Executive Summary
This report on diversity ‘challenges’ in the Netherlands examines Dutch institutional arrangements, strategies of governance and practices of toleration. It analyses issues concerning both native and immigrant minority groups, explores the ways boundaries are drawn between majorities and minorities, and discusses how cultural differences are socially constructed and contested. Contemporary debates and institutional arrangements need to be understood in the light of the appropriate historical, societal and political background. The first part of the report explores the formation of the Dutch nation and state. It pays particular attention to the history of religious pluralism and the ways civil authorities have handled this form of pluralism in various ways. A process of state formation began in the second half of the 16th century, but the drawing of boundaries between religiously defined groups and the crystallisation of institutional relations between organised religions and the state continued until the 20th century. We explore the ways shifting relations between majorities and minorities have shaped institutional arrangements and everyday practices for the handling of diversity. We look at Dutch traditions of citizenship and nationality, the Dutch position in the EU and how policy responses to immigration were developed since the mid 1980s.
In this report we explore how various images of ‘Dutch tolerance’ developed, how they relate to different legitimisations of acceptance and the ways these emerged in relation to different minority groups, both native (including religious and linguistic minorities) and immigrant (including post-colonial and labour migrants). An important focus will be to explain how the image of the Netherlands as a ‘guiding country of tolerance’ has changed so dramatically over the past decade or so. We analyse distinctive elements of Dutch political culture and institutional arrangements through which the Netherlands seeks to govern pluralism. In many ways institutions in the domains of education and church-state relations have been shaped by the history of ‘pillarisation’. We explore tensions between these institutional legacies and new ideas about secularism and equality, which have become especially acute in the debates on immigrant integration and Islam. One important change in Dutch political culture over the past decades is the emergence of strong voices in public and political debate who defend ‘secular’ and ‘progressive’ values and who are increasingly unwilling to accept transgressions and exceptions to key liberal norms. In the second part of the report we introduce the main minority groups and discuss issues that have arisen around their cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious ‘difference’.
Native minorities include both religious and linguistic groups and the immigrant minorities include post-colonial migrants, labour migrants and asylum seekers. We discuss major events and issues that have structured contemporary public debate on diversity in the Netherlands. We argue that in the Netherlands ‘diversity challenges’ cannot be neatly linked to set groups.
Instead, there are three major sets of issues that are discussed in relation to different combinations of groups. Usually the focus is on religious minorities and/or immigrant groups that are perceived as religiously orthodox or conservative and/or as culturally different. The first set of issues is about the question whether or not special ethnic and religious institutions (faith based schools, ethnic organisations) undermine societal cohesion and form obstacles to immigrant integration. A second set of debates concerns the balancing of, on the one hand, the associational and collective autonomy of religious and cultural groups, and, on the other hand, legal and liberal norms with regard to gender equality and equality of sexual orientations. The third set of debates is mainly about the boundaries of speech and whether or not vulnerable minorities such as Muslims should be protected against discriminatory speech.