Transformations of "Dutchness" : from happy multiculturalism to the crisis of Dutch liberalism

The debate on multiple loyalties, posed at the start of this chapter, illustrates that an immigrant or Muslim’s assimilation, adaptation and hard work is apparently not enough. The vote of no confidence against the two newly elected cabinet members, and the public debate following this occurrence, exemplify the fact that in the current climate immigrants, and especially Muslims, cannot claim Dutchness. In such a way, migrant voices and their quest for full citizenship are still stuck between the idiom of Dutch toleration and a new idiom in which the Netherlands questions migrants’ loyalty and integrity. Although the New Right is the visible force that is initiating these new trends of inclusion and exclusion, it is equally crucial to acknowledge the invisible but more pervasive force within Dutch liberalism that is supportive of similar restrictive mearsures