The Dutch are counting on social control and a tradition of tolerance to keep ultra-right extremists from disrupting this multi-ethnic society.
Discrimination is taboo and attacks on foreigners are almost unknown in the Netherlands. But alarm bells have sounded following ultra-rightist electoral gains and assaults against immigrants in neighboring nations."It's happening in Germany and in France and in Belgium. It can happen here," said parliamentary deputy Doeke Eisma of the leftist Democrats '66 party.
"The rising rightist extremism based on hatred of foreigners greatly disturbs us, even more so by . . . its happening so close to home in Belgium," said Elco Brinkman, parliamentary leader of the governing Christian Democrats.
In Belgian elections last month, the ultra-rightist Vlaams Blok won 12 seats in the 212-member Parliament by advocating expulsion of Third World foreigners.
Eisma sees the stable Dutch political climate as a major deterrent to expansion of the extreme right.
Four percent of the Dutch population of 15 million are foreigners, among them 350,000 Turks and Moroccans. Those nationalities have been targets of anti-foreigner outbreaks in Germany and Belgium.
The Netherlands has one ultra-right political party, the Center Democrats, which has never held more than one seat in Parliament. Other deputies and the news media shun its chief ideologue, former schoolteacher Hans Janmaat.
A law banning the incitement of racial hatred is strongly enforced.
Dutch experts say the tradition of tolerance, anti-discrimination laws and educational programs have kept the Netherlands almost free of anti-foreigner backlash.
Ilham Akel, 40, who immigrated from Turkey as a 20-year-old student, says immigrants are treated better in the Netherlands than in surrounding countries.
Akel, a spokesman for the Dutch Center for Foreigners, said groups that would use violence against foreigners "have no moral support or societal support."
Some minorities say there's latent racism but that it's not strong enough to cause xenophobic violence or lead to ultra-right political victories.
"There is racism here, it's mostly hidden," said Mimoun Bouchlarhan, 25, a Moroccan-born, unemployed electrician.
"It's hard to find a job if you're a foreigner. But you do have rights and there's always somewhere to go for help."
John Bika, 40, an ethnic Surinamese, said whites sometimes get preferential treatment over him at Dutch stores and when applying for jobs.
But he believes the Netherlands is a better place for foreigners than most of Europe because Dutch society is more integrated.
Bika immigrated 14 years ago from the former Dutch colony of Suriname because of the better living standards.
Still, civil libertarians attack the government for tightening asylum laws to cut down on the influx of refugees.
And a self-styled anti-racist terror group known as RaRa bombed the home of Deputy Justice Minister Aad Kosto this month to dramatize its claim that asylum-seekers were being persecuted.
To head off anti-foreigner sentiment, the government has launched a nationwide debate this month on its efforts to assimilate ethnic minorities.
The program includes subsidized tutoring to keep children who don't speak Dutch from falling behind in school.
Foreign nationals can vote and hold office at the municipal level.
And Interior Minister Ien Dales meets monthly with councils representing the main ethnic minorities.
That policy was instituted after the Moluccan hijacking incidents of the 1970s, when terrorists seized two trains, a school and an Indonesian consulate, taking hundreds of hostages in actions that killed 11 people.
The Moluccan terrorists were the offspring of East Asian soldiery who fought in the vain Dutch effort to keep the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
The soldiers and their families were brought to the Netherlands to prevent Indonesian reprisals.