by Oui
Sun Nov 17th, 2024 at 02:56:04 PM EST
17th Century Capitalism, VOC, Slave Trade and Supremacy
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"Taking Manhattan" -- A Talk by Historian Russell Shorto
The Dutch colony was a blend of immigrants and great tolerance in New Amsterdam - Peter Stuyvesant
Slavery in New Netherland
Dutch involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and abolition | Leiden |
Remember that Old New York Was Once New Amsterdam: The Dutch Roots of American Pluralism
Dutch Muslim groups file UN complaint against 'witch hunt' parliamentary committee | The New Arab - 26 April 2023 |
PM Dick Schoof Leading the Racist Wilders' Coalition
Schoof: Jews have been hunted, young people with a migration background are overrepresented | AT5 Local News |
Schoof says that he had a 'very urgent conversation' with representatives from the Jewish community on Friday night. He calls the fear and feelings of insecurity among the Jewish community after Thursday night 'indigestible' and 'unworthy of the Netherlands'.
According to Schoof, the perpetrators are 'morally completely degenerate' and their actions 'shocking'. "The images we have seen in recent days and the stories we hear are, in one word, 'appalling'. I have also seen the images. And seen that a specific group of young people with a migration background is overrepresented in those 'hit-and-run' actions. It is clear that we have something to do with each other in this country. A group that exhibits inappropriate behavior that in no way fits into the open and tolerant society that is the Netherlands."
Maccabi supporters
Schoof agrees that there are also images and stories about the behavior of the Maccabi supporters. "That is all being investigated and it is important that all the facts come to light." He stresses that there must be room for people who protest what is happening in Gaza. "But I am not going to minimize the problem. There is absolutely nothing that can serve as an excuse for deliberately seeking out and chasing down Jews."
How the violence in Amsterdam became a PR campaign for Israel
A Wilders' Populist Cabinet Adds Fuel to the Fire
Muslims in Amsterdam reject far-right government's rhetoric after violence | The New Arab |
Arranging fruit crates in a market on the western edge of Amsterdam on Thursday, Mohamed Errakil said the Dutch government's rhetoric a week after the city was shaken by violence instigated by Israeli football hooligans could encourage discrimination.
"We're called foreigners, you're a Moroccan, you're a Turk. Discrimination is going to build up" said Errakil, a 51-year-old of Moroccan origin who says he "feels Dutch" and has spent most of his life running a fruit stall in Nieuw West, a neighbourhood with a sizable Muslim population.
In the Dutch parliament a day earlier, far-right Islamophobe MP Geert Wilders claimed that all the violence surrounding last week's football match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel-Aviv was perpetrated by Muslims and "for the most part Moroccans".
Anti-Islam Wilders, who is leader of the largest party in the government coalition, also called for those involved to be prosecuted "for terrorism, lose their passports and be kicked out of the country".
Errakil said that those involved in the violence "should be dealt with harshly".
[Update-1]
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My best friend has Jewish roots on maternal side of family, I was honored to have been called a “Jew” after settling a business dispute with a Palestinian envoy in The Hague, my brother runs a bistro in the heart of Amsterdam and has a majority of employees with an migrant background, my best personal (girl) friend has family living in New West and lives in London with a top job in the financial district. My heart cries for the racist tone in Dutch society and the alarming increase in discrimination in jobs and housing. The native Dutch have reversed to the colonial mindset and post 9/11 turned around like a leaf … shameful. Xenophobia and Islamophobia funded by Zionist interests … provocation and the expected response. Hasbara published in Dutch media from news broadcasts to newspapers and social media. Welcome to 1984 in real time.
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Project Esther: A Trumpian Blueprint to Crush anti-Colonial Resistance | Informed Comment |
The Heritage Foundation has been open about its intention to transform “Project Esther” into government policy under a second Trump administration.
It states within the strategy document itself – which was published on October 7 to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel – that it hopes “Project Esther” would present “an opportunity for public-private partnership when a willing administration occupies the White House”.
Created by the same minds that brought us the authoritarian, Christian nationalist “Project 2025”, “Project Esther” syncretises the story of Queen Esther, the Jewish heroine celebrated during Purim for saving Jews of ancient Persia from extermination at the hands of Vizier Haman, with modern day Zionist narratives of defence and victimhood to depict her as a defender of Jews against activists, academics and progressive members of Congress in the US who oppose racism, apartheid and genocide.
The strategy paper, supposedly designed to be “a blueprint to counter anti-Semitism in the United States”, includes several fundamental aspects of fascistic thought and practice as outlined by Umberto Eco, such as syncretic culture, xenophobia, a cult of heroism and anti-intellectualism.
Targeted individuals – including numerous Black, Brown and Jewish elected representatives who voiced any criticism of Israel, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer – are collectively mischaracterised as members of “Hamas Support Organisations (HSO)”, part of a “Hamas Support Network” and equated with Purim’s villain, Haman.
Through this framing, the campaign targets prominent social justice advocates and progressive Democratic Party representatives as enemies of the Jewish people, using the mythology of Queen Esther to justify their persecution and repression.
“Project Esther” shamelessly states its aims to eliminate anticolonial perspectives from the US education system, limit the dissemination of related information and restrict advocates’ access to American society, the economy and Congress.
Bombing defenseless civilians with U.S. aircraft for over a year …
MR PATEL: So let me get to the second part of your question first. As it relates to the UN commission, I’ve seen some of that reporting, and we’ve seen some language coming out of that indicative of their belief that some of the actions could be constituted as – and this is their phrasing – “genocide.” That is something we would unequivocally disagree with. Again, we think that that kind of phrasing and those kinds of accusations are certainly unfounded.
Big Tech and the risk of genocide in Gaza: what are companies doing?
The Dark Truth About the Heritage Foundation | 10 May 2013 |
It's recent choice of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint as its new president -- the second in the organization's history -- says everything about Heritage's worldview. DeMint was perhaps the most conservative member of the Senate, with a host of retrograde positions that put him well to the right in the GOP -- such as a persistent advocacy of school prayer, a belief that English should be the official U.S. language, and an insistence on balancing the federal budget even as he opposed all tax increases, including during a time of war.
Politicians like DeMint stand as a reminder of the dark history of conservatism. This is a movement, after all, which at different times has embraced social Darwinism, eugenics, segregation, and McCarthyism -- while opposing Social Security, Medicare, the civil rights movement, women's rights, and so on. Smart and polished people from William F. Buckley to William Kristol have spent decades trying to help America forget about the right's John Birch past, but the primordial reactionary elements of American life have never disappeared. And, in Heritage, they have always had a friend.
The Rise of ’Anti-Politics’ and Why We Need to Reconsider Political Life
A new book, Embattled America: the Rise of Anti-Politics and America’s Obsession with Religion, not only outlines the idea of anti-politics, but outlines how (and why) the United States needs to revisit and revitalize the idea of political life – not just for politicians, but for everyone.
To learn more, we talked with author Jason Bivins, a professor of religious studies at NC State.
The Abstract: You’ve written two previous books on religion and politics in the United States. What was the impetus for this one?
Bivins: The basic drive here was not only to understand the role of conservative religion in the rise of anti-democratic forces in America, but to make an argument that an obsession with said religion is preventing citizens of good will from focusing on the necessary areas of public life so desperately in need of reform.
TA: This may be a bit of an oversimplification, but I think it’s fair to say that your first two books focused on how religion has informed politics and political action. This book takes a different approach. It seems to be focused more on how political structures and systems in the United States have essentially created the conditions that have allowed a particular brand of conservative Christianity to become politically powerful. Is that right? And can you explain a little bit what about what sort of systems you’re referring to and the role they’ve played in the rise of the “Christian Right”?
Bivins: My chief focus here is laying out what I call the rise of anti-politics. What I mean by this is the coordinated effort at not only fomenting a sense of conservative victimhood complexes but the broader (false) claims that the two major political parties are the same, one’s vote never matters, the system is inherently rigged and unfixable, and therefore one’s focus should not be the commons but the maximization of self-interest. Whether in action movies or public commentary, there’s been a steady abandonment of the idea that politics is worthwhile and meaningful for everyday citizens. I think that only by reclaiming the political can we save ourselves.
TA: How does all of this tie into President Trump’s rise and the changes we’ve seen in the Republican party since 2015?
Bivins: I actually think that, as significant as Trump is as a galvanizing force, one of the main takeaways is that this has been building since the 1970s. All of public life has been made subject to the claims of the market, social services have been hollowed out, and we’ve seen the triumph of a particular brand of morality in all kinds of social/political spheres. Trump just managed to capture the right kind of rage, to galvanize a bunch of apathetic voters, and to normalize xenophobia and authoritarianism in ways we haven’t seen since George Wallace. The key here is that the Republican Party let the fringe elements in, so as to hold onto power.
TA: Two of the fundamental concepts in your book are groups of people who you call “Martyrs” and “Whistleblowers.” Can you explain those two terms and why they’re important?
Bivins: This is the discourse analysis part of the book. One of the things that’s struck me over the years is how impotent left wing takes on religion are. They’re strident, often unproductively anticlerical, and actually conceded a lot of ground to right-wing victimology. In conceding a kind of dualism in my own analysis, I’m trying to show that this very antagonism is the “hamster wheel” that’s got Americans locked into what’s basically a distraction from structural change.
Trump's cabinet picks already have a playbook they could choose to follow. This is what the Project 2025 manifesto proposes | ABC News Australia |
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