JOB COHENpopulation consisted of non-Western immigrants.^17 They are concentrated in the big
cities: in Amsterdam the figure is 36 percent. The report of the Social and Cultural
Planning Office (SCP) entitled ‘‘Keeping Out of Each Other’s Way: The Influence of
Ethnic Concentration on Integration and Perceptions’’ shows that a majority of
Dutch society (60 percent) believes that there are too many people from ethnic mi-
norities in the Netherlands and that two out of three indigenous Dutch people have
little if any contact with them. The fact that the ethnic minorities and the indigenous
Dutch have little to do with one another is closely connected with the fact that they
live apart. This alone greatly increases the chances of meeting members of one’s own
group and reduces the chances of meeting others outside that group. If many people
from ethnic backgrounds live in a neighborhood, they are much less likely to have
contact with the indigenous Dutch. This is particularly true in the four largest cities.
Nonetheless, we can see that the ethnic minorities and the indigenous Dutch view
each other fairly positively once they do come into contact. The more dealings they
have with one another, the more positive is the view. According to the SCP report,
however, a rapid influx of people from ethnic backgrounds into a neighborhood leads
to a more unfavorable assessment.^18- A fear of the Islamicization of Dutch society. The primary fear is that the Muslim
minority will eventually become the majority and impose its will on the former ma-
jority. Naturally, this fear is fueled by the picture that we have of Muslim states as
places that lack a democracy but not, in many cases, repression. What also does not
help in the slightest is that such manifestly bad guys as Osama bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein are perceived to be prominent Muslims.
The crucial point is that fundamental rights and above all lifestyles, norms, and values
clash, and that conflicts must be solved not in court but on the streets in practice. Al-
though government can guarantee the fundamental rights of any person—as will indeed
be honored in court in the event of a conflict between fundamental rights—in daily
practice this is time-consuming and other means of resolving dilemmas must be sought.
But we are often at a loss as to how this must be done. It is precisely because everyone
has the right to be ‘‘him- or herself ’’ that there is a clash with the right of the other person
to be ‘‘him- or herself.’’ Everyone wants to do his or her own thing and to be disturbed
by others as little as possible in the process. The desire for rules is above all about curbing
the behavior ofotherpeople—we ourselves should of course be allowed maximum
freedom!
And so we find ourselves in the Netherlands in an era in which many people wish to
pursue their own individual courses and no longer wish to spend much time respecting
the right of others to be different, certainly not if the other person is from an ethnic
minority or, even worse, a Muslim. And people tend to have even less patience when
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