09-11-2006
Since some five or six years ëmulticulturalismí
is a stumbling-stone in public discourse, at least in the Netherlands. The stumbling-stone
has blocked the discourse since Paul Scheffer claimed that the integration of the
immigrants has failed because of multiculturalism, as he did in his article on the
multicultural drama (NRC Handelsblad, 19-01-2000), with a rather high public approval.
In his view multiculturalism was a dominant and coherent paradigm, both in the Academia
and politics. For many who followed him in the argument that integration has failed
multiculturalism was the false faith or ideology of the Progressive Church that had
dominated the Low Countries since the sixties, in their eyes. For the many following
Scheffer it was an ideology. On behalf of multiculturalism and the Progressive Church
all were expected or even obliged to acknowledge the positive impact of immigration,
e.g. on the cultural practices in society, and to assess integration problems as
being caused by the discrimination and oppression of poor minority people. But the
intellectual tide changed in 2000-2001. The many following Scheffer broke the ideology
down and proclaimed that the integration of immigrants should be more than the silent
acceptance of the democratic and legal framework and/or the willing acceptance of
a Western welfare stateís benefits. Highlights after Scheffer were, among others,
the anti-islam rhetoric of Pim Fortuyn in the late 2001 and early 2002 election campaigns
as well as the Submission film of MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh. As highlights
they were doubled or more by the assassination of both Fortuyn (2002) and Van Gogh
(2004) as well as the expatriation that threatened MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali in 2006. The
highlights were accompanied by a number of conservative and neo-conservative intellectuals,
who re-attacked regularly the Progressive Church.
My re-assessment regards three issues
that may have mislead Paul Scheffer and others. One of these is a practical issue,
the second one a policy-relate done, and the third one has its background in the
Academia, i.e. the ivory tower of theories that are discussed at universities.
The practical issue is that volunteers
and professionals, who are to take direct responsibility for immigrantsí reception
and care, show the habitus of responding directly to the
needs and problems of ëtheirí immigrants. This habitus may show a multicultural outlook.
It may include the usage of minority languages or languages of wider diffusion in
stead of the national language; it may regard a high emphasis on intercultural competence
and taking courses in immigrant languages and culture; it often means that informal
mediators are to be relied upon; it may mean a certain level of adaptation to different
expectations that immigrants apparently have towards the professionals and professional
standards, as we know e.g. with regard to medical drugs prescriptions in case of
illness. It is the habitus e.g. the general physicians and other professionals in
the care sector. It is also true for teachers, youth workers, police officers and
all other professionals in the front line. For those who are involved in information
campaigns or in improving communication the point is reinforced by the necessity
to be ëeffectiveí, i.e. to be understood and to have the impact as needed. A comparable
scenario emerged among reception volunteers and officers. As long as their leaders
did not instruct them to be rude and restrictive towards newcomers they listened
to their stories and tried to help them. Some volunteers and professionals might
even feel a certain ëwhite menís burdení making them easy-believers of the stories,
to a certain degree. Some may have felt a fascination for ëthe appealing foreignerí,
with the same effect. Some may have been naïve in their reaction to immigrantsí
opportunism, e.g. for getting a Western visa or passport, also with the same effect.
The other side of the same coin is that some professionals and volunteers became
highly frustrated because of failed communication with their clients, expressing
their frustration by blaming their clients for failing communication capacities and
language proficiency, for strange and unmanageable habits and customs, for wrong
attitudes and values, etc. These professionals and volunteers may state that their
practice in helped by a higher level of integration and assimilation on behalf of
immigrant clients. But the basic mechanism at the front side and front office of
reception and support is ëresponsivenessí, i.e. offering the most justified cure
and care in relation to real needs. The habitus was responsive in the fifties, in
the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and it is now.
Observers can easily misunderstand and
criticise the responsive habitus. So, the habitus is criticised as the pampering
mechanism towards immigrants. In case, it is misleading them, as I referred to above.
The misleading mechanism is that the dominant observersí frame of reference has become
more and more different from the responsive practionersí habitus. The dominant observersí
frame may have been responsive during a number of decades, but since 2000-2001 it
has become a demanding frame, apparently. It has become demanding both for the professionals
and the volunteers, on the one hand, and for the immigrants, on the other. Professional,
volunteers and immigrants should learn to avoid failed integration of the immigrants,
and to guarantee their integration and participation in society. For the interaction
between immigrants, professionals and volunteers the latter was to be indicated,
among others, by the wide and exclusive usage of the national language, as well as
by the absence and diminishing groups-related, specific cure, care, education, consultation,
etc. From their frame observers have interpreted the responsive habitus as weakness
and neglect of negative points. They have referred to ëeasy beliefí and ëeasy believersí
in the front lines, as it actually has occurred, and to mistakes that volunteers
and professionals unavoidably have made and will make under the pressure of intercultural
practice.
Those, who wanted to prove that multiculturalism
in general and pampering in particular was wrong, could find or construe quite some
evidence against multiculturalism and the Progressive Church in reported anecdotal
hear-say from the front line of direct interaction between professionals en volunteers
on the one side and immigrants in need on the other. Examples can be added to examples
forever onwards. But what does it say? If assessed carefully in relation to the mechanisms
and habitus of direct front line interaction not much is left of the critique of
multiculturalism and the Progressive Church. The general conclusion should be that
most professionals and volunteers tried to develop something like tailor-made cure,
care, education, consultation, etc., taking into consideration both the specific
needs of their clients and the standards of the profession. Extreme variants are
to be avoided and corrected in a continuous process of professional learning and
adaptation. So, only little evidence supporting the big point is left. So, stop referring
to it in the frame of the critique of multiculturalism and the Progressive Church.
With regard to the professionals, volunteers
and their clients my concluding standpoint is to let them do their jobs and to trust
their integrity, learning capacities and self-correction mechanisms. They should
certainly not be loaded with something like ëintegration protocolsí.
Second misleading point is that the critique
of multiculturalism and the Progressive Church has mixed up the policies of muddling
through as usual with a coherent belief and ideology. Actually, it is a rather absurd
critique that the policies represented a coherent belief and ideology in the seventies,
eighties and nineties. The critique is focussed on the school schemes for education
in the home languages, such as Turkish and Arabic, an almost double number of teachers
for immigrant children, and public support for self-organisations. As the schemes
and support have been part of Dutch policies since the seventies one could think
that they apparently represented a coherent belief and ideology. In the first place
the thought was likely because it were Progressive (i.e. Labour) Ministers of Education
and Welfare, who initiated the home languages scheme in the seventies, the almost
doubled number of teachers for immigrant children and the support scheme for national
representative self-organisations in the seventies. They were Ministers in a rare
rather progressive Cabinet that ruled the country in the mid-seventies. Their schemes
and measures got a more coherent policy statement in 1984, in the governmentís policy
statement on minority policies of another progressive Minister, on behalf of coalition
Cabinet of Labour and Christian-Democrats that only survived for less than a year.
Neither the immigrantsí schemes and measures nor the green book were, however, questioned
or changed by succeeding Conservative Cabinets. Obviously, there was wider political
support for the schemes and measures than only that of the Progressive Church.
In the second place the thought is likely
because a number of academics and experts, who were in favour of the home language
scheme, argued that it reflected a basic minority language right as laid down in
international treaties. Maybe that advocates of basic rights belong to the Progressive
Church eo ipso, as for them the concept represents
a universal concept that emerged from the debate on the language rights and the cultural
autonomy of indigenous minorities of e.g. the Frysians in the Netherlands, the German
Austrians in South-Tyrol/Aldo Adige, the Catalans and Basks in Spain (and France),
and the Curds in Turkey. In international debate as encouraged by the Council of
Europe and other institutions it was proposed to extend the minority language rights
of indigenous minorities to those of immigrant minorities. Since the late eighties
I have had the opportunity to take position in this European debate as the co-ordinator
of international research programmes such as ëLanguage and Ethnicityí of the Vienna
Centre and the project on the cultural and linguistic management of mixed communities
in European border zones. For me, the distinction between the language rights of
indigenous and immigrant minorities have always been rather artificial, and in that
sense I am, I assume, with a few other experts a multiculturalist and a member of
the Progressive Church. In that sense it is my honour and privilege, as it may be
that of the above-mentioned progressive Ministers, i.e. Jos van Kemenade, the late
André van der Louw and Ed van Thijn.
However, for the following reasons it
is more likely that the policies have represented policies of muddling through in
the first place, and certainly not a coherent belief and ideology. First reason is
that these schemes for home language education, the doubled number of teachers and
the support of self-organisations have always been controversial, and not only in
a confrontation of the Progressive and the Conservative Churches in Dutch politics.
The other reasons to be discussed below regard the ëprogressive reluctanceí against
the schemes and measures as well the ëquid-pro-quoí conditions related to the schemes
and measures. Final reason is that it actually has brought much ado without clear
effects.
Most progressive politicians and particularly
progressive or labour city councillors I have met in the course of time, were reluctant
in relation to the scheme, the support of self-organisations and every other measure
that could be explained as the preferential treatment of immigrant minorities or
as the reinforcement of minority identity. To a certain extend they could not avoid
to do these, as they were based upon national schemes and legislation, for which
they were only partially competent. Besides, there were push factors that overruled
their reluctance. A first strong push factor was the promise of additional funding
on behalf of national or European funds. Then there was the push from the side of
consultants and experts, who were apparently able to convince the councillors that
specific measures could solve or prevent local problems, while being an adequate
response to specific needs of local risk groups. Another strong push factor appeared
to be that it raised local media attention in favour of the councillor. The latter
is welcome for the further political career of any local politician.
However, these mechanisms did not make
them multiculturalists and believers of the Progressive Church. The returning test
case has been the permanent controversy on subsidies for immigrant self-organisations
in municipalities with major immigrant communities, and own institutions for care,
education, sports, etc. For the latter almost all progressive councillors were strongly
in favour of general institutions doing the work for all people. Immigrant welfare
institutions had emerged in since the sixties and the seventies, often against their
will, in the frame of national welfare policies. The immigrant welfare institutions
existed at the time that the municipalities became responsible for local welfare
and it took some time until a new balance was found between specific and general
institutions, in line with the preference of most councillors for all-inclusive general
institutions. A great handicap was that many general institutions were obviously
unable and remained unable to offer the right cure and care to their immigrant clients,
with or without more emphasis on diversity management and intercultural capacity
building. So, the controversy between general welfare institutions and specific immigrant
welfare institutions has continued. The local authorities are more or less condemned
to muddling through in the controversy.
The Minister has ended the home language
scheme as part of the school curricula in the mid-nineties. This token of multiculturalism
and the Progressive Church was already broken down before the critique took its high
momentum. It was replaced by voluntary home language courses that were to be subsidised
by the municipalities, depending on local decision-making and the local democratic
process. It has since then the same status as the subsidies for local immigrant self-organisations.
The subsidies are part of the local democratic mechanisms with its checks and balances
against too one-sided preferential treatment of minority interests, on the one hand,
and white vested interests, on the other. For some reasons most municipalities cannot
ëescapeí from allocating of some means to their immigrant self-organisations and
home language courses, but these are often linked to available national and European
funding, participation of immigrant organisations in local consultation mechanisms
and a visible contribution to local and national integration policy aims 3 quid-pro-quo instead of multiculturalist
belief and ideology, so to say.
Herewith we come to the major change with
regard to immigrants in the nineties that were introduced at least some years before
the critique emerged. The change was the introduction of integration obligations
on behalf of immigrants. As newcomers they should attend integration courses, and
as immigrant residents they could be forced to attend such courses too, e.g. in relation
to social security benefits or public child care. The changes were introduced at
the national level on behalf of promising experience and good practice in two municipalities
in the early nineties, namely in Tilburg and Rotterdam. Form 1996 onwards it was
a voluntary scheme for municipalities with a considerable number of newcomers, and
from 1999 onwards it became the national rule, based upon the first integration law,
as adopted in 1998. The change has been followed in a number of European countries
in recent years.
Focus of the critique in 2000-2002 was,
however, that ëthe integration had failedí, notwithstanding the new obligations and
measures, as indicated e.g. by educational, labour market and housing statistics.
The critical standpoint of the time became that more severe and strict measures were
needed for the integration of immigrants in a country such as the Netherlands. Most
to my regret the critique was not based upon a serious evaluation of the integration
courses. It was, as far as it was empirically supported, based upon national and
comparative statistics concerning school achievement and labour market participation,
such as those of Ruud Koopmans in a short article published in Migrantenstudies in
2002 and the annual minority report of the Social and Cultural Planning Office SCP,
or those of the Central Bureau of Statistics CBS. Later these were completed with
annual integration reports and crime statistics that showed the over-representation
of young ëMoroccansí and ëAntilleansí in police registers. Would the integration
courses have been evaluated seriously at the time the outcome would certainly have
been that considerable improvements were needed in relation to the integration indicators
regarding language proficiency, literacy, labour market participation, criminal involvement
of youth at risk, etc. That was at the time the outcome of the evaluation my DOCA
Bureaus has carried out in the municipality that co-founded the integration courses,
i.e. in Tilburg. We were faced with unclear course effects because of administrative
and ICT-troubles, lacking knowledge and low information exchange between co-operating
professionals and institutions, and a remarkable sociological difference between
single immigrants, e.g. among asylum seekers and Antilleans, and immigrant family
members. Single immigrants showed a much higher interest in the courses as it offers
them access, contacts and networks, while immigrant family members rely on access,
contacts and networks on behalf of the resident family members. Immigrant family
members appeared to postpone their interest in the integration courses until their
needs for access, contact and networks cannot be guaranteed by resident family members.
That may take time that was not foreseen in the first integration law. The integration
course is to be done at arrival.
However, without serious research the
critique had stated that the integration had failed. In 2002, a Parliamentary Committee
should prove that immigrantsí integration has failed, and new measures were to be
taken at the national level to ensure the integration of the immigrants. In 2004,
the Committee did not conclude that the integration had failed, although the integration
as achieved by a large majority among the immigrants was apparently not the effect
by national minority or integration policies, i.e. the home language schemes, the
double number of teachers for immigrant children, the subsidies for immigrant self-organisations,
and the integration courses.
The new measures regarded more restrictive
immigration procedures, on the one hand, and examined language proficiency for long-time
stay in the country. The restrictive immigration procedures were introduced quickly
in 2002-2003 on the basis of existing immigration legislation and it most restrictive
interpretation. A law on the examined language proficiency took a whole legislature,
with the result that after four years the new integration law has not yet passed
both Chambers of Parliament and that eighteen university professors of immigration
and integration have advised the Parliament not to accept the proposed law. Their
standpoint, laid down in a letter to the First Chamber of Parliament of 02-10-2006
is that integration courses on the basis of the existing integration law were to
be improved.
What is the political stand in Autumn
2006, two weeks before the national elections and four years after the multicultural
drama and Fortuyn, as well as the effort to make new demanding integration policies
in combination with restrictive immigration rules. The stand is a draw between the
neo-conservatives and ëreluctant Labourí. Restrictive immigration rules are applied
with the consent of the Supreme Court, but they are counter-acting the new national
need for labour immigration in relation to shortages e.g. in cure and care, greenhousing
and brain workers. The Immigration Office is still trying to manage the thousands
of ëold asylum casesí that were not allowed a general pardon, but were to be handled
on an individual basis. This has gone on now for four years, causing continuous trouble
in public opinion. It has made fully clear, who the losers are of the restrictive
immigration rules. These are the rejected asylum seekers, who relied on humane treatment
when they arrived in the country, but were facing expatriation or illegal residence
since 2002 and the hard immigration line.
The new integration law, in which the
tested proficiency in Dutch as a second language will be made an obligation for newcomers
and resident immigrants, is still pending, depending on its adoption by the First
Chamber of Parliament on 21 October 2006, i.e. one day before the national elections
for the Second Chamber. The Second Chamber has agreed with the new law, with the
support both of the conservative majority and the progressive opposition. Obviously,
the new law and its demands laid upon newcomers and resident immigrants, is not a
clear controversial issue between the Progressive and the Conservatives Churches
in Dutch politics, notwithstanding the upheaval and troubles since 2000-2002 and
the unsolved issues in relation to the Constitution and European legislation with
regard to European citizenship. The lack of controversy on the point is also demonstrated
by the ongoing election campaigns, in which the integration is hardly an issue, this
time, while it was issue number one in 2002 and 2003. I would be pleased when the
issue returned on the political agenda, as the nation has not yet found a new, decent
and viable position in relation to globalisation, migration and multiculturalism,
whereas the chances and perspectives of young and second generation immigrants remain
weak. I would recommend that the Members of the First Chamber in Parliament will
agree with the eighteen chairs of immigration and integration, who recently advised
to reject the new integration law.
The period since 2000 has been a period
of much ado, but without a coherent belief and ideology that reflected the continuities
of earlier experience and legislation. The political leaders, who had been responsible
for the integration courses of the nineties have been released by their parties,
continued their career outside the political domain, or took commitment for local
leadership, muddling through in the above-mentioned way. So, I daresay that there
was hardly a firm and coherent belief or ideology of the Progressive Church in the
political domain, at the moment that Scheffer and others formulated their critique
of multiculturalism and the Progressive Church. There were some vague notions, there
were some advocates of linguistic minority rights and there was a high effort of
local muddling through. Beyond that there was the rising fear of immigrant youth
gangs and islamist terrorists that apparently deterred the majority population. The
fear broke through on 09/11. It was reinforced by Pim Fortuyn in late 2001 and early
2002. It was further reinforced by islamist threats against MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and
others, and the assassination of Theo van Gogh, who had made the movie Submission
together with MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Apart from all real national and international
causes of youth crime and terrorist radicalisation the Progressive Church was, perhaps,
an easy scapegoat for conservatives and neo-conservatives, who got their momentum
in September 2001, in the USA, in the Netherlands and in other Western countries.
The preceding misleading points in the
critique of multiculturalism and the Progressive Church regarded practice and policies,
i.e. the domains that are usually an object of research and academic debate. The
third point regards the Academia and the post-modernist paradigms that have intruded
many faculties since the seventies, although, as I would like to argue, not so much
academic research on immigration, integration and cultural factors as relevant in
this respect.
It is rather easy to understand that post-modernism
is associated with research on immigration, integration and cultural factors as relevant.
Post-modernism has intruded the discipline of cultural studies almost fully, since
its emergence of both post-modernism as a philosophical theory and cultural studies
as a research priority in the seventies. The major object of the cultural studies
was popular and mass culture as well as the culture of everyday life. Major target
of post-modernist analysis was the deconstruction and ëde-contextualisationí of the
artefacts of high culture, such as novels on the one hand, and intellectual rhetoric,
on the other. The assumption was that no cultural artefact of rhetoric style has
a value of its own, standing above other artefacts and speech. Novels and intellectual
essays are certainly not more important and interesting than the produce of popular
and mass culture, or the rituals of everyday life. All culture refers to plays and
games between social actors. Post-modernism and the cultural studies got their momentum
in languages and literature as well as in the sociology of culture and mass communication,
since the seventies. Among the cultural factors that are relevant for immigration
and integration research, researchers are faced with issues such as home language
use, low proficiency in the national language among the first generation, identity
issues, sub-cultural and minority rituals including threatening ones such as honour
revenge practices, genital mutilation and other oppressive practices against women,
or a loud, extremist and threatening proclamations on the Qurían, etc. These items
do not belong to high culture, and can therefore be the objects of post-modern interpretation.
In their assessment the researchers can refer to post-modernism. Reference to post-modernism
would mean that every cultural item is said to be justified, not being better or
worse than any other item. It would be a reference to cultural relativism. Researchers
cannot avoid to ëunderstandí the cultural factors in their context. So, their assessment
could be or could be picked up as an unjustified justification of specific cultural
items. From the standpoint of the critique of multiculturalism and the Progressive
Church it may regard cultural items that are ëbackwardí in relation to Western democracy
and modernity, that are oppressive against women, that are threatening for the wider
community, that do not support the national integration policies, or more. In this
frame Scheffer has concluded that all or most academic research in the field as carried
out in the eighties and nineties was embedded in a false multicultural paradigm or
theory.
I have two major objections against his
conclusion.
First objection is that most Dutch research
on immigration, integration and cultural factors as relevant is sincere empirical
research and it should continue to be sincere empirical research, i.e. research in
which conclusions are based upon observations, concepts that are explained as clearly
as possible and grounded methodology. From the references in research publications
concerning data and observations, clarified concepts and grounded methodology others
are enabled to re-assess the findings and conclusions, even in case the researchers
themselves have drawn unjustified ëmulticulturalistí conclusions or in case their
findings and conclusions have been (ab)used in political rhetoric. So, the critique
is offered the opportunity to assess in how far research is would-be research or
sincere research. Scheffer nor others have carefully assessed in how far the research
they have criticised consisted of would-be, non-sincere research. I daresay that
only a small portion of the critique is justified in this respect.
Second objection regards the comparative
research projects. Actually, all sincere research projects should compare different
groups, cultural phenomena and/or periods of time, justifying conclusions concerning
similarities and differences. In this sense, sincere research on immigration, integration
and cultural factors as relevant represents a multi-entity and multi-culture, i.e.
a multicultural model, even would the outcomes show widespread mono-culturalism in
society. In my experience European or international comparative research is an applicable
model that helps to understand migration, integration, and, if occurring, failing
integration processes very well. It has helped me to overcome the strong nationalist
tendencies in the field. The nationalist tendencies are not or only marginally what
Scheffer assumed they were, namely a formation of vested interests and ties between
policy makers belonging to the Progressive Church and the research community, held
together by a shared ideology of multiculturalism and contracts for affirmative research.
Both the Progressive Church and the multiculturalist research community were negligible,
as I may have shown above. The tied contracts for affirmative research may exist,
however, as they might do in any sector of national policy making and related knowledge
industries. National and more or less affirmative paradigms have been the motor of
European sociology since decades. These follow the money, as our British colleagues
have said, independent of the political colour of the moment, be these Progressive
of Conservative. Would the line have been multiculturalist and Progressive in the
nineties, it must have changed with the political tide of 2001-2002 towards nationalism
and the Conservative Church.
As said, the comparative model offers
a welcome counterbalance against nationalist and affirmative research. Actually,
my first involvement in the field was the co-ordination of research on language and
ethnicity in countries and regions far away from the Netherlands. My view on migration
and integration issues there was inspired by minority issues and ethnic conflict
in Central and Eastern Europe around 1989, i.e. the time that the Iron Curtain has
come down. Now I am committed to empirical and comparative research on e.g. Antilleans
at risk, the chances and perspective if young and second generation immigrants, homeless
young immigrants, etc.
Maybe I am an incorrigible multiculturalist
and convinced member of the progressive Church. But why not?