BY: W. Shadid, 13-5-2010

BY: W. Shadid, 06-10-2009 English translation is not available.
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BY: W. Shadid, 9-3-2009
Presumably every one did notice the revival of the debate and reactions on the so-called Moroccan ‘name list’. Although outsiders may consider this matter as trivial, nonetheless Moroccan parents and Dutch and Belgian politicians as well reacted strongly and emotionally. First names may seem trivial but are actually not, even though Shakespear wrote in 1594 in Romeo and Juliet the famous words ‘What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 12-1-2009

A week before 2008 came to its end the Executive Board of the Labour Party (PvdA) presented its note on integration entitled “Divided past, Shared future”. It apparently seems that Dutch political parties periodically feel a natural necessity to presnet a new, or renewed note on the integration of immigrants. It is striking that in these notes politicians increasingly use a harsher tone when to the position of immigrants in society is concerned, presenting integration as the most important social problem in the country.
The focus of the above mentioned note of the PvdA is that the integration process has failed completely, on the one hand because immigrants do not want to integrate, and on the other hand because Dutch society has up till now adopted an irresponsible degree of tolerance with respect to this ‘fremdkörper’ within its borders. Departing from this focus the note can be characterised as populist and presenting socially division as it lacks calculated analyses, worth mentioning figures, or concrete and justifiable objectives.

Paternalism and nationalism
First of all, the note clearly shows a socially dividing perspective. In the 18 pages of the note the authors uses the possessive pronouns ‘ our’ referring to ‘our country’, ‘our culture’ and ‘our juridical system’ no less than 108 times as opposed to ‘theirs’ which is used 61 times.
Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 09-12-2008
Though the principle of separation of church and state in The Netherlands has been introduced in the eighteenth century, its content and scope are still not sharply defined. In a nutshell, this principle implies an agreement between church and state on various subjects such as their mutual autonomy and the financial obligations of the former towards the latter. However, this agreement has not been molded in specific juridical articles. In practice, its basic juridical status is deduced from articles 1 and 6 of the Dutch Constitution, which guarantee equality of citizens and Freedom of Religion.
The Netherlands is not unique in this respect. European countries show a wide range of principles in this regard. On the one hand France with its laicite, and on the other hand countries with a state church such as Denmark and the United Kingdom. In these two countries the Head of the State is also Head of the Church. Denmark for example where the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the state church has a special ministry for church affairs, for appointing religious leaders and handling a part of the financial costs of the church. Between these two extremes there are countries such as Germany and Spain which apply a so-called ‘cooperation principle’ in order to regulate there mutual relations. Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 28-10-2008

School segregation based on religious denomination is known since long ago and is characteristic for the Dutch educational system. School segregation that is now central in the contemporary educational debate however is ethnically based and is caused by several factors such as housing segregation, social economic background and the “white flight” due to ethnic rejection and avoidance of educational and behavioral problems existing in black schools.
For educational and social reasons, promoting mixed “grey schools” scored high on the political agenda in the last three decades. Unfortunately however, the realization and effectiveness of such schools are overestimated and are based on a number of inaccurate assumptions.

Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 25-09-2008

It is commonly known that Dutch media’s reports on Islam and Muslims are subjective and prejudiced. Because of their overwhelming interest in sensational news, media make themselves guilty of a number of things such as concentrating on generalization and stigmatization when presenting events and statements. This also applies to the simplification of Muslim culture, dividing society ethnically into ‘we’ and ‘they’, the portrayal of Muslims as being dangerous, back warded, irrational and fanatic. As a result, Muslims have become contemned and mistrusted in society. Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 20-01-2008

In the last four decades, the hostile attitude towards Islam and Muslims in the West has been often classified as Islamophobia or as anti-Islamism. In official (inter) national reports and in scientific publications as well, the two concepts have already became well established. As neologisms both terms have been developed in analogy with the existing phenomena of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, respectively. The former implies an excessive pathological fear of strangers cq. of Muslims and Islam, while anti-Islamism can be described as a hostile prejudiced attitude, psychological and physical violence, discrimination and exclusion of the groups concerned. Although the semantic of both concepts reflects the content of the phenomena, the term anti-Islamism is preferred. It reflects the dynamic and conscious character of the antipathy and hatred against Islam and its followers, unlike Islamophobia which is more a psychological and pathological fear of the religion. Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 27-5-2008

Unemployment of immigrants in the Netherlands shows a capricious picture. According to the ‘Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek’ {Central Bureau for Statistics} (CBS) 4% of the native Dutch were unemployed in 1999, compared to 13% of the immigrants. The ‘Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau {Social Cultural Planning Office} (SCP) showed in 2005 figures of 9 and 20% respectively, and even 40% of unemployment under immigrant youngsters.
Continue reading this post…

BY: W. Shadid, 10-4-2008

In response to Wilders’ film, Raed al-Saeed from Saudi Arabia has made a film of 10 minutes with the title ‘SCHISM’ by which he denounced the cruelties of the Bible and Christianity. He wanted to show that it is not difficult to select ‘black texts’ and ‘black pages’ from any ‘holy book’ and to relate these to horror activities of armies and wars as to demonstrate the cruelties of Christianity and its followers.
However, the end product, the video ‘SCHISM’, indicates that the producer of that film is much wiser than our MP Geert Wilders. He writes at the end that his film is just as reprehensible as that of Wilders. Furthermore, according to him he spent not more than 12 hours to search for video material on the internet and to construct the film, while Wilders spend 3 months completing his. The film is noticeably of an amateurish quality such as that of Wilders.
He ends his film with the statements that “There is only one God… And that is God”, and “Let us make the world a better place”. The producers’ apologies to every one who might feel insulted by his film ‘SCHISM’, indicate to my opinion that he himself, and therefore his culture as well, possess a high level of civilization and that the ‘freedom of expression’ by which topics and problems can be discussed, need not necessarily to be offensive or insulting.
Click here to see the film

Prof.dr. W. Shadid is professor of intercultural communication. For more info: see page “About”