Jolle Demmers phobia and neo- Throughout Europe, xenophobic nized, the crux is something different and cultural racist repertoires have and more fundamental. and Sameer liberalism and of become prominent across the entire spectrum of politics. Generally, this How did this change occur? How did S. Mehendale gaining an under- xenophobic turn is understood as a once (seemingly, at least) relaxed, reactive: to September 11th, to the tolerant, progressive country turn standing of the Madrid and London bombings, to into one of the toughest hardliners in the increased influx of non-Western, Europe when it comes to the issues of Neoliberal complexity of that ‘illegal’ immigrants. This is certainly immigration and ethnicity? true here in the Netherlands, which Since the marriage of the socialists Xenophobia in relationship. In recently seems obsessed with ‘pro- and the liberals represented by the tecting’ the indigenous against the Netherland’s Purple Cabinet of 1994, the Netherlands the case of the foreign. What we will argue, however, one of the main divisions within post- is that neither radical Islam nor Second World War political debate Netherlands, the immigration numbers is responsi- – how to run the economy – ended ble for why the 1. In recent years, Human with widespread consensus that neo- Rights Watch, Amnesty Construction rise of xenophobia Netherlands, once International and the liberalism was inevitable, the uncon- considered so European Commission tested new normalcy. Major, if largely have criticized various of an Enemy is part of a progressive and aspects of Dutch immi- silent, transformations during the gration policies as inhu- open-minded, is mane and discriminatory 1990s in the realms of the economy, now among the towards ‘non-Westerners’. governance and media were rapidly broader process: These punitive, criminal- most restrictive izing practices include the turning the Netherlands into a fully- open-ended (some lasting In the following the largely and punitive in more than a year) deten- marketized society: patients turned the EU when it tion of migrant minors, into clients, public space into private families with children, and essay, political market-controlled comes to asylum, torture victims in cramped opportunity, job security into flex- conditions of up to six integration, family persons in a cell, with work, subcontracting and outsourc- reunification and little communication with ing, citizens into consumers. These scientist Jolle takeover of sym- the outside world, and deportation poli- an ‘integration’ process processes, however fundamental to 1 with costly compulsory Demmers and bolic forms of cies. We propose exams and a hierarchy the everyday life of the Dutch (affect- to look beyond of countries of origin, ing education, welfare, housing, child effectively blocking family writer Sameer S. collectivity in an salonfähig truisms reunification of people care, health care, work stability, pen- of Moroccan and Turkish about the new cul- origin. See: ‘Discrimination sions, social security) nonetheless tural racism as a in the Name of Integration, failed to engage the public. Both the Mehendale argue increasingly Migrants’ Rights Under the product of ‘ethnic Integration Abroad Act’, accepted inevitability (‘the country’s Human Rights Watch for the necessity atomized society. entrepreneurs’ or (May 2008); ‘The Neth- economy is in a dismal state, some- as the outcome of erlands: The Detention thing has to be done’) of the imple- of Irregular Migrants and of recognizing the media regimes of Asylum Seekers’ (June mented policies, plus the complexity 2008), Amnesty Interna- representation. tional EUR 35/02/2008; of neoliberal technologies of power While the mobiliz- ‘Evaluation of the Family – control of the image-world crucial relationship Reunification Directive’, ing properties of Commission of the EU, among them – and its hugely diverse, 2008, 610/3 (October between xeno- these phenomena 2008). case-specific consequences upon the must be recog- lives and futures of individual citizens,

50 Open 2010/No. 20/The Populist Imagination Neoliberal Xenophobia in the Netherlands 51 limited not only the forms of possible Our discussion of the demise of older bastion of civilization and urbaneness this centuries-old national symbol resistance but even the conceptuali- forms of collectiveness, and the rise of juxtaposed against the crude winner- may have provided fertile ground for zation of experience. In mainstream new forms of belonging, begins with a take-all mentality from across the the new ideology of neoliberalism, society, neoliberalism was not dis- brief history of modern Dutch societal Atlantic, its sense of moral superior- combining with the economic crisis of cussed, let alone politicized or con- structures. Until the 1960s, as a result ity importantly shaping the collective the1980s (when unemployment hit a tested: its benefits were simply too of religious and political clashes in the imagination of the nation.5 The per- post-Second World War record high) obvious. The longstanding definition early twentieth century, Dutch society sonal individualism 5. This shift from pillar to explain a rapid implementation to welfarist state was of ideology was fully realized: ‘They was characterized by a system of vol- of the Swinging both symbolized and sig- that might be described as a national do not know it, but they are doing it.’ untary social apartheid, within which Sixties was above nificantly reinforced by embrace. But the new forces proved the establishment of the An essential element of the neo- different vertically organized com- all a cultural phe- NOS (Dutch Broadcast- treacherous, for in the end globaliza- ing Institute), a national liberal project is atomization under munities (‘pillars’) lived parallel lives, nomena, rooted in coordinating and facili- tion disconnected the Dutch ‘ethnos’ the rubrics freedom, progress and each with their own social institutions the assuring socio- tating institute that also from its earlier symbols of entrepre- broadcast the daily news, efficiency – what Bourdieu has called and represented by their own set of economic collec- sports and reporting on neurism. Neoliberalism turned the 3 other events of ‘national’ a programme of the methodical political elites. Dutch generations tives of the welfare importance. Netherlands’ national-multinationals destruction of collectives.2 In order born in the middle 3. Arend Lijphart, The Pol- state. into fully globalized corporations and itics of Accommodation: to reach the neo- 2. Pierre Bourdieu, two-thirds of the Pluralism and Democ- Over the past two-plus decades, engineered a surrender to the market liberal utopia of a Firing Back: Against the twentieth century racy in the Netherlands however, the welfarism project has of its once-prided state enterprises. In Tyranny of the Market (Berkeley: University of fully commodified (London: Verso, 2004). grew up belonging California Press, 1968). lost ground, and is now actively in 2007, during a seminar at the Holland form of social life, all collective struc- to one or another reverse: slowly in the 1980s, due in Financial Center, the then Dutch Minis- tures that could serve as an obsta- more-or-less defined pillar, roughly part to the decade’s economic crisis; ter of Finance, in defence of neoliberal cle to the unfettered rule of capital classified as Protestant, Roman Cath- with greater speed and ideological ideology and reacting to public concern are called into question: the state, olic, Socialist or Liberal, each with its vivacity in the 1990s, with the defeat about yet another national-multina- increasingly locked in a global regime own political party, church, sporting of communism and the rise of neo- tional going global, remarked: ‘The of competing states; work groups, club, union, news- 4. As a member of, for liberalism. Achievements such as the sale of Holland is a myth that leads instance, the socialist through the individuation of labour paper, broadcast pillar, you would vote for longstanding ‘social safety net’ were to an unwarranted Orange feeling,’ and wages as a purported function of organization, the Social Democratic now presented as outdated, pamper- laying normative claims on the ‘Orange Labour Party, watch the individual competences; collectives housing corpora- programmes of the VARA, ing, inefficient. As the new ideologi- feeling’ as he dismisses it, but at the read the Vrije Volk, and that support the rights of workers; tion, school, uni- send your children to a cal certitudes demanded, slowly but same time acknowledges its exist- even the family, which loses part of versity and senior state university. steadily the state retreated from the ence. We, too, note the discomfort and its control over basic patterns of con- citizens’ home.4 public domain, handing its institutions uneasiness this double-sided transfor- sumption through the constitution After the 1960s, however, a process – including the emblematic national mation is causing among many sectors and targeting of market age groups. of de-pillarization began, within which railways, postal service and telephone of Dutch society. With the implementa- In our analysis of how neoliberalism welfarism, steadily gaining ground company – to private ownership. tion of neoliberalism, certain segments has affected Dutch public imagination, since the Second World War, now rose Quite literally, public space was over- of the economy certainly prospered, an understanding of the erosion of to prominence as a national identifier. whelmingly commodified (Amster- while the flip-side realities of the gold earlier modes of collectiveness (both The accompanying omneity of wel- dam’s central post office was turned coin were at best considered collateral: real and imagined), and their replace- farist policies, attitudes, and beliefs into a shopping mall), reducing the Amid the consumption boom of the ment by new ‘liquid’ forms of belong- were to set the Netherlands apart state to its bureaucratic, monitoring 1990s, beggars and the homeless began ing, is crucial. In particular, we focus from most other Western countries, and surveillant core. to show their faces on the streets of the on the disintegration of two preemi- in particular from the USA. In its Another fading national identifier, Netherlands. And with them, looming, nent icons of post-war Holland: social remade image, the Netherlands stood one with proclaimed ‘ancient roots’, for the first time in recent memory, the welfarism and ‘merchantness’. out (particularly in its own eyes) as a is the Dutch business sense. Indeed, fear of falling.

52 Open 2010/No. 20/The Populist Imagination Neoliberal Xenophobia in the Netherlands 53 This erosion of national collective the looming societal uncertainty and felt discomfort 6.This is how the Dutch that of earlier decades. The 1980s, institutionalization of dif- identifiers in the context of neolib- corresponding need for predictability. with the ever- ference works: You are with economic decline and high levels eral atomization opened up spaces These were readily captured in icons larger numbers of either an autochtoon or of unemployment, had seen the more an allochtoon. An allo- for the production of new symbols and incidences (often short-lived) allochtonen, so chtoon is a person living classic type of scapegoating: ‘The 6 in the Netherlands who of othering and belonging, rapidly of collectiveness and belonging, par- the story went. has at least one foreign- Netherlands is full;’ ‘They are stealing filled and exploited through the ticularly around ‘issues’ of safety and It is important to born parent. The Central our jobs;’ ‘They abuse our social secu- Bureau of Statistics recently marketized media. To fully criminality, as repertoires of Us/Them. point out differ- (CBS) makes a distinc- rity system.’ However, xenophobic tion between a Western understand the role that commercial The mid-1990s became the time of ences between (one might substitute repertoires did not prove expedient media played in this new dynamics, massive ‘silent marches’ and ‘popular the high level of ‘civilized’) allochtoon as political mobilizers, and the issue (a parent from Europe, it is important to sketch the major ceremonies’ honouring victims such symbolism North America, Oceania, of migration was only taken up for- but also Indonesia and changes during this period in the of street crime in what became a in national politics Japan) and a non-Western mally by a small nationalist party, the Dutch broadcasting system. Until national obsession with what was and the practi- allochtoon (Turkey, Latin Centre Party (CP), and carefully kept America, Asia and Africa). 1988, Dutch TV consisted of two coined ‘senseless violence’. Here the cal, depolarizing The terms are common out of mainstream politics. In those and widely used, although public channels where various broad- images and practices of collectively approaches of in everyday parlance only days racism was still simply racism, casting companies, representing dif- mourning an innocent victim served local authorities. those from the non-West- readily countered by the anti-racist ern group are labeled as ferent pillars and catering to a more as instant satisfiers for the atomized A case in point allochtonen, and the theo- discourse of the post-war era. The retically non-existent third or less specific audience, could broad- citizen’s need to belong. The focus is a controversy generation of allochtonen CP’s bashing of Surinamese immi- cast their programmes, the amount of on random violence, however, failed between the is still generally covered by grants and guest workers from Italy the term (for example, the air time for each pillar based on the to offer a durable enough dichotomy, national leader city of Rotterdam officially and Spain, and later from Turkey and speaks of third-generation size of its membership. The advent and in the search for more lasting cat- of the Labour allochtonen, individu- Morocco, was described by most in of the neoliberal order, however, saw egorizations of togetherness and oth- Party and the als who have at least one the political class as provincial and foreign born grandpar- the dismantling of the legal barricades ering, ultimately the ethnos proved Labour mayor of ent). In 2008, the CBS inferior, something that belonged to counted 1.8 million non- that had safeguarded this specific more resilient. Amsterdam, the Western allochtonen in a the past. In line with this, the state’s public broadcasting system. New leg- latter allowing his population of 16 million. 1980s’ immigration policies defined According to the CBS, the islation allowed for the introduction Minority Targetting: From Racist ‘street coaches’ to Netherlands has a total of integration solely in socioeconomic of commercial channels, and by the to Culturalist not shake hands 850,000 Muslims. terms, supporting the idea of ‘integra- second half of the 1990s seven new with members of the opposite sex tion with identity retention’. commercial stations had appeared. In the economically prosperous because of (Islamic) religious mores. In the 1980s, migrants were pre- Segmented, ideologically and reli- 1990s, the neoliberal consensus The national leader loudly protested, sented as a threat to the order of the giously based broadcasting made way within mainstream politics and the stating that ‘in this country, the nation, to its socioeconomic security. for market populism, with the new accompanying loss of even the illu- handshake is the norm’, conveniently Increasingly now, however, migrants TV channels rapidly entering into a sion of a national economy left the forgetting that the country’s chief are portrayed as a threat to the battle for ratings, outbidding each cultural field as the main battleground rabbi had refused to shake hands with nature of the nation, to the essence other in vulgarity and coarseness. In for political constituency-building and women for time immemorial (a fact of Dutchness. In the context of soci- this context it is interesting to note opened a ‘market’ for ethnos-based nobody ever politicized). etal atomization and the loss of collec- that the tsunami of ‘eviction’ shows politics. Minorities soon became the Of course the question of minori- tive standards, the consumer-citizen (where an individual is ‘othered’ and flash-point for heated public dis- ties and foreigners – different things, has become increasingly sensitive to eliminated by the remaining group) course which marked the invasion but almost always conflated in public the drawing and maintaining of iden- that has swamped the world this past of Others, the building of mosques, discourse – was not new on the Dutch tity boundaries. And since ‘we’ can decade started in the Netherlands the headscarf, the burqua, and the political agenda. However, the logic only exist in relation to ‘what we are with the show ‘Big Brother’. handshake into sites of contestation. and form of minority-targeting was not’, there is a now-flourishing market The new market media catered to Finally, the nation could vent its long- now fundamentally different from for the ritualization and eviction of

54 Open 2010/No. 20/The Populist Imagination Neoliberal Xenophobia in the Netherlands 55 the Other – no matter his or her Rot- successful strategy, the VVD claimed, Judith Butler rather understatedly a watershed essay by a journalist of terdam or Amsterdam birthplace, no was to drop ‘political correctness’ and noted regarding the Netherlands: ‘So socialist stock, a somewhat incoher- matter how fluent his or her Dutch ‘cultural relativism’ and to pressure a certain paradox ensues in which the ent, mildly assimilationist piece but and ‘well-behaved’ his or her manners migrants to conform. coerced adoption of certain cultural with an emblematic title: ‘The Mul- – which clearly legitimates segrega- norms becomes a 7. Judith Butler, ‘Sexual ticultural Drama.’8 The essay argued Politics, Torture, and tion and antagonistic group dynamics Freedom as Boundary requisite for entry Secular Time’, The British that the integra- 8. Paul Scheffer, ‘Het on the ground. into a polity that Journal of Sociology, tion of immigrants Multiculturele Drama,’ vol. 59 (2008) no. 1, 4. NRC Handelsblad, In the neoliberal era, minority- The emerging market of identity defines itself as the had failed, that the 29 January 2000. targeting has not only become both politics was now to code incidents of avatar of freedom.’7 policy of multiculturalism had locked socially meaningful and politically urban violence and criminality com- Following on the heels of sexual up migrants in their inward-looking functional, it has also changed form: mitted by young people of North freedom as an instrument of coercion communities, creating an apathetic, from racist to culturalist, something African, and particularly Moroccan, and boundary-drawing was the invoca- isolated underclass. It emphasized the that has highly complicated the for- heritage, and reported instances of tion of freedom of speech, particularly need for unconditional assimilation of mulation of a counter-argument. The the repression and abuse of women, including the freedom of gross insult. migrants through the (coerced) learn- culturalist defence that ‘people are as symbols of a clash of cultures In the public domain, a combination ing of Dutch history and language. equal, cultures are not’ or ‘we are (pre-modern Islamic tribalism versus of a dead-serious anti-Islam political Here, finally, left and right discourses not against Muslims, we are against Western civilization). Repeatedly, discourse and a popular culture of on integration merged: the similarities Islam’ did not have any of the emo- these acts were framed as character- ridicule, accusing Muslims of lacking between the leftist essay of 2000 and tionally charged and messy connota- istic of the bounded community of ‘resilience’ and a ‘sense of humour’, the right-wing position of 1991 were tions that associated racism with the ‘Moroccans’ (which became the synec- now openly displayed the pervasive such that the former VVD chairman Netherland’s traumatic Nazi-occupied doche for all Islamic allochtonen). By underlying cultural racism of Dutch referred to it as ‘a feeling of déja vû’.9 past. Even the Dutch High Court in a the end of the millennium, any unto- society. Added to this is the dynamics More and more, 9. NRC Handelsblad, recent verdict concerning the abuse ward local incident concerning immi- of the electoral system: a parliamen- ‘failed integration’ 20 May 2000. of article 137c has adhered to this grants (or Dutch-born allochtonen), tary system of proportional represen- was identified as the source of soci- logic, that by insulting the Islam one but in particular ‘Moroccans’, became tation as in the Netherlands lacks the etal malaise in the Netherlands. Multi- not necessarily insults Muslims (the national news. Moreover, it was now imperative to counter majority (read: culturalism’s death rattle echoed in all latter being an offense). their alleged incapacity to deal with autochthonous) sentiments. Electoral corners of the public domain. The first mainstream politician ‘freedom’, and the ‘unfreedom’ char- logic compels the major parties to opt This blurring of right and left polit- advocating this turn to cultural racism acterizing ‘Muslim culture’, that made for the majority vote: reaching out to ical positions, first in the economic was the then-leader of the right- them ‘uncivil’, ‘unintegrated’ citi- the allochtoon minority could prove realm and then also on the highly wing People’s Party for Freedom zens. More and more, the ‘hard-won’ counterproductive. Hence, there is mediatized issue of minority/immi- and Democracy (VVD), who in 1991 freedoms of the ‘real’ (meaning auto- also a certain electoral rationale to the grant integration, resulted in a kind of argued for a ‘tougher’ assimilationist chthon) Dutch – secularism, individu- current setting of polarization. cultural-nationalist bidding war, with stance on immigrant integration. The alism, sexual liberality, homosexuality Although some sectors in the the new eponymous political party overrepresentation of allochtonen in and even pornography – were jux- political arena immediately welcomed of Pim Fortuyn leading the way. His crime statistics and unemployment taposed against Muslim immigrants’ the VVD chairman’s assimilationist populist anti-Islam and anti-estab- were no longer to be understood as unfreedoms on these same terrains. discourse as ‘brave’ and ‘outspoken’, lishment rhetoric, greatly enhanced related to their marginalized, under- Increasingly, integration was to for several years it largely remained by the September 11 events, found class position, but instead were to be require the adoption of these specific a right-wing issue, influential but not fertile ground among the Dutch elec- framed in cultural terms, particularly moral choices – integration instrumen- dominant. This changed in 2000 with torate: political correctness was out, the purported incompatibility of Islam talized to a specific cultural grounding the publication in one of the Nether- Islam-bashing in. The media, needless and Western Democracy. The only as a precondition for citizenship. As land’s major national newspapers of to say, loved him – he was automatic

56 Open 2010/No. 20/The Populist Imagination Neoliberal Xenophobia in the Netherlands 57 ratings. Fortuyn presented a puzzling new party’s members were a hastily merger of old antagonisms and new assembled bunch with little real polit- style: a former socialist, part-time ical savvy, and the ‘revolution’ quickly academic, a dandy who toured the fizzled out. The government lasted 86 country in a Bentley-with-chauffeur days, and in the following elections and two lap doggies, talking in sound the LPF lost most of its voters. ‘The bites (‘I say what I do and I do what heritage of Pim,’ however, lived on, I say’), who declared Islam a ‘back- actively embraced by a series of split- ward culture’ but flaunted his sexual off factions of the VVD but also within encounters with Moroccan boys. mainstream politics. Cultural racism In the polls, his party skyrocketed. remained ascendant. Holland seemed to be on the brink of a new order. Neoliberal Xenophobia A key to Fortuyn’s rapid rise was the incapacity of the old-style In the atomized society of the Neth- politicians in the Purple Cabinet erlands the search for new forms of to respond to the new populism. togetherness has translated into a Although they had been largely turn to the ethnos, with fantasies of responsible for the economic transfor- purity and the moralization of culture mations of the 1990s, they never rec- and citizenship. Abiding to the logic ognized the silent discontent it had of the market, the media reiterates caused. The economy was booming, and so enhances this societal process. there was no reason to worry, they Where the neoliberal project has, thought. When it came to issues that largely unnoticed, abolished the col- fed into the exclusionist repertoires lective standards and solidarities of building up in society, such as the the post-Second Wrld War era, the arrival of large numbers of asylum faces of immigrants have served as seekers in the 1990s, they seemed ideal, identifiable flash points for new unable or unwilling to deal with them. repertoires of belonging and othering. Obsessed with enacting the coalition’s Neoliberalism may be technically mantra ‘Work, Work, Work’, they had agnostic on matters of culture and no feel for the new depression and race, but the neoliberal project is needs created by the neoliberal trans- well-served by the permanent con- formation, leaving all the ‘gut’ issues struction of an Enemy (either within to Fortuyn. or without) who can satisfy the oth- The week before the elections, erwise alienated consumer-citizen’s Fortuyn was murdered. The elections need for inclusion and belonging. For went ahead, and his List Pim Fortuyn the time being, at least, the current (LPF) won a stunning victory of 26 Dutch marriage-of-convenience seats, which obliged the Christian between cultural racism and the Democrats (CDA) and right-wing neoliberal project is certainly not an VVD to form a coalition. But the unhappy one.

58 Open 2010/No. 20/The Populist Imagination