Welcome to the Netherlands... unless you're seeking asylum

In May, 300 to 400 rioters gathered outside a temporary asylum shelter in Loosdrecht, throwing torches and fireworks, setting fire to shrubs and temporarily blocked firefighters from reaching the scene, leaving 15 asylum seekers and staff trapped. Similar anti-asylum demonstrations also took place in Apeldoorn and The Hague, reflecting a broader pattern of growing anti-asylum and refugee sentiment (Dutch News)."

While it's easy to dismiss these events as actions of uneducated and racist people, we can’t ignore the role Dutch media has played in historically portraying asylum seekers and refugees as threats, dangerous, passive victims, and/or problems. It has affected how the public views them, and positions them as “inferior” within society. The same media that uses language such as “protestors” “demonstrations” and “turbulent” to downplay the riots, simultaneously frequently covers individual cases of violent or criminal actions committed by asylum seekers, often explicitly stating their country of origin. These portrayals only serve to reflect postcolonial legacies that have historically dehumanised and depicted them as “a threat to Dutch culture and values” (Speek, 2024).

This narrative has been repeated so often, that it has become accepted as fact. Years of framing asylum seekers as threats and burdens, and politicians like Lidewij de Vos who have played a role in inciting or defending the riots and violence (AD), have made asylum seekers the default scapegoat for complex structural failures like the housing crisis and rising safety concerns, especially for women. This gives complex problems a face to blame rather than forcing confrontation with actual policy decisions.

Breaking down these fallacies:

• Housing Crisis: In 2024 MIT professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal (2024), published a UN report stating that decades of Dutch policy and a “rich history of social housing left to crumble” are to blame, not asylum seekers or migrant workers. “These groups mostly find themselves at the bottom of society competing for housing which most Dutch citizens are either not eligible for or would not wish to move into” (Dutch News).
• Gendered fear mongering: Anti-asylum rhetoric strategically targets women’s safety as a big point of concern, positioning asylum seeking men as "uncivilized" and “violent.” This portrayal weaponizes their skin color, sexuality and inferiority, while the white woman is painted as a damsel in distress, a victim of the “scary foreign man.” In Loosdrecht there have also been women’s marches organized by parents against the opening of asylum centers. Saskia Bonjour, an expert on migration, gender, and politics, views the Women’s March as “a clever strategic move” by the far right, in which the voices and likeness of women play a key role at legitimizing hate and racism (Trouw). While fear for women’s safety is real and should not be ridiculed, it is important to call the deliberate racist narrative driven by the media and politicians like Geert Wilders, who call asylum seekers “testosterone bombs” (Aljazeera). This only perpetuates the colonial stereotype that men with a migrant background are hypersexual, violent, and primitive.

While it’s also important to highlight positive acts towards refugees, including pro-refugee protests (NOS), how do we change deeply ingrained narratives? Refugee Company, a volunteer organization is addressing this by facilitating dialogue through a long table dinner. They were able to raise €240,000,- to support residents of asylum centers in the Netherlands whilst sending a positive signal to the Dutch media landscape, demonstrating that people are open opportunities to meet each other and see each other are more human again (NOS). Initiatives like these present the first steps we need to take to build towards an inclusive multicultural society that we can be proud of and which we can co-exist.

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Written in collaboration with Timothy Toto