Others criticized him for an unnecessary provocation, of a piece with his frequently quoted assertion that he would welcome the opening of a gay bar in his district. Some people lauded him for a brave gesture. This is Dutch culture, the message goes, and you had better get used to it.Īnd it’s why Ahmed Marcouch, a liberal member of the social-democratic Labor Party, and a divorced ex-policeman, was kicking off the gay jamboree, on a lake in, of all places, Slotervaart. That’s why people who wish to immigrate to the Netherlands are shown a government-sponsored film that features, among other scenes of Dutch life, male couples kissing.
Some members of the liberal élite have responded by coming up with a less compromising approach, stressing Dutch liberal values.
They accuse liberals of being soft on crime and tolerant of intolerance. What many Dutch people have come to regard as the city’s “Muslim problem” is found in a conjunction of these two kinds of offense: criminality and illiberal, “un-Dutch” views.Īnti-immigrant populists have seized on issues like gay rights as a way of distinguishing “us,” the good native folk, from “them,” the bigoted Muslims. Even when such conduct doesn’t rise to the level of illegality, it sins against the official Dutch compact of social tolerance. And they are often accused of harassing gay men-spitting at them on the street, jeering at them, or worse. They allegedly sacrifice goats on their balconies, beat their wives, and harbor anti-Semitic tendencies. Many of the offenses committed by the city’s Muslim residents are ascribed to their alien culture. Poverty is a serious problem there unemployment is relatively high, especially among immigrants and there have been riots, mostly started by idle youths. Instead, the odd thing about the Gay Pride Parade of 2009 was that it was officially opened by a Moroccan-born politician, Ahmed Marcouch, who heads the district council of Slotervaart, a borough with a large Muslim population. (In the seventies, even the Hells Angels received a government subsidy.) A recent publicity campaign promoted tourism in the Dutch capital with the slogan “Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam.” And the conspicuous presence of city fathers and government ministers on such occasions is also rather Dutch: for centuries, the Dutch establishment has shown genius in coöpting wayward cultural trends. Or even that Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, used this fine summer day to marry five gay Dutch people to their American partners.Īll this was to be expected in a city that prides itself on its tolerance toward minorities-ethnic, religious, and sexual. It wasn’t that one of the politicians was a pious Christian Democrat, whose boat was quickly designated “the holy boat,” or that soldiers in uniform-real soldiers in real uniforms-were bopping along as well. It wasn’t that various cabinet ministers, in suits and ties, had joined the throngs of men dancing to earsplitting techno-pop in pink leather jockstraps, Roman gladiator gear, or patent-leather Speedos on a flotilla of boats gliding along the canals. There was something unusual about the Gay Pride Parade held in Amsterdam in August.