- "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."
-
- THE HAGUE -- 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.
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/20/wneth20.xml&sSheet=/
portal/2004/01/20/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=171686
|