On 3/22/07, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"Official government policy toward Muslim immigrants has also differed
vastly from nation to nation. Britain (1 million to 2 million Muslim
immigrants out of a total population of 60 million) and Holland (1 million
Muslim immigrants out of a total population of 16 million) have for the
most part embraced a flexible, multicultural approach. Instead of
assimilating, immigrants have been encouraged to maintain their
time-honored, traditional religious and cultural orientations. In many
instances, the state has actively nurtured such allegiances, practically,
financially and rhetorically. As visitors to these countries well know,
nightly newscasts might readily be confused with ad spots for the United
Colors of Benetton."
full: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/wolin
Richard Wolin is wrong about the tolerance of the Netherlands. He
completely ignores the growth of Islamophobia and xenophobia that
started long before 9/11 in Europe. Pim Fortuyn, who got "1.6 million
votes and 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament" in 2002, published an
Islamophobic and xenophobic manifesto "Against Islamicization of Our
Culture" in 1997 (see
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/06/clash-of-civilizations-sending-pink.html>
for more information about the Fortuyn phenomenon).
It is, however, possible that the French concept of laïcité is more
difficult to square with religion than the American creed of
separation of church and state. Moreover, OECD nations may be divided
into several different broad categories, and one of the dividing lines
is the tradition of political liberalism in the English-speaking
nations (the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK) vs. that of statism,
republicanism, and secularism in continental Europe. The former
countries tend to accept more immigrants but give them as well as
citizens fewer welfare state benefits than the latter, and vice versa.
In both cases, immigrants are crucial political constituencies,
especially Muslim immigrants in the case of Europe, so leftists need
to make more efforts to understand their cultures and welcome them
into politics on the Left. To the extent that it does so, the Left
can grow.
Immigrants everywhere already tend to the (broadly defined) Left.
E.g., in the Netherlands, "[a]ccording to research by the Institute of
Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam, 80
percent of the immigrant voters voted for the PvdA [Partij van de
Arbeid, the Labor Party]" -- 85 percent in the case of Amsterdam and
Rotterdam -- in the 2006 municipal elections (Philip van Praag and
John Wanders, "Ruk naar links, mede door allochtonen," 8 March 2006,
<http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article240802.ece>). The
Socialist Party and the GroenLinks [Green Left] got 5 percent and 7
percent of the immigrant votes respectively ("Allochtonen stemmen
massaal op PvdA," 8 March 2006,
<http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/politiek/artikel/asp/artnr/89694/index.html>).
Eventually, "a left government of the PvdA, the SP, and the Green
Left would become possible," says Van Praag and Waters, for which
immigrant votes would be decisive.
But leftists, especially social democratic leftists, do not requite
immigrants' love of the Left: the Dutch Labor Party leader Wouter Bos
says, "We are bound to get into trouble with our new immigrant
councillors," for, in his opinion, "the political culture of foreign
councillors does not always respect Dutch political culture, because
they are 'politically committed to the culture of their country of
origin, where clientelism is normal'" ("Bos vreest zijn allochtone
partijgenoten," 17 March 2006,
<http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/politiek/artikel/asp/artnr/91096/index.html>).
Is it any wonder that the Labor Party did not do well in the November
2006 general elections? The party, having lost 9 seats in those
elections, is now down to 33 seats:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_general_election,_2006>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Netherlands#Election_results_and_cabinets_since_WWII>.
Can the SP, the only former Maoist party that has become social
democratic and grown into a sizable parliamentary party in the North,
hold onto immigrant voters as well as others that it has peeled away
from the Labor Party? If it is to do so, it, too, needs to change the
party's politics about immigrants and their cultures.
--
Yoshie
