De Fabel van de illegaal 63, March/April 2004
Author: Eric Krebbers
Plans for limiting migrant rights are getting more popular
As a result of a discussion weekend in Amsterdam a debate started in the Dutch media about introducing a second rank citizenship and temporary migration. A growing number of politicians and policy makers seem to like the proposals.
The worldwide wealth gap produces more migrants and refugees each year. At the end of the nineties some 'progressive' social scientists therefore began to promote new ways of migration control. They especially proposed limiting migrant rights through the introduction of a second rank citizenship, and limiting the length of the right to stay through quota and temporary immigration. The Autonoom Centrum (Autonomous Centre) responded enthusiastically, and in December 1999 together with some of these scientists this Amsterdam based action group published the pamphlet "Vlucht naar voren!" ("Fleeing forwards!") (1). The activists said that they wanted in this way to "break open and broaden the debate on migration". However, back then they did not manage to attract a lot of attention to these 'renewing proposals'. Four years later Jelle van der Meer of the Dutch Green party GroenLinks (opposition, 8 of 150 seats in parliament) did succeed by organizing a discussion weekend in January 2004 in the Amsterdam cultural centre De Balie.
Together with Rotterdam academic Han Entzinger (2) Van der Meer also published the book "Grenzeloze solidariteit. Naar een migratiebestendige verzorgingsstaat". ("Borderless solidarity. Towards a welfare state which can survive immigration"). Trial versions of all articles in the book were discussed earlier on at three meetings by social scientists like Jeroen Doomernik,(3) Piet Emmer,(4) and Godfried Engbersen,(5) together with members of refugee support organization Inlia and the Autonomous Centre, and with representatives of the ministry of Justice, the Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau (SCP, state planning agency), (6) the largest trade union confederation FNV and the largest employers organization VNO/NCW. After four years the new ideas seem to have arrived at the level of policy makers and the most influential special interest groups.
Which "we"?
As a result of the discussion weekend and the book a debate started on which migration policy "we" supposedly want for the future. It seemed that it was evident to everyone, from the Left to the Right, who constitutes this "we". "We" are the Dutch. That's why it is difficult for the radical Left to participate in such a debate. From their anti-nationalist view radical Left activists feel they belong to a completely different "we". Our allegiances are with the worldwide underclass to which migrants and refugees also belong. "We" have no shared interests with the rich and powerful. "We" will not produce proposals to control migration more efficiently. On the contrary, "we" strive for free migration and eventually for revolutionary changes to end capitalism, patriarchy and racism. But ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, when the then frightened but very clever bourgeoisie offered social democrats part of the colonial loot in exchange for an end to the class struggle, most 'progressives' consider themselves in the first place Dutch. Because of this nationalism people tend to see 'foreigners' as the main problem instead of unjust power relations. And that is why many 'progressives' propose renovating instead of destroying this unfair system.
Borders
Immigration can be considered an attempt to participate in the wealth which has been systematically robbed for centuries from the countries where migrants come from. In their book Van der Meer and Entzinger talk about new ways in which "we" - meaning "the Dutch" - could keep "our" welfare state upright now that it turns out that "we" are hardly able anymore to keep immigrants out of "our" country. For to Van der Meer it is very clear: "The combination of immigration and welfare state is impossible". (7) Therefore, according to him, "we" have to chose between "our own weak or those from the outside". And then the answer is of course very clear: save our own "weak" first. "We have to show solidarity to Piet from the Schilderswijk (poor neighbourhood in The Hague) first", the influencial social democrat (PvdA) member of parliament Klaas de Vries agreed firmly.(8) "Solidarity needs borders", Van der Meer and Entzinger claim. According to them "we" cannot share with everyone. "Borders are a wonderful invention", they write, but "when state borders get less important, we have to erect borders elsewhere". But where? How can "we" exclude arriving immigrants most effectively from "our" wealth? Indeed, through limiting their rights!
According to the authors a second rank citizenship and temporary migration are the prime solutions to these problems. Second rank citizens and temporary migrant workers are both to be denied social security. But for these proposals to be implemented "we" first need to put aside "our preoccupation with equality", argues the member of the Left Green party, and "create more space for inequality". That is indeed "unavoidable", Entzinger agrees.(9) "Migrants will keep flooding in, and that will be such a burden on our welfare system that we have to exempt new arriving migrants. And that's already happening: asylum seekers are being treated differently and the 100 to 150 thousand undocumented have no rights at all. But we close our eyes to that and act as if they do not exist by definition." What are "we" worrying about? Peoples rights are being limited all the time. It's very normal… to the victims of the exclusion. But migrants who cannot manage without rights? That's not "our" problem, argues Van der Meer. They just have bad luck. "To immigrants migration is a venture with a chance on success and on failure. Why would the migrant worker shift that risk to the receiving country?"
Costs and benefits
Crucial to the whole reasoning in the book is the chapter by the Amsterdam academic on labour relations Paul de Beer, who is connected to the trade union federation. He supposedly delivers the 'scientific proof' that a welfare state cannot be combined with immigration because immigrants would too often get social security money. De Beer acknowledges that his work follows earlier calculations by Pieter Lakeman.(10) Back in 1999 ultra Right author Lakeman had already calculated how much migration supposedly costs "us" Dutch. De Beer reminds us that back then Lakemans book "Binnen zonder kloppen" (Entering without knocking) was received with indignation. But luckily "the climate has changed" because of populist Pim Fortuyn, De Beer writes happily, and now such calculations are considered fine. (Pim Fortuyn was a racist and Right populist politician who was killed shortly before the elections of 2002.)
Only from a nationalist point of view it makes sense tot divide all people receiving social security money into "autochthones" and "foreigners" (including even the third generation 'migrants') and to compare these categories. In this way one can give nationalist prejudice a scientific aura. Separating and calculating "foreigners" willingly stimulates antagonism and can only serve to free the road to taking away their rights. De Beer and other opinion leaders do not get tired repeating the results of this research. "Foreigners" would get social security money four times as often. And "non-western foreigners", who have been set apart even twice, up to six times. Based on these numbers De Beer continually and shamelessly shouts that there is a "one sided solidarity" from "the autochthones" to "the foreigners". But in small writing in his own chapter one can also read that these "foreigners" each receive hardly one third of the amount of money that the "autochthones" get. De Beer refrains from giving these facts much attention. And he also doesn't speak about racism on the labour market or the far heavier physical work that many migrants have to do. On the contrary, De Beer argues as if migrants form by definition always themselves the problem.
Assault
Migrants constitute "an assault" on the welfare state, according to 'progressive' opinion leader Chris Keulemans (connected to the Left Amsterdam refugee support organization ASKV). (11) They supposedly make the costs of social security go up quickly. And according to De Beer this rise can only be controlled by "limiting the access to social security for migrants. The threshold to social security has to go up. That one is living legally in our country, should no longer be enough to be entitled to social security."(12) Taking away peoples rights poses no problem to De Beer, because, as he says, migrants already lack the right to vote at national elections. "If you look at it that way, the introduction of a distinction between first rank citizens, who have all the rights, and second rank citizens, who are only entitled to a limited number of rights, is only a formalization of the actual situation." By now also social democrat and parliamentary opposition leader Wouter Bos is openly thinking of limiting the rights of arriving migrants. "You create a label by which undocumented people can get legal without having them eating from the plate of our welfare state." According to Bos "we" must look at these options "rationally, from a costs and benefits perspective to the receiving society".(13)
If "we" do not introduce these renewals the extreme Right might grow, many of these scientists and opinion leaders say with a subtle threat. On his favourite theme of the supposedly "one side solidarity" De Beer for instance said: "In time this will undermine the societal support of the welfare state." According to him people might start thinking "that many immigrants specially came here to profit of our wealth". In this way De Beer not only provides the extreme Right with one sided research outcomes, but also with racist accusations.
Hospital
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the proposals. "An effective protection of the borders should not be abandoned, before this is really tried in an European context",(14) argues opinion leader Paul Scheffer, who some years ago paved the way for Pim Fortuyn by writing the infamous article "The multi-cultural drama" about the assumed total failure or integration. (6). According to him new immigrants always cause a "polarization between productive, working autochthones and non-productive, jobless migrant minorities". Scheffer doesn't want to allow migrants in, even without any rights. When these second rank citizens get sick they want to go to the hospital, he grumbles, and "before you know this will end again in people calling for charity." The nationalist wrongly believes that the people promoting these plans foremost act in the interest of migrants. "Not the interests of the people living here are central, no, helping migrants is their goal", he complains, and that would lead to "cynicism toward our own community". He is supported by Jan de Wit, a member of parliament for the Socialistische Partij (former Maoist Socialist Party, 8 seats in parliament and growing fast). According to him all proposals will "especially harm the "autochthonous" workers, jobless and partly handicapped".(15) De Wit says migrants should not be degraded into second rank citizens and should therefore not be allowed in at all.
Until now serious Left wing criticism has only come from De Fabel van de illegaal, and from Piet van de Lende of the Bijstandsbond Amsterdam (Union for the jobless), who wrote a reaction together with Jan Müter of the Bureau Zwart?werk (action group that openly provides work to the undocumented) and - strangely enough - Ed Hollants of the Autonoom Centrum. He seemingly lost his enthusiasm for the proposals. Left green Jelle van der Meer "very pragmatically bends to the laws of the economic market", the three authors react, and he doesn't have "an alternative view on humanity, a view on another order, and the guts to break with the current order".(16)
Notes