JaeWeb

what’s in a name?

December 8th, 2008

A majority of the Amsterdam city council would like to remove the label ‘allochtoon’, which means foreign-born, and replace it with ‘Turkish Amsterdammer’ or ‘Moroccon Amsterdammer’ *). The idea is to get rid of the negative connotation that ‘allochtoon’ now has in Dutch politics and society. But this seems such a dangerous suggestion! ‘Allochtoon’ might have a very specific, negative connotation, and you are not immediately thinking of the American professor who is now living in the Netherlands, but at least it is very straightforward to interpret - simply anyone not born from Dutch citizens (or is it on Dutch soil? ). By labeling them according to their minority group affiliation, you open up a whole can of worms. What about people with parents from different groups? What about second and third generation? Are we going to keep them under a separate label indefinitely? I always liked the fact that you cannot reasonably call any second or third generation member an ‘allochtoon’.

Further on the motivation, the article states: “The party (PvdA) claims the word (’allochtoon’) to be outdated and argues for a more specific denotation of specific groups of people.” **) Such remarks make me happy I sent in my unsubscription as a member of the PvdA last week. We should not try to get more policies based on specific groups but rather focus on individual rights, room for individual development and enforcement of the law. It is bad enough to be talking about ‘allochtonen’ so much, but at least you can say immigrants do have specific concerns and interests, but lets not divide the entire population in specific subgroups.

*) I know “Amsterdammer” is not really correct English, but I don’t know how else to convey the Dutch similarly spelled word for a resident of Amsterdam.
**) “De partij stelde het woord achterhaald te vinden en pleitte voor een specifiekere aanduiding van bepaalde groepen personen.”

Entry Filed under: politics, immigration and integration, democracy, liberalism