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.