Rising immigration to The Netherlands

The 2008 immigration figures

The CBS, the Dutch Statistics Service, reported that in 2008 immigration rose (Dutch) to the highest point ever. On a 16.5 million population The Netherlands received 143,000 immigrants, both from EU countries and non-EU countries. The number of people emigrating amounted to 116,000. The natural increase rose and amounted to 185,000. The figures released by the CBS are provisional and are not split to country of origin.

Integration in The Netherlands

Within the EU The Netherlands has the third highest ranking for freedoms and right given to immigrants as shown by the MIPEX index. Just as the other countries with a high MIPEX score The Netherlands scores very low the integration and participation indexes as shown by the PISA study done by the OECD. The PISA Study shows that Non-western immigrants in The Netherlands (Dutch) live higly segregated lives, do not learn the Dutch language and participate relatively little in gainful employment, compared with more restrictive countries such as Germany, France or Switzerland.

The Political and Cultural history of The Netherlands

The political culture and history of The Netherlands shows little inclination for state enforced restriction on religious and cultural groups. The Netherlands is a federation of Northern Protestants and Southern Catholics that was created in the 17th Century in a Dutch Protestant revolt against Spanish Habsburg and Catholic emirial authority. In order for the different religious communities to co-exist in one state the state interferes as little as possible in the internal affairs of religious communities. The Dutch could peacefully co-exist with each other by ignoring the other religious communities. This Dutch inclination is then increased for the worse by the ruling Western orthodoxy of Liberalism and Multiculturalism.

A recent example

Last week this inclination was shown again by new Minister of Neighbourhoods and Integration (Dutch) van der Laan. He want to allow municipalities which have to oversee intergration courses for immigrants to waive the 270 Euro fee for the the 5,500 Euro courses.

Non-western immigrants who come here often despise us. When they find out that they can get away with despising us they despise us even more.

It is a lose-lose situation.