Sidebar: The Dutch Model
Why is the NewYorker's site so unsatisfying? Okay, in my hands I am holding a paper version of the April 3 New Yorker magazine. And it's got a fascinating article by Jane Kramer about "The Dutch Model," which she argues creates alienated communities of muslims.
The Dutch Model is, to simplify things, a model on which people live and let live. Homogenous pillars are created within Dutch society--a Catholic pillar, a prodestant pillar, a whores and dope pillar... and Dutch people don't have to like or be similar to one another, they just have to tolerate the fact that the other pillars exist when in a shared space.
This is why it feels completely natural to light up a big ol' blunt in some parts of Amsterdam, while in other neighborhoods you can feel the quiet scorn oozing out of people. You can still do it, but you are in the wrong place and must be actively tolerated, you tourist.
Guest workers from Turkey (to oversimplify) were encouraged not to assimilate. Rather, they were encouraged to form a muslim pillar. This creates, as this first wave of guest workers creates generations of Dutch-born/Muslim-pillar youth who do not have a physical homeland (like Turkey) in mind that they are replicating, a big alienated rotten tooth in the mouth that is Amsterdam/Rotterdam/etc.
Why? There is no shared space, no shared sense of values, no common cause. (again, this is an oversimplification). From the Dutch perspective, the most important value is tolerance and multiculturalism. But this tolerance is based on rules that must be unspoken in order to work. A fair and welcoming impulse turns into disdain and neglect through bad translation.
Why is the NewYorker's site so unsatisfying? Okay, in my hands I am holding a paper version of the April 3 New Yorker magazine. And it's got a fascinating article by Jane Kramer about "The Dutch Model," which she argues creates alienated communities of muslims.
The Dutch Model is, to simplify things, a model on which people live and let live. Homogenous pillars are created within Dutch society--a Catholic pillar, a prodestant pillar, a whores and dope pillar... and Dutch people don't have to like or be similar to one another, they just have to tolerate the fact that the other pillars exist when in a shared space.
This is why it feels completely natural to light up a big ol' blunt in some parts of Amsterdam, while in other neighborhoods you can feel the quiet scorn oozing out of people. You can still do it, but you are in the wrong place and must be actively tolerated, you tourist.
Guest workers from Turkey (to oversimplify) were encouraged not to assimilate. Rather, they were encouraged to form a muslim pillar. This creates, as this first wave of guest workers creates generations of Dutch-born/Muslim-pillar youth who do not have a physical homeland (like Turkey) in mind that they are replicating, a big alienated rotten tooth in the mouth that is Amsterdam/Rotterdam/etc.
Why? There is no shared space, no shared sense of values, no common cause. (again, this is an oversimplification). From the Dutch perspective, the most important value is tolerance and multiculturalism. But this tolerance is based on rules that must be unspoken in order to work. A fair and welcoming impulse turns into disdain and neglect through bad translation.
posted by fisher6000 at 5:37 PM
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