Rebin Maref, municipal councilor in Arnhem representing the VVD, the ‘Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy’, recently shared a reflection on LinkedIn. His piece explores how an immigrant, reasonably integrated into Dutch society, can hold their head high amidst rising societal frustrations. I reproduce it here in full for context because, like Maref, I believe this topic deserves broad discussion.
While Maref’s article is well-meaning and positive in its rationale, it remains shallow. It relies on moral appeals and “feel-good” platitudes rather than offering a serious response to the deeper societal fractures in the Netherlands. Maref’s message of resilience and perseverance is admirable but inadequate when confronted with the realities of integration, social polarization, and the erosion of collective trust.
Some might question whether LinkedIn is the appropriate platform for such discussions. I argue that it is. Entrepreneurs, small business owners, and self-employed professionals increasingly find themselves underrepresented in traditional political institutions like trade unions or government consultative bodies. For these groups, LinkedIn has become a vital outlet to voice concerns on pressing issues such as social cohesion and immigration.
Maref’s encouragement to those targeted by the “hardening” of societal attitudes—“Don’t get discouraged! You know better than anyone how to keep moving forward despite it”—has merit. But it stops short of addressing the structural tensions driving these frustrations.
Maref’s approach, though positive, risks coming across as dismissive. Urging people to “keep courage” offers little solace when faced with entrenched systemic problems. To genuinely address these issues, we must confront the broader societal picture: immigration, integration, social mobility, and the growing disconnect between bureaucratic ideals and everyday realities.
When analyzing the outcomes for immigrants striving to move forward against societal hardening, three troubling scenarios emerge:
Maref’s optimism does not grapple with these realities. It also overlooks the economic and cultural disruptions that hollowed out the middle class, which once provided a foundation for integration.
Consider the role of economic shifts. In the past, local businesses such as CD or video game shops offered young people their first taste of responsibility, learning to handle money and interact with customers—small but crucial steps toward integration. Today, these roles are outsourced to webshops. Dating apps, too, have made personal relationships more transient and vulnerable. In the absence of stable social anchors, individuals are more likely to radicalize into anger or apathy.
And what of politics? Maref points out that the right plays the man, not the ball, while the left looks away. This polarization is indeed growing, but it is also predictable. The disconnection between public frustration and elite response is stark: even when voters opt for anti-immigration figures like Geert Wilders, they face bureaucratic inertia and international lobbies that blunt their influence. This frustration often spills over onto individuals, fueling division and repression.
Suppose you are fed up with mass immigration, because there is no housing available, for example. Even though you vote for Geert Wilders, you get minister Fleur Agema saying, “I only implement directives from NATO and NCTV”.
Good luck then, winning from your immigration-critical point of view against an international lobby of subsidised NGOs, human rights activists, EU file tigers, wealthy globally organised human traffickers and ideologically possessed or just money-hungry lawyers. You will NEVER succeed.
The best you can do then is to vent your frustration about this powerlessness in the here and now on a concrete individual. As a result, the government has to apply more repression to keep the rival groups apart, and people feel even more powerless. The cosy ‘frog country’ of my youth is dead and buried.
Maref writes that he cannot remain silent about politicians being selective in condemning certain forms of hatred while ignoring others. This is a fair point, but it misses the essence of politics. Politicians seek voters, and their language is tailored to specific audiences. A “catch-all” approach risks alienating everyone. Polarization is inherent to democracy. It is not just inevitable; it is structural.
After all, politicians need voters, seek target groups. And the language that attracts one target group is the language that deters another. You can speak out against animal suffering, against hatred against Israelis, hatred against Palestinians, against violence against Russians and violence against Ukrainians, but a politician who comes up with such a ‘catch all’ approach will soon not have a voter left. The essence of democracy is polarisation – be sincere and face this!
How long will the security services manage to keep the lid on the boiling pot? The riots already taking place in major cities—see the Jew hunt recently in Amsterdam—do not bode well. The Mayor stays in place, of course, because that’s how it goes in totalitarian regimes. The riots in 2017, with the Erdoğan referendum, should have been a wake-up call. The cultural Marxist superstructure reacted tepidly, and today, things are just broken beyond repair.
There are lots of identitatively displaced young Muslims, and there are only more coming. Something about demographics, fertility, masculinity, the nuclear family and feminism—just knot the lines together yourself. Left-wing white women in particular—the type who demonstrate pro-abortion in the US—will get angry when she reads this, but alas. Good luck with your ‘girl power’ now that you have to walk the streets in neighbourhoods that increasingly resemble Schaerbeek and Molenbeek in Brussels and the Schilderswijk in The Hague.
More polarization is on the horizon. Plato warned of the mechanisms of democracy leading to its own undoing, and we see this today: either democracy leans toward totalitarian surveillance (as in Hong Kong), or it collapses under the weight of competing identities. A Prime Minister with a background in the secret services, is already a good fit for this.
Maref rightly invokes Pim Fortuyn, but the erosion of the Netherlands began long before him, with figures like Hans Janmaat. The current crises—immigration, integration, energy, inflation, geopolitics—reflect decades of neglect. In return, we have virtue-signaling and moralistic platitudes that offer no practical solutions.
For those who warned of these issues, the cup is full to overflowing. Yet it will have to be drained completely before society reckons with its mistakes. Maref’s call for optimism and perseverance, though well-meaning, falls short of addressing this grim reality.
So stock up on cola and chips, and prepare to watch the unraveling. Those who traded foresight for virtue-signaling and social status may suffer deeply in the years ahead. As Jan Roos so succinctly put it:
“The Netherlands is just finished. We have tipped over the edge, and it will never be right again. Everyone who warned about this has been destroyed, and now it is too late. Thanks, politics. Thanks, media. Thanks, keyboard warriors and cowardly people.”
Brace yourselves.
Before we move on to Rebin Maref – don’t forget to support me via BackMe (important!) – then now follows the piece he posted. Copied in full because most likely he wishes as many people as possible to read it.
By: Rebin Maref
What a time, and how incredibly hurtful this is. I am speaking out. On behalf of young people, young professionals and parents who are exhausted and fed up. Tired of endlessly fighting prejudice. Most of you working hard time and again, refusing to be pushed into a victim role, even when faced with inequality. I hear your concerns, feel the frustration and understand that we live in a time when the ‘integration problem’ is not necessarily that big, but rather magnified by politicians. So big that I too, along with many others, have been affected by it. ‘No matter what I do, I will always remain that foreigner.’ – This is a common sentiment I hear from many, and it touches me deeply.
Political parties have been slow to go along with the extreme views, justifying it by claiming they are ‘finally naming the problem.’ Meanwhile, they have been doing this for over 23 years since the tragic assassination of Pim Fortuyn, each time as a reflex to social tensions. The result? Increasing polarisation and hardening in society.
No, naming the problem is not the problem. ‘If you want to solve problems, it is important not to put groups away,’ says the Social and Cultural Planning Office. But that is precisely where politics goes wrong time and again.
The problem lies not only in poor integration, but also in politics that reduces people to the worst stereotypes within ‘the community,’ no matter how well they adapt. I see the injustice of reducing people to simplistic prejudices time and again. Which creates the very separation we are trying to counteract. This reality I hear every day, and it cuts deep.
To those who feel addressed, I say: don’t be discouraged! You know better than anyone else how to keep moving forward despite all the hardening. Do it not only for yourself, but also for your parents, who gave up so much to get you where you are today.
The current course of society – with politics at the forefront – fills me, and many with me, with great concern. The left looks away, while the right increasingly attacks the person instead of playing ball. Instead of addressing perpetrators, it is said that integration has failed.
I speak out against young people who develop an aversion to the Netherlands, but also against a Netherlands that uses that aversion to stigmatise entire groups. Everyone deserves to be judged on their own actions, not on the basis of what a few people with presumably the same background have done.
I respectfully support politicians who reject hatred and violence against specific groups. But I cannot remain silent about politicians who are selective in this: condemning some forms of hatred while leaving others unnamed. This undermines trust in politics and increases divisions.
I speak out against a politics that time and again allocates resources and attention to tackling so-called problem groups, while positive examples and people who do manage to find their way forward hardly get any attention or airtime.
I want a Netherlands where politicians work with the same urgency to name and break through the glass ceiling of migration, as the haste with which ‘the integration problem’ is raised again after every riot. So that well-educated, hard-working and fully integrated Dutch people are no longer bogged down in work, education and daily life by persistent prejudice. It cannot be that because rioters riot, politicians come to the conclusion that integration as a whole has failed.
The current political course may play on gut feelings, but it brings us nothing positive in the long run. I want a Netherlands in which equality of every individual is central. Judge and condemn me for what I do. Is it really too much to ask to be judged only on my own actions? To quote Thorbecke, ‘A country is not an abstraction, it is a community of people, and every single person counts.’ Let us together keep the peace that politics does not seem to guard. Name problems without creating new ones. and always keep an eye on the solution – not the Divided .
On behalf of one of the many faces of failed integration,
Rebin Maref
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