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| Europe |
| More Dutch plan to immigrate as Muslim influx tips scales |
| 2005-02-27 |
| Paul Hiltemann had already noticed a darkening mood in the Netherlands. He runs an agency for people wanting to emigrate and his client list had surged. But he was still taken aback in November when a Dutch filmmaker was shot and his throat was slit, execution style, on an Amsterdam street. In the weeks that followed, Mr. Hiltemann was inundated by e-mail messages and telephone calls. "There was a big panic," he said, "a flood of people saying they wanted to leave the country." Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy? The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims."The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said. There is more than the concern about the rising complications of absorbing newcomers, now one-tenth of the population, many of them from largely Muslim countries. Many Dutch also seem bewildered that their country, run for decades on a cozy, political consensus, now seems so tense and prickly and bent on confrontation. Those leaving have been mostly lured by large English-speaking nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where they say they hope to feel less constricted. In interviews, emigrants rarely cited a fear of militant Islam as their main reason for packing their bags. But the killing of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a fierce critic of fundamentalist Muslims, seems to have been a catalyst. "Our Web site got 13,000 hits in the weeks after the van Gogh killing," said Frans Buysse, who runs an agency that handles paperwork for departing Dutch. "That's four times the normal rate." Mr. van Gogh's killing is the only one the police have attributed to an Islamic militant, but since then they have reported finding death lists by local Islamic militants with the names of six prominent politicians. The effects still reverberate. In a recent opinion poll, 35 percent of the native Dutch questioned had negative views about Islam. There are no precise figures on the numbers now leaving. But Canadian, Australian and New Zealand diplomats here said that while immigration papers were processed in their home capitals, embassy officials here had been swamped by inquiries in recent months. Many who settle abroad may not appear in migration statistics, like the growing contingent of retirees who flock to warmer places. But official statistics show a trend. In 1999, nearly 30,000 native Dutch moved elsewhere, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. For 2004, the provisional figure is close to 40,000. "It's definitely been picking up in the past five years," said Cor Kooijmans, a demographer at the bureau. Ruud Konings, an accountant, has just sold his comfortable home in the small town of Hilvarenbeek. In March, after a year's worth of paperwork, the family will leave for Australia. The couple said the main reason was their fear for the welfare and security of their two teenage children. "When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Mr. Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids." Sandy Sangen has applied to move to Norway with her husband and two school-age children. They want to buy a farm in what she calls "a safer, more peaceful place." Like the Sangens and Koningses, others who are moving speak of their yearning for the open spaces, the clean air, the easygoing civility they feel they have lost. Complaints include overcrowding, endless traffic jams, overregulation. Some cite a rise in antisocial behavior and a worrying new toughness and aggression both in political debates and on the streets. Until the killing of Pim Fortuyn, a populist anti-immigration politician, in 2002 and the more recent slaying of a teacher by a student, this generation of Dutch people could not conceive of such violence in their peaceful country. After Mr. van Gogh's killing, angry demonstrations and fire-bombings of mosques and Muslim schools took place. In revenge, some Christian churches were attacked. Mr. Konings said he and many of his friends sensed more confrontation in the making, perhaps more violence. "I'm a great optimist, but we're now caught in a downward spiral, economically and socially," he said. "We feel we can give our children a better start somewhere else." Marianne and Rene Aukens, from the rural town of Brunssum, had successful careers, he as director of a local bank, she as a personnel manager. But after much thought they have applied to go to New Zealand. "In my lifetime, all the villages around here have merged, almost all the green spaces have been paved over," said Mr. Aukens, 41. "Nature is finished. There's no more silence; you hear traffic everywhere." The saying that the Netherlands is "full up" has become a national mantra. It was used cautiously at first, because it had an overtone of being anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim. But many of those interviewed now state it flatly, like Peter Bles. He makes a long commute to a banking job in Amsterdam, but he and his wife are preparing to move to Australia. "We found people are more polite, less stressed, less aggressive there," Mr. Bles said. "Perhaps stress has a lot to do with the lack of living space. Here we are full up." Space is indeed at a premium here in Europe's most densely populated nation, where 16.3 million people live in an area roughly the size of Maryland. Denmark, which is slightly larger, has 5.5 million people. Dutch demographers say their country has undergone one of Europe's fastest and most far-reaching demographic shifts, with about 10 percent of the population now foreign born, a majority of them Muslims. Blaming immigrants for many ills has become commonplace. Conservative Moroccans and Turks from rural areas are accused of disdaining the liberal Dutch ways and of making little effort to adapt. Immigrant youths now make up half the prison population. More than 40 percent of immigrants receive some form of government assistance, a source of resentment among native Dutch. Immigrants say, though, that they are widely discriminated against. Ms. Konings said the Dutch themselves brought on some of the social frictions. The Dutch "thought that we had to adapt to the immigrants and that we had to give them handouts," she said. "We've been too lenient; now it's difficult to turn the tide." To Mr. Hiltemann, the emigration consultant, what is remarkable is not only the surge of interest among the Dutch in leaving, but also the type of people involved. "They are successful people, I mean, urban professionals, managers, physiotherapists, computer specialists," he said. Five years ago, he said, most of his clients were farmers looking for more land. Mr. Buysse, who employs a staff of eight to process visas, concurred. He said farmers were still emigrating as Europe cut agricultural subsidies. '"What is new," he said, "is that Dutch people who are rich or at least very comfortable are now wanting to leave the country." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #25 The Fourth Reich, perhaps? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-02-27 10:30:35 PM |
| #24 You name it. He just wants to be a President. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-27 8:02:22 PM |
| #23 Of what? |
| Posted by: .com 2005-02-27 7:11:08 PM |
| #22 Pat Buchanan for president!! |
| Posted by: Snuck Crish4462 2005-02-27 7:07:57 PM |
| #21 Unfortunately, Shipman, there's not a lot to be positive about. The good people have already left, driven out by the socialists and transies. Those people are productive and go-getters. There aren't a lot of them left over there, though. Now comes the people who screwed up the place and want to not take responsibility for their actions. They then want to screw up their host country the same way, and presumably will flee again when they ruin it. As Pappy noted, it's the same within the US. Some of us fled California because of the runaway leftist government and are more conservative or libertarian than the native Zonies. Others, though, want to make Arizona a drier version of California. Oh, well. I'll be dead in 30 years or so. Will the last Christian leaving the Netherlands, breach the dykes? |
| Posted by: jackal 2005-02-27 5:10:36 PM |
| #20 Damnit! I'm trying to be positive here Mrs. D! :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-02-27 4:22:08 PM |
| #19 Shipman, That assumes that they won't try to reconstruct the Europe that was so wonderful before the wogs came. But they will. With the consequences mhw sets out. Good discussion about today's Steyn column at Austin Bay's. Steyn comments on Bay's attack on the column. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-27 1:58:38 PM |
| #18 If Europe had reformed welfare the way the US reformed welfare back in 95, then it wouldn't be such a magnet for Islam. The left's victory on welfare will lead to the end of their civilization. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-02-27 1:29:18 PM |
| #17 Perhaps the ones who leave see the problem and will fight like hell to make sure it doesn't come to their new home. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-02-27 12:40:48 PM |
| #16 Ausssies aren't welcoming these immigrants |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-27 12:03:32 PM |
| #15 Is anyone actually surprised by the 'Surrender and Run' tatic by Europeans? Contrast that with the Minuteman project in Arizona and see the the great divide in our cultures. If a Professor was shot and had his throat cut, I think the public (maybe not academic) response would be totally 180 from Europes. I notice they are not coming to the U.S., GOOD we don't like quiters either. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2005-02-27 11:40:57 AM |
| #14 Even sadder to think is that when these lot get wherever they're running away to, they'll start trying to make the new place more like home We call it "California Refugee Disease". |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-02-27 11:19:48 AM |
| #13 Which is why the US is not on that list of English-speaking countries being mobbed with requests. Their model couldn't work in their own country once there was any diversity at all ... it would work even worse here. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-02-27 10:14:28 AM |
| #12 Even sadder to think is that when these lot get wherever they're running away to, they'll start trying to make the new place more like home. Same stupid mushy politics and unwillingness to confront the problems they created. They'll be like Typhoid Marys - bringing the ideological infection with them. Davemac |
| Posted by: Ebbavitle Glereling2593 2005-02-27 10:07:52 AM |
| #11 Tapeworm. That's what it reminds me of. Sobiesky . . . this is not tapeworm. A tapeworm will live off the host, giving some bad side effects, but allowing the host ot live. This is cancer of the heart and it will eat the heart out of the Europaean democracies and leave the hollow shells filled with Islamic hate. |
| Posted by: Jame Retief 2005-02-27 8:01:40 AM |
| #10 I'm all sympathy. |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2005-02-27 5:47:36 AM |
| #9 "Dammit, where am i going to smoke now?" |
| Posted by: Shimp Whereck3311 2005-02-27 4:07:18 AM |
| #8 Stand and fight or run and die. Your choice. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2005-02-27 2:37:39 AM |
| #7 This has been going on unremarked for years. Educated, skilled and succesful people leave to be replaced by poor unskilled people whose ambition is to live on welfare. Something has to give. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-27 2:28:05 AM |
| #6 The title should say emigrate - as in outbound. Newsflash for the Dutch - you won't find sanctuary anywhere, except maybe Antarctica. You will find common cause, if you have the stones for the fight and the sacrifices required to make a stand, in those few places actively opposing Islam. Put up or shut up is the order of the day. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-02-27 2:13:04 AM |
| #5 Tapeworm. That's what it reminds me of. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-02-27 2:09:24 AM |
| #4 Yes Norway faces the Muslim hordes as well but this problem is facing all of western Europe. See The Weekly Standard issue # 22 for the scoop on Sweden. Malmo, second or third largest city in Sweden is now 25% Muslim, 90% of them are unemployed, living off the Swedish welfare system. |
| Posted by: Juan 2005-02-27 2:04:56 AM |
| #3 The leaders of The Netherlands would have more credibility if they started locking up militants instead of locking up their legislators... |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-02-27 1:22:44 AM |
| #2 Article: "What is new," he said, "is that Dutch people who are rich or at least very comfortable are now wanting to leave the country." You gotta love it. European political parties are cynically encouraging Muslim immigration to compete with each other at the polls, thereby hastening the day that Muslim majorities, followed by Muslim strongmen, will rule Europe. What I find interesting is that democracy accompanied by mass immigration and the welfare state is leading to the end of Europe as the home of white Europeans. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-02-27 1:13:12 AM |
| #1 Uh....Frau Sangen, hate to break it to you, but Norway's got the same problem you're running away from. Why don't you all stay home and force your politicians to do something about the homicidal bums your country has welcomed with open arms (and much holier-than-thou-ness). |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-02-27 1:09:13 AM |