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Corporate racism in The Netherlands
Steve James - 12.08.2002 12:15
Representatives of Dutch business have been emboldened by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Netherlands’ political parties to mount their own racist witch-hunt to divert blame for deepening social and economic problems onto the most oppressed layers.
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe
Corporate Netherlands mounts anti-immigrant witch-hunt
By Steve James
12 August 2002
Representatives of Dutch business have been emboldened by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Netherlands’ political parties to mount their own racist witch-hunt to divert blame for deepening social and economic problems onto the most oppressed layers.
According to Het Financieele Dagblad, Jaap Blokker announced in the annual report of Blokker Holdings that the “entire asylum and illegal immigrants industry” were responsible for most of the armed robbery in the Netherlands. Shop work, claimed Blokker, meant having “a good chance of having a pistol pushed into your face or a knife held to your throat” and most robberies were carried out by Antilleans, Moroccans or East Europeans, encouraged by politically correct and over indulgent politicians. Blokker is co-owner of the Blokker Holdings retail empire, which controls 2,400 high street shops including Intertoys, Xenos, Bart Smit, Leen Bakker, Casa and Marskamer.
Blokker’s comments were endorsed by MKB Nederland, an employers’ federation and political lobby group that claims to represent some 125,000 small and medium sized businesses in the Netherlands. According to the Guardian, MKB Nederland agreed with Blokker that immigrants were committing too much crime and the government should impose longer prison sentences on those caught shoplifting. MKB Nederland claimed that the problem was particularly acute in Rotterdam, which has a high concentration of immigrants and where the far right List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) first came to prominence early this year, when it won a dominant position on the city council. An unnamed police source told the Guardian that ninety percent of street crime in Rotterdam was committed by immigrants, but said this was not surprising since almost half of the city’s population was of “foreign extraction.”
Simultaneous with Blokker’s and MKB Nederland’s remarks, according to Het Parool, Dutch TNC Royal Philips Electronics announced that it was no longer going to offer work to unemployed migrant workers in the Netherlands on account of their inability to speak Dutch. Philips, one of the world’s leading consumer electronics companies operates in 60 countries, few of whose first language is Dutch. The company has been savaging its own workforce, after suffering its largest ever losses in 2001. 12,000 of the company’s 188,600 workers have been informed they will be sacked.
Besides Philips, other leading Dutch companies and financial institutions are in trouble and intensified hounding of immigrants is a predictable device for diverting attention from the stringent economic measures intended to reduce state welfare spending and defend profit margins. The Amsterdam stock exchange has been volatile, with financial giant Aegon reporting profits down 77 percent and leading bank ABN Amro recording a 60 percent fall for the first two quarters of 2002. According to the Central Planning Bureau, unemployment is expected to rise to 385,000, while the state budget deficit is expected to be four times greater than anticipated. Economic growth expectations have been reduced from 2.25 percent to 1.5 percent, triggering calls for deeper cuts in social spending than those already planned by the incoming government.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric dominated the general election and reached an unprecedented pitch after the assassination of Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn’s oft-repeated election slogan was that “the boat is full”. This stance was shared by all the major parties, all of which hoped to stampede the population into accepting a wide range of anti-democratic measures on the pretext that a clampdown on immigrants would ameliorate the decay of social conditions. Taking up where the preceding “Purple Coalition” led by the Dutch Labour Party (PvDA) left off, the new LPF/Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA)/Liberal (VVD) government has announced border patrols and increased policing to track down and deport asylum seekers and “illegal” immigrants. Whole regions will be designated danger areas, with police authorised to conduct stop and search sweeps for illegal migrants.
The Netherlands remains a wealthy country, with an economy that in 2000 was the 15th largest in the world, bigger than that of the entire Russian Federation. Its 16.2 million population is only slowly increasing. According to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in 2001 a mere 27,000 people successfully sought asylum in the Netherlands. Increasing numbers of those came from the former Soviet Union, Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Sudan, while claims from Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq [as long as there is no new Gulf war yet] declined. This already rather small number is falling, due to an Aliens Act introduced by the Kok government. According to the ANP news agency, one third of all asylum claims are now immediately rejected, while the rights of asylum seekers to appeal a rejection of their claim have been curtailed.
The PvdA’s clampdown on asylum rights has inevitably led to increasing numbers of migrants with no legal status whatsoever. In these conditions a rise in petty crime reflects the state of desperation to which sections of the population have been reduced. Even here, though, the numbers are small. It is estimated that between 46,000 and 110,000 people, fleeing from poverty, war and social disaster, were in the Netherlands unofficially in 2001. A report from Rotterdam’s Erasmus University noted that thousands of rejected asylum seekers exist entirely on charity handouts from social and religious organisations. The report warned that if these groups ended their support, then thousands of people would be forced onto the streets. In The Hague alone, 25 organisations are devoted to supporting rejected asylum seekers, while 40 percent of local municipalities provide no support whatsoever. In April, the city hall in the Hague was occupied by 20 rejected asylum seekers who had been evicted by the Hague council from their temporary accommodation. For its part, shortly before its collapse the PvdA government commissioned research from the Catholic University of Brabant into methods of deporting failed asylum seekers to their country of origin.
Migrant workers who manage to retain legal status form some of the most oppressed sections of the working population. Infant mortality amongst non-Western migrants is 30 percent higher than the rest of the Dutch population, a statistic attributed to stress and poverty. Child mortality to teenage migrant mothers is 60 percent above the average. A report from the Verwey Jonker Institute reported that twice as many Turkish workers, and one and a half times as many Moroccans were “completely job disabled” and dependent on the job disability scheme (WAO). The report cited “stress of the migrants’ existence”, “persistently lower educational level” and physically more dangerous work as explanation for the statistics. In all 920,000 people were registered on the disability scheme, 20 percent of whom were migrants. The new government aims to reduce those eligible for the WAO by 40 percent.
 Website: http://wsws.org
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| Read more about: anti-fascisme / racisme | | supplements | | | Dutch Racism | Perantau - 13.08.2002 02:12
The Dutch policies concerning Dutch citizens,
who have the intention to live together here with
somebody from outside the European Union,
are even a better example of ""corporate racism""
in this country.
Dutch law does not allow citizens to be
(re)united here with a non-EU-citizen ,-not
even as husband and wife within a legal marriage-,
unless the Dutch partner meets some extreme
conditions concerning a.o. salary and labour contract,
that are nowhere else seen within the EU.
The procedure for obtaining a residence permit is
as a whole highly bureaucratic, humiliating,time
wasting and expensive.
The only purpose of these policies, which have taken
shape already in the early nineties under labour
dominated governments(!!!!),is to exclude the
biggest possible number of Dutch citizens from
their basic human right to choose their partners
freely without government interference, without
dicrimination for reasons of race or nationality,
and to disencourage as many people as possible
to marry someone from outside the EU.
The fact that this new ""apartheidspolitiek""
has never faced any serious opposition in
parliament, proofs the highly undemocratic
character of political life in the Netherlands
nowadays.
I hope that this country will be severely
criticized internationally for its inhumane
and indecent policies, that are mainly based upon
racist prejudices, although this has of course
never been admitted.
| | Rasicme? | Karel - 13.08.2002 09:00
De uitspraken van dhr blokker zijn gebaseert op ervaringen van zijn medewerkers. Ik snap niet wat het naar buiten brengen van deze ervaringen met rasicme te maken heeft. of mag je zulke FEITEN alleen naar buiten brengen als het niet om buitenlanders gaat.
Website: http://www.fundamenteel.info
| | OORZAAK EN GEVOLG | sjaak bralt - 13.08.2002 10:16
het gaat denk ik niet zo zeer om het aangeven wie het doet, als wel rekening houden met het waarom! in de huidige media, waarin soundbytes van meer belang lijken dan inhoud, kijken veel mensen niet verder dan een televisie-item lang is. zo missen ze informatie zoals die hierboven gepubliceerd, waarin een verband wordt gelegd tussen socio-politieke beslissingen en het (mogelijke?) gevolg, meer diefstal door een nieuwe, door hun huidskleur herkenbare arme onderklasse.
| | @karel | clara - 13.08.2002 11:43
Het is precies de manier waardoor vooroordelen ontstan: als mensen hun eigen ervaring (of erger nog de ervaringen van anderen) in aparte situaties als algemene feiten anzien.
En het word discriminatie/racisme als dat gebruik word om er mee politiek te maken.
| | Maar... | VaagTeken - 13.08.2002 14:38
Wat als heel veel mensen soortgelijke ervaringen hebben? Waarom ontstaan bij de ene bevolkingsgroep wel (negatieve) vooroordelen en bij de andere niet? Zo hebben de Chinezen (hier in grote getale aanwezig vanaf +/- 1900) Grieken (1960), Spanjaarden (idem) niet veel negatieve vooroordelen. Waarom?
Gewoon een vergelijking: De ervaring leerde dat kinderen schadelijke gevolgen ondervonden van het nuttigen van alcohol. Natuurlijk gold dit niet voor alle kinderen. Toch vind ik het niet erg dat er een wet gekomen is die mensen pas vanaf 18 jaar alcohol laat drinken.
Het gaat me hier niet om het bestaan van die wet, maar de omstandigheden waaruit die voorkwamen. (Hoop da'k nog 'n b'tje begrijpelijk overkom.)
| | Oorzaak en gevolg | Steven - 13.08.2002 21:07
Blokker heeft denk ik wel gelijk als hij constateerd dat Blokker vestigingen vaker overvallen worden door niet-westerse allochtonen dan door blonde nederlanders (om maar effe een vooroordeel uit de kast te halen)
Tja, Blokker heeft veel vestigingen in relatief arme stadscentrana, en arme mensen zijn vaker crimineel dan rijke (althans, in de zin van overvallen. Witte boordencriminaliteit is weer wat anders dan een kledingzaak beroven)
Wat is nu oorzaak en gevolg? Je kunt wel roepen dat allochtonen vaker crimineel zijn dan autochtonen, maar is dat ook de oorzaak?
En wat betreft Grieken en Spanjaarden: Daarvoor hebben we het onderscheid tussen niet-westerse en westerse allochtonen. Een griek is een allochtoon, maar vergeet niet dat de gemiddelde griek of spanjaard een achtergrond heeft die veel meer op de gemiddelde nederlander lijkt dan de achtergrond van een berber.
Je kunt niet alle Grieken/Spanjaarden/Nederlanders/Marrokanen/Willekeurige andere Etniciteit over een kam scheren, maar voor een grote groep klopt het vaak wel. Of de gemiddelde inwoner van dit land, of de gemiddelde politicus dat onderscheid (tussen de groep als geheel en het individu) begrijpt is een andere vraag.
| | Kareltje nazi | 13.08.2002 22:09
Karel blijkt "racisme" en andere Nederlandse woorden niet te kunnen spellen (zoals bij zulke "verdedigers van de Nederlandse cultuur" gebruikelijk) en verwijst naar een neo nazi site. Haal zijn bijdrage daarom weg en zet Kareltje op een inburgeringscursus.
| | daar gaan we weer | Karel - 14.08.2002 08:19
Gebrek aan argumenten ?, dan maar schreeuwen over de wo2.
De betreffende site houd nieuws berichten bij en is zeker geen nazi site.
| | Nick | 14.08.2002 23:32
Ik vind het een goede zaak dat de criminaliteit is aangestipt door een grote onderneming.
Er wordt maar al te gemakkelijk gegeneraliseerd door racismebestrijders! Zij beginnen gelijk te zeuren dat mensen als Jaap Blokker, die een mening geeft naar aanleiding van feiten, hele bevolkingsgroepen in de criminele hoek drukt. Heeft Blokker gezegd dat ALLE allochtonen crimineel zijn? Neen, hij stelde slechts vast dat het merendeel van Marokkaans/Antilliaanse komaf was.
Volgens mij denken mensen als "Kareltje Nazi" (een type die niet eens zijn naam durft te noemen) dat het Nederlandse volk uit een stel dombo's bestaat voor wie onderscheidingsvermogen een te hoog begrip is. Iedereen weet wel dat de meerderheid van de criminaliteit door allochtonen wordt gepleegd, maar men weet heus wel dat het grootste deel zich nog altijd aan de wet houdt.
"Kareltje Nazi" discrimineert hierdoor alle Nederlanders in mijn ogen.
Website: http://www.polinco.net/forum
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