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Comment by berkes | Hacker News Reader

I'm Dutch and my liberal and even anarchist background makes me angry about these trends.

But this is what Dutch people want. Increased and more heavy handed Police enforcement, less oversight, and broader duties is exactly what voters have voted for. Dutch elections have moved the political landscape to the far right. And in the Netherlands (and many EU countries), "far right" goes hand-in-hand with increased and heavier police presence (though often without increased funding). Edit: this has been an actual "promise" to voters by parties who were voted in place on a.o. this exact promise.

So I'm not suprised. And also think "this is exactly what we asked for".

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The media is scaring them into accepting these measures, which is standard practice in totalitarian states, by the way. Create a climate of fear, and introduce draconian measures which the public will then accept. And that is how a democratic society slowly becomes authoritarian, it plays out very slowly over decades.

Is it "the media" though?

In the Netherlands, "the Media" and "far right" are often direct opposites, at least, that's how the far right wants it to look. Data shows that "far right" gets more media time than many other parts of the political spectrum, yet they keep saying this media "censors" them.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

Truth is irrelevant to extremists.

Truth is irrelevant in politics and government.

I'd counter that is's an uncertainty in those arenas. Politics itself in many cases has devolved into bald-faced lies (rather than muddled truths).

Government often hides embarrassing truths but it doesn't mean that every utterance from office is a lie.

YMMV depending on the who is doing the talking.

It's not the media, it's those who complain about the "Mainstream media" not "telling the truth", and using bigtech platforms to reach people.

I think the question is: is it "the far right"?

The far right hasn't really been in power yet. It's the "regular" right (VVD, CDA) that have governed on a "tough on crime" platform.

Part of this is because the liberal parties are painting concern about crime as a “far right” concert. Well, if you are concerned about crime, and the far right is the only one really talking about it, then people are going to vote far right.

Just the "regular" right has also (or perhaps even more strongly) proudly cultivated a "tough on crime" image over the years. Think Fred Teeven, Ivo Opstelten.

Literally all of these doorbell cameras are mounted illegally: the law forbids them to have public spaces visible in them, yet everybody points them horizontally towards the street.

Nobody cares about that either (but me).

Really, I think as soon as the street is visible, you have no good argument to stop police from getting a copy.

> the law forbids them to have public spaces visible in them

The law is not that binary. The law says it's not allowed _unless_ you have a "legitimate interest". What qualifies as a "legitimate interest" is up to a judge to decide.

It doubt it'll ever be argued for doorbells. Security cams, that's another story.

A fact is: nobody takes care of this, so I cannot feel very bad for the police asking for the data.

> It doubt it'll ever be argued for doorbells. Security cams, that's another story.

Since the camera in the "doorbell" is recording continuously I highly doubt it's anything else then a (security) camera in the eyes of the law. I highly doubt a little button on it which makes it do "ding-dong" changes anything about that.

The point of the device is to enable the owner to see who's at the door. Any other ability (seeing far outside of the zone right at your door) seems to me to not be the purpose of the device, but a side effect that's therefore not legitimate.

We averaged about 1 bomb explosion a day in 2023.

In the netherlands?

Yes. https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/bestuur-en-organisatie/202...

I'm assuming this is the same shit that's going on in Belgium? Where drug cartels throw grenades at the competition's houses?

I'm assuming that it's mostly "plofkraken", people placing explosions near ATMs to break them open and then run away with the money. They've been on the rise in recent years.

These are for a large part bomb attack on actual houses and shops.

Maybe the citizens voted like that because of things like this:

> As the mayor of Amsterdam, I can see the Netherlands risks becoming a narco-state

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/05/amster...

Without the immigration controversy the right would not have gained control. With it, it's almost inevitable. This is a major political force throughout the west, driving the popularity of Trump, Brexit, Alternative for Germany, etc. It's just part of the cost of large immigrant flows and needs to be factored into those policies.

I have been struggling to understand the immigration controversy. My understanding is a lot of the hate is related to refugees, which don't seem to be too high numbers wise?[1]

1: https://ind.nl/en/about-us/statistics-and-publications/asylu...

There are conservatively 100x as many economic migrants as true refugees, many of whom enter through the same immigration routes and are devout Muslims who hold beliefs that are incompatible with western legal systems.

In 2014 there were 13 Salafist mosques in the country which rose to 27 in 2018. The number of Salafist preachers was more than doubled in the same time span, from 50 to 110 according to the Dutch counter-terrorism authority (NCTV).

In 2019, an investigation by the Nieuwsuur TV programme and the newspaper NRC, investigated fifty mosque schools, obtaining educational material from ten Quran classes given by fundamentalist organisations. The investigation showed that children were taught that infidels go to hell. Punishments against homosexuals and "enemies of God" were glorified. In an ideal Islamic state operating under sharia law, heretics would be punished by the death penalty, adulterers stoned and magicians killed by the sword. Children were warned against having social contacts with non-Muslims. [0]

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Netherlands

At least in the Netherlands the majority of immigrants are of Dutch and European descent, e.g. Polish, Romanian or Bulgarian seasonal workers. I am sceptical that those are devout Muslims and use the same immigration routes as e.g. Syrian refugees. More likely they just hop in the car and drive, since that's legal within the Schengen area.

That’s not true.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Netherland...

Population of the Netherlands by country of birth (2022)

  Dutch (74.77%)
  Turks (2.44%)
  Moroccans (2.38%)
  Surinamese (2.05%)

That's misleading. Those aren't immigrants in recent era's. Which is what you imply. Turkish, Morrocan and Surinam immigrated to NL in the '70s and '80s. That's 40 years ago, almost two generations. Many of them never immigrated but were born in NL. (and their parents too)

This is literally a breakdown of immigrants by country of birth. The numbers of “people with a migrant background”, as they are usually known, are much higher. Most major cities in the Netherlands, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, are no longer majority Dutch by ethnicity.

If you click through to the source that Wikipedia is citing [1], you can see that it's counting 1st and 2nd generations, and are indeed categorised as "people with a migrant background" ("met migratieachtergrond").

It also shows that 1.889.704 people (10.74%) have a non-Dutch European background.

Also note that these numbers are about people currently here. The percentages will be different if you look at movements in the past year.

[1] https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/37325/tabl...

No. It isn't. Immigration has an effect on demography, but they aren't the same. "Immigration background" has the "background" word in there, specially to distinguish it from actual immigrants!

You can keep pasting your list in this thread, but that doesn't change the fact that most immigrants (again: different from demography) are from Europe, are Christian, are "white" and immigrate because they were asked (!) to come and work here.

TBC: we aren't discussing immigration in the deep history (because then, except for the Sami, all Europeans are migrants from "northern india"), nor that from several generations ago, but recent migrants. i.e. people whom themselves migrated.

To copy from my comment deeper in the chain [1], from the same source:

    Non-Dutch European (10.74%)
    Dutch (74.77%)

Of course, these are people that are currently in the Netherlands. Obviously when it comes to migrants (which I was talking about), the percentage of Dutch people will be lower, and the other percentages will be higher.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39119632

The data I can find[1] shows the majority being from Ukraine or the former Soviet Union. Do you have a source for this claim?

1: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/asylum-migration-and-integr...

Immigrants and people of migrant backgrounds (2022)

   Nationality, Population 

   Turkey 429,978
   Morocco 419,272
   Suriname 359,814
   Indonesia 349,301
   Germany 342,925
   Poland 220,980
   Syria 126,260

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Netherland...

Every non-European country on this list besides Suriname is majority Muslim.

Also, note that your data appears to reflect only registered immigrants.

Demography != immigration stats.

What's the difference?

Sorry, but this is misleading at best, and an outright lie at worst.

The majority of immigrants is from the EU, directly followed by European descend (Ukraine). There are those from "western countries" like the US, Canada, Australia and so on. The vast majority actively recruited to come work in IT/startups, other knowledge-jobs, healthcare or "logistics". Farm work too, though that's seasonal so more complex to calculate.

The amount of "muslim immigrants that cause problems" is in the hundreds, at most. It's truly insignificant, unless their "ideals" are so opposite to yours that every individual becomes a problem. But that says more about your personal stance than about the actual problems.

Immigrants and people of migrant backgrounds (2022)

   Nationality, Population 

   Turkey 429,978
   Morocco 419,272
   Suriname 359,814
   Indonesia 349,301
   Germany 342,925
   Poland 220,980
   Syria 126,260

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Netherland...

Every non-European country on this list besides Suriname is majority Muslim.

> "muslim immigrants that cause problems" is in the hundreds, at most

Talking about outright lying, eh?

Its like you forcefully trying look at the issue as close as possible to ignore reality of the big picture.

Today's problems will be bigger tomorrow. Its about trends and where its going, NOT where it is now.

The trend of illegal and legal immigration from muslim (and african) countries will not slow down. Their countries will be producing poor, desperate people forever. Its a fallout of cultural shift in philosophy abandoning science (look up al-Ghazali). EU countries will either regulate migration or will have to somehow deal with ever increasing muslim population.

Muslim culture is not accommodating it doesnt assimilate. You don't have to guess that its happening, you have examples in France and Germany. Where Moroccan, Turkish communities created their own bubbles a parallel socialites at odds with the host countries. Where are Polish minorities in France? Where are Czech ones in Germany? Why we never had a terrorist attack by polish migrant(s) for making jokes about every pole being carjacker? Immigration from within EU self assimilates as EU cultures are pretty much variation of same base culture. That happens automatically.

Talking about Dutch or Belgian (not 100% sure), they released economical statistics about migrants by avg impact of given groups. EU migrants net positive gains for economy. Muslim and african avg net negative. You might spin the facts and feel good stories but it doesnt change the reality. Reality obvious to middle and lower classes who are actually first to experience the outcomes of that. Its mad to think that an average citizens will not turn to right wing. Then left is wondering how is right on the rise across all eu?! its baffling

There are plenty of outspoken Muslim community people openly saying they will out-breed their host population and take over. And you dont need that much. 10% of population is significant enough to elect their own politicians, as they will always get votes from religious block. adding fuel right into far-right bonfire

Nobody is learning from mistakes of others. No-go zones in sweeden were a right wing made up propaganda 5 years ago. A reality nobody is even questioning now.

All religious fundamentalism is at odds with modern civilization. Leaders of all faiths should be preaching continuously that their church and state must be distinctly separate.

Agreed. Anyone who disagrees with this is dangerously off course. Hitchens warned us.

They are not. Edit: the net-total that the entire "problem issues" are about, is some thousands of people. On a population of 17 mln thats "nothing".

It's an entirely fabricated and inflated "issue", that was invented purely by politicians who want to use the fear and outrage (that they themselves caused!) for win. Both by elected parties, who deliberately defunded or scaled down on immigrant issues, knowing this caused problems - that they then could use as "proof" that there are problems, and by non-elected parties. Some clear signs are that strong anti-immigration parties did very well in villages and cities that have zero to no immigrants: clearly shows that it's more fear than actual felt pain.

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