Contributors from The Netherlands

Murdered anti-Muslim Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh at a signing for his Book 'Allah Knows Best'

We are currently preparing a Journal Special Issue in which the papers presented at the december colloquium on Questioning the European ‘Crisis of Multiculturalism’ will be collected. The abstracts of these papers can be read by viting the ‘Abstracts’ page on this site. Today, two new authors have agreed to join the project. Sonja van Wichelen and Mark de Leeuw are two scholars from The Netherlands who work together. They contributed a very interesting chapter entitled ‘Transformations of “Dutchness”: From Happy Multiculturalism to the Crisis of Dutch liberalism’, to Identity, Belonging and Migration (Delanty, Wodak and Jones eds.).

“Kanak TV”

by Maria Stehle

I wanted to share this link with you, to the website of Kanak TV. Only the first clip is subtitled, but even without understanding every word, I think, the clip “Weisses Ghetto” will be interesting to many of you. I’d love to read what you think, since this is one way I’d like to approach the question of “humor” and “playfulness” as a form of intervention.

Burying Multiculturalism Alive in Germany

In Buried Alive: Multiculturalism in Germany (ISIM Review, Autumn 2005), Schirin Amir-Moazami argues that,

“Recent discussions in Germany around modes of dealing with the growing cultural-religious plurality reveal a widespread consensus that the so-called Dutch “model of multiculturalism” is a complete failure. However further examination reveals that this current backlash against multiculturalism is more of a symbol for a widely held discomfort caused by the realization that Islam has become an integral part of German society.”

Another interesting article by Mark Terkessidis argues

But there is something about their culture…

Anti-Vlaams Belang Poster

by Alana Lentin

Something happened the other day that exemplifies what we are trying to explore in Questioning the European ‘Crisis of Multiculturalism’. And though rather banal, it is the anecdotal expression of the way in which the ‘circuits of belief’ through which the purported dangerousness of ‘too much diversity’ functions.

Sussex University recently hosted a seminar on democracy and extremist parties given by a Belgian academic whose name is irrelevant to this discussion. The paper dealt with extremist parties mainly drawing on the case of the Belgian Vlaams Belang. The crux of the paper was that while everything must be done to ensure that such parties are excluded from the realm of mainstream (and it was assumed, democratic) politics, the reasons for why so many people are attracted by them should be taken seriously.

“Meet the Immigrants” and crisis coverage

Promo for the BBC's White Season

by Gavan Titley

This is an extended version of a review of the BBC/Open University series ‘Meet the Immigrants’ that I published recently in the journal Translocations.

Yolanta Bikova, a Latvian explorer in Lyme Regis, has no real problem with the BBC/Open University camera that tracks her self-conscious moves. Creeping up to a manicured green she beckons the camera to look over her shoulder at the dollop of fantasia she has discovered; scones, lawn bowls and starched linens. Her arch reaction is suggestive; viewers might be meeting the immigrants, but who is the England/Britain that is doing the meeting?