And the Migrant “Other”: from Suppressed Superiority to Explicit Exclusion?
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REVIEW ARTICLE “Dutchness” and the migrant “other”: From suppressed superiority to explicit exclusion? Halleh Ghorashi Peter Jan Margry and Herman Roodenburg, eds., Reframing Dutch culture: Between otherness and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 291 pp., ISBN 978-0-754-64705-8 (hardcover). Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the limits of tolerance. New York: Penguin Books, 2006, 288 pp., ISBN 978-0-143-11236-5 (paperback). Since the end of the 1990s, multiculturalism is Dutch Cabinet in June 2006, and the contro- being discussed in the Dutch media on an almost versy over Fitna, a film criticizing the Qur’an, daily basis, even more so after the November by populist anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders. 2004 murder of the filmmaker and columnist A country that had an image of being open, tol- Theo van Gogh. The person charged with the erant, and liberal, seems to be in the throes of murder is a young Moroccan man with Islamic fear and protective of its “national identity” fu- convictions, Mohammed Bouyeri—often re- eled by a tough rhetoric toward Muslims (see ferred to in the media as an “Islamic terrorist” Duyvendak et al. 2008). When Princess Max- who committed a “ritual murder” to revenge ima—referring to her experience of the diversity Van Gogh’s “anti-Islamic” rhetoric. The event of cultures in Dutch society and arguing that has once again lead to Islam becoming the core Dutch identity is too rich and complex to define issue in the political debate on migration and as one—said “I have not found the Dutch iden- integration in the Netherlands. Van Gogh’s be- tity”1, she was attacked, sometimes indignantly, came the second such murder in two years; the sometimes patronizingly, in almost all promi- first being politician Wilhelmus Simon Petrus nent media. Dutch society had become so de- “Pim” Fortuyn. Although Fortuyn’s murder did fensive that it could not even accept a compli- not have a direct link with Islam, because of its ment. These development inspired several books character as a political murder, it nevertheless on the subject, two of which I review here: the contributed to hardening the public sphere in 2007 Reframing Dutch culture: Between other- the Netherlands. Other events keep fueling the ness and authenticity, edited by Peter Jan Margry debate, including the dispute over the national- and Herman Roodenburg and the 2006 best- ity of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which led to the fall of the seller by Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam. Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 56 (2010): 106–111 doi:10.3167/fcl.2010.560109 “Dutchness” and the migrant “other”: From suppressed superiority to explicit exclusion? | 107 Reframing Dutch culture deals with diversity Is multiculturalism makeable? in the Netherlands but without the usual fixa- tion on migrants in a negative sense. By pre- Perhaps the most fascinating is chapter 4, which senting Dutch culture from a broader angle, the tells the story of Flevoland, the newest province book provides refreshing perspectives on migra- in the Netherlands, created in the 1940s by the tion and integration in the Netherlands. Most of reclamation of a large part of the Zuiderzee. It its contributions are not about migrants from shows how both land and culture were consid- Islamic backgrounds. When they are, they do ered makeable through social engineering in this not concern the familiar issues such as violence, new space, considered an example for the whole honor-killing, segregation, and burqa and/or country and “a test plot for the future, multicul- headscarf. Instead, they discuss the clothing tural Netherlands” (Van Deijl 2006, cited on styles of Moroccan-Dutch boys (ch. 2) or the page 77). This optimistic project stands in con- interior design of Turkish-Dutch houses (ch. 5), trast to the growing discomfort, and even disgust, showing how both Moroccan-Dutch and Turk- with multiculturalism, evidenced in chapters 6 ish-Dutch use their specific backgrounds to cre- and 8. In chapter 6 we read how Pim Fortuyn ate a personalized, fashionable, and authentic became the symbol of this growing disgust, style. By describing how authenticity is per- which then translated into distrust of the dom- formed through clothing and design, the au- inant political parties, especially after his death thors show how the boundaries of modernity and its commemoration in what became “per- and tradition are blurred and breaks with the formative memorials” of political resentment. dominant fixation on migrants from Islamic Chapter 8 shows how the boundaries of us (au- countries as bound by tradition in opposition tochthonous Dutch) and them (Moroccans and to the “modern Dutch.” perpetrators) are negotiated by various parties Other chapters add to this problematization active within civil society around the commem- of authenticity and otherness by differentiating oration of victims of “senseless violence.” Both within native Dutch culture. Chapter 9, for in- chapters could benefit from a better contextual stance, offers insight into the emergence of alter- framing of the events within the history of mi- native spiritualities in the context of an assumed gration and multicultural policies so as to situ- secularized Netherlands. Chapter 11 looks at the ate the level of hatred both toward certain growing popularity of singing in dialects, framed migrants (mainly Moroccans) and politicians. as a consequence of globalization: “When a di- With chapters 7 on crop circle tales and 8 on alect threatens to disappear, people realize its Mother’s and Father’s day, which both divert value and seek to raise its status by writing, from the book’s theme of Dutchness and other- preaching and singing” (241). Chapter 12, about ness, the main shortcoming of the book be- women wearing traditional costumes in the vil- comes apparent: in its effort to bring a wide lage of Marken, shows how certain traditional range of subjects together, it stretches the limits Dutch customs continue to constitute a contem- of its title. The book presents a good ethnology porary way of life. Likewise, chapter 3 shows of the Dutch way of life and engages the reader how a festival on the Dutch island of Texel has with detailed information on oft-forgotten as- been shaped and reshaped through a long-term pects of Dutch society but it lacks focus, partic- process of negotiating “difference” and how the ularly where it comes to providing a deeper fear of marginalization of particular points of understanding of Dutch culture in relation to difference contributes to strengthening those shifting constructions of otherness throughout characteristics. “The more complete grows the its history. How can authenticity and otherness concentration of power at the centre, the more in the Netherlands be understood without the vulnerable the periphery becomes, expressing history of colonialization, pillarization, and mi- its anxiety in a localism which stresses the dis- gration? How can case studies of “outsiders in- tinctiveness of its character” (51). side” (e.g., Moroccan- and Turkish-Dutch) be 108 | Halleh Ghorashi situated without in-depth attention to these ing or insensitive. This is often referred to as the histories? Contrary to what the title of the book right to insult. Buruma situates this trend within suggests, these questions are not dealt with, Dutch culture: “this willful lack of delicacy is a though the book’s strength simultaneously lies common trait in Dutch behavior. Perhaps its in the originality of the material and indeed its roots are in Protestant pietism, a reaction to what avoidance of the “usual suspects.” was seen as glib Catholic hypocrisy” (94). But Murder in Amsterdam is about the core is- even if being direct is part of the Dutch way of sues of the Dutch debate. It even presents inter- communication, it seems facile to relate the views with some of the main participants in present harshness in Dutch public debate solely that public debate. The book is a well-written to Protestantism.2 Instead, it seems more accu- and engaging examination of the historical rate to see this as a trend that began at the turn background and current perceptions Theo van of the century, which Baukje Prins (2002) calls Gogh’s murder. It presents the way in which the an era of “new realism,” demanding that “we Netherlands has been offering “an odd combi- must be allowed to say what we think,”The new nation of charity and indifference” (19) when it realist is someone with guts; someone who dares comes to immigration issues. It shows, for ex- to call a spade a spade; someone who sets him- ample, how a country that has historically been self up as the mouthpiece of the common peo- considered to be open and tolerant, had the ple and then puts up a vigorous fight against the highest percentage of Jews sent to the Nazi death so-called left-wing, politically correct views of camps, and how the shameful reminder of this cultural relativism. This bluntness is mainly di- event poisons national debates in the Nether- rected at migrants—specifically those with an lands to this day. It also discusses the various Islamic background—and anyone (politician or trends in the history of migration to the Neth- not) who would defend the space of migrants erlands, from migration from the colonies, to within Dutch society. The level of harshness and the entrance of gastarbeiters and refugees. The hatred toward migrants today is an unknown book also provides insight into the global strug- phenomenon in Dutch democratic history. gle of “Enlightenment values” against “radical The second point is the sense of non-belong- Islam,”showing how this is in fact a struggle be- ing felt by the “new Dutch,” who are seen as not tween equally radical forces, one being radically being a worthy part of Dutch society.