----- Original Message ----- From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 4:15 PM Subject: Re: What do you mean Dutch intolerance?
> Dan Minette schreef: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 3:51 PM > > Subject: What do you mean Dutch intolerance? > > > > OK, let me ask a couple of questions then. Maybe there are aspects of the > > Dutch culture that I don't understand. > > > > The Netherlands is about 8% ethnic Turks by population. > > > > What fraction of them are citizens? > > Most. Or at least their children are. Most of the immigrants' children that are > born here got the Dutch nationality by default at birth. (which btw doesn't give > them *all* that much more rights.) They also have the choice to keep the > nationality of their parents as well. So nearly all Turkish, Moroccan, German, > Indian (or whatever other nationality) people's children, born in the > Netherlands have a double nationality. Even my son has a double nationality. But > nobody really cares about what nationality you have. It's not a subject or an > issue for most Dutch. Well, it appears that the Dutch do better than most of their neighbors. For example, Germans have third generation foreigners in their country who do not qualify for citizenship because citizenship is a function of ancestry, not residency. As you said > That terrible distinction you keep making again and again between Hispanic - not > Hispanic or black - not black doesn't exist here. Here you are either good at > what you do or you are not. You are likable or you are not. That's it. That > seems to be a concept that is really hard to grasp for you Dan. And, it just so happens that the ethnic minorities are all just bad at things? Lets look at job numbers per ethnic group from: http://www.pscw.uva.nl/imes/stats.htm#political Ethnic group Basic Lower Average Higher Scholarly Turks 28 46 19 6 1 Moroccans 33 42 19 5 1 Surinamese 14 36 33 12 4 Antilleans 12 34 34 14 7 Dutch 6 27 33 24 9 Every indication shows that this is a ethnic breakdown, not a breakdown of nationalities. One sees that ethnic minorities, for the most part, do the bottom of the barrel work. While, for brand new immigrants, this is not surprising, other sources from the Netherlands indicate that problems continue to exist in the second generation. One way of looking at this is to consider the unemployment rate for young people (15-25). They would be more likely to be second generation, and less likely to be able to immigrate without a job, or to have come and then loose their job. One finds an unemployment rate of 23% for ethnic Turks and 31% for ethnic Moroccans, and 11% for ethnic Dutch. Let me quote from the Dutch report on minorities available at: http://www.scp.nl/boeken/cahiers/cah142/uk/persbericht.htm The number of young people from minorities in work has increased in recent years from 27,000 in 1987-1989 to 33,000 in 1993-1995. Nevertheless their prospects in the labor market are substantially poorer than those of indigenous young people. Had their employment opportunities been equal, over 60,000 rather than 33,000 would have been in employment in 1993-1995. Y'all don't have a problem? Look, we've got a problem too, but we don't put our heads in the sand. Why do these differences exist. You are saying > that America is better because such and such a percentage of another group than > white American males is in office. You have no idea how terrible that kind of > argument sounds for people used to the amount of tolerance we have in the > Netherlands. > Lets look at that tolerance. Unfortunately, I do not have figures for the Netherlands by themselves, but I have European figures. Only about 27% think that non-Europeans should have the same privileges as Europeans. More, (about 29%) think they should all be sent home. Only 16% consider them full members of society. It is noted that the Netherlands opinions are more tolerant than average, but I would be shocked if the Netherlands had 70% that considered these workers full members of society. > > I wouldn't know. Because in the Netherlands it really doesn't matter. It is not > important weather your origins are Afro American, Russian, Asian, Moroccan, > Turkish or whatever. It does however seem to matter a *lot* to you that you can > _specifically_ mention one Hispanic and one black citizen that are successful in > office. Now that _does_ show something about difference in mentality I'd say. > Actually, I was talking about Houston, which is the local big city. The fact that you cannot name a single ethnic minority is indicative to me. I would have guessed, since ethnic minorities are identifiable, that you could have gone through a list in your head and come up with a few. >Oh and btw since you claimed that Jewish people have to be afraid in the Netherlands I think it is your >turn now to prove it. Or do you retract? I didn't say they had to be, I said they were. That is a fact, I was told it. The present fraction of the world Jewish population that is afraid to move to Europe is not established. FWIW, I will expand my questioning to see if this report is non-representative. But, let me go back to the statistics again. One needs to understand how risky going to Israel was in the late 40s. The consensus opinion at the time was that the Jewish settlers didn't have a chance against the Arab armies. Not only were they outnumbered (> a factor of 10), but they were not as well equipped. The Arabs had planes from the British, IIRC, and Israel had to find a way to buy a few planes from Checkslovakia. The fact that over half of the Jewish people remaining went to a place where a reasonable person would have to conclude that there was a high chance of death should indicate something about their feeling of safety. The fact that the population in the United States increased over the same time period should indicate the relative feeling of safety in the US. I'm not trying to argue that the Netherlands is some evil place where non-Europeans are treated like cattle. However, it strains credibility to think that anti-Semitism that prevailed for at least a thousand years and which provided the basis for the Holocaust evaporated since WWII. The fact that the reports y'all read indicating that the Jewish people are mostly at fault for the strife in the Middle East, that nothing sympathetic to their plight gets published blows my mind. Generalize it. Take an ethnic minority that has lost 1/3rd of their worldwide population and 2/3rds of their population in a region. Most of them decide not to stay in the countries where they were murdered. Their ability to move to a safer country is limited. But, there seems to be a chance for them to establish their own country where they can defend themselves. Are they evil to jump at the chance? Are they at fault? Then, they were attacked immediately, and often by superior forces. The leaders around them proclaimed that they would be destroyed. Now, considering what had just happened to them, would it be paranoid for them to take those leaders at their words? The second time they were attacked, they gained a great deal of territory, but were forced to give it back and to retreat into boundaries that are absurdly hard to destroy. The third time, they kept the land as a buffer. The fourth time, they barely survived, even with the buffer. And, as Jerone states, there is nothing good to be said in the local press about these people? That its all their fault. And, said press are in the same countries where they were slaughtered. And, I'm crazy to think that there is lingering prejudice against them? Look, y'all aren't evil because there is still prejudice in Europe. We aren't evil because there is still prejudice in the US. But, prejudice is an evil, and we need to fight it. It is hard, because it is so hard to detect in ourselves. Let me make a suggestion. Talk you your friends who are ethnic minorites. Find a way to make it safe for them to answer the question of whether they feel that there is any discrimination against them at all. The results might surprise you. Dan M.
