Racial Tensions

Understanding the social relations and political backdrop of a new country always presents a challenge. While the Dutch are reticent to admit it, they’re actually quite racist--or becoming more so despite their liberal intentions (which, ironically, are the very basis for the current situation.) Much of this tension rests with the Moroccan population, which seems generally frustrated and unhappy here. Whether that’s due to an inability or refusal to integrate or a history of being treated like vermin in their own country, is difficult to say. In my experience so far, they are not particularly approachable people, and being religiously conservative, lack tolerance of their new environment—a great paradox considering how the Dutch pride themselves on this quality.

Many Moroccans came here decades ago to make money and leave, only when they returned home, an impoverished, hot stretch of land, they discovered they couldn’t go back. Only they hadn’t gone forward, either. They had failed to integrate, which left their children without an identity—not Moroccan, nor Dutch—lacking language skills and contact with their host culture. So now the Moroccans are regarded as the "new Jews," scapegoats for everything going wrong in Holland, although the flailing economy is a more appropriate culprit. I read an excellent editorial about this where the author called everyone a Jew, especially the Dutch, he said, who are cheap, business-minded and turned a godforsaken patch of land into a profit-making venture. (As a non-practising Jew, I certainly take no offense.)

Myself, I can’t reach any hard conclusions as I’ve had no on-going contact with Moroccans, save the women I see walking in the streets, several children in tow. They rarely give eye contact and seem to inhabit a world of their own. I’ve felt like they see me as part of the landscape—a tree here, a post office there, a non-Moroccan entity (that’s me) and then, their community. It’s terribly sad for me to see this kind of interaction (or lack of it) after experiencing years of multi-cultural exposure in New York. There's very little connection here and the insularity will do nothing but backfire because despite professed ideas of tolerance, the proof in in the pudding. Very few people seem to remember that during World War II, the Dutch were also Nazis.