Author Archives: Zeefuik
Dutch MTV co-hosts “Hottentot exhibit”/human zoo party
Within its cultures, Dutch Whiteness sees historical context as something that exists by the grace of whether or not they, white Dutch people, choose to deal with it. When Dutch Whiteness sighs “Not today…” a subject is expected to automatically detach itself from the systematic oppression it is a symptom of. Dutch Whiteness’ level of critical, non-eurocentric, decolonial thinking is so absolutely subpar because it only trusts itself to correct itself. Since their obsessive love for blackface can no longer fully rely on the immunity granted by so-called Dutch Innocence, it was only a matter of time before they turned to another form of anti-Blackness: the human zoo. On September 5 Valtifest, the love spawn of MTV Nederland and DJ Joost van Bellen, hosts the 8th edition of their annual dress up festival. This year’s theme: The Hottentot Exhibition.
“Hottentot” is the highly derogatory term Dutch settlers used for the Khoikhoi, the people who are among the first inhabitants of Southwest Africa. Most people probably know it from the exploitative ‘nickname’ that was given to Sarah Baartman who was known to racist white scientist and voyeurs as “The Hottentot Venus”. Combine the Netherlands’ colonial terror in South Africa with Western Europe’s history of human zoos and one understands why Valtifest received a variety of protest Tweets in response to their announcement. Their reply? Typically Dutch.
First things first, this is how it works in Dutch:
Hottentot – singular.
Hottentotten – plural.
Tentoonstelling – exhibition.
Hottentottententoonstelling – “An exhibition of hottentots”
It’s not rocket science. It’s not a word like “fast” that means something different for a duck than it does for a cheetah. An exhibit of Black people is an exhibit of Black people is an exhibit of Black people. History doesn’t magically change because Valtifest founders MTV Nederland and Joost van Bellen decided that appropriation is the new creativity.
The organisation starts their statement the way Dutch Mainstream Whiteness always begins: by stressing that the criticism they will now address is subject to the feeling/experience/humour of those who have been offended. It reaffirms the White Dutch theory that within the Netherlands’ white picket borders, racism, colonialism, eurocentrism and xenophobia are sentiments rather than systems. Everything anti-Black that’s happening outside of the country? “Racism! Absolutely racist. Soooo racist!” It’s when it happens on Dutch soil that the maze of semantics, intention and sensitivity can’t be constructed quick enough.
In the second paragraph of their ‘explanation’ the organisation states: “That in the past Khoikhoi members, among others, were exhibited as an anomaly is a horrific truth. We detest those dark pages from the colonial era.” I lack the vulgarity to properly express how much I hate it when people refer to colonialism and slavery as “dark pages”. Pages? Books. Not even chapters… books. Books full of dehumanizing monstrosities and terror. And aren’t they white as hell?
Also, what’s a Khoikhoi member? Could it be that in the minds of Dutch Mainstream Whiteness ethnic and/or cultural groups are so over-appropriated that they are now considered to be clubs one can sign up for? Should we now wait for white people to claim they’re “politically Khoi” and explain to us why this party isn’t a problem?
Dutch Mainstream Whiteness wouldn’t properly live up to and roll around in its anti-intellectual mediocrity if it didn’t demand a redefining of terns. According to the third paragraph of their explanation, the organisation explains: “We don’t detest the word ‘hottentottententoonstelling’. It’s a cheeky tongue twister, a word that will score many points in word games but, above all, a word that doesn’t have a literal meaning, after all: there’s no such thing as a hottentots exhibition and there never has been.”
The festival’s claim that the word doesn’t exist and that no such exhibition ever took place, banks heavily on the eurocentric, whiteness driven ignorance of its potential visitors. Should we expect anybody on Team Valtifest to slam a research thesis on human zoos on the table while urging their colleagues to do the historically right thing? Of course not. Can we expect them to build their dismissal of historic events on something stronger than “Because Wikipedia said it never happened!!”? Perhaps not even that.
Regardless, we owe it to our survival to not let our expectations navigate our demands.
This year’s edition of Valtifest takes place on September 5, giving everybody who’s not having any of this a good 14 weeks to deal with the matter however they see fit. To join the conversation on social media, please use/mention #ValtifestIsHumanZoo , @Valtifest and/or @MTVnl in your statements.
Election day (make me wanna holler)
(prelude)
“How many Black people are in the Dutch Senate and the House of Representatives?” “How many Black people in the Netherlands have the right to vote and how many actually do?” “Is there a Dutch equivalent of The Black Vote?” “We need the people who are fighting against racism to also vote for parties or politicians that oppose the Dutch asylum and immigration laws!” “The Netherlands needs better, more revolutionary parties and politicians who truly represent us!” The conversations with seven of my dearest comrades who’re fighting against the Dutch asylum regime are as hopeful as they are confronting. Hopeful because I can’t wait for the other levels of change they can make if/when they get their residents permits and five of them can start forming the political party they’re dreaming about; confronting because the answers to these questions are so much less exciting than those of us who’re often surrounded by politicized folks might expect.
On a grassroots level and quantity wise, the Randstad (consisting of the Netherlands’ four largest cities and their surrounding areas) has no shortage of hommages to political leaders. When admirers of iconic activists express doubt about, an aversion to or disinterest in voting, forming political parties and/or paying close attention to those in the established political parties who could be considered ‘our representatives’, I often wonder how those we admire affect our actions. How does co-signing the political ideals of activists like Wangari Maathai, 
Thomas Sankara and Kwame Ture (f.k.a. Stokely Carmichael) affect what those of us who can vote do on election day? What do speeches like Shabazz’s “The Ballot or The Bullet” or Mandela’s “An ideal I am prepared to die for” mean to us when we’re deciding if we’ll vote or not? And when we decide that we won’t vote or cast a blank vote, do we know how this affects the political arena we have so many deep rooted problems with?
I know some people who, for a variety of reasons, don’t vote and I know a bunch of people who will vote but who’ll cast a blank vote. None of them knows exactly what not voting contributes or casting a blank vote means. None. Zero. Less than zero. The shadow of zero! Which, at least to me, wouldn’t be so puzzling if they didn’t often (if not always) join or form movements that take a stand against the Netherlands’ current political climate. How, and I ask this without even a dash of sarcasm, does this work?
Am I saying that nobody who doesn’t vote should have the gall to call themselves an activist? Of course not. What I am saying is that if you don’t know what happens when you don’t vote or when you cast a blank vote, you should drag yourself away from the illusion of “having a strategy”. You are not “turning your back on The System”, “sticking it to The Man” or “voting ‘No!’ against the current political climate”. How could you when having absolutely no idea what you’re doing or not doing? I know that “I don’t know!” is a statement that’s wrapped up in the most destructive forms of shame, dismissal or pride but I strongly believe that it is something people should either work on or own up to. In this particular case: If you’re uninformed and you know it, clap yo’ ripped up ballots.
Especially when it comes to fighting against the Dutch asylum regime, I don’t see why voting shouldn’t be part of the blows we’d like to strike. Every single dehumanizing law that adds yet another layer of hell to the lives of those that don’t have the documents that Fort Europe requires, is political. There is nothing non-political about the Dutch asylum regime. The government´s continuous denial of proper, 24 hour shelter? Political. The fact that the European Committee for Social Rights numerous critiques of the Dutch asylum regime had nothing to do with why former State Secretary Teeven was forced to resign? Political. People ´living´ in squated buildings or on the streets because the Dutch government continuously fails to rehumanize its asylum laws? Political.
May we all (continue to) invest time in better, more informed understandings of what we are and aren’t doing. And yes, I´m voting today.
The Mis-Education of our Activists
On February 16, when at least 29 people of died of hypothermia on board of Italian coastguard vessels , the city squares in Amsterdam didn’t notice. There were no trending hashtags in remembrance of the first casualties of a recent, deadly decision in Europe’s asylum regime. No mass movements claiming to identify with the 300 people squeezed on the 3 inflatable rafts that were still missing. What we did offer, was silence. Silence when on February 19 Amnesty International released their statement about how the European Commission “offers no concrete solutions to protecting and saving lives”. Silence as our inboxes filled themselves with invitations to Amsterdam based commemorations of the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and local organizers failed to connect Shabazz’s urge for Pan Africanism to the calls for solidarity as they are shouted out by the undocumented members of our communities. Absence when the Brothers from the Vluchtgarage asked us to join them in court as they fought against the eviction of their current residence. Why, if we claim to understand institutionalized forms of anti-Black racism and xenophobia, do we continuously fail to include the tragedies and casualties of Fort Europe’s deadly shores and suffocating borders in our collective, politicized discontent?
Part of it can probably be explained by the fact that too many of us are hoodwinked by the false comfort of citizenship. Most of us have heard those particular statements and speeches that, despite their varying lengths, frames and flow, all boil down to the same sentiment: “We, too, are Dutch citizens. What kind of country allows its own citizens to be pushed, strangled, kicked, bent and broken by the long limbs of the law?” Translation: This burgundy passport of mine should be all it takes to remind you that we are equal. When saying and/or believing this, one implies that within these Dutch borders, those who can identify as citizens deserve a better treatment than those who can’t. I understand that it might not sound like that when it’s squeezed between a dozen decontextualized motivational quotes and an oppressive ‘joke’ or two but by clinging to citizenship like we are, we’re creating hierarchies of humanity, hierarchies of worth. By believing that our identity documents should protect us we rank ourselves above those who don’t have the papers Fort Europe demands.
Combine this with a worrisome lack of knowledge about the current political situations in West, Central and East Africa that force people to flee their homes plus a very narrow understanding of Africa’s histories and the Mis-Education of the Activist is close to complete. I’m exhausted by folks who derail conversations about current migration by bringing us back, back into time. “Who could possibly want to escape from Mali when Mali gave us Mansa Musa? Who wouldn’t want to live in the countries that used to be known as that the Kanem empire, Shonghay empire or the kingdom of Kush?” Many of us can hold our own in conversations about ancient Africa. Some because they actually studied, others because they Googled just the right trivia to make it seem like they did but hey… conversations. Mind you that too many of us still haven’t outgrown statements like “we might be from Trinidad, Martinique, Suriname, Africa or wherever” and don’t see any problems with the singular forms with which we describe “African dance, spirituality and/or culture” but like I said… conversations.
Contrary to what is considered the sexy part of Africa’s histories, contemporary activists, leaders, heads of state and/or political happenings barely make it to our rhetoric. Sure, Nelson Mandela and Patrice Lumumba are often mentioned. Amilcar Cabral? At events that aren’t organized in Rotterdam… almost never. Hearing Thomas Sankara’s name (just the name, I’m not even talking about references to his work) already feels like spotting a unicorn but honouring the women who were/are activists? Let’s not even start about the women who’re activists and weren’t/aren’t First Ladies.
When we study, do we merely focus on the political visions we love to mention or do we also try to wrap our heads around how their views affect the lives of the people who’re connected to and impacted by their leadership? Do we know what happens when Western governments order the assassination of such a political leader or when terrorist organisations, who either oppose or support a country’s regime, wreak havoc? Do we realize how these ruler straight borders that were so randomly drawn during Europe’s Scramble for Africa impacted and continues to impact the lives, identities, alliances, social structures, political situations and safety of the people in many African states or regions?
We have to do better. Better and more. We can’t one day turn the rehashing of isolated quotes into a preach-athon if we don’t plan to act on it the next day. If we care anything about consistency we can’t possibly preach Pan Africanism and African Unity if we continue to base our right to protection on citizenship knowing that so many of our Comrades are dying or hardly surviving their quest to apply for it. Not getting… applying. And what happens when their applications get denied and they’re brutalized by some of the same systems? Who can they turn to if not to Captain Passport? If we think the answer to that question should be “Us!” then there’s absolutely no reason for our absence, no ground for our dismissal.
When will we collectively put our money where our mouth full of MalcolmMartinMandela quotes is? When will we understand enough about the current political situations in, for example, Mali, Niger, Sudan and South Sudan plus Europe’s war on Black presence to care about the undocumented members of the Black communities based in Western-Europe? When will this care mean more than a retweet here, a like there? When will the narratives of the undocumented members of our communities be included in all our conversations about and protests against anti-Black racism and institutionalized xenophobia in the Netherlands? When will the names of our undocumented comrades pop into our heads as we come up with the event and not just a few days before the event takes place or on the day itself?
We have to do better.
More.
Now.
For articles, political updates, calls for action and statements with regards to the undocumented communities of the Netherlands, please check #UndocumentedNL on Twitter.
laZeefuik 