On Wednesday we first heard from Atef Hamdy about the six steps to extremism. The organization of his project was inspiring-- his original taxonomy makes me wonder what kind of creative, novel thesis Ruben and I can write. We then went to Aya Sofia and meet a new research contact, Harun Yildirim. He is the president of the Muslim Student Association of the Netherlands, and he talked about the struggles of second-generation Moroccan and Turkish immigrants to assimilate into Dutch culture and how these people are marginalized. I was surprised by the welcome we recieved, and the fact that event the bare-headed women were allowed to watch the male 2:00 prayer. After having visited other mosques, I am even more convinced that Aya Sofia is exceptionally open-armed.
Thursday we went to the Jewish Historical museum--this was a moving experience. While I was aware of the extent to which the Holocaust devastated the Dutch Jewish community, seeing pictures of Jewish life pre and post 1941 superimposed suffering individuals on my cloudy conception of WWII. Ruben and I went to the Resistance Museum, and that made me wonder about myself-- what action would I have taken under Nazi occupation? While I would like to believe I would be a resistance fighter, I wonder if the harsh reality of the situation would crush my idealism. I don't know whether I'm selfless and brave enough.
On Thursday night my purple bike was stolen, I walked out to find the lock had been somehow sodered off and the plastic part had been beaten with a crowbar, they left the tools lying around. I think thieves seized their opporunity during this big storm we had, nobody heard anything over the thunder. I console myself by thinking that it's part of the Amsterdam experience, but the reality is that I should have bought a heavy lock.
Saturday was the gay pride parade...I think in this case a picture is worth 1,000 words--inagine two hours of this:
On Monday we went to the Bilmermeer, which was a planned development in the 1970s made to be a revolution in urban/suburban planning but because of poor design, intimidating architecture, and a complex social context (Surinamese independence and the influx of migrants) became a sort of housing project. It was an eerie place, these ENORMOUS tenement buildings all in rows out in the middle of nowhere. We heard
an incredibly sad story about an El Al flight that crashed into one of the apartment complexes in the early 1990s, apparently there were so many unregistered illegal immigrants the death toll could have been anywhere from the 35 reported to hundreds people. Others in the area developed symptoms of sickness (perhaps radiation poisoning?) and the Israeli government still won't tell anyone what was in the plane. Scientists don't believe the substance was any kind of nuclear material, but I find it a little firghtening.
This week has been independent research. While I won't detail the logistics of who we've met, where we've been, and what data we've collected in these posts (see Ruben's "tracing our journey" posts, or if you're interested I have a long word document of contacts and information), I will have several posts about my own reactions to these communities. It has been a foreign experience for me.
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