Protests are planned in The Netherlands in response to a proposal passed by the Dutch Parliament to “keep records on the cultural and religious norms and values of Dutch people with a migrant background”.
Audience petition calls for movement be withdrawn and anti-racism campaigners plan to demonstrate next Saturday against the government’s move in which the largest party is led by anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders.
The proposal of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – part of the right-wing coalition – says that “data on norms and values can offer insight into the cultural integration” of ethnic minorities and calls on the government to “retain details”, for example through social surveys.
But Mpanzu Bamenga, an MP from the Progressive Democrats 66 party who took the Dutch border police to court to overturn ethnic profilingcalled it a “new social bottom” in a LinkedIn post.
“The whole proposal has a racist starting point,” he told the Guardian. “There is supposed to be a ‘them and us’; that ethnic minorities are problematic and must change to “our norms and values”, whatever they may be. This is completely arbitrary.
The Netherlands is in the midst of a heated debate about integration and segregation after violence, some of it anti-Semitic, surrounding a soccer match between Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam. Right-wing politicians blamed the Dutch Muslim ethnic minorities for failing to integrate and the fragile four-party coalition narrowly avoided falling in November, with one junior minister and two MPs resigning over discrimination and the “tone” of the debate.
For some, the title of the movement reminds holocaust memories of the Nazis inviting Jews to register in their commune.
Jelle Zijlstra, a Jewish theater director and activist, said anti-Semitism occurs in all social strata. “The motivation seems to be that only other people – in this case migrants, Muslims or people not originally from the Netherlands – are guilty of anti-Semitism, homophobia or misogyny,” he said.
“But in a few weeks the archives will be opened and all the files will be included [Nazi] collaborators and people who betrayed the Jews will be seen. I imagine the rosy view that ‘we’ve all been in the resistance’ will be pretty much undermined.”
Tom van der Meer, professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam, says the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) already studies widely different groups. “There are sample-based studies emphasizing privacy, voluntary participation, studies that are not about individuals,” he said. “The proposal is a bit problematic because it assumed it was about registration – but it can’t be. The framework is consistent because people with a migrant background are frustrated.”
VVD MP Bente Becker, who wrote the motion, said she was horrified if the “disorder” had affected people and that it was not a call for a register but for more research into groups in “parallel societies where some people with a migration background do not subscribe to Dutch values such as a democratic, constitutional state or the equality of men and women’.
She told the Guardian by email: “It is not a request that we investigate one group and leave the rest of the Netherlands out of consideration… [but] to be able to have debates about how integration works based on what actually happens in society, not on intuition.”
Bamenga, who discussed the matter with Becker in a parliamentary committee before the VVD proposal was tabled, disagreed. “It’s not about the intent, it’s about the effect,” he said. “Words matter.”
At his weekly press conference on Friday afternoon, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that the government would treat the proposal “carefully” because of its “social sensitivity”.
“It should be clear that the cabinet will not follow the opinion of people with a migration background,” he said. He proposed that the proposal, supported by 10 political parties, be included in a five-year population-wide SCP research project.
Becker said in a video on X that she found it “very cynical and a bit sad” that people had misunderstood her proposal, which was entitled “A proposal by Member Becker to preserve details of the cultural and religious norms and values of the Dutch with a migrant background”.
