Leaving Europe

On a continent full of craven one-worlders, the Dutch always were a quiet exception.

In 1983, I went with my college choir to Europe. We learned one national anthem; Wilhelmus Van Nassouwe, the Dutch national hymn. "It's wierd", said the director; "most places in Europe, people could care less about their national anthem, but in the Netherlands, they love it".

"The Netherlands", to much of the Dutch public, is not an idle, specious concept.

So this story is interesting.

The Netherlands have a long reputation as a liberal nation - in both the classical and modern senses of the term.

Many of the ideas of the free market and individual liberty that animated the American Revolution gestated in Holland. It's worth noting that Holland was a destination to many seeking religious freedom before the Industrial Revolution.

They were a moderate monarchy and an early adopter of democracy (although, we need to note, they were also fairly cruel colonists in places like Indonesia).

And while they have a reputation among American conservatives as a caricature of weak-kneed nannystatists, the Dutch in fact had more spine than much of Europe. While Holland was conquered during the Blitzkrieg in 1940, the Dutch Army fought hard; according to Walter Lord in Miracle at Dunkirk said the German infantry held more respect for the Dutch troops than either the British or (naturally) French opposing them. The Dutch resistance was among the first in Western Europe to organize, and while it fought against some daunting challenges (Holland has no mountains and few forests to hide in), was quite effective at rescuing downed pilots, smuggling Jews to safety, and sabotaging the German war effort. During the Cold War, while their unionized military drew guffaws from Americans (at a time when the US military wasn't much to write home about, itself), they also built the best-equipped Army and Navy on the continent; the Dutch Marines had and have the best reputation among any soldiers on the European mainland.

I mention this by way of saying that calling the Dutch a nation of spineless pansies is to speak from less than complete information.

And yet, the Dutch middle- class are, in growing numbers, packing up and leaving.

Escaping the stress of clogged roads, street violence and loss of faith in Holland's once celebrated way of life, the Dutch middle classes are leaving the country in droves for the first time in living memory.

The new wave of educated migrants are quietly voting with their feet against a multicultural experiment long touted as a model for the world, but increasingly a warning of how good intentions can go wrong.

The article, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, notes that for the first time in living memory the Netherlands have a net efflux of population; more people are leaving than immigrating.

There are many reasons - the climate of violence, the murders of populist politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the sense that the nation is degenerating - as one person said:

Frans Buysse, the head of Buysse Immigration Consultancy, said he received more than 13,000 hits on his emigration website in November, four times the usual level. His office in Culemburg is flooded with fresh applications.

"Van Gogh's death was a confirmation for them of what they already sensed was happening," he said. "They're accountants, teachers, nurses, businessmen and bricklayers, from all walks of life. They see things going on every day in this country that are quite unbelievable. They see no clear message from the government, and they are afraid it's becoming irreversible, that's why they are leaving."

The tales range from exhaustion with Holland's epidemic of road rage incidents, to fears that it is no longer safe to go shopping.

Another couple says:

Ellen, 43, a lawyer and banker who votes for the free-market Liberals, said the code of behaviour regulating daily life in the Netherlands was breaking down.

"People no longer know what to expect from each other. There are so many rules, but nobody sticks to them. They just do as they want. They just execute people on the streets, it's shocking when you see this for the first time," she said. "We've become so tolerant that everybody thinks they can fight their own wars here. Van Gogh is killed, and then people throw bombs at mosques and churches. It's escalating because the police and the state aren't doing anything about it.

"There's a feeling of injustice that if you do things right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you're punished, and those who don't are rewarded. People can come and live here illegally and get payments. How is that possible?

"We didn't think about how we should integrate people, to make sure that we actually talk to each other and know each other, instead of living in ghettoes with different rules.

Unlike the immigrants, Evans-Pritchard notes, the immigrants are the middle class:

Unlike most earlier waves of migration to the new world, this one is not driven by penury. The Netherlands has a per capita income higher than Germany or Britain, and 4.7 per cent unemployment.

"None of my clients is leaving for economic reasons. You can't get a visa anyway if you haven't got a work record," said Frans Buysse.

That is very bad news for Western Europe.

Posted by Mitch at December 11, 2004 09:15 AM | TrackBack