The Dutch aren’t racist

John Buell’s op-ed piece in the Feb. 8 Bangor Daily News perceives a rise of racism and nationalism in the Netherlands.

I can think of no other country which has been more accommodating to immigrants of all races and nationalities, and especially Muslims, than Holland. The Dutch have built schools all over Holland to teach Muslim immigrants in their own Arabic language and Islamic instruction. Generous welfare and every health and social amenity is subsidized for guests who continue to arrive in overwhelming numbers to that already crowded nation.

In return, very few of the immigrants from Arab countries even bother to learn the national language of Holland. The Dutch language will be nonexistent in our lifetime. Dutch citizens are not safe to enter neighborhoods taken over by immigrants.

A descendant of Van Gogh was recently assassinated because he insulted Islam. A member of the Dutch Parliament travels with bodyguards because she lives under threats against her life because she questions fundamentalist Islamic restrictions against females. She, herself, is a refugee from Somalia.

The Dutch, normally tolerant to a fault, are starting to question the generous allowances they have lavished on people who come from countries, some of which are violently religiously intolerant. Mosques outnumber churches in many parts of Holland. Try building a Christian church in Saudi Arabia. It is against the law. Churches in Iraq are bombed. In most Arab countries Christian minorities are severely persecuted.

With Rotterdam now 60 percent Arabic one wonders what is a reasonable proportion a nation is expected to welcome before they lose their own culture.

It is much more cost effective to assist populations in developing nations where they livethan to overrun a country like the Netherlands in the name of charity.

It is not a question of assisting the development of the less fortunate. But picking on Holland, which gives one of the highest percentages of its GDP to international aid, is unfair if not absurd.

Charles R. Ausherman

Trenton

The author of the precedingletter spent 40 years in service assisting developing nations.

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