JOB COHENMoreover, talking about minorities is always a question of time and context. What a
majority denies a minority may in turn be denied to that majority if it later finds itself in
the minority position.
Let us keep Multatuli’s idea in mind as we examine today’s question in greater detail.
I propose to approach the subject as follows. First, I will discuss what we in the Nether-
lands understand by the termminoritiesand what we have understood by it in the past,
as there is a significant difference in this respect between today and yesterday. I will then
go on to discuss, from the perspective of fundamental rights, the main question, that is,
whether a minority can retain its identity in law. The final question I will deal with is
what social problems are concealed by today’s question. I will conclude by outlining how
we can best tackle the problem to which the question points.
What Is a Minority?
The Netherlands: Traditionally a Country of Minorities
The Netherlands is the country of minorities par excellence. It is a country in which no
group is so dominant that it can lay down the law to other groups. The country therefore
has a long tradition in which not unity but the individual parts have played the central
role. It is in these parts that it has all happened. The struggle has been not so much
between the parts as within the parts, and this struggle has sometimes been bitter.
In his bookRepublic of Rivalries, historian Piet de Rooij formulates this as follows.
The most characteristic feature of Dutch society can be described as ‘‘unity in diversity.’’^1
In his view, the Netherlands has been a country not of bitter disputes between parts but
of continuing rivalries. The parts have not always been the same. Originally they were,
above all, a person’s own city or region, but the nineteenth century saw a division of
society along denominational or ideological lines. Until recently, Dutch society was noth-
ing more than a combination—or rather, a cohabitation—of different groups (Protes-
tants, Catholics, Socialists, and Liberals, to mention just the largest groups), all of which
were minorities. No matter how the dividing lines ran, it was generally accepted that
pragmatic compromises had to be reached in which it was important that all groups
should feel that they had benefited equally. At the top the leaders of the different denomi-
national or ideological ‘‘pillars [zuilen]’’ came together to discuss how matters should
proceed. But others in these pillars had little if any contact with members of other pillars.
And people readily accepted this. In the course of the twentieth century, the unity of the
Netherlands evolved mainly through the recognition of the right of others to be different.
Tolerance of being different became the norm and was directly and above all linked to
maintaining scope for the interests and rights of one’s own group. This right to be differ-
ent and yet to be treated equally benefited not only the denominational or ideological
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