Common Sense in Holland

After decades of open door immigration, the Dutch were jolted from their politically correct slumber by the horrific murder of Theo van Gogh last November. Since then, the formerly uber-tolerant Dutch have realized that slain politician Pim Fortuyn's politically incorrect warnings were correct and that mass immigration from non-Western nations has threatened the unique cultural identity of their nation. Now the Dutch seem to be willing to take more serious measures to protect the culture from outside invasion. (Source: "Dutch row over proposal to ban Caribbean youngsters," by Frederic Bichon, Agence France Presse, May 12, 2005; see similar article here)

A new plan by the Dutch government to control an influx of young people from the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean, who as Dutch citizens have a right to live in the mother country, has caused heated political debate.

The plans, which have outraged political leaders in the small Caribbean island territory, are expected to be announced by the government on Friday, but were leaked in advance to the media.

Under the proposal, young people aged between 16 and 24 arriving from the Antilles could be deported if they had neither found a job nor signed up for studies three months after their arrival.

'We can't go on like this,' said the tough-talking minister for immigration and integration, Rita Verdonk, commenting on reports that young people from the Antilles cause social problems in The Netherlands.

She announced harsh measures 'for youngsters that think that when they get off the plane scooters and mobile phones will be waiting for them'.

'For people who have a job or want to study here there will be no problems,' she added.

Verdonk announced in 2004 that she would deport some 26,000 failed asylum seekers, including many who had lived in the Netherlands for more than five years.

Under the new plans, young Antillians who had neither jobs nor courses of study, and also any who had served jail sentences, would be subject to deportation despite their Dutch nationality.

The proposals are expected to be adopted by the government Friday but will still have get the okay from the Dutch parliament.

Though restricting immigration from The Dutch Antilles, which is technically an independent territory of the Netherlands is made more legally complex by the fact that residents of the islands hold Dutch passports, the Dutch government said it felt it stood on firm legal grounds. Naturally, local leaders in the Dutch Antilles expressed anger at the plan, but the Dutch government has excellent reasons for restricting immigration from its former Carribean possessions.

The immigration and integration ministry estimates that about half of Antillians under 25 year of age do not have a job and one in nine is a criminal against one in forty for the general population.

The Dutch left is, of course, outraged. However, with ethnic tensions rising fast in Holland - where native Dutch may soon be a minority in several major cities - the plan is expected to receive approval from parliament. Holland has awakened from its multicultural acid trip to find itself mired the reality of squalor and violence brought about by mass immigration. Whether the country can reverse course and restore itself remains an open question, not merely for the Dutch, but for all of Europe.