Racism: a collection of 'negative' views.

The topic of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam came up at lunch at work, so I raved about Miguel Peres Dos Santos's film 'Voices' and how some of the things you see in the film in the 70s/80s are still uncannily being seen and heard in the media of contemporary Dutch society.

For example, the film has excerpts from news interviews of a White Dutch man in the streets, saying that he doesn't think it's fair that "Mr Foreigner [from Curacao]" should get a house before him.

A White Spanish colleague (married to White Dutch) at the lunch table starts getting agitated.

WSC: You cannot say 'Wow, things like that are being said in the 70s', this is how we are brought up in society and this is what we learn from our parents".

[Right about here I'm hoping she meant that therefore it's an subconscious narrative that should be changed]
Me [confused]: "No, my point is that these things are still being said today. They still talk about immigrants like this."
WSC [getting agitated and getting up to put her things away, ready to leave the room]: You keep saying "they", "they", who do you mean??
Me: The White Dutch! And the media.
WSC: Well you seem to have a very negative view of White Dutch people.
[Nope, I was wrong! Racism is something natural, socialised, and merely a faulty perception of a POC.]

WSC refuses to believe that I have heard White people say these things to my face. Woman, you are White. It's impossible for you to see this 'negative' side and hear such 'negative' comments directed to you or people that share your religion, skin colour, hair colour or dress code.

Just a couple of days ago, I was also describing an incident that happened when I was at the film screening in Amsterdam. I had no choice but to bring Nootje along (and just hoping for the best). He ended up sitting through the 20-minute film just about okay, but he was getting restless and needed to sit on the floor with his toys during the Q&A. I wasn't too optimistic about being able to stay the whole way, so I was ready to leave -- having already picked a seat close to the exit and given weary smiles to the kind-faced host who wished me luck when I walked in with Nootje -- if he needed to.

Nootje started to talk ("Airplane is taking off!") during the Q&A, prompting a series of Very Dirty Looks from 3-4 White women just in front of him. One old woman made a big fuss, after turning around pointedly to stare at Nootje, of moving to a different seat. It wasn't loud (a 2-year-old talking, seriously) but I left the theatre after that.

When I described the incident on Facebook, an acquaintance commented that the same would have happened even if I were white, since the problem, according to her, is that Dutch people don't like playful kids.

That's the two main issues right there: she spoke of "Dutch people" when she really meant White Dutch, because Dutch POC are usually friendly to kids. And then there's the obvious thing, I'm NOT White, am I?

While I don't expect her to be able to empathise that I faced such a hostile situation, she expected that I would know what it feels like to be White/the norm. And with one sentence she had managed to turn the whole situation upside down: now I was supposed to feel sorry for her and her unappreciated playful child too.

Leaping over language barriers

This article was first published on Aquila Style.

Adventures in picking up a new language doesn’t have much to do with meeting new people.

Image: Pixabay

At this moment, I live unwillingly in the Netherlands. I didn’t move here because I loved the language or the culture. After three and a half years, I can understand most of what people are saying, but since I haven’t had (read: couldn’t afford) any formal lessons and I’m not particularly fond of the language, the Dutch language requires the activation of a whole other part of my brain.

I’ve nothing against learning new languages. Or European languages for that matter. I stuck through French lessons in middle school before I finally realised how I actually loved speaking it when I participated in an immersion programme in a sleepy French town (and later, studied there for a year). I still speak decent French and try to not lose my skills by watching French films. And because I already speak English by virtue of being born and bred in a former British colony, I think two imperialist languages are enough for me, thank you.

The thing about speaking Dutch in the Netherlands is that… you don’t have to. Most people in the big cities speak decent English, which is enough to get by if all you want is to buy groceries at the supermarket, or find your way with public transport.

But there’s a double standard when it comes to speaking the local lingo. If you’re a Caucasian or European, you’re not expected to speak Dutch. Laws that allow free movement in the European Union also mean that for Europeans, learning Dutch is merely voluntary. However, for me as a non-European permanent resident, I have to take a language exam in the next two years or risk a severe fine.

Here, there are two types of people who are usually assumed to be unequivocally Dutch: White or Brown (thanks to colonial history). Because my appearance is typically Javanese or Indonesian, I’m often mistaken as being Dutch. Many Dutch people also have grandmothers or great-grandmothers who came over from the former colonies. These women often attempted to integrate totally by adopting the local language and ways of life.

At one point in time, I figured I’d similarly integrate by forcing myself to speak and listen to Dutch. I decided to start in a prenatal yoga group that I had just joined. I figured that I would do okay since I could understand most words relating to movement and parts of the body. Plus, it was a good opportunity to learn the relevant vocabulary for labour and delivery.

It turned out to be a very lonely 10 weeks. Even though I tried my best to speak a little bit of Dutch each lesson to the yoga instructor and to the other participants, I never got around to actually striking up a semblance of a friendship with the other mothers. Perhaps it was our age difference: Almost all the other women were well into their 30s, and some in their 40s. Perhaps we lived in different places: They live in the suburbs and I live in the city. Or perhaps I was just the only non-White person in the whole group.

I had a very different experience in a postnatal Pilates class I’m currently attending. It’s a small and cosy studio not too far from where I live, run by an English woman and attended by many English-speaking people (even though most of the instructors are Dutch). I take two different classes, and both instructors willingly carry out their lessons in a mix of Dutch and English to make sure I can understand.

I’ve also met some kindred souls in this class – a total change from awkward attempts at conversation in my previous yoga class. Whether it’s because women are more sympathetic when they can bond over how bad their hospital experience was, or whether it’s just a friendlier group of women, I haven’t needed to speak Dutch at all. (Besides, my go-to excuse is that my brain is too sleep-deprived caring for a baby to string together a sentence.)

I realised then that it’s not about the language we speak, but about our willingness to know the other. Now when someone speaks to me in Dutch, I don’t feel obligated to reply in the same language to prove I’m a “good” migrant. I’m perfectly happy to speak what is most comfortable to me because what is more important is our effort to communicate, not the language we communicate in.

When transphobia blocks justice for survivors of sexual violence

Trigger Warning: This post contains discussion of underage rape and of transphobia

Four months ago, the Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times ran a few articles on a case involving Malay Muslim transgender man Zunika Ahmad, 39. He had been charged with 20 counts of sexually penetrating a girl, a minor who was between the age of 13 and 14 at the time of the offenses between April 2012 and December 2013, with a dildo.

Last week, the same newspaper ran several more articles to update on the decision of the High Court. High Court Senior Judge Kan Ting Chiu, acquitted Zunika of six charges (although Zunika was convicted of one charge of sexual exploitation and sentenced to eight months’ jail). The judge said that Section 376A of the Penal Code implies that only a person with a penis (i.e a man) can be guilty of sexual penetration: “The reference to a person who has a penis cannot be construed to include a woman without doing violence to common sense and anatomy.”

What’s interesting about this case is that while the offender is a man and should be considered as one, the sex he was assigned at birth was used to erase his sexual offenses.

Earlier coverage of the story in December 2015 spoke of Zunika as a person with “gender dysphoria” and describes a transgendered man as someone “who was born a woman but identifies as male“. The newspaper’s representation of Zunika as a trans person is mixed; it uses the wrong pronouns throughout, but in other ways it could even be considered sympathetic: Zunika felt “betrayed by her [sic] own body” when he entered puberty.

Not being able to express his gender identity is portrayed as a source of mental distress (“When her mother forbade her from going for a sex change operation, she cut her forearms […]”). Zunika was expected to be able to go for sex reassignment surgery and “rebuild” his life.

While a medical diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’ suggests that this condition is something innate and fixed, words and phrases used in the newspaper’s language, such as “bogus persona“, “disguised as man“, “fooled” and “her real gender” imply that transgendered people are also deceptive and manipulative. Furthermore, the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ are used consistently throughout all articles – even if the term “transgender man” is used – to further emphasise that transgendered men are actually still women.

What is the purpose of law when it cannot bring about justice?

There is also a tone of incredulity at any type of marriage that is out of the heteropatriarchal norm. This is shown by the putting in apostrophes the words “married”, “husband” and “wives”. Such marriages cannot possibly be real or recognised because they do not involve the union of two people of opposite biological sexes.

The most important issue at hand, however, is the sexual exploitation of a minor. The first article describes the sex as “consensual” even though the victim was below 16 years old, the age of consent in Singapore. The purpose behind legal ages of consent is to protect minors, who are presumed to not be able to give informed consent due to unequal relations of power. Sex with a minor under 16 is an offence with or without the minor’s consent, let alone a 13- or 14-year-old having sex with someone more than 20 years older.

More disturbing perhaps is the squabbling over legal definitions (i.e. sexual offender must be a man, must have penis, etc) over the actual application of the law to derive justice (protecting a victim who was a minor at the time of the crime).

“If a court were to interpret A to include a woman, it would be rewriting the law, said [High Court Senior Judge Kan Ting Chiu]. [He] said the ‘better course’ was to leave it to the legislature to amend the provision to make it clear that A includes a woman, if that was indeed the intention.”

While the subject of this analysis is a Muslim transgender man, the insistence of the media on framing him as a woman raises several interesting points.

First, representing transgendered persons in the media only in relation to sexual offenses serves to strengthen the link between being a sexual minority and a moral deviant. In this case, Zunika not only committed the moral crime of deception, but also adultery (“cheats on wives“), paedophilia and deviant sex acts (“using sex toy“) in addition to a whole list of other charges.

“Besides the sexual offences, Zunika is also accused of four counts of using a forged Indonesian passport at Singapore checkpoints, and one count each of voluntarily causing hurt and permitting a false entry to be made at the registry of births and deaths. She will be dealt with on these charges separately.”

Second, we should be vigilant of the use of religion to provide a cover for sexual abuse. The victim, known as R, said: “My family trusted her because she has her own family and seemed very religious. She taught me and my siblings how to pray and made me wear a hijab.” Apparently Zunika also wore an “ankle-length robe and turban during religious occasions,” Arabised items of clothing that give the wearer more religious legitimacy.

Third, we need to be aware of the history of laws. The Penal Code was enacted in the late 19th century in British colonies, based on British law and understandings of society at that time. While British law today may have evolved through amendments, many former colonies remain with fossilised versions of colonial-era law that limit sexual offenses to sexual penetration with a human penis, for example.

As a mirror to Section 376A, the Penal Code also does not recognise men or boys as victims of rape, since Section 375 of the Penal Code states that a victim of rape must have a vagina. This eliminates many other types of sexual offenses that may not involve penetration, or that may involve the violent use of other objects.

Ultimately, such laws fail to protect the underage victim, whether it is a boy or girl. And what is the purpose of law when it cannot bring about justice?

This article was first published on Muslimah Media Watch

"Do you work here?"

Institutional racism means that when you are Brown, you're taken to be a low-wage worker. Not that you might want or desire such a job, but that these are the opportunities open to you.

Institutional racism means that when you're in a clothing store, some White people will assume that you work there. You might be holding a few pieces of clothing over your arm, as you look through the shelves and racks. These are not things that you're browsing for and that you can afford to buy, but items that were already tried on or misplaced and it's your $5-per-hour job to fold and put them back.

Institutional racism means that when you are seeking something more beyond the 9-to-5 grind, some Rich people assume that you're unemployed and would be grateful for any job offered to you. You may have been privileged enough to get a degree, but educational qualifications are invisible. A rich person may look at your skin colour, and the skin colour of their loyal chauffeur and secretary, and offer you those jobs. These are not jobs you are necessarily interested in, but you are supposed to be grateful that you were offered them at all.

Institutional racism means that when you send out dozens of resumes with your Arabic-sounding Malay name, some White people will offer you a secretarial or administrative job, if it's not a cleaning job. Some White people will offer you unpaid internships. Some Rich people will, during your interview, tell you that they are glad you are not wearing hijab, because women that wear hijab "think differently". Institutional racism means that when you hyphenate your father's name to your husband's Dutch family name, you get an interview and you are assumed to be of mixed parentage.

Institutional racism means that when you find yourself too close to a person who has more privilege, other people might mistake you as the domestic worker of the person you are helping. You might be just offering a wet wipe to a Chinese woman who fell down, or helping a wheelchair-user buy something or get somewhere.

Institutional racism means that when you're doing anything resembling manual labour, some Chinese people will assume that you are the cleaner of the premises humbly doing your job. You might be moving boxes and equipment because you train with athletes in this hall everyday. It's your last day in this place and you have to pack everything to be picked up the next day. You know the Malay pakciks and Indian aunties that set up and put away sports equipment and furniture in this hall. Institutional racism means that a Chinese person may see you as just another Brown menial worker.

So the first thing he asks you is, "Do you work here?"

Does religion trump race? Yes, at least in Singapore.

This article was first published on Muslimah Media Watch.

One of the biggest problems that Muslim women face today is the need to deconstruct and reconstruct narratives of ourselves in the media. (That’s why Muslimah Media Watch exists, amirite?) A recent interview of Professor Jackie Ying, a Chinese Muslim scientist in Singapore, by a Singaporean Malay language news channel shows that this need can exist just as painfully among Muslims themselves.

50-year-old Professor Ying is presently the Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore. Born in Taiwan, she came to Singapore at the age of seven to complete her primary and secondary school education. At the age of 15 her family moved to New York, and she attended high school and The Cooper Union to complete a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Afterwards, she obtained her MA and PhD from Princeton University. In 2001, she became one of the youngest full professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The interview was brought to my attention through a blogpost by Singaporean blogger Zaihan, in which he highlighted the problematic ‘entanglement’ of race and religion. (The blog was last accessed on 26 Feb 2016 and seems to be currently unavailable.)

“Due to her choice of converting to Islam about 15 years ago, Professor Ying is somehow now seen as a representative of the Malay/Muslim community. She was asked to comment on issues that this group faces; on how she would change or improve interest in the sciences amongst the youth of the demographic, for example. She was even prodded to share the “kemelayuan”—Malayness, in short—that she sees in herself. It’s so strange because she is Muslim, but not Malay. She was not quite able to answer so many of these queries levelled at her, because she had not lived as a Malay (…)”

In Singapore, just like in Malaysia, ethnicity and religion are deeply intertwined. To be a Malay often means to be Muslim, and Muslim converts are usually expected to adopt Malay practices. Elsewhere in MMW I wrote that “these two terms [Malay and Muslim] are often used interchangeably.” One problem with this false equivalence of terms is that it erases the experiences of Muslims of other ethnicities, like Professor Ying herself. However, this is something that is sometimes reinforced by the ehnic group itself, in this particular case, the Malay community, as highlighted by blogger Zaihan:

“The blatant manner that Berita Harian and local Malay news programmes claim her amazing achievements (she is truly prolific and well-decorated) as a Malay-Muslim point of pride—simply by virtue of her holding the same faith as their target readers—is not only very silly but also insulting to her journey.”

The other problem with equating Malays and Muslims is the discursive erasure of Malays of other religions, even though they make up a very small percentage of the population. One’s religious identity takes precedence over any other identities.

In the half-hour clip, the interviewer asks several questions that assume that Professor Ying somehow would understand what it means to be Malay, just because she converted to Islam. The interviewer poses these questions:

1. What is the reason behind the low numbers of Malay Muslims participating in science and research?
2. What more can the Malay Muslim community do to encourage, ensure and produce a group of science practitioners?
3. Do you see any Malay Muslims [in your institute] who have the potential to be [a Nobel Prize winner]?

Professor Ying works with the local Malay/Muslim community through Yayasan Mendaki, a “self-help” semi-governmental organisation. She mentors young Muslims interested in science by giving them the opportunity of working on research projects in her laboratory. While she could not answer these questions from the perspective of a Malay, she did have insights from the perspective of an educator.

She highlighted the shortcomings of science education, and she said,”I think it’s the same problem for everybody. Students learn science as a fairly dry subject.” Furthermore, she spoke about the emphasis on exams and early streaming, “Doing well academically is different from being able to do research well in the lab. We have too much of a civil service mindset.”

Even though the interviewer’s questions framed her as having to speak for the Singaporean Malay community by virtue of being Muslim, I think she managed to steer the conversation away to – as much as she could – create her own representation. The struggle continues for Muslim women to create their own narratives and resisting those imposed on them.

“I think from being young, we wanted to grow up to be individuals. It was important for me that my parents did not set me in certain pigeonholes. They are very accepting of who I am (…) Of course society is a different story. We have a lot of constraints. But because my parents never set those limitations, I never felt there was something I couldn’t do. I think it’s that: we set our own challenges that makes it possible for us to try different things.”

In Singapore, the conflation of ethnicity and religion erases individual narratives, as Professor Ying highlights here. However, with this interview she has given us an example of how to resist dominant media narratives – an example both media makers and participants can learn from.

A Chinese convert is "content wherever she finds herself"

This article was first published on Openseam. Iman Wong is a Chinese convert from Singapore. She enjoys reading, brisk walking and listening to oldies. She currently volunteers at Darul Arqam, where she counsels new converts and teaches them about Islam and prayers.

By Iman Wong

It started way back in 1978. I had decided to embraced Islam. It was indeed a very trying and difficult period for me but I survived.

I lived in a kampong area in Geylang and there was a mosque near my home. Every morning I could hear the sounds of adhan I disliked it because it was noisy and interrupted my sleep. I had many different neighbours: Malays, Indians and Chinese. We played and ran around together. All our homes were always open and we only locked our front doors after midnight. It was so safe and so sound...

Then, I was studying in a Roman Catholic school, where all of us went to church, sang hymns and also studied catechism. The British nuns would read from the Bible and tell us stories even though we were non-Catholics. Incidentally, I remembered a handsome British priest who visited our class -- all of us were mesmerised by his big blue eyes. I was not keen or interested in being a Catholic as I did not feel anything when I looked at a statue of Jesus Christ.

My parents were Taoists and they only worshipped ancestors. I was a free thinker and I simply followed what they wanted me to do, like holding joss sticks and cleaning the altar of my late grandfather. Sometimes, I followed my mother to the temple to pray to deities, but I really disliked it. The smoke from the joss sticks and the solemn looks on the deities made me feel very uneasy whenever I visited the temple. For me, worshipping deities are definitely out, because deities are all made by men.

Then, I was aware that there was a God but I did not know how to get to Him. I was like a lost ship floating on the sea.

My dearest father was hardworking but a man of very few words. He was the only breadwinner in my family and when he was stressed out, he drowned his sorrows by drinking! I did not understand him too well as there was no communication between us at all. He was like our ‘commander’ from whom we only took orders. Then, I was rather rebellious, always wanting to do something different from my siblings.

One night, I did some soul searching and wondered if life should be so monotonous – eat, sleep, work, play? I started thinking about the meaning of life and concluded that there must be some superpower that created everything. My head kept pounding.

Who is He and where is He?

Finally, one day my question was answered. A Malay Muslim neighbour gave me a English translation of the Qur’an, written by Mohammed Pickthall. When I finally found some time to take a look, I read the first verse, Al Fatiha. The phrase, "Show us the straight path" (1:5) attracted me. I felt that this was the wake-up call for which I had been searching.

I began to attend classes at Darul Arqam under the late Cikgu Zaini, at Pheng Geck Avenue. He gave me the impression of a father, a respected teacher, and a knowledgeable person. He had a good sense of humour and in other words, a jolly good fellow. And he looked so Chinese too! My first question to him was, “Are you a Chinese?” and he said "No, I look Chinese but I am born Malay."

Of course, my parents didn’t know that I was attending Islamic courses. How would they have reacted! When I decided to convert in 1978, my father was so mad at me and did not speak to me for a year, but my mother was very supportive, alhamdulillah. My eldest sister was strongly against it because she is a Catholic. I embraced Islam without their blessings and I did feel very upset.

My faith fluctuated when I lost my late husband

Fortunately, I met Brother Kamar Lim, whom I greatly respect, and also the late Sister Saibah – both of whom became my mentors. They understood the conflict with my family and gave me a lot of support and encouragement. They said, keep praying and Allah will lighten your burden. I felt so much better after talking to both of them. Brother Kamar Lim asked me to be a council member with Darul Arqam and in short, Darul Arqam became my second home.

After a year, my father started speaking to me. But, he told me that he wanted his future son–in-law to be a Chinese. I was astounded but I had no choice but to take up his challenge! As it turned out, in the same year, I attended a youth camp in Taipei organised by the World Assembly Muslim Youth (WAMY) with another Muslim sister. I was really excited to meet so many Chinese Muslims in Taiwan and, guess what, there I also met my late husband. My late father was so happy that I was marrying a Chinese Muslim and we were blessed with a son, alhamdulillah.

In 1998, my late husband met with a car accident. I realised that death is inevitable. That took me to further understand that life in this world is not forever and that one day, we have to return to God whether we are ready to or not. My faith fluctuated when I lost my late husband but it was a trial that I had to quickly get over for the sake of my only son. I renewed my faith and occupied myself with classes and activities at Darul Arqam. Just like the Chinese saying, ji lai zhi ze an shi. Be content wherever you find yourself.

Time flies. I have embraced Islam for 38 years. Thank God that He blesses me till today. I am imperfect, I still have weakness and flaws in my journey to Islam but my faith keeps me going. New converts? Put your trust in Allah and everything will fall in its place, insha’allah.

On feminist alliance and participatory media-making.

This post was first published on Muslimah Media Watch.

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Writing (for Muslimah Media Watch and other platforms elsewhere) has opened up many opportunities to collaborate with other activists from around the world. In particular, some articles I wrote on female circumcision (and also male circumcision) a few years ago attracted a lot of attention from activists and filmmakers, and a fresh round of conversations about these articles prompted me to gather and reflect on these transnational interactions.

A few years ago, while I was still living in the Netherlands, a Dutch non-government organization contacted me. They were looking for a gateway into the homogenized ethnic group of “Islamic Indonesian or Malaysian background”. Even though I specifically identified myself as being a Malay (ethnic group) Singaporean (nationality), they mistook me for an Indonesian. Indonesia and Malaysia are two different countries, and Indonesia alone has over 15 ethnic groups – facts that I would have hoped an NGO would be aware of if they were targeting this demographic.

Dispersing the misconceptions about ethnicity, nationality, and diasporic communities was work enough. Then they asked me to help them find other recent immigrants who “may not be informed about the consequences if they have their daughter circumcised.” Their assumptions about immigrant Muslim women and their culture(s) were ominously foreshadowing the recent Dutch policy to teach “gay rights” in refugee centres. Both parties paint immigrants and refugees as being inherently misogynist and homophobic.

(Can we get #NotallMuslimwomencircumcisetheirdaughters trending?)

Soon after, I received a request from an filmmaker working on the issue of routine male infant circumcision (MC). She was looking for doctors or parents in either Malaysia, Indonesia, or Singapore (though anyone from “Africa or Asia” would do) who supported the less invasive forms of female circumcision (pricking, slitting) – and she wasn’t planning on portraying them in a negative light. The purpose of juxtaposing FC (which is normally considered abhorrent) in other countries to male circumcision in the US was to help point out to Americans of their “cultural blind-spots” and “double standard”.

However, it would make more sense to change just one variable instead of two. For example, how about comparing “American” forms of genital cutting such as labioplasty/vaginoplasty to male circumcision? Instead of you know, using the rest of the world as a setting to help Americans learn more about themselves.

Most recently I was asked, by an photographer-filmmaker, to find some women or girls who had been through FC. More specifically, she wanted to film the procedure and some interviews – keeping all parties anonymous. Then: “They can wear their burqas if they want to.” #NotallMuslimwomenwearburqas

In all of the above interactions, I felt conflicting emotions. On one hand, I wanted to raise awareness about FC and MC. However, on the other hand, I felt like the person’s interpretations of the topic were being forced on me. In the case of being asked to provide contacts, I felt like they were forcing their way into an extremely intimate subject – information which had required time and emotional effort on my part to obtain – making me feel like an unwilling ‘native informant’.

As a result of feeling coerced, I curiously started to become defensive. In my mind, I even wanted to defend these practices – FC in particular because of the ‘milder’ nature more prevalent in Southeast Asia – against the onslaught of eager activists. It was a wholly reactionary defense mechanism.

Multiracial alliances can fail or be productive. As in all relations of power, there are lines of privilege to consider. I feel that immortalising representations of Muslim women through the making of media (books, films, policy papers) is something to be especially careful about. What would make me want to collaborate? What would make it worthwhile?

There was one more request by an European activist, who requested me to answer a series of questions on FC. Initially suspicious (seriously you can’t blame me though), I asked her many questions about her background, work, motivations and objectives, to get a better idea about how she was planning to represent the situation in Southeast Asia. In the end, our interactions were open, pleasant and productive, so I ended up contributing my experiences.

In her book Power Lines: On the Subject of Feminist Alliances (2008), Aimee Carillo Rowe writes:

“There’s the colour of the body, and then there’s the colour of the commitment that burns like hot blue flame in our hearts… Our work is to turn ourselves inside out. To locate ourselves through our loyalty and our bravery and our willingness to fight for radical visions.”

The only project I ended up contributing to was one that I felt I had the most control over. Not only did the collaborating activist ask mostly open-ended questions, the published text is also made up mostly of quotes. This shows a willingness to let people speak for themselves (as far as it is possible in a textual form). I suppose then, what makes a collaboration worthwhile is if we can control our own representations and get our message across at the same time.

PS: I almost forgot about the random White male law student who had written a paper about FC and was looking for my feedback. When I asked him why he wanted to send it to me, he said he thought it would be ‘as much for my benefit’ as others had been ‘extremely appreciative’. I think I forgot to give him any feedback.

"Actually, I'm his mum."

It's been a whirlwind few months since the big move back to Singapore. It's had its pros and cons, but mostly I am very glad to be back. As a Kiwi friend once said, "Singaporeans always miss Singapore, right?"

My posts have been rather depressing of late -- the cons of moving back. One of the reasons I wanted to come back was to feel a sense of a Muslim community again. Back in NL, I had cobbled together a motley group of Muslim friends, which I was and still am very grateful for. In retrospect, I realise that I should not expect myself to be able to integrate seamlessly back here -- I've changed so much as a Muslim and as a person that the Sunni Shafii mainstream is not really an Islam I am 100% comfortable with anymore. Listening to people talk about how men should only marry women who can bear children is extremely triggering.

(I can't imagine being able to articulate that only just 5 or 6 years ago, which is when all my questioning started.)

Being a mum to 17 month old now, I've changed so much. While I already had to learn to put aside other people's opinions because of many of my feminist-social-justice beliefs, I definitely give even less consideration now -- in short, IDGAF. My priority is to advocate for my kid.

Staying in a neighbourhood with many White foreigners is also creating its own series of misconceptions. Because many of their kids are cared for by live-in Filipina oIndonesian migrant domestic workers white women assume I am also a domestic worker. Never mind that Nootje is practically a carbon copy of me (when compared to his dad at least). When he is near me my Brownness is enhanced. Especially if I'm out and about in my Tshirts and jeans/shorts as opposed to a fancier skirt or blouse, with makeup or accessories.

The privilege of being able to groom myself into socially acceptable femininity every day (or any day) is what distinguishes me from migrant working women. They only get Sundays (their day off) to dress up as they like. This counts for women who wear hijab as well, as the headscarf functions as a marker of urban modernity. If I wore hijab and presentable clothes at the playground, I would not be mistaken for an Indonesian or a Filipina. Hijabi migrants might be allowed a simple 'instant' hijab on trips to the supermarket, but only on Sundays can they go all out with their outfits.

Having had the last few months to process all this, and now that I am aware of how I fit into this intersection of race, gender and migrant status, what do I do?

The 'me' of 10 years ago would have detested being mistaken for a 'maid'. Her choice to wear hijab would have been partly influenced by this (not the only or the most important factor, but a factor nonetheless).

The 'me' today? IDGAF. I dress in what makes me comfortable in the heat, considering my need to safely cycle and run after, carry and breastfeed Nootje. When I'm in the mood, I take the opportunity to educate the adults and children who assume I am Nootje's 'maid', 'auntie' or 'bibik' simply because I have brown skin, plain clothes, a plain (and very Javanese) face, and I sit on the bench watching him at the playground instead of constantly following him around (aka "helicopter parenting", a fun post for another day).

When I'm not in the mood, I simply say, in the coolest tone I can muster and witness the offending adult flush with embarassment: "Actually, I'm his mum."

7 ways to ace the Dutch integration exam

Last month I spent eight hours in a centre proving how worthy I am of staying in this country. In other words, the Dutch integration exam or inburgeringexamen.

As I walk into the ordinary looking building that houses several other offices, about 30 faces greet me: mostly brown, some are white. Some are married to people holding Dutch passports and must do the exam or risk a fine, some are refugees who have lived here for almost a decade and need a Dutch passport, some are from rich countries looking to gain another citizenship in order to become "a world citizen", some have come in the 70s as guest workers and have to show that they haven't been creating their own ethnic ghettoes, others are economic refugees or students looking to escape their countries.

I fall under the first category. But I'm about to find out that this exam is not created to take all these candidates into consideration; it's just one long day of alternate feelings of embarrassment, amusement, outrage and pity.

It doesn't take long to be micro-aggressed. First I have to register, standing face to face with an overly chirpy Dutch woman who makes it a point to note on my paper that although my name is too long to fit on my residence permit, it is indeed my name and I am not posing as someone else. Smiling too much and enunciating each word slowly, she even tells me that since my hairstyle is different from my photo, I need to tuck my hair behind my ears because it's hard to tell brown people apart or something. 

I chose to do all 5 exams in one day: Dutch language listening, speaking, writing and reading skills, and knowledge of Dutch society (kennis nederlandse samenleving). Each test presents a few "cases" or situations, with 2 or 3 related questions. They're all done on a computer except for the writing test. One participant who is on her third attempt tells me that the speaking test used to be done with an examiner, which predictably makes things more stressful. With the new format, you watch a video of someone making small talk and asking a question. You record your reply in the software and you can repeat until your time is up.

I laugh out loud at certain questions, because they were so ridiculous. But I know I just have to put aside any critical thinking skills (saving it for this blog post) and just give the right answer. So here you go, here are 7 ways to ace integration, the Dutch way.

1. Work a labour-intensive job and don't study too much

One of the writing tasks is to compose an email to a colleague (you work together in a cleaning company) asking her to please vacuum the next day because you forgot to do so, and explain what you'll do for her in return. My vocabulary on household chores is pretty poor (because hey, I don't go around talking about it), so I come up with the only thing I knew the words for: that I'll clean the windows.

In one of the questions for the speaking test (which consists of only a handful of actual speaking into the microphone and then a series of multiple-choice questions on what your best response would be), you have to pretend to be a (Black) baker, busy packing something when your (White) boss asks you to get him coffee. The computer suggests that you can give a plain "no", you can tell your boss to get his own coffee or that you can tell him that you're busy. It's clear you need to say no without pissing off your boss. (No points for guessing the right answer.)

Other situations involve characters that work in a nursing home and supermarket. While their ethnicity or cultural background is not overtly stated, there are obvious clues that they are Moroccan, Turkish, or Black Antillean. There are some situations with characters pursuing some sort of education, but these are limited to vocational courses like cooking.

2. Submit to authority 

Meet Zam (not his real name). He has a headache and he goes to the doctor, who prescribes him a medication. He doesn't feel too good after taking the meds for a while, so he stops taking it. He shouldn't have done this even though he may know the best for his body (this is actually one of the answer options, but it's accompanied with a very Photoshopped photo of Zam looking like an arrogant know-it-all so WINK WINK). Instead, he should apologise to the doctor for not having consulted him first. (Though from my experience with medical professionals here and how some pretend they cannot speak English unless you're White, they should be the ones apologising to you.)

3. Learn the value of (White) opinions

In life, you will hear about the trials and tribulations of others. If you hear about a jewellery store robbery, you need to learn to accept that robbers are perhaps poor people who needed to eat (I'm pretty surprised at the compassion taught in this example but anyway). It's unacceptable to say that this is a ridiculous idea or that one is forbidden to have such ideas.

If you tell someone else that you plan to divorce your wife and said friend is not married, you must not assume that said friend doesn't know anything. White people can have an opinion on any and every topic (including how C-sections are not all that bad hey, true story) and you must listen to this opinion because, free speech. To be properly integrated, you should ask him why he holds such an opinion even though you're starting to feel mighty irritated.

4. Love gay people

This is very important. Probably the most important thing that determines your worth as an immigrant. It's not important to think of people as being on a continuum of sexual orientation, but rather that "homosexuals" are a simple alternative to "heterosexuals". Trans? Queer? What's all that complexity?

Just remember that gay people are allowed to hold hands anywhere in this country. Especially if they're white. Never you mind about the hostility faced by queers of colour (or God forbid, couples of colour!). Just love them for being lucky enough to be living in this country of freedom.

5. Love the police

Never mind that if you look Moroccan or Turkish, or if you have dark skin, you're more like to be stopped by the police on the street. Never mind also that you can be shot for merely putting your hands in your pockets because it looked like you were reaching for a gun.

Repeat after me: the police is your friend. If you are just taking an innocent walk around the block with your wife and you see a young man in a hoodie throwing a brick through a shop window, what should you do? (hint: call the police.) If you encounter a group of protesters who are suddenly attacked by a mysterious group of young men (with the same hoodies), what should you do? Just. call. the. police.

6. Accept whitewashing of history

Meet Dinh, a new immigrant from Vietnam. He wants to learn more about Dutch history so he goes to the museum. There he sees an exhibit about the VOC (Dutch East India Company). Now as a migrant from a former colony of France, Dinh probably knows a thing or two about colonial powers, so he knows that the VOC didn't just go what is Indonesia today to simply trade in spices so they could establish Conimex.

But just pretend that that is all they went there for. Colonisation, oppression, violence -- that's all much too messy for the integrated mind.

7. Know that this is not real life

It is striking how the test tries to consciously work against stereotypes. Although many practice questions for the test focus on how this country is the land of gender equality (where men and women split housework 50-50, where contraception is seen as female emancipation, and where men are not allowed to hit women), during the test you'll meet a white man who hits his wife and kids, while his Moroccan neighbours are left with the awkward dilemma of trying to get him to stop drinking, get a job and stop abusing his family (no idea why you can't call the police in this case, because it seems like a pretty good option).

This Moroccan couple has the darndest life. Not only does their daughter's bicycle get stolen, but one day they encounter a group of white protesters on strike, demanding higher wages. For some reason, they are attacked by a few young brown boys in hoodies (I get it, hoodies are scary).

The most important thing to know about the exam is that these situations do not reflect real life in the Netherlands. The test is a representation of what a few people in power thought Dutch life should be. If you can put this aside and put on your integrated-immigrant hat, you'll pass with flying colours.

At least I did. :)

Use a “Muslim Woman”: Reasserting Dutch Values 101

This post was originally published on Muslimah Media Watch on 2 Dec 2013

A few weeks ago, I went to a small, local cinema in my city to catch a film. I’ve always liked going to this particular cinema because they screen international and independent films – a fresh change from the standard Hollywood fare at the bigger cinema.

The film was about to start, so I quickly ducked into the ladies’. After I washed my hands, imagine my shock at seeing the following poster pasted behind the door:

Source: Hivos

The text on the poster says (in Dutch):

“This woman is a symbol for all homosexual women and men in developing countries that, through Hivos’s human rights programme, can come out about their orientation.”

Another version of the poster has a slightly different text, and ends on an appeal for donations:

“There are countries where people cannot say what they want, and cannot be who they are. Hivos, a development organisation, wants to give a voice to as many of these people as possible. Because everyone should be able to be, and say, what he or she wants. Support Hivos GIRO 1969.”

As you might imagine, my shock was not so much “OMG a Muslimwoman is lesbian” but “OMG misuse of images of veiled women (yet again)!”

When I posted this picture and my reaction on Facebook, bemoaning the use of a veiled brown woman to homogenise and represent developing countries as homophobic, I received an interesting reaction from a white Dutch woman.

This acquaintance made a clear comparison between “Islamic countries” and Holland. Illustrating her argument with a story that her daughter is lesbian and is able to live a perfectly heteronormative life (hoping to marry, have children and build a household), she stated that she was glad that her daughter was born in Holland and not in “Islamic countries”.

I believe this is the main reaction that the poster intends to arouse in its main viewers – middle class white Dutch people who wish to help those in developing countries: that they should feel grateful for the “freedom” and “tolerance” in the Netherlands and extend their generosity to other countries that are not as “free”.

Attempts by fellow queer Muslim women to add nuance to her argument only led to a flat out denial of any marginalisation of LGBTQ groups (for example, those of colour) in the Netherlands, and her reinforcement of the idea that Islam is (and Muslims are) inherently homophobic. In fact, she even accused me of not being sufficiently “tolerant” because I found her category of homophobic “Islamic countries” to be reinforcing stereotypes and erasing complex socio-political histories.

I still wonder about the logic behind this campaign by Hivos. What do they mean, exactly, that this “veiled lady symbolises the difficult fight against homophobia”? That all Muslims are homophobic? That all countries with Muslim laws are homophobic? That LGBTQ Muslims always want to come out? That LGBTQ Muslims need the support and solidarity from development organisations in the Global North to help them?

Further reading reveals that Hivos holds the hegemonic, liberal feminist idea that “the position of lesbian women as a measure of freedom” can and must be applied to all countries. However, such an universal idea of freedom has already been sharply critiqued, interrogated and questioned by women scholars such as Saba Mahmood,Gayatri Spivak and Lila Abu-Lughod.

As I found out, the woman in the poster is not even Muslim.

The woman in the picture is in fact Papu, a Bhopa woman from the Thar desert in Rajasthan, India, photographed by Mirjam Letsch, a Dutch photographer. In fact, in some areas in rural north India, married Hindu women veil themselves in front of certain people like older male in-laws. According to the website set up by the photographer, Papu has a husband, children, and supports her family by playing music on the streets. Most importantly, the Papu Photo Project was actually set up to support Indian “dowry victims” – women who are mutilated, set on fire, or killed for not being able to provide sufficient dowry. Not LGBTQ women who are unable to come out.

Source: NRC Charity Awards

This campaign was selected in 2011 for a charity awards competition by NRC, a Dutch newspaper. Taking a quick look at the website of this year’s awards, I found another example of the use of the image of a brown woman in hijab as a way to catch the viewer’s attention, using stereotypes about Muslims.

The text on the poster by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Foundation below says “I am against equal treatment” (presumably, of men and women). This poster plays on the stereotype that Muslims (and especially Muslim women in hijab) are never for gender equality, unlike white Dutch people – ignoring and erasing the work of Dutch Muslim organisations and platforms that believe in gender equality such as Al Nisa and Nieuwe Moskee. It turns out upon closer inspection of the text, that the ad is about cancer treatment.

This is exactly the purpose of the image of the veiled Rajasthani woman on the Hivos poster. By juxtaposing an image of what seems to be a Muslim woman from a developing country together with the text “I am lesbian”, the organisation intends to get the attention of a certain kind of viewer. This viewer is assumed to believe that Muslims are homophobic because LGBTQ Muslims are oppressed (only) by religion, and that homophobia is a problem of developing countries and not countries with lots of “freedom” like the Netherlands. 

The poster in fact merely reinforces the self-image of white Dutch people, helping them feel good about themselves (which they then act upon by hopefully donating some money).

Source: Author's own photo

In one article on their website, Hivos mentions the arrests and legal penalties for gay/lesbian people in Malawi and Uganda (perhaps more relevant to another poster from the same campaign, which pictures a black man with the words “I’m gay” ). According to Hivos, these incidents justify the use of the image of an Indian woman (so they do know that she’s Indian!).Hivos adds in the same article that “whether or not this lady herself is a lesbian, does not matter”. 

However, it matters because 1) the text says “I am lesbian”, and 2) it means that the organisation is playing on the stereotypes of a veiled woman, without caring if the woman herself is lesbian.

Is it a stretch of the imagination to feature an actual lesbian brown woman, whether Hindu or Muslim, for a really effective campaign? These two posters in effect racialise LGBTQ issues as a problem of “others” in “developing countries” and not “at home”. More importantly, why claim to support one marginalised group while further marginalising another?

Ethnic Makeup: Good migrant, bad migrant.

This post was originally written for Poskod.sg, published on 13 Apr 2013.
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"Meet the whole world at The Hague Market"

Judging a book

My first experience with Holland was a tin of condensed milk of the “Dutch Lady” brand. Many of you might have grown up with it as well: a fair-skinned milkmaid wearing a blue and white traditional dress, holding a pail of milk, freshly expressed from the black and white cows behind her, munching on green grass, with windmills in the far horizon. Today, tourist advertisements for Holland emphasise the Keukenhof tulips and windmills. In particular, the tourist video playing on loop at the Dutch Consulate will endlessly repeat that “The Dutch are among the tallest people in the world.”

Don’t blame me for thinking that Holland was full of tall, white, milk-drinking people frolicking among tulips and/or windmills.

On the other hand, Singapore has consistently portrayed itself to be a country of immigrants (to the point of ignoring the indigenous population) who can keep on receiving foreigners as long as they fit into certain ideas of class and race. While Holland has yet to admit that it is indeed a multicultural country, Singapore has created four ‘races’ or socio-politically constructed categories, often referred to as CMIO (Chinese/Malay/Indian/Other), which Kat has beautifully unpacked previously, and which Chua Beng Huat criticises for being a ‘neutral empire’ in creating ‘racial’ divisions and managing ‘racial harmony’, peace and equality.[i]

What’s sure is that the constant “gloat[ing] of Chinese hegemony” means that people I meet in Holland either think Singapore is part of China, or they insist I’m not Singaporean because my skin is “so brown!” (excuse me—olive or sawo matang, please).

"Tea"

When I was studying in France, I was often told that I looked Polynesian, with some people even comparing me to their relatives who lived on Wallis and Futuna islands (a French territory in the South Pacific). Because I spoke fluent French, many people I met simply assumed that I was born in France. People try to make sense of strangers by connecting them to their country’s heritage; in this case, the Polynesian territories of France.

So it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that I would be constantly taken as Indonesian.I’ve been told repeatedly by Indonesian friends that I have a typical Javanese appearance (which helped me to blend in with my Indonesian domestic workers respondents when I was researching for my thesis). I have been told once that I look like I’m “from the East Indies”, the biggest Dutch colony, (which says something about the relationship of contemporary Dutch society with their colonial past).

I accept that in Singapore I am often mistaken for a domestic worker when I’m hanging around my Pasir Ris heartlands. I used to be offended before I knew better, but now I see it as a form of solidarity with them. Before I went to study in Holland, I expected to be simply taken as an Indonesian in Holland but as I found out, it was a little more complicated than that.

"Friends for life"

Good migrant, bad migrant

The majority of the Indo people in Holland arrived in a series of migrations called the ‘repatriation’, after the Second World War, when most Eurasians of mixed Dutch (and other European) and indigenous ancestry left what was then the Dutch East Indies. The Dutchman’s (my husband, but that’s another story) grandmother (born in a town close to my own grandparents in East Java) was one of these migrants.

Many Dutch people my age have some ancestor from what is now Indonesia, and might possibly have grown up or lived for some time in Indonesia themselves. During the Japanese occupation of 1942-45, many were put into Japanese concentration camps aimed at eliminating European presence. Later, when they arrived in Holland, they may have also suffered some sort of discrimination or feelings of a loss of belonging because of their mixed ancestry.

"Healthy/You'll find it at The Hague Market"

My father-in-law is proud to tell me that his mother “completely integrated” by learning Dutch; only speaking Javanese occasionally with her brothers and sisters. Hans van Amersfoort posits that the Indos’ familiarity with Dutch language and culture before coming to Holland, and also their Dutch citizenship, helped them to “seamlessly assimilate” into contemporary Dutch society.[ii]  As a result, migrants today from Indonesia who move to Holland for studies or marriage are more likely to be accepted—at least at face value—as authentically ‘Dutch’.

The fact that white Dutch people will talk to me in Dutch automatically is a sign that my Javanese appearance has some cultural capital. Other appearances that ensure a positive welcome are being white, or Chinese.

"Present/You'll find it at The Hague Market"

"Fashion/You'll find it at The Hague Market"

A group of ‘good’ migrants are those of Chinese-Surinamese descent, or those who look Chinese, no matter the country of origin. Formerly a Dutch colony, Suriname saw a lot of Surinamese migration to the Netherlands after its independence in 1975. Just like Singapore, Suriname is also made up of several ethnic groups (besides their indigenous Amerindians) which include Chinese, Hindustani, and Javanese: their ancestors originally came over as contract plantation labourers from China, India, and Java respectively. In addition, Surinamese migrants to the Netherlands also include Maroons (descendants of West African slaves) and Creoles (mixed West African-European ancestry).

"Party/Meet the whole world at The Hague Market"

Singapore also has categories for its temporary labour force, based on their countries of origin: ‘expats’ or high-skilled workers, and ‘foreign workers’ or low-wage transient workers such as male construction workers from mostly Bangladesh, and female live-in migrant domestic workers from mostly Indonesia and The Philippines (this group forming the bulk of all foreigners in Singapore).

To put it rather crudely, thanks to its history of colonisation, Holland has a population that is mixed: white, black, yellow, brown, and every shade in between. But in right-wing political discourse, migrants are racially profiled according to their socio-economic status, conflated with their religion or ethnicity. Another right-wing discourse is that these newer migrants from Turkey and Morocco (1960s onwards) are ‘parasites’, ‘Islamic terrorists’ or ‘criminele allochtonen’ (from a foreign soil, with the tendency to be involved in crime). Now, which ethnic group in Singapore faces the same conflation of socioeconomic status and ethnicity?

A Singaporean in Holland

If you look Chinese, you won’t have a problem. Even though the Chinese-Dutch community can remain insular, politically speaking they do not pose a problem because they can be rather well-off and/or own significant businesses. More recent migrants from China come via networks that are already existing in various Dutch cities. A girlfriend (Chinese born in Holland, grew up in Shanghai and now studying in Amsterdam) explained the familial closeness of these networks, i.e., “all the Chinese people in Amsterdam know if I’m dating a white guy”.

Preserved herring, a Dutch delicacy

If you look Indian, you might be mistaken for a Hindustani. The reception to this community is ambivalent: they own most of the tropische winkels (neighbourhood stores that sell ‘exotic’ produce, spices, dried fish, etc.), but they cannot escape the racialised policing of public places that target young, dark-skinned men. A close girlfriend (Hindustani Surinamese born and living in Holland) laments that working in a Dutch government bureau meant constantly explaining where her parents were from and making sure that she was using enough fancy Dutch vocabulary to prove her fluency.

If look Malay, you might be mistaken for an Indo or an Indonesian, both of which are two completely non-threatening groups. (This is shown by the seemingly class-based political classification of Indonesian migrants as ‘Western’ foreigners, alongside the Americans and Japanese.) I am often mistaken for being (honorary white) Dutch, with the expectations that I should be able to speak Dutch. And if I cannot (yet), I must assimilate by learning it. I can never be an expat, who are never expected to assimilate.

If you look nothing like the above categories, congratulations. A friend of mine (white Canadian woman married to an Indian man) was even told by a Dutch girl before moving to Holland that she would have “no problems integrating” because she was white, while her husband would have some problems. Yet they were moving to Holland because he got a job here!

"Meet the whole world at The Hague Market"

Migration and Islamophobia

When I first came to Holland, I was surprised to hear from an Egyptian-Dutch friend that she thought Holland was “one of the most Islamophobic countries in Europe”. I saw plenty of women wearing headscarves in the streets and trams and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Later on I realised that while Indonesian-looking Muslim women in their neat instant-hijab did not attract any attention, Turkish- or Moroccan-looking Muslim women sometimes got dirty looks. Increase the degree of nastiness in this order: whether she’s wearing a long skirt or jeans, a long dress, or a face-covering.

In solidarity with other Muslim women, I immediately took up arms—psychologically. I was ready to explain to politically liberal, young white Dutch people that Muslims are not just those who wear a beard or a headscarf. When one such young man asked me whether I had faced any negative prejudice for being Muslim, I admitted that because I didn’t wear a headscarf, and because I look Indo(nesian), not many people would assume I was Muslim. “Ah, then to us you’re not really Muslim!” His reply revealed just how ethnic appearances and religion had been easily conflated, in addition to socioeconomic status.

According to Liz Fekete, before 9/11, the Dutch government was more concerned with the economic integration of migrants with a Moroccan or Turkish background.[iii]  These communities had migrated to the Netherlands from the 1960s as contract workers (and thus not expected by the government to stay), and were currently experiencing high levels of unemployment and poverty after decades of marginalisation. At the time, Dutch security measures primarily focused on asylum-seekers and migrants. However, after 9/11, security services took the view that Islam per se constituted a ‘threat’, and very quickly Muslim migrants or asylum-seekers all became threats by default.

"Fruit/You'll find it at the Hague Market"

Ethnic makeup

I was once called a ‘Chinees kontje’ in the street; this racialised slur only reveals a lack of knowledge about the different ethnic communities within Holland, and greater issues of migration patterns in general. Simply because I “don’t look like a Muslim”, I don’t face the full force of Islamophobia, even though it is a personal and social wound.

Somewhere on the hierarchies of race, religion and migrant status, my privileges shift in comparison to what I might have in Singapore, where they remain rather static. I didn’t think twice about being politically categorised in Singapore, but Holland has its own set of categories.

And then I think, amidst global processes, what does it mean to be Malay? Or Chinese, or Indian, or Other?

Notes
[i] Chua Beng Huat, “Multiculturalism in Singapore: an Instrument of Social Control,” Race and Class 44, no. 3 (2003), 58-77.
[ii] Hans van Amersfoort, “Immigration as a colonial inheritance: post-colonial immigrants in the Netherlands, 1945-2002,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Commission for Racial Equality, 2006.
[iii] Liz Fekete, A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration, and Islamophobia in Europe, (London/New York: Pluto Press, 2009), 43-73.

'Real' Dutch Muslimas Tackle Migration and Islamophobia

This post was first published at Muslimah Media Watch.

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From this year onwards, wearing a niqab is officially an offence in the Netherlands, with "stiff fines" as the punishment. Last year in 2012, interior minister Liesbeth Spies and the Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders pushed for on dual nationality, which received mixed support within Parliament.

What does wearing a face-covering veil and having another nationality have to do with each other? According to Liz Fekete, author of "A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration, and Islamophobia in Europe", before September 11 2001 the Dutch government was more concerned with the economic integration of specific groups such as the Moroccans and Turks. These communities had migrated to the Netherlands in the 1960s onwards, and who were experiencing high levels of unemployment and poverty. Then, security measures primarily focused on asylum-seekers and immigrants. However, after 9/11, security services took the view that Islam per se constituted a 'threat'.

This is the view of nativist populist parliament member from the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders. Wilders is known for his advocacy against immigration from Muslim countries, against the 'Islamisation' of the Netherlands and Europe at large, as well as peppering his speech with Arabic words such as jihad, sharia, ummah, and taqiyya to demonstrate how much he claims to know about Islam. Among older people in the Netherlands, he is popular and taken seriously. In 2009 he famously said in an interview with Dutch news site that he was not scared of hijabi Muslims in the Netherlands and was ready to take them on:

"If I was Foreign Minister, I would ban headscarves the day I entered office. And let all the headscarves flap in Malieveld [a field]. I'll eat them raw."

In response, Al Nisa, a voluntary organisation in the Netherlands for Muslim women, launched a campaign in 2010 called 'Real Dutch', which aimed to counter the public debates and images about Muslim women. Several posters were made for public display, with images of women that appeared to be of Moroccan, Turkish, and Hindustani descent. One of these posters showed a Muslim women wearing a hijab with a blue-and-white design known on Delft pottery, while eating a raw herring, a Dutch delicacy. The text says "Raw Deal", a direct reference to Wilders' words. Another poster showed a white woman drinking tea, referencing the then top candidate of the Labour party, Job Cohen. Cohen was known for visiting minority ethnic groups and promoting dialogue, which earned him the mocking nickname of "tea drinker".



"Raw deal"



"A cup of tea in the mosque?"



"Yes we can make it even more fun!

My favourite is the poster that subverts the slogan of the Dutch tax institute "We can't make things anymore fun, but we can make it easier!". Here the woman says that "Yes, we can make things more fun!", which implies an active and positive contribution to Dutch society, without necessarily doing 'typical' Dutch things. According to their website, the objectives of the campaign were to show that Muslim women from minority communities were indeed, Dutch (and that even white Dutch women can be and are Muslims):

The Muslim women’s organization Al Nisa stands for self-confident Muslim women. The organization allows for change by making women literally visible and by providing a stage for them. Women who may also like herring, licorice and a slice of cheese, who love to go camping and who enjoy a cup of tea with a biscuit. Women who besides being Muslim are also Dutch.

The text describes the campaign as an effort to integrate Muslim women into mainstream Dutch society because what do you know, it turns out that they enjoy Dutch food and Dutch activities too! This describes the integration model of the European Union, where new migrants (and especially those from "Third Countries") should try as much as possible to emulate people in their host country. Specifically, these migrants should embrace as much as possible concepts like democracy, human rights, and homosexuality -- all of which are commonly framed to be lacking in migrants from Muslim countries.

Open Society Foundations found this campaign to be "refreshing, more accurate, and very much needed", especially because "there is not one niqab or burqa in sight". While there are very few Muslim women who do wear a niqab in the Netherlands, they still exist. If they are eliminated for a poster campaign simply to show politicians that Muslim women are actually human beings, does this make a niqabi fair game for Islamophobes?

In 2012, Al-Nisa created a new campaign called "Do You Know Me?" to create positive images of Muslim women in the Netherlands. The video features two women of Moroccan descent (one playing soccer, one in the park), one white Dutch (owner of a bakery selling typical Dutch cookies and cake), one Pakistani (a dental hygienist) and one of Turkish descent (an artist). Women of other ethnicities are shown briefly in the video, but other significant Muslim communities in the Netherlands are missing: Indonesians and those of Indonesian descent, and the Surinamese.

The focus on Moroccan and Turkish communities fits into the larger discourse about Muslims in the Netherlands, where "Muslims" are usually code for "Moroccans" or "Turkish" communities. As Liz Fekete argued in her book 'A Suitable Enemy', European countries maintain data and surveillance on immigrant groups and asylum-seekers in order to enforce Europe's borders. This prevalent idea is illustrated by a recent government report by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. Even though the report is called "Muslims in the Netherlands 2012", it focuses on Muslims "of Turkish or Moroccan origin" (recent and largest groups of migrants) but also "smaller Muslim groups originating from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia" (asylum-seekers).

Meanwhile, Muslims from backgrounds who do not pose a security concern since they are not asylum-seekers nor migrants are of no interest to the Dutch government and politicians. The report even admits that:

Muslims from countries such as Surinam, Indonesia and the former Yugoslavia, as well as the small group of native Dutch Muslims (estimated at 13,000) are left out of consideration in this study due to a lack of research data.

Al-Nisa’s campaigns are indeed a breath of fresh air with their positive images of Muslim women. While responding to political discourses is beneficial and interesting in that it shows an awareness of current debates, it also risks being reactive and risks perpetuating the discourses about who Muslims are and how they should integrate into mainstream Dutch society. It is important, as a movement of Muslim women, to find allies among all other Muslim women (such as Indonesian women, as a start) and other marginalised groups (such as Eastern Europeans).

In our attempt to show “who Muslims are,” we should be careful to not fall into the anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, and pro-integration lines of thinking of our host country. We can tackle Islamophobia by breaking down the ideologies behind such ideas, rather than by showing that we are not scary.