Ethnicity is nice for jokes, but it says next to nothing about an individual,nothing about his character, nothing about his dreams, nothing about his_Weltschmerz_ and especially nothing about his home. Ethnicity is in your mindand sometimes it’s in your passport. That’s all. I think.
Hizir Cengiz is a journalist.
The fact that ethnicity is seen and created as important and fundamental istherefore wry to me. If you really want to see another person, you have tolook far beyond ethnicity; and whoever wants to find himself must do so aswell.
The latest example of ethnicity being made important and fundamental is_Polder macros_ , a reality series by BNNVARA. In Polder macros six youngMoroccan Dutch people go to their homeland, ‘on a unique quest for their trueself’. All six were born in the Netherlands. The first few episodes areonline. For example, in the first episode it can be seen that the young peoplearrived in Marrakesh, spent the night in a riad , there was a briefdiscussion due to the fact that Aziz is gay and Yasmine attended a Moroccanwedding for the first time. Yasmine then knew: if she ever got married, shestill wants a similar party.
Also read: Six polder mocros in Morocco and a mocro girl who turns thetables hard
The main characters are very diverse in character, belief and image of man.This is emphasized repeatedly by the makers, so that the viewer knows – don’tbe alarmed, dear reader – that diversity also exists among the Moroccan Dutch.The de Volkskrant critic Alex Mazereeuw wrote: “That struggle with theiridentity ultimately made the program more than just a wonderful sweet trip,especially because there were also many different identities within theMoroccan-Dutch identity.”
Variety
Stupidly, you might think that the makers have to emphasize diversity so oftenand a journalist needs a program to see that the Moroccan Dutch also havediversity. But the cause of this short-sighted view is the fact that we almostalways reduce biculturalists in particular to a group. Because _Polder macros_shows that ‘the Moroccan’ does not exist, it has succeeded in that sense.
Although I learned at school that the Netherlands is a country of individualresponsibility, of individuality, a country with a love for liberalism, beingwho you want to be yourself, a country where the only dogma is a lack ofdogmatics. But later I realized that I had misunderstood: when it comes tobiculturals, they are almost always seen as a group, as their parents, astheir roots, as their ethnicity.
If you are anything, you are your ethnicity. Just see the well-intentioneddiversity policy: differences are sought to make room for them, but then, forexample, all Turkish-Dutch people are lumped together. The Turkish Dutchmanthat is brought in would represent the entire Turkish community.
Disregard of the individual
Due to the focus on ethnicity, the nuances, but especially the individual, aremisunderstood and erased. In my search for who I want to be, I have sometimeshad to break free from what I considered normal, because it was taught to meat home or would be the dominant belief within ‘the Turkish community’. Forexample about the male-female ratio and about homosexuals. It feels like aknife in my back when I – and again: well-intentioned or not – throws me backinto that large group. As if the individual is not granted a bicultural.
But it is not only an institution like BNNVARA that makes ethnicity importantand fundamental. Many biculturals also often make themselves very small, byglorifying their ethnicity, seeing it as the most important thing that hasshaped them, by having the idea that they can feel, for example, a Moroccan orTurk and therefore also feel at home in their ethnicity. can find. That’s alsothe reason I get itchy Polder macros.
Of course your ethnicity is part of your identity, but again: you can’t feelan ethnicity at all, let alone find yourself at home in it. If you could feellike a Turk, just as happy and angry, then the kindergarten circle had alreadyexplained what that feels like. I think that’s why anyone looking for thatfeeling, whether it’s for television or not, will always be disappointed. It’sjust a waste of time.
Maybe I find this because I am different in the search for a home feeling.After all, my mantra is: my mother did not leave her hearth in the Turkishmountains so that I would become a Turk here. Incidentally, not so that Iwould become a Dutchman. Well, so that I could develop myself here.