In Breeding Bin Ladens, Zachary Shore paints a very gloomy picture of Europe's future. With an aging and diminishing population, European society won't be able to uphold its standard of living for long. Apparently, this fact is not lost on some of Europe's immigrants. Their lack of success at integration and acceptance is pushing them even more to emigrate. In her study of the Muslims of Europe, Jytte Klausen writes that several Muslim Danish, Dutch and German parliament members have told her they'd considered giving up and emigrating - to the US and the UK especially, but also back to Turkey if the economic conditions are right.
Dutch TV program Tegenlicht (backlight) investigated the phenomenon of Dutch Turks going back to Turkey.
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More and more successful, well integrated Turkish Dutch are leaving the Netherlands. Among the middle classes more people believe that Turkey offers a better social and economical future. But it's especially academic highly-educated youth who are considering moving to Turkey. Why
should we pay our pension for the baby-boomers who discriminate and exclude us, they ask themselves.
There are two major opinions among the educated, integrated Turkish community. The one group sees leaving as an opportunity, a challenge, an improvement of the quality of life. The second thinks it's a shame and a threat for those left behind that the ones leaving are the intelligentsia and socially successful countrymen.
But the trend is unmistakable. and the reasons are clear: the polarization and stigmatizing of immigrants has been growing in the Netherlands just as fast as the economy and possibilities for the future in Turkey.
Number of Turks who have emigrated from the Netherlands
And how many have moved back to Turkey
Ahmet Alinpinar is a succesful student of aircraft technique who dreams of a land where he feels at home, where he doesn't have to constantly answer for himself. Hanim Dõgan, an economist with a good job in the fashion industry, has had it with the fuss about immigrants. And Mustafa Özcan, city councillor for Groen Links in Amersfoort is tired. He doesn't know anymore what he can do to be accepted.Dutch TV program Tegenlicht (backlight) investigated the phenomenon of Dutch Turks going back to Turkey.
--
More and more successful, well integrated Turkish Dutch are leaving the Netherlands. Among the middle classes more people believe that Turkey offers a better social and economical future. But it's especially academic highly-educated youth who are considering moving to Turkey. Why
should we pay our pension for the baby-boomers who discriminate and exclude us, they ask themselves.
There are two major opinions among the educated, integrated Turkish community. The one group sees leaving as an opportunity, a challenge, an improvement of the quality of life. The second thinks it's a shame and a threat for those left behind that the ones leaving are the intelligentsia and socially successful countrymen.
But the trend is unmistakable. and the reasons are clear: the polarization and stigmatizing of immigrants has been growing in the Netherlands just as fast as the economy and possibilities for the future in Turkey.
Number of Turks who have emigrated from the Netherlands
And how many have moved back to Turkey
The Tegenlicht program follow the three in their consideration of staying or leaving, the reconnoitering in Turkey and the leaving of friends, colleagues and family in the Netherlands. The determination and desire for undertaking of the various people makes it clear how dynamic is the phenomenon of immigration. It's coming and going from one country to another, from possibility to possibility. But from the Netherlands it's especially the people with the most potential who leave. For them the Netherlands is not a land of unlimited opportunities anymore.
The show can be seen here (in Dutch)
Source: VPRO (Dutch)
