An anthropology of Muslims in Europe - A modest attempt by Martijn
The trial against Geert Wilders for insulting groups and incitement to hatred is still going on. Last week we saw the testimonies of supporters of Geert Wilders: Hans Jansen, Amina Wudud and Simon Admiraal. This week the prosecutors will deliver their sentencing plea.
Of het nu Trouw, GPD-bladen zoals ED, De Limburger en Stentor, of NU.nl, AD, Spitsnieuws, Parool, DePers, Wereldomroep, Telegraaf, en Elsevier allemaal hebben ze de kop ‘Deskundigen steunen Wilders’ of varianten daarop. Nou hebben Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal en Syrisch-Amerikaanse psychiater Wafa Sultan best wat te melden over islam en moslims, in feite zijn het pseudo-wetenschappelijke charlatans op dit gebied. En de journalisten doen het niet beter.
UPDATE: 4 October 2010: Wilders in Court
After several pre-trial hearings the court case against Wilders will finally start today. Here I look back at the hearing with Wafa Sultan and think aloud about the implications of this trial with regard to rhetoric and mobilizing people, freedom, responsibility and power.
Ramdas maakt gehakt van PVV-stemmers en bestempelt ze in feite tot racistisch en fascistisch blank uitschot dat gevoed wordt door allerlei populistische praat en media. Volgens Zwagerman duwt hij met dergelijk denigrerend taalgebruik autochtone burgers juist richting de PVV en zou hij dus mede verantwoordelijk zijn (en met hem links want Ramdas’ stuk symboliseert de verlegenheid van links met de PVV) de radicalisering van autochtone burgers. Waar Zwagerman dus Ramdas’ uitlatingen ziet als aanjager voor radicalisering, wijst Ramdas erop dat het eigenlijk toch gewoon de hedendaagse cultuur is. Beide opvattingen zijn weer simplistisch en onjuist.
The visual features of much of the modern mass media is important in understanding the use of films for distributing ones messages and signify a trend in which politics and public debate are not only about verbal arguments but also about visual narrative representations. The visual message literally makes visible the preferred perspective, while obscuring potential alternatives. In a compelling campaign the verbal and visual messages are carefully constructed and interact with social and cultural environments in ways which maximize their acceptance. At the same time given the ambiguity of visual communication the visual narrative is also vague and broad enough to enable to interpret the message in their own way. Here there examples: Wilders from the Netherlands, Swedish Democrats and Ground Zero.
Discrimination on the Dutch labour market is a reality. Why do some Dutch employers prefer to take on Mark as an employee rather than Mohammed? For this study the SCP interviewed 106 recruitment officers about their selection behaviour. The study also investigates whether any trends in discrimination can be observed, and if so, how they can be explained. A recurrent part of the Monitor also involves the compiling of an inventory of complaints and rulings about labour market discrimination.
‘Why did you become anti-Islamic and what is your message to Muslims? These questions were asked by Muslimsdebate.com to the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. In his reply, Mr Wilders de-scribes Islam as fatalist, tyrannical, violent and irrational and as such as the cause of the lack of de-mocracy and development in the Muslim World. Only by liberating themselves from their religion, he says, Muslims will be able to develop their real potential. Guest author Michel Hoebink responds by arguing that Wilders’ argument is a perfect sample of 19th century ‘orientalist’ rhetoric.
An increasing number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun to investigate the important shifts taking place in discourses of sexual freedom and gender equality across the continent. These shifts open up new arenas for ethnographic and other empirical research. What role do sex and gender play in various European nationalisms? In which cultural terms are sexual and gender boundaries articulated? What different trajectories can be discerned, and how can differences between countries be explained? What are the effects of these transformations at the level of the formation of community and subjectivity? How do these discursive shifts become tangible in everyday life? And how can sexual politics avoid the trap of exclusionary instrumentalization without renouncing its emancipatory promise? These and more questions will be addressed at the conference Sexual Nationalisms – Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe. More information here.
Orange Fever qualifies as a particular form of deep play in which the players are not just involved in a match stand stands for all those things mentioned above, but it is the game that gives people the capacity to give meaning to developments in current Dutch society.
Recently there are reports, again, about rising anti-semitism among Moroccan-Dutch youth. There has been talk about using ‘decoy-jews’ (lokjoden in Dutch) as to expose and arrest violent youth who according to some seem to think that anti-semitism has become socially acceptable. The police is also talking about using ‘decoy-gays’ in response to, apparently, also rising homophobia in Dutch society. In particular Moroccan-Dutch migrant youth are labelled as the perpetrators of these violence, while at the same there is some noise among migrant youth why violence against them receives less attention.
