From: casper@fwi.uva.nl (Casper H.S. Dik)
Subject: Re: Job (baan)
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 09:40:53 GMT

spwim@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Wim Degroot) writes:

>In article <1992Aug14.072648.27217@corax.udac.uu.se>, ignaz@astro.uu.se writes...
>>In article <13AUG199213040690@mars.lerc.nasa.gov>, spwim@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Wim Degroot) writes:
>>->I'd like to start another serious threat in this newsgroup, something that is


>As far as I know, all countries that I have lived in require citizenship for
>any government job, whether it is a social services, an environmental job or
>anything else, whether that is wrong or right. Discrimination has nothing to 
>do with that. A foreigner can not land a Dutch government job without becoming
>Dutch first. Are Dutch discriminating against everybody not Dutch? I thought 
>that the term "discrimination" referred to singling out specific ethnic, 
>religious, racial or sexual traits or characteristics. 

I think that different rules hold for inhabitants of EC member states.
They are free to go and work were they please. (This doesn't hold
for police, army and jobs requiring security clearance). The Dutch government
does employ foreigners, at least in the lower echelons of the civil service.

 

>On a different note, the Dutch government is withholding the Dutch nationality
>from a large group of people who want to become Dutch, just because of the color
>of their skin or their ethnicity, while easily giving it to people that are 
>white and closer to Dutch religious beliefs. My SO for example has been trying 
>to receive Dutch nationality for the last few years without results. What's
>even worse is that it has been creeping closer to US beliefs. I would like to 
>hear your opinion on that as well as on the possibility that if the Dutch 
>government does not discriminate by your standards, the Netherlands would have
>an influx of several million people who would not mind living there and 
>enjoying the social system. In a perfect world, that SHOULD NOT BE a problem.
>But how will YOU solve that, economically as well as socially, based on 
>something called reality, NOT a perfect world.   
>_Wim.

I don't think they are withholding Dutch nationality from people
because they are of skin color. Anyone who lives in the Netherlands for
5 years can become Dutch without much problems. The government even
encourages this. ``You live here, become Dutch''.

If you mean that the Dutch government doesn't allow people in from abroad,
you are right. The Dutch government tries to keep out people that come here
to better themselves, without any benefit to our country. This discriminates
against poor people, regardless of origin. Last time I looked, most
of them are white (east european nationals). If you come here with
money, you have a much better chance of being admitted. And if you're white,
you have a much better chance of living in a richer country and/or
have money yourself.

The Dutch tend to think of themselves as a tolerant society, without
any basis in fact. Being a very white country until recently, there's
no history of (white against colored) racism as there is in the US.
The influx of foreign nationals during the last thirty years made
racism raise its ugly head.

The Dutch may seem toleant, but in fact we simply on't care. When it came to
protecting the jews in WWII, Holland finished second last when it came
to percentage saved. (Only Poland did worse). You were better of living
in Berlin, as a jew. So, it may be pleasant to live here if you're
different, because we don't care what color you are, but when the going gets
tough, you'd better get the hell out of here.
(Not that I expect that to happen, but still).

The only time we took in lots of refugees was probably centuries ago,
when we took in lots of white, predominantly wealthy people with
a similar religion running from Roman Catholica oppression.

We also took in dissidents from many countries. But only as long
as they didn't bother our government.

This still makes Holland a much better place to live than the US, of course.

Casper
-- 
						|	Casper H.S. Dik
						|	casper@fwi.uva.nl
Newsgroups: soc.culture.netherlands