Dutch Mosques
Dutch Mosques
Participants in the Dutch Heritage Field?
Kelly Boender
Student number: 10169164 kellyboender1992@gmail.com
0031 6 46 52 31 33 University of Amsterdam
First supervisor: Dr. Ihab Saloul Graduate School of Humanities
I.A.M.Saloul@uva.nl Master’s Thesis Heritage and Memory Studies
Second supervisor: Dr. Tamara van Kessel Number of words: 30.983
Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my two supervisors, Ihab Saloul and Tamara van Kessel, for helping me defining my subject more clearly and providing me with much-needed contextual advise. Without their insights, ideas and guidance this thesis would not have been possible. Secondly, I am very grateful to all the people who were willing to talk to me from their own experience. Lisette Breedveld, Mohssine Dahhan, Mehmet Yamali, Aron Eilander, Cees Mutsaerts and Hamdi Ozcan have generously provided me with their inspiring insights and thoughts. Our conversations have truly opened my eyes to the dynamics of inclusive and participatory heritage practices. Last but not least, I would like to thank my dear friends and family from the bottom of my heart, for without them I would not have been able to complete this thesis. Especially my parents, Susanne Deen, Michelle Boender and Thomas Warnaar have always been there for me when I needed a confidence-boost. Throughout the entire process they have never ceased to stimulate me with their clear minds, and when my thoughts were in a whir, they would help me to straighten them again. For this I am eternally grateful. This master’s thesis is the result of a topic that I chose from the heart. As I have always been interested in the connection between culture, heritage and minority inclusion, with the completion of this thesis my fascination for this quickly evolving area will not cease to exist. I am curious to see in what ways heritage will continue to develop as a ‘tool for social equality’ within societies. This development will undoubtedly have repercussions for heritage’s more traditional connotations of national pride and beauty, and it will be interesting to see these different views on heritage co-exist alongside each other. I believe that the completion of this master’s course is merely a starting point for many years of learning and discovering to come.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements... 3
Introduction... 6
Introduction and Research Question... 6
Heritage as a Concept... 7
History of Mosques in the Netherlands (1955-Present)...10
State of the Art and positioning of Research Question...12
Methodology and Chapter Division... 15
Chapter 1. The Course of Heritage Conceptualization in the Netherlands...19
1.1. Introduction... 19
1.2. Conceptualizing ‘Heritage’ in the Netherlands: from the Nineteenth until the Late-Twentieth Century... 19
1.3. Cultural Policy & Immigrant Integration Policy 1970s-2000s...22
1.3.1. From Multiculturalism to ‘Assimilationism’...24
1.3.2. Media-Influence within the Dutch Discourse on Islam & Muslims...27
1.4. Cultural Policy & International Heritage Conceptualization 1980s-Present...28
1.4.1. The Rise of Critical Heritage Studies...29
1.4.2. New Understandings of Heritage within Cultural Policy...30
1.5. The Twofold Nature of Heritage in the Netherlands...31
Chapter 2. Mosque-Inclusion within Official Dutch Heritage Structures...34
2.1. Introduction... 34
2.2. The National Monument Inventory... 34
2.3. The National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage...39
2.4. Hampering Factors... 43
Chapter 3. Mosque-Inclusion within the Museum Framework...47
3.1. Introduction... 47
3.2. Exhibition Mosque-Architecture in the Netherlands (2004-2005)...49
3.3. Exhibition The Mosque of Dongen (2016-2017)...51
3.3.1. Maximalist Approach VS Representing the ‘Other’...53
3.3.2. The Centre Focus: Contemporary Rites and Practices...54
3.3.3. The Social Benefits of the Museum Framework...56
Chapter 4. Mosque-Inclusion within Heritage Events...59
4.1. Introduction... 59
4.3. The Fatih Mosque’s Participation in Amsterdam’s 2016 Museum Night...63
4.3.1. Addressing Missing Perspectives... 64
4.3.2. Recognizing the Contested Layer of Memory & Identity...67
4.3.3. The Social and Economic Benefits of Heritage Participation...70
Conclusion... 74 Bibliography... 81 Literature... 81 Articles... 85 Online Sources... 86 Other Sources... 87 Interviews... 87 Images... 88
Introduction
Introduction and Research Question
In 2004, the English Heritage listing inspector Carol Ryan visited the East London mosque in London, England. The Bengali community residing in the city had built this mosque in 1985. After observing the mosque, inspector Ryan rendered the building ‘unlikely to meet the current criteria [of heritage], as defined by the Secretary of State, to be considered worthy of statutory listing in the future due primarily to its lack of architectural or aesthetic merit’.1 As a response, James Gard’ner stated in the
International Journal of Heritage Studies that despite the age of the East London Mosque, which
precluded it from statutory listing, the building nonetheless holds a special social importance. This, according to Gard’ner, relates to the fact that the mosque had been financed by, and purpose-built for the local Muslim community. ‘It is a physical expression of faith, utilising as it does Islamic architectural features with its bulbous dome and three minarets’ (Gard’ner 2004: 78) [See image I.]. According to Gard’ner, the listing criteria considered by the English Heritage listing inspectors, those of artistic merit or aesthetic quality, are both ‘subjective’ and ‘culturally charged’ measures of significance (Idem 87). Why would they not be adapted to the current social and multicultural circumstances of London’s present-day society?
Image I. The East London mosque in London
Over the past decades, the ‘subjective’ and ‘culturally charged’ aspects of heritage have become two central issues in political, cultural and scholarly debates on the topic. More than ever, in today’s pluralistic, multicultural societies, conceptualizing the criteria for heritage is no straightforward task. 1 Heritage listing inspector Carol Ryan quoted by James Maithland Gard’ner (2004).
The so-called fragmentation of Western societies, as their countries became more socially and culturally diverse, raised issues as to how to reflect this new heterogeneity in heritage selection, interpretation and management (Ashworth 2007: 2). In theory, heritage could be created and invented as the demands of contemporary societies change (Ashworth 2007: 6; Graham 2000: 18), but in practice, pluralistic ‘heritage product creation’ has stumbled upon resistance (Turnbridge & Ashworth 1996: 23). The example of the East London mosque highlights that mosques in Europe are unlikely to obtain a heritage status, i.e. to be listed on an official heritage list. This observation resonates with what one of my professors once mentioned in class, namely that Islamic culture ‘had not yet been properly ‘heritageized” in Europe. Since one of the most visible reifications of Islamic cultures2 in the
Netherlands is the mosque, I found myself inspired to research whether any of the hundreds of Dutch mosques had yet been labelled or recognised as ‘Dutch heritage’. And if so, which arguments pro or con heritage-enlistment of mosques related to that process? In order to answer these questions, I developed the following research question:
In what ways have heritage policies and heritage conceptualizations stimulated representations of Dutch mosques within Dutch heritage-structures, and what social, political, cultural and economic constraints or benefits relate to such ‘inclusive practices’?
Heritage as a Concept
In order to analyse mosques as participants within the Dutch heritage field, first the concept ‘ heritage’ needs to be explained. Simply put, heritage is not a ‘thing’, but refers to a set of attitudes to, and relationships with the past (Harrison 2013: 14). Stuart Hall defines heritage as the ‘whole complex of organizations, institutions and practices devoted to the preservation and presentation of culture and the arts and historical sites’ (Hall 1999: 3). The origins of heritage are linked to the nineteenth-century rise of ethno-nationalism and Romantic notions of ‘belonging’ to a place. In homogeneous nation-states, heritage came to function as the ‘raw material’ of national cohesion. Yet, in multicultural, heterogeneous circumstances these traditional values tend to become pivotal to culturally based conflicts (Turnbridge & Ashworth 1996: 32). Therefore, more recently the notion ‘heritage’ has been attributed the ability to function as a form of resistance to the homogeneous, nationalistic conceptualizations that once gave rise to the term (Ashworth 2007: 4).
In today’s Western societies, three types of arguments for heritage creation and maintenance can be detected. The first relates to heritage as a cultural resource which is valuable in itself and forms the basis for collection and display. Secondly, heritage is referred to as a political resource in the creation 2 I use ‘cultures’ in the plural, since several religious persuasions of Islam from a variety of countries have been established in the Netherlands over the past decades. For more information on the history of this development, see: Marcel Maussen, Constructing mosques. The Governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands (Amsterdam School for Social Science Research 2009).
or support of state- or group identities. And thirdly, heritage is appropriated as an economic resource supporting economic activities (Turnbridge & Ashworth 1996: 34; Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 228). Over the past decades, arguments relating to heritage’s ‘social relevance’ and its function as a ‘political resource’ have increasingly dominated discussions on heritage (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 16). In this thesis, the conceptualization of heritage as an ‘instrumental device to achieve social and economic policy objectives’ (Pendlebury 2015: 426), holds central to the analysis. As we will see, in the Netherlands, as well as in many other Western countries, there have been attempts by both amenity and government bodies to promote a greater inclusion of marginalised groups into the management process of heritage (Waterton et al 2006: 340). Gregory Ashworth describes this process of inclusion in the following (over-simplified) order: social goal – heritage policy – heritage place (Ashworth 2007: 72). This sequence highlights the importance of heritage policy engaging with certain social goals to achieve greater equality in heritage representation, crystalizing in a ‘heritage place’ that represents the cultural identity as well as the cultural memory of the marginalised group concerned. Yet, man’s perspectives on both the (social) needs of the present and the future are blurred and indistinct, and the field of his vision ‘is restricted to a highly selective view of a small fraction of possible pasts or envisaged futures’ (Graham 2000: 2). Hence, according to Brian Graham, the creation of suitable heritage policy and heritage place does not simply derive from certain social goals, since defining the ‘right’ goals is an arbitrary practice. Therefore, heritage selection can be done well or badly, it can be for the benefit, or at the cost, of few or many (Idem).
Notwithstanding the difficulties of creation ‘inclusive heritage’, many scholars have emphasized the importance of it. Over the centuries, the notion ‘heritage’ has been attached to a high social and political status, as well as economic benefits. Yet, this status is not easily obtained. Before certain ‘cultural products and events’ can be characterized and recognized by the public view as heritage, a certain setting is required, like a museum, a travel guide, a monument’s list and so on. Marlite Halbertsma and Marieke Kuipers coin this process the ‘meta-cultural operation of heritage creation’ (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 19-20). Within the parameters of the ‘meta-cultural operation’, Rodney Harrison theorizes a distinction between official and unofficial heritage frameworks. Official heritage, according to him, refers to professional heritage practices that are authorized by the state. These practices are anchored within society by some form of legislation or written charter (Harrison 2013: 14). For example, laws and policies on heritage, but also international conventions fall under this type of heritage. Unofficial heritage, on the other hand, refers to a broad range of practices that use the ‘language of heritage’, but are not recognised by official forms of legislation. This type of heritage manifests itself in ‘less conventional forms of buildings or objects but that are nonetheless significant to individuals or communities’ (Harrison 2013: 18). In some cases it happens that previously ‘unofficial’ becomes ‘official’ heritage when the state’s relationship to that heritage changes, or when particular objects, places and/or practices are recognised as heritage by the state (Idem 16).
Within the official and unofficial processes of heritage-creation, significant aspects constitute the questions who and what are involved in the process of ‘making’ heritage, and ‘where’ the process of heritage-production is located within contemporary societies (Harrison 2013: 32). Have official heritage structures yet included mosques? Have unofficial heritage structures done so? As we will see, mosques embody certain cultural-historical developments, and have brought with them various cultural, architectural and religious traditions. It is one of the objectives of this thesis to shed light on the question whether (un)official Dutch heritage structures have already meaningfully engaged with the cultural memory and the cultural identity of mosques in the Netherlands. If they have, one has to bear in mind that the engagement with subordinate cultures may stir conflicts between ethnic minorities and dominant majorities, disputing the right to define and manage the cultural heritage of the minority. At stake is the question who is to define cultural heritage and who should control stewardship and the benefits of cultural heritage (Silverman & Fairchild Ruggles 2007: 3).
Heritage professionals may find themselves performing their jobs within the precarious field of representing ‘the other’. Whether intended or not, in the process of representing mosques they could be unwillingly reiterating a distinction between the West and the East, or the ‘Occident’ and the ‘Orient’ (Said 1979: 10). Even when representations are said to embody historical ‘true knowledge’ or neutral objects and images, Edward Said reinstates in his famous work Orientalism that every representation is produced within ‘highly organized political circumstances’ (Idem 18). Representations produced by authorized or official heritage can become, or be perceived as, a form of social and political control. Besides, those gazed upon, or subjected to the governance of certain mentalities, are not passive and can and do use heritage in subversive and oppositional ways themselves (Smith 2006: 52). This goes to show that heritage, over the past decades, evolved into an important resource in challenging received identities and cultural or social values (Idem).
Lastly, it should be made clear that embedding contemporary mosques within Dutch heritage structures does not ‘change’ the nature of the mosque itself. The appointment of something being official or unofficial heritage most importantly relates to issues of recognition (Harrison 2013: 20). Heritage, as a ‘label’, can be apprehended to insist on the recognition of a person or community’s essential worth (Silverman & Fairchild Ruggles 2007: 5). Laurajane Smith emphasizes that although there is a ‘physical reality’ to heritage, any knowledge of it can only be understood within the discourses we construct about it. These heritage discourses are capable of giving validity and authority to the construction of (minority) identities. This is especially the case when the heritage in question has been recognized as ‘legitimate’ through state-sanctioned heritage management and conservation practices (Smith 2006: 50; 52). Thus, whereas unofficial heritage can grant recognition, official heritage is deemed to be a more effective tool in creating cultural inclusion of minority identities and
memories. In the case of the East London mosque, Gard’ner emphasized that inclusion on a local list could have been an effective way of recognising the building’s value as ‘environmental capital’ (Gard’ner 2004: 87). Enlistment of the mosque could have communicated the social and cultural value of the Bengalee community for the East Londen area to a wider public. Hence, the conservation of the historical environment is not merely concerned with the management of physical fabric but also exerts control over, and is capable of, creating cultural and social value and meaning (Pendlebury 2015: 431). The prohibited heritage-enlistment in the case of the East London mosque, in a way, forecloses any recognition of the mosque’s social and cultural meaning within its surroundings.
History of Mosques in the Netherlands (1955-Present)
During the first half of the twentieth century, Muslim immigrants were virtually non-existent in the Netherlands. Colonial migrants were either secularised elites who came to the Netherlands with the intention to be immersed in Dutch culture and education, or they came to work as maids or servants in family homes (Maussen 2009: 99). However, in 1955 a small community of Ahmadiyya Muslims in The Hague, who had come from (former) Dutch colonies, built the first mosque of the Netherlands in an empty villa in The Hague (Idem 124). After the mosque’s community moved into the building, the outside of the building hardly showed any architectural features of a mosque [see image II.].
Image II. The Mobarak Mosque in March 1956
In the 1960s, a cultural revolution paved the way for secularization and individualization in the Netherlands. This period also entailed a turning point in migration history (Spiecker & Steutel 2001: 295). Throughout the 1960s until well into the 1970s, economic development and growing prosperity encouraged an influx of guest workers who filled the vacancies in the unskilled and lower skilled sectors of the Dutch labour market. The Dutch government stimulated private companies to attract these workers and to provide in their necessary facilities (Maussen 2009: 122). Later on, from the 1970s onwards, social migration such as family reunion and marriages replaced economic migration (Knippenberg 2006b: 325). In the bigger cities there were clear signs that a process of settlement of
immigrants had begun (Maussen 2009: 125). The term ‘multiculturalism’ followed suit to describe the development of a series of government policies to manage the existence of different ethnic groups (Harrison 2013: 143).
The biggest ethnic groups were the Surinamese, Moroccan, Turkish, Moluccan, and Chinese communities, but over the past two decades the influx of (political) refugees, in particular from countries in the Middle East and Africa, has increased drastically (Spiecker 2001: 296). In 2010, the number of Muslims living in the Netherlands was estimated at approximately 914.000. This means that at that time, they entailed 5,5% of the entire Dutch population.3 In 2011, Paul Scheffer stated that
Islam had become the second biggest religion in the Netherlands (Scheffer 2011: 117), and according to Jocelyne Cesari, the Netherlands is one of the European countries where its ratio of Muslims to the total population stands out (Cesari 2005: 1016). According to recent sources, there are between four and five hundred mosques in the Netherlands.4 Around 120 of them are mentioned in official statistics,
because they include typical mosque features like a minaret, and are therefore recognizable as a mosque (Nelissen 2008: 41).
In the 1960s, the Muslim immigrant worker who continued to practice Islam would perform his daily prayers in his room or he would roll out a prayer rug in a discrete corner of the factory. Turks and Moroccans were sometimes helped out by Christians, who would make a church building available on Fridays or during the month of Ramadan (Maussen 2009: 123). It was some time before money could be collected for the construction of mosques and only when guest workers brought their families to join them, religion assumed a significant role in their lives (Scheffer 2011: 124). From the 1970s onwards, mosques were tentatively established within empty buildings such as schools, churches, synagogues, office buildings and so on. The establishment of mosques or Muslim schools, or the funding of Islamic cultural activities, made Islam more visible in Dutch society (Knippenberg 2006b: 236). Especially over the past three decades mosques became more visible within Dutch society (Cesari 2005: 1018). This partially has to do with internal changes within the mosques. The second and third generations have grown up in the Netherlands and long for a more socially active and less inward position of their mosque within society. An increase of social-cultural activities within mosques has become a trend all over Europe (Van Walle 2011: 15; 17). However, a distinction needs to be made between Turkish and Moroccan mosques in the Netherlands. Moroccan mosques often 3 Kennisplatform Integratie en Samenleving, Web Page ‘Moslims in Nederland 2014’. 20-11-2016
<https://www.kis.nl/publicatie/moslims-nederland-2014>.
4 Unknown reporter, ‘Hoeveel Moskeeen zijn er?’ PolderIslam on the Web n.d. 30-11-2016
<http://www.polderislam.nl/achtergronden/hoeveel-moskeen-zijn-er>. Sunier states that the precise number of mosques is hard to count. The Dutch government purposely stopped registering houses of prayer since 1988, because religious registration infringes the constitutional freedom of religion. According to Sunier’s estimation, in 2009 there were over 500 mosques in the Netherlands. In addition, he notices that the undetermined number of mosques has, as an unwanted side effect, served as ‘a yardstick of the alleged ‘Islamization of space’: the number of mosques has become prone to wild speculation’ (Sunier 2010: 123-124).
continue to focus on the mosque as a space for prayer, whereas Turkish mosques increasingly pay attention to the organization of socio-cultural activities (Idem 45).
When mosques became more visibly manifested, fierce debates sprang up about the ‘place’ or the position of Islam in Dutch society. This confirms Thijl Sunier’s observation that new, purposely-built mosques attract more visual attention than the ones ‘hidden’ in reused buildings (Sunier 2006: 22). This relates to the process whereby (Turkish) mosques are claiming their ‘rightful place’ within society. For example in Limburg, the South-East of the Netherlands, a mosque has started to announce her activities within the local newspaper as well as on the local broadcasting channel (Van Walle 2011: 36). Cesari argues that as the mosque evolved from the private to the public sphere, Islam in the Netherlands – and elsewhere in Europe – developed from being ‘invisible’ to being ‘unwanted’ (Cesari 2005: 1018). Throughout this development, ‘multiculturalism’ at best became a contested topic. The concept has wielded an increasing significance in the early twenty-first century, as the government struggles to maintain the nation-state in the absence of strict ‘monocultural’ controls (Harrison 2013: 144). Marcel Mausses states that the ‘visual representation’ of mosques has come to be seen in the light of profound moral issues. He adds that the (visible) presence of mosques ‘may touch upon ideas about the very character of the state and crucial values of modern societies’ (Maussen 2009: 20). When mosques remain rather invisible and more ‘discrete’, the protests are less fierce (Van Walle 2011: 67). The discontentment on behalf of the Dutch and worries about Islam resulted in various proposals that aimed to regulate ‘Islamic religious symbolism’ more strictly (Ashworth 2007: 249).5 Even though ‘technical arguments’ prevail, such as noise and traffic nuisance
and non-conformity with existing security norms, below the surface the resistance to new mosques is always connected to a narrative’ about Islam (Cesari 2005: 1019). As we will see, these ‘meta-narratives’ or discourses on Islam can hamper the accession of mosques into Dutch heritage structures. On the other hand, these negative discourses have also encouraged various art- and cultural institutions to engage more profoundly with the topic of Islam and mosques.
State of the Art and positioning of Research Question
Since the 1970s and 1990s, the institutionalization of Islam and mosques in respectively Europe and in the Netherlands caught the attention of scholars from various disciplines. Scholars have focused on the social, juridical and political aspects of the accommodation of mosques in the Western world. These fields greatly influenced the analysis of the causes responsible for the prevailing position of deprivation of Muslim minorities in Europe (Shadid & Van Koningsveld 1996a: 2). According to Sunier, studies on the acquisition of mosques have treated them either as ‘a marker of religious 5 In October 2016, the Dutch SGP, the Reformed Christian Party, presented a proposal to lobby for a ban on the call for prayer (the ‘Azaan’) that stems from mosques. The SGP strongly disapproved the so-called ‘Islamization of the public sphere’. According to the Party, the Azaan fosters widespread discontent and protest within Dutch society (Unknown reporter, ‘SGP wil moskeeën stil krijgen’ Trouw 15 October 2016).
institutionalization or as a test case for the formal relation between state and religion in the Netherlands’ (Sunier 2006: 22). In much of the literature, thus, the position of mosques in the West is explained within the context of (modern) state-church relationships. However, more recent research on Islam in Europe has also focused on the ways Muslims have culturally ‘adapted’ to their new Western surroundings (Cesari 2005: 1016).
Anna Triandafyllidou states that increasing tensions in Europe essentially revolve around struggles between the ‘national majorities’ and ‘marginalized Muslim communities’ (Triandafyllidou 2010: 3). 6
Due to the post-9/11 context, the discourses on Muslims in public debates have become topics of interest as well as legitimate subjects for research within various scholarly disciplines (Cesari 2005: 1016). Within this context, the political-institutional dimension does not primarily account for the fact that the presence of Islam in many Western countries has turned into a ‘highly sensitive and much debated issue’ (Sunier 2010: 25). Rather, Sunier states, the process of mosque institutionalization is embedded in ‘discourses of in-and exclusion’ as categories of practice (Idem 22). This line of argumentation stems from the 1970s ‘cultural turn’ within the humanities and social sciences. In a more conventional view, ‘things’ are interpreted as fundamentally existing in the material and natural world. This means that their characteristics determine them and that they have a clear meaning outside of how they are represented. However, since the ‘cultural turn’, ‘meaning’ is thought to be produced and constructed rather than simply ‘discovered’ (Hall 1997: 5). The concept ‘discourse’, in this sense, relates to ways of referring to and constructing knowledge about a particular topic of practice. Hence, discourses provide common ways of talking about, and conducts associated with a particular topic, social activity or institutional site in society (Idem 6).
Subsequently, discourses are argued to constitute certain values and identities, and to be constitutive in the sense that they not only sustain and legitimise the status quo, but can also transform it (Waterton et al 2006: 343). Taken the ‘constructed nature’ of our understanding of things, any interaction between ‘national majorities’ and ‘Muslim communities’ is constructed through ‘discursive processes that organize their relations whilst positively or negatively highlighting commonality and difference’ (Triandafyllidou 2010: 3). The media and politics are examples of influential actors that construct such discourses. Thus, whether the presence of Islam becomes seen as problematic, crucially depends on the ways in which this presence is represented in public discourses (Maussen 2009: 15). This means that for a proper understanding of mosque-conceptualization, the actual design and the architectural specifies of the sites are less relevant than the discourses in which negotiations or responses to mosques-represented-as-heritage are embedded (Sunier 2006: 22).
6 Of course, the idea of ‘two parties’ presents a black-and-white image of the real situation. This clear-cut distinction is used merely to provide a straightforward explanation of the situation.
Over the past decades, the notion ‘heritage’ has also been addressed by scholars from the ‘cultural turn’. Heritage has come to be understood as one such ‘categories of practice’ that is able to in- or exclude through the discourses it produces (Smith 2009: 52). Subsequently, in this thesis I highlight the ways in which mosques and mosque-communities become seen as included within society. I do this by showing the ways in which their presence is represented in diverse heritage discourses or ‘frameworks’. It has been suggested that the mass-media tend to negatively influence the discourse on mosques in the Netherlands. Heritage practices, however, are capable of constructing discourses that
positively highlight the position of mosques within society. The politicized and mediatized discourses
that have rendered mosques ‘problematic’ will be discussed as well, but in a concise manner. Others have already elaborated on these processes and developments extensively.
It is interesting to study the participation of mosques within Dutch cultural heritage structures, since attention is often paid to clashes between Islamic minorities and native majorities. Many scholars have focused on anti-Muslim attitudes among Western populations and their discontent with mosque building and religious clothing. However, states Riem Spielhaus, the ‘inclusive initiatives’ have rarely been studied (Spielhaus 2013: 76). Considering that since the early 2000s Islamic art has tentatively been attributed the agentive capacity to build ‘bridges of understanding’ within the context of civilizational conflict, the inclusive initiatives offer an interesting counter-narrative to the conflict-discourses. These initiatives for example relate to politicians or journalists providing space to voices that lobby for accommodation and inclusion, thereby promoting Islam’s non-threatening side (Idem). Yet, inclusive initiatives are often found to refer to the historical presence of Muslims in Europe or as to highlight the long history of dialogue and cultural exchange with Islam (Idem). Hence, Islamic objects of contemporary cultural production are only taken as ‘acceptable’ when they represent a benign and spiritually enlightened Islam, critique contemporary Islam, or emphasize past Islamic achievements. In this sense, objects of Islamic art are valorised as representing a peaceful but historical Islamic glory (Idem 84 - 85). Mirjam Shatanawi also emphasizes that art historians, and therefore the museum displays they create, tend to focus on aspects of technique and decoration rather than religious or cultural life in the Islamic world. The art-historical narrative generally holds that almost nothing of importance was produced after 1800 and subsequently promotes the idea of a ‘declining Muslim world’ (Shatanawi 2012b: 178). Currently, many museums still manage to ignore the history of migration after World War Two in their main exhibitions and general concepts (Spielhaus 2013: 81). Therefore, ‘the conventional practice of displaying Islamic material hardly accommodates the public’s growing demand for better insight in Muslim history and societies’ (Shatanawi 2012b: 178).
Contemporary Islamic culture and art, and therefore the mosques established in western countries over the past decades, are often not touched upon when established cultural (heritage) institutions work
with representations of Islam. Pooyan Tamimi Arab and Daan Beekers state that scarce attention has been paid to the ways in which mosques in Western European cities are ‘interwoven with local religious histories and with other sites’ (Beekers & Tamimi Arab 2016: 141). It is exactly this area of ‘contemporary’ Islam, including the often-avoided religious and cultural aspects related to mosques in the Netherlands, that I wish to address in this thesis. I am concerned with the level of participation of mosque-communities within various Dutch ‘heritage structures’, as well as the position of these inclusive initiatives within the bigger trends in terms of heritage policy and heritage theory. Furthermore, the ways in which these initiatives and their stakeholders have attempted to re-shape existing heritage conceptualizations are analysed as well. Frank Peter argues that the debate about ‘multiculturalism’ reinforces the idea that culture can be controlled and contained in political programs. Yet, he states, ‘the inverse question – about how political programs are reshaped, intentionally or otherwise, through individual or collective practices of culture – is asked less often’ (Peter 2013: 12).
Methodology and Chapter Division
In chapter 1, I present a condensed overview of the course of heritage conceptualization in the Netherlands. The focus lays on the ‘democratization’ processes that have broadened (inter)national understandings of heritage from the 1970s onwards. The arrival and settlement of migrants in the Netherland raised many new questions. Self-examination, embodied in the question: ‘who are we now?’ became unavoidable under new multicultural circumstances (Scheffer 2011: 113 & 117). Next, I highlight the shift towards inclusiveness as a cultural policy-objective. Herewith, the influence of immigrant integration policies is an important aspect. Yet, Dutch cultural policy objectives also derived from international heritage conventions as well as ideas and practices that emerged from the new field of critical heritage studies. The biggest part of the chapter entails an analysis of the ways in which ‘Dutch heritage’ conceptualizations have adapted and altered under the influences of both integration policies and international heritage conventions. Ultimately, this chapter creates a theoretical framework wherein the case-studies of the following chapters can be positioned.
In chapter 2, the Dutch National Monument Inventory and the Dutch National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage constitute the official heritage-structures wherein mosque-inclusion/participation is sought. When the state ‘absorbs’ new heritage within its official Inventories, this ‘communicates cultural and social value and meaning’ on an authorized, official level (Pendlebury 2015: 431). Whether the National Monument Inventory has followed suit on cultural policy objectives to become more ‘diverse’ and ‘democratic’ depends on the enlistment-criteria wielded by the Dutch Heritage Law, which buttresses the National Monument Inventory. The same logic applies to the recently established National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The intangible traditions enlisted
convey the current official ideas and images that are associated with Dutch heritage. Hence, the central question of this chapter is whether the cultural and social values of mosques are reflected within Dutch official heritage structures, and if they could be, according to official criteria.
In chapter 3 and 4, I focus on unofficial heritage structures. I analyse museum- and urban heritage structures in the Netherlands that have culturally represented, included and made possible (to a certain extent) the participation of Islamic communities in heritage events. In chapter 3, I analyse two case studies of mosque representation within a local Dutch museum framework. In the first case study, the travelling exhibition titled Mosque-Architecture in the Netherlands addresses Dutch mosques and their architectural features. What arguments did the stakeholders have to create such an exhibition, and what kind of social and cultural messages on Dutch mosques were communicated to the visitors? The second case study, which constitutes the larger part of the chapter, analyses a local exhibition on the Turkish mosque of small-town community Dongen: The Mosque of Dongen. This representation differed from the travelling exhibition in the sense that it brought forward an image of the mosque by means of its cultural traditions instead of its architectural features. I conducted an in-depth interview with the initiator of the exhibition, Cees Mutsaerts, as well as the chairman of the Dongen Isra Camii Mosque (Further addressed as ‘Isra Mosque’), Hamdi Ozcan.
As a research-method, I used discourse analysis to examine what kind of image of the mosque they had constructed in the exhibition. Since many of the concerns of heritage management are issues that are discursively constructed, the ways in which people talk about and engage with specific sites is both ‘an end in itself and a resource for a broader enterprise’ (Waterton et al 2006: 342-343). The exhibition’s ‘language’, such as sounds, words, images or objects, entails a ‘sign’ that is capable of carrying and expressing meaning (Hall 1997: 19). A practical approach towards this argumentation is called ‘discourse analysis’, which is the study of society through the study of ‘language’, or ‘cultural signs’ (Waterton et al 2006: 343). Hence, I analysed via which ‘cultural signs’ the exhibition on the mosque, according to its initiators, was meant to transform the mosque’s ‘status quo’ in the local community of Dongen. I also looked at media sources. What messages were conveyed to the visitors of museum ‘De Looierij’ that housed the exhibition? What social, political and cultural implications stemmed from this initiative? Another issue I analysed was to what extent the Turkish community and the heritage professionals disputed ‘the right to define and manage the cultural heritage of the minority’ (Avilizatou 2008: 47). Was the Dongen mosque represented by (white) heritage professionals, or was the mosque community able to speak for and represent itself?
In the 4th chapter, I analyse mosque-inclusion within a heritage framework that is to a lesser extent managed and controlled by heritage professionals and therefore offers subordinate communities a more extensive opportunity to represent themselves. These structures could be marked as unofficial
heritage as well as ‘bottom-up’ initiatives. The first case study entails the participation of Dutch mosques within the yearly event ‘Open Monumenten Dag’, or ‘Dutch Heritage Days’. Within the structure of the organization, who came up with the initiative to have Dutch mosques participate? As a research method, I again used discourse analysis. An analysis of differing viewpoints from various stakeholders is based on written sources, but also from an in-depth interview with Lisette Breedveld, a former project-coordinator of the Dutch Heritage Days in Amsterdam. In the second, larger part of chapter 4, I analyse the participation of the Turkish Fatih Camii Mosque (further addressed as ‘Fatih mosque’) within Amsterdam’s ‘Museum Night’ of November 2016. Under scrutiny is to what extent the organisation of Museum Night, or: ‘N8’, provided the Fatih mosque-community with a platform for self-representation of their mosque. What kind of image of the mosque was communicated to the visiting public? In order to obtain an idea of the answers to such questions, I conducted two in-depth interviews. One was with Aron Eilander from N8, and the other one with the chairman of the Fatih mosque, Mehmet Yamali. A second central concern was in what ways the discourse of the event perpetuated to alter the social, cultural and economic ‘position’ of the Fatih mosque in Amsterdam. In the conclusion, a comparison between the chapters will bring forward which heritage structures, official or unofficial, are currently inclusive of Dutch mosques and their cultural traditions. Also, the ways in which these various case studies aim to challenge the current status-quo of established heritage conceptualizations are highlighted. Ultimately, this thesis aims to address three central issues. The first relates to the social, cultural and economic ramifications of mosque- inclusion within Dutch cultural heritage structures. What are the (side-)effects of heritage-participation and representation for subordinated communities in the Netherlands? Addressing both communities’ and experts’ expectations on this type of heritage-involvement sheds light on the intention of heritage-making in today’s pluralistic societies. A second concern is to bring forward which ‘platforms’ of heritage have engaged with minority community inclusion and minority communities’ (self-)representation. This angle of research provides an indication of ‘where’ minority heritage is currently ‘created’ and maintained. A third aspect relates to issues of representation. Within heritage structures of various kinds, is the cultural image of mosque-communities constructed in a way that makes them part of representations of Dutch heritage, or do these representations continue to position them as ‘outsiders’? In other words, as Shatanawi states it, ‘Is the Netherlands becoming a multicultural society in the sense that Islam is publicly seen as part of Dutch culture, or does Islam remain a foreign element (…)?’(Shatanawi 2012b: 191). In the next chapter, we will look at Dutch official heritage structures in order understand to what extent Dutch mosques are represented as part of Dutch culture and heritage on a state-sanctioned level.
Chapter 1. The Course of Heritage Conceptualization in the Netherlands
1.1. IntroductionIn the Western world, heritage listing and heritage policy have long been caught up with processes of state regulation and bureaucracy, as well as the nation-building project (Harrison 2013: 146-147). This means that nations characterized by a homogeneous cultural and/or political identity functioned as fixed ‘sets of social and cultural resources’ on which the members of the nation-state could draw (Smith 2008: 23). Yet, as the composition of the western nation’s ‘members’ became increasingly heterogeneous over the past few decades, the question has risen what should become of the nation-state and its associated ‘sets of social and cultural resources’. Clearly, a homogenous heritage satisfies a homogeneous people and market. However, it disinherits excluded social and ethnic groups, thereby creating dissonance and de-stabilizing the nation-state (Turnbridge & Ashworth 1996: 23).
The cause for the increasing heterogeneity of many of the western nation-states has to be found within the twentieth- and twenty-first century and their increasing globalization of capital, technology, labour and the accompanying mass-migration and flows of people and information, culture and heritage. These ‘global processes and formations’ have destabilized the scalar hierarchy centred in the national state (Sassen 2006: 14). In the Netherlands, especially the immigrants from Morocco and Turkey introduced an Islamic culture that appeared to be quite different from the established national culture (Spiecker 2001: 297). Hence, ‘culture’ or ‘heritage’ no longer fulfilled the function of the ‘stabilization of power’ in the nation-state. As a response, various policy-makers have adopted a more representative heritage model based on an assumption of ‘the value of diversity’ (Harrison 2013: 146-147). In this chapter, the emphasis lays with these recent issues and shifts in heritage conceptualization in the Netherlands. It specifically elaborates on the development of cultural policy within multicultural circumstances and challenges. Ultimately, in this chapter I aim to portray an overview of the current utilisations of the notion ‘heritage’ in the Netherlands, and how they came into existence.
1.2. Conceptualizing ‘Heritage’ in the Netherlands: from the Nineteenth until the Late-Twentieth Century
Professor of social geography and heritage, Brian Graham, states that until only a few centuries ago, the word ‘heritage’ was solely used to describe an inheritance that was bequeathed to an individual when passing away (Graham 2000: 1). This changed throughout the later eighteenth, and beginning of the nineteenth century. Writers and thinkers in West and Central Europe started to embrace
‘nationalist ideologies’ (Smith 2008: 16), which led to the assertion of the ‘nation-state’ over communities that were previously identified by other spatial scales or social relationships (Graham 2000: 12). The nation-state required ‘national heritage’ because it supported the consolidation of national identification, while absorbing (potentially) competing cultures and religions. Thus, this era saw nation-states invest heavily in heritage as part of the project of nation-building (Idem; Harrison 2013: 114). The modern nation-state rendered ‘national’ just about all crucial features of society: authority, identity, territory, security, law and market (Sassen 2006: 15). As a consequence, various European countries began to develop legal and policy frameworks and heritage bureaucracies that protected their ‘national heritage’ (Pendlebury 2015: 429). These policies evolved around the creation and maintenance of artistic activities that were initiated according to nationally defined principles (Saukkonen 2006: 184).
Subsequently, the diversity and heterogeneity of the everyday world were subsumed by what Smith defines as ‘linear heritage narratives’ (Smith 2008: 56). This means that certain ‘sets’ of historical monuments were deliberately chosen to represent a coherent body of national heritage. This body represented the so-called ‘right’ perspective on national history (Fisch 2008: 2), and embraced state-sponsored and state-encouraged allegories of national identity (Graham 2000: 22). National heritage became one of the ways in which the nation-state constructed for itself ‘a sort of collective social memory’, states Hall. He adds: ‘Just as individuals and families construct their identities by ‘storying’ the various random incidents and contingent turning points of their lives into a single, coherent, narrative, so nations construct incidents by selectively binding their chosen high points and memorable achievements into an unfolding ‘national story” (Hall 1999: 5).
In the beginning stages of the Dutch nation-state, the focus of cultural policy lay upon mobilizing concepts of national heritage (Pendlebury 2015: 426). With the return of William I in 1813, the Batavian Republic under French rule developed into a united kingdom under the House of Orange (Knippenberg 2006b: 320). After the Napoleonic Wars, everywhere in Western Europe the power of the city, church and nobility had shifted further into the hands of national governments (Lucassen & Willems 2006: 18). As an authoritarian monarch, William I aimed to create a sense of unity in a politically and socially divided country. Arts and (religious) heritage were instrumental in creating a sense of identity and unity (Van der Meer & Raadschelders 2008: 136). Hence, under the reign of king William I, the tales and myths of all the different dynasties melted into the history of one single nation-state (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 179). Around the turn of the nineteenth century the Dutch were educated to perceive their nation as something that had always existed. People that lived on Dutch territory, but that had no historical or cultural ties to the nation, retrospectively took pride in ‘their’ struggle against the Spanish King and ‘their’ Golden Age (Idem 178). Thus, it was not factual history, but felt history that counted in the making of the nation; all that mattered was that a large
number of people outside the ruling class should come to feel that they belonged to a given nation, for it to be said to exist (Smith 2008: 6).
When later during the nineteenth century the role of the Dutch king diminished, liberalism gained ground and the cultural and artistic initiatives passed again into the hands of to the private citizens, societies, associations and foundations (Saukkonen 2006: 187). The archaeological societies with their collections of cultural objects would later develop into the first museums of the Netherlands (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 183). Furthermore, from the 1900s onwards, a dense heritage network developed wherein views on what heritage ‘should be’ were both matured and exchanged (Idem: 191). Particular understandings of heritage were naturalised and ‘fed into policy’, which allowed specific meanings and values to dominate as ‘inevitable’. This so-called ‘authorized discourse’ on heritage provided ‘common-sense rules’ by which to act upon, speak of and interact with heritage (Waterton et. al. 2006: 346).
Thus, via the public discourse heritage objects and intangible ideals became ‘identified’ as heritage and via their absorption into museums, libraries and archives they became documented or protected as such (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 173). The ‘authorized heritage discourse’ produced the heritage narratives represented in national museums and cultural institutions. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, these heritage representations were mostly confined to periods of national pride. Often in the discourse, as well as in the institutions, the same events were highlighted such as the Batavian resistance against Roman domination in the first and second centuries BCE; the Protestant revolt against Catholic Spain in the sixteenth century; the seventeenth century Golden Age of trade and art and the colonization by the Dutch Republic (Van der Meer & Raadschelders 2008: 129). These historic ‘epochs of pride’ could be easily transferred to later times. The more ‘irritating’ eras, such as the period of French dominance (1795-1801), were excluded from national heritage- and memory-creation (Fisch 2008: 3).
The late nineteenth and early twentieth-century era of Dutch ‘pillarization’ constituted another important phase in Dutch heritage-creation and valuation. During the beginning of the twentieth century, the main responsibility for organising and financing cultural activities lay with the various ideological, religious or social groups (pillars), which had (partially) taken over the role of the previous private cultural initiatives (Saukkonen 2006: 187). The pillars, representing the dominant confessions and ideological convictions, became an intrinsic part of Dutch national identity and heritage (Knippenberg 2006: 264). The four pillars of Dutch society represented Protestantism, Catholicism, socialism and liberalism. Although the pillars adhered to different group cultures, their members all strongly identified with the Christian-Humanistic tradition (Spiecker 2001: 296). Differences in beliefs and attitudes ‘supported the same roof’ (Idem), and fell within a shared history
(Scheffer 2011: 125). However, the approach towards heritage was not unilateral. Depending on the social-political or religious group concerned, multiple usages of the notion ‘heritage’ occurred at the same time (Ronnes & Van Kessel 2016: 23). A variety of intangible matters such as religion, hominess, freedom and liberalism circulated within the Netherlands, shaping different denotations of heritage (Idem 15).
From the 1960s onward, a higher level of welfare, urbanization, changing lifestyles and individualization struck at the roots of the pillar system (Gowricharn & Mungra 1996: 117). Despite the fact that this process involved the erosion of the ways of life of the different group cultures, it did not imply the erosion of the ‘national way of life’ (Spiecker 2001: 297). The established, ‘authorized’ (religious) heritage values maintained their legitimacy. When the religious pillars crumbled, the role of the government within the promotion of art and culture increased. The government’s spending on culture and the arts went up, and cultural policy became an integral part of the government’s welfare policy (Saukkonen 2006: 188 - 187). Just like when in the late-eighteenth century national governments had increasingly taken control, so the late-twentieth century government had the ambition to ‘steer’ all sorts of social, economic and cultural issues (Lucassen & Willems 2006: 19). At this stage, heritage policy slowly began to be recognized as an instrumental device to achieve social and economic policy objectives (Pendlebury 2015: 426). Subsequently, throughout the 1970s, within Dutch monument’s lists a shift took place from the classic, canonical monuments like churches, city halls and castles, towards small monuments such as workshops and fishermen’s cabins as sites worthy of the state’s protection (Halbertsma & Kuipers 2014: 53). With the recognition of ‘lower class’ values and cultures, a gradual shift occurred in Western democratic societies and their perceptions on the meanings of heritage (Turnbridge & Ashworth 1996: 87). Since the end of the Second World War, nationalist ideologies had been losing popularity and legitimacy, and now people’s ‘cultural rights’ were extended to cover the country’s traditional minorities (Saukkonen 2006: 184). The ravages of World War Two were fundamental in establishing a more broadly shared idea that cultural heritage has a value to human civilization that goes beyond the ‘national’ (Ronnes & Van Kessel 2016: 19). Hence, citizen’s cultural rights were later also extended to the new ethnic and cultural minorities resulting from ‘multiculturalism’ (Saukkonen 2006: 184). As we will see below, the arrival and settlement of immigrants in fact greatly influenced the state’s perceptions on Dutch heritage and citizens’ cultural rights.
1.3. Cultural Policy & Immigrant Integration Policy 1970s-2000s
In the Netherlands, the ideological shift towards a more democratic heritage meant that from the mid-1980s onwards a concern developed on a national policy level to establish more diversity within the
cultural domain (OCW 2007: 163). These new cultural policies7 were to a certain extent influenced
and stimulated by Dutch immigrant integration policies (Bos 2016: 22). During the late 1960s, solidarity movements supporting foreign workers in the Netherlands had begun to demand a more humane treatment for foreign workers. The policy of assimilation, stemming from the 1950s, was redeemed (Lucassen & Willems 2006: 31). This meant, amongst other things, including more room for the cultural identity of immigrants. The government had in its 1970s memorandum promised to help provide for migrant workers’ spiritual needs and spiritual welfare, which resulted in additional subsidies for community centres organising cultural activities for immigrants (Maussen 2009: 126-127).
During this ‘first phase’ of Dutch integration policy, the Netherlands became somewhat of a pioneer in confronting the practical issues of integration and devising practicable policies for its attainment, of which many were adopted in other European countries (Ashworth 2007: 93). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Dutch case was widely considered an almost ideal typical example of multiculturalist policies (Scholten 2012: 97). The general expectation was that the different ethnic minorities, just like the religious and cultural minorities of the past (the pillars), would integrate smoothly, without having to abandon any core element of their own identity (Spiecker 2001: 294). Cultural pluralism and a more culturally neutral, open form of citizenship were promoted as the ideal basis for the Dutch multicultural society (Scholten 2012: 99). Consequently, the Dutch welfare state began to promote the concept of ‘cultural democracy’. This meant that the government actively sought to enable all members of its society to participate in the nation’s ‘cultural production’ (Saukkonen 2006: 284). From the 1970s until roughly the 1990s, Dutch integration policies were generally stressing an approach of ‘mutual adaptation’. It was widely recognised that the integration of minorities inevitably required some degree of adaptation by the ‘native’ Dutch themselves (Scholten 2012: 102). ‘Cultural heritage’ came to be understood as an important instrument within the process of ‘reinventing’ the Dutch nation under the circumstances of immigration, integration and fear of immigrants (Brinkman & Smithuijsen 2002: n.p.). In this sense, integration policies actively incited cultural policies to incorporate immigrants’ cultures alongside the ‘native cultures’ (Bos 2016: 26). A central question within Dutch cultural policy was how immigrant’s cultures could be embedded within the ‘stories’ promoted by Dutch cultural policies (Idem 22-23). Hence, the first cultural policy regarding Dutch minorities and immigrants was introduced in 1982. It was coined Action-plan cultural expressions and 7 Cultural policy is defined by the Council of Europe as three forms of policy measures: 1) policy measures promoting creativity, especially public financing of the arts and culture; 2) policy measures enhancing cultural democracy, especially through decentralising of decision making responsibilities and cultural facilities; 3) policy measures aiming to enable people’s greater access to culture, that is, enhancing more equal participation in cultural life by all population groups (Saukkonen 2006: 183). Thus, states Saukkonen, ‘cultural policy generally legitimises, makes possible, restricts or prohibits the existence, activities or self-development of
migrants. The policy statement Cultural expressions of ethnic minorities followed in 1987 (Bos 2016:
23). Yet, the context in which these policies were situated would start to change soon thereafter.
1.3.1. From Multiculturalism to ‘Assimilationism’
Yet, already during the 1970s the image of the migrant’s position in Dutch society started to change. A series of developments had occurred that challenged prevailing policy beliefs: the oil crisis of the 1970s that brought labour recruitment to a halt; the decolonization of Surinam in 1975 that caused large immigrant flows; ethnic riots in Rotterdam and Schiedam in 1972 and 1976 and a series of terrorist attacks carried out during the 1970s by Moluccan immigrants (Scholten 2012: 100). Also, the government’s policy of creating cultural equality and ‘neutral’ forms of citizenships with the retention of one’s own identity had by that time proven (partially) counter-productive. ‘Resulting from the well-intended pursuit for social equality and the continuing focus on Turks, Moroccans and Surinamese – the biggest groups of immigrants – was an overt emphasis on these people as ‘minorities’ or ‘allochtoon’ [literally: ‘not from here’]’ (Lucassen & Willems 2006: 32). The systematic distinction made between ‘allochtoon’ and ‘autochtoon’ (literally: ‘from here’) unintentionally contributed to the symbolic and practical alienation of a large part of Dutch citizens (Idem).
While the seated government was creating and executing policies for peaceful and multicultural co-habitation, already in 1982 the first anti-immigrant party, the ‘Central Democrats’ of Hans Janmaat, won seats in the House of Representatives (Van Liere 2014: 190). Yet, at that time their anti-immigrant slogans such as ‘full is full’ and ‘we will abolish the multicultural society’ were still generally ignored. Janmaat’s campaign already paid attention to Islam as the factor to blame for all integration issues [see image 1.1.]. The slogan reads: ‘Now you can still choose - Support the CD [Central Democrats]! Before it is too late’. The Central Democrats presented the Netherlands with a choice between the windmill and the mosque. The windmill stood for the traditional ‘Dutch’ society with its ‘native’ members, whereas the mosque stood for the Islamization of Dutch society. The image on the poster sketches doom and presents a clear threat: if we do not get rid of the mosque (the Islamic immigrant) we will loose the windmill (the traditional Dutch ‘native’).
Image 1.1. Poster of Janmaat’s Central Democrats party from the late 1980s
In the 1980s, the press still blamed Janmaat for being a fascist, a Nazi and a national-socialist, and rejected his ideas of the Islamic or immigrant threat (Van Liere 2014: 191). However, during the 1990s, the idea of a multicultural ‘challenge’ or ‘threat’ became a central feature in Dutch politics and media. When in 1991 issues of immigrant integration emerged as a priority on the political agenda, the leader of the Liberal Party, Frits Bolkestein, triggered a broad ‘National Minorities Debate’. He made an appeal to both the political realm and the media as he called for a more ‘strict and courageous approach’ towards immigrant integration (Idem 191). With Bolkestein, Janmaat’s ideas about the dangers of mass immigration moved from the extreme right to the liberal right (Idem). An important policy shift followed suit. National integration policy objectives too shifted from multiculturalism to more assimilationist ideas and practices (Saukkonen 2006: 180). A so-called ‘real’ and ‘active’ citizenship of persons form ethnic minorities became a strong condition for people settling in the Netherlands. At the same time, the view of the Netherlands as a multi-ethnic or multicultural society gradually moved into the background (Scholten 2012: 103).
In 2000, a second ‘National Minorities Debate’ emerged which focused public attention on an alleged ‘multicultural tragedy’ (Scholten 2012: 104). Throughout the Balkenende era (2002-2010), the shift towards an increased emphasis on Dutch national identity and traditional values and norms continued (Saukkonen 2006: 180; Kremer 2012: 2). In literature, this development is coined the ‘nationalistic turn’ (Saukkonen 2006: 192) or the ‘assimilationist turn’ (Scholten 2012: 98). Symptomatic of this
‘turn’ was the importance given to the protection and preservation of the language, culture and heritage of the Netherlands (Saukkonen 2006: 192; Harrison 2013: 165). Discussions on the ‘real’ identity of Dutch culture recurred in the form of, for example, defining for new immigrants what need-to-know facts and ideas of Dutch history and culture were considered essential for successful citizenship (Van der Meer & Raadschelders 2008: 144), as well as the obligation for newcomers to follow ‘civic integration programmes’ after their arrival in the Netherlands (Scholten 2012: 105). The reinforcement of national identity provided a sense of stability to those who felt anxiety or a sense of loss about the changes wrought by globalization and immigration (Kremer 2012: 2).
Furthermore, throughout these years the axis to a great extent shifted from ‘immigrants’ to ‘Muslims’. From an economic problem,8 immigrants became perceived as a cultural-religious problem (Van Liere
2014: 188). Lagging educational attainment and social welfare dependence all became associated in the popular imagination with immigrants, most especially from Morocco and Turkey (Ashworth 2007: 93). For the sake of convenience, people with a completely different background were lumped together under the heading of ‘Muslim culture’ (Sunier 2010: 132). The political arena as well as the media became involved in the governance of Islam in ways they have not been with the governance of other religions, such as Hinduism, Confucianism or Buddhism (Maussen 2009: 22). Hence, only the cultural aspects were rejected which concerned Islam and certain Muslim groups. Other immigrants have often remained absent in the discussion (Shadid & Van Koningsveld 1996b: 110). ‘Muslimphobia’, as a new form of racism, targeted Muslims based on identity markers like culture, lifestyle and values (Triandafyllidou 2010: 15). A key factor in this process constituted the increasing divide between the secular worldview of the average Dutchman and the faith-based outlook amongst Muslims (Scheffer 2011: 128).9 Dutch ‘natives’ have become more negative towards, and have felt
more threatened by, the presence of Islamic migrants, in particular in socio-cultural and religious terms (Scholten 2012: 109; 114). Hence, the fierce criticism of Islam in the Netherlands to a large extent relates to the ‘changing discursive constellations between the secular and the religious’ (Van Liere 2014: 188). Resulting from these shifts was an increased concern from various scholarly disciplines with the ways the Netherlands dealt with the institutionalization of Islam (Scholten 2012: 114).
8 The first global oil crisis of 1973 resulted in many unemployed immigrant workers. As un-employed, under-educated immigrants, these people were considered a financial problem because they had equal rights to the Dutch unemployed workers. In this ‘competitive context’, the image of the lazy, unemployed immigrant taking advantage of the welfare state entered public and political discourses (Van Liere 2014: 190).
9 That Islam is, in fact, not so historically alien to Dutch society becomes clear within Marcel Maussen’s publication Constructing Mosques (2009). In Chapter 4, ‘Dutch colonialism, Islam and mosques’ he highlights the Dutch colonial enterprise’s entanglement with Islamic peoples in the East Indies during the nineteenth and twentieth century.
1.3.2. Media-Influence within the Dutch Discourse on Islam & Muslims
Throughout the 1990s, the terms ‘Muslim’ and ‘fundamentalist’ became virtually synonymous in the popular press. The vision of Muslims as Europe’s primary ‘alter’ was continuously imposed upon the people (Ballard 1996: 40). The attacks on the United States of September 9/11, 2001, further amplified the tone and volume of the discourse on Islam. The relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims were put under severe pressure and an overwhelming majority of the Dutch now feared clashes between Muslims and Christians (Knippenberg 2006b: 327). This strongly connects to the language used and discourses produced by the mainstream media. Dutch media have framed Muslims either as religious fanatics, as militants and terrorist, societal problems within constructed war and conflict stories, or in other ways as a threat to the national culture (Saifuddin & Matthes 2016: 4). Excluded from the mainstream media are the broader political, cultural, economic and social contexts wherein immigrants are situated (Idem 16). Since social interactions between native majorities and Muslim minorities in most Western societies are quite restricted, the content produced by the media is a great influencer of individual and societal opinions and attitudes (Idem 17). This is confirmed by an increased disquiet among people from the majority culture. They fear that behaviours and values perceived as ‘traditionally Dutch’ are being undermined by new and culturally different groups (Ashworth 2007: 93). According to a recent dossier from the Dutch social research organisation SCP10,
a growing group of Dutch people feel ill at ease because of fear that ‘the Netherlands is losing its character’.11
As mass media play an important role in the creation and distribution of ideologies (Saifuddin & Matthes 2016: 2), the highly ‘mediatized’ images on Islam have ‘seriously affected the political landscape in the Netherlands on a national as well as a local level’ (Sunier 2010: 124). This has resulted in a situation whereby, recently, the majority of the MPs in Dutch parliament have demanded a greater control on the building of mosques. The Dutch intelligence services are charged to keep a watchful eye on the activities of mosques (Idem). Key right-winged populist politicians within the construction of an anti-Islam discourse have been, amongst others, Pim Fortuyn with his party LPF12
(2002-2008) and Geert Wilders with his party PVV13 (2007-present). Fortuyn’s rhetoric labelled Islam
as primitive, undeveloped, and in contrast to Dutch culture, which was promoted as being tolerant and democratic. Fortuyn inscribed an identity rooted in the imaginary of a heroic Dutch history (Van Liere 2014: 192). The success of Fortuyn lay in the fact that he was able to make anti immigration, anti Islam and pro-national identity rhetoric socially acceptable; he made issues of Islam and migration a 10 The ‘Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau’, or by its English name: ‘The Netherlands Institute for Social Research’. 11 Unknown reporter, ‘SCP: Onbehagen groeit in Nederland’ NOS on the Web 14 February 2017. 16-02-2017 <http://nos.nl/artikel/2158154-scp-onbehagen-groeit-in-nederland.html>.
12 Pim Fortuyn’s party was called Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF), or ‘List of Pim Fortuyn’. Pim fortuyn was murdered on the 6th of May 2002 by a Dutch man who regarded Fortuyn as dangerous to the position of the vulnerable within society.
