The word is gone but the sentiments are still there.Is there any different? Food for thought!

By cm | February 17, 2009 6:17 PM

No backbone...and your wondering why the VVD is gaining in popularity! How can a country function with "duel citizens" when their allegiance is not to your country but their homeland.

By Jonas | February 17, 2009 7:01 PM

Dear Madam,

About time too. About time too. These politicians deserve commendation for their foresight.

Just think of the utter ignorance of it all. I recall, just before the turn of the century, reading in a broadsheet weekend review about the authority-officials (there were 4) who claimed the dubious accolade of "inventing" the "amtelijke" word "allochtone".

Obviously none of these individuals, their partners nor their chiefs had much connection, if any at all, with English interpretations and phrases in geography. Having said that, it is clear that one was, in some way, a student of Greek.

Greek. What a language!
ἀλλος : (other) & χθον (stone). In geography, allochtone is applied to describe, for instance, the huge glacial rocks Cheshire Plain in England or Cwm Idwel or Cwellyn Valley in Wales and indeed the Ancient Rocks of the Outer Hebrides beyond the North Highlands or Westray -- the outermost post of the Realm at the furthest point northwest of the Orkney islands.

Derived from Greek αυτο (auto), (meaning “self“), its corollary was even more hideous. Almost as if to seek to mimic the manner of cosmology presented in, for example, George Lucas’ “Star Wars” trilogies, the officials’ argument extended the concept that in order for one thing to exist (even an invented concept) it must have one opposite. Just as with George Lucas’ “Dark Side” of the Force, the literally meaning of allochtone (in geography, a “Rolling Stone“) had to be met with one other antithesis: Autotone, in Greek: "a rock originating from this country" was invented.

Now there was two opposing and equally invented concepts and if you didn’t fit in to either: tough luck.

That there were only two opposing concepts invented, left so many holes in the fundamentals of this invented concept. The officials graduated in time to invent further “rules”, with which one could apply to define if one was a rolling- or local- “stone” : auto- or alloch- “tone“. That rule attempted to assert that any resident of Her Majesty’s realm who had two parents that were themselves “allochtones” ... automatically “lost” their right to term themselves as “autochtones”.

IT is really rather amazing the power of suggestion and words can have on the human psyche, and it should moreover never be overlooked.

The depths of the almost-blind attitudes were revealed: i.e. granted that her Majesty the monarch has parents that are not of this nation, she herself becomes embroiled in this rock-of-here or rock-of-there argument. That is all very well for anecdotal relay, however, for some members of the society who are factually and statistically ‘bound’ to this concept, it is a struggle and not merely an after-dinner argument.

Young British schoolboys are taught that all of these (sedimentary & glacial) rocks are 'allochtone formations'. They learn of Mount Etna in Italy, a formation of autochtone rock if ever there was one, and suchlike “rock formations“ throughout the world like Mahameru (Semeru) above Mount Bromo on East Java in Indonesia.

Bearing in mind that all those British who have taken the time to study any of the Germanic-language subgroups, know that there are various means of using the definite article in terms of gender: male/female/neuter et cetera... it is in no way encouraging for an English-speaker to learn that officials would elect to selected a word (from Greek) to describe participating citizens in society : when that word is used in English to describe a "thing" and in Germanic “a neuter“ thing.

Vi et animo?

Madam- I ask of you: what manner of conjuréd inhumanity was this experiment, if not a manifest display of one's poor understanding of the Indo-European language-group, a swaggering perversion of etymology and a blatant disrespect of general principles in the origin-of-species ?

Certainly, not a universal one!

By Noel McCullagh-Winters | February 17, 2009 7:10 PM

Jonas - the rest of the civivilzed world is functioning quite well with dual citizens - why can't NL ? As it works everywhere else, it's obviously not related to poor immigrants blamed for all Dutch problems. If you need an example - how about New Zealand and Australia ?

By Kiki | February 18, 2009 7:57 AM

The USA is a melting pot that doesn't want any new ingredients. The country was built on European and African immigrants but they shun the Latino population. THis is the group of people picking their produce, cutting their lawns, fixing their autos cooking their food... but the majority of Americans despise Latinos. Such slang's as "Beaners, Wetbacks.." Looks like Americans forgot from where they came?

By Paul Martin | February 18, 2009 4:45 PM

Nieuw Nederlander does not stick as well like allochtone.New imply that you are always new despite having stayed here for donkey years.It sound

a bad concept.There is more

controversy on calling people who

By cm | February 18, 2009 4:54 PM

I predict that the Dutch will just rename the concept, and that's it. And children of a "New Dutch" will also be labeled "New Dutch", just as they are now labeled "allochtoon". I don't think the Dutch will ever have guts to get rid of this concept completely and consider Dutch anyone who has a Dutch passport. This will not happen because in reality many Dutch are closet Nazis and secretly believe in the exceptional qualities and status of their race.

By Moldovian | February 19, 2009 11:41 AM