Holland for foreigners: Can’t you take a racist joke?

Peter Breedveld

Lately the Netherlands has made international headlines with disturbing accounts of blatant racism. It began with the controversy around Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), the Dutch version of blackface and Golliwogg. A hundred fifty year old December tradition, largely unimpaired all this time until two years ago, when a peaceful protester against Zwarte Piet, Quinsy Gario, was violently arrested by the police for wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Zwarte Piet is racism’, after which a heated national debate followed, made up of, for a large part, racist slurs and even death threats, and in which even the United Nations got involved.

Now the international media are shocked by the fact that a popular entertainer and jury member of ‘Holland’s Got Talent‘ seemingly gets away with making rude, racist jokes about a contestant of Chinese descent – on national television.

Institutionalized racism

A month ago the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance published a report about racism in the Netherlands. It stated that there was a great deal of institutionalized racism, fed by both mainstream politicians and the national media. The nation was shocked! The Minister of Social Affairs, Lodewijk Asscher, hurriedly stated – again and again – that the Netherlands is not a racist country. But a growing population of ethnic minorities begs to differ. People of Surinamese, Caribbean, Moroccan, Turkish, Indonesian, Asian en African descent state that yes, racism is institutionalized in the Netherlands and it is time for the establishment – consisting mainly of white middle aged men and a few women – to wake up and smell the coffee.

How can this be? How can a reputedly tolerant country like the Netherlands, international forerunner in the battle against Apartheid and all other kinds of racism, sexism, homophobia, suddenly turn out to be a breeding ground for racism, a carnival of prejudice and callous discrimination, obsessed even with ethnicity and skin colour?

Murder of Theo van Gogh

Well, I have some disturbing news: the Netherlands have never been an overly tolerant country – especially where ethnic minorities are concerned. But until the end of the nineties this intolerance was heavily suppressed by both the authorities and the media. Racist slurs where severely punished, not only by way of legal sanctions, but also by social exclusion. There was a political party that tried to address – in a mild way, by today’s standards – some perceived problems related to immigration from the former Dutch colonies and from Muslim countries like Turkey and Morocco, but this party didn’t have broad support in society and its members were treated like Pariahs, ridiculed and ostracized.

This all started to change with the fatwa on Salman Rushdie in 1987, the growing friction between the Dutch Muslim population and the non-Muslims, 9/11, the spectacular rise and dramatic murder, by a left-wing extremist, of Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn, who was very outspoken against Muslims and the murder, by a Muslim extremist, of satirist Theo van Gogh, known for his jabs at Muslims, and of course the rise of the most racist political party this country has seen since the Second World War, Geert Wilders’ PVV.

Floating negroes

The taboo on racism was now labelled as ‘political correctness’ and political correctness is the Devil. Problems have to be ‘identified’ now, people are pressed not to ‘look away’ from these problems, ethnicity has to be recognized as a factor when rising crime is concerned, multicultural society has to be declared a failure, and compulsively so.

The result is an explosion of extremely aggressive racism in the Netherlands since the early 2000s. It’s as if people had been restraining themselves for two, three decades and finally were able to express the vitriolic bile they had been saving up for so many years. The Internet helped, too. One of the most popular websites in this country is GeenStijl, which began as a politically incorrect satirist web magazine but soon developed into an online Stürmer of explicit racism, attacking ‘parasitic blacks’ and immigrants, Muslims who ‘breed like rabbits’, publishing lists of ’traitors’ who try to bring nuance back into the debate and who believe harmony in a multi ethnic society is indeed possible. Aid to developing countries is labelled ‘la la money for little negroes’, the victims of a shipwreck before the coast of Italy, all African refugees who drowned tragically, are called ‘floating negroes’.

Ridiculed and dehumanized

GeenStijl is owned by the Telegraaf Media Group, which also publishes De Telegraaf, the biggest newspaper in the Netherlands and a treasure-trove of inciting stories about parasitic and criminal immigrants, scary Muslims and the left-wing policy makers who made the Netherlands into the – according to some – multicultural hell hole it is today.

GeenStijl spawned a new broadcasting company called PowNed, paid for with tax payer’s money, broadcasting a programme on public television, PowNews, in which black people and other ethnic minorities are ridiculed and dehumanized night after night.

This style of journalism is hailed by the nation’s intellectuals as a ‘new refreshing approach’. One popular Dutch columnist wrote that PowNews is comparable to ‘film noir‘. One of the Netherlands’ quality papers, the leftist, Christian daily Trouw, appointed GeenStijl as the one true heir of Dutch philosopher and godfather of Enlightenment, Baruch Spinoza.

Why shouldn’t we call a black woman a Niggabitch?

This should come as no surprise to any Netherlands watcher. Two years ago the American singer Rihanna took offence at being called a ‘niggabitch‘ in a Dutch women’s magazine and some representatives of the Dutch intellectual elite reacted like it was their God-given right to call a black woman a niggabitch. ‘Only American neuropaths think we are racist’, according to one of them.

Making fun of Asians and people of colour has always been mainstream entertainment in the Netherlands. There is a television programme called Ushi (Japanese for ‘cow’) in which a white woman is disguised like what is supposedly meant to be a Japanese (although she does not look or act like anything near a Japanese). The same woman also dresses up like a woman of African Caribbean descent for laughs. It is extremely embarrassing but anyone criticizing this hugely popular show, is put aside for being a dullard. ‘Douchy’ would be a better name for the show.

Racism is obligatory

Racism is fashionable these days. It is even obligatory. When it turned out that one of the biggest Dutch stand-up comedians, Theo Maassen, didn’t have any jokes at the cost of Muslims in his latest show, he had to explain himself during a cross examination in the most important talk show on Dutch public television for maintaining the ’taboo on insulting Muslims’. The next day he was condemned in most of the Dutch papers, the so-called quality papers as well. Or rather: especially the so-called quality papers. You may think I am exaggerating but I am not.

Anyone who points out this racism, anyone who dares to speak about it in public, is immediately villainized, first on GeenStijl and then in the papers. He or she is accused of something, a misdemeanor or even a crime, or something he wrote or said is twisted and quoted out of context, his photo and contact information (preferably that of his employer’s) are published – after which the dissenter receives hundreds of threats by mail and by phone, and he is being slandered with his employer, in an obvious effort to get him fired and to discourage anyone who might consider speaking out against racist tendencies in the Dutch media.

Pretty benign

So if you think those racist jokes by that jury member of Holland’s Got Talent are an exception – they are not. It’s even pretty benign compared to the crap ethnic minorities have to endure every single day, all under the guise of ‘signalling the problems of a multi-ethnic society’. Racism is our patriotic duty and that jury member, whose name is Gordon by the way – he is just the patsy.

Peter Breedveld is a Dutch journalist writing about diversity and racism in the Netherlands. For this and for having a Moroccan-Dutch girlfriend he is threatened and slandered on a daily basis. He keeps this website at great personal cost. You might consider supporting him with a donation: bank account number NL59 RABO 0393 4449 61 (N.P. Breedveld, Rabobank Rijswijk), SWIFT BIC RABONL2U.