if the Netherlands has realized that they are a multicultural society, and are beginning to say to themselves - 'Well, we always said we wanted this, but now we have second thoughts,' " says Jan Niessen, director of the independent Migration Policy Group in Brussels. "The time of formulating nice policies about multiculturalism is over."
The move came after a report from the Dutch government research bureau Centrum Voor Underzoek and Statistiek, which forecast that, by 2017, almost 60 percent of Rotterdam's 600,000 population will be nonnative. Now, almost half of the population in the city - the nation's second-largest - was born outside Holland.
Rotterdam's decision, which is likely to face court challenges, is extreme among immigration policies in Europe. Still, it reflects an increasingly less friendly attitude on the Continent toward immigrants.
Under the new policy, only newcomers earning at least 20 percent more than minimum wage (or about $11.15 per hour) will receive a residency permit from the city. Rotterdam has also asked that for four years the national government send no more political refugees its way. The city also plans to step up deportations of illegal immigrants and to try to stop immigrants from bringing in migrant spouses.
The main national Dutch opposition parties blasted the plan as discriminatory. Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk has criticized the plans as unrealistic, saying that Rotterdam cannot refuse entry to newcomers whom the federal government has recognized as refugees or to whom it has given a residency permit.
But city leaders estimate that Rotterdam receives 60 percent of all new immigrants to the Netherlands, and that it simply cannot cope with the housing expenses and other social-welfare costs of absorbing more. Meanwhile, city leaders say middle-class Dutch residents are leaving the city because of rising crime rates and deteriorating neighborhoods. While crime records are not kept according to ethnicity, Dutch police and government officials have publicly linked a rise in crime to immigrants, particularly youth gangs.
Recent surveys show that 62 percent of Rotterdam residents support limiting immigration. The city's non-European population has risen over the past decade, in part because of the arrival of spouses from the old country - and robust birth rates. A recent government study in Rotterdam showed that the average birth rate for Moroccan women is nearly four times that of the Dutch rate of just over one child.
The Netherlands has no quota system for accepting immigrants. The cost of sending a new arrival through the required "integration program," which includes job training and Dutch lessons, can reach almost $7,500 per person.
It's no coincidence that a blunter policy toward immigrants originated in Rotterdam. The dominant Livable Rotterdam party rode to power in local elections in March 2002 on the popularity of Pim Fortuyn, a leader who promoted the slogan "Holland is full." He was murdered by an animal rights activist two months later, on the eve of general elections that he was expected to win by a landslide. But the debate he sparked about immigration continues to influence political life in Holland.
"There are too many people coming here who don't want to work. Before long there will be more foreigners than Dutch people, and Dutch people won't be the boss of their own country," says L�on, a white Rotterdam window cleaner who wants to be identified only by his first name. "That's why this has to be stopped."
The feeling among many ethnic minorities is that the policy is not about economics, but race. "There are a lot of people who feel that there are a lot of people of color on the street - and that is disturbing," says Suzanne, a Rotterdam resident of Indonesian descent who prefers to be quoted by first name. "But, that's the way the world is now, and there is no changing that."
Sorenson says the new policy is "pragmatic," not racist, and is aimed at reversing urban blight. Part of the council's plan is to shift from building affordable housing to upscale housing, to attract wealthier families and their tax contributions.
Previous Dutch policy has focused on educating migrants - most were "guest workers" from Turkey or Morocco - rather than penalizing them. In the 1990s, the Dutch government created programs to integrate the initially temporary immigrants, but they were underfunded and voluntary. In 1998, Holland passed a tougher plan, requiring immigrants to attend Dutch-language classes and receive job training. But 20 percent dropped out, most did not learn basic Dutch, and there was no follow-up for vocational opportunities, says a report from the Migration Policy Group.
Some immigrant-rights groups warn that Rotterdam's policy signals a growing polarization in Holland. "[The city] shouldn't have made immigrants the scapegoat. There was way too much us and them in this plan," says project leader Anil Ciftci of the Rotterdam group Delmatur.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1219/p07s01-woeu.htm
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| nic01445 |
| my last name is netherland. |
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| NYCTrancefan |
| Can't wait for the E.U fatcats in Brussels to step in and accuse the Dutch of having a discriminatory policy should they attempt to do something in regards to immigration. After all the UNHCR has launched its critic of Australia for the reluctance of it to allow illegals into the country. Sure way to curb all those boatloads of people from coming to your nation via (smugglers). As for the Dutch, the Randstadt especially and the Netherlands as a whole already has a high population density so the last thing they need is more immigration in its current form. Could you imagine if the U.S. was in the Middle of Europe, China and India would have nothing on us population wise, food for thought;) |
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| occrider |
| Personally I see no reason why the Netherlands cannot limit its immigration however it wants. After all, participating members/voters of a society make the decisions for society that affect the welfare of that society. If they want to limit the influx of poor people such that those existing poor members of society aren't hurt, than what's bad about that? As long as the policy isn't racist it sounds good to me. I guess the Netherlands can't be liberal about everything :) |
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| MrSquirrel |
Ok..it is obvious I have a horrid headache....I though the title read "Liberal Neanderthals Grow Less So on Immigration". :eyes:
I need to seek help now.
:nervous:
MrS |
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| occrider |
Thought this was an interesting followup article to this thread:
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Dutch are 'polarised' says report
By Angus Roxburgh
BBC News Online, Amsterdam
The Netherlands' example as a successful, tolerant, multicultural community has taken a dent with the publication of a parliamentary report saying Dutch society is becoming increasingly polarised, with huge ethnic ghettos and subcultures tearing the country apart.
It is an issue which has been simmering away for years, but only made the headlines two years ago when the radical politician Pim Fortuyn, who was later assassinated, called for an end to immigration.
He said immigration, especially from Muslim countries, was diluting Dutch liberal values.
The increase in the number of Muslims is raising concerns in some countries
Now the all-party parliamentary report has reached a similar conclusion. It says the attempt to create an integrated multi-ethnic society has failed.
While most immigrants had integrated well, it said, there were also growing ghettos of foreigners from countries such as Turkey and Morocco.
Even Dutch-born "foreigners" tend to marry within their own communities and find spouses in their parents' home countries.
The report blamed successive Dutch governments for what had previously been seen as a positive policy designed to make life easier for immigrants - allowing them to be taught in their native languages at primary school.
This had merely perpetuated their alienation and prevented them from integrating into Dutch society properly, it said.
In what would mark a reversal of a 30-year-old policy, the report recommended that the country's Muslims should henceforth effectively "become Dutch".
Dutch test
The city of Rotterdam, where almost half the population is of non-Dutch origin (and where Mr Fortuyn had his biggest following), has already pre-empted the report by bringing in measures to prevent the influx of more immigrants.
At the end of last year it sought to keep out poor immigrants by stipulating that newcomers must earn 20% more than the minimum wage. All applicants for a residence permit would have to demonstrate a good command of Dutch.
And no more political refugees would be accepted for four years.
Although the Dutch report deals broadly with "immigrants" and their effect on Dutch society, there is no doubt that it is Muslim immigrants who are seen as posing the biggest problem.
In this, there are similarities with France, where current moves to ban "religious symbols" in schools and public places are aimed primarily at banning the headscarf worn by many Muslim women.
Opinion surveys all over Europe have detected growing public distrust of Islam in the two years since the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.
The US-led "war on terror" has been largely aimed at Islamist groups, inadvertently encouraging public perceptions of Muslims as being "incompatible" with Western society.
In the Netherlands (and elsewhere) there is talk of trying to create a "European" form of Islam - basically a secularised version, where private religious beliefs are tolerated but not any manifestations of Islam which undermine European laws and customs.
Integration
There is now a lively debate across Europe over whether assimilation or integration or multiculturalism is the most desirable way forward.
Holland seems to be lurching from the multicultural option - in which immigrants keep their own languages and cultures, at the risk of becoming ghettoised - to a policy of assimilation, by which newcomers lose all trace of their original identity and become indistinguishable from their "host" nation other than by the colour of their skin.
In the middle is the option of integration - practised with some success in the UK - whereby immigrants retain their distinct cultures but are also encouraged to become part of the general community.
With Belgium now also considering a headscarf ban, there appears to be a growing trend towards assimilation. It's a process that's already caused a storm among Islamic communities in Europe and abroad, and may be fraught with as many problems as the "opposite" policy of multiculturalism.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the UK's Commission for Racial Equality, says the real enemy of integration is inequality: "The more we keep people unequal, the more they are likely to say, 'This society doesn't want us, it discriminates against us,' (and) they fall into the hands of extremists."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3417429.stm
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So which is the correct way? A multiculturism approach such as the US/Canada? Integration such as the UK? Or assimilation as in much of Europe? Interesting to see much of Europe start to go through this process after the US has had somewhat of a head start in the clash of cultures. |
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| LiquidX |
| In general you see alot of descrimination all over Europe. Especially UK, Germany, France, Netherlands and such.. dont even mention you are an american there, as well with the Jews. So.. no surprise to me, been seen this type of things for a while taking place there. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | | Originally posted by occrider Integration such as the UK? |
i think that's the way to go, even though that's perhaps the hardest way.... |
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| Dj O'Callaghan |
There is major problems with immigrants in Europe. I live in the UK and recently in the newspaper its had about Roma Gypsies planning to flock over here in their thousands the government need to do something about it.
We have enough problems with Eastern Europeans there is constent fights going on between them and British white & black people, I feel they don't want to contribute to this country and if they want to sit on there arse and not work then its simple the government should fly them back to albania and throw the ******s out of a cargo plane.
I'm a son of an immagrant and when my grandparents came over here they worked their ing arses off. My grandfather would go to work at 5 am still drunk work through to 6 at night still pay his taxes and bills he earned his right to be here.
With these new immigrants though most of which are Eastern Europeans a small minority bother to find jobs they earn more money then a lot of people who work, and yes people like me who work and pay our taxes get ed off.
The British government rant on about terrorism, when they allow tons of dodgy ing Algerians and every month you see an article in the newspaper about 6 Algerian terrorists being arrested in London, Birmingham or Manchester it takes the ing piss.
I have no problems with immigrants I just think the Uk needs to let in people who work, not benefit recievers we have enough already. The government should give priority to residents of former British colonies the Jamicians all work, Zimbabwians all work, the Aussies work who all move here, they contribute to country.
Stricter Immigration laws are needed. |
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