HOLLAND: Immigration remains a touchy subject in Holland, writes Jamie Smyth in Utrecht and Rotterdam
Fatima Ghoudana enjoys her studies at Vader Rijn secondary school in the gritty working-class suburb of Overvecht in Utrecht. The 17-year-old was born in the city, once famous as the centre of Christianity in the Netherlands, but like most of her classmates her parents are immigrants, in her case from Morocco.
"I spend every summer in Morocco. But I prefer living here. The schools are better and I learn more," says Ghoudana, while fiddling with her flamboyant gold necklace.
About 60 per cent of the pupils at Vader Rijn are of Moroccan descent, a third are Turkish, and the remaining 10 per cent are native Dutch. In the corridors many of the students wear headscarves and some speak Turkish rather than Dutch. At tomorrow's parent-teacher meetings interpreters will be available to help communication and to facilitate the new mantra in Dutch society - integration.
Over the past four years following the violent murders of two well-known critics of Islam, film-maker Theo Van Gogh and politician Pim Fortuyn, Dutch society has struggled to deal with the issues of immigration and Islam. A liberal society on issues such as the decriminalisation of soft drugs, the Netherlands has recently enacted a raft of tough laws aimed at curbing immigration and promoting the integration of the 1.7 million first- and second-generation non-western immigrants living in the country.
But as the electorate goes to the polls today in the third general election in four years, integration and immigration are not centre stage for mainstream politicians. In the numerous television debates and party political broadcasts aired in recent weeks, Islam and immigration has attracted only cursory attention.
Instead, the two main contenders - Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democrats (CDA) and the Labour Party's Wouter Bos - have jousted over bread and butter issues such as the economy, social welfare and healthcare.
So why have immigration, Islam and integration slipped off the political agenda?
"Politicians are afraid to get into a discussion on an immigration debate that has to deal with ferocity and fear," says Bart Engbers, principal of Vader Rijn.
"But it remains an underlying issue in the election even if it isn't explicitly mentioned."
Mr Engbers knows only too well the sensitivities that surround the issue of integration. Last month he sacked one of his teachers, a Muslim woman who refused to shake hands with men for religious reasons.
"Everyone is welcome but there can be no religion or politics in the school," he insists.
James Kennedy, professor of contemporary history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, agrees there is a feeling among mainstream opinion that the problems in the area of immigration are insoluble and inflammatory. There is also now little distance between the main parties on immigration, a factor that is hurting the far right, which won 26 seats out of 150 in the 2002 election following the murder of Fortuyn.
"One of the reasons the right's support has fallen is because the other parties have adopted a harder tone on immigration and co-opted many of the ideas of the far right," says Kennedy, who believes the Dutch multicultural ideal has disappeared.
A recent illustration of the shift to the right by the main parties was the coalition's decision last week to ban the burka and face veil in public places.
The announcement, made a few days before the election by interior minister Rita Verdonk, known as "Iron Rita" for her anti-immigration politics, follows on from new laws on citizenship tests, detention centres for asylum seekers and forced repatriations.
The Muslim community has criticised the ban, which will be the toughest in Europe if it is passed into law by the parliament.
"The burca is simply not an issue in the Netherlands and is worn by fewer than 100 people," says Ayhan Tonca of CMO, an umbrella group representing Muslims. "Dutch society is very one-sided now how we talk about immigrants is always negative. This is the wrong strategy to pursue."
In the Hazzebar café in Rotterdam, where a photograph of Fortuyn hangs on the wall, the new tough policies on immigration are welcome. But for Marco Pastors, a former friend and colleague of Fortuyn and now leader of the One Netherlands party, Verdonk has not gone far enough. His party, which won a third of the votes in the local elections in March, promises even more stringent laws specifically targeting the Islamic community and other groups that fail to integrate or pass citizenship tests.
He says the lack of debate on immigration reflects the current desperation in society. "I am worried because we saw the same sort of thing before World War II when a lot of countries just kept quiet and the Jews ended up in the ghettos and we did nothing."
But the polls show there is little appetite for Pastors' populist rhetoric. Just a quarter of the public consider integration of Muslims a theme in the election and only 4 per cent consider it the main theme, according to surveys by the pollster NIPO.
Indeed, in cities such as Utrecht and Rotterdam, with immigrants making up 40 per cent of the population, politicians must be cognisant of an energised immigrant vote.
"Due to all the recent controversy over immigration, there has been much more politicisation of the immigrant community and in some areas voter turnout has almost doubled in four years," says Paul Scheffer, professor of sociology at Amsterdam University, who notes that Labour has massively benefited from the immigrant vote.
In Feyenoord, a predominantly Muslim district of Rotterdam, shop-owner Numan Mehmoud epitomises the growing politicisation of second-generation immigrants.
"Verdonk is a bitch," he says angrily at the mention of her name. "They are trying to get rid of foreign people and are making my parents and grandparents take language tests. For my father and my mother that is fine but my grandparents are almost 70. It is very difficult for them to begin a new life I will vote Labour," he says.
But with only minor differences between Labour and the ruling coalition of Christian Democrats and Liberals on immigration, a new administration is unlikely to change how the Netherlands relates to its immigrant community in the future.