The Islamic Republic of Holland: how one nation deals with a revolutionary problem

National Review, July 18, 2005 by John O'Sullivan

If the values inculcated and reinforced by that Muslim environment are the same as those of the host society, then assimilation will probably occur in time, albeit slowly. But if they differ sharply, then the Muslim communities will reject an assimilated national identity more or less indefinitely. Islamism is the extreme version of such a rejection. In Holland, this problem centers on the rights of women and homosexuals. Does Islam accord women and gays those equal rights that are among the values of the Dutch state? There are currently disputes within Islam on this point, at least in Western countries. Dutch officials are nudging Islamic representatives to reach the right liberal conclusion. Rotterdam, for instance, is quietly pressing self-help organizations to put women on their boards. But it is far from certain that this obstacle to assimilation will soon be removed.

The second obstacle is the weakness of Dutch identity. Several Dutch speakers at the aforementioned conference blamed their problems on an earlier failure to treat immigrants well; they contrasted this regretfully with America's traditional policy of welcoming new arrivals. But that is not quite correct: Immigrants to the U.S. were welcomed at some times and given a hostile reception at others. What was more important in ensuring their assimilation was the strong appeal of the American identity. Immigrants wanted to be American and overcame many obstacles to become so. To use today's jargon, America was a strong brand image.

Even if Holland cannot quite match that, it is a beautiful country; the Dutch are a fine, decent, and democratic people; and they have great historical achievements to their credit, from pioneering capitalism to resisting the Nazis. Their present national identity is weak, in both their own eyes and those of immigrants, only because it has been artificially undermined by government in order to advance multiculturalism and European integration. National pride in Holland has been disparaged in order to ease the path of immigrants into society--but that has had the paradoxical effect of making those immigrants less likely to identify with a society that lacks confidence in itself. If the Dutch want to assimilate Muslims more effectively, they would make a good start by recovering their own identity from Brussels and boasting about how they drove the Kings of Spain from their homeland.

A final obstacle to assimilation is continuing high levels of immigration. As is now generally accepted, these tend to reinforce ghettoization, alarm the native-born, and thus obstruct assimilation from both ends. Restrictionist measures have been proposed since van Gogh's murder, but they are vulnerable to legal and political pressures. And these pressures in turn are fueled by the belief of European elites that their declining populations need large infusions of immigration to avert the collapse of their economies and welfare states.

Europe does indeed have a demographic problem. But the distinguished demographers at the conference--including Joseph Chamie, the former chief demographer of the U.N.--pointed to a number of facts arguing against the elites' alarmism. Europe's projected decline in population is actually rather moderate; it would, for instance, not reduce Spain even to its 1950s population level (not then seen as too low). Living in a country with a stable or declining population would be a quieter life but not necessarily unpleasant. Problems of overcrowding, congestion, and environmental overload would be ameliorated. There is no evidence that larger countries tend to be wealthier--if anything, the reverse. We would need to make major transfers of resources from some purposes--e.g., schools and infrastructure--to others, such as hospitals and social benefits. But such adaptation would make more sense than seeking to maintain the existing ratio of workers to dependents through immigration. Not only would that mean wholly unsustainable levels of immigration--the EU would need to increase its population level to that of India and China combined by 2050 to maintain the "support ratio"--but it would merely postpone the problem to the next generation.