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.

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.

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.

One has to give minority groups a kind of reward, an emotional reward, that it is worthwhile assimilating to this particular majority group. And if this majority group looks down on itself ... If a minority group is not given some pride in assimilating to the culture of another group then the process is very difficult.

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.

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.

Scientific modes of thought cannot be developed and become generally accepted unless people renounce their primary, unreflecting, and spontaneous attempt to understand all their experience in terms of its purpose and meaning for themselves. The development that led to more adequate knowledge and increasing control of nature was therefore, considered from one aspect, also a development toward greater self-control by men.