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# Goanetters-2004 meet in Goa. Dec 21, Tuesday. 12 noon to 2 pm. #
# Clube Vasco, Near Municipal Garden, Panjim. Pass the word around! #
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TWO MURDERS and the Dutch are fleeing their socialist
haven in droves, their self-image of "racial
tolerance" in tatters. But they are "escaping" to the
increasingly racially diverse and multi-cultural
countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
What are these people thinking?
Exodus as Dutch middle class seek new life
(Filed: 11/12/2004)
For years Holland was celebrated as a symbol of racial
tolerance. But two high-profile murders have changed
all that, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Escaping the stress of clogged roads, street violence
and loss of faith in Holland's once celebrated way of
life, the Dutch middle classes are leaving the country
in droves for the first time in living memory.
The new wave of educated migrants are quietly voting
with their feet against a multicultural experiment
long touted as a model for the world, but increasingly
a warning of how good intentions can go wrong.
Australia, Canada and New Zealand are the pin-up
countries for those craving the great outdoors and
old-fashioned civility.
The illusion that all was well in the Netherlands died
in May 2002 when Pim Fortuyn, the shaven-headed, gay
populist, was shot by a Left-wing activist in the
country's first political assassination since 1584.
Fulminating home truths than nobody else dared utter,
Fortuyn swept on to the political stage protesting
that Europe's most densely-populated country was full
to bursting point, and that Muslim immigration,
leavened with Salafist extremism, had reached a level
where it was starting to destabilise Dutch society
itself. His movement won more seats than the ruling
Labour party in the 2002 elections.
Theo van Gogh, his friend and disciple, was next. The
mischievous film-maker had his throat cut by an
Islamic fanatic last month as he bicycled to work
through the heart of Amsterdam, punished for a film
about repression of women in the Muslim world.
A shrill provocateur, Mr van Gogh was not to
everybody's taste. He once filmed kittens being
mangled to death in a washing machine, which he
thought was hilarious.
But his ritual execution, apparently by an Islamist
hit squad, has shocked the country. Two leading MPs
known to be targets are in hiding. The political class
has been chilled to the bone, while white gangs have
firebombed or attacked around 20 mosques and Islamic
centres. "This was our 9/11. It was the moment the
Netherlands lost its naivety. We always thought that
we were the country of multicultural tolerance that
could do no wrong," said Prof Han Entzinger of
Rotterdam University.
Frans Buysse, the head of Buysse Immigration
Consultancy, said he received more than 13,000 hits on
his emigration website in November, four times the
usual level. His office in Culemburg is flooded with
fresh applications.
"Van Gogh's death was a confirmation for them of what
they already sensed was happening," he said. "They're
accountants, teachers, nurses, businessmen and
bricklayers, from all walks of life. They see things
going on every day in this country that are quite
unbelievable. They see no clear message from the
government, and they are afraid it's becoming
irreversible, that's why they are leaving."
The tales range from exhaustion with Holland's
epidemic of road rage incidents, to fears that it is
no longer safe to go shopping.
"Van Gogh was a very public victim, but there are
unknown victims on streets all the time. It's the
living climate that is deteriorating. There are too
many people on this one small spot of land,'' said Mr
Buysse.
More people left the Netherlands in 2003 than arrived,
ending a half-century cycle of surging immigration
that has turned a tight-knit Nordic tribe into a
multi-ethnic mosaic with three million people of
foreign roots out of 16 million. Almost one million
are Muslims, mostly Turks and Moroccan-Berbers. In
Rotterdam, 47 per cent of the city's population is of
foreign origin. While asylum claims have plunged, the
exodus is accelerating, reaching 13,313 net outflow in
the first half of 2004. Many retiring workers are
moving to the south of France, but a growing bloc
leaving the country appears to be educated, working
families.
Peter and Ellen Bles have applied for visas to
Australia after falling in love with the country
during a trip there three years ago.
"People are so relaxed and open to each other there.
As soon as we got home I just wanted to pack up our
bags and leave," said Peter, 41, a computer operations
manager for ING bank.
He was weary of the daily battles, short tempers, and
coarsening manners at home. "When you want to park
your car here it's almost warfare. We go to the
supermarket at 8am just to avoid having to fight," he
said.
A "for sale" sign stands outside their clean, airy
house in Sprang Capelle, a three-hour round-trip from
Amsterdam.
House prices are one third of costs in Perth, where
they plan to go, but they have no jobs lined up.
"We've no idea at all what we're going to do," he
said.
Ellen, 43, a lawyer and banker who votes for the
free-market Liberals, said the code of behaviour
regulating daily life in the Netherlands was breaking
down.
"People no longer know what to expect from each other.
There are so many rules, but nobody sticks to them.
They just do as they want. They just execute people on
the streets, it's shocking when you see this for the
first time," she said. "We've become so tolerant that
everybody thinks they can fight their own wars here.
Van Gogh is killed, and then people throw bombs at
mosques and churches. It's escalating because the
police and the state aren't doing anything about it.
"There's a feeling of injustice that if you do things
right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you're
punished, and those who don't are rewarded. People can
come and live here illegally and get payments. How is
that possible?
"We didn't think about how we should integrate people,
to make sure that we actually talk to each other and
know each other, instead of living in ghettoes with
different rules.
"It's not why we are leaving: the reason is that
Australia feels different, it feels like a place where
we would like to grow old," she said.
Rob Platje, 34, a sales agent in Arnhem, is leaving in
February to live in the Canadian Rockies with his
partner and infant son.
"In Canada people have the space to get along with
each other without stress. When I'm here in traffic,
I'm terrible. I'm no better than anybody else. I lose
my temper in the car, and I just hate myself for it,"
he said.
"What I see here in the Netherlands is that people are
becoming more frightened. A lot of things have been
going on over the last two years. They don't know if
they can trust their neighbours.
"We hid the problem for a long time because we didn't
want to face up to the truth of what was happening,"
he said.
Unlike most earlier waves of migration to the new
world, this one is not driven by penury. The
Netherlands has a per capita income higher than
Germany or Britain, and 4.7 per cent unemployment.
"None of my clients is leaving for economic reasons.
You can't get a visa anyway if you haven't got a work
record," said Frans Buysse.
Europe's leader for much of the last century in social
experiments, Holland may now be pointing to the next
cultural revolution: bourgeois exodus.
Dutch desert their changing country
