Let me try to explain. In NL, this sentiment arose during the 90s. Previously, most politicians were PC, to avoid slaughter in the election. No one dared to say there were a lot of problems with 'muslim' youths at the time. Of course we're not talking about devout muslims, but that was the common denominator, they came from a muslim background. Eventhough politicians didn't talk about it, people on the street did. At some point you get the first politician (Fortuyn) who adresses the problem and calls for action. Social democrats attacked him on it and expected to gain seats in parliament. Instead of debating the problem and possible solutions, they questioned the politician's intentions and accused him of racism. It became counter productive, they lost a lot of seats. Wilders still uses that, he succesfully tries to portray social democrats on their perceived unwillingness to deal with the problems of our melting pot.
We had possibly a similar situation with regard to our African Caribbean population. Our politicians at the time did not seem to have been nearly as PC as yours. They were wanting them to go back to where they came from and offering them the fare home plus some money to settle in. The immigrants did not want that. Police got harder. Stop and search was introduced and within a couple of days or weeks we had mighty riots and policemen being murdered.
Now our rioters were not in the main Muslim and certainly Islam had nothing to do with the rioting but what we can see is that both Holland and the UK had a situation with it's immigrants.
Now let's see what we have in common -
During the 50-70's Europe was importing people from it's previous colonies to make up it's work force and frequently to do jobs other people were not to keen on. By the late 70's we did not really need these people any more. Now if they had just been on work permits no problem but where they had achieved citizenship we had a responsibility to them …..and I can remember people were wondering how they could get out of that responsibility. It seems to me that this might be something to do with the situation in Holland.
At the same time in Britain the government started to take on neocon ideas (Holland too?). I am more and more coming across people speaking of the negative effect the end of communism has had on the West. While communism or even proper socialism was seen as a threat, governments took care to have a more egalitarian stance and worked to appease leftist ideals like freedom and dignity of the individual, anti-fascism, anti-colonialism and anti-totalitarianism. These ideals came possibly more from the Western world wide protests of 1968. Now these protests were also what got the neocons moving because such ideas frighten them. Liberalism frightened them. People needed instead something they could unite with and something they could stand against. They seem to like Nationalism and for a country to feel proud against the other, better than the other. I feel this has been slithering through for the past 30 years and seems to be getting to a point where return will be difficult.
I understand that with Holland talking about immigrants in this way for 20 or 30 years the ideas will 'trickle down' and after hearing them for a while people will start to accept them as true or partly true. Now it may be that for some peculiar reason you managed to get immigrants who for some reason were inherently criminals but I suspect that just like our black population it was the situation they found themselves in which gave rise to the criminality. Different populations of immigrants from different colonised countries, different religions, same outcome. What is the same is simply that they were people we originally wanted to add to our work force, gave citizenship to, appear to have had little problem when the work situation was fine and then in recession they become criminals.
It is not impossible but I think it is a simplistic and I would say dishonest analysis (I am not saying you are being dishonest but I believe that the information you have been given is) Do a bit of research into people in Holland before you had widespread immigration and I am sure you will find that, just like in the UK, those who were at the bottom of the ladder were involved in gangs and crime throughout history. Nothing particularly Muslim in that....but maybe an excuse leaders had in mind for how to get rid of this now surplus workforce.
Ow I agree, but there's a world between dislike, prejudice and downright racist. We all have our dislikes, and most of us have a few prejudices as well.
well I said 'dislike prejudice' and from my view over here it would be impossible for anyone to vote for Wilder who was aware of and had a dislike of prejudice or racism in any of it's guises to vote for Wilders. That is what I mean.
I voted for Fortuyn back in the day, because I was extremely annoyed with the way they debated him. The same on this forum, I often thank people for posting a simple truth when I feel they had to combat a falsehood.
You would not have voted for him and you would not have felt upset in the way others approached him if you had not agreed with him in some respect and the areas where you agreed with him were stronger than where you disagreed. Where this was only you know.
We have mandatory language courses, for which the immigrant has to pay roughly E6000 upfront. Great way to promote a country don't you think. BTW, there's a two year waiting list. We have political refugees. If they report themselves, they're placed in jail type institutions. They get a weekly allowance of E15, but are not allowed to work or study. However, the illegal ones can get a working permit. Our system, designed by sociopaths, creates sociopaths.
How do you think Wilders will improve this? How would you like things to be?
However the issue I was talking about was about people who were looting and rioting being incapable of working. Now although some of them may be second or third generation immigrants, others have been here for thousands of years. They do not respect or feel part of society. This seems to have come about after the Thatcher years and now they no longer expect or even it would appear understand living in the wider world.
I believe that this is the sort of thing which people would be correct to speak about when they talk of the break down of society. I believe it also stems from ideas coming from the Thatcher time that there is no society. If we leave people behind as we did these, we do eventually feel the result. That has been recognised historically. We do not feel ourselves as a collective as we did in pre Thatcher times but I think that is much more due to Labour becoming New Labour, Unions disappearing and with them disappearing the loss of support and political training they offered ordinary members and the fact that increasingly Governments are more apart from the electorate responding to Global demands rather than creating and being a part of a decent society. Such a situation has left the door open for the new far right to come in.
I disagree. I dislike many things. I also dislike, heavily prejudiced against, christian extremists. Doesn't mean I want to kick them out of the country or try to annoy them with discriminative legislation. I do want to challenge their views, and there's no free pass. As soon as they enter the battle of ideas they're fair game as far as I'm concerned.
First rule of our (the dutch) constitution; we're all equal before the law. No disagreement when it comes to your position on equal standing.
While recognising that you accept equality by law, I am not sure what you are disagreeing with. I said
What we find with people suffering from anti islam prejudice is that they are not just bothered about new Muslim's coming in, they appear to believe that those already citizens are not citizens just like everyone else. My own view is that all citizens here are citizens of equal standing. All are British and all have the same rights.
I cannot see what you are disagreeing with. Please elaborate.
That could be the case in the UK. In NL, Wilders openly talks about curtailing 'non western immigration'. There's no disguise, pretty clear he opposes muslim immigration a lot more than east european immigration.
Yes, I understand that is the case.
The foreword alone contains many questionable positions presented as truths. A thread in itself. Pretty ridiculous to criticize a race, human races are 99,9% a like. But cultural or religious behavings are something different, there can be all kinds of valid reasons to criticize those. The line between criticism and racism aka the heart of our disagreement. Criticizing Islam is dangerous enough as it is imo.
The difficulty comes when people believe there is a mono culture which is Islam. There isn't. It gets worse when people find out that one or a few Muslims are doing something and they then blame it on all Muslims. It also has problems when people take an issue and refuse to look at it in context or choose to believe, as Wilders does and as many of the American anti-islamists that extremism is true Islam. The situation gets even worse when people do not realise that Muslims who have been living here for several generations will not be the same as a Muslim who has just arrived.
The idea is classic. Take a negative and spin it to be what all Muslims are. It is a fallacy manufactured by those with their own agendas.
I would agree criticising Islam is dangerous. I realise you are possibly thinking because a loon will come and chop off your head but I am meaning because, particularly in the present climate where their is so much active aggression towards Islam as a religion and so many Muslim's actively using Islam politically, it is being so misused it can be difficult to find it.
You can't refuse islamic schools when you fund christian schools, or even catholic boarding schools.
I am in agreement with integrated schooling. I first decided this after hearing someone suggest that integration was not doing so well in NI because people were still going to their own church school and holding onto stereotypes rather than getting to know each other (sorry ben)
Since returning to Scotland I feel this even stronger. We first introduced Catholic Schools because Catholic children were suffering from prejudice. However now we find that after all this time the protestants and catholics of Glasgow still act in a sectarian manner towards each other. On the other side we only have one Muslim school in the whole of Scotland. All other Muslims attend ordinary schools. Recent research has shown that there is virtually no prejudice among recent school levers due to this shared school experience. So I think that integrated schooling provided it is carefully managed for racism and inclusion is a step in the right direction.
I don't want Sharia law, but muslims have every right to try and secure it (through the democratic proces).
What do you mean by Sharia Law? What actions are the Muslims of Holland doing to initiate Sharia Law
But some parents think they should send their daughter to Somalia, to have her genitals cut
This does not come from Islam Djoop. This comes from cultures pre Islam and is practised by people belonging to several different religions.
You must have missed it when our one Somali poster shared with us that she was due for this when the Muslim Leaders of the area got the Mum's together and explained to them that this was not Islamic and was not something which they should do.
The whole idea that we should westernize people goes against my principles, and I'm open to criticism on the values (or lack of) of western societies as well. But I see no point in looking too far beyond the front door.
I do not believe in the clash of civilisations.
Phew! run out of room allowed for any more!!
I am not very addicted to keeping my eye on immigration but if I remember correctly the Conservatives had set a quota but despite this the numbers went up.