Amid Rise of Multiculturalism, Dutch Confront Questions of Identity

[alp227]

In Slotervaart, a majority immigrant neighborhood in southwestern Amsterdam, Maria Kuhlman and her friends watched Muslim families stroll by on a Ramadan afternoon, some of the men in robes and beards, the women wearing headscarves. A large blond woman shouted, “Go Wilders!”

Mr. Wilders’ Freedom Party, which combines racist language with calls for more social spending, won 15.5 percent of the vote in June 2010. He was recently acquitted of charges of hate speech for comparing the Koran to “Mein Kampf” and calling mosques “palaces of hatred.” He wants all immigrants and their children deported and warns of the supposed Muslim plot to create “Eurabia.” He declined repeated interview requests.

While many Dutch recoil at his language, he touches on real fears. “Sometimes I’m afraid of Islam,” Ms. Kuhlman said. “They’re taking over the neighborhood and they’re very strong. I don’t love Wilders. He’s a pig, but he says what many people think.”

(...)

Ms. Kuhlman has lived in the Slotervaart neighborhood for 36 years but says, “I no longer feel at home.” Built in the 1950s, Slotervaart is now about 60 percent immigrants or their children, most from Morocco or Turkey. Crime rates are high, especially among the second generation.

She remembered sunbathing topless on her balcony in the 1980s. “It’s inconceivable now,” she said. “Now my next-door neighbor doesn’t even greet me in the hallway, he can’t look at me, and it’s been 28 years,” Ms. Kuhlman said.

Then she laughed bitterly. “He doesn’t work; I work. I work all shifts. I pay taxes. I work for them!”

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/world/europe/14dutch.html?pagewanted=all

[Maccagirl]

1. There are no winners here.

I don't see a solution.

[karnac]

2. This is WHY it is easy to claim an economic/political/ethnic system is superior

to ours. what they are going through, we already HAVE.

And it is STILL a work in progress.

[glowing]

3. Perhaps reaching out and bringing them into the culture would help. Division hurts every country.

Making them one with the country will help them to feel as they have a stake in it's future. Putting them in a box, making employment hard, not embracing the women to enjoy the freedoms the country permits keeps people at a distance from one another. By 3rd or 4 th generation, immigrant families should be assimilated. It takes open minds and hearts and a welcoming attitude fron both sides.

[karnac]

4. Exactly. that's why we should assimilate to their needs instead of the other way around.

Remind them that we will pay to have a stake in THEIR future. Ours be damned.
Put ourselves in a box. make sure they have a job first. Embrace their visions of how women should be treated instead of our own poor misconceptions of what is right. Le THEM decide what freedom actually means. We have lost the right by being unbelievers.

Keep them close so we learn what the Koran actually stands for instead of our own poor conceptions of freedom. If we fail, perhaps our children after such exposure could teach us better.

By the 3rd generation perhaps those that are misguided and cant follow the teachings of Muhammad will have died out or otherwise been disposed of. So it is written. and so will it be.

By then. If there are any heathen left, they shall be left alone. and just be taxed for the privilege. Like the Jews of old. May they be praised for their benevolent understanding of their adjudication.

[glowing]

6. I think you took what I said and meant and flipped it on its head.

I meant that immigrants assimilate into the country they have immigrated too. Obviously they left their country of origin because they were unhappy there. Now, they are in a modern, western world where it may be better, but people hate them... So, they cling to their old norms, rather than embrace the new country they have come to.

Having an open mind and heart helps. Education programs to create a population that enhances the region. Community events that welcome friendship. The fastest way to progress a family is normally to get the woman of the family... Make friends, take her shopping, show her modern quick conveniences, take her to lunch, and invite her into your home to show her what it looks like to have freedoms in the new country, and that the new country will protect her freedoms.. she does not have to "take it" lying down.

Sadly, war mongering and globalism has kept areas from advancing and in some cases throwing them down a rabbit hole. Afghanistan was more modern 30yrs ago than it is now thanks to Taliban. And if immigration is becoming a large drain, then the country may want to revisit its immigration policy.

Perhaps, the worlds of the nation should actually stand up to tyranny, extremism within religion that keeps people supressed. If no nation would trade or exchange goods with a country (no matter how rich in oil) if that country didn't embrace equality and justice for its people, they would either become secluded quickly or embrace policy changes to work for their people.. However, I'm not sure how you would decide these things because the United States is being held hostage by loony toon, right wing people who think God speaks to them.

Its a social issue. Its erasing lines within the modern world and trying to figure out how to live with one another, not step on one another's toes, but also continue to advance the country bound by those invisible lines drawn by man on a map. God didn't create a map and give it Moses. Men fight wars and land squirmishes and Visa's and rules. With globalization, we need some new rules for the road; otherwise people are going to get squashed (which we see now).

[provis99]

5. If they didn't want immigrants, why did they let them in?

Sometimes I think the Europeans are as clueless as us.

[Igel]

7. Several reasons.

First, some are refugees, economic or political. To exclude them is to be inhumane, harsh, nasty, brutish. Can't have that.

Second, many aren't invited. Once they're there for economic reasons, to exclude them or deport them is racist, intolerant, inhuman, harsh, nasty, brutish. Can't have that.

Third, many are invited. Once a woman or man is here, you can't exclude their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc. To do that is racist, intolerant, inhuman, yada-yada.

Fourth, a lot were brought into to Europe because of colonialism. Once in, they can move. Others were allowed in when it was assumed their numbers would be small, they'd assimilate and adapt. In many cases they didn't. Instead, their numbers grew.

Then there are the workers that are needed, college graduates that have useful skills, wives/husbands of Dutch.

Sounds a lot like the US, to be honest. What's different is that it is actually not as hard to not assimilate in most Western countries as it is in some others. If you're different in the West, it's multicultural, diverse; some cretins are racists, ethnocentric. In other countries, it's a really different thing: you get no defenders, presumably nearly 100% of the population are racist, ethnocentric. The "liberals" talk about preserving the culture, and are supported by some liberals in the West. And the ultra-racists.