Very often people who live in a ghetto accept some of the stigmatisation against them. I mention the case of a Japanese minority the Burakumin, which was pure Japanese in descent, but which was concerned with dirty work: leather work, cadavers, and some other things.There was a famous story of an old man who asked: 'Do you yourself believe you are the same as the Japanese?' And the outsider said: 'I do not know, we are dirty.' This kind of conscience was never there in the surroundings in which I lived. One always felt as someone whom could be proud of, being both German and Jewish.

Debating the concept of race does not mean that I in any way regard this as a quarrel between neighbors over where they come from. I have perhaps said enough when I said the alternative to assimilation is that immigrant groups form their own state or go away for lack of acceptance. Why should it be less serious if quarrels and dissensions are socially related? After all, the quarrels and dissensions between Russia and America are also not racial. And yet they seem to me extremely dangerous.

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.

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.

The natives of England are closing their doors to relationships with Asians and Africans or, for that matter, Turks and Spaniards. While the Africans and Asians on their part are increasingly closing their doors too and resentment at both sides is increasing. This trend can be dangerous. It can lead, sooner or later, to violence - even in this country, which is traditionally an opponent of violence.

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.

Perhaps I should say that in general there are three solutions to such a situation. I mean not only in Holland, but everywhere where there are minority groups: in America, in Vietnam with the Chinese. Everywhere there is the same problem. But there are fundamentally three, actually only two possible solutions. A possible solution is that the despised minority is able to establish its own state somewhere else. The other solution is a higher or lesser degree of assimilation. And the third possibility, which is not a solution at all, is the permanence of the tension and conflict over time.