Karl,
I like graphic design, 3d design, good drawing and painting, and see this Amsterdam add as a playful, joyfull act of an individual juice bar owner. It is typical of a rather free and anarchistic city as Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona and maybe Copenhagen. You wouldn't see such signs in London, Paris or New York. Due to corporate (commercial), taste and the seriousness of these cities.
I prefer serious graphic design, because I know skilled graphic designers, Desk Top Publishers, professional phrotographers who took images for advertisement firms, and I know people from the media/press and cinema world. This is fun, but most horeca, product producing firms and other commercial brands think 3 times before they use sings like these.
I talked last week with several Dutch people at a party, people with different political backgrounds. From leftist to center left (Die Linke, Autonomen -antifa- like anarchists, Bündnis 90 die grune, die Parlamentarische Linke in der SPD-Bundestagsfraktion (PL) [in Dutch context leftwing social democrats], Seeheimern [pragmatic, rigthwing of the Social Democratic party, Liberale Sozial Demkraten -also in the Dutch context], to centrist conservative liberals [VVD people, Dutch FDP leute] and CDA christian Democrats [Dutch CDU/CSU people]). It was at a party of a friend of mine who knows a lot of people in the Arnhem media/press, political, cultural, health care and educational world.
He had gathered an unique average group of people from the Arnhem [and as a Dutch city, a Dutch] society in the Gay bar where the party took place. That night it was only for his friends. Leftwing, center left, center right and rightwing, straight people, gays and lesbians. I know that world due to my own backround in Fine art (contemporary [modern] art), health care desk top publishing and my own short carreer in the local Audio-visual media (RTV-Arnhem, and cooperation with local partners of the Gelderlander newspaper, Omroep Gelderland, Ik Hou van Arnhem and Arnhem Direct people) and in the Arnhem political world. I found out a few things and not to my surprise, because since the nineties and the early 21th century since 911 and the assassination of the Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6th 2002 and the assassination (brutal political murder) of the Dutch film director, film producer, television director, television producer, television presenter, screenwriter, actor, critic and author Theo van Gogh something changed in the Netherlands.
Due to homophobia, mocking of GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) communtiy, aggression, harassment, violence, Badgering, mobbing and in some cases wounding and killing Gays, Bi-sexual and transgender men, there is a tendency to vote rightwing to far right rightwing populist amongst some Gays, Bi-sexuals and Lesbians in the Netherlands.
In the bar, a gathering place of Arnhem Gays, Lesbians, Bi-sexuals, Transgenders, tolerant hetrosexual friends and others I had a very long, intense and interesting conversation with the owner of the bar, a Lesbian woman who was very critical towards the Dutch authorities, her own GLBTIQ community and towards migrant and refugee communities. She told a scary story about aggression, heavy violence, intimidation, and mental and physical scars in the GLBTIQ community in the Netherlands.
Owners of Gay bars in Arnhem were silent about aggression and violence against their clients, because they feared that their clientele would stay away. She told about honour killings of young Gay men by their families from abroad. She spoke about attacks, beatings, stabbings, people who were burnt, and the fact that Gays, Lesbians, transgenders and bi-sexuals aren't safe in asylumseeker centers due to the presence of Islamists, Nationalists and aggressive straight (hetrosexual) majorities there.
Many Gays and lesbians therefor are not so positive and tolerant towards non-Western migrants in general and Muslim migrants in particular. Many of them are quite conservative, traditional, rightwing populist and vote for Geert Wilders PVV, Thierrt Baudets rightwing populist and nationalist Forum voor Democratie, or belong to the conservative Christian-Democratic CDA or the conservative liberal VVD of prime minister Mark Rutte.
I asked this lady why so many Gays (I noticed that in the CDJA youth movement of the Christian Democratic CDA party and in the Arnhem CDA party there are quite a few gays) are member of, active in an voting for the social conservative, and moderate nationalist (Patriotic) CDA and not for the center left or leftwing Labour party, Socialist party, GreenLeft or the center left social liberal D66. She said, because many Gays and Lesbians are rather traditional and conservative, and didn't choose to be who they are, and long for a normal life, acceptance and a life like straight families have. Ofcourse many of them are still part of straight families with hetrosexual parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces.
The GLBTIQ community is silent due to the safety/security and thus health of people they help. They can't say much or go to newspapers, magazines, television or the radio, because they will bring the lives of people they help in danger. Although most people were straight (hetrosexual) at the party the owner of the bar told a few things about the present situation for the GLBTIQ community in the society. It is not just a bar, but also a GLBTIQ community center, in which they help young Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders, Intersex people and Queers to deal with their identity, problems, challenges, questions adn desire for a social life.
That evening made me something clear, which I knew before, but what you forget easily. I feel safe and self confident, but many other people in society don't. Many women and girls can't walk around in the evening, at night or even in broad daylight in some area's, because certain native European and migrant men and boys can't behave themselves. Being Gay in Europe, the Middle-east, Africa, and North-America and South-America isn't easy. Many Gay men I know suffer from some sort of depression, because they often for a long time lived in the closet, and others after their coming out had to face mocking, harassment, aggression and violence. A colleague of mine, a TV professional escaped from a South-Holland city, because he faced total harassment, Badgering, mobbing, vandalism of his home and because certain shops, cafeteria and other places refused to serve him.
He left South-Holland and came to Arnhem, which is a rather Gay friendly, creative economy, cultural, pluriform and mixed town, because his personal safety, his own life (his mental and physical health), his home weren't secure there. The woman in the bar told me several terrible stories about the difficult lives of Gay refugees and migrants, and also about the difficult lives of Gay men and boys in the Netherlands, despite the so called tolerance and open liberal society.
We both (she and I) came to the conclusion that the Netherlands isn't a open, liberal and progressive society anymore. From both the native Dutch majority and the non-Western Muslim migrant and non-Muslim migrant minority, intolerant, isolationalist, prudish (tight-laced), courtly, collective social control mechanisms, peer pressure, a wrong kind of collectivist spirit, self sensorship, political correctness, lack of privacy, corporatism, religious influence, ethnic thinking (by both majority and minority groups) (ethnocentrism), segregation tendencies creep into our society.
Like Karl said, I have to watch out for what I will say here, but I refuse to be sensored. There is some peer pressure, isolationalist mentality, intolerance and conservative pressure to be prudish (tight-laced) and courtly in your behavior and there are some collective social control mechanisms, self sensorship and political correctness within the Muslim migrant community.
Why, because for many Muslims Islam, monotheism and their faith is absolutist and 100% true, good and the only way. Criticism, interpretation of Islamic teaching, reform, other versions of Islam than their Turkish, Moroccan or the Saoudi Arabian (Salafist/Wahhabi) 'original' Arab pure version of Sunni Islam is out of the question, non-negotiable and off-limits. The mix of Turkish nationalism, Turanism, Pan-Turkism, Neo-Ottomanism (Turkish: Yeni Osmanlıcılık) and Turkish Islamism of the Ak-party, Millî Görüş (
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill%C3%AE_G%C3%B6r%C3%BC%C5%9F ),
Among the Turkish immigrants in Western Europe, Milli Görüş became one of the major, if not the major, religious movements, controlling numerous mosques. According to several sources in Germany the attitude of the German Milli Görüş branch towards Turkey has completely changed. After the taking over of Erdogan and the AKP, Milli Görüş is mainly serving the interest of the turkish government which now subsidizes the organisation. Diyanet, AKP and the turkish government practically control the organisations public statements and appearances.
In Turkey, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, normally referred to simply as the Diyanet) is an official state institution established in 1924 under article 136 of the Constitution of Turkey by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as a successor to the Shaykh al-Islām after the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate.
As specified by law, the duties of the Diyanet are “to execute the works concerning the beliefs, worship, and ethics of Islam, enlighten the public about their religion, and administer the sacred worshiping places”. The Diyanet drafts a weekly sermon delivered at the nation’s 85,000 mosques and more than 2,000 mosques abroad that function under the directorate. It provides Quranic education for children and trains and employs all of Turkey’s imams, who are technically considered civil servants. It has been criticized for ignoring the Islamic creed of the 33–40% of Turkey's population that is not Hanafi Sunni Muslim.
In the Netherlands the influence of christianity and in that the puritinical, fundamentalist and intolerant branches of Christianity has decreased dramatically in the last few decades, due to the fact that most Dutch are secular, agnostic, cultural Protestants or Cultural Catholics rather than religious Protestants or religious Catholics. The religious minority finds a refuges in the Bible belt, in the fundamentalist SGP party, in the biblical christian ChristianUnion (in which what we call Reformatotische -Reformed- Protestants, and Evangelical protestants, cooperate within one political party with Lutherans, Roman-Catholics and even Orthodox christian minorities) and in the larger Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA).
The woman of the bar who was critical of her own community, said that also her community, Gays and Lesbians made and make mistakes, and that also within the community you have discrimination and differences. Not all gays and lesbians or fond of Bi-sexuals for instance. These people are of both ways, and some gays and lesbians have a problem with that, because in their point of view and feeling one side of Bi-sexuals is hetrosexual and therefor a majority position. From the other side many GLBTIQ community people don't want to be placed in a corner of the GLBTIQ community, with it's Gay and lesbian bars, GLBTIQ community houses, GLBTIQ websites and Pride parades. Some prefer 'normal', straight (hetrosexual) horeca, cinema's and to live and have a social life with straight family, friends and colleagues.
In many places they are accepted, tolerated and treated as equal, but in some conservative, rural (agrarian), Bible Belt, traditional working class area's (with old fashionate leftist working class and new 21th century rightwing populist cores, and factory workers, construction workers, harbour workers -dock workers-, soccer fan, hetro macho social cultures) and in some (not all) migrant area's of these working class neighborhoods these GLBTIQ people aren't accepted.
Like non-GLBTIQ people these people are very divided amonst themselves between leftist, socialist, social democratic, Green [environmentalist], anarchist, marxist, feminist, GLBTIQ activist Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer people and the moderate centrist, pragmatic professional Gays and Lesbians with a political, corporate or cultural career, and the ones who turned to the right and far right, because they mainly fear Islam, Muslim migrants and the increase of influence of Islam in the Netherlands and Europe. Not only ordinary straight Dutch, German, Austrian, Danish, Swedish, British, Belgian and French people fear the influence of Islam and Muslims, but also many Gays, Lesbians, Queers, Bi-sexuals and transgenders, because they face aggression from Moroccan, Turkish, Somalian, Arab and other migrant teenagers, adolescents and adult men.
In Arnhem I have contact with people of all political colors, native Dutch people and migrant people. My world is mainly the straight (hetrosexual) majority world of media/press, local politics, culture, the Arnhem corporate world, education, health care, sports, and social housing, infrastucture/public transport and local Arnhem city news. The GLBTIQ community is part of that world and in that sense I have contact with this minority. Some of them are good colleagues, friends and acquaintances. I was shocked, sorry for them and sad about some of the horrific stories I heard from and about these people. Their life isn't easy, and because I do not stand in their shoes, I can only imagine what it must be like to be a minority, 'different', and treated as a 'minority' and as being 'different'.
My favorite Arnhem bar and eatcafé (a Dutch expression for a bar which is mainly a café, and not a restaurant, but where you can eat small dishes or simple meals as well). I like the bar, because it has something inbetween the atmsophere of an old Amsterdam bohemian bar for creatives and an alternative [Underground, not mainstream] Berlin bar I know that exist in Kreuzberg and Prenslauer berg. And for a poor old bachelpor, due to the fact that musicians, poets, theatre people, painters, sculpturists, photographers, Audio-visual people (video makers/editors), local political activists, students of the Arnhem Art academy, conservatory, dance school, graphic designers, architects, 3d designers, ICT people, local Yuppies and for instance economy and technology students from the local vocational university HAN go there I feel like a dish in the water over there. Stella-by-Starlight for me is a mini Amsterdam, mini Berlin, Mini New York and Mini Copenhagen, Kraków, Prague, Paris and Budapest there. I heard English, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and other languages in that bar next to Dutch. International students and expats and migrants feel at home there next to creative Dutch people, Dutch entrepreneurs and Dutch politicians, so I feel at home there.Cheers,
Pieter