Where would we be without the Netherlands? In its 17th-century golden age, it helped pioneer capitalism, individual liberty, and peaceful religious diversity. Even today, it punches far above its weight both economically and culturally. Yet this country of just under 17 million people has also been at the forefront of the single most disastrous multinational policy of our time: the post-war decision to take in hordes of unvetted immigrants from the Muslim world.
This big-hearted but soft-headed folly (in which the general public had no say) involved several catastrophically misguided assumptions: that people born and bred under deeply corrupt political systems would, upon finding themselves in a staggeringly generous welfare state, seek out jobs, work hard, and contribute to the economy rather than set about fleecing the government; that people whose native cultures were characterized by sexual repression, sexual inequality, and sexual violence could quickly and easily assimilate into one of the planet’s most peaceable, equitable, and sexually liberated societies; and, above all, that devout believers in Islam who had never in their lives questioned the doctrine of jihad, the wickedness of Jews, the subordinate status of infidels, and the justness of punishing apostasy and homosexuality with death (and who, if literate, might never have read any book other than the Koran) could become proud, law-abiding citizens of a diverse and sophisticated secular democracy.
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