An interesting article on the openDemocracy site about the Dutch and racism
Dutch racism is a well-intentioned, friendly apartheid: white, Christian, and fuelled by feelings of supremacy and superiority which are self evident, although they will be generally denied.
Denial, indeed, appears to be a built-in part of the mix. Both in the form of anti- semitism, and in the various forms of racism, patronising attitudes prevail. In this sense, the anti-racist norm on which we have relied is part of this denial: since racism is seen as barbaric, nobody — except for small fringe groups — will allow themselves to be called racist or anti-semitic for one moment.
This attitude really came out in the open after the twin impact of the September 11 attacks and the rise of Pim Fortuyn. With a charismatic leader of a far right party legitimising what many people felt anyway, the sluicegates of intolerance have been fully opened these past two years. Many Dutch people just don’t seem to want to have to live in a multicultural society, are fed up with the problem ethnicity du-jour and think that integration is a one-way process.
This is not an attitude unique to the Netherlands; it is also on display in some of the interviews in Stud Terkel’s Race, which is about race relations in the USA. It seems to me to be an attitude common to a priviledged people anytime it stands to lose some of its priviledges.