Posted on 05/06/2005 12:18:01 PM PDT by aculeus
Europe's pioneer for much of the last century in social experiments, it seems the Netherlands may now be pointing to the next cultural revolution: the bourgeois exodus. Escaping the stress of clogged roads, street violence and loss of faith in the country's once celebrated way of life, the Dutch are quitting their homeland in droves.
More and more Dutch people are leaving the Netherlands to live abroad. In 1999, nearly 30,000 native Dutch moved elsewhere. By 2004 the figure had shot up to almost 50,000. Dutch people emigrating around the world is nothing new, but this time it's highly skilled people with degrees that are leaving, the kind of workforce you want to keep.
Well qualified
One place that's noticed a surge of interest in leaving the country is a migration consultancy bureau in Amsterdam. Grant King, director of the office, says he has seen a marked change in the type of people coming to see him:
"Most of our applicants are in high-paying, good, solid positions here - they are not the unemployed. They are mostly middle-class Dutch people with college or university degrees […] The problem for the Netherlands is that the ones that they don't want to lose are the ones that are leaving."
Claustrophobic
Better opportunities on the labour market and personal relationships are some of the main reasons why people are settling elsewhere. But unlike most earlier waves of migration, this one is not just driven by economics. Congestion, endless traffic jams, packed trains and overcrowding - a daily experience for many Dutch - seem to be part of the reason. Henri Beunders, Professor of history, media and culture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam says people feel claustrophobic:
"This general feeling of disappointment and uneasiness is of course aggravated by the fact that everybody has at least two cars. People who live in The Hague, work in Amsterdam and go to a disco in Rotterdam. So, Holland is like spaghetti that has been cooked for too long, it gets sticky. People are getting the feeling that they are being choked."
Lack of tolerance
Some migrants are also voting with their feet against what they see as a multicultural experiment gone wrong, and the increase in violence and social tension they believe has come with it. It began in May 2002 when populist anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn was shot dead by a left-wing activist - the country's first political assassination in over 400 years. Then, in November 2004, came the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a fierce critic of fundamentalist Muslims. His ritual-style killing by an alleged Islamic extremist was followed by angry demonstrations and fire-bombings of mosques and Muslim schools. The violence shocked the country. Professor Beunders says:
"The assassin of Theo van Gogh released not only anger but a lot of fear of fanatic Muslims and random violence. It was new for Dutch people to feel physical insecurity, because we are living in a very small country where you can come across anybody."
Migration consultant Frans Buysse received more than 13,000 hits on his emigration website in the weeks after the killing of Van Gogh, which is four times the usual level. He believes that people see the murder of Van Gogh as a reflection of what is happening in Dutch society and that it is therefore time to leave.
Coming back
Some people do return to the Netherlands, but statistics show that more than half of these soon emigrate back to the country they first moved to or to another country, because the reasons why they first left are still the same or worse.
So should the Dutch government be worried about this flight of the well-educated middle classes? Professor Beunders thinks not. He says others who immigrate to the Netherlands will replace the Dutch who leave:
"It will make things a bit more complicated because you have to integrate an even greater number of foreigners into your own country, with all the very complicated regulation systems we have in this country. Growing mobility on the other hand is also a good sign of the growing unification of Europe and understanding of people - I hope."
© Radio Nederland
Entrepreneurial Dutchmen are welcome to move over here. We already have enough welfare types.
I thibnk it was Orwell who said, some things are so ridiculous only a real expert would believe them.
Take a look at the New Hampshire Secretary of State's town-by-town voting results for the last election.
All the towns along the Mass. border voted heavily for Bush & Benson, over 60% further west.
The major votes for Lynch & Kerry came along the western border with Vermont, and in the city of Concord where all the sinecured bureaucrats had been fired by Benson.
People coming here from Mass. are of the vanishing breed known as "Massachusetts Conservatives." They're not the ones voting for insanity, they're the ones reinforcing the efforts of old-fashioned New Hampshire conservatives.
Fact is, is that we are now (marginally) a blue state and getting bluer. I believe the conservative majority along the border might have been greater in the past and would explain past Republican victories.
It is true that along the western border where I live, is largely pro-Dem.
Sure, some conservatives coming in, but seems not enough to stem the trend.
And therein lies the point of the Free State Project.
Hey, all of us aren't that way!! The vast majority of folks who leave MA, move outh to a red state. And most ot THEM are not liberals and hate the socialist state here, as well as the "culture"
We are not part of it, nor did we create it! :)
south! not outh! oops sorry
And will likely try to re-establish it in their new homelands ;kinda like what happens when blue state yankees infest red state cities and towns in their quest to rid themselves of the deplorable conditions they've created at home.
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