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. Murder in religious, the other radically secular, represen- Amsterdam presents the earliest memory of one tative of the rise of a new conservative force in Moroccan-Dutch man, which occurred when the name of Enlightenment (34). Rather than he was six. “It still fills him with anger. The par- seeing van Gogh’s murder as an isolated act ents of his best friend, a Dutch kid, wouldn’t let by an Islamic invader, Buruma insightfully links them play together. He wasn’t even invited to it to the Fortuyn murder (committed by an his friend’s birthday party. It was clear that he “autochthonous” animal rights activist) and was not wanted. ‘That’s something you never places it within historical developments in the forget. Even though I wasn’t so aware of what it Netherlands. meant at the time, it haunted me when I was a teenager. The worst thing is to be put in a box, to be told you don’t belong. So you join others New realism and the integration paradox who’re in the same box’” (114). This frustration of the second-generation migrants increases To understand the growing uneasiness between when they see that their parents are treated like the native Dutch and the New Dutch, two children and publicly humiliated. points raised in Murder in Amsterdam deserve “New realism” and non-belonging may partly critical review. The first is the insistence on to- explain how a second-generation migrant, born tal frankness in public debate, to say everything and educated in the Netherlands, could not only that comes to one’s mind, no matter how insult- become a religious fanatic, but even commit “Dutchness” and the migrant “other”: From suppressed superiority to explicit exclusion? | 109 murder. As the Dutch public space becomes versus the migrant other, Reframing Dutch cul- increasingly insulting toward migrants with an ture in this sense does provide important insights Islamic background, new Dutch citizens feel in- into the processes of inclusion and exclusion in creasingly out of place and humiliated and this the Netherlands with regard to migrants. became even worse after 9/11. One of Buruma’s interviewees calls 9/11 a “switch.”“Before 9/11, well-educated Moroccans had confidence in What about Dutchness? their future in Dutch society. This is where they felt they belonged. [Now] they have become The two books under review fail to provide frightened to be identified as Muslims and Mo- enough material to understand the severity of roccans. Yet it is precisely those people who the relation of Dutch society to its migrants. should be given every chance, those young peo- What is missing, and important to contextualize ple who have tried so hard to succeed” (138– in these processes, is a discussion of the domi- 39). Paradoxically, new Dutch citizens are thus nant discourses on migration in relation to the losing the sense of belonging they once had pre- construction of Dutchness. In fact migration has cisely at a time when they are being forced more had a predominantly negative connotation in than ever to assimilate. the Netherlands for decades. This is probably the These observations are supported by another most obvious—though least outspoken—in book, on radicalization processes among Mus- terms of the Dutch sense of superiority over the lims in the Netherlands (Buijs et al. 2006). Here “colonized other.” The history of colonization the authors introduce the concept of the “inte- has shaped the positioning of both parties and gration paradox”: when migrants are actually this did not disappear when colonialism for- eager to integrate in dominant society, they are mally ended or when new groups of migrants most sensitive to feelings of exclusion (ibid.: entered the Netherlands: the gastarbeiters of the 202). The radicalization of Muslim youth is not 1950s and refugees of the 1980s. Gastarbeiters due to their assumed isolation, educational back- (guest workers) came to the country when cheap wardness or anti-social attitude but happens to labor was needed. They had little education and youth who are active, socially involved, sensitive came from the most traditional parts of their to societal recognition, and eager to become homeland, thus strengthening the superior feel- successful and respected members of the domi- ings of the Dutch versus the migrant other. The nant society but face unfair treatment, daily pub- notion of “guest” added another negative con- lic insults, and disrespect for their parents, despite notation as it supposed a temporary stay rather their parents’ hard work in post–World War II than permanent settlement. Likewise, refugees Dutch society. also began their stay in the Netherlands under In addition, it must be noted that, as Refram- the notion of impermanence. The humanitar- ing Dutch culture shows, people tend to defend ian aspect of the condition of refugees easily what they consider their roots when there is a identifies them as “victims,” which in turn “re- growing sense of their marginalization by na- inforces the view of their incapability” (Harrell- tional or global forces. Any pressure from out- Bond 1999: 150). Assistance moreover creates a side means redefining the meaning of authentic hierarchical relationship between the giver and practices and strengthening the boundaries of the receiver and develops the expectation that otherness and this is true for migrant’s culture refugees should be grateful. as well. When migrants sense that their cultural These two components of viewing migration and religious background is threatened within in the Netherlands—a sense of superiority and the Dutch public sphere, it seems logical that the notion of temporary settlement—con- they would choose a protectionist attitude. Even tribute to an image of migrants as entirely dif- though it does not directly refer to the processes ferent from the Dutch and as belonging to the of boundary construction between the Dutch place they come from and to which they will, 110 | Halleh Ghorashi supposedly, eventually return.3 As Ulrich Beck’s Christian. The latentness of these assumptions joke goes: in combination with the public claim to non- identity make Dutch identity quite unreachable A black man in Germany is asked: “Where are and “thick” (see Ghorashi 2003)4 and in fact not you from?” comprehensive enough to embrace the diversity He answers: “From Munich.” of cultures present in the Netherlands. Q: “And your parents?” The unspoken, but all the same “thick,” no- A: “Also from Munich.” tion of Dutch national identity has become Q: “And where were they born?” more explicit over the past few years. The result A: “My mother in Munich.” of this exclusive construction of Dutchness is Q: “And your father?” that even migrants who have been born and A: “In Ghana.” raised here do not feel able or inclined to posi- Q: “Ah, so you’re from Ghana.” tion themselves as Dutch. What we observed af- ter 9/11 is that when a sense of threat becomes In such ways one’s identity becomes fixed and attached to the “absolute other,” there is no migrants will always feel out of place in their space left for tolerance; what is left is fear and new country, because they in fact belong some- anger. We read about these emotions in Refram- where else and cannot be considered “real” ing Dutch culture and Murder in Amsterdam but Dutch. we need to know more about the reasons un- This only becomes worse with the fact that derlying these negative feelings in order to un- the Dutch are supposedly not nationally oriented. derstand the recent dynamics of Dutch society. As Prins puts it, “the essential trait of Dutch Doing this will help us understand why the di- identity is assumed to be its non-identity, its vide between us (the “real” Dutch) and them fluidity, its openness to ‘others’” (1997: 120). (the “others”) is becoming ever wider. The But this has a reverse: “By assuming that Dutch- Netherlands will never find a peaceful solution ness is an unmarked category, a subject position for the culturally complex country it has be- that does not strike the eye because it does not come if it is incapable of putting its own latent differ from modern culture in general, it turns and “self-evident” assumptions up for discus- out to coincide with what is considered the norm sion. In order to do that we need more research or normal. Hence, everything not-Dutch gets on how Dutchness is constructed specifically in marked as ‘other,’ as different from that norm” relation to different migrants who have settled (ibid.: 126). in the Netherlands over the years. Until recently the general perception of the Dutch was that they lacked a strong national identity—perhaps as a reaction to the experi- Halleh Ghorashi is chair of Management of Di- ence of World War II when national (German) versity and Integration at the Department of identity served as a basis for exclusion and ter- Culture, Organization, and Management at the rible violence. But this claim of non-identity VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She and manifest dislike of national identity does is the author of Ways to survive, battles to win: not mean that the notion of Dutchness has not Iranian women exiles in the Netherlands and the been present in public discourse and daily prac- United States (2003) and has published widely tice. On the contrary, the question of proper on topics such as identity formation, diasporic and improper behavior in public life is closely positioning, cultural diversity, and emancipation linked to the notion of Dutchness, regulating issues. As an active participant in the Dutch society in a latent manner. The “real” Dutch public debates on diversity and integration, she moreover do have a religion and a body. Accord- has received several awards. Her current research ing to Wekker (1995: 78), the image of Dutch- focus is on the narratives of identity and be- ness is at the very least one of being white and longing of migrants, along with the processes of “Dutchness” and the migrant “other”: From suppressed superiority to explicit exclusion? | 111 exclusion and inclusion in the context of in- Essed, Philomena. 1991. Understanding everyday creasing culturalism. racism: An interdisciplinary theory. Newbury E-mail: [email protected]. Park, CA: Sage. Ghorashi, Halleh. 2003. Ways to survive, battles to win: Iranian women exiles in the Netherlands Notes and the United States. New York: Nova Science. Harrell-Bond, Barbara. 1999. Refugees’ experiences as aid recipients. In Refugees: perspectives on the 1. Princess Maxima made this point during her experience of forced migration, ed. A. Ager, 136– speech on 25 September 2007 in The Hague. 39. London: Pinter. 2. If one could point to any group in current Lutz, Helma. 1997. The limits of European-ness: Dutch society issuing the fewest insults in pub- Immigrant women in Fortress Europe. Feminist lic it would be religious Protestant groups like Review 57: 93–111. the Christen Unie and the SGP (Conservative Margry, Peter Jan, and Herman Roodenburg, eds. Christian Party). 2007. Reframing Dutch Culture: Between other- 3. For experiences of migrants in the Netherlands, ness and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. see Botman et al. 2001; Essed 1991; Lutz 1997. Prins, Baukje. 1997. The Standpoint in question: 4. In making a distinction between “thin” and Situated knowledge and the Dutch minorities “thick” constructions of national identities, I discourse. PhD diss., University of Utrecht. was inspired by Rawls’s (1971, 1980) distinction ———. 2002. The Nerve to break Taboos: New between thin universalism and thick particular- Realism in the Dutch Discourse on Multicultur- ism in relation to pluralism. In addition, Strat- alism. Journal of International Migration and ton and Ang’s (1998) work also helped me to get Integration 3 (3–4): 363–79. a handle on the relation between cultural diver- Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge: sity and national identity. Harvard University Press/ Belknap. ———. 1980. Kantian constructivism in moral theory. The Journal of Philosophy LXXVII (9): References 515–77. Stratton, Jon, and Ien Ang. 1998. Multicultural Botman, M., N. Jouwe, and G. Wekker, eds. 2001. imagined communities: Cultural difference and Caleidoscopische visies: de zwarte, migranten— national identity in the USA and Australia. In en vluchtelingen-vrouwenbeweging in Nederland. Multicultural States: Rethinking Difference and Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen. Identity, ed. D. Bennett, 135–63. London and Buijs, F.J., F. Demant, and A. Hamdy. 2006. Strijders New York: Routledge. van eigen bodem: Radicale en democratische Wekker, Gloria. 1995. “After the last sky, where do moslims in Nederland. Amsterdam: Amsterdam the birds fly?” What can European women learn University Press. from anti-racist struggles in the United States? Buruma, Ian. 2006. Murder in Amsterdam. New York: In Crossfires: Nationalism, racism and gender in Penguin Books. Europe, eds. H. Lutz, A. Phoenix, and N. Yuval- Duyvendak, Jan Willem, Ewald Engelen, and Ido de Davis, 65–88. London: Pluto Press. Haan. 2008. Het bange Nederland. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.