Sniderman, Paul M., and Louk Hagendoorn. When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and Its Discontents in the Netherlands.

• Author: Uneke, Okori A.
• Position: Book review

Sniderman, Paul M., and Lonk Hagendoorn. When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and Its Discontents in the Netherlands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. 155 pages. Cloth, $24.95.

When Ways of Life Collide examines the policies of multiculturalism and the conflicts of values they generate between native Dutch and Muslim immigrant communities in the Netherlands. The authors adopt an empirical analytical approach in their treatment of the apparently vexing issue of multiculturalism in Dutch society. The central thrust of their argument is that policies that were designed with bona fide intentions to protect the distinct ways of life of Muslims and to promote tolerance ironically sowed seeds of discord and intolerance on both sides.

As Sniderman and Hagendoorn argue, the Dutch policy of multiculturalism originally was adopted out of convenience. It was assumed that the Dutch economy would need immigrant labor only on a transient basis, and, hence, the immigrants' ties to their place of origin should be maintained. To this end, the Dutch government, in the spirit of multiculturalism, provided funds for separate schools, housing projects, broadcast media, and community organizations for Muslim immigrants. Based on the initial assumption, the objective was to "discourage them from staying" (p. 1). Furthermore, following on the heels of the recent history of World War II and the lesson of the Holocaust, efforts to combat prejudice against disadvantaged minorities were seen, among policymakers, as a right-thing-to-do kind of public policy. Implicitly, opposition to multiculturalism signaled a demonstration of a lack of humanity.

Historically, the Netherlands has a reputation as a tolerant society. It offered a safe haven for "religious and political refugees who could find protection from persecution and enjoy freedom of thought and belief" (p. 12). More recently, that tradition of tolerance has been extended to the legalization of soft drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, and gay marriage. Furthermore, the Netherlands has had a tradition of immigration: Northern Protestants moving to the Roman Catholic-dominated South; German seasonal laborers since the sixteenth century; Jewish immigrants after 1619; French Huguenots toward the end of the seventeenth century; Gypsies; Chinese laid off by Dutch steamships in the 1920s; South Moluccans and Indonesians who returned with the Dutch colonial army in the 1950s; and, groups of Italian...