Re: <nettime> Geert Wilders / Borders, borders, more borders

[Lennaart van Oldenborgh <nettlenn {AT} blueyonder.co.uk>]

hey, i'd LOVE to deport all our politicians and fascists groups - 
problem is: where to? who would accept them? Perhaps your Texan 
Christian fundamentalists would like a few more white psychos to make 
up the numbers?

you're right actually that Holland never faced up to its emperialist 
past (and present) and simply stay below the radar of most 
postcolonial discourse, but that's exactly the silver lining Patrice 
is talking about: at long last some of these debates are being paid 
attention to.

but finally: WHO really pretended that Holland was more liberal than 
it really was? I think this has been a skewed perception in much of 
the world for a long time. certainly when I was living in the USA in 
the late 80s people always mistook the fact that in Holland people 
openly sell soft drugs to tourists as somehow very permissive rather 
than simply opportunistic, whereas in reality the average soft drugs 
consumption is much lower than say the UK or the USA. similarly, the 
popularity in the USA of a book like The Diary of Anna Frank gave 
Holland the false reputation of having been "right on" in its efforts 
to protect its jewish population from the nazis, whereas in reality 
collaboration was rife: 90% of Dutch jews were deported, more than in 
any other european jewish population outside of poland.

the Dutch foreign ministry has probably never seen any reason to 
change these perceptions, but personally i've tried to contradict 
when i could. so let it be known: Holland is just as racist and 
messed up as all our other Judeo-Christian societies, and it's time 
we do something about it: i'm not so sure it will end up on the 
trashheap of history by itself.

Lennaart


At 6:47 am -0800 23/11/04, coco fusco wrote:

>To assume that ALL immigrants or ALL muslims must be targetted in order to
>deal with violent fundamentalists is PRECISELY the racist logic that right
>wing politicians are setting into stone with the blessing of liberals
>around the planet. Our Judeo-Christian societies are rocked by social ills
>because of the violence of your politicians and neo-fascist groups MORE
>than by Muslims but no one seeks to deport all skin heads or all grey
>suited politicos. Right wing politicians in Europe gain ground by
>appealing to the racist fears and sense of insecurity that poor whites
>threatened by privatization and globalization feel.
 <...>


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