More Dutch Plan to Emigrate as Muslim Influx Tips Scales

[Postmanx]

NY Times

MSTERDAM - Paul Hiltemann had already noticed a darkening mood in the Netherlands. He runs an agency for people wanting to emigrate and his client list had surged.

Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy?

The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims."The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said.

Ruud Konings, an accountant, has just sold his comfortable home in the small town of Hilvarenbeek. In March, after a year's worth of paperwork, the family will leave for Australia. The couple said the main reason was their fear for the welfare and security of their two teenage children. "When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Mr. Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids."

[TheFarseer]

1. Sounds like they should close their borders

and deport some trouble makers just like we should.

[parsifal_e]

10. I don't see the "/sarcasm" tag !

[TheFarseer]

19. There wasn't supposed to be one

I'm all for immigration but we should at least screen these people! People that are going to contribute to this country are welcome. People that have terminal deseise and just want free medical treatment, people that have dangerous criminal backgrounds, people that dont want to follow the laws, but want to set up their own little theocracy - I don't think we want those kind of people in here. Do you want to have to escape your own country like the Dutch someday? I sure don't. Sorry if that's not a democratic position, but I don't have to agree with everything the DNC says.

[hector459]

22. I hope they don't decide to come to the US. we have enough of our own

problems.

[otohara]

2. This Is Just Sad

to feel no other choice but to leave your country.

[Blue_Tires]

3. very sad and very ironic

since Holland has traditionally been such a liberal, tolerant, and accepting place....But I guess everyone has their breaking points

[gulfcoastliberal]

4. The tension was palpable in Amsterdam even 5 years ago

They have an enormous problem and the natives know it.

And these comments point to what is hapening here in the USA as we continue to create unsustainable sprawl:

Marianne and Rene Aukens, from the rural town of Brunssum, had successful careers, he as director of a local bank, she as a personnel manager. But after much thought they have applied to go to New Zealand. "In my lifetime, all the villages around here have merged, almost all the green spaces have been paved over," said Mr. Aukens, 41. "Nature is finished. There's no more silence; you hear traffic everywhere."

[VegasWolf]

7. I wasn't feeling no tension when I was in Amsterdam!!! n/t

[daleo]

5. "Get away from foreigners" by moving to a foreign country?

That doesn't make sense. And if it is actually race they are getting at, Australia is multi-racial as well. It seems like a combination of NYT alarmism over Muslims and generalized European liberalism bashing. Here is a key phrase from the story:

"There are no precise figures on the numbers now leaving."

[girl gone mad]

11. It's more complicated than that.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Muslims that immigrate to the Netherlands isolate themselves from Western culture. Young men form gangs and terrorize communities.

I don't think this is a matter of racism. It is a clash of two very different cultures - one tolerant and open, one repressive and intolerant.

[Bluebear]

12. Unfortunately you are correct

This is just a reality forming in Amsterdam, the street crime rate is alarming, scary place to be at night versus 10 years ago even.

[Psephos]

6. This scenario is going to play out in other EU countries soon

Immigration from the Middle East to Europe is exploding, while native European birthrates are in steep decline.

Unfortunately, many of the immigrants do not assimilate into their new cultures, but rather, form their own ghettoes, where nonprogressive attitudes and customs remain firmly entrenched.

[EVDebs]

8. Nature, so to speak, will take its course. Stop importing labor and

begin to take care of the natives. Once the business cycle turns up, it starts all over again anyway.

Or else just burst the dikes ?

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

13. Exactly right.

This is a class of people largely without taking benefit from ANY of the much-vaunted social welfare net. They work in the black market, no unemployment insurance, vulnerable to unsafe working conditions. I know that has to be part of the equation re: petty crime.

[frankieT]

9. capitalism at work -eom-

[xchrom]

14. it's different else where?

sorry to disappoint those wanna be emigres -- but that's world the way it is -- every where you go.
if it isn't muslims -- it's somebody else -- no place is perfect.

for me -- it's fundie red necks -- with guns.
now that's a problem.

[98geoduck]

16. Iceland and New Zealand are pretty "safe".

[mainer]

15. My Dutch in-laws have left the Netherlands as well

And have decided to stay permanently in the US. It's so sad. They are liberal, accepting people, but the new Holland includes foreigners who now want to restrict the rights of women and completely overturn liberal Dutch laws.

[Charles19]

21. BS, what rights of women are they trying to restrict? (n/t)

[not fooled]

17. I am confused...

...do the Muslims immigrate under "worker" programs i.e. to be cheap labor (legally or illegally) or under "humanitarian" auspices (as refugees)?

[amazona]

23. they do have worker programs

I should have been taking notes when I was listening to a short talk about it last year but I was tired so I don't have any real details. However, the gist is that young workers from former colonies have been encouraged by various programs.

I was pretty aghast however that the gov't or at least some elements of the gov't feel the country needs even more foreign workers because the locals are supposedly not breeding enough. What do they want? Every last bit of land is taken and they have to build more out of the sea. I feel for the poor man who said, "Nature is finished" because he can't get a quiet spot away from traffic.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[solinvictus]

18. Auslander raus!!

That's the way I'd feel, anyway.

[amazona]

20. a beautiful but over-populated country

It is sad but there are just plain too many people there. Forget the racial or ethnic issue. There are too many people. When some forces in a gov't continue to encourage groups to emigrate into a tiny already over-crowded area, the quality of life can't be maintained forever. In many ways, Amsterdam is beautiful but I couldn't imagine living there with so many people on top of each other like an anthill. I fully sympathize with the family who want to move to Australia because the frontier of the U.S. is dying also.

If politicians don't have the will to say enough is enough -- and they won't, because they desire an anthill lifestyle for the people because it's a bigger tax base -- then the people who need more space and freedom from other poking elbows in their sides have no choice but to move elsewhere.

One day everyone who is unable to tolerate the crowding of humanity will be dead or on drug or gene therapy for their "defect" of needing space and freedom. That day, to me, will be a tragic one.

The problem is way bigger than the Netherlands.

I saw a program produced by BBC News the other day complaining about the terrible problem of low birth rate and under-population in...

...wait for it...

Hong Kong.

Our "leaders" do not care if we are packed like sardines in a can. They just want the tax base and to hell with quality of life.

You may flame me now but as I have seen my own town in Louisiana quadruple in population in a few short years then you are not going to change my mind that this is a positive thing. This isn't a race thing -- our "emigrants" are white flight yuppies -- this is a matter of the land mass of the planet only has so much. You can't have peace and clarity of mind when you are always trapped in traffic!

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Behind the Aegis]

24. Very sad!

This happens all over the place. People go from one country to another and refuse to "be a part of their new homeland." Instead, they bring their own ways and do not tolerate the ways of natives. This is not to say people shouldn't hold dear to their own identities and culture, but if you are in new place, you adapt to THEIR rules, you don't start making your own.

To me, this is like someone going to a Bar Mitzvah, and because you are not Jewish, you demand the entire ceremony have no Hebrew and end with "praise Jesus." Or going to someone's house who doesn't swear, and cursing up a blue streak! You need to respect the culture you are entering, as much as you would want your culture respected.

Immigration used to be about creating or finding a new and better life for one's self. Now, it has become a war without guns, imposing your beliefs on your new home. You chose to move to that country for a reason, if you don't like everything about it, then perhaps it is best you stay at home!