ABSTRACT
Two years ago, in the early part of 2000 Dutch journalist Paul Scheffer published a much talked-about essay entitled ‘The Multicultural Drama’ in NRC-Handelsblad, a Dutch quality paper. In this essay Scheffer advanced the thesis that the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the Netherlands is a human drama. He pointed to the high unemployment figures among established and new immigrants, the emergence of black schools with high dropout rates, and the concentration of poverty in strongly segregated districts in the large cities. In his opinion the poor integration of ethnic minorities is the result of a detached and permissive Dutch policy in respect of minorities that does not confront ethnic minorities sufficiently with the Dutch language, culture and history.
