Random quote
From the moment when in fact, even indirectly, reprisals against civilian populations and torture practices are justified, there is no rule or value.

Albert Camus (1913-1960)

The integration paradox

The integration puzzle of the Dutch PM Dick Schoof

At the moment, in the Netherlands a discussion is going on that is, I think, not only important for the Netherlands but for any country with a big number of immigrants. The reason of the discussion is the pursuit and beating up of Israelian football supporters by Dutch hooligans in Amsterdam, two weeks ago. It was a clear case of antisemitism. Many of the Dutch hooligans were Moroccan Dutch, so they had a Moroccan and also an Islamic immigration background. In the debate about how to explain and how to tackle this affair, often the term integration paradox is used. What actually is this integration paradox?
Like in many countries, in the Netherlands there are many citizens with a migration background, so people who either lived already very long in the Netherlands, or were born there and have foreign roots (second and third generation immigrants). Most non-European Dutchmen (and that’s what I am talking about in this blog) originally are from Morocco, Turkey, and the former Dutch colonies Surinam and in the Caribbean. Although the level of education and the labour market position of the second generation non-European immigrants have improved considerably compared to their parents, this group experiences more exclusion and discrimination. This is what recent Dutch studies have shown. The phenomenon is expressed in the term “integration paradox”: Those who are better adapted to the Dutch society feel themselves more excluded and discriminated. Especially those with a better socio-economic position feel so, and whatever they do to become accepted, it doesn’t help. This feeling is less strong among lower-skilled people with a migration background. The integration paradox applies especially to people with Moroccan and Turkish roots, and less or not at all to people with Surinamese and Caribbean roots. The integration paradox is all the more paradoxical, since 71% of the Dutch without a migration background think positive about the cultural diversity in the Netherlands. Despite this theoretical attitude of the Dutch without a migration background, one gets the impression that attempts by immigrants and their offspring to adapt and integrate has an adverse effect, especially when they are well educated.
Let’s now return to the violence in Amsterdam described above. Many of the Dutch hooligans who attacked Israeli football supporters because they were Jews were, supposedly, Moroccan Dutch boys and men, most if not all of them being Islamic. After their acts of violence, the Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and other politicians, especially those of the extreme right party PVV, reacted that these violent acts were due to the inadequate integration of Islamic people with a migration background. Of course, this reaction evoked outrage among many Islamic people with a migration background, for most of them have nothing to do with and don’t want to have anything to do with such antisemitic violence and function well in the Dutch society. Later PM Schoof corrected his words, saying that he meant to refer only to “a specific group of young people with a migration background who exhibit inappropriate behaviour”. According to the prime minister, this points to a broader integration problem, in fact implying that the young people he referred to haven’t integrated well and that’s their fault (or their parents’ fault). But is it? I think that the integration paradox shows that it is not. For this paradox and studies that substantiate it make it more than likely that the problem is not that people with a migration background haven’t integrated themselves, but that it is the Dutch who don’t integrate people with a migration background. Not the migrants and their offspring must be blamed, if their integration is poor, but the Dutch without a migration background are guilty of that, although they say that immigrants must integrate. That’s the real integration paradox.
Integration is a matter of adapting and accepting. Integration is also a matter for two parties: the immigrants and the original population of the country (“original” in the sense of those who are already living there at the moment the immigrants arrive). But when the first group, the immigrants, tries to adapt to the receiving country and to accept what it finds there, but the second group doesn’t do its part, integration cannot be complete. Nowhere.

Sources
- Broasca, Delphine, “De integratieparadox op de universiteit”
- “De ‘integratieparadox’: hoe langer in Nederland, hoe meer onbehagen”
- Dikkenberg, Nicole van den, De integratieparadox in Nederland. Waardoor ervaren hoger opgeleide etnische minderheden discriminatie in Nederland?
- Geurts, Nella, Waarom voelen hoger opgeleide migranten zich minder verbonden met Nederland? De integratieparadox vanuit meerdere methoden
- Pré, Raoul du, “Premier Schoof ziet groot probleem met de integratie: ‘Hun gedrag is schokkend, moreel volstrekt ontaard’”
- “Schoof baalt van ’verkeerde vertaling’ integratie-uitspraken”
- “Vaak onbehagen bij tweede generatie met migratieachtergrond”
- TV programs and other newspaper articles

- The integration paradox is not a typical Dutch phenomenon. Search the internet for studies about the integration paradox in other countries and in other languages.

Random quote
The history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.

Karl Popper (1902-1994)

Paradoxes of democracy

The Dutch National Liberation Monument in Wageningen, Netherlands (detail)

In footnote 4 to chapter 7 of his “The Open Society and Its Enemies” Karl R. Popper mentions three paradoxes typical for democratic states: the paradox of freedom, the paradox of tolerance and the paradox of democracy. The paradox of freedom is, so Popper, “the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any restraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.” This paradox is often solved – which is not discussed here by Popper – by the rule that the freedom of one ends where that of the other is affected. The paradox of tolerance involves, so Popper, that unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and the tolerance with them.” Popper doesn’t say that we must always suppress intolerant expressions, but we must keep the right to do so. However, Popper is vague about how far the tolerance of intolerance goes. I would say that at least it goes not further than where intolerance affects, if not harms, the basic rights of others or threats to do so; to begin with rights like the inviolability of life and body and other human rights. The third paradox Popper mentions is the paradox of democracy or rather, so Popper, “majority rule; i.e. the possibility that the majority may decide that a tyrant should rule.”
I think that the essence of these paradoxes is the question of respect for the other: Freedom, tolerance and democracy end if others, especially minorities, are not respected. This requires an idea of equality between people and a protection of minority rights and the rights of those who think differently. This is not always easy, however, if we think of, for example, the just mentioned problem of tolerating intolerance. Anyhow, I think that from a political point of view, the paradox of democracy problem is fundamental, since it involves the paradoxes of freedom and tolerance. It is no wonder then that politically Poppers sees the solution in the right institutional structures: “We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and accountable to, the public.” Etc. Then “all these paradoxes can be easily avoided…”, so Popper. Easily? I wished it were true, for when we look at what is happening in the world today, we see something else. With more or less enthusiasm, people in this world vote for intolerant and undemocratic leaders that suppress freedom (leaders who, once in power, often succeed to manipulate the next elections that way that they are re-elected again and again). These leaders legally and illegally undermine the freedom of expression either directly, for instance by putting down those who verbally attack them and who by doing so affect their power, (“you are a foreign agent”); or they undermine the freedom of expression indirectly, for instance by making access to the public media for their critics increasingly difficult. if not by using worse means. Minority rights are restricted as well. Opponents, whose only “crime” is that they belong to another political party are threatened with violence. Nevertheless people vote for such leaders. Will you be the next victim? As I read in UN News: “More than 60 elections are taking place in 2024 and, whilst 90 per cent of people say they want to live in a democracy, many are voting for people and systems that are restricting their rights. The UN has expressed concern about this ‘democracy paradox’, and that fact that some governments and governance systems are becoming increasingly repressive.” Democracy is not that easy.

Random quote
All “cultures” are different but none is radically foreign or incomprehensible to others.

Marc Augé (1935-2023)

Voting rationally

I wonder whether there is a day without an election somewhere in the world. Recently, there were parliamentary elections in Japan, Bulgaria, Georgia and Botswana, while this week the Americans will choose a new president. In 2024 more than hundred countries will have elections, and approximately half of the world population will be involved. This only concerns elections of national importance. If we add regional and local elections, I guess that on average there’ll be at least one election a day this year, if not many more.
Elections are supposed to measure the opinions of the people and to designate who should represent them in the political institutions. However, as everybody knows, not all elections are free and fair. They are often manipulated. In some countries, those in power will do everything, legally or illegally, to stay in power, for example by influencing the voting behaviour and the choices of the voters before they cast their votes, so that they’ll vote “in the right way”; or, if necessary, such rulers will manipulate the election results. Didn’t Stalin say that it is not important how people vote; but who counts the votes?
Even if elections are free and fair, what then determines how the voters will vote and whether they’ll vote, anyway? Voting should be a rational choice: Carefully, weighing the pros and cons of all candidates for a function (president, parliamentarian, etc.) or of a certain question in a referendum, before making a choice. However, it seldom happens that way. Take, for example, this case, discussed by Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow, p. 55): “A study of voting patterns in precincts of Arizona in 2000 showed that the support for propositions to increase the fundings of schools was significantly greater when the polling station was in a school than when it was in a nearby location.” So, where you cast your vote matters, which seems not very rational. In dictatorships, one way of manipulating election results is hanging images of the “Dear Leader” everywhere (and not those of opposing candidates, of course). It shows that “Big Brother is Watching you”, and in this way it pushes your vote in the desired direction (so that the dictator needs not to apply Stalin’s rule, which might be risky).
However, what is a rational voter? In his “The paradox of voting” Aaron Steelman says it this way: “According to the rational-choice perspective, a potential voter should make the following calculation. Multiply the benefits (B) he would receive if his preferred candidate were to win the election by the probability (P) that he would cast the deciding vote. If that figure exceeds the costs (C) he incurs — the time it takes to register to vote and go to the polling place, as well as the effort required to become well enough acquainted with the candidates’ positions to cast an informed vote — then voting is rational. The voter gets more out of the act than he puts in.” Leaving aside that it is almost impossible to calculate (B), (P) and (C) in a reliable way, casting your vote based on such a calculation may be rational, but is it reasonable to expect that voters determine their voting behaviour this way? The paradox of voting tells us that for a rational voter the result of the calculation is always negative, so he or she should not vote. Nevertheless, many people who are rational vote. Why? In the first place, so Steelman, even if it is not rational to vote according to the rational-choice model, “that doesn’t mean that it is without merit. [It predicts] that people will vote in higher numbers when the stakes are high and/or the election is close. … Turnout increases when voters’ B and P values increase.” However, even then the contribution of each voter to the election result is so small, that a single vote does not affect the result. Nevertheless, people vote, so apparently there is more at stake than making a rational choice in the sense of the rational-choice theory.
In fact, people vote for all kinds of other reasons; reasons not based on the rational-choice theory but certainly not irrational or unreasonable. Some feel obliged to vote. Voting belongs to good citizenship. Moreover, which is partly the same, the rational-choice theory supposes that people are individualistic and egoistic, but both suppositions are not true. Humans are social beings and they are also altruistic (at least partly). Belonging to a group belongs to being human. Therefore, so the Wikipedia, “voters … perceive a benefit if others are benefited. Since an election affects many others, it could still be rational to cast a vote with only a small chance of affecting the outcome.” Third, people want to belong to a group and want to show this. Voting is a way to express this belongingness. By your voting choice you show that you are a person of such and such kind. Taking part in the election meetings of a certain party has the same effect. It shows that you are one of “them” and that you have similar views.
How then to vote? Weighing the pros and cons of all candidates or parties or of the issue at stake would be best and most rational, but most people simply lack the time for it. Instead, many people look what candidates and parties did in the past, often only in outline for also now it can take yet too much time to study the political behaviour in detail. In this way, you determine your choice, and often people stay voting for a certain candidate or party for years, unless they have reasons to change.
Voting should be rational and individualistic, so the idea is, in the sense that your choice should be your choice. However, in practice, choices are often based on habit and social adaption. This seems paradoxical, but often it is the most rational you can do in view of your realistic possibilities.