Two examples from the speaking book 365 days Dutch by Neaada Aurangzeb from 2021:
Example 1: Birthday party
Tineke: “Racism is such a difficult topic to discuss. It quickly makes me emotional.”
Me: “What makes it difficult for you?”
Tineke: “It feels like I am being accused of something and that is a very unpleasant feeling.”
Me: “Very good books have been written about this process. Perhaps it will be enlightening if you read them.”
Tineke: “I think this is very bad if you act so pedantic. As if you know it all so well.”
Example 2: Drugstore Amsterdam-South
Seller to Bart: “I’ll help you in a minute, just keep an eye on that dark lady with the make-up.”
Bart: “Keep an eye on her?”
Salesperson: “Yes, they steal.”
Bart: “That’s my wife.”
The pleasant positive self-image of the Netherlands is wrong. The Dutch rate equality in the Netherlands as particularly high. The self-image that the Dutch have and propagate about themselves and the Netherlands to the outside world does not correspond to the actual attitude and behavior of the Dutch. There is a discrepancy between the image of tolerance, equality, diversity and reality is one of the conclusions of the research by Miller et al (2014). Compared to 65 countries surveyed, the Netherlands scores implicitly and explicitly very high on stereotype preferences, in this case for men in certain social roles. This difference is also clearly visible when the participants of Esther Mollema’s workshops are tested on their assumptions and unconscious prejudices about diversity. 18,000 managers tested in those workshops in the Netherlands show that there is a large gap between what managers think and do when it comes to the progression of employees to leadership positions. Managers think they give dark-skinned women and employees the same chance, but in reality we do not in more than 75% of the cases. The Dutch tend to consider themselves very egalitarian and tolerant when it comes to diversity, while the reality is different. Why is this happening in the Netherlands in particular?
Empty Tolerance
According to Wijnand Mijnhardt, professor of cultural history at the University of Utrecht, the current form of tolerance in the Netherlands is related to a number of historical factors. In the 17th century, many immigrants came to the Dutch trading towns to find work. At the time, they were accepted into Dutch society without many problems for two reasons. Firstly, there was simply a lot of demand for cheap labor and, especially in Holland, many immigrants were needed to keep the economy going. Secondly, in the 17th century, the Netherlands was a densely populated country, where population layers lived closely together, with the result that the poorer immigrants in cities such as Amsterdam and Leiden came to live right next to the wealthy patricians in the alleys between the canal houses and mansions. This to the great surprise and dismay of foreign scholars and merchants who visited the Netherlands at the time. Numerous writings have been preserved in which it was mentioned that a stately merchant, even then, was simply booed in Amsterdam when he ran into a poor day laborer. In other major European cities, the street scene at the time was much more homogeneous – each group lived in its own part of the city. Mijnhardt calls it a “special kind of tolerance” built on social pressure, a high population density, combined with freedom of religion and freedom of the press. “However, it was not a principled tolerance, but rather a kind of necessary form of self-preservation,” said Mijnhardt. This self-preservation, or sobriety as a traditional Dutch form of tolerance, can be seen later during the Pillarization, when each societal pillar lives completely separate from each other; the Catholics had their own butcher, the Protestants their own milkman and the Socialists their own football club. But they did need each other and they tolerated each other in the least extreme sense of the word. Just like in the Golden Age, people tolerated each other’s way of life, origin and culture for practical reasons, but in reality they didn’t have to know anything about each other. Marli Huijer, former thinker of the nation and professor of philosophy at Erasmus University, calls this attitude ’empty tolerance’; people tolerate each other, but there is no form of respect for each other. Citizens who are part of the same society but who in fact live completely apart from each other. According to Huijer, this can still be seen in metropolises in particular. “There is a diversity of lifestyles, but people are in their own bubble, they have little to do with each other. This too is a form of empty tolerance because you are completely indifferent to others.”
One of us
How cooperation takes shape in the Netherlands and who exactly gets a place at the table is more complicated. According to Ruben Gowricharn, professor of diaspora studies at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, like other societies, still has many tribal features. ,,We are a ‘large tribe of the Dutch’ and someone of color has to ‘marry’ before he becomes one of us. In the Netherlands, everyone has to integrate.” As group animals, according to Gowricharn, the Dutch have a kind of natural dislike for others with whom they cannot identify. Language appears to be essential for ‘belonging’ in the Netherlands, according to research by PewResearchCentre in fourteen countries into the factors that matter for national identity (What it truly takes to be ‘one of us’). not particularly important where a person was born or what religion a person adheres to. But compared to other countries, the Dutch attach the most importance to the importance of the language as part of the Dutch identity. Of all respondents in the Netherlands, 84 percent indicate that a good command of Dutch is very important for Dutch citizenship. That strong preference is nowhere so strong. In Hungary and the United Kingdom, 81 percent of those surveyed say that language is very important for citizenship, but in Canada or Italy, for example, it is ‘only’ 59 percent of those surveyed. This means that it is a lot more difficult for people with a language deficiency to climb the social ladder in the Netherlands. In combination with the tribality of ‘integration’ in the Netherlands, this leads, among other things, to the fact that the Netherlands is so incredibly homogeneous, say Gowricharn and Mijnhardt. Only 20 percent have a foreign cultural background or describe themselves as cosmopolitan. “The Limburger is of course different from the Groninger, but they all have the idea that they are Dutch and that they have a common culture to which newcomers have to adapt,” says Mijnhardt.
In other words, everyone should be approximately the same and not deviate too much from the prevailing standard. And that means that many people never get a fair chance to prove themselves in a top position, but also that many organizations will simply not fill their leadership positions with the most talented and suitable people. It is therefore not surprising that the Dutch administrative layers are also very homogeneous. Data on diversity show that this – certainly in the long term – can become a major problem for the business community. For some time now, women have formed the majority of the group of graduates in the Netherlands. And projections show that in 2060 more than a third of the Dutch (34 percent) will have a migration background, compared to 23 percent in 2019 (CBS).
Breaking through
But how can the discrepancy between the positive self-image of the Dutch about tolerance, equality and diversity, the implicit and explicit preference for uniformity and the reality, especially in the workplace, be overcome? By pointing out to managers that they have “a moral duty” that companies are a reflection of society, Gowricharn believes. “Society is diverse, so companies should be too.” Many companies use “quality” as a legitimacy to keep people out, Gowricharn notes. But “quality is colorless. To suggest that quality is a uniform thing, the same for all groups of people, for age categories, for cultures, is completely wrong.” And so managers must be made aware of those “holy houses and knock them over”. Understanding how unconscious biases affect perception and decisions is also an important step. “Realize how great the temptation is to choose someone who looks like you,” says Huijer. This willingness for self-reflection, dialogue and understanding are the key words to move forward. Esther Mollema can only endorse this. “Work on more dialogue and improve together. In particular, invite the group you are talking about to the table. In the Netherlands, the diversity debate often takes place without the group in question.” Moreover, making mistakes is human. “Forgive yourself and others if you sometimes make mistakes in trying to be more inclusive. Think of it as a process in which you learn a little bit every day how inclusiveness works and how you can contribute to it. An open attitude is important to break through the difference between self-image and empty tolerance,” says Mollema. “You also have to organize honesty better. Guarantee equality by organizing unconscious biases from your processes. Tighter management of recruitment & selection, assessments, promotions and decision-making. Give less chance to unconscious biases here. And yes, that is difficult to accept for the Netherlands, who often think that they will do well without strict rules. But it is precisely the Dutch who need strict agreements to achieve results in the field of diversity and inclusion.”