When Benjamin Disraeli spoke of the 'two nations' in Britain he was perfectly right, only the working classes were not exactly a nation. But the gap in behavioral standards and in outlook, and of course in standards of living, were enormous. And in course of time, at least in countries such as Britain, the working classes more or less adopted and have become assimilated to the standards of the so-called 'gentle' classes. That is assimilation.The working class has hardly been able to govern, but they are no longer outsiders in relation to the state as they were before.

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.

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.

The way one behaves and feels as a Dutchman and Dutchwoman is the result of a long development. It is by no means 'the natural way' or 'the human way' of behaving, it is a particular code of behavior which has developed over the years. And these people, the immigrant people, come from a group where different standards of conduct and behavior have developed. What clashes are these two standards of conduct and behavior.

When Benjamin Disraeli spoke of the 'two nations' in Britain he was perfectly right, only the working classes were not exactly a nation. But the gap in behavioral standards and in outlook, and of course in standards of living, were enormous. And in course of time, at least in countries such as Britain, the working classes more or less adopted and have become assimilated to the standards of the so-called 'gentle' classes. That is assimilation.The working class has hardly been able to govern, but they are no longer outsiders in relation to the state as they were before.

I would like to remind you that both assimilation and integration apply to the working classes in the nineteenth century, at least in Britain and also Germany. Like most outsider groups compared with the establishment, the working classes were treated more or less with the same kind of stigmatization as immigrant groups are treated today.

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.