Commemorating Defeats · 24 February 2008, 14:50 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Odd as it may seem that the battle of Kosovo of 1389, during which a ‘Serbian’ army was defeated by an army led by Ottoman Sultan Murad on the Kosovo Polje, plays such prominent a role in the Serbian, ethnic tradition, it is not a unique phenomenon. In his ‘Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity’ Anthony D. Smith (Oxford and New York 2003, page 222) lines up three, similar examples of defeats that are treated as defining moments by the defeated ethnic or religious groups in question instead of being smuggled away as something to be ashamed of:
Smith also provides us with an explanation for this phenomenon: ’(...) [D]efeats and, we might add, exile impose obligations more than victories. As important, they provide models for the interpretation of later defeats and persecutions.’
anthony d. smith,
avarayr,
battle of kosovo,
chosen peoples,
ethnic tradition,
karbala,
kosovo,
kosovo polje,
serbia
Headscarf and Miniskirt · 28 November 2007, 23:13 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Being an inhabitant of Rotterdam, a city in the Netherlands with large Moroccan and Turkish muslim communities, it is hard for me to perceive the headscarf simply as an expression of piety or chastity, as young Rotterdam muslimahs often combine their hijabs with make-up and fashionable, tight jeans by which they reduce them to not much more than a religio-ethnic marker and a fashion item. Nonetheless, I was a little surprised by the outfit of a young woman which I saw in the Rotterdam metro this morning. Although on balance it didn’t looked trashy at all the length of her skirt, which she combined with black, transparent tights, seemed fairly at odds with the fact that she was wearing a headscarf. As it ended at least 10 centimeters above her knees and as she measured about 1.65 m one could easily call it miniskirt. However, I don’t think I’ve witnessed a harbinger of a cultural revolution this morning. Because when she left the carriage she desperately tried to pull her skirt towards her knees and as such she seemed very uncomfortable with it. It wouldn’t surprise me, therefore, if it ended up as cleaning-rag.
ethnic marker,
headscarf,
hijab,
islam,
miniskirt,
moroccan,
muslim,
muslimah,
netherlands,
rotterdam,
turkish
An Aryan Nose · 6 May 2007, 13:43 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In his highly influential ‘classic’ of scientific racism ‘The Passing of the Great Race; or, The racial basis of European history’ (1916) eugenicist Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) described the Nordic phenotype as follows:
After World War I and World War II scientific racism lost favor respectively in the U.S. and Europe. Nonetheless, I was confronted with its influence more than ninety years after ‘The Passing of the Great Race’ was written as I visited Kemer, a hyper touristic seaside resort in the Turkish province of Antalya last week. During a walk on the Liman Caddesi (Port Avenue) to the local marina with two fellow travellers, both Hindustani from the Netherlands whose parents were born in Surinam, we were waylaid by a somewhat fuddled, middle-aged guy who presented himself as the owner of a restaurant we were passing by. (As another guy in front of the same restaurant was accosting passers-by too, it is more likely they were both just promoters of the restaurant.) To start a conversation with us, he asked where we came from. He himself was a fourty year old Palestinian, he told us. Out of sheer cussednessy my fellow travellers, who had been addressed several times with ‘Hello India!’, had made it a rule to answer the question ‘Where are you from’ with ‘Pakistan’ or ‘Bangladesh’. This time they claimed to be from Pakistan. As ‘our’ guy learned this he feigned astonishment and replied to one of the two, while pointing at his nose: ‘but you have an Aryan nose!’
An ‘Aryan nose’ – how should I value his qualification of my fellow traveller’s nose? Unfortunately, after being harassed several times already by obtrusive shopkeepers the urge to end the conversation as soon as possible was bigger than my curiosity. Therefore I didn’t took the trouble to respond on it. Afterwards several questions came up in me: was his qualification part of an elaborate, racist worldview and if so: where did he got this worldview from? Furthermore, as he presented himself as a Palestinian, I couldn’t help wondering if this worldview somehow influenced his thinking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? (Assuming he has an opinion about the conflict.) This wouldn’t be strange as in modern European anti-semitism Jews were considered completely different from the ‘Aryan race’ and the Nazi’s thought it was possibly to distinguish a Jew from an Aryan by, among other things, looking at the shape of their noses. Off course, any attempt to answer these questions is pure speculation. Nevertheless, at least a vestige of scientific racism unmistakably and ominously figured in the guy’s mind.
antalya,
anti-semitism,
hindustani,
kemer,
madison grant,
nordic race,
passing of the great race,
racism,
scientific racism
On Populism in the Netherlands · 23 April 2007, 20:38 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Two interesting statements both dealing with populism in the Netherlands I came upon in respectively last Saturday’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC handelsblad and in Dutch weekly newsmagazine De Groene Amsterdammer (April 20, 2007, number 16, ‘Het Journalistendrama’, pages 24-26):
To start with, a statement by Bas Heijne in his column in NRC Handelsblad. In it Heijne argues that further European integration requires that nationalism, which is going through a rebirth in the Netherlands, shouldn’t be repressed but instead should be given some space. For nationalists and populists only gain from attempts to thwart them, from what he calls ‘the mysophobia of a not understanding elite which deems every trace of nationalism a form of treachery and every form of regionalism a form of backwardness’.
Secondly, a statement by Pieter van Os. According to Van Os the following rethoric figure of speech has become popular in the Netherlands lately: ‘It might be that everybody says B, but I say A, although only few would impugn A. That is: take a fashionable stance and then claim that you’re brave enough to do so, against the stream.’
bas heijne,
european integration,
nationalism,
netherlands,
pieter van os,
populism
Dutch Identity and Boundaries · 31 October 2006, 21:37 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In his ‘The Ethnic Origins of Nations’ Anthony D. Smith, Professor of Ethnicity and Nationalism at the London School of Economics, defines ‘ethnie’ (‘ethnic communities’) as ‘named human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity’ (paperback edition, Cambridge, 1996, page 32). What matters here is the ‘shared histories’-component of this definition, which ‘unites successive generations’ and provides ‘channels and moulds’ for the interpretation of ‘later experiences’. (page 25-26) For at present it’s history that is paramount in the process of reshaping Dutch identity.
On 1 September 2005 Dutch Minister of Education, Culture & Science Maria van der Hoeven established the ‘Committee for the Development of the Dutch Canon’ which she charged to compose a historical canon for the Netherlands to provide in a new ‘narrative of the Netherlands’ (‘verhaal Nederland’). On 16 October 2006 the committee, led by the renowned Dutch Professor of Humanities at Utrecht University Frits van Oostrom, presented its report to the Minister. As was to be expected the report didn’t turn out to be some bombastic, nationalistic monstrosity, ‘a vehicle for national pride (...)’ as, for example, the Dutch part in the slave trade to the New World and ‘the abuses of the Dutch colonial administration in the Dutch East Indies’ have become important components of the canon. Furthermore, as it befits present-day scholars the committee stresses that the canon must not be treated as ‘a mausoleum, but a living heritage’. But although the committee clearly isn’t a bunch of heated nationalists, the apparent need for and creation of a national, historical canon is yet another expression of the rediscovery and recreation of Dutch, national identity.
In a posting of April 25, 2006 I pointed to ’[i]mmigration related problems, 9/11, the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, the threat of economic decline, globalization, the steady growing influence of the EU and its incorporation of new member states’ as probable causes for this rediscovery. However, I failed to mention the explanatory, theoretical framework which lies beneath these causes. People who are only slightly familiar with ‘Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Cultural Difference’ (1969), the ground-breaking work edited by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth, must have recognized the mechanism at work in the Netherlands immediately. In this book a stand was made against the paradigmatic view that ethnicity was in most cases something of isolated groups which were not affected by outside influences. On the contrary, ethnicity is important in the ‘border regions’ between groups of people. Because this is where the group interests are at stake and social cohesion is at its weakest and, as consequence, ethnic borderlines are drawn and clear-cut definitions of ethnic identities come into being.
Let’s return to the Netherlands and Dutch identity. How does the above expounded theory explains the recreation of Dutch identity? First of all, considerable groups of non-western immigrants with pronounced own identities have settled in the Netherlands since the 1970s and immigration related problems have become a major issue to the Dutch. The murder of Theo van Gogh by Mohammed Bouyeri, a radical Muslim and a second generation migrant from Morocco, and the 9/11 attacks on the WTC added to existing tensions between the autochtonous Dutch and the immigrant groups, especially those from Turkey and Morocco. Likewise globalization, the growing weight and influence of the EU and the admission of new member states to the EU furthered the idea that the continued existence of the Netherlands is under threat and that Dutch identity is about to perish. So competing identities have cannoned against Dutch identity and as a consequence the urge to restate Dutch identity has emerged.
anthony d. smith,
barth,
canon,
dutch identity,
ethnic identity,
ethnicity,
fortuyn,
fredrik barth,
globalization,
identity,
immigration,
nationalism,
netherlands,
pim fortuyn,
theo van gogh
'The American Museographic Delirium' · 6 October 2006, 23:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
‘Anti-anti-Americanist’ Bernard-Henri Lévi interviewed by Menno de Galan in today’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (page 35).
Bernard-Henri Lévi, The American Museographic Delirium, Historical Identity
Dutch Identity in Advertising (2) · 26 May 2006, 11:48 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In a previous entry I wrote about the rediscovery of Dutch identity, ‘which has taken a more exclusive shape this time’ and which ‘subtly pervaded the world of advertising too’. As an example of this I took the text on a pack of milk of Dutch Dairy producer Campina. Another strong example is a tv commercial of Unilever brand Glorix (bleach). The commercial, on Dutch tv since last year, starts with a scene with a Dutch truck driver driving through Paris. Apparently the driver really needs to do a number two, but he refuses to stop to visit a local toilet. Almost at the end of the commercial we see the driver sitting greatly relieved on a toilet in the Netherlands, just past the border with Belgium.
After this scene a short message appears on the screen, which explains the behaviour of the truck driver: "Glorix’s thickest (bleach) ever. The Dutch security of hygienic clean" The message is clear: only toilets in the Netherlands can be trusted. The commercial leaves aside that this Unilever product is sold under various brand names (Glorix, Domex, Domestos and Klinex) in 35 countries all over the world and, as the Unilever website claims, ‘the number 1 or 2 bleach in 9 countries (Croatia, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, South Africa)’. For the time being the commercial can be downloaded here.
Ayaan In or Out - Towards an Ethnic, Dutch Identity · 24 May 2006, 15:58 CET by Charles Vermeulen
On 16 May a public opinion poll by Dutch market research company TNS NIPO showed that 67% of the Dutch hold the view that Ayaan Hirsi Ali (/ Magan) should give up her Dutch citizenship as came home to them that the Member of Parliament has lied about her identity and the story of her flight during her asylum request in 1992. How should this reaction be valued? Last week two NRC Handelsblad columnists came with similar explanations.
Last Saturday Bas Heijne stated that minister Verdonk and her spindoctor Kay Verlinden cleverly adapted to the racism of the Dutch voter to advance her chances to lead the Dutch right-wing party the VVD in the general election of 2007, when she decided to cancel the citizenship of her political associate Hirsi Ali. In her column in yesterday’s NRC Handelsblad (page 7) Elsbeth Etty describes the atmosphere in which Dutch minister of immigration Rita Verdonk came to her decision. One element in Etty’s reasoning is that, according to her, the Dutch are ‘partly backsliding into tribalism’ and that as such the Dutch are considering themselves more or less as a community of descent, of kinsmen. This would turn Dutch identity from a more juridically defined concept into one based on ethnicity.
If Heijne’s and especially Etty’s characterisation is correct, the poll reflects the fact that Dutch identity has become very exclusive. For this entails that immigrants in the Netherlands or their descendants can never become real Dutchmen as long as they can be identified as immigrants. In the case of Hirsi Ali this implies that she can never really become Dutch, because everybody knows that she has fled from a foreign (African) country. Furthermore the color of her skin makes it easy to identify her as an immigrant. As Heijne pointed out: it doesn’t matter that she fluently speaks Dutch and that she takes a hard (and popular) stance on the issue of integration of muslims in Dutch society. And it doesn’t matter that she graduated in Political Science at Leiden University barely ten years after her arrival. Ayaan Hirsi Ali will always remain an outsider.
Dutch Identity in Advertising · 25 April 2006, 07:45 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Immigration related problems, 9/11, the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, the threat of economic decline, globalization, the steady growing influence of the EU and its incorporation of new member states – all are responsible for the rise of a strong right wing movement in the Netherlands and the rediscovery and redefining of their identity by the Dutch. Although the rediscovered Dutch identity still reflects a moderate form of nationalism, it has taken a more exclusive shape this time. As such it subtly pervaded the world of advertising too as the following text on a milk pack of Dutch Dairy producer Campina shows:
The Dutch text can be translated into English as follows: ‘Dutchmen are genuine milk drinkers. Campina milk is a homegrown quality product. That’s all the more tasty!’ Note that I translated the Dutch words ‘van eigen bodem’ into ‘homegrown’ But the following, more literal translation better preserves the nationalistic connotation: ‘from our own soil’.
Patrick J. Geary on Nations and Nationalism · 21 October 2004, 10:58 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Reading Patrick J. Geary’s The Myth of Nations. The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton and Oxford 2002) I came upon the following paragraph, which I thought worthwhile quoting, because it so adequately summerizes a view on nations and nationalism which is common coin among sociologists, anthropologists and also among lots of historians nowadays and which deserves far more attention in this in which violent nationalism and xenophobia are still omnipresent:
ethnic nationalism,
europe,
geary,
nationalism,
patrick j. geary,
pseudoscience,
xenophobia