Westerners generally subscribe to the notion that it is wrong to discriminate. Since the 80ies discrimination has become illegal in most countries. Including the Netherlands.
Whose racism wins out?
Browsing a newspaper in the supermarkt today I noticed a story on a chain of shops where a manager had sent out an e-mail with recruitment instructions to 31 stores. In bolded print the message stated "no Morroccans". The story was featured a few days ago on IslaminEurope by Esther.
The article 1 offices brought the case under the attention of the media. The newspapers are trying to hype the story. The manager who wrote the mail out was not fired. Neither was the HRM-assistant who forwarded the mail without comment.
If people are discriminated against they can turn to a network of 45 anti-discrimination offices. The offices are called Article 1 after the first article of the Dutch constitution, which was amended in 1983 to outlaw discrimination by private citizens.
Affirmative Action is also discrimination
But the state has a program to promote the hiring of women and minorities. E.g. interior Minister Guusje ter Horst carries out her instructions to employ fifty percent women and minority police chiefs with enthusiasm as has been repeatedly reported on this blog. This is discriminates against men. But men can not turn to the Article 1 offices, because these will say it is okay if the state discriminate against them. Discrimination is only bad if the citizens discriminate.
But what is the greater danger? When the powerful state using citizen funding discriminates? Or when a private citizen using his own money does it?
The danger is to the social capital of the nation. With these blatant double standards and abuses of power, the trust between the state and the citizenry evaporates.
Marxist rethoric losing its appeal
The Article 1 offices are conducting a advertizing campaign to make minorities and women aware they have the state behind them if they are discriminated against. The campaign against the supermarket is co-ordinated with that media blitz. What is remarkable is that the power of the article 1 lobby to convince Dutchmen that they are bad if they discriminate is waning. Comment sections in the newspapers show that a considerable portion of the public understands what motivated the supermarket to exclude Moroccans.
If this trend continues the days of the Multicultural society in The Netherlands are numbered.
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