Multiculturalism in the Netherlands
Encyclopedia
Multiculturalism
in the Netherlands began with a major increases in immigration during the 1950s and 60s. As a consequence, an official national policy of multiculturalism was adopted in the early 1980s. This policy subsequently gave way to more assimilationist policies in the 1990s. Following the murders of Pim Fortuyn
(in 2002) and Theo van Gogh
(in 2004) the political debate on the role of multiculturalism in the Netherlands reached new heights.
Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, distinguishes between tolerance and multiculturalism, and says that the Netherlands is a tolerant, rather than multicultural, society.
The current right-wing cabinet recently said the Netherlands is going to take distance of Multicultural ideas about a multicultural society. "Dutch culture, norms and values must be dominant" Minister Donner
said.
Multiculturalism was adopted as a policy by the Netherlands in the 1980s. In 1983 a "Ethnic Minorities Policy" was adopted. The anti-immigration Centrumpartij
had occasional electoral successes since 1982, but its leader Hans Janmaat
was ostracized, and fined for his discriminatory statements and promotion of ethnic cleansing.
The Netherlands has now attracted international attention for the extent to which it reversed its previous multiculturalist policies, and its policies on cultural assimilation have been described as the toughest in Europe.
on the issue: Western culture, the Rechtsstaat
(rule of law), and human rights
are superior to non-Western culture and values. They are the product of the Enlightenment
. Cliteur sees non-Western cultures not as merely different but as anachronistic. He sees multiculturalism primarily as an unacceptable ideology of cultural relativism
, which would lead to acceptance of barbaric practices, including those brought to the Western World by immigrants. Cliteur lists infanticide
, torture
, slavery
, oppression of women, homophobia
, racism, anti-Semitism, gangs, female genital cutting
, discrimination by immigrants, suttee, and the death penalty. Cliteur compares multiculturalism to the moral acceptance of Auschwitz, Stalin, Pol Pot
and the Ku Klux Klan
.
Cliteur's 1999 work is indicative of the polemic
tone of the debate in the following years. Most of the "immigrant barbarities" which he names are regularly cited by opponents of multiculturalism, sometimes as a reductio ad absurdum
, but also as factual practices of immigrants in the Netherlands.
In 2000, Paul Scheffer
— a member of the PvdA (Labour Party)
and subsequently a professor of urban studies — published his essay "The multicultural tragedy", an essay critical of both immigration
and multiculturalism. Scheffer is a committed supporter of the nation-state
, assuming that homogeneity and integration are necessary for a society: the presence of immigrants undermines this. A society does have a finite "absorptive capacity" for those from other cultures, he says, but this has been exceeded in the Netherlands. Specifically:
Scheffer approvingly quoted the Dutch sociologist J.A.A. van Doorn as saying that the presence of immigrants in the Netherlands had "put the clock back" by 100 or 150 years. The high immigration rate and the lack of integration threatened society, and must be stopped. His essay had a great impact, and led to what became known as the "integration debate". As in the essay, this was not simply about multiculturalism, but about immigration, Islam, the national identity, and national unity.
In 2002, the legal scholar Afshin Ellian, a refugee from Iran, advocated a monocultural Rechtsstaat
in the Netherlands. A liberal democracy cannot be multicultural, he argued, because multiculturalism is an ideology
and a democracy has no official ideology. What is more, according to Ellian, a democracy
must be monolingual. The Dutch language
is the language of the constitution
, and therefore it must be the only public language — all others must be limited to the private sphere. The Netherlands, he wrote, had been taken hostage by the left-wing multiculturalists, and their policy was in turn determined by the Islamic conservatives. Ellian stated that there were 800 000 Muslims in the country, with 450 mosques, and that the Netherlands had legalised the "feudal system of the Islamic Empire". Democracy and the rule of law could only be restored by abolishing multiculturalism.
of the Netherlands. He was assassinated during the 2002 Dutch national election campaign
by a militant animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf
, who claimed in court to murdering Fortuyn to stop him exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" in seeking political power. His supporters saw him as a national martyr
in the struggle against islamisation.
Following Fortuyn's death, open rejection of multiculturalism and immigration ceased to be taboo
. The new cabinet, under premier Jan-Peter Balkenende instituted a hard-line assimilation policy, enforced by fines and deportation
, accompanied by far tighter controls on immigration and asylum
. Many former supporters of multiculturalism shifted their position. In a 2006 manifesto "one country, one society", several of them launched an appeal for a homogeneous society.
. Her first criticisms of multiculturalism paralleled those of the early liberal-feminist
critics in the United States — the emphasis on group identity and group rights diminished individual liberty for those within the minorities, and especially for women. As time went on, her criticism was increasingly directed at Islam itself, and its incompatibility with democracy and Western culture. By 2004 she was the most prominent critic of Islam in Europe
. When she scripted a short film on Islamic oppression of women, featuring texts from the Quran on the naked bodies of women, its director Theo van Gogh
was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri
. Threatened with death and heavily guarded, she spent most of her time in the United States, and moved to Washington in 2006 to work for the American Enterprise Institute
. In 2006, she also expressed support for the Eurabia
thesis — that Europe is being fully Islamised —, and that its non-Muslim inhabitants will be reduced to dhimmitude
. In a speech for CORE
in January 2007, she declared that Western culture was overwhelmingly superior:
it is a candle in the national colours red-white-blue, in Amsterdam
a Delftware
potato with floral motifs.
There are proposed measures which go much further than these. They typically, but not always, come from firmly right-wing parties and their supporters. Although implementation is not on the political agenda in any EU state, the proposals illustrate the "post-multicultural" climate: a loyalty oath for all citizens, legal prohibition of public use of a foreign language, cessation of all immigration, withdrawal from the European Union
, a compulsory (non-military) national service
; in rare cases a ban on the construction of mosques, closure of all Islamic schools, or a complete ban on Islam.
The Party for Freedom
of anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders
opposed the nomination of two ministers because they had dual nationality. The party subsequently proposed a motion of no confidence
in both ministers. The party doubts their loyalty to the Netherlands, in cases of conflict with their countries of origin (Turkey
and Morocco
). According to an opinion poll more than half the population agrees with the party. Opinion is sharply divided by political party: 96% of Wilders' voters agree with him, and 93% of GreenLeft
voters disagree.
. Muslims in Britain or the Netherlands may occasionally hear that their culture is backward, that Western culture is superior, and that they are obliged to adopt it. In turn, overly-defensive reactions include an increased self-identification as "Muslims", and adoption of Islamic dress
by women and "Islamic" beards by men. Part of the Muslim minority is now hostile to the society they live in, and sympathetic to terrorism
.
In Amsterdam's secondary schools, about half the Moroccan minority does not identify with the Netherlands: they see their identity as "Muslim", and regularly express anti-Western
views but, nevertheless, do not want to return to their historical homeland.
in Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium) and the Netherlands. Both are applied regardless of citizenship
. The renewed emphasis on historical culture places higher demands on cultural assimilation; immigrants may be encouraged to learn, for example, to identify and describe cultural heroes
and historical figures such as Thorbecke and
William of Orange
.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
in the Netherlands began with a major increases in immigration during the 1950s and 60s. As a consequence, an official national policy of multiculturalism was adopted in the early 1980s. This policy subsequently gave way to more assimilationist policies in the 1990s. Following the murders of Pim Fortuyn
Pim Fortuyn
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn was a Dutch politician, civil servant, sociologist, author and professor who formed his own party, Pim Fortuyn List ....
(in 2002) and Theo van Gogh
Theo van Gogh (film director)
Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims...
(in 2004) the political debate on the role of multiculturalism in the Netherlands reached new heights.
Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, distinguishes between tolerance and multiculturalism, and says that the Netherlands is a tolerant, rather than multicultural, society.
The current right-wing cabinet recently said the Netherlands is going to take distance of Multicultural ideas about a multicultural society. "Dutch culture, norms and values must be dominant" Minister Donner
Piet Hein Donner
Jan Pieter Hendrik "Piet Hein" Donner is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal . He is the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations in the Cabinet Rutte since October 14, 2010....
said.
Immigration and opposition to it
After World War II there were three successive waves of major immigration into the Netherlands. The first originated in the former Dutch colonies (such as Indonesia, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles) in the 1950s and 1960s. The second wave originated in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal) and arrived during the mid-1950s, and from Turkey and Morocco during the 1960s. These waves were in the form of labour migration. The third wave consisted of refugees from former East Block countries (such as Hungary) who immigrated since the 1970s and from different countries such as Iran, Iraq, and former Yugoslavia since the mid-1980s.Multiculturalism was adopted as a policy by the Netherlands in the 1980s. In 1983 a "Ethnic Minorities Policy" was adopted. The anti-immigration Centrumpartij
Centre Party (Netherlands)
The Centre Party was a Dutch nationalist extreme right-wing political party espousing an anti-immigrant program. The party was founded by Henry Brookman in 1980, and was represented by Hans Janmaat in the Dutch House of Representatives from 1982, until he was expelled from the party in 1984 and...
had occasional electoral successes since 1982, but its leader Hans Janmaat
Hans Janmaat
Johannes Gerardus Hendrikus "Hans" Janmaat was a Dutch politician of the Centre Party and later his own formed Centre Democrats . He was Parliamentary leader of the Centre Party in the House of Representatives from September 16, 1982 until October 15, 1984 when he was expelled from the party...
was ostracized, and fined for his discriminatory statements and promotion of ethnic cleansing.
The Netherlands has now attracted international attention for the extent to which it reversed its previous multiculturalist policies, and its policies on cultural assimilation have been described as the toughest in Europe.
Demand for unskilled labour
The multicultural policy consensus regarded the presence of immigrant cultural communities as non-problematic, or beneficial. Immigration was not subject to limits on cultural grounds: in practice, the immigration rate was determined by demand for unskilled labour, and later by migration of family members. Gross non-Western immigration was about three million, but many of these later returned. Net immigration, and the higher birth rate of the immigrant communities, have transformed the Netherlands since the 1950s. Although the majority are still ethnic Dutch, in 2006 one fifth of the population was of non-Dutch ethnicity, about half of which were of non-Western origin. Immigration transformed Dutch cities especially: in Amsterdam, 55% of young people are of non-Western origin (mainly Turkish and Moroccan).Intellectual critique
In 1999, the legal philosopher Paul Cliteur attacked multiculturalism in his book The Philosophy of Human Rights. Cliteur rejects all political correctnessPolitical correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
on the issue: Western culture, the Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat is a concept in continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from German jurisprudence, which can be translated as "legal state", "state of law", "state of justice", or "state of rights"...
(rule of law), and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
are superior to non-Western culture and values. They are the product of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. Cliteur sees non-Western cultures not as merely different but as anachronistic. He sees multiculturalism primarily as an unacceptable ideology of cultural relativism
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and...
, which would lead to acceptance of barbaric practices, including those brought to the Western World by immigrants. Cliteur lists infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, oppression of women, homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, racism, anti-Semitism, gangs, female genital cutting
Female genital cutting
Female genital mutilation , also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is defined by the World Health Organization as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."FGM...
, discrimination by immigrants, suttee, and the death penalty. Cliteur compares multiculturalism to the moral acceptance of Auschwitz, Stalin, Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
and the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
.
Cliteur's 1999 work is indicative of the polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
tone of the debate in the following years. Most of the "immigrant barbarities" which he names are regularly cited by opponents of multiculturalism, sometimes as a reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...
, but also as factual practices of immigrants in the Netherlands.
In 2000, Paul Scheffer
Paul Scheffer
Paul Scheffer is a Dutch author, professor at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and member of the Partij van de Arbeid....
— a member of the PvdA (Labour Party)
Labour Party (Netherlands)
The Labour Party , is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Since the 2003 Dutch General Election, the PvdA has been the second largest political party in the Netherlands. The PvdA was a coalition member in the fourth Balkenende cabinet following 22 February 2007...
and subsequently a professor of urban studies — published his essay "The multicultural tragedy", an essay critical of both immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
and multiculturalism. Scheffer is a committed supporter of the nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
, assuming that homogeneity and integration are necessary for a society: the presence of immigrants undermines this. A society does have a finite "absorptive capacity" for those from other cultures, he says, but this has been exceeded in the Netherlands. Specifically:
- a huge influx of people from diverse cultural backgrounds, in combination with multiculturalism, resulted in spontaneous ethnic segregation.
- the Netherlands must take its own language, culture, and history seriously, and immigrants must learn this language, culture, and history.
- multiculturalism and immigration led to adaptation problems such as school drop-out, unemployment, and high crime rates.
- a society which does not respect itself (its Dutch national identity) also has no value for immigrants
- multicultural policy ignored Dutch languageDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
acquisition, which should be a priority in education. - Islam has not yet reformAge of EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
ed itself, and does not accept the separation of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. Some Muslims did not accept the law in AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
because its mayor was Jewish. - immigrants must always lose their own culture - that is the price of immigration, a "brutal bargain" (quote from Norman PodhoretzNorman PodhoretzNorman B. Podhoretz is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary magazine.-Early life:The son of Julius and Helen Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia, Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn...
).
Scheffer approvingly quoted the Dutch sociologist J.A.A. van Doorn as saying that the presence of immigrants in the Netherlands had "put the clock back" by 100 or 150 years. The high immigration rate and the lack of integration threatened society, and must be stopped. His essay had a great impact, and led to what became known as the "integration debate". As in the essay, this was not simply about multiculturalism, but about immigration, Islam, the national identity, and national unity.
In 2002, the legal scholar Afshin Ellian, a refugee from Iran, advocated a monocultural Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat is a concept in continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from German jurisprudence, which can be translated as "legal state", "state of law", "state of justice", or "state of rights"...
in the Netherlands. A liberal democracy cannot be multicultural, he argued, because multiculturalism is an ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
and a democracy has no official ideology. What is more, according to Ellian, a democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
must be monolingual. The Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
is the language of the constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
, and therefore it must be the only public language — all others must be limited to the private sphere. The Netherlands, he wrote, had been taken hostage by the left-wing multiculturalists, and their policy was in turn determined by the Islamic conservatives. Ellian stated that there were 800 000 Muslims in the country, with 450 mosques, and that the Netherlands had legalised the "feudal system of the Islamic Empire". Democracy and the rule of law could only be restored by abolishing multiculturalism.
Political reaction
Overturning the political stability of the 1990s, Fortuyn came close to being prime ministerPrime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
of the Netherlands. He was assassinated during the 2002 Dutch national election campaign
Dutch general election, 2002
The General Election to the House of Representatives of the States-General of the Netherlands was held in the Netherlands on May 15, 2002....
by a militant animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf
Volkert van der Graaf
Volkert van der Graaf is known for assassinating the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn on 6 May 2002 during the political campaign. Van der Graaf was an animal rights and environmental activist, founder of a group that worked through litigation...
, who claimed in court to murdering Fortuyn to stop him exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" in seeking political power. His supporters saw him as a national martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
in the struggle against islamisation.
Following Fortuyn's death, open rejection of multiculturalism and immigration ceased to be taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
. The new cabinet, under premier Jan-Peter Balkenende instituted a hard-line assimilation policy, enforced by fines and deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
, accompanied by far tighter controls on immigration and asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
. Many former supporters of multiculturalism shifted their position. In a 2006 manifesto "one country, one society", several of them launched an appeal for a homogeneous society.
Feminist opposition
The most prominent figure in the post-Fortuyn debate of the issue was Ayaan Hirsi AliAyaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
. Her first criticisms of multiculturalism paralleled those of the early liberal-feminist
Liberal feminism
Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices...
critics in the United States — the emphasis on group identity and group rights diminished individual liberty for those within the minorities, and especially for women. As time went on, her criticism was increasingly directed at Islam itself, and its incompatibility with democracy and Western culture. By 2004 she was the most prominent critic of Islam in Europe
Islam in Europe
This article deals with the history and evolution of the presence of Islam in Europe. According to the German , the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 was about 53 million , excluding Turkey. The total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 was about 16 million .-Early history:Islam...
. When she scripted a short film on Islamic oppression of women, featuring texts from the Quran on the naked bodies of women, its director Theo van Gogh
Theo van Gogh (film director)
Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims...
was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri
Mohammed Bouyeri
Mohammed Bouyeri is an Islamist Dutch–Moroccan and convicted murderer. He is currently serving a life sentence without parole for the assassination of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. He holds both Dutch and Moroccan citizenship...
. Threatened with death and heavily guarded, she spent most of her time in the United States, and moved to Washington in 2006 to work for the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
. In 2006, she also expressed support for the Eurabia
Eurabia
Eurabia is a conspiracy theory about the alleged Arabization and Islamization of Europe, and the European leaders' alleged capitulation to Islamic influences.-Origin of the term:...
thesis — that Europe is being fully Islamised —, and that its non-Muslim inhabitants will be reduced to dhimmitude
Dhimmitude
Dhimmitude is a neologism first found in French denoting an attitude of concession, surrender and appeasement towards Islamic demands. It is derived by adding the productive suffix -tude to the Arabic language adjective dhimmi, which literally means protected and refers to a non-Muslim subject of a...
. In a speech for CORE
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
in January 2007, she declared that Western culture was overwhelmingly superior:
... my dream is that those lucky enough to be born into a culture of "ladies first" will let go of the myth that all cultures are equal. Human beings are equal; cultures are not.
Patriotic measures
Some of the measures, especially those seeking to promote patriotic identification, include: In the Netherlands, the naturalisation ceremony includes a gift symbolising national unity. In GoudaGouda
Gouda is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for its Gouda cheese, smoking pipes, and 15th-century city hall....
it is a candle in the national colours red-white-blue, in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
a Delftware
Delftware
Delftware, or Delft pottery, denotes blue and white pottery made in and around Delft in the Netherlands and the tin-glazed pottery made in the Netherlands from the 16th century....
potato with floral motifs.
There are proposed measures which go much further than these. They typically, but not always, come from firmly right-wing parties and their supporters. Although implementation is not on the political agenda in any EU state, the proposals illustrate the "post-multicultural" climate: a loyalty oath for all citizens, legal prohibition of public use of a foreign language, cessation of all immigration, withdrawal from the European Union
European Union withdrawal
Withdrawal from the European Union is a right of European Union member states under TEU Article 50: "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements." No state has ever withdrawn, though some dependent territories or semi-autonomous...
, a compulsory (non-military) national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
; in rare cases a ban on the construction of mosques, closure of all Islamic schools, or a complete ban on Islam.
The Party for Freedom
Party for Freedom
The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...
of anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
opposed the nomination of two ministers because they had dual nationality. The party subsequently proposed a motion of no confidence
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
in both ministers. The party doubts their loyalty to the Netherlands, in cases of conflict with their countries of origin (Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
). According to an opinion poll more than half the population agrees with the party. Opinion is sharply divided by political party: 96% of Wilders' voters agree with him, and 93% of GreenLeft
GreenLeft
GreenLeft is a green political party operating in the Netherlands.GreenLeft was formed on 1 March 1989 as a merger of four left-wing political parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the Evangelical People's Party...
voters disagree.
Likelihood of polarization
Although such policies often have the stated aim of reviving national unity, one result has been an increased polarizationPolarization (politics)
In politics, polarization is the process by which the public opinion divides and goes to the extremes. It can also refer to when the extreme factions of a political party gain dominance in a party. In either case moderate voices often lose power and influence as a consequence.-Definitions of...
. Muslims in Britain or the Netherlands may occasionally hear that their culture is backward, that Western culture is superior, and that they are obliged to adopt it. In turn, overly-defensive reactions include an increased self-identification as "Muslims", and adoption of Islamic dress
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
by women and "Islamic" beards by men. Part of the Muslim minority is now hostile to the society they live in, and sympathetic to terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
.
In Amsterdam's secondary schools, about half the Moroccan minority does not identify with the Netherlands: they see their identity as "Muslim", and regularly express anti-Western
Anti-Western sentiment
Anti-Western sentiment refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, or governments in the western world. In many cases the United States, Israël and the United Kingdom are the subject of discussion or hostility...
views but, nevertheless, do not want to return to their historical homeland.
New terms for minorities
New terms for minorities of immigrant descent have come into use: the term allochtoonAllochtoon
Allochtoon is a Dutch word , literally meaning "originating from another country"...
in Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium) and the Netherlands. Both are applied regardless of citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
. The renewed emphasis on historical culture places higher demands on cultural assimilation; immigrants may be encouraged to learn, for example, to identify and describe cultural heroes
Culture hero
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery...
and historical figures such as Thorbecke and
William of Orange
William the Silent
William I, Prince of Orange , also widely known as William the Silent , or simply William of Orange , was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. He was born in the House of...
.