Innundated: immigration & the Dutch.

For at least four decades, the Netherlands has been a progressive's dream. A highly developed welfare state provides health insurance and an economic safety net to the vast majority of residents. An open-minded immigration policy welcomes those who have come to Holland seeking political refuge and economic betterment. Inclusiveness marks the approach taken with drug addicts, the homeless, and the incarcerated. Rather than remove the afflicted from society, the Dutch have consistently emphasized treatment and new opportunity, and readiness to experiment in the pursuit of societal ideals.

A significant shift in attitudes and policies is now underway, however, One issue, more than any other, is precipitating that shift: immigration. Like France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium, Holland is trying to come to terms with an influx of peoples whose arrival brings cultural riches and economic advantages, but also social and political conflict.

Two questions are especially pertinent to immigration policy. The first is how to control the influx of (legal and illegal) immigrants. The second is how to integrate immigrants into Dutch society. Neither of these questions is easy to answer. Both have direct bearing on the future of Dutch national identity, cohesion, and vitality.

Confronting the immigration question was a key to the rise of Pim Fortuyn, the maverick politician assassinated in May 2002. The Netherlands is full, he said, and many, especially within the native Dutch population, agreed. Too many immigrants and their children, even to the third generation, had not assimilated, he warned. They had not learned Dutch, nor had they embraced Dutch values such as tolerance and equality. Instead, immigration had increased crime and brought social decay and disunity. Going a step further, Fortuyn made no secret of his impatience and even disdain for Islam, the religion practiced by the vast majority of immigrants. Fortuyn, an openly gay man, proclaimed Islam a backward religion. Dutch society, he said, must not retreat from the gains made by women and gays.

Fortuyn was shot dead one week before the election that might have made him premier. There had not been a political assassination in the Netherlands in nearly four hundred years, and the manner of Fortuyn's death summed up the volatility of the political situation. Angry Fortuyn supporters took to the streets. Word that the assassin was not a "foreigner," but a radical Dutch animal-rights activist, kept the crisis from escalating. Even minus its leader, however, Fortuyn's party was voted to a prominent share in the newly formed Dutch government. Although the party quickly proved to be an unstable coalition partner with the liberals and Christian Democrats, the ideological impulse that Fortuyn drew on has pushed the still-reigning coalition partners to the right. The newsweekly HP/De Tijd has provocatively chronicled the swing to the right, underscoring Dutch concerns about crime, societal disintegration, and the rise of Islam. Comments that would once have been too politically incorrect to voice--that foreigners and, apparently, Moroccan youth in particular, are disproportionately responsible for high levels of crime--are now heard regularly. Perhaps most striking is the recent emergence of a party on the far right, NieuwRechts (New Right), led by Michiel Smit, paralleling the rise of right-wing parties elsewhere in Europe (such as the National Front in France, the Northern League in Italy, and the Freedom Party in Austria). Meanwhile, the formerly dominant Dutch Socialist Party, the PVDA, and its political partners on the left are reeling. Since becoming the opposition party, they have been unable to formulate a persuasive response to the nation's rightward drift.

Already the Netherlands has placed significant restrictions on future immigration, making it harder to obtain visas and political and economic asylum. Will these work? The imminent addition of ten new states to the European Union in 2004 guarantees that economic refugees will continue to arrive legally, and there is only so much a country can do to prevent illegal immigration. (Most illegal immigrants arrive legally and later overstay their welcome.) Moreover, many of Holland's recent legal immigrants return to their homeland to find a spouse. They also bring other family members back with them to the Netherlands. This is a practice that the government would have difficulty restricting, because the native Dutch population wants to retain the same prerogative for itself. In short, the Netherlands can make legal immigration more difficult, but simply shutting the door is unrealistic.

More effort here goes to addressing the problem of integrating immigrants. Public opinion is split between those who find that too many foreign-born (allochtoon) Dutch have failed to assimilate or contribute adequately and those who defend the social and economic value of multiculturalism and immigration. Immigrants themselves, from Turkey, Morocco, Surinam, the Netherlands Antilles, Indonesia, and elsewhere are trying to make their way socially and economically. They resent being tagged as dangerous or criminal. (Ironically, the one widely known allochtoon spokesperson is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian-born ex-Muslim woman who serves in the current government and has delivered a fierce and controversial critique of Islamic practice.) These immigrants bring their own cultural views. A disdain for Dutch attitudes and policies that are seen to be godless and permissive, such as legalized prostitution and drugs, is prevalent within Muslim communities. Out of this perspective come questions that challenge the self-certainty of Dutch progressives, such as whether women are truly liberated if their unclad bodies are used ubiquitously to market products.

Immigration problems are largely of the Netherlands' own creation. Seeking an answer to the labor shortage of the 1960s, the Dutch invited guest workers from Turkey and Morocco. It was assumed (naively) that this would be a limited, short-lived arrangement, but immigrants who have materially bettered themselves naturally want to stay. Beyond extending the invitation to come, the Dutch took a low-key approach to assimilation. Immigrants were encouraged to preserve their cultural identity, much as in earlier times Catholics, Protestants, Socialists, and liberals composed distinct but equal participating sectors in Dutch life. Becoming Dutch, it was assumed, would happen to immigrants as a matter of course, with diversity flavoring an overall unity. What has happened, though, is that many immigrants have become culturally and economically isolated, continuing to turn to their country of origin to find a spouse, buy a house, or feel patriotic. The generosity of the Dutch welfare system has proved to be something of an obstacle to assimilation. Many immigrants stay on the dole and never learn to speak Dutch, while the cultural difference presented by religious adherence to Islam is turning out to be at least as hard to overcome as earlier differences between Catholics and Protestants.

The Dutch are asking themselves many questions. Can immigrant populations be spread out geographically in the future? (Rotterdam is discussing potential policies for restricting residence registrations.) Is there a more integrated alternative to the sharp and growing divide between "white" (native Dutch) and "black" (immigrant, predominantly Muslim) schools? How far can religious symbols and values be allowed to penetrate secularized institutions? (Can young women training to be daycare workers be allowed to wear a burqa, which exposes only the eyes? The Dutch, unlike the French, are not considering general public-school restrictions on headscarves.) How does one tackle issues such as street crime and potential terrorism without pigeonholing ethnic or religious groups? What should be done about the rising tension between Muslims and Jews? First-, second-, and even third-generation Muslim immigrants do not have the same sensitivity to the history of Jews in Europe as do other Europeans. The number of anti-Semitic incidents is rising, and Orthodox Jews in Amsterdam are feeling increasingly threatened.

When one talks about immigration, one talks about many things at once: economic viability, national identity, international relations, religion, history, public policy, and a nation's current well-being and hopes for the future. Historically, the Dutch have had much experience dealing with immigrant infusions (often religious exiles and, more recently, political), and they also have a strong tradition of broad-based societal cooperation for the common good. But there is no sign that the challenges immigration poses are ready to subside.

Timothy P. Schilling emigrated from the United States to the Netherlands.