Holding up the mirror: anti-racism narratives resisting Dutch tales of tolerance

With the rise of global movements like Black Lives Matter, and Dutch-based activist groups such as Kick out Zwarte Piet, a new space has been created to address issues of racism and discrimination in the Netherlands (Ghorashi 2020). This research focuses on the resistance of dominant Dutch self-representations with regards to race and ethnicity and what this can tell us about the of what it means to belong in Dutch society. This qualitative study analyses open-ended interviews through the conceptualisation on politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2004; 2010; 2011) and place-belonging (Antonsich 2010), to map a picture on who belongs and on which conditions, while at the same time focussing on how these structures are resisted. This research is inquired by Critical Race Theory (CRT) as well as a Decolonial approach and is concerned with addressing how the naturalised hegemonic self-image of the Dutch is based on Whiteness and White Innocence, following Wekker (2016) and how this is harmful in upholding ‘everyday racisms’ (Essed 1984; 1991). I argue that by excluding certain histories and epistemologies while exerting specific narratives on ‘us’ and ‘the Other’, people of colour in the Netherlands do not really belong, even though they enjoy Dutch citizenship. As a result, I have identified three different counternarratives, being: I). ‘Clever’ use of Diversity and Inclusion; II). Decolonisation, and III). Holding space. This paper argues how these counternarratives are essentially concerned with renegotiating what it means to belong in the Netherlands.