The Netherlands – A Homophobic Society

LIOWLB/Enkidu 

Fed up with gay issues

Nederland word homo-moe [The Netherlands gets tired (fed up) of gays]. This was the message in the cover story of the news magazine HP/De Tijd in week 26 this year. It was argued that in recent years, the image of gays in general had worsened, and that people increasingly were fed up with gay issues after having been confronted with massive pro-gay campaigns from all sides for decades. Tolerance, Understanding and Accept have been preached from every corner, and it had simply become too much for the average heterosexual population. This sentiment seems to have been enforced in the last couple of years in particular, since now the GBLT-population seems to have won each and every political goal they ever struggled for and full emancipation and equal rights in theory have been achieved. “The gays are not sacred anymore” the article stated. The general public is just bored. Why do the GBLT continue to scream if they have gained all the rights they wanted?

“The Netherlands is not tired of gays, the Netherlands (yes, even the Netherlands) is homophobic”.

This was the response to the article in de Tijd from Henk Beerten, the chairman of COC (the National GBLT Organisation in the Netherlands. (COC stands for: Cultuur- en OntspanningsCentrum [Culture and Leisure Center] and is the most frequently used name of The Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality COC. The abbreviation COC dates from 1946, when the Cultural Leisure Centre was founded and has been retained because of its familiar sound) Henk Beerten expressed his sentiment in a speech, which he held on June 28 during the annual Pride Saturday [Roze Zaterdag – Pink Saturday] in the small charming medieval town Deventer.   [http://www.deventerroze.nl/].

(The Pink Saturday is the Central National Pride Event of the COC culminating in a pride parade. It has been celebrated annually on the last Saturday in June for 25 years. Every year a special COC – committee chooses a different town or city to host it and the event is then organised locally by a regional branch of the COC in the city that receives the honour. This year Deventer was chosen. Last year the Pink Saturday was held in Breda etc. Each city also has its own local pride event, but this is the central Dutch pride celebration and manifestation, of national importance. Therefore the speech of the COC-chairman in many ways functions as the official address of the Gay Community to the Nation. The entire speech is online in full text on the COC-web site.)

In his speech he emphasized in particular the dangers of an emerging puritan wave in the Dutch society:

A puritan wave is approaching, in which open expressions of homosexuality no longer will be tolerated, and since “Fortuyn”, the silent majority also articulates this without hesitance. That is why you now get to hear how people really think about homosexuality. The danger is not the society’s sentiment in itself. The real danger hides in the socio-political force, which this sentiment will mobilize, will use in order to realise their own conservative agenda and withdraw rights that have been won.

The time when the liberals and the progressive forces ruled the socio-political agenda appears to be past. We will not need to talk about any “protection” in the near future. Therefore we must do it ourselves. We must be alert and claim our equal rights without reservations.

"‘Er is een puriteinse golf op komst, waarin openlijke uitingen van homoseksualiteit niet langer gedoogd worden en sinds 'Fortuyn' spreekt de zwijgende meerderheid dat ook onverbloemd uit. Daardoor krijg je nu te horen, hoe mensen werkelijk over homoseksualiteit denken. Het gevaar is niet alleen dat maatschappelijke sentiment zelf. Het echte gevaar schuilt in de politiek-maatschappelijke kracht die dat sentiment gaat mobiliseren – d.w.z. daarvan gebruik gaat maken om een eigen conservatieve agenda te realiseren en verworven rechten terug te draaien.

 De tijd dat de liberale en de progressieve krachten de politiek-maatschappelijke agenda beheersten lijkt voorbij. Van die 'bescherming' moeten we het niet hebben in de nabije toekomst. Daarom moeten we het zelf doen. Wij moeten alert zijn en onze gelijke rechten zonder reserves opeisen."

The GBLT-population in the Netherlands is legally emancipated, and has achieved equal rights on paper, but that does not at all mean social integration and acceptance. Beerten therefore underlined that the GBLT community still has a lot left to fight for, not least to get rid of many of the clichés that still determine the image of GBLTs in the popular mind.  

Homophobia increases

The feature story in de Tijd as well as Beerten’s reply caught considerable attention and provoked discussions and debates throughout the society. The Netherlands rediscovered itself as a homophobic society. Practically every publication, news magazine or talk show of any importance touched the topic in one way or another this summer. The Netherlands, a country that for decades had cultivated its image and reputation as a tolerant and including society, was found to be increasingly haunted with manifold manifestations of homophobia, and hardly a week passed without new disturbing instances being revealed in the headlines.

On Monday, July 7^th, 5 Students at the Fontys University of Professional Education, Department for Health Care and Social Work  [Fontys Hogeschool Verpleegkunde] in Eindhoven presented a study they had conducted with the title: Gay en Grey. Respectvolle bejegening, kun je dat leren? [Gay and Grey, Can Respectful Nursing be Learned?] The study focused on the problems elderly gays are facing in Nursing and retirement homes, and concluded, that many elderly gays in such institutions prefer to remain invisible out of fear for the reactions from the other residents who had grown up in a time period with considerable less sensitivity for alternative sexualities. The study also documents that several employees in Dutch retirement homes, take it for granted that the residents are straight and show little awareness and consciousness regarding how to deal with gay residents and their needs.

Not only elderly gays, the survivors of the pre-emancipation period are facing problems. Also many individuals belonging to the post-emancipation generation experience homophobia in their daily lives. Enkidu wrote last year about the campaign “how tolerant is your school” which aimed to raise consciousness about the issue of gblt-pupils in Dutch primary and secondary schools and make it easier for school children to get out of the closet before their classes and teachers. The effects were limited and some gblt school children still feel marginalized because of the sexual orientation. During the campaign, however, COC implemented a big national survey, interviewing pupils and teachers about their experiences with homophobia. The results that recently were presented to a parliament commission for Education, Culture and Science, were shocking and upsetting and received considerable public attention. Many schools do not have any supporting infrastructure for GBLT teachers or pupils and leave them to face homophobia on their own. It could be documented that bullying, name-calling, discrimination, even physical violence occur regularly in Dutch schools.

The study also indicates that homosexuality still is a taboo subject in some schools, and as many as 75% of GBLT students and teachers are not satisfied with the ways their school treats GBLT-issues. 15% of the respondents indicated that they could not be themselves at school out of fear for the reactions from their peers. Many gay teachers in the Netherlands even enter the closet when interacting with their students to avoid problems.

Therefore the ministry of education is in these days developing a national program, which will target all public, private and even religious schools in the country. Also strict Muslim or Christian schools in the Netherlands will be addressed. Even though schools that fail to act up against discrimination will not be actively punished by the ministry, they will, be named publicly in an annual report that also will be available to the press. Whenever this program has been presented in the media, several spokespersons for the ministry and the government have underlined that the increasing number of Muslim pupils that have been taught at home or in their ethnic and religious communities to regard homosexuality as unacceptable, have contributed to the growing frequency of homophobic incidents in Dutch schools.

School inspector Kete Kervezee was last week interviewed by the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad confirming that the Koran has a clear view of homosexuality and this is also apparent in the schools. She emphasized, however, that despite the fact that Muslim pupils indeed contribute to the growing homophobia in schools, it should not be forgotten that also some Dutch people are neither open minded nor liberal. “Also Dutch youth can be rude”, Kervezee says.

“we are just fooling ourselves if we think that it is only an immigrant issue.

Both pupils and teachers have reported experiences with homophobia. Kervezee underlines that the only solution to this tendency is to bring the issue out of the closet, into the open.  

“We [the Ministry] expect schools to make homosexuality an issue that can be discussed, so that gay and lesbian teachers and pupils feel safe.”

The government will cooperate closely with COC during the planning and implementation of the program, and together they will publish a booklet this September with recommendations on how to deal with discrimination addressing schools, teachers, parents and pupils.

Dutch media have also increasingly focused on the issue of immigrant youth that bully and harass Dutch gays and lesbians. Even physical violence occurs from time to time. Newspapers have for example recently brought stories about cruising gays who have been attacked in parks by Moroccan youth, openly gay couples who have been harassed in the tramway and gay and lesbian pupils who have been bullied in the school yard by Muslim pupils. In such instances, it has frequently been reported that the students who have experienced such situations have received little or no assistance and support from responsible teachers or the school during or after the incident at all. Nor can adult GBLT-individuals who experience harassment in the streets count on much civil courage from their surroundings. In some cases people have hesitated to assist out of fear for being labelled racists...    

Several voices like the “Nationaal Platform voor overleg en samenwerking tegen Racisme en Discriminatie” (NPRD) [The National Platform for Reflection and Cooperation Against Racism and Discrimination] have emphasised that the Dutch society needs a broader definition of discrimination. Is not just about a white majority discriminating against a black minority. Today also the opposite occurs, for instance when immigrant students discriminate against their (white) homosexual lecturer. NPRD insists that this issue soon must be taken seriously by the politicians to avoid further negative developments before it is too late.

After all this negative publicity, Expreszo, a Dutch magazine for young GBLT saw the need for a counter-offensive. Their ongoing summer campaign this year has the ambition to show that it is cool and fun to be young and gay. The campaign has the title 'Word homo! / Word lesbo!':[Become gay / become Lesbian] and a homo-promo-team travels through the Netherlands from town to town with their show and information stand, promoting homosexuality to anyone who cares to listen.

The slogan “become gay”, however, was controversial to many, also within the gay community. Many commentators expressed a certain scepticism, suggesting that this campaign might go to far, and be a bit exaggerated. Others expressed concern that such a campaign might provoke counter-reactions from many sides, considering that the Netherlands already seems to be fed up with gay issues anyway…. The homo-promo campaign started at the Pink Saturday in Deventer, and will end this autumn with a big celebration in Amsterdam for newly recruited gays and their straight friends. They also have a web site where young gays and lesbians can tell about why and how it is “hartstikke leuk”, [incredibly fun/hillarious] to be gay.

“With all the negative publicity around these days, one easily forgets that 80% of young gays and lesbians are happy with themselves as they are”, says Expreszo’s editor in charge, Merijn Henfling in a press release. This number comes from a survey, which the Magazine conducted among its readers. However, such initiatives like the homo-promo campaign undermines one message which the GBLT-movement have done their best to communicate to the general population for decades: homosexuality is not a choice, it is nothing an individual can chose to become, it is not just a club you can join…

 

 

* [Si desea información sobre la fuente original favor de solicitarla a ENKIDU].

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Muchas Gracias. 

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[ document info ]
Copyright © 2003
Document created 22.09.2003, 02:11:02 CET
Published 22.09.2003

The Netherlands – A Homophobic Society

LIOWLB/Enkidu 

Fed up with gay issues

Nederland word homo-moe [The Netherlands gets tired (fed up) of gays]. This was the message in the cover story of the news magazine HP/De Tijd in week 26 this year. It was argued that in recent years, the image of gays in general had worsened, and that people increasingly were fed up with gay issues after having been confronted with massive pro-gay campaigns from all sides for decades. Tolerance, Understanding and Accept have been preached from every corner, and it had simply become too much for the average heterosexual population. This sentiment seems to have been enforced in the last couple of years in particular, since now the GBLT-population seems to have won each and every political goal they ever struggled for and full emancipation and equal rights in theory have been achieved. “The gays are not sacred anymore” the article stated. The general public is just bored. Why do the GBLT continue to scream if they have gained all the rights they wanted?

“The Netherlands is not tired of gays, the Netherlands (yes, even the Netherlands) is homophobic”.

This was the response to the article in de Tijd from Henk Beerten, the chairman of COC (the National GBLT Organisation in the Netherlands. (COC stands for: Cultuur- en OntspanningsCentrum [Culture and Leisure Center] and is the most frequently used name of The Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality COC. The abbreviation COC dates from 1946, when the Cultural Leisure Centre was founded and has been retained because of its familiar sound) Henk Beerten expressed his sentiment in a speech, which he held on June 28 during the annual Pride Saturday [Roze Zaterdag – Pink Saturday] in the small charming medieval town Deventer.   [http://www.deventerroze.nl/].

(The Pink Saturday is the Central National Pride Event of the COC culminating in a pride parade. It has been celebrated annually on the last Saturday in June for 25 years. Every year a special COC – committee chooses a different town or city to host it and the event is then organised locally by a regional branch of the COC in the city that receives the honour. This year Deventer was chosen. Last year the Pink Saturday was held in Breda etc. Each city also has its own local pride event, but this is the central Dutch pride celebration and manifestation, of national importance. Therefore the speech of the COC-chairman in many ways functions as the official address of the Gay Community to the Nation. The entire speech is online in full text on the COC-web site.)

In his speech he emphasized in particular the dangers of an emerging puritan wave in the Dutch society:

A puritan wave is approaching, in which open expressions of homosexuality no longer will be tolerated, and since “Fortuyn”, the silent majority also articulates this without hesitance. That is why you now get to hear how people really think about homosexuality. The danger is not the society’s sentiment in itself. The real danger hides in the socio-political force, which this sentiment will mobilize, will use in order to realise their own conservative agenda and withdraw rights that have been won.

The time when the liberals and the progressive forces ruled the socio-political agenda appears to be past. We will not need to talk about any “protection” in the near future. Therefore we must do it ourselves. We must be alert and claim our equal rights without reservations.

"‘Er is een puriteinse golf op komst, waarin openlijke uitingen van homoseksualiteit niet langer gedoogd worden en sinds 'Fortuyn' spreekt de zwijgende meerderheid dat ook onverbloemd uit. Daardoor krijg je nu te horen, hoe mensen werkelijk over homoseksualiteit denken. Het gevaar is niet alleen dat maatschappelijke sentiment zelf. Het echte gevaar schuilt in de politiek-maatschappelijke kracht die dat sentiment gaat mobiliseren – d.w.z. daarvan gebruik gaat maken om een eigen conservatieve agenda te realiseren en verworven rechten terug te draaien.

 De tijd dat de liberale en de progressieve krachten de politiek-maatschappelijke agenda beheersten lijkt voorbij. Van die 'bescherming' moeten we het niet hebben in de nabije toekomst. Daarom moeten we het zelf doen. Wij moeten alert zijn en onze gelijke rechten zonder reserves opeisen."

The GBLT-population in the Netherlands is legally emancipated, and has achieved equal rights on paper, but that does not at all mean social integration and acceptance. Beerten therefore underlined that the GBLT community still has a lot left to fight for, not least to get rid of many of the clichés that still determine the image of GBLTs in the popular mind.  

Homophobia increases

The feature story in de Tijd as well as Beerten’s reply caught considerable attention and provoked discussions and debates throughout the society. The Netherlands rediscovered itself as a homophobic society. Practically every publication, news magazine or talk show of any importance touched the topic in one way or another this summer. The Netherlands, a country that for decades had cultivated its image and reputation as a tolerant and including society, was found to be increasingly haunted with manifold manifestations of homophobia, and hardly a week passed without new disturbing instances being revealed in the headlines.

On Monday, July 7^th, 5 Students at the Fontys University of Professional Education, Department for Health Care and Social Work  [Fontys Hogeschool Verpleegkunde] in Eindhoven presented a study they had conducted with the title: Gay en Grey. Respectvolle bejegening, kun je dat leren? [Gay and Grey, Can Respectful Nursing be Learned?] The study focused on the problems elderly gays are facing in Nursing and retirement homes, and concluded, that many elderly gays in such institutions prefer to remain invisible out of fear for the reactions from the other residents who had grown up in a time period with considerable less sensitivity for alternative sexualities. The study also documents that several employees in Dutch retirement homes, take it for granted that the residents are straight and show little awareness and consciousness regarding how to deal with gay residents and their needs.

Not only elderly gays, the survivors of the pre-emancipation period are facing problems. Also many individuals belonging to the post-emancipation generation experience homophobia in their daily lives. Enkidu wrote last year about the campaign “how tolerant is your school” which aimed to raise consciousness about the issue of gblt-pupils in Dutch primary and secondary schools and make it easier for school children to get out of the closet before their classes and teachers. The effects were limited and some gblt school children still feel marginalized because of the sexual orientation. During the campaign, however, COC implemented a big national survey, interviewing pupils and teachers about their experiences with homophobia. The results that recently were presented to a parliament commission for Education, Culture and Science, were shocking and upsetting and received considerable public attention. Many schools do not have any supporting infrastructure for GBLT teachers or pupils and leave them to face homophobia on their own. It could be documented that bullying, name-calling, discrimination, even physical violence occur regularly in Dutch schools.

The study also indicates that homosexuality still is a taboo subject in some schools, and as many as 75% of GBLT students and teachers are not satisfied with the ways their school treats GBLT-issues. 15% of the respondents indicated that they could not be themselves at school out of fear for the reactions from their peers. Many gay teachers in the Netherlands even enter the closet when interacting with their students to avoid problems.

Therefore the ministry of education is in these days developing a national program, which will target all public, private and even religious schools in the country. Also strict Muslim or Christian schools in the Netherlands will be addressed. Even though schools that fail to act up against discrimination will not be actively punished by the ministry, they will, be named publicly in an annual report that also will be available to the press. Whenever this program has been presented in the media, several spokespersons for the ministry and the government have underlined that the increasing number of Muslim pupils that have been taught at home or in their ethnic and religious communities to regard homosexuality as unacceptable, have contributed to the growing frequency of homophobic incidents in Dutch schools.

School inspector Kete Kervezee was last week interviewed by the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad confirming that the Koran has a clear view of homosexuality and this is also apparent in the schools. She emphasized, however, that despite the fact that Muslim pupils indeed contribute to the growing homophobia in schools, it should not be forgotten that also some Dutch people are neither open minded nor liberal. “Also Dutch youth can be rude”, Kervezee says.

“we are just fooling ourselves if we think that it is only an immigrant issue.

Both pupils and teachers have reported experiences with homophobia. Kervezee underlines that the only solution to this tendency is to bring the issue out of the closet, into the open.  

“We [the Ministry] expect schools to make homosexuality an issue that can be discussed, so that gay and lesbian teachers and pupils feel safe.”

The government will cooperate closely with COC during the planning and implementation of the program, and together they will publish a booklet this September with recommendations on how to deal with discrimination addressing schools, teachers, parents and pupils.

Dutch media have also increasingly focused on the issue of immigrant youth that bully and harass Dutch gays and lesbians. Even physical violence occurs from time to time. Newspapers have for example recently brought stories about cruising gays who have been attacked in parks by Moroccan youth, openly gay couples who have been harassed in the tramway and gay and lesbian pupils who have been bullied in the school yard by Muslim pupils. In such instances, it has frequently been reported that the students who have experienced such situations have received little or no assistance and support from responsible teachers or the school during or after the incident at all. Nor can adult GBLT-individuals who experience harassment in the streets count on much civil courage from their surroundings. In some cases people have hesitated to assist out of fear for being labelled racists...    

Several voices like the “Nationaal Platform voor overleg en samenwerking tegen Racisme en Discriminatie” (NPRD) [The National Platform for Reflection and Cooperation Against Racism and Discrimination] have emphasised that the Dutch society needs a broader definition of discrimination. Is not just about a white majority discriminating against a black minority. Today also the opposite occurs, for instance when immigrant students discriminate against their (white) homosexual lecturer. NPRD insists that this issue soon must be taken seriously by the politicians to avoid further negative developments before it is too late.

After all this negative publicity, Expreszo, a Dutch magazine for young GBLT saw the need for a counter-offensive. Their ongoing summer campaign this year has the ambition to show that it is cool and fun to be young and gay. The campaign has the title 'Word homo! / Word lesbo!':[Become gay / become Lesbian] and a homo-promo-team travels through the Netherlands from town to town with their show and information stand, promoting homosexuality to anyone who cares to listen.

The slogan “become gay”, however, was controversial to many, also within the gay community. Many commentators expressed a certain scepticism, suggesting that this campaign might go to far, and be a bit exaggerated. Others expressed concern that such a campaign might provoke counter-reactions from many sides, considering that the Netherlands already seems to be fed up with gay issues anyway…. The homo-promo campaign started at the Pink Saturday in Deventer, and will end this autumn with a big celebration in Amsterdam for newly recruited gays and their straight friends. They also have a web site where young gays and lesbians can tell about why and how it is “hartstikke leuk”, [incredibly fun/hillarious] to be gay.

“With all the negative publicity around these days, one easily forgets that 80% of young gays and lesbians are happy with themselves as they are”, says Expreszo’s editor in charge, Merijn Henfling in a press release. This number comes from a survey, which the Magazine conducted among its readers. However, such initiatives like the homo-promo campaign undermines one message which the GBLT-movement have done their best to communicate to the general population for decades: homosexuality is not a choice, it is nothing an individual can chose to become, it is not just a club you can join…

 

 

* [Si desea información sobre la fuente original favor de solicitarla a ENKIDU].

Si tienes algun comentario, nos gustaría recibirlo. Sólo escribe y envia. Nos gustaría saber tu nombre y tu correo electrónico, pero no es obligatorio. (Escribe tu e-mail también si deseas recibir nuestro noticiero semanal.)

Muchas Gracias. 

Atte. Tu

[ document info ]
Copyright © 2003
Document created 22.09.2003, 02:11:02 CET
Published 22.09.2003