I have touched here on a problem that is masked if one speaks of racism. And that is the fact that the major differences between the established and outsiders group, which create tension and irritation, is not the form of the face or the skin color but the form of behavior: something learned. The form of behavior and feeling, of sentiment, is different in the immigrant groups from that of the established groups, and that may give rise to an enormous irritation.

Perhaps one could appoint three or four professional people specially concerned with the task of bridge building between the majority and the minority. Bridge building of this kind requires an effort from both sides. It's no good if the majority alone do it. The question is whether there is any response, whether people on the other side of the river also wish to try to build a bridge.

Assimilation, a certain uniformity of conduct, is necessary in a multi-party state.This is not only a requirement to the established majority; it is also a requirement to the minorities themselves. Because, I repeat myself, a ghetto existence is not very nice.

I think that one not only has to make demands on the established group, but one also has to make demands on the outsider group. One has to make clear: if you want to leave, please do so. But if you want to stay here, a degree of accommodation to the Dutch outlook, Dutch manners, and a degree of identification with the Netherlands will be expected of you. There is no reason why there cannot be Dutch Turks or Dutch Moroccans. But one can expect from them a degree of identification, some change of their own social identity.

Of course you can more easily recognise the outsiders because they have a different skin color. But let us take for instance the relationship between the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority in America and the negroes. What is important here is that the negroes were the descendants from slaves and were excluded from power, while the white majority kept them at bay, kept them down, kept them where they are. If the negroes in the future became assimilated and acquired equal power access, if there were a black president, then many of these things would change.

The heart of assimilation process of absorbing minorities lies in the self-image of a nation. There are, as you will know, big differences for instance between the self-image of the French and the English. And the Germans, in accordance with their rather chequered history, had at least in the past very little capacity for absorbing minorities.

The integration in Germany was made easier by the fact that I am probably of the third generation. So I have undergone a process of assimilation, of Jews into German society.I lived as a child in Germany, the feeling of being surrounded by people of whom the majority had very strong anti-Semitic sentiments. But there was one very odd thing in the whole milieu in which I lived: no one accepted the stigmatization. It is quite difficult. No one, my father for instance, would ever take it seriously. He would regard anti-Semites as people of no education.