“Amid Rise of Multiculturalism, Dutch Confront Their Questions of Identity,” an article published in the New York Times on August 14, 2011, places the question of immigration squarely before the reader. The title of the article is somewhat misleading, however. Before reading about the real issue at hand, one might be led to think that what is being suggested is that the Dutch sadly have little sense of who they are, and the presence of persons from other cultures in their society has obliged them to come to this unfortunate realization.

The real issue at hand is not that of weak national identity in a multicultural setting. The real issue at hand is that of preservation of national identity, not so much amid a rise of multiculturalism, but amid the large numbers of Muslim immigrants who, for the most part, do not seem to embrace Dutch national identity. Some will say that such immigrants are not given the opportunity to embrace Dutch national identity. Mr. Overbeek of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam says that, for a foreigner in Europe, “citizenship is never quite established, no matter how long you’ve been here.” There is surely some truth to these claims. In every society the world over, there are always those who are reluctant to welcome persons from different cultures. There is always some measure of fear and ignorance of the “outsider”. But I can speak from experience not far away, in Belgium, where I lived for several years, and where all of my relatives live. A foreigner who seeks to embrace Belgian identity, instead of defining himself as not being Belgian, a foreigner whose identity does not consist in a rejection of the predominant culture, does—at least gradually—experience integration, and acceptance. One must not fear asking to what extent do these immigrants seek to integrate.

To some ears, speaking of the expectation that immigrants embrace the national identity of the host nation may sound nativist. To other ears, it may sound like common sense and the respectful thing to do. The latter might lean on the perennial wisdom of Aristotle who, in the 4th century BC, observed that people want to live in community: “man is by nature a political animal”. In fact, Aristotle goes on insightfully to observe, “Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice. Law in a community is simply the defined parameters of the community living as a body politic, (inevitably) producing a uni-cultural reality.”

Herein lies the added challenge for the Netherlands and other countries in similar situations. The issue at hand is indeed “the large numbers of Muslim immigrants who, for the most part, do not seem to embrace Dutch national identity”. But when this phenomenon occurs in a climate where the ideology of multi-culturalism is prevalent, people are at an even greater loss. Why? Because the communal instinct is stifled by an ideology which declares that the desire for a uni-cultural reality (which always eventually emerges—even if it is admittedly always in development) which expresses the community and holds it together is an erroneous, unjust thing. The communal instinct is stifled by an ideology which declares all cultures to be equal, the “same”, and, in the process, empties cultures of their reality—particularly Western cultures, which, it is claimed, are multi-cultural. There is no such thing as a multi-cultural culture. There are simply cultures, and over certain cultures hangs the cloud of the ideology of multi-culturalism which, in the well-intentioned name of “hospitality”, begins to dismantle the culture, leading its members to question their national identity.

There is no new rise of multi-culturalism in the Netherlands. Multi-culturalism rose in the Netherlands in the 1950s with the first large wave of immigrants from the former Dutch colonies (such as Indonesia, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles). What has occurred is that Dutch people over the last few years have simply become more aware of what is culturally and socially compromising in the ideology of multi-culturalism, and are saying "enough".

As Soeren Kern, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Strategic Studies Group, writing recently for the not-for-profit, non-partisan policy organization Hudson New York on recent European surveys on immigration (in particular one published August 4 by the London-based Ipsos Global Research) interestingly notes,

The findings – which come as Europeans are waking up to the consequences of decades of mass immigration from Muslim countries – point to a growing disconnect between European voters and their political masters regarding multicultural policies that encourage Muslim immigrants to remain segregated rather than become integrated into their host nations.

The survey results mirror the findings of dozens of other recent polls. Taken together, they provide ample empirical evidence that scepticism about Muslim immigration is not limited to a “right-wing” political fringe, as proponents of multiculturalism often assert. Mainstream voters across the entire political spectrum are now expressing concerns about the role of Islam in Europe.