Author: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
in The Hague
Publication: Daily Telegraph
Date: January 20, 2004
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra:
The report seems to be blaming the Dutch government. However, is
it not a fact that the Muslims are encouraged not to assimilate by their
leaders? And why does countries like Holland have no problem with
the Hindus amongst their midst?]
Holland's 30-year experiment in
trying to create a tolerant, multicultural society has failed and led to
ethnic ghettos and sink schools, according to an official parliamentary
report.
Between 70 and 80 per cent of Dutch-born
members of immigrant families import their spouse from their "home" country,
mostly Turkey or Morocco, perpetuating a fast-growing Muslim subculture
in large cities.
The 2,500-page all-party report
by the Dutch parliament was the establishment's tentative answer to the
critique of Pim Fortuyn, the shaven-headed firebrand who warned that Holland's
easy-going way of life was threatened by militant Islam and over-crowding.
He was assassinated by an environmental activist two years ago.
While the report praised most immigrants
for assimilating and for doing well at school, it attacked successive governments
for stoking ethnic separatism.
The worst mistake was to encourage
children to speak Turkish, Arabic or Berber in primary schools rather than
Dutch. The report concluded that Holland's 850,000 Muslims must become
Dutch if the country was to hold together. It proposes cheap housing in
the leafy suburbs to help ethnic groups assimilate with the rest of the
16 million population.
The major parties in the centre-Right
government dismissed such solutions as insufficient. Maxime Verhagen, the
Christian Democrat leader in parliament, said one had to be "either naive
or ignorant" not to understand that the policy had led the country into
a cul-de-sac.
He said: "Immigrants in the Netherlands
top the 'wrong' lists - disability benefit, unemployment assistance, domestic
violence, criminality statistics and school and learning difficulties."
For years Holland was seen as a
glowing example of multi-ethnic tolerance, making huge efforts to make
immigrants feel at home. Funding was provided for ethnic diversity projects,
including 700 Islamic clubs that are often run by hard-line clerics.
The simmering resentments erupted
two years ago when Mr Fortuyn gave voice to an increasingly fearful majority.
The European Union's Racism and Xenophobia Monitoring Centre has catalogued
a rash of anti-Muslim attacks, leaving girls too frightened to go out wearing
head scarves.
The violence has taken a more ominous
turn since the September 11 attacks. The Dutch intelligence service, AIVD,
has warned that the al-Qa'eda network is "stealthily taking root in Dutch
society" by preying on disaffected Muslim youth with Jihad video cassettes
circulating in mosques, cafes and prisons.
Rotterdam has announced measures
to deter more poor immigrants and is closing its gates to new asylum seekers
for four years.
