Aprovechamiento de Ventajas Competitivas en el Mercado

There are four ethnic minority groups (Surinamese, Antilleans, Turks and Moroccans) who are well-established communities in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a country that has an extended colonial history and a huge desire to avoid conflict. This fact could project the idea that it is a very easy going country. This is not the case however, as it is a ‘relatively conformist country’ (Scheffer, 2011, 110); the ‘Dutch are far less accommodating than they think they are. In daily life, foreigners experience considerable pressure to assimilate’ (Scheffer, 2011, 112). The Netherlands has frequently been described as a very tolerant country but this image of tolerance has been called into question in recent times (Scheffer, 2011). The Dutch population has a long history of incorporating ‘the Polder Model’ paradigm of consultation which traditionally helped to resolve differences. This Model was established in the Middle Ages as a means whereby various groups joined each other to build dykes. The polder model ‘has been a mainstay of conflict resolution ever since, used today most frequently to resolve labo[u]r disputes, and for the Dutch it is synonymous with compromise’ (Hurewitz, 2005, 3).

The Netherlands has a long colonial history of 300 years and a longer history of slavery and bonded slavery which dates back to the 1600s (Oostindie, 2008). It colonised the largest Muslim country (Indonesia) in the world, which gained its independence after the Second World War. Dutch memory has been somewhat fragmented about their colonial history however (Oostindie, 2008). The Dutch have been present in Indonesia for almost 350 years. This ‘evasiveness’ has to a certain degree affected the relations between the Indonesian natives who did not feel welcome in the Netherlands. They had the same civic rights and duties as the indigenous Dutch but only felt comfortable within their own group. This resulted in social unrest in the Netherlands during the 1970s as a result of growing frustration. In the 1950s, ‘integration’ policy focused on assimilation, whereas later policy focused on a combination of integration and identity (Scheffer, 2011). During the 1960s and 1970s,

124 guest workers arrived from the Mediterranean as well as migrants from Suriname. Some 350,000 Surinamers had migrated to the Netherlands in 1975. There was a major difference between these groups of migrants. The guest workers were expected to return to their country of origin, so no effort was made to promote their integration. On the contrary, they were encouraged to retain their cultural identity in order to help reintegrate them on their return (Entzinger, 2006). Government legislation during the early 1980s strongly supported ethnic minority groups keeping their cultural identities (Geddes, 2003).

The dominant migrant groups are Surinamese, Antilleans, Turks and Moroccans. There appears to be a hierarchy, with some groups being more readily welcomed into mainstream society (van de Vijver et al, 2006). The Surinamese and Antillean are higher up the hierarchy than the Turks and Moroccans. The Surinamese and Antilleans have reported that they are more at home in the Netherlands and that there is greater involvement and interaction between these two groups (van de Vijver et al, 2006). They also report lower levels of discrimination. Simultaneously, younger Moroccans have reported a detachment from their ancestral identity and also feel unaccepted by mainstream society, so their sense of identity and self-acceptance is very poor (van de Vijver et al, 2006). On the subject of guest workers, Dutch politicians found it a challenge to recognise them as permanent workers (de Haas, 1997).

Several prominent ethnic groups have been officially acknowledged by the Dutch government as minderheds groepen (minority groups). The Minister of the Interior at the Directie Coödinatie Minderhedenbeleid (Minorities Policies Department) has the prime responsibility for ethnic minority policies (de Haas, 1997). Comprehensive anti- discrimination legislation was introduced in 1994, with an approach of consensus and tolerance, whereby ethnic groups were incorporated in all relevant policy areas. In the 1990s, the Dutch presented the ‘integration’ model or ‘gidsland’ as a leading country model example of best practice at the time (Michalowski, 2005). However, multicultural policy had been highly criticised during the 1980s and the 1990s because of the social distance that had been created and maintained between migrants and the indigenous Dutch (Geddes, 2003). Social exclusion was very evident during this period in the Dutch migration management policy (Geddes, 2003). Dutch policy has had a

125 long-standing public image that has been admired across Europe and indeed worldwide.

By the early 1990s, policy makers acknowledged that the goals of the Ethnic Minorities Policy (1983) had been unsuccessful. A new ‘Integration Policy’ was developed in 1994, where a greater onus was on the migrant to learn the Dutch language and Dutch history. Orientation programmes were implemented and expected to be used, as sanctions were also introduced to indicate the seriousness of the orientation programmes (van Oers, 2008). Overall, the Integration Policy (1994) was centred on mainstreaming migrants into the community. The policy was aimed at migrant groups already residing in the Netherlands and did not target new migrants arriving into the country. Weaker ethnic groups have little choice but to remain as aliens because of the restrictive nature of the new tests (van Oers, 2008). Another Act, the Civic Integration of Newcomers Act (1998), targeted the new migrants arriving in the Netherlands in a similar fashion to the Integration Policy (1994). The new ‘integration’ model was a complete reversal of the Ethnic Minorities Policy (1983). By the early 2000s, it was acknowledged, yet again, that this new ‘integration’ policy approach was failing. In 2004, the Dutch Ministry introduced a penalty system for migrants who failed to integrate within a set time (Vasta, 2006). Policy in 2005 proposed that migration management should further enforce the obligation on the migrant to adapt to Dutch norms and regulations; again the obligation reverted back to the migrant to conform and adapt (Vasta, 2007). Overall, policy changes and policy regulations were becoming more restrictive, with a greater onus on assimilation, a complete reversal for the Netherlands. A number of migrant groups were at a serious disadvantage as a direct result of the new ‘integration’ tests (Strik et al, 2010). Moreover, migrants with poor language skills were highly disadvantaged. Likewise, the tests have been criticized for being selective around age, nationality and education (Strik et al, 2010). The sole onus is now on the migrant to ‘integrate’ into Dutch society and failure to do so means that migrants confront a number of issues, including becoming undocumented, or unable to join family members or becoming dependent on other family members. In this respect, the tests hamper their integration (Strik, et al, 2010).

126 Having said that, the Dutch ethnic minorities policy was considered a failure, because even though the policy specifically targeted ethnic groups (Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans), these groups still suffered very high levels of unemployment and frequently those that were employed were in low paid, low skill employment and very vulnerable to labour market change (Geddes, 2003). Dutch employers though, are very much in agreement that ethnic minority groups are either lacking the skills, language or education which means that they have been disadvantaged from the onset (de, Haas, 1997). Equal opportunities have never been present for ethnic minorities to the same extent as they have been for the Dutch population on the whole. This is crucial, since one in five of the population were born outside the Netherlands (Vasta, 2006, 4). The Netherlands did invest considerable time and effort in the integration of ethnic minority groups (de Naas, 1997), yet research indicates that many groups of ethnic minorities continued to be disadvantaged, particularly in employment and education.

A current trend has developed across some European countries which can best be described as widespread moral panic, because the argument has been rife that migrants have not met their responsibility to ‘integrate’. Cohen (2002) coined the phrase ‘moral panic’ to describe groups of people who are seen as deviant and seen as an extraordinary social threat to the fabric of society (Cohen, 2002). This moral panic suggested a re-emergence of assimilation policy to tackle this ‘problem’. For example, the Netherlands has shifted their high tolerance policy to a ‘coercive assimilationist policy’. Policy has become more heavily reliant in the Netherlands on ‘conformity, compulsion and seemingly undemocratic sanctions towards immigrants’ (Vasta, 2007, 1). The shift from tolerance has been extreme, particularly for the Netherlands (Vasta, 2006). Moreover, there is an indication that the Netherlands has been unwilling to ‘recognise the exclusionary racist practices and structures within Dutch society that make it very difficult for immigrants to integrate’ (Vasta, 2006, 2-3) and there is evidence of institutional racism within Dutch society (Vasta, 2006).

One of the dominant challenges is a high level of fear of Muslims (Vasta, 2006) and their religion which is seen as a threat in both the Netherlands and to a lesser extent in Britain, and has largely come to be regarded as a threat to the overall ‘integration’ process in both countries. The native Dutch population consider Islam as the ‘root of

127 all evil’ (Entzinger, 2014, 700). Religion can threaten the long-term projection of ‘integration’ because of this perceived threat. In 1991, Frits Bolkestein, the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party (VVD), triggered a public debate that Islam was ‘presumed’ incompatible with western values (Entzinger, 2006). This argument has been repeatedly raised throughout the last twenty-three years.

Multicultural policy broadly means that migrants should be able to participate as equals in all spheres of society, while simultaneously continuing to enjoy their own culture, religion and language. It also entails conforming to the norms and values of society. A further onus rests on the indigenous population to accept the cultural differences of minority groups and multicultural policy places a certain emphasis on official State action to ensure equal rights for minorities (Castles & Millar, 2009). The question of whether ‘the focus on tolerance had served ultimately to gloss over a number of quite real and pressing social problems’ was raised (Michalowski, 2005, 2). The reality remained that migrants were seldom viewed as equal partners and high unemployment and low-skilled employment was a dominant feature among ethnic minorities (Michalowski, 2005). The unemployment rate among the ‘Allochtonen,’ for example, was four times higher than among Dutch nationals in 2005 (Michalowski, 2005). More recently, there have been some improvements in statistics but labour market participation overall is twice as low for the main ethnic minority groups as for the indigenous Dutch (de Kroon, 2014). Unemployment among young people is a different picture, 10% of Dutch young people are unemployed, 28% of non-Western young people are unemployed and 39% of Moroccan young people are unemployed (de Kroon, 2014, 2). The employment rate among Turkish and Moroccan minorities of Muslim descent is 52% and 48% respectively; this figure for the indigenous Dutch is 66% (Eijkman, Lettinga & Verbossen, 2012). Furthermore, cultural prejudices are widespread in the Netherlands (Hurewitz, 2005).

The Dutch use of the word “allochtoon”— literally “not from here”— for dark-skinned Dutch, even those born to families living in The Netherlands for generations, shows just how widespread cultural prejudices are and how much compromise needs to come from both sides. The Netherlands has taken a first step in pulling its head out of the sand and looking at its internal problems openly. But it still has a long way to go

128 There are divisions between different groups in the Netherlands. The use of the terms allochtoon and autochtoon show a crucial distinction between the majority and the minority groups; statistics from 2003 show that 61% of Dutch people stated that most social tensions were between these groups (Kremer, 2013, 3). In a survey in 2011, 54% of Dutch agreed that immigration and open borders are threatening the identity of the Netherlands (Kremer, 2013, 5). In addition to higher unemployment, there were high levels of delinquency among certain minority groups which gives further evidence that ‘integration’ has not been working and it is clear that minority groups have fewer opportunities compared to mainstream Dutch society. Segregation has increased (Entzinger, 2006). The evidence suggests that the Dutch State’s thinking is currently distancing itself from the model of the multicultural society (Hamidi, 2013). The more recent ‘integration’ policy, the Civic Integration Bill (2011), has called for tougher approaches to deal with people who disobey the law. Integration policy currently no longer targets specific groups of migrants (Hamidi, 2013), which was the standard practice up until very recently. The Civic Integration Bill (2011) also terminated all previously allocated grants and finances awarded specifically for ‘integration’ purposes, which again, is a complete turnabout from previous policy. Furthermore, immigrants are charged the full fee of €5,000 to take part in the orientation programmes (Entziner, 2014).In addition, a common agenda for modern citizenship has been projected in the near future (Hamidi, 2013). Finally, the economic recession in the Netherlands has a large influence on migration management policy. The following section explores the higher education systems in Britain and the Netherlands.