Racism in the Netherlands: the world is watching

This article is a modification for English-speaking readers of the Dutch original which was published a few days ago on the Dutch website Wijblijvenhier, where it was received with over 1800 Facebook-likes within a little over 24 hours.

By Tariq Shadid – All of a sudden, racism in the Netherlands has become a subject of regular and open debate. It’s about time! A decade of intensive hate campaigns in media, politics and entertainment aimed at people whose origin is from Islamic countries, has so far been unable to ignite such a debate, despite its urgency and importance.

It’s an important development, and a good thing that 2013 has become the year wherein the topic of Dutch racism has become the subject of international scrutiny, but it is quite telling that it took criticism from abroad for things to come that far.

The ‘Black Pete’ issue has been criticized for years, but it had so far remained an internal Dutch affair, which enabled the dominant sections of society to keep up the appearance that this shocking tradition is anything but racist. Supported by the majority vote, critics were told to ‘stop whining’, and that was that. Quinsy Gario, of Caribbean origin, was beaten up in 2011 by the police for wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Black Pete is Racism’, and though this raised a few eyebrows, it barely managed to cause any serious commotion.

However, in the past few years, an increasing number of articles and blogs in the English language appeared on the internet, written by foreigners who had spent some time in the Netherlands, and had witnessed the appearance of ‘Blackface’ everywhere in the country at the beginning of the Christmas holiday season. To their shock and disapproval, they had found that in the eyes of the majority of the Dutch population, this was seen as nothing but big fun, and completely acceptable. More information about ‘Zwarte Piet’ can be found here.

As condemnation of the yearly ‘Blackface’ tradition slowly grew abroad, this year it finally came snowballing down upon the Netherlands, including criticism from the United Nations. The image of Holland, widely seen as a nation with a ‘tolerant society’, suffered a serious blow. The xenophobic obsessions of of Dutch anti-Islam and racist politician Geert Wilders, although widely supported in the Netherlands, had so far failed to tarnish this reputation of tolerance, despite its extremist far-right agenda.

While foreign criticism had forced the ‘Black Pete’ issue into a topic of national debate, another issue came up that further fanned the flames of discussion about racism. Dutch artist ‘Gordon’ was unlucky enough that Chinese candidate Xiao Wang in the televised show ‘Holland Got Talent’ had insufficient knowledge of the Dutch language, for which reason his interview was held in English. Had the interview been held in Dutch, it would most likely not have caused any commotion. As usual, Asians in the Netherlands would have felt insulted but would have remained silent, while true anti-racists in the Netherlands – because these exist as well – would undoubtedly have been angered, at the most resulting in a few angry blogs on the topic.

Unfortunately for Gordon, the way that he poured out his degrading and insulting China-jokes over the Asian vocalist – in a joking manner and style which is quite common in the Netherlands – caused international uproar in the English-speaking blogosphere, and met with wide and unforgiving condemnation. The Asian community in the Netherlands also responded to the uproar, and started a Facebook page.

Apparently, in the Netherlands many people are unaware that in this day and age, the civilized world has been attempting not to intensify, but to curb ethnic discrimination, albeit step by step. Last year, a debate was held in Parliament, initiated by Geert Wilders, which shamelessly was named ‘Debate on Moroccans’. The fact that all political parties – including the left wing – agreed to participate in a debate about ethnic minorities among the population under that title illustrates that in the Netherlands, ethnic profiling is an issue that is widely accepted in Dutch society, and rises far above the level of behavior of the police force in the streets, or employers in the job market. I will leave it up to sociologists to explain why Holland is lagging so far behind the rest of the Western world when it comes to such issues, but a few general observations on institutionalized racism must be made.

First of all, what is going on reflects the attitude of the majority among the Dutch population regarding racism.  It is part of Dutch culture to be very critical of racism, but apparently the way out for still entertaining xenophobic emotions is to resort to simple and outright denial. Practically all racist phenomena that exist in society are called ‘not racist’,  in order to grant them legitimacy. ‘This is not racism, it’s merely a joke (about Gordon). This is not racism, it’s merely a children’s festivity (about Black Pete). This is not racism, it’s just the hypersensitivity of the other (about general racism).’ Or this one, that is most commonly heard when it comes to Black Pete: ‘I have never associated the figure of Black Pete with a person of African descent’.

This, for years, has been the Dutch way of dealing with racism: simply denying its existence on Dutch soil. The national self-image of the Netherlands is completely out of touch with reality, through this reflex of denial. Naturally, this is not a good way to deal with racism. When you deny racism, it increases. It is given a chance to sneak into the prevalent world view of the population, and becomes an integral part of it, thereby becoming more difficult to eradicate.

Secondly, it reflects the way in which those who have been subjected to racism over the years, have been handling it. Until now – with the exception of individual cases – in most cases, silent acceptance is chosen. Silence also is a form of denial, especially when expressed in the form of: ‘I know, of course, it’s just a little joke’. Naturally, this response is counter-productive. Through this mechanism, both the perpetrator and the victim of racism are actively maintaining  the norm of denial of racism. It is therefore of great importance that those who are victimized by racism, speak out.

This directly relates to the third issue, which is that the interaction between these first two behavioral patterns creates a mechanism whereby those who wish to defend themselves against racist expressions or treatment, become the ones who get the blame. Since the norms of society dictate that ‘there is no racism’, the one who calls it becomes seen as the one causing the upheaval, instead of the one who perpetrated it. No wonder that in the majority of the cases, the victim chooses to be silent about it, which completes the vicious cycle that is keeping things exactly the way they are.

None of these mechanisms described above are uniquely present only in the Netherlands, but they do exist there in quite an emphasized way, which may be part of the explanation why things are going the way they are now.

‘I’ve taken a look at it, it’s nothing. First of all, he has a dark skin color, a negro.’ This email about dark-skinned job applicant Jeffrey Koorndijk, that was sent by accident to him instead of to the company manager, was leaked into the blogosphere, exposing ‘Mike de Wilde Electronics‘ to Dutch society in a very negative way. Of course, in this case, denial of racism was no option, which is why it met with widespread denunciation. However, it is not only blundering employee Ruben Willemsen who thinks and acts this way, but the way a significant portion of Dutch society is operating. Anyone in the Netherlands who has a dark color of skin, or an ‘exotic look’  by Dutch standards, or even a foreign name, is well aware of this. A positive exception to the mainstream Dutch culture of denial came from Youp van ‘t Hek, a stand-up performer, who wrote in his most recent blog: “We’re just a racist little country, whether we like it or not.”

The great silence, however, seems to be coming to a halt now that the outside world has started to poke its nose into these issues. The Netherlands was widely ridiculed and criticized over ‘Black Pete’ and the anti-Asian remarks of Gordon, mostly by the international internet community, and no words were minced over it. Gordon, in the mean time, after the backlash, has made it even more impossible to characterize his remarks as a ‘joke’. On the radio, he refused to apologize for his remarks, saying: “Here in the Netherlands, we have already allowed ourselves to be run over by everything and everyone. We have accepted everything … everyone can speak freely, everyone can live here, everyone can stay here, everyone is welcome here. But don’t start messing with our traditions, don’t tell us what we can and cannot say, just because I crack a joke about some Chinese.”

Well, well, Gordon. It almost seems as if he is saying: mocking the Chinese is part of ‘our traditions’, and whoever criticizes that should feel lucky that he is being ‘accepted’. He could barely have illustrated more clearly that his ‘jokes’ indeed were meant as a form of exclusion. Gordon, with these remarks, is basically defending discrimination, Dutch style. A style that is very selective, because in the Netherlands you can freely make such stereotyping jokes about Muslims, about dark-skinned people, and about Asians, but don’t even think of making them about Jews.

Any Dutch person challenged on this subject should simply be invited to imagine that the Holland Got Talent candidate had been Jewish, and that a jury member would have made stereotypical jokes about him. And any Dutch person knows that in that case, the entire society would have come down on that jury member, and would have condemned him in the most forceful terms imaginable. The connection that they often fail to make, however, is that doing that to a Chinese person is just as wrong and disrespectful as doing that to a Jewish person, and that making such a distinction is already racist in itself.

Gordon’s knee-jerk response to the criticism typifies how many Dutch people have responded to criticism of their Black Pete tradition. Despite the fact that this tradition is a heritage from an age of slavery and racism, they feel that such criticism constitutes an attack upon their cultural identity. In defending this cultural identity, any critic is subject to fierce attacks, threats and vilification, such as the brave Dutch singer Anouk, who unflinchingly went heads on against a massive Dutch pro-Black Pete campaign, and was lambasted and scolded (‘nigger-bitch’) for having the nerve to do so.

The Netherlands is obviously in need of the influence of outsiders, in order to solve its own problems with racism. This healing process has now finally begun, and should be encouraged. The dominant section of society has proven to be completely insensitive to the outcries of inside criticism of its racist standards, whether expressed by ethnic minorities or by those brave lone rangers from the ranks of the indigenous population. However, they have proven to be relatively sensitive to criticism from other parts of the Western World. An increase in outside involvement through the various existing means of media expression can therefore be instrumental in helping the Netherlands live up to its widespread image of ‘tolerance’; an image that, at least in current times, it is undeserving of.