First, this post will be completely off-topic
You mean the Feyenoord fans don't meet the Schalke fans at motorway rest stops for organized rumbles anymore? Just kidding.
Well many European teams have hooligans and unfortunately Feyenoord has them as well. These guys got us "kicked out" of the UEFA cup years ago in Nancy and they also attacked the board once. These hooligans are HATED by the real fans, and the real fans took a very strong stance against these guys several years ago with banners and stuff. There still is a big anti-hooliganism movement. That has helped tremendously. Since that moment there have not been any notable incidents surrounding Feyenoord. Hopefully it will remain that way.
Times certainly have changed in the Nederlands. There just has seemed to be a huge political shift to the right.
I don't think there is huge political shift to the right, to be honest. Basically everyone can start a political party over here, plus we don't have an electoral threshold. So its pretty easy for populist idiots to get a number of seats in the parliament (or for an animal rights party or elderly party, or you name it). Most of the times these populists are ecomomically left and right wing on crime and immigration topics. Just whatever gets them votes. For most part of the history, we have had these parties, the just never had any power. Several years ago there was a huge standstill after the election. Basically not a single majority government made sense. Therefore we got a minority government, that was supported by the populists (they were NOT part of the government). That government was a HUGE mistake and broke down very quickly.
Right now we have a government with a right wing liberal party and labour. Moreover they are supported by the centre liberals (anything-goes-liberals), the left wing liberals, and the very strict conservatives. So its an very odd combination, but its not right wing.
Dutch politics is just very very complicated
.
Apparently foreigners aren't allowed to buy the tasty dopes de smokes anymore either.
First, drugs have always been illegal here, the authorities just aren't allowed to enforce that law (if i would be legal, you would break certain treaties). Second, there used to be many coffee shops close to the border, that sold drugs exclusively to foreigners. Belgium and France pressured us to stop this. The new law is to stop foreigners form buying drugs along the Dutch/Belgium-border.
We hear stories here in Canada about certain immigrants... (Turks for example)... who cannot get a residence permit even if they marry a Dutch person. Some of them end up here.
If you have a job, getting a permit is actually really easy. If you don't have a job, you will have to learn the language first, before you are allowed to move to Holland . Moreover there are very strict rules that should prevent forced or fake marriages (either of them has been a huge problem). So the rules make sense, they are just too strict now.
Keep in mind that there are still many immigrants in the Netherlands. Here in Rotterdam more than 50% of the population are immigrants. They are from all over the place and make Rotterdam a real melting pot. (which is great, because Rotterdam is probably the only city that re-celebrates carnival in the summer, to make sure that our Latina residents can show off the smallest bikini they own
)