Integration: why (not)?

Question: What do you do when you have guest coming over? You invite them in, threat them with respect, offers them something to drink, but at the same time you expect them to respect the rules you have set in your home, you expect them to behave in an appropriate manner. You ask what he wants to drink, he asks for a beer. You offer him to sit on the couch, and he accepts that offer and sit down in an orderly way. That's how things work, right? The guests are in YOUR house, and having to respect YOUR rules. After all, you do the same when you are in their house.

What if the guest ask for....no, demands a sixpack, instead of just one beer? What if he instead, of sitting politely on the couch, parks his big fat ass on your favorite chair, kicks off his shoes and drops his legs onto the glass table, which of course breaks from the force? What if he beats your kid, who is sitting quietly on the table drawing one of his famous one color masterpiece, just because the markers are making too much noise?
You kick that A**hole straight out the door, and tell him never to come back!
Simple, right?

The reason I am asking this is not so simple.

Nowadays here in Holland the "word of the day" today is INTEGRATION. You can't open a newspaper or watch a talkshow without at least 1 subject about integration. Every politician is lying about the subject, and every Dutch has an opinion about it.
Now, I am trying to avoid all political issues, since it usually starts a discussion nobody will be able to win anyway. And, IF I write about it, I try to write BOTH views, to avoid being stigmatized.
But I feel I just can't leave this subject untouched , since I too have an opinion about it, just like those other 16 million people living here.

First of all, I feel, integration is just one of those words, everyone talks about it, but no-one knows exactly what it is. As far as I know, it's the process in which a foreigner has converted him/herself into a real citizen of the host-country. Which in my opinion is just a lot of BS! When I hear the word "integration" I immediately have to think about that commercial from Knorr where a guy from Suriname enjoying some ice-skating, loves to hear real Dutch music, and does all the things Dutch appear to do.
Well, lets face it, a black guy from Nigeria living in a windmill, with a garden filled with tulips, walking around on wooden clogs, eating cheese, while his wife is preparing the farmer's cabbage....with Unox sausage IS nowadays the wet dream of every immigration officer. Oh, and don't forget the bike in one hand and the marijuana cigarette in the other.
But, how tempting this may seem, first of all, this is sheer impossible, and second of all, it is the charm of foreigners to still have a little bit (or a lot) of their own culture. That's what makes a multi-cultural society so interesting.

But, being our guests, they have to live by our rules and laws, and have respect for our customs and habits. And fortunately most foreigners do and a lot of foreigners embrace Holland as their second home, including all the strange habits, laws, and other things. They are grateful of being accepted by the Dutch society, and have become an active part of that society.

However, lately it seems like an ever increasing group of foreigners, mainly Moroccan muslims, are rejecting our habits, customs, and worse, our laws. They preach hatred and violence against the western society to whoever wants to hear it. They try to recruit warriors and/or suicide bombers for their "holy war", promising them 40 virgins when they get to paradise.
And if it was up to them, we would all be praying to Mekka 5 times a day.
And with every sermon held by the imam, the threat of a terrorist attack is increasing.

Two questions come to my mind now. First, why do we only have trouble from Moroccans? There are so many nationalities in here, Indonesians, Ghanese, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and I can list a hundred more. On every corner of the street you can find a Chinese restaurant here, people from Ghana (how you call them? Ghanese, Ghana-ese, Ghanadian?) come here to work for a few years, save a lot of money and go back to Ghana and set up a business or something. And the Japanese all work here for big Japanese multinationals, and are summoned back home after a few years, because otherwise they might sniff up too much of the western culture. And the list is endless with groups of people that have adapted themselves to our way of life, while still being able to maintain their own identity.

Second, if they complain so much about the western culture, why don't they just pack their stuff and go back to Morocco, instead of demanding from us to adapt to them? Well, the answer to this question is simple. Because we DO adapt to them. Or at least the government is expecting us to.

All this is not just from the last few years. This has been going on since the '60's already.
And who is to blame?
The Moroccans, being invited by the Dutch government to do the jobs the Dutch didn't want to do? They came here for, what was said a few years, with their customs, habits, and religion. And the government didn't think they needed to integrate. After all, it was only for a few years, and besides, they were so "pitiful", being so far away from home. So, here they are, living happily with their own culture. Until they look around, and see a completely different culture, where women are walking around dressed as whores (well, at least in their eyes), sex was everywhere, and on top of it all, the women's movement started to comment on their disrespect for the islamic women. Suddenly the clothes covering the head is disrespectful for the women, and why does a woman have to walk 3 meters behind the husband? "Why is the women in your society a baby-breathing slave, whose sole purpose is to please the husband?"
So, the Moroccan, fustrated as he is by all the criticism, decides to keep his wife indoors, away from all the evil outside, and hangs out only with fellow Moroccans. Which in return gets more angry reactions:"See? They don't want to integrate!"

And then the second generation of Moroccans. They are born in a country which is only geographically their country. At home, in case of the men, they are allowed to do anything they want, because if the father is making a comment on the son's behavior, it means that the father has failed raising his kid properly. Outside, they are also allowed to do basically anything they want, since they are part of that poor group of people that is so far away from home. And when things go wrong, it's like:"Yeah, you have to understand, they are being misunderstood", "They are the victim here", giving them the justification to do just anything. And when you have the courage to speak up and tell them off, then you are discriminating them.

Or the Dutch government in the '60's, '70's and '80's , who let families reunite, rolling out the red carpet, and gave them everything they asked for (or demanded), since it was so hard for them being so far away from their home land? "Oh, you want a mosque? Why not hundred?", "No, you don't have to learn Dutch, we will learn Moroccan"

Also the earlier mentioned mothering of the Moroccan community was, and still is, part of the problem. In the '80' all kinds of anti-discrimination laws were instated, protecting all foreigners. And the reason those laws have been instated is not the problem. Sometimes minorities have to be protected. However, these laws have been misused a lot of times. If you cursed on a foreigner for whatever reason, they could go to the police, who in their turn would arrest you or fine you for discrimination. If you beat up a foreigner, for whatever reason, you could get a higher punishment, just because the victim was a foreigner.

Nowadays you also hear about Moroccan kids, mostly between 10 and 14 years old, who are terrorizing entire neighborhoods, harassing girls in swimming pools, having absolutely no respect for anyone and anything. Within the last month I have already counted 5 reports involving these kids. People having to flee their houses, people having sleepless nights, being afraid of stones through the windows. And no-one dares to do a damn thing about it.

It's a long story, and is there a bottom line? Yes, there is:

- When did things go wrong? Probably in the '60's already, when we brought them here, and try to force our cultural and sexual revolution onto them.
- Who's to blame? Well, I think there are 3 parties to blame: First the previous generation, who elected a left-socialist government, who in their turn didn't treat the Moroccans the same way as they were treating the Dutch, but gave them more rights and less obligations, simply because "they are pitiful, since they come all the way from a different country, and we must make them feel at home".
Second, the Moroccans themselves, who didn't make any effort to adjust themselves even a little to our way of live, and instead demanding an ever increasing part of our culture being converted into theirs.
Thirdly, our own generation, who, not learning from mistakes made in the past, once again elect a government, who is afraid to acknowledge the fact that there is a major problem going on, and something needs to be done about it.
The solution? Hopefully there is one, but I will talk about that in another blog. I also try to answer the "why?"question in another blog.

Angel in devil's shoes?

I normally wouldn't really say this here, since I rather try to be a blog where I can put my opinion and views, just for me to share them with anyone who wants to read. But this time I really wanted to share with you the fact, that our little angel (or devil) has been a model toddler.
he wasn't nagging for things, or at least not very long and was happy most of the time. Of course he had his moment, like this morning. I wanted to out by bike. After all, daddy's beerbelly doesn't disappear by itself (unfortunately). But His Royal Naughtyness insisted on going by car. Well, Ok, sure. But in the afternoon, again he insisted on going by car. So, this time I had to pull rank. And THAT didn't go so well with HRN. The sea-level rose approx. with 1 cm, but after 10 minutes of crying, he became like a tamed tiger.

One other cute thing. Since a few months Alec is going to Kindergarten one morning a week. He always has a great time there, and always "talks" all the way home. Apparently they learn more then just playing there. This afternoon I was playing a CD with all kids songs on it. And I know there are some songs with movements to go along with the melody, but I am not good in that kind of stuff. However, Alec heard one song, and immediately started to do the movements that go with the song. He didn't saw that I was watching, he was really into the song. Until he turned around and saw me watching, and immediately turned a bit shy.

Like I said, he was really sweet today!