T HE HAGUE—For about five years, conservatives have been holding up Holland as an example of the dangers of too much diversity and too much tolerance of minorities, especially Muslims. Such critics have been calling on countries like Canada to put an end to "multicultural madness." I have news for them. The Dutch themselves have reached a rather different conclusion. After wallowing in a toxic mixture of xenophobia and Islamophobia, they are returning to the moderate middle.
The process of pulling back began last fall when France's disaffected youth, most of them Arab, erupted in revolt, according to professor James Kennedy of Free University in Amsterdam. "The Paris riots were a real eye-opener. Those flirting with the French model (of marginalizing immigrants) realized that wasn't the way to go."
No comments:
Post a Comment