Minister Piet Hein Donner is not kow towing to the PVV. His integration bill is the result of decades of moral disqualification of immigrants by society, the judiciary included. At the same time citizenship and tolerance are being held up as virtues. That is the Dutch dilemma says Ruben Gowricharn professor of social cohesion and transnational issues at Tilburg University.

It has been said before: the multicultural society is not an experiment and therefore cannot be said to fail. It has not been planned, like the welfare state. Cultural diversity is a phenomenon that has always been with us. In the Netherlands this diversity still shows in the remnants of the ‘zuilenmaatschappij’, a society structured according to different religious beliefs, and in the heterogeneity of local cultures and variety of city based cultures. But what we now call the multicultural society is different in one important aspect: it is made up of several minority groups, small in number, dispersed and, in many ways, socially and politically defenceless.
When we speak about the multicultural society we are not just talking about the non native population but more specifically about immigrants congregating in groups, a development that started during sixties and seventies. In those days the Netherlands was leaving its ‘zuilen’ behind and with that came individualism and secularisation, a process diametrically opposed to what was happening in the immigrant population.
The solution to this was assimilation, individualism and national unity. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if the historians of the future write that the political elite of the day was exorcising its own past.
Rhetoric
Ever since Dutch society has become more or less secular, the multicultural society has become synonymous with ‘division’. Donner’s rejection of the multicultural society is not about the PVV. It has been around much longer and other European leaders have done the same. What their rhetoric has in common is the suggestion that ethnic minorities refuse to integrate and an appeal to tribal feelings among the native population that has resulted in nationalism.
Indonesian Dutch, Surinamese, Turks, Chinese and Antilleans, Moroccans and Somalians have all had ‘beginners’ problems’ before integrating successfully. And yet, in spite of this, the link between immigrants and social problems has persisted, hidden at first but from the economic crisis of the eighties more openly. A whole generation of Dutch people has been raised to believe that immigrants are walking social problems. This has become a national reflex which has resulted in a doubtful cost benefit analysis of these walking social problems.
This is not new either. At the beginning of the eighties an increase of unemployment among immigrant workers resulted in lower benefits. By the end of the eighties immigrants wanted financial support to build their own mosques, a prerogative that Christian organisations had had for years. It was quickly abolished.
Jealous disapproval
All kinds of support to integration bit the dust: free swimming lessons, language courses and public information translated into various languages met with the jealous disapproval of the native population and was only grudging allowed. It has become an unwritten but consistently applied rule that as soon as a relatively large number of immigrants are seen to be using a public amenity it is destined for the scrap heap, always with the excuse of ‘ the economic crisis’.
So Donner’s cutbacks do not come as a surprise. The continuous moral disqualification makes it easier to implement spending cuts.
It doesn’t stop there. Over the last decades immigrants have also been ‘downgraded’, i.e. they have been told that they are from non democratic cultures, that women and gays are discriminated against in their countries and that their culture is backward. It certainly doesn’t measure up to the superior European culture. Cultural superiority, so prevalent in colonial times, seems to be back trailing assimilation in its wake. At the same time equal citizenship, tolerance and openness are being upheld as virtues. It is the Dutch dilemma.
Judiciary
It is not just parliament that can be held responsible for turning immigrants into second rate citizens. The judiciary too has consistently sided with politicians who derive pleasure from insulting them. The goal posts marking what right wing politicians are allowed to say have been moved. Judges don’t seem to realise that they are legitimising polarisation and undermining the faith of immigrants in this country’s judicial system. The judiciary is no longer a beacon in a society in turmoil. Lady Justice maybe blindfolded but she has a good nose for power.
Response
The most remarkable thing is the lack of response from the side of the immigrants. Their political and moral marginalisation has not lead to fury or letters to newspapers. Have they lost their faith in power of the vote? Or are they unable to cross swords with the powers that be? Time will tell.

This is an unofficial translation