Culture

Already since centuries foreigners come to the Netherlands. Sometimes they are refugees, sometimes people looking for work. But it is almost always people who want to build a new life here.

Over the years, all those people have always brought a piece of their own culture with them. This has ensured that we in the Netherlands have a multicultural society. That makes our lives interesting and colorful.

But that does mean that you have to come to clear agreements about what is really important to be able to live together as good citizens in the Netherlands. You have to agree what are the characteristic values of our society that make the Netherlands well worth to live and work here.

We call these agreements: core values. Our core values are: freedom, equality, solidarity and participation. You may think of equal rights for men and women, the right to develop yourself through education, the right to choose your partner and the right to express your own opinion.

And even if you do not adopt all our core values, you still have to respect them. Values that are not important to you are very important to a fellow human being. Only on the basis of respect for our fellow man can we form that multicolored Dutch society together.