Unemployed banned from Rotterdam
- | 29.11.2003 12:16
The unemployed, disabled claimants and pensioners will be banned from living in Rotterdam under a new council policy. It will be presented on Monday but has already leaked to the media. Rotterdam is declining economically, it is losing white population, and it will eventually have a Muslim majority. The city is run by a coalition of Pim Fortuyn's local party plus the Christian Democrats and the market-liberal VVD.
Under the new policies, no-one can move into Rotterdam unless they earn (legally) at least 20% above the national minimum. This excludes almost all claimants - unemployed, disability allowances, and state pensions. Trainees, temp agency workers, and low-skill industrial wokers will also be excluded, they usually earn just the minimum. Obviously all illegal workers are excluded.
This is primarily directed at immigrants: the white skilled working class has already left Rotterdam, moved to the surrounding suburbs. The Fortuyn party wants to simply expel immigrants from Rotterdam, "to protect Dutch culture", but the other parties are more cautious, so they describe immigrants as "low-income problem groups'.
Some new policies are directed specifically at immigrants. In the first three years, they will lose all entitlement to benefits, but will still have to pay insurance contributions. They will also not be allowed to rent housing during this time.
If private landlords rent housing to illegal immigrants, the housing will be confiscated without compensation. The tenants will be evicted and sent to 'reception centres' - assuming they are not deported anyway. Rotterdam already has a special prison at the airport for illegal immigrants, but it is run by the national Immigration Service.
If the Fortuyn party had a majority, it would simply evict and expell immigrants from the city, they are quite open about this. Even as it is, their influence on the coalition makes Rotterdam possibly the most racist city in the EU. This illustrates why it was necessary to assasinate Pim Fortuyn. If he had become Prime Minister - which was quite possible in 2002 - then the Netherlands would have had these type of policies at national level.
Under the new policies, no-one can move into Rotterdam unless they earn (legally) at least 20% above the national minimum. This excludes almost all claimants - unemployed, disability allowances, and state pensions. Trainees, temp agency workers, and low-skill industrial wokers will also be excluded, they usually earn just the minimum. Obviously all illegal workers are excluded.
This is primarily directed at immigrants: the white skilled working class has already left Rotterdam, moved to the surrounding suburbs. The Fortuyn party wants to simply expel immigrants from Rotterdam, "to protect Dutch culture", but the other parties are more cautious, so they describe immigrants as "low-income problem groups'.
Some new policies are directed specifically at immigrants. In the first three years, they will lose all entitlement to benefits, but will still have to pay insurance contributions. They will also not be allowed to rent housing during this time.
If private landlords rent housing to illegal immigrants, the housing will be confiscated without compensation. The tenants will be evicted and sent to 'reception centres' - assuming they are not deported anyway. Rotterdam already has a special prison at the airport for illegal immigrants, but it is run by the national Immigration Service.
If the Fortuyn party had a majority, it would simply evict and expell immigrants from the city, they are quite open about this. Even as it is, their influence on the coalition makes Rotterdam possibly the most racist city in the EU. This illustrates why it was necessary to assasinate Pim Fortuyn. If he had become Prime Minister - which was quite possible in 2002 - then the Netherlands would have had these type of policies at national level.
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Sorry, but no it doesn't (not in the Netherlands)
29.11.2003 15:59
The question of whether it is preferable to assassinate a "dangerous candidate" or judge such actions out of order cannot be assessed SIMPLY in terms of the danger without regard to the political traditions and history of the place in question.
Where political assissinations happen periodically the question is whether THIS PARTICULAR one is justified or not. But in places where they do not, in a place like the Netherlands where it had been many hundreds of years since the last previous political assassination, you need to also consider the value of that tradition.
The case being presented here might be sufficient to argue where the traditions are "assassinations are OK IF the person is THAT dangerous to the society". But IMHO one should have a MUCH stronger case where the argument must first deal with the tradition (of not having assassinations).
Mike
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