XPost: alt.religion.islam, soc.culture.canada, soc.culture.british   
   XPost: soc.culture.france   
   From: zorlak@praisezorlak.com   
      
   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."   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)