From Ethnic Minorities to Ethnic Majority Policy

8/19/2019 From Ethnic Minorities to Ethnic Majority Policy

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From ethnic minorities to ethnic

majority policy: Multiculturalism andthe shift to assimilationism in the

Netherlands

Ellie Vasta

Abstract

Recently in numerous European countries of immigration, there has been

a widespread ‘moral panic’ about immigrants and ethnic diversity. In TheNetherlands, a backlash has occurred in policy and in public discourse,with migrants being blamed for not meeting their responsibility tointegrate and for practising ‘backward religions’. Why is it that a self-defined ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ society demands conformity, compulsionand introduces seemingly undemocratic sanctions towards immigrants in

a move towards assimilationism? These issues are analysed by providingan overview of modes of incorporation of immigrants in the Netherlandsand it presents evidence on the socio-economic situation of immigrants.The article argues that patterns of disadvantage cannot be explainedsolely by the low human capital attributes of the original immigrants. Inspite of multiculturalism, the causes have to be sought in pervasiveinstitutional discrimination and the persistence of a culture of racism.The study argues that a shift to assimilation is more likely to createfurther societal divisions.

Keywords: Cultural diversity; multiculturalism; racism; assimilation; integration

policy; Netherlands.

Introduction

Over the past few years there has been a widespread ‘moral panic’ inEurope about immigration and ethnic diversity. Populist politiciansand some sections of the media have portrayed immigrants as a threat

to security, social cohesion and the welfare system. They claim thatimmigrants refuse to integrate and that governments have lost control.

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In response mainstream political parties and governments have beenmoving away from the multicultural policies introduced in somecountries since the 1970s, which recognize the right to cultural andreligious difference. New policies designed to ensure immigrant

integration even if this involves coercive measures often seemlike a return to old-style policies of assimilation, albeit under a moreacceptable label. The Netherlands poses a particularly poignantpicture because there seems to have been an extreme turn onintegration policy, fuelled by a public outcry that immigrants havenot met ‘their responsibility to integrate’. Attitudes and policieshave moved from a rather liberal to a rather narrow and restrictiveapproach. Since 1998, the Netherlands has introduced a number of compulsory programmes for immigrant newcomers in an attempt to

ensure they integrate into Dutch society and culture to a much greaterdegree than in the past. Legislation currently under considerationwould introduce an even higher degree of coercion, through sanctionsto withhold citizenship from those who do not achieve the expectedcivic and language grades.

Public debate on immigrants and integration has become veryheated. In 2000 journalist Paul Scheffer attracted considerableattention with his claim that the Dutch had been too generous bynot insisting that immigrants learn the Dutch language, culture andhistory (Engbersen 2003, 4). According to this line of thinking, theDutch had ignored basic liberal democratic values in favour of theacceptance of diverse cultural identities which would ultimatelydestroy social cohesion. Populist politician Pim Fortuyn claimed thatthe Netherlands had too many immigrants and that Islam is abackward religion. Matters escalated even further when film-makerTheo Van Gogh was murdered in 2004. Van Gogh was famous for afilm on Muslim women and domestic violence, as well as for hispolemics against Islam. These events have fuelled perceptions of aschism between immigrant Muslims and the ‘native Dutch’1 over basic

democratic values such as freedom of speech and the position of women in Muslim communities. Issues of immigration, asylum andcultural and religious diversity have become highly politicised.

The burning issue, then, is to understand why and how a country,which has institutionalized the acceptance of difference and has areputation for its high levels of ‘tolerance’, can shift from multi-cultural policies to what might be perceived as a coercive andassimilationist policy and public discourse. In other words, how cansuch a ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ society go to the other extreme and

demand conformity, compulsion and seemingly undemocratic sanc-tions against immigrants? Furthermore, why are immigrants beingbl d f ‘l k f ibili ’ i h i i d f

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numerous countries of immigration worldwide. The Netherlands, likemany European countries, is experiencing adverse effects of globaliza-tion, threats to security and a changing political climate. I focus on theNetherlands in this study because the shift appears more extreme than

elsewhere.These changes are based on the idea that pluralist or multicultural

approaches to immigrant incorporation have failed, and that thereasons for this are, first, a misplaced tolerance for cultural differenceon the part of the Dutch, and, second, some immigrants’ deliberaterefusal to embrace Dutch culture, language and values. Taken together,this is thought to lead to a lack of integration of some immigrantgroups (especially non-Europeans and above all Muslims) into thelabour market and in the society generally.

This article will begin by providing a brief overview of modes of incorporation of immigrants in the Netherlands as they developed inthe post war years. Evidence is provided on the institutional margin-alization of immigrants, which shows that such processes cannotbe explained simply on the basis of claims that immigrants lack thenecessary socio-cultural attributes for success. The study will illust-rate that this widespread view is based on an unwillingness torecognize the exclusionary racist practices and structures within Dutchsociety that make it very difficult for immigrants to integrate. I arguethat it is not immigrants’ refusal to integrate or the generous welfarestate that are the core issues, but rather processes of racializationwithin Dutch society an idea largely ignored in dominant politicaland academic discourses. The high levels of unemployment, pooreducational achievement and housing segregation, which are sympto-matic of immigrant marginalization are, in part, the result of a specifictype of discrimination against certain groups, characterized by racial,ethnic and religious markers. Finally, through a discussion of multi-culturalism and assimilation, I show that there is a strong lack of commitment to full immigrant inclusion and participation that feeds

into the structural racism in the labour market, in education and in thepublic discourse.

Models of inclusion in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has experienced successive waves of immigrationwith quite varied characteristics since 1945. Some came from theformer Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) between 1945 and the early1960s. In the 1960s and early 1970s, ‘guestworkers’ were recruited in

Southern Europe, Turkey and Morocco. Also large inflows of peoplecame from Surinam and the Antilles. Since the late 1980s there haveb i fl f f d l k i ll f f

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inflows, the Netherlands has moved from a fairly high level of ethnichomogeneity to a remarkable degree of diversity. By 2003, taking intoaccount children of immigrants, the population of non-Dutch ethnicorigin stood at 3.1 million nearly one in five of the Netherlands’

total population of 16.3 million. The population of ‘non-western’origin (including children of immigrants), stood at 1.7 million in 2003,that is 10.7 per cent of the total population (Snel et al . 2005, Table 5.1.p. 69).

Over this 60-year period, the Netherlands has adopted severalmodels of inclusion consisting of three main approaches (with someoverlap) that correspond with specific policies pillarization ; ethnicminorities policy from 1983; and integration policy which wasintroduced in 1994, but has been revised since.

Pillarization

The Dutch tradition of ‘pillarization’ emerged in the nineteenthcentury as a means of allowing tolerance for groups who maintaineddifferent religious beliefs, especially Catholics and Protestants, byallowing them to create their own institutions. The modern versionmeant that various societal sub-groups could have their own state-sponsored and semi-autonomous institutions for health care, socialwelfare, education etc. This ideology continued well into the period of the ethnic minorities policy. Immigrants could use semi-autonomousinstitutions as a means of preserving their own culture and groupintegrity. Pillarization also ‘incorporated minority elites into the policyprocess . . .’ (Koopmans and Statham 2003, 221).

Ethnic minorities policy

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Dutch realized that immigrantshad come to stay. The 1983 Ethnic Minorities Policy applied to the

Turks, Moroccans, Southern Europeans, Moluccans, Surinamese,Antillians, refugees, Roma and Sintis, and caravan dwellers (Vermeu-len and Penninx 2000, 20). Others, such as the Chinese, were notincluded on the grounds that they were not seen as minorities. TheMinorities Policy was seen as a welfare policy for certain segregatedsocial groups. It can be seen as a continuation of some aspects of pillarization, which generously funded new ethnic and religiousminority communities for their own places of worship and media,and certain types of educational provision on the same basis as pre-

existing parallel institutional arrangements. During the 1980s, policymeasures were quite substantial particularly in three domains thel l li i l i i d l l d i h 1980

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measures (Rath 1993). In the legal-political area, for example, anti-discrimination legislation was strengthened; in 1985 voting rights fornon-citizens at the local government level were introduced; naturaliza-tion became easier; a consultation structure was set up to give target

groups a voice regarding their position in society (Penninx 2004).In the socio-economic domain there were three key areas: labour

market and unemployment, education, and housing. Labour marketprogrammes, special training courses as well as education programmesfor ethnic minorities were introduced (Entzinger 2003, 63). Voluntaryagreements and laws were set up to help open up more jobs forimmigrants. In the domain of culture, language and religion , migrantswere left to themselves to develop their own cultural, religious andlinguistic institutions. This was later seen to create a type of

separatism. Mother-tongue teaching was also available but it wassoon discovered there were problems because the courses wereamateurish and students were losing time from core classes. Therewas also a resistance to Islamic based schools for fear of isolation andsegregation (Rath et al . 2001, 176). The establishing of mosquesproved an extremely difficult process for Muslims with protests fromneighbours and problems with municipal zoning and urban renewalpolicies (Böcker 2000, 153).

Integration policy

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, it became evident to policy-makersthat the goals of the Ethnic Minorities Policy had not been achieved.As we shall see below, migrants had not integrated into the labourmarket, educational achievement of immigrant children was low andhousing segregation was also emerging as a problem. In addition, inthe early 1990s, Frits Bolkestein, then leader of the Liberal Party andleader of the opposition in the parliament, triggered a public debate byclaiming that ‘Islam was a threat to liberal democracy and a hindrance

for integration of immigrants . . .

’ (Penninx et al . 2005, 5). This was thebeginning of a public and policy discourse about the ‘non-integratingmigrant’. A new Integration Policy was introduced in 1994 basedon the idea of ‘mainstreaming’- i.e. improving the inclusion of immigrants in mainstream services in order to move away from theethno-specific provision popularly associated with a policy of multi-culturalism. This new policy outlined integration as ‘a process leadingto the full and equal participation of individuals and groups in society,for which mutual respect for identity is seen as a necessary condition’

(Contourennota 1994: 24 in Entzinger 2003, 72).While the same earlier policy dimensions remained (Castles andill 2003 23 ) di i i h h i b l d



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The possibility of sanctions was introduced: for example, newcomersmight be deprived of their welfare benefits if they failed to take theclasses (Blok Report Netherlands 2004).2 It was only in the early 1990sthat some cities provided Dutch language courses which were system-

atically introduced in 1998 nationwide for adult migrants. In 1998 theCi vic Integration of Newcomers Act was introduced in an effort toprovide obligatory programmes for newcomers, consisting of Dutchlanguage lessons, social orientation courses, information about workand social coaching for a final test to measure their progress (seeSiedenberg 2004, 3). Fines were to be imposed if attendance normswere not met. This new ambition to familiarize immigrants with Dutchlanguage, culture and society would have been ‘almost unthinkableunder the minorities’ policy’ (Entzinger 2003, 77).

At the start, debates continued in the Netherlands as part of agrowing anti-immigration, anti-asylum and anti-immigrant trend thathad emerged in numerous EU countries. The right-wing coalition thatcame to power in the wake of the murder of Pim Fortuyn was keen toshow that it was tough on immigration and immigrants. While thegovernment and municipalities would provide some funding forcourses and administration, in April 2004, the Cabinet agreed to anew integration system:

The integration obligation will only have been met as soon as peoplehave successfully passed their integration examination

. . . The new-

comers and the settled immigrants will be in charge of their ownintegration [. . .] If a newcomer has failed to integrate after five yearsan administrative fine will be imposed [. . .] (Dutch Ministry of Justice 2004).

In September 2005, a Bill for a new Integration Act was introducedinto parliament (TK30308).3 The main provisions of the proposed lawinclude measures to define and enforce immigrant obligation and

responsibility, as well as the provision of compulsory programmes andsanctions. Although language and social orientation courses, funda-mental to immigrant settlement, have been available to newcomers fora number of years, provision of courses is often far from adequate.They often fail to meet the needs of certain groups, such as people withlimited formal education and non-employed women (see Siedenberg2004). It appears that the new principle of imposing sanctions andfines is not about improving the situation of immigrants. Rather it ispart of the discourse used to support claims that immigrants have not

met their ‘responsibility to integrate’.Different groups in the Netherlands emphasize different aspects of

i i i h i d li lli f l l

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while social democrats are more concerned with successful perfor-mance in education and the labour market. However, they too seem tocall indirectly for cultural integration since this is seen as a precondi-tion for socio-economic success. In the long run, both approaches, as

will be discussed more fully later, emphasize individual adaptation andconformity of immigrants alone a demand that comes close toassimilationism.4 In the following section, we shall see that despite thepolicy changes implemented over the past twenty-five years, immigrantlabour market participation and educational achievements remaincomparatively low.

The institutional marginalization of immigrants

Despite the various policies outlined above, unemployment rates forimmigrants have remained way above those of the ‘native Dutch’. Thefigures in Table 1 reveal that in 1983 unemployment of foreigners wasabout twice that of the indigenous population. By 1993, unemploy-ment of the native Dutch had declined quite sharply. That of foreignershad also fallen, but nowhere near as much, climbing to nearly fourtimes that of native Dutch. For the under-twenty-fives the situationwas far worse (see also van Ours and Veenman 2003; Thränhardt2004).

The late 1990s was a period of strong economic growth in theNetherlands. Penninx suggests that the high levels of immigrantunemployment in the late 1980s and early 1990s ‘was solved by themarket itself’ in the second half of the 1990s due to the continuousboom in the Dutch economy (Entzinger 2004; Penninx 2004, 6). Snel,de Boom and Engbersen use the results of regular large-scale officialsurveys to examine the occupational and education performance of people of non-western origin (i.e. immigrants and their Dutch-bornchildren whether Dutch citizens or not) (Snel et al . 2005, 87). Figure 1

shows that from 1994 to 2001 the unemployment rate among people of non-western origin fell to less than 10 per cent, though it was still twoto three times higher than among the native Dutch (Snel et al . 2005,97 98). From 2001 unemployment rates increased again.

Table 1. Unemployment figures 1983 and 1993

Year Indigenous Foreigners

all B25 all B25

1983 11.3 20.4 24.5 37.21993 5.7 9.7 19.6 25.5



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Similarly, levels of educational attainment remain low for people of non-western origin in comparison to the native Dutch. Table 2indicates that even though the educational levels for the Turks andMoroccans are slowly improving over time, they were still very low in2002. The rates for the Surinamese and Antillians have also begun toimprove, but remain low in comparison to the native Dutch. TheDutch SOPEMI authors suggest a combination of factors lead to thedifferent outcomes, including lack of individual qualifications, eco-nomic circumstances, structural factors, cultural factors, less effectivesocial networks in some cases, and discrimination in the labour market

(Snel et al . 2005, 110 112; see also Thränhardt 2004).In research that focuses on the educational attainment of the second

generation in relation to the first generation and the native Dutch, vanOurs and Veenman find that ‘conditional on the education of theirparents most immigrant groups have an educational attainment that issimilar to the native Dutch (van Ours and Veenman 2003, 752). Thecorrelation between parental educational attainment and that of theirchildren is important in terms of understanding to what extent classcharacteristics are passed on, as well as noting the likelihood of

integration, from one generation to another (see, for example, Portesand Zhou 1993). One problem with van Ours and Veenman’s analysis,however, is that it is based on a narrow premise taking intoconsideration only the parents’ characteristics such as their level of educational attainment and their language proficiency. Crucial con-textual factors experienced in the receiving country such as variousforms of discrimination, schooling and housing segregation etc are notconsidered at all.

One reason for below average school performance seems to be the

existence of trends to segregation in schools. There appears to be aprocess of ‘white flight’ from schools with high numbers of immigrant

hild I h l 1990 h l b d d ‘bl k’

Figure 1. Unemployment rate by Ethnic Descent (1994 2003)

Source: Dutch SOPEMI Report 2003 (Snel et al. 2005, 95)

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Table 2. Education Level of Post-School Age Workers (14 65 both genders) by Ethn

Native Dutch Turks

1998 2002 1998 2

Primary school 18 12 65 Lower vocational & general secondary 27 25 16

Intermediate vocational & general secondary 26 41 15 Higher education 28 23 4 (N) 2024 2880 1

Source: Dutch Sopemi Report 2003 (Snel et al . 2005, 90)


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almost exclusively made up of ethnic minority children’ (Koopmans2003, 2). Although segregation has fallen since, it still seems to existalong class and ethnic lines. Children can sometimes be refused entryto schools on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, which appears to

lead to a certain amount of discrimination. For example, complaintshave been made to the Equal Treatment Commission that ethnicminority students were put on a waiting list for placement into aparticular denominational school. This waiting list had been created inorder to induce ethnic minority parents to send their childrenelsewhere. It was found that ‘ethnic minority children were beingplaced on a waiting list exclusively on the basis of their origins’(Schriemer 2004, 29). Such processes lead to concentrated ethnicenclaves, which can have detrimental effects on schooling and social

participation particularly for the second generation (Gramberg 1998;Musterd and Ostendorf 1998). Turks and Moroccans are stillcomparatively poorly educated which in turn affects their labourmarket participation rates. The two groups also have the highestschool dropout rates (Snel et al . 2005, 89 92). Ethnic minoritystudents have more difficulty in securing internships than do theirnative Dutch schoolmates (Schriemer 2004, 11).

One reason often given for higher unemployment rates amongimmigrants in the Netherlands is that the majority fit into the mostvulnerable lower end of the labour market. This may be true of the firstgeneration, who arrived mainly as unskilled workers with loweducational levels. But Figure 2 reveals a more complex picture.Considering specifically the age group 15 24 which presumablyincludes many of the ethnic minority youth who have been throughthe Dutch school system, the discrepancy between the unemploymentrate of ethnic minority youth and the native Dutch is dramatic. TheSurinamese and Antillian youth suffer a very similar fate to the Turksand Moroccans. Similarly, the variation is huge in the 25 34 and35 44 age groups.

A similar picture emerges in Figure 3 where unemployment levels of various groups are measured according to educational background. Inthe 2004 figures, Turks and Moroccans who have lower educationallevels experience three times as much unemployment as do the nativeDutch with similar qualifications. The Turks and Moroccans who haveintermediate vocational to pre-university qualifications also experiencea rate of unemployment three times higher than the native Dutch.However, the more highly educated (higher vocational and university)among the Turks and Moroccans have more than double the

unemployment rate while the Surinamese and Antillians have doublethe unemployment rate. The ‘other non-western group’ (whichi l d Af i f ) i h f i hi h

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pancies are too great to be simply put down to cultural factors or less

effective networks. It is vital to look also for other reasons, and here

I suggest the need to look at institutional racism.

Pay differentials are also a problem. In one company it was foundthat two Ghanaians received lower pay than the Turks and Moroccans

who in turn received lower pay than the native Dutch employees doing

the same work. Another report, based on research conducted in the

late 1990s, concluded that ethnic minorities earned a gross hourly wage

of 13.20 Euros compared with 14.90 for the native Dutch (Houtzager

and Rodrigues 2002, 43). These authors conclude that recruitment and

selection methods are often discriminatory. Research commissioned by

the ILO, in the early 1990s in Europe, carried out discrimination

testing regarding access to the labour market. Results revealed thathigh levels of discrimination were experienced at the point of entry

i h l b k h ‘ h ibili f ll i j b i

Figure 2. Unemployed working population according to ethnic group and background characteristics, 2004 (age x unemployment rate in per cent)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

15–24 jaar 25–34 jaar 35–44 jaar 45–54 jaar 55–64 jaar

Turks/Moroccans

Surinam/Antilles

other non-western

allochtoneous

Total non-western

allochtoneous

Autochtoneous

Source: Jaarrapport Integratie 2005; Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau/Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum/Centraal Bureauvoor de Statistiek, Den Haag 2005



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The voluntary agreements and laws set up to increase job

opportunities for immigrants, including those introduced in the

early 1990s obliging employers to report the ethnic composition of

their workforce, ‘turned out to be a symbolic law and implementa-tion has been erratic’ (Penninx 2004, 5 6). Employers’ associations

claimed it curtailed their freedom of selection. Furthermore, special

training courses for immigrants were few and in some cases their

very existence was used as an excuse for members of ethnic

minorities not to be accepted in other mainstream courses (Essed

2002a, 5; Entzinger 2003, 68).

The public discourse

In the 1990s, an important ideological shift occurred in the Nether-

l d ( l h i E ) U hi i h lf h d

Figure 3. Unemployed working population according to ethnic group and background characteristics (education), 2004

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

bao/vbo/mavo mbo/havo/vwo hbo/wo

Turks/Moroccans

Surinam/Antilles

other non-western

allochtoneous

Total non-western

allochtoneous

Autochtoneous

Note: bao/vbo/mavoup to lower general secondary; mbo/havo/vwo inter-mediate vocational to pre-iniversity; hbo/wohigher vocational and university-Source: Jaarrapport Integratie 2005; Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau /Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum / Centraal Bureau voorde Statistiek, Den Haag 2005

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communal care. There was now a move away from state protection toan ideology of self-sufficiency and responsibility (Blok Report Nether-lands 2004, 3). This broader shift was reflected in the move from ethnicminorities policy to integration policy. The ideology behind the change

to mainstreaming services in the 1990s was more oriented towardsindividuals than towards group needs of ethnic minorities (Fermin1997; Scholten 2003; Duyvendak et al . 2005; Uitermark et al . 2005),undermining the significance of culturally appropriate services(Entzinger 2003). In the new century, policy discourse reflects a‘neo-conservative ideology’ that is more restrictive, and a publicdiscourse that has become more inflammatory. Integration is pre-sented as a one-way process immigrants should integrate into Dutchlanguage, culture and history.

One prominent argument has influenced policy, the elite, the media,many Dutch people including some people of immigrant background.In 2000, Paul Scheffer argued that ‘the poor integration of ethnicminorities is the result of a detached and permissive Dutch policy inrespect of minorities that does not confront ethnic minoritiessufficiently with the Dutch language, culture and history’ (Engbersen2003, 59). Scheffer claimed that many Dutch people were concernedabout the large numbers of immigrants, their lack of integration as wellas continuing segregation and problems with the growing Muslimpopulation. Scheffer suggested that the remedy to the problem was toinclude ‘more obligatory policy efforts to overcome deprivation as wellas demanding from the immigrants to adapt to the principles of liberaldemocracy . . .’ (Scheffer in Entzinger 2003, 78 79).

One line of reasoning adopted by Scheffer and other critics of immigrant integration is that the Dutch have been benevolent inproviding funding and resources to help immigrants integrate whileimmigrants have not taken the responsibility to integrate. In thepublic discourse and in parts of the elite, there is a widespreadtendency to blame the migrant. According to Entzinger, Scheffer’s

argument displays a static understanding of cultures and ignores theimmense diversity among immigrants. In addition, very few people of immigrant background took part in these debates (Entzinger 2003,79). Entzinger rightly criticizes that what this approach ‘seems tooverlook is that a liberal democratic state that pursues an activepolicy of assimilation will soon clash with its own principles of freedom and tolerance’ (2003, 80). Thus current notions of compul-sory integration, in both official and the public discourse, go back toold-style notions of one-way assimilation expecting immigrants to

integrate into a national culture imagined as homogeneous andsuperior.

i h 2002 l l i i ll d f h



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immigrants and that Islam was a ‘backward’ religion. He ran his

campaign on anti-immigration sentiment, claiming the Netherlands

was full. The new government decided to impose a more stringent

immigration policy. In November 2004, Theo Van Gogh, a filmmaker

and columnist was shot and stabbed to death. He had recentlycompleted a film with Hirsi Ali, originally from Somalia and now a

member of the conservative liberal VVD. The film dealt with Muslim

women’s experience of domestic violence and implied that the Koran

sanctioned such practices (Anthony 2004). The debate that emerged

after his death was similar to earlier ones, asserting the backwardness

of Islam and its incompatibility with western democratic values. Ali

insisted that the ‘treatment of women, the creation of ghettos like

Islamic schools, these are all factors that explain why Muslim

communities lag behind others’ (Anthony 2004).Ghorashi, on the other hand, claims that Hirsi Ali has become a

‘welcome mouthpiece for the dominant discourse on Islam in the

Netherlands that pictures Islamic migrants as problems and enemies of

the nation’ (Ghorashi 2003, 163). Hirsi Ali has given legitimacy to the

exclusionary rhetoric that has been circulating in the Netherlands,

since the early 1990s, based on the perceived need to protect Dutch

cultural values and norms from invasion, leading to a form of ‘cultural

fundamentalism’ (Ghorashi 2003, 165). Further, in this debate, there is

an implication that violence against women exists only among some

groups. Ali and others seem to use a notion of ‘backward or illiberal

cultural practices or religions’ to explain what is essentially a matter of

gender inequality. Violence against women is about unequal power

relations between men and women and needs to be tackled across

ethnicities, religions and classes. Patriarchal gender relations are being

subsumed under the banner of ‘backward cultures/religions’. Further-

more, to single out one ‘culture/religion’ only is to relieve all others

from systematic scrutiny. Yet, it was only ‘yesterday’ that the women’s

movements in western democracies brought to our attention in a

systematic way the violence done to women, inside and outside the

home. One might ask why ethnic minority women have not benefited

from the same improvements in social rights as have native Dutch

women.The media also plays its part in reproducing negative stereotypes of

ethnic minorities. Brouwer reveals how for Dutch Moroccan youth,

Islam has become a voice of protest to the daily barrage of anti-

Muslim sentiments. While rap youngsters ‘condemn their racistexperiences in their protest songs’ (2006, 25), many complain that

journalists only quote the extreme views that appear on their website

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Racism and its denial

Let us return to the central questions of this article: how can a societythat perceives itself as ‘liberal’ and ‘demand conformity, while blamingimmigrants for not integrating and using coercive methods to secureintegration? How can a ‘tolerant’ society claim that certain religionsand cultures are backward? In addition, how can such a societycontinue to show such high levels of structural marginalization? Myargument in addressing these questions is that there is a commonthread running through the immigrant experience, through successiveapproaches to immigrant incorporation, in the Netherlands: theexistence of institutional discrimination based on a denied historyand culture of racism.

Racism, as a broad social phenomenon, is not seen to exist in theNetherlands where there is a preference, among policy-makers andresearchers, to refer to any exclusionary practice as ‘discrimination’since racism is defined very narrowly in terms of biological differen-ces. This, however, raises a significant problem because the preferenceis to see it in its milder form as ‘cultural discrimination’. In otherwords, migrants are discriminated against because they are migrants,they are different and they practise different cultures or religions. Thisstill does not alleviate the problem when people are discriminatedagainst because of their skin colour, or their physiognomy, their

religion etc.If we simply call it ‘discrimination’ or ‘institutional discrimination’,

or ‘minorization’ (Rath 1999), then we cannot understand the specifictypes and forms of discrimination based on a person’s or groups’ race/ethnicity or cultural background for the simple reason that, althoughall forms of discrimination are based on unequal power relations, theirroots are different. For instance, racial discrimination is not genderdiscrimination. ‘Discrimination’ does not help to explain how race/ethnic and gender relations intersect for women, and whether one is

more dominant than the other within specific contexts. In turn, wecannot understand how certain institutional racist practices, em-bedded in the institutions and cultures of the dominant society, createdisadvantage based on a person’s or groups’ race/ethnicity/culture/religion (Essed 1991; Solomos and Back 1995; Solomos 2003; van derValk 2003). In this section I will provide definitions of racism withexample of institutional racism in policy and at work.

Racism

Racist discourse, in policy, practice and in the public arena, is bestd d f ( f i ) b li f f l



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pathology, but deeply rooted in the history, culture and traditions of modernity and is closely linked to class and sexist domination. Broadlyused, racism or racist discrimination is a relationship of power, aprocess ‘whereby social groups categorize other groups as different or

inferior, on the basis of phenotypical characteristics, cultural markersor national origin’ (Castles 1996, 31). As Goldberg (1993, 41 3)argues, racism is a discourse that ‘emerges with modernity and comesto colonise modernity’s continually reinvented common sense’. Thus itneeds to be investigated whether racism is still part of ‘commonsense’in the Netherlands, understood in the Gramscian sense of theaccumulated, taken-for-granted and often contradictory set of as-sumptions used by people to understand and cope with the complexsocial world around them. The argument that this is the case was put

most forcefully in the case of the Netherlands by Dutch scholar Essedin her book Understanding E veryday Racism (Essed 1991) a workthat has been largely ignored in Dutch debates. The key point here isthat a pervasive culture of everyday racism is likely to lead to practicesof institutional racism, which are not recognized as such.

Institutional racism is best defined as the role played by the stateand its institutions in reproducing the social exclusion of immigrantsor ethnic minorities. In general terms, ‘the institutional dimensionrefers to cooperative systems forming part of the ruling apparatus’(Essed 2002b, 205). Thus, the power of the dominant group issustained through its structures and institutions, such as laws, policiesand administrative practices, education, housing, indicating margin-alization of ethnic minority groups (see Goldberg 2002; Solomos2003). Omi and Winant (1994, 76) argue that ‘the state is inherentlyracial’ because it routinizes and naturalizes cultural practices andterms. Discriminatory systemic trends such as continuous negativeexperiences for ethnic minorities in the labour market or in educa-tional performance, can also fall within the scope of institutionalracism.

Reviewing an earlier nationalist backlash in France and other EUcountries in the late 1980s, Balibar (1991, 23) called it a ‘new racism’ a ‘racism without race’ where racism no longer speaks of superiority,but rather of immutable differences, that make co-existence betweenvarying cultural groups in one society difficult, if not impossible.Huntington (2002) has taken this idea to its extreme with his ‘clash of civilizations’ as a justification for the unwillingness of some people tolive with and accept cultural diversity. In the Netherlands, the backlashcan be described both in terms of old and ‘new racism’. It is racism

because ethnic minorities are categorized as inferior on the basis of their ethnicity, cultures, religion, skin colour etc and in turn are

i li d h ‘ i ’ l h h

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seemingly from invasion of inferior cultures or religions. Islamapho-bia, for example, is partly based on the idea that Islamic values areinferior to western values.

Policy and institutional racism

Since the early 1980s, welfare and integration programmes have beenperiodically changed for not delivering their expected outcomes.Compared with several other EU countries, the Netherlands hasprovided more inclusive policy frameworks for immigrants with regardto labour market access, long-term residence, family re-union,nationality and anti-discrimination measures (see also Blok ReportNetherlands 2004; Geddes et al . 2005). The mere existence of policies,

however, says nothing about implementation. It seems that policies likethe Ethnic Minorities Policy was based on ‘well-intended multi-culturalist paternalism’ (see Scholten 2003). However, by its nature,paternalism cannot confront the ingrained discriminatory practicesthat may work in subtle ways, while having detrimental effects onvarious groups. Poppelaars and Scholten suggest that policies can takeon an ‘institutional path-dependency . . . they tend to develop a naturaltendency to resist change’ (see also Penninx et al . 2005; Poppelaarsand Scholten 2005, 4). This might imply that policies are at odds withimplementation. Anti-discrimination legislation, for example, has hada tendency towards inefficiency (Thränhardt 2004).

Institutional discrimination appears in two main forms. First, thereis the routine discrimination in terms of policies and programmes thatdo not achieve their goals. For example, evaluations of integrationprogrammes conducted between 2000 and 2003 found a number of problems. Firstly, the Integration Task Force revealed ‘that the yield of integration courses is low’ due to inadequate policy steps taken (BlokReport Netherlands 2004, 7; Siedenberg 2004). Many of the Dutchlanguage lessons were taught in a uniform way, not taking into

account the differing needs of immigrants ranging from the illiterate toprofessionals (Siedenberg 2004). Secondly, specific needs of othergroups such as mothers with children needing childcare are not alwaysavailable. The vocational orientation programmes were not as effectiveas they should have been in helping immigrants to find jobs. Finally,many found a big gap between the vocational programmes and theirown experience in finding work (see also Siedenberg 2004). Problemswith municipal delivery of programmes and funding problems alsoneed to be ironed out (Entzinger 2003; Siedenberg 2004).

As noted earlier, institutional racism occurs when the power of thedominant group is sustained through its structures and institutions,

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after so many years then we would have to look at how racist practicesand attitudes, usually not perceived as racist, are embedded in asociety’s institutions and practices, hidden in everyday common-sensestructures. Cross suggests that ‘the Dutch are more like the French in

having a greater problem with cultural difference than appears at firstto be the case . . .’ He believes the Dutch need to explore further theirnational prejudices (2000, 46).

The second type of institutional racism is linked to the systematicnegative outcomes in the labour market and education. If we look atthe combination of factors, that are sometimes used to explain pooroutcomes for ethnic minorities, we can build up a more comprehensivepicture. Lack of indi vidual qualifications may be a reason for the firstgeneration and older migrants who consistently experience high

unemployment rates. But as Figures 3 and 4 indicated, there is adistinct problem when unemployment figures are high for youth, mostof whom would have been through the Dutch education system. Witheconomic restructuring, structural factors may also be a leading factorin high immigrant unemployment levels as economic restructuringmay affect the unskilled sectors more. Again, this does not fullyexplain the problems facing immigrant/ethnic minority youth, nor thediscrepancy for the tertiary educated. One constant remains. Forexample, as unemployment rates fell from 1994 to 2001, and with anupturn in 2002 3, the rates still remained higher for migrants than forthe native Dutch (see Figure 1).

Cultural factors may be used to explain gender inequalities orexcuses that immigrants do not speak the language for the job, but‘different cultural backgrounds’ can be misused as the basis of racialdiscrimination. In research conducted in several Dutch organizations,Siebers (2006) found that ethnic minority members experiencedfeelings of ‘indeterminancy, insecurity and uncertainty’. Althoughqualifications were similar, he reports (2006, 4) that one managerresponsible for diversity management:

. . . came up with ‘‘different cultural backgrounds’’ to explaindisadvantages ethnic minorities members face when pursuing theircareer. Then she looked at me suggesting not only that thisexplanation was self-evident, but also that it left her few optionsfor policy intervention. After all, she said, what can you do aboutone’s cultural background? So-called ‘‘cultural background’’ ap-peared here as a legitimation for ethnic inequality.

Siebers develops a notion of ‘cultural closure’ defined as a processwhere ‘others’ are set apart as a separate cultural category representing

ifi i d l ’ (Si b 2006 3) hil

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this is an important illustration of how racial discrimination operatesas a relationship of power where cultural markers are used todisadvantage certain groups. Lack of effecti ve social networks and appropriate knowledge in the labour market is another argument

frequently used to explain poor participation in the labour market orlack of career development. Siebers’ research shows that while many dohave the requisite knowledge, results revealed in one organization that‘ethnic polarization, insecurity and uncertainty’ create ‘frustratedcareer aspirations’ and are responsible for one third of backlog intheir career development of ethnic minorities compared to the‘majority colleagues’ (2006, 6). His research highlights examples of ‘ethnic conflict triggered by organizational processes and events’(Siebers 2006, 6). Significantly, Siebers convincingly shows how

cultural explanations are used to justify labour market inequalities.Similarly, Verkuyten and Thijs (2002) reveal, in their study of eighty-two primary schools in the Netherlands, that Turkish, Morrocan andSuriname children are more likely to experience racist name callingand social exclusion than Dutch children. Further, fewer childrenreported racist bullying when the teacher was more involved in dealingwith such issues (2002, 326). In a later project, Verkuyten and Brugreport that where ethnic minorities reported more experiences of discrimination, their educational performance was lower and theytended to disengage from the academic domain (2006). The role of teachers and the non-racist delivery of a multicultural curriculum areextremely important in terms of ethnic minority educational achieve-ment. Hermans (2002), in a study of two teacher-training courses inthe north of the Netherlands found that intercultural education didnot have a high priority and was offered in an uncommitted, marginalway. According to this researcher, these courses were not preparingteachers for the reality of culturally diverse class rooms and a multi-ethnic society.

In summary, labour market trends, the ‘black’ and ‘white’ schools,

educational achievement rates of ethnic minorities, racism experiencedat school and in the workplace, resistance to setting up Mosques arebut a few examples that reveal some of the mechanisms of institutionalracism. Essed (2002a, 8) claims that in the Netherlands, if racism isrecognized at all, it is seen as a problem of individual error, not as aninstitutional problem.

According to Poppelaars and Scholten, in the Netherlands thereexists a ‘politics of avoidance’ (Jos de Beus 1998 in Poppelaars andScholten 2005). Although many Dutch have worked against those who

would prefer to play the ‘race card’ (Penninx et al . 2005, 4), a politics of consensus has led to a politics of avoidance, not only in terms of

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indicates that although people can simultaneously hold liberal andilliberal views, there is a tendency to blame the migrant while appearingmainly ignorant of how the ‘native Dutch’ are implicated, except in arather positive way (2004, 66 67). Thus, the ‘tolerant nation’ appears

as the dominant paradigm.Finally, it is not that the Dutch do not deal with discrimination or

that they do not believe there is a process of othering. The problemseems to be that racism is taken out of the equation. Ethnic minorities,whether black, Moroccan or Muslim experience racialization, aprocess that is normalized and hence rendered invisible to the nativeDutch. Essed believes that the protest against racism has beeneffectively silenced in the Netherlands and ‘this silencing in academiahas meant that ‘anti-anti-racism arguments have remained largely

unchallenged’ (Essed 2004, 123

30). On the other hand, Entzinger(2003, 64) reminds us that ‘up to the present day many institutionalarrangements in the Netherlands reflect the era of pillarization’ whichmay explain the reluctance of opening up institutional arrangementsto ethnic minorities.

From multiculturalism to assimilation

There is some agreement in the Netherlands that the spirit of pillarization lives on. In a similar perspective to Scheffer, Koopmanscomes to the conclusion that ‘strong multiculturalism’ combined witha ‘strong welfare state’ has contributed to the failure of immigrantintegration (Koopmans 2003, 2006). Strong multiculturalism is definedas ‘a set of integration policies that sees it as the active duty of the stateto promote and protect minority cultures, and sanctifies individuals’undeniable rights to have social institutions accommodate their specialrequirements’ (Koopmans 2006, 23). He recognizes that the ‘native’Dutch are not as tolerant as they believe they are, and thatdiscrimination exists in schools and in the labour market. Never-

theless, Koopmans (2006, 18) maintains that in the strong version of multiculturalism, the Dutch state has been too generous in fundingminorities to preserve their languages, cultures and religion. Moreover,segregation and ‘otherness’ were ‘not seen as a bad thing at all’. In acomparative study of European countries (including UK, Sweden,Germany, France and Switzerland), in which five indicators6 aredeveloped to consider the openness of the multicultural regime,Koopmans found that the Netherlands was at the top, granting ‘thebroadest range of cultural rights, privileges, and special institutions’

(2006, 6). By contrast, in a study that questions whether multiculturalpolicies erode the welfare state, Banting and Kymlicka (2004) adopt

i h i di 7 f hi h i il ’ fi h i

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policies while the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal,Sweden, the UK and the US have modest multicultural policies (2004,25).

Similarly, the strong welfare state, according to Koopmans, means

easy access to generous benefits as opposed to a weak state such as theUK where immigrants are compelled to make their own way (2006,16). He concludes (2006, 22):

The Dutch and Swedish approaches, which offered immigrantsencompassing rights including unrestricted access to the fullpanoply of welfare state benefits without demanding anything inreturn, may have been well-intended, but instead of building onimmigrants strength and energy, has turned them into passive

welfare state clients . . .

Offering newcomers from poor parts of theworld unconditional access to welfare benefits whose level consti-tutes a small fortune where these people come from, has led todependency rather than emancipation or equality.

Since the mid-1990s the Netherlands officially moved away frommulticulturalism. Language tuition and the mainstreaming of serviceswere introduced with a definite ideological shift from support forgroup needs and identity to promoting individual identity. Evenif there is agreement that there has been strong multiculturalism,for the past ten years, officially this has not been the case. From thedata presented earlier, the problem seems to lie not just with the typeof multicultural policies but significantly with its delivery. Driessen(2000, 67) in an analysis of intercultural educational (ICE) pro-grammes (eg multicultural curriculum, combating structural discrimi-nation etc) in the Netherlands claims that they have ‘simply languishedfrom the very beginning. It is an extremely vague concept receivingabsolutely no attention at the schools. The government does not seemto know how to handle it, either’. In terms of delivery, this research,

and other cases mentioned earlier, illustrates weak multiculturalismrather than the strong version that Koopmans refers to. Duyvendaket al . (2005, 13 14) suggest there is a lack of empirical data to supportthe claim that Dutch integration policy failed because the Dutchhave been too tolerant of cultural and religious difference. They claimthere was too much inconsistency in policy development and delivery.Some of the results I have presented in this study support this analysisand reveal systemic discrimination. Seriously tackling racial discrimi-nation is not one of Koopmans’ solutions. Dismantling ‘strong

multiculturalism’ and the strong welfare state constitute his preferredstrategy.

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segregation, multiculturalism clearly provides a set of inclusionaryprinciples (Taylor 1994; Kymlicka 1995; Parekh 2000; Young 2000).Despite the variations, multiculturalism is generally based on two keyprinciples social equality and participation, and cultural recognition.

The first key principle is based on the idea that immigrant participa-tion is necessary in all societal institutions, including the labourmarket, education etc, requiring government policies which ensure thatimmigrants have access to various rights, for example, anti-discrimina-tion, equal opportunity and services delivered in ways that match theneeds of different groups; and secondly, empowerment in the sensethat immigrants need to acquire cultural capital (main language,cultural knowledge, ability to switch codes) and human capital(education, vocational training) needed to participate in the receiving

society. The second key principle is based on the premise thatimmigrants have the right to pursue their own religion and languagesand to establish communities. In order to be successful, any policy of inclusion should include both principles. Variants of both principles of multiculturalism outlined above have been adopted in Europe,including the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

The Netherlands has practised both these principles excepting thesecond part of the first principle. Access to cultural and human capitalis central to participation in receiving societies. However, to make itcompulsory, and attach sanctions, is assimilationist. To accommodatedifferent dress codes is multicultural; for the Netherlands to move‘toward total ban on Muslim veils’ (Bell 11 November 2006) isassimilationist; and to fund bi-lingual education accommodatescultural diversity; to withdraw it is assimilationist.

Assimilationism is a much contested concept of immigrant inclusionthat requires clarification. Alba and Nee’s theory of assimilation,for example, only addresses a rather limited role of the state in theprocess of immigrant integration. For example, they acknowledge therole the state plays in challenging racial discrimination but do not

address the state’s role in terms of specific multicultural policies(Kivisto 2005, 21). On the other hand, they do conclude that ‘ourdefinition is agnostic about whether the changes wrought by assimila-tion are one-sided or more mutual’ (Alba and Nee 1997, 864). In theirtheory, assimilation is neither uni-directional nor is there a sense of compulsion. Non-American theorists and researchers, although usingsuch terms as incorporation, integration and inclusion, ‘tend to eitheravoid the word assimilation or are critical of it’ (Kivisto 2005, 21). Onereason is that assimilation can refer to a process of complete

absorption, through policies and programmes of forced assimilation.This definition is based on the idea of a certain end-state wherei i i il i h d l f h i i

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of assimilation is the presupposition that the nation-state is raciallyor ethnically homogenous in which all members receive equaltreatment’. This is the position of the French Republican model of assimilation, based on the central idea that by becoming integrated

into the political community as French citizens, minorities willassimilate into a dominant culture based on linguistic homogeneityand civic nationalism. In this model, migrants access all rights andservices through mainstream programmes (even if the majority of thepopulation in the locality are immigrants and ethnic minorities),unlike in other countries where there is a mix of specific andmainstream services for immigrants and ethnic minorities. In Francetoday, some believe this model of immigrant incorporation has failed(Simon 2006).

The data in this paper reveal that the Netherlands has not had astrong multiculturalism, nor are the Dutch as accommodating as they,and others, think they are. Building up a strong multiculturalism,where specific attention is paid to institutional marginalization and tonon-racist delivery of programmes, where all societal groups enjoyaccess to the two principles, and where national identity is based ondiversity, is far more constructive than either weakening an alreadymodest multiculturalism or introducing severe and controlling sanc-tions through assimilationism. Such a move would help to overcomethe accusation that immigrants have not met their responsibilities orthat the welfare state has provided them with numerous benefits‘without demanding anything in return’.

Conclusion

It might seem expedient in this time of great insecurity to adopt apolicy and ideology of assimilation, but in the long run it is unlikely towork. At a time when the role of civil society is no longer clear, thedestruction of human rights and the destruction of security have

become ‘naturalized’ (Sennett 2004), many people feel they have lostcontrol of their lives and, if they have jobs, many are not secure andmay feel they are not reaping the benefits of their hard work. Withoutthe broader, universal understanding of the changes which areoccurring, it is all too easy for dominant ethnic groups, who feelunder threat, to degenerate into a ‘politics of grievance’ or a culture of blame, based on individualism.

In the Netherlands, there is a move away from civic identity towardsnationalism. A sense of Dutchness seems no longer to be based on

support for diversity which is meant to encourage a sense of belongingin all ethnic groups. Instead, the rhetoric of’migrant responsibility’ hasb i l k f l b i d i il i i



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genuine attempt in the early years towards multiculturalism and

accommodating diversity, equally there has been in many quarters a

lack of commitment to it. At the same time multiculturalism existed

alongside structural marginalization, specifically institutional racism.

Moreover, as migrants have become more vocal in their claims forequality, this has created a tense relationship with the ‘native’ Dutch

who are responding with assimilationism.The racialization of policies, structural marginalization and racist

discourses have reinforced the exclusion of ethnic minorities and thus

constituted the problem migrant to be addressed by assimilationism

and a form of ‘cultural fundamentalism’. This is more concerned with

drawing people into the Dutch idea of ‘nation’ than real concern with

ensuring social rights. Yet migrants are being defined more and more

as being outside the imagined national community. As racialized andinferiorized others, it becomes near impossible for ethnic minorities to

integrate into and to become part of a Dutch national identity.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the many researchers who have sent me material

on the Netherlands. In particular, I would like to thank Lenie Brouwer,

Jørgen Carling, Stephen Castles, Donna Driver-Zwartkruis, Han

Entzinger, Philomena Essed, Hein de Haas, Karijn Nijhoff, PeterScholten and Hans Siebers for their constructive and helpful discus-

sion and comments. Specific thanks to Han Entzinger and Hein de

Haas also for passing on relevant census tables to me.

Notes

1. The Dutch make official reference to Allochtonen foreigners, and to Autochthonen

the ‘native Dutch’.

2. The Blok Committee was a parliamentary Investigation Committee on ImmigrantPolicy, set up right after the Fortuyn landslide victory in 2002 when the dominant mood was

that integration policy had completely failed.

3. In mid 2006 it is still being discussed in the Second Chamber.

4. Similar issues about a shift to assimilation have been raised in the UK eg Back, L.,

Keith, M., Khan, A., Shukra, K. and Solomos, J. 2002 ‘New Labour’s White Heart: Politics,

Multiculturalism and the Return to Assimilation’, Political Quarterly 73(4): 445 454.

5. This ILO project is currently being repeated in 2005 6.

6. Naturalization; allowances for religious practices outside of public institutions eg call to

prayer; cultural rights and provisions in public institutions eg headscarf; political

representational rights and affirmative action.

7. Parliamentary affirmation of multiculturalism; adoption of multiculturalism in theschool curriculum; inclusion of ethnic representation; exemptions from dress codes; dual

iti hi f di th i i ti ’ lt l ti iti f di f bi li l d ti

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ELLIE VASTA is Senior Researcher and Programme Head, Integra-tion and Social Change, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society[COMPAS], University of Oxford.ADDRESS: 58 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6QS UK. Email: Bellie.

[email protected]

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From Ethnic Minorities to Ethnic Majority Policy

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