Inleiding Rudi Leiprecht (english)

International comparisons:
Ideologies and realities

1.
In some of my recent lectures in Germany I have shown my audiences this cartoon: you can see a couple of gentlemen jostling around a desk with a lot of microphones. It is obviously the time before the elections that is presented, which is made clear by a pencil and a square to be ticked off at the front of the desk. The politicians try to raise the audience’s attention by shouting out different slogans; slogans which - to put it in a polite way - show that these politicians are clearly against a multicultural society.
At the right margin we see a person carrying the name of Gerhard Frey. He is the boss of the German right-wing extremist party called DVU and chief editor of the German National Newspaper 'Deutsche Nationalzeitung'. The other politicians make clear that there is no more space around the desk for him, an allusion to the saying 'the boat is full', which is frequently used to reject refugees seeking asylum. This figure requires rehabilitation. The following is obvious: the gentlemen closer to the microphones use slogans and contents that Gerhard Frey himself made use of. In the past, the others avoided him because of his slogans and declared him very right-wing. Today, however, so the cartoon could be interpreted, the same slogans and contents have been accepted by and moved to the centre of the political discourse.

For a German audience it is not difficult to describe this particular constellation as one having repeatedly occurred in Germany. Today, parties of the political centre make use of right-wing populist slogans and contents when talking about immigration and the multicultural society in order to win votes. These populist slogans are, however, not at all harmless or innocent as it is often claimed. Making use of them does not only mean a neutralization of right-wing parties, but it means much more. Appealing people with these slogans, leads not only to the reproduction of subtle racist believes but to their active mobilization. Slogans of this kind have seemingly gained the impression of being valid and respectable which will have negative consequences on society with regard to the co-existence of its different ethnic groups.
The smaller person to be seen on the lower left hand side of the cartoon is irritating. He is making a specific gesture saying: "Also at your service!" It is obvious that this refers to a gesture and statement of Pim Fortuyn. The German audience will have noticed at this point at the latest that this cartoon is actually taken from a Dutch context and was translated into German by myself.

In the discussion to follow, in which the situations of Germany and the Netherlands will be compared with each other, it becomes clear that similar constellations can be observed in both countries. There is, however, one big difference. Pim Fortuyn was a charismatic person, a homosexual, rich, eccentric political figure and at the same time a very eloquent media pop star, who made use of right-wing populist slogans. He successfully used and mobilized the negative climate of public opinion against the political elite. In Germany, a political figure like that is nowhere in sight - perhaps not yet in sight, and a similar figure would probably need other attributes than Pim Fortuyn. A homosexual, who philosophizes about his visits to dark-rooms would probably not find wide-spread consent in Germany. Nevertheless, one can imagine that a charismatic and media competent politician using populist and extremist slogans could have notable success.

I think that the two countries share common ground. There is wide-spread scepticism about the noticeable consequences of the welfare-state’s decline and mistrust against the established and traditional political class. As many studies in both countries point out, there is a great potential for racist attitudes, which can be appealed to and mobilized.
If one takes this common ground as a basis, it becomes clear that it is nonsense to refer to either of the two countries as the model country. It rather seems to me, that we share the same problems.

2. One cause for our discussion today is a number of articles by the sociologist Ruud Koopmans. Where I see the similarities, he emphasizes the differences between Germany and the Netherlands.
I must admit that his critical statements about the Netherlands, evoked some positive emotions in me. His critique of Dutch state policies show that there is hardly any reason for feelings of superiority or arrogance which I have come across in debates with colleagues in the Netherlands frequently. According to Koopmans, the Dutch model is not successful. It is a shame, however, that he claims to be the first and does not give a review of critical voices in the Netherlands from the last 15 years (see on behalf of many others Rath, 1991, Fase, 1993, Leeman 1994, Pels 1995). Moreover, he sticks to multicultural policy ideology and hardly takes the practice in the two countries into account.

Koopmans characterizes multicultural politics in the Netherlands deriving from the tradition of pilarization (Verzuiling), which according to him, leads to "a specific multicultural view on integration". "Organisations and activities with an ethnic basis are [...] generously supported by the government" (Koopmans 2002, 91). He claims that all fields of society (the labour market, the media, education, associations etc.) work with multicultural concepts, and that nowhere in Europe are there more schools bearing a religious or ethnic-religious orientation. According to Koopmans, in view of the great Dutch effort in establishing multicultural politics, it is astonishing that Germany, a country which had not developed any integration policies a few years ago, comes off so well in comparison to the Netherlands. Koopmans concludes that in general multicultural politics lead to unsatisfactory results: "Multiculturalism seems to be especially counterproductive" (Koopmans 2005, 1).
Koopmans tries to prove his thesis with various comparative data. Unfortunately, he seeks similar and fitting results for the verification of his thesis but he does not try to falsify it in any way. This can make sense if one wants to provoke a discussion, but it is not sufficient for scientific proof. Moreover, he argues on the basis of an insufficient data base. He is aware of this himself when saying that "after two decades of integration research in Europe this is just above all we have" (Koopmans 2005, 12). We still have the problem in Europe that there are not many comparative indicators and data records, which would allow a proper comparative analysis. This, however, does not hold Koopmans back from coming to far-reaching conclusions. At the same time, he works very selective with those proper comparative indicators and data records which can be found.

One example for this selectivity: Koopmans focuses on the educational performance in both countries and makes use of PISA 2000. This international comparative study raised test results of school achievements in many countries and carried out surveys on 15-year-old students on different subject areas (reading comprehension, Mathematics and Science). They were also asked about their ethnic background, for example their place of birth and their parents’ place of birth. These criteria go beyond normal German statistics, which still stick to the inquiry of nationality and become more and more absurd. That is why these German statistics can only be compared to Dutch differentiating between autochthonous and allochthonous people with great reservation.
In PISA 2003 the representative sample reveals that 20.6 per cent of the 15-year-old students examined in Germany were immigrants compared to 18.2 per cent of those examined in the Netherlands. I would say these figures are very similar. Koopmans concludes from the PISA test results that immigrant children (two foreign-born parents) in the Netherlands perform worse than non-immigrant children, the difference in for instance mathematical skills being 90 points while in Germany the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant children was 80 points (see table 1).
One could say that the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant children is relatively high in both countries. Koopmans, however, interprets the situation as follows: "Again, the Dutch result is all the more disappointing given the fact that the Netherlands have, in line with its multicultural integration philosophy, extensive special programs to improve the educational performance of immigrant children" (Koopmans, 8).

It is interesting that Koopmans presents the data of PISA 2000 in his essay of 2005, because in PISA 2000 the data gathered in the Netherlands were excluded from the international comparison by the international consortium due to lacks concerning the criteria set for sample surveys (see PISA 2000, 26). In other words, the Netherlands do not appear in PISA 2000 at all.
A more recent survey of 2003, which does not lack these criteria, is, however, ignored by Koopmans. This comparative study reveals that in both countries immigrant children have a statistically important competence deficiency compared to non-immigrant children. The results achieved by immigrant students in Germany and in the Netherlands are significantly lower compared to those of 13 other comparable countries. The competence deficiency of immigrant students in Germany is, however, higher than its counterpart in the Netherlands. This is obviously a result which does not match Koopmans’ thesis.

Table 1

3.
The great lack of Koopmans’ argument is the fact that he seems to follow the political and official policy plans and interprets them as actual facts. For example, he sees the support of immigrant students in their mother tongue-learning and the simultaneous neglect of learning Dutch as one expression of multicultural policies. In reality, however, Dutch language courses had long waiting lists for many years. And the history of mother tongue language classes for immigrant students (OETC) is very different from what Koopmans claims.
In 1985, a law was passed that obliged primary schools to offer "lessons in their mother tongue language and culture" (2 ½ hours per week) to immigrant pupils if their parents applied for them. However, this concept was under pressure from the very start, because the majority of Dutch teachers thought that the lessons would have a negative effect on the students’ acquisition of the Dutch language and their development of cognitive skills. These voices finally gained the upper hand, when in 1994 a committee recommended to drop mother tongue language classes for immigrant students, which after a short while was put into practice.

Again and again it has been observed in the Netherlands that measures or concepts are propagated by ministries and other authorities, but they are not consequently put into practice and the practice is not controlled. One can see this when in the mid 1990s (according to Koopmans the climax of multicultural politics) several studies showed that only a small number of schools offered intercultural lessons, although a law had been passed which imposed these intercultural lessons on all schools (see e.g. Fase et. Al. 1990, Commissie Evaluatie Basisonderwijs 1994).

Let me give you a similar example from another field of comparison: The fact that the Netherlands have "gone further than any other European country in developing affirmative action for ethnic minorities" is presented by Koopmans as an example of multicultural politics. Among others "a recently abolished law" is mentioned by him, a law which "required private employers to register the ethnic background of their personnel and to report on a yearly basis on the measures taken to increase the share of minorities in the work force" (Koopmans 2005, 7). In reality, this law has always been a 'toothless tiger', because there was no punishment for companies not obeying it. The majority of companies boycotted the law successfully.

4. I think it has become clear that one needs to take into consideration not only the official ideologies, but the actual practices when looking at international comparisons. This requires very thorough studies, which are not yet available. I assume that many aspects of multicultural ideologies in the Netherlands have not been put into practice, and thus have not become reality.
International comparisons aiming at finding one model country are not desirable rather because they foster resentments and feeling of superiority and arrogance. They support a national and competitive way of thinking, which should better be dropped, as I assume that there are many tasks and problems Germany and the Netherlands have in common.

I conclude by giving two examples for such problems: Studies in Germany show that those immigrants, who seem to be well-integrated - they have educational success, good command of German, shows good social participation - often do not feel integrated. They experience integration as something which the majority of the country’s population offers them merely "on call" and "with reservations" (see Schramkowski 2005). Well-integrated immigrants know that what is granted to the majority is not self-evident for them and they have developed a sensitivity towards all subtle mechanisms of exclusion and rejection. They read the newspapers and watch the news and they cannot suppress the impression that they are not really seen as belonging to the nation. They are still seen as 'different'. Because of this, there is a risk for immigration-society to lose this group of 'successful' immigrants which have started to think about or are actually emigrating.
One last example: in many European countries there are young people who more or less explicitly assign themselves to Islam. A greater part of them belongs to the disadvantaged groups in our educational system and on the labour market. Just a minor group has had a successful education and has a satisfactory job. How do these young people cope with the negative messages of Islam dominant in all European societies and how can they built a future (vgl. Benbassa 2005)?

In my view these are more important questions than looking for a model country of immigrant integration.