The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [32]
Another common problem of integration is seen in the relations between men and women. The deeply patriarchal standards of Muslims often seem totally inappropriate, outdated, and degrading in modern society. The virgin/whore cult, the pressure to have as many sons as possible, the circumcision of girls (usually justified on religious grounds), arranged marriages for daughters—these are all products of the mentality of honor. As a group, Muslim women as well as men will have to forgo these practices and their underlying values to succeed in the West. If they do not, the emancipation of Muslims cannot really begin. Or, to put it in the words of the Dutch economist Arie van der Zwan, “this gap between the sealed-off world of non-Western immigrants and the society in which they have arrived cannot be seen separately from the stagnation in their home countries. For most [still] come from the Islamic world, and there is a growing stream of international literature which poses the question of why that world failed: ‘What went wrong?’ The Islamic world has seen little progress in science, culture, or the economy since the eighteenth century, although it once made major contributions in these areas.”
What is particularly good about van der Zwan’s statement is that he mentions both the international aspect (stagnation as an impetus for emigration) and the national dimension (cultural problems during integration that present a challenge to the host society). In his article he discusses the factors that have led to both the emigration and the fact that Muslims cling to values and standards that are “unsuitable” in a modern society.
Initially, Dutch politicians and policy makers interpreted the influx of foreign workers from the Muslim world (Morocco and Turkey) as a temporary phenomenon. The newcomers were “guest workers.” The Muslims themselves held a similar view, thinking that they had come to the West for a limited time, in order to earn money with which they could build a future back home. As it became clear that Muslims, like other non-Western immigrants, were settling permanently in the Netherlands, the debate about how best to integrate these people into Dutch society began. There are four positions to be distinguished in this debate, which are relevant to all Western democracies.
THE POLITICAL-LEGAL POSITION
In order to become full members of Dutch society, newcomers who possess a residence permit should have the same social and political rights and duties as the native population. Once they meet this political-legal condition, immigrants supposedly can participate in every aspect of society without further government intervention, although the campaign against discrimination and racism remains important to uphold.
The problem with this vision is that there is a gap between immigrants’ formal rights and the actual process of settling down and becoming fully emancipated members of society. In practice very few immigrants make use of their civil and political rights. Their turnout at the elections, for example, is depressingly low. Because familiarization with Dutch society is limited, their awareness of their individual rights is, too.
Paradoxically, in practice, formal rights are used to achieve the opposite of integration, namely to segregate the community from the rest of society on the basis of its religion (ethnicity). The most tragic example of this is the government system of subsidies for special Islamic schools. The ease with which immigrants can draw social benefits also has its drawbacks, one of which is that many immigrants have slipped into a permanent dependency on state benefits.
The political-legal approach is based on Dutch national history formed over centuries of political tensions among different Christian and secular groups. It does not take into account the background of the Muslims in the Netherlands. Because there is such a difference between the mind-sets of Muslim immigrants and the Dutch population, however, this approach perpetuates the disadvantages