TransCity

A quantitative research done by TransCity and Motivaction proves that ethnic media are popular among ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. Youngsters are more attracted by urban media, especially on radio and online.

Among the largest ethnic minority groups in the Netherlands, the most popular print titles are Ekin for the Turkish community, Mzine for the Moroccan community and De Ware Tijd Weekeditie Nederland for the Surinam community. 24% of all Dutch citizens with a Moroccan background can be found daily on Marokko.NL while 16% of all Dutch citizens with a Surinam background can be found daily on Waterkant.NET.

FunX radio is the most popular radio station among youngsters with ethnic minority backgrounds while Partypeeps2000.COM is the most popular online community for these youngsters.

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Media and politicians in the Netherlands - as well as throughout Europe - are used to emphasize the large numbers of Muslims that have settled in the country in the past few decades. Since 9/11 and with the rise of a relatively small group of fanatical Muslims worldwide, Muslim communities are often treated as communities that might oppose ‘Western’ values. Especially some populist politicians are crossing new borders to blame Muslims for many wrongs in Dutch society, as is ridiculised by cartoonists Fokke and Sukke in Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad (see cartoon below).

In the past, the Netherlands Central Statistics Agency (CBS) estimated the number of Muslims in the Netherlands at about 1 million. That number was based on the number of migrants and their children from Muslim countries. Only recently did the CBS give a new estimation: 850,000. This was based on the fact that, especially when it comes to refugee communities, not every person from a predominantly Muslim country is a Muslim.

Having said that, we come to the following matter. Are Muslims really the single largest religious group among migrant communities in the Netherlands? In recent years, churches in the Netherlands major cities have become more popular than they were for a long time. Many of those who attend church service have an African or Afro-Caribbean background. And if we add the recent migrant workers from Eastern European countries to Christian migrant communities from Africa, South America and even the Middle East and Asia, we might even find that the number of Christian migrants - in all its diversity - is almost as high as the number of migrants with a Muslim background.

In Portugal, a new law came into force defining the conditions and procedures for entry, residence and deportation of foreign nationals. A new provision is the automatic right to a permanent residence visa for foreigners who come to Portugal to start a business.

People with money “will have an easy ride, but for the rest who haven’t, who come to Portugal looking for a better life, little or no progress has been made,” Jair Santos Pereira, a Brazilian who works in a Lisbon restaurant, told IPS News Agency.

Most of the traditional migrant communities belong to the latter group, migrants from Portugal’s former colonies in Africa as well as Brazil. (Picture: Cape Verdean artist Suzanna Lubrano performing in Lisbon’s Discoteca Luanda).

Portugal’s new legislation puts it closer to the paths followed for decades by countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, which have made the most of the energy of immigrants for the development of their societies.

Portugal today has a population of 10.2 million, of whom 420,000 are legal immigrants and another 150,000 are undocumented immigrants, according to estimates by non-governmental organisations.

With a work force of 5.8 million people, of whom 9.9 percent are foreigners, immigrants are an important factor in filling the coffers of a state which does not hesitate to levy contributions from the undocumented, although the authorities call them “illegal.”

Portugal’s 64,295 Brazilian legal residents are now the largest foreign community living in Portugal, outnumbering traditional immigrants from Portugal’s former colonies in Africa - Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tomé and Príncipe - and the more recent influx of Ukrainians, who began to arrive in this country early this decade.

However, Eduardo Tavares de Lima, president of the Casa do Brasil’s General Assembly, estimates that there are actually some 120,000 Brazilians living in Portugal.

The other 60,000 Brazilians “are either children or grandchildren of Brazilian immigrants who obtained Portuguese nationality, or undocumented immigrants,” Tavares de Lima told IPS.

Source: IPS News Agency

Trade Unions are usually not in the forefront of explaining the positive effects migration might have on local economies. It is therefore surprising to read a recent report published by the British Trade Union, TUC, claiming that migrant workers are boosting growth in the economy and have not depressed wages or pushed up unemployment among Britons.

Despite claims from organisations such as Migration Watch UK that immigrants place extra pressure on housing and public services, the TUC says these workers often pay more in taxes than the value of public services they receive.

The report, entitled The Economics of Migration, says that without workers from abroad many sectors in the economy would collapse.

Wages and jobs have not been depressed and although there is some limited evidence that low-skilled workers are struggling to find work, the majority have not lost out thanks to a buoyant economy, the report adds.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Migrant workers are making a substantial contribution to Britain’s economy, and some sectors would collapse if they were removed overnight. They haven’t caused mass unemployment or held wages down as some would have us believe.”

Treasury figures show that inward migration adds about 10% to economic growth each year. The Bank of England has also welcomed the effect migrant labour has had on pay settlements by stopping them from picking up more sharply in response to recent higher inflation.

In spite of the benefits migrant labour brings, Mr Barber said not enough was being done to protect these workers from unscrupulous employers taking advantage of employees’ lack of knowledge of their rights and poor English.

“The solution is to crack down on the minority of bad employers by properly enforcing employment rights such as the minimum wage and closing loopholes such as the poor protection enjoyed by agency workers,” said Mr Barber.

“The emergence of a large group of employers habitually breaking the law could undermine the minimum wage’s effectiveness for all workers. The Low Pay Commission and the government must make special efforts to make sure the value of the minimum wage does not fall relative to pay.”

The report also adds that the abundance of migrant labour should not stop the government from helping unemployed and disadvantaged British citizens from getting into work.

Source: The Guardian