When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and Its Discontents in the Netherlands
Paul M. Sniderman
Language: English
Pages: 176
ISBN: B003E7FIKI
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered on a busy Amsterdam street. His killer was Mohammed Bouyeri, a twenty-six-year-old Dutch Moroccan offended by van Gogh's controversial film about Muslim suppression of women. The Dutch government had funded separate schools, housing projects, broadcast media, and community organizations for Muslim immigrants, all under the umbrella of multiculturalism. But the reality of terrorism and radicalization of Muslim immigrants has shattered that dream.
In this arresting book, Paul Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn demonstrate that there are deep conflicts of values in the Netherlands. In the eyes of the Dutch, for example, Muslims oppress women, treating them as inferior to men. In the eyes of Muslim immigrants, Western Europeans deny women the respect they deserve. Western Europe has become a cultural conflict zone. Two ways of life are colliding.
Sniderman and Hagendoorn show how identity politics contributed to this crisis. The very policies meant to persuade majority and minority that they are part of the same society strengthened their view that they belong to different societies. At the deepest level, the authors' findings suggest, the issue that government and citizens need to be concerned about is not a conflict of values but a clash of fundamental loyalties.
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Violent Complainers Intrusive Slackers Violent Complainers Inferior Inferior 0 10 20 30 Percentage Agree Stereotype Attributions 40 0 *Dishonest Selfish *Dishonest Selfish *Not Law Abiding *Not Law Abiding Intrusive Slackers Violent Complainers Intrusive Slackers Violent Complainers Inferior Inferior 10 20 30 Percentage Agree 40 Agree somewhat Agree strongly 10 20 30 40 Percentage Agree Surinamese Immigrants Stereotype Attributions Refugees 0 Moroccan Immigrants.
Consistent with the theory, each is inconsistent with the other. The first version asserts that the mere act of categorization generates bias in favor of the in-group.9 And if totally fictitious groups can command the loyalty of their members, one can only imagine the power of groups that draw on the force of tradition, shared experience, socialization, common institutions, and the full apparatus of symbolic loyalties and socialized identities. The second version asserts that what is crucial is not.
And value that they fear they will not have and want to avoid losing? An initially plausible answer is the core values of their culture. What, then, are the core values of a liberal democracy like the Netherlands? You might be tempted to write a long list: promoting justice; achieving a greater measure of equality between rich and poor; preserving good traditions (acknowledging the certainty of disagreement on which ones, exactly, they are); protecting the nation against its enemies; assuring.
The dispute is not about abstract normative principles. It is about matters of genuine importance, to real people, that can readily be observed in everyday life. You cannot miss seeing restrictions on Muslim women or the absence of them for Dutch women; the “authoritarian” manner of Muslim childrearing, the “permissive” one of Dutch. Dutch governments have made a broad commitment to preserving, indeed, promoting, a Muslim way of life—or more exactly, one version of a Muslim way of life. Other.
Gespuis. Amsterdam: Ambo. Taylor, C. 1994. “The Politics of Recognition.” In A. Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Turner, J. 1996. “Henri Tajfel: An Introduction.” In W. Robinson, ed., Social Groups and Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel. Oxford: ButterworthHeinemann. Van Amersfoort, J. 1974. Immigratie en minderheidsvorming: Een analyse van de Nederlandse situatie 1945–1973. Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom.