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Internet platform for studying Xenophobia, Radicalism and Problems of Intercultural communication.

Treatment of Minorities

Treatment of Minorities

Expert studies point to a significant increase in Xenophobia, both within the “indigenous” population and among the non-indigenous, primarily Muslim, minority. In 2015, 35% of Dutch residents said they do not like Muslims.

String immigration policy and rhetoric in the media are aggravating negative sentiments towards immigrants. According to Dutch journalist and activist, Alex de Jong “the link between ‘Islam’ and social rights is indicative of the ideological evolution of the PVV; a few years before, ‘Islamization’ was supposedly one of several problems facing Dutch society. By 2010 it had become the root cause of social problems, of crime, of the national deficit, of deteriorating social services” . In other words, his racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia work to stir up popular dissatisfaction and anger and direct it at scapegoats. Economic threat is defined in terms of immigrant labor, whether Moroccans or, more recently, immigrants from Eastern Europe. According to polls, only 20% of Dutch respondents believe that the UN Convention on Refugees should be fully implemented, allowing refugees to settle in Europe. 52% believe that the current policy of granting asylum in the Netherlands makes it too easy for terrorists to enter the country, 45% are convinced that the policy towards refugees in general should be “toughened”. According to a poll published on September 17, 2015, 28% of Dutch people believe that their country is overpopulated, and therefore it is necessary to prohibit any immigration, even from EU countries. Answering another question - about the possible economic effect of settling in the Netherlands 9 000 additional refugees, 47% of respondents considered that their impact on the economy of the country would be negative.

According to the 2017 IPSOS polls, 83 percent of Netherlanders are concerned about Dutch norms and values, and 81 percent is concerned about immigration. Fifty percent of respondent see non-Western migrants as a threat to their way of life. Almost one third of Dutch population reported to feel threatened by large influx of refugees.[1]

In total, 3'499 discrimination incidents were registered with the police in the Netherlands. [2] Racial discrimination has dropped from 26% (in 2016) to 16%, (2017).[3] However, racial discrimination is not becoming less prominent. This is illustrated by an ongoing controversial practice of Zwarte Piet, or ‘Black Pete’ – a Christmas celebration that sees revellers in cities across the country painting their faces black. Attempts by activists to protest an event in the town of Dokkum in November 2017 were obstructed by a group of far-right extremists.

Racism is apparent in companies. For example, Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is teaching new employees about “client profiles” that include a black woman with a child to represent clients who buy cheaper products, and a white man as a "Premium client". The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights and a number of anti-discrimination organizations call the profiles stigmatizing and stereotypical.[4]

According to national surveys , over two-thirds of Dutch, 68 percent, are against discrimination. But a slightly larger group of 72 percent think that in some cases people are too quick to shout discrimination. 22 percent of respondents said that they are sometimes discriminated against. People with higher levels of education and left-wing voters are more outspoken against discrimination, 76 percent and 83 percent respectively say they are against it.

Over half, 54 percent, said they feel that there is more discrimination now than there was 20 years ago. They attribute this to the fact that minority groups now have more visibility, people are more open about the sexual orientation, for example. According to the respondents, the groups that face the most discrimination in the Netherlands are LGBT people, ethnic minorities, Muslims and people with disabilities.

Negative attitudes are rather stable towards immigration and are primarily directed toward non-European immigrants and refugees. In the aftermath of Brexit, Dutch are rather positive about remaining in the EU. Perceived threat is related to cyber threats and non-EU powers, such as Russia and China.[5]

The poll from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), reported an increase in anti-Semitic views in the Netherlands from 5 percent in 2014 up to 11 percent in 2015. In August 2015, the Dutch authorities recommended that the chief rabbi of the country, Binyamin Jacobs, avoid traveling on international trains, because of the danger of terrorist attacks. Jacobs himself, who was formerly called the “bridge builder” between the faiths, notes that in the light of the sharp rise in anti-Semitism that has engulfed Europe since the early 2000s, bridging has become a problem - “many elements are not suitable for construction”.

Even more dangerous is the emerging tolerance for anti-Semitism in society. When, in October 2015, a representative of the World Wide Relief Salafist Foundation, Younes Owally, offered to attack Israeli tourists on his website, he was invited to Pau's popular talk show “explain his thoughts.” Platform Against Racism invited Palestinian activist Khanin Zoabi, known anti-Israeli statements, to speak at the annual memorial meeting in memory of “Kristallnacht” - the all-German pogrom of the Jews in November 1938.

According to the CIDI there was 137 incidents of anti-Semitic discrimination, including 4 cases of violence in 2017.[6]

There is a deterioration in the attitude towardhttps:LGBT people. According to the SCP research centre, 35% consider the sight of men kissing in public undesirable. 40% of LGBT people think that their orientation is not accepted by others, 55% do not consider it possible to walk, holding a partner by the hand. About 20% of LGBT people said that they encountered negative statements or actions addressed to them, 40% said that, in their opinion, the situation is deteriorating.

Xenophobia is often converted into votes. The Freedom Party elections scored 15.5% of the vote in the 2010, becoming the third-largest force in parliament. In the 2012 elections, the number of votes cast for it dropped to 10%, but the party still remained the third largest number of seats in parliament. According to a recent poll of voting intention conducted by Peil.nl, the Freedom Party (PVV), of Wilders took 42 seats; which represents a week-on-week increase of one seat and is 27 seats more than the party won in the country’s 2012 general election. Holland’s governing People’s Party-Labour Party (VVD-PvdA) coalition scored 27 seats in the poll, compared to the 79 they took in the last election. GroenLinks (Green Party) scored 16, which is increase of 12 seats in comparison to the last election.

However, the 2017 parliamentary elections turned out to be a cold shower for the Freedom Party: it increased its representation only by 4 mandates, which absolutely did not meet the expectations of both the observers and the radicals themselves. According to experts, in this case, the ruling People's Party for Freedom and Democracy was able to competently adopt the slogans of the ultra-right and convince its constituents that it would toughen its policy towards migrants. The voter chose not to take risks and voted for a less marginal party.

Meanwhile, the Dutch retain a high degree of tolerance for minorities in such areas as joint work or family life. According to the poll by Eurobarometer, 77% of Dutch people are positive about their Roma colleagues, 95% - African or Asian. 83% and 84% of the Dutch will not object to their son-in-law or daughter-in-law being a native of Asia or Africa. 96% agree that LGBT people should have the same rights as the rest, 91% support same-sex marriages, 55% are ready to accept their children having relationships with a transgender person.

In 2018-21, attitudes toward minorities were changing for the better. Despite a backlog of xenophobic and racist incidents in the public sphere, sociological surveys from this period show that most Dutch people share positive views about ethnic and religious minorities. Attitudes toward Roma as of 2019 most people surveyed in the Netherlands in the Global Attitude Survey indicated 64% of respondents were very positive or mostly positive about people belonging to the Roma ethnic group. However, in the same year, the percentage of respondents who had unfavorable opinions about Roma was a total of 30%.

Almost three-quarters of respondents that year indicated they had very favorable or mostly favorable views of Muslims, while the percentage of respondents with unfavorable views of them was just under 30% overall.

In 2018, 65% of Dutch respondents agreed with the statement that anti-Semitism is a problem in society, and 55% believe that anti-Semitism is on the rise. More than 90% of those surveyed in 2019 indicated they had a very favorable or mostly favorable opinion of Jewish people, while the percentage of respondents with an unfavorable opinion of Jewish people was a total of 5%.

In addition, in 2018, 50% of Dutch people had a favorable view of non-Western immigrants. At the same time, paradoxically, 55% believe immigrants increase the risk of terrorism in their country. In a survey of immigrants in the Netherlands in 2018, 55% of Dutch people said that immigrants increase the risk of terrorism in their country.

According to the 2020-2021 sociological survey, limited intergroup contact and negative media (and social media) representation of migrants and refugees have played an important role in shaping majority attitudes toward these groups. It seems that many prejudiced people have little personal contact with other cultures. Nevertheless, they perceive this "otherness" as a threat because of their frequent contact with the negative (social) media representations of these groups. Internet news sites play the greatest role in reducing positive attitudes. They provide easy access to unverified information, fake news and conspiracy theories, thereby fueling intergroup anxiety and polarization.

After the outbreak of COWID-19, online platforms overflowed with conspiracy theories. As in much of Europe, Dutch radical groups have used the uncertainty and fears of the pandemic to promote an extreme ideology. It includes blatantly racist and anti-Semitic narratives, such as the claim that the virus is a hoax concocted by the "Jewish elite," or the intention to introduce a vaccine either for profit or to eradicate the white race. Extreme right-wing platforms such as Café Weltschmerz, Ongehoord Nederland, and The Jensen Show have not missed a single opportunity to question the seriousness of the virus. Robert Jensen, for example, claims in countless YouTube videos that Covid-19 is nothing more than a simple flu. This flu, according to Jensen, is being abused by "globalists" who want to strip the "Dutch people" of their rights and subject them to dark, hidden agendas.

A quarter of Dutch residents experienced one or more incidents in 2018 that they perceived as discrimination. Dutch citizens of Moroccan or Turkish origin and Muslims (groups that overlap to some extent) face a large number of both negative attitudes and unequal treatment. They are highly stigmatized in Dutch society and are perceived as a threat by part of the majority group. This perceived threat is mainly based on cultural interpretations, such as a perceived conflict of values or fear of losing a particular cultural identity or way of life. Persons of Surinamese or Antillean origin and those from Central and Eastern Europe experience somewhat less discrimination.

In 2018, the most common ground for discrimination was origin. The 1,442 cases reported by police were motivated by discrimination based on origin. According to the Anti-Discrimination Bureau, 1,494 cases involved ancestry. A quarter of the cases on the police register concerned sexual orientation (847 registrations), particularly homosexuality. There were 193 reports of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (representing 4 percent of the total) to the Bureau of Anti-Discrimination.

8% of all discrimination incidents reported to police in 2018 were anti-Semitism-related (275 registrations), with 145 of the online discrimination reports related to anti-Semitism. Police recorded 151 cases of religious discrimination (91% of which were Islamophobia-related). The anti-discrimination bureau received 304 reports of religious discrimination, two-thirds of which were directed at Muslims. The bureau's anti-discrimination office received 304 reports of religious discrimination.

History remained the most common indication of discrimination in 2019 as well. Police recorded 2,156 cases (39 percent of the total) on this ground. The anti-discrimination bureau recorded 1,922 cases of discrimination on the basis of origin (44% of the total). Most people were discriminated against on the basis of their skin color and origin (particularly Africans, Turks, Moroccans and Asians). The police also recorded an increase in discrimination based on sexual orientation (1,603, of which 17 percent involved violent incidents) and anti-Semitism (768). Anti-Semitism accounted for 14 percent of the total number of discrimination cases recorded by the police and 2 percent of the cases recorded by the Anti-Discrimination Bureau.

In this case, anti-Semitism accounted for 14 percent of the total number of discrimination cases recorded by the police and 2 percent of the cases recorded by the Anti-Discrimination Bureau.

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