*:: getting the giggles at ‘Aminal’ and forgot to compliment Kimstu on her Dutch:: . You’re pretty awesome, lady. 
*
Dank u wel! Ik probeer Nederlands te spreken, maar I get a lot of funny looks when I do.
Must be difficult, as the Dutch are usually more eager to show off their own command of english (or lack thereof) than engage in dutch with you, I’d wager.
Very commendable though
Latro: Must be difficult, as the Dutch are usually more eager to show off their own command of english (or lack thereof) than engage in dutch with you, I’d wager.
Well, their English is usually much better than my Dutch, so they may just consider it more efficient to speak English!
But my theory is that it’s partly caused by the fact (?) that Dutch people seldom hear their language spoken except by native Dutch speakers, since most non-Dutch rely on English instead. So Netherlanders are simply not used to hearing Dutch with a horrible accent and faulty grammar, like mine, and thus it’s very very hard for them to understand me.
(Interestingly, if I get a little stuck at the beginning of a conversation and stammer on the first word, people seem to assume that I can speak Dutch but I just have this awful speech impediment or something, so I end up getting more actual Dutch practice that way. I’m thinking of wearing a button that says “Deze Stomme Buitenlander Wil Het Nederlands Spreken. Gelieve Geduldig A.U.B.”* ;))
- “This dumb foreigner wants to speak Dutch. Please be patient.”
vinryk:
I agree with most of your post, but I think people are exaggerating the problem.
In 2 or 3 generations these problems should resolve themselves.
Latro:
It is exactly this that more and more people are starting to doubt.
Until recently people did think that the immigrants were integrating into Dutch society. … If so then the large number of them is cause for concern when they start to become a majority. What if in 20 years they outnumber the real Dutch?
While it’s true that The Netherlands has received a significant number of immigrants, both of Western and non-Western origin, the idea (or fear) that the ethnic Dutch will become a minority anytime in the foreseeable future, let alone 20 years, is nothing but plain wrong, and can easily be refuted by simple math.
According to the CIA factbook, the population of the Netherlands is 16.3 million (2004 est.), of which 83% are Dutch, while 8% are immigrants of Western origin and 9% are immigrants of non-Western origin.
The current birth rate in the country is 11.4/1000, while the net immigration rate (Western and non-Western) is 2.9/1000. Since statistics from several Europeans countries shows that second generation immigrants pretty much have the same, or just slightly higher, number or of children as the rest of the population, some simple math tells us that in 100 years (when everybody alive today is dead) immigrants will make up 25% of the population (up from 17%), of which non-Western will make up 13% (up from 9%).
That’s the rough math.
A more detailed study of demographic trends is available (PDF, in Dutch, 2003) from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics. This study forecasts that in 2050 the population in the country will total 17.6 million; where 11.9 million (68%, down from 83% in 2000) are ethnic Dutch and 5.7 million (32%, up from 17% in 2000) are immigrants, or of such origin (both Western and non-Western), of which 3.5 million (20%, up from 9% in 2000) are non-Western.
Two things should be noted here:
- The shift in demographics is not so much caused by high immigration figures, but rather a combination of low birth rates by Dutch women (the ethnic Dutch population will start declining before 2010), and high emigration figures among ethnic Dutch and Western immigrants re-emigrating again.
- By 2050 the demographic of the country will stabilize, according to CBS. The birth rate of non-Western immigrants of all origins will converge at 2/woman while the birth rate of ethnic Dutch will remain a little lower than that. The reproduction rate is 2.11/woman.
To conclude, there’s no way that immigrants, let alone non-Western immigrants, will outnumber the Dutch in our lifetime. Furter more, it should also be noted that several snapshot studies across Europe indicates that only 20%-30% of the so-called muslim immigrants actually consider themselves as muslim by faith.
The issue here rather, is that by accepting a significant number of immigrants in recent years a challenge is placed on the government to integrate them into the existing society, at least so that they can be able to speak the language and get jobs. Some might feel that the cost of this is simply too high. On the other hand, the economy of Dutch society will collapse on its own if no immigrants (Western or non-Western) were allowed into the country.
Originally posted by Alien
Survey Zembla 2002:
http://www.omroep.nl/vara/tv/zembla/20020905/enquete.doc
Het merendeel (77,7%) van de ondervraagde respondenten is praktiserend moslim. 19,7% is dat niet. Marokkanen geven vaker aan dat ze praktiserend moslim zijn dan Turken (respectievelijk 87,6% en 67,9%).
[The majority (77,7%) of the respondents is practisizing muslim. 19,7% isn’t. Moroccans more than Turkish (respectively 87,6% and 67,9%)]
Here’s a question-- I’ve spent much more time in Belgium than in Nederlands; In Belgium it seems that of the “foreigners” living there, the Congolese are considered of a different stripe than, say the Turks, perhaps on account of the old imperial thing; it’s like a person born in the Congo is much more (sliding-scale here) “Belgian” than a new Belgian who was born in Turkey (in the degree that Belgians are worried about ‘immigrants’ it seems that they worry a lot about some groups and not others-- Congo seems to be a “safe” group for them for whatever reason). Is that the case as well in Nederlands with Surinamese or Indonesian or some other place with long historical ties?
capybara: * Is that the case as well in Nederlands with Surinamese or Indonesian or some other place with long historical ties?*
De stomme buitenlander butting in again—Yes, that’s the impression I tend to get. Immigrants of Indonesian descent don’t seem to generate the level of angst about endangering the Dutch way of life, that Turkish or Moroccan ones do, even though most Indonesians are also Muslim.
Maybe this is because of the long-standing historical relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia, or maybe it’s got to do with differences in immigration rates and/or ease of assimilation of the immigrants.
I’m not exactly sure, capybara. Religion has a lot to do with how we look at ‘foreigners’.
[btw: For me and most people I know, the word used for immigrants is “Medelander”. A play on the word ‘Nederlander’ [dutch]. Means so much as ‘fellow-lander’.]
Surinamers have muslims too [so do Indonesians], but they’re far less obvious than the Turkish and Moroccan ‘Medelanders’.
We do have a problem with the Islam. No doubt about that.
I, personally, dislike any religion, but as long as you don’t hurt anyone with it, I don’t care if you wear headscarves or whatever you fancy.
The fact that the above mentioned Moroccan youths use their religion to make the gap even wider is a worry to me.
I can understand their rebellion.
But to go back to the ‘purest’ form of Islam and thereby calling women who are not covered from head to toe ‘whore’ and steal, cheat and lie to non-muslims [because that’s allowed in the old-fashioned Q’oran], teaching your children or little brothers to hate the Netherlands, not to mention killing someone who critisizes Islam - and putting people on the ‘deathlist’, is more than the Dutch understand or will tolerate any longer.
capybara, here’s the translation of Wilders’ party-programm:
http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=120&Itemid=71
heh. I have little time again, Kimstu, but you’re definitely not a ‘stomme buitenlander’.
This isn’t quite right. In the USA churches are given an exemption from taxes on their land and from income tax on any money made from enterprises run by the church that is used to support the church.
If a church engages in partisan political activity by publicly calling for the election of any particular individual or party they are liable to having their tax exemption withdrawn.
As far as I know that’s the only thing that keeps churches out of electoral politics.
Now proceed with your discussion of Dutch politics.
I like the manifesto even less in Dutch-- it is as bad as the translation made it sounds. Yeah, I’d say “heropvoedingskampen” is pretty clearly “reeducation camps.” On the ex-colonial medelanders issue, heh, I guess the Antilles doesn’t count (section 5)!
Looks like he is grabbing the most odious policies that have been carried out in the US in recent years (including ones that have definitely NOT worked, like “3 strikes” laws, minimum sentencing, government publications only in Dutch) (and other things like "homeland security departments, etc). A lot of it sounds very familiar-- he should look at the followup studies on how this all worked out in California.
No Islamic schools allowed? Is there such a thing as a Catholic school in the Netherlands, by any chance? Oh, and Islam and democracy are incompatible. Ugh. Ok, I got to see a year’s worth of Blok posters while I was living in Ghent, and this is all a little too familiar. “Nederland is vol”; yeah, I’ve also read that “België barst”, usually in spray-paint on train-trestles. So much of it reminds me of Blok phrasing: vrijheid van meningsuiting (“freedom of expression” (usually in defense of racist rhetoric)) as THE most important right, anti “PC”, no voting right for vreemdelingen, handing most of the crime problem to immigrants, no Turkey in the EU, etc.
Sorry my posts seem to end up sounding more BBQ rant-y than debate-y; I appreciate the fact that after Theo van Gogh and all that that some Dutch see a need for change, but I don’t think this is the answer-- the Muslim medelanders need to be integrated, not oppressed and jailed. I’m not Dutch, obviously, but I have seen some of these sorts of policies in action elsewhere and it wasn’t pretty. I guess I hate to see the Netherlands and Belgium move to the weird right because I have always seen them as models for the future-- and as the avant garde they have to deal with problems like this and try new solutions. The Netherlands have been at the cutting edge of sane government and economy since 1648-- I hate to see things swing the other way.
I agree on every word you said, capybara [except maybe the anti-PC thing. I hate overly PC people ;)]
Yeah. We have Catholic schools. And Protestant ones.
If it was my choice I’d go for public schools and do your religion in your own time. But it’s not.
I just wish you’d give us some clues as to how to integrate the Muslim Medelanders. We’ve been trying for 30, maybe 40 years.
Unfortunately it is starting to look like you used the right tense - the past tense.
The last few years we have seen a steady decline in everything the Netherlands was so great in.
Education is getting worse, healthcare.
I am not very optimistic about the future of the Netherlands at this moment.
If Geert Wilders gets elected I will probably leave the country.
He won’t. Don’t worry.
And I agree with you, too.
I know-- it’s a problem we Americans don’t really understand since ALL of us, with the exception of those of us that the others displaced and stuck on reservations, are from somewhere else if one goes back far enough. Our situation is not equivalent in many ways-- being “American” has nothing to do with ethnic background or where your grandparents were born (for most of us-- we have our wackos). But in a place like Holland or Flanders, where you know what part of TOWN—maybe what building, even— your ancestors in the 17th century lived, it’s a different situation. I think that unless Europe comes up with a solution that simply stops any immigration, it will have to shift its notion of ‘local’-- this has already started with terms like 'imported Dutchmen"-- a notion of place as place and nation NOW and not the past of the place. It might take a long time for white Dutch whose ancestors lived there to see darker citizens whose grandparents came over on a boat as equivalently Dutch. We don’t have the same situation here (although many Americans seem to think that one generation means a lot). I think a similar shift will have to take place if Turkey joins the EU-- Europe wil have to reidentify itself as a secular confederation rather than a (still on some level) Christian union. To a certain extent the US is facing the same situation (much more overtly, actually-- how did this Republic decide it was Christian, or that democracy is synonymous with Christianity, of all things?). The world’s going to continue to change as borders and identity become more permeable and this diaspora of ethnicities and religions and languages continues. We can either hang onto the solution of the past with fingernails and teeth or surrender our old identities and notions of what makes an American/ Dutchman. It’s a problem, and I think the future will be interesting, regardless of what happens. I’ll be interesting to see what solutions we come up with.