This is a translation of an excerpt of the book 'Een studie over de slechtheid van de staat' (A Study about the Evil of the State) by Maarten Berg.

Spontaneous, voluntary segregation

I have stated before that opponents of open borders have a legitimate point as long as they are forced to contribute to sheltering, integrating and maintaining immigrants. When the social facilities would be abolished, an important point of critique falls.

But, apart from the costs, some people are against immigration at any rate. They think it is uncomfortable to feel like a foreigner in their own country or to not be able to understand their neighbor.

Fortunately for those people, such oppositions can be removed when the government stops to pursue integration, mutual respect, dialogue, compromises, and mixed schools, neighborhoods and organizations.

History shows that (forced) multicultural nature usually does not work well. We saw it in the Soviet Union, in Yugoslavia, and in Rwanda. In the year 2016, we see that the Flemish and the Walloons have difficulty living together and many Scottish want to secede from the UK.

According to Fukuyama, diversity undermines trust and therefore economic growth. Putnam determined that ethnic diversity makes 'social capital' erode and makes it so that people 'withdraw like oysters', even in front of their own kind.

The Dutch educational sociologist Jaap Dronkers discovered that learning performance is lower on ethnically diverse schools. But also from our own experiences we know that many people prefer to hang around 'their own kind of people'. Everywhere people with the same age, same sex, and people from the same environments tend to look for each other.

As a 71-year old, you can be as modern as you want, but it will be virtually impossible to build a circle of student friends. The same is true for a heterosexual man who tries to get along in a group of girlfriends. Thus, we also see that Surinamese, Chinese, Moroccans, Turks, and Jews associate with each other.

Forced diffusion

The fact that integration, interpersonal contact and mutual understanding do not come naturally is still often acknowledged by most policy makers. But instead of letting this reality be as it is, 'living side by side' is often seen as a problem. The fact that cultural mixing is a difficult process, is for the state not a reason to put in that effort.

Therefore, the municipality of Rotterdam (the Netherlands) tried to implement a foreigner quota in its neighborhoods in the 1970s already. Therefore, minister Sybilla Dekker worked together with housing corporations to make 'black' neighborhoods more attractive for native Dutch people. Therefore, 'idealistic' native Dutch parents do not send their children to a 'white' school. Although that is their natural right, the question is why it would be a problem when a Dutchman would never speak to a Moroccan.

The average person knows around 500 people and will never meet around 7 billion people. If it is fine that we'll never come across someone from Uruguay, the Congo, or Leeuwarden (the Netherlands), why is it such a problem that we never visit neighborhoods where many Moroccans live? This is not even regarding the fact that the government virtually never succeeds to realize its theoretical blueprints and wishes.

Even if 'living side by side' would be a problem (which it isn't), then again it has become clear that hundreds of policy initiatives are not sufficient to bring various groups together.

We often hear that Dutchmen are open, cosmopolitan people with an international orientation. But in reality, the Dutch population is heterogeneous. Many Dutchmen want to live in a 'diverse' city or neighborhood, while others rather live with other like-minded people around them.

Obviously, in a free world the 'diversity seekers' have the right to live in their multicultural neighborhoods. But isn't it intolerant to force 'xenophobes', who have a preference for their own culture and their own kind of people, to embrace diversity? And would forced mixing really lower the amount of ethnical/cultural differences? Or is it counterproductive when you don't want to live together, but are still forced to do so?

The opposition towards segregation is understandable when we associate it with forced segregation. Obviously, it was unacceptable that certain ethnic groups up until recently had an unequal legal status in countries like South Africa and the United States.

But just as governments may not segregate its citizens, neither should they use their power to place its citizens together, or prevent people from seeking the company of like-minded people. A ban on voluntary segregation is just as wrong (and potentially just as explosive) as forced segregation.

Imagine a block of houses where only muslims live and work. Would a native Dutch person be bothered when these muslims prohibit the opera 'Aisha' in their own block of houses? Would anybody care if they spoke Arabic amongst each other or when the only butcher was islamic?

The reason that ethnic and cultural conflicts exist is mostly because we started to believe in 'common problems', 'shared responsibilities' and 'balanced solutions'. When the largest part of the 800,000 muslims in the Netherlands would (voluntarily!) choose to live together in an islamic city or neighborhood, that would not be a threat, but it would immediately take the stong out of the immigration and integration debate.

Fatima Elatik would, as a steward in such a muslim city, prohibit the for muslims offensive opera, and most inhabitants of the city would be happy with it. The non-muslims from other parts of the city would look at it and shake their heads, but they would not personally feel threatened by the islamization of 'their' country.

They wouldn't have to be concerned about the rise of black schools any longer. They wouldn't have to get angry about the building of mosques, about segregated swimming classes, or about critique about the short skirts their daughters wear any longer. Maybe they would start to see these islamic cities and neighborhoods as touristic locations, now that the rise of islam isn't a threat for them anymore.

'Live and let live' is a popular creed, but only a few live by it. When the government dictates uniformal rules for 16 million people, there can never be harmony in a society.

Muslims who are bothered by billboards with lingerie models on them, will often hear that they should get used to it in the Netherlands. But why should they? Are they lesser people, who don't have the right to their own preferences?

Why would muslims not be allowed to go to a sharia-court or islamic mediator if all parties preferred that? The other side of the coin, of course, is that every individual (christian, muslim, atheist, native, foreigner) has the full right to choose his own surroundings. Of course, muslims shouldn't be deported just because some people like to see them go.

But it is fully legitimate when people want to live in a 'white' neighborhood and aren't interested in other cultures and customs. There was a lot of outrage when football journalist Johan Derksen understandingly spoke about the policy of some football clubs to take into consideration the ethnic composition of the team.

But it is strange that a group of five friends is allowed to consist of only natives (or foreigners), but a football club of a hundred people is not. Politics should not be involved in 'respect' and 'understanding', since it is everyone's right to not have respect for other cultures. Furthermore, it is often the government that makes interpersonal relationships worse.

Thus, some parents are outraged when foreign children are automatically placed in certain schools, while native children are randomly selected. These kinds of government discrimination are a virtual guarantee for hate and envy, through which the government achieves the opposite of what it wanted to achieve, once again.

About the author

Maarten Berg is an econometrist and social psychologist. He worked for, a.o., the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, the Central Planning Bureau and various universities.

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