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Rotterdam plans to ban poor artists
W H Y - 04.12.2003 16:10
The city of Rotterdam said yesterday that it wanted to ban poor and unemployed artists from moving there.
Marco Pastors during the presentation of the action program 'Degenerate Artists"
Igor Kempinski
Tuesday December 2, 2003
WHY Rotterdam  http://www.why-rotterdam.tk
The city of Rotterdam said yesterday that it wanted to ban poor and unemployed artists from moving there.
In a move that is likely to cause uproar, the city council adopted a policy paper which it said sought to restore "long-term balance" to the city.
Almost half the port city's 600,000 population are creative and the council said it was keen to curb new immigration "of the wrong sort".
Its policy paper stipulated that any newcoming artists must earn 20% more than the country's minimum wage or about € 9.10 (£6.30) an hour in order to settle there.
New artists would also have to possess a good command of the Dutch language in order to obtain a residence permit and the council said it would ask the RKS to stop funding artists for the next four years.
"We have a lot of artists coming into the city who just go on welfare," Ronald Sorensen, leader of Leefbaar Rotterdam (Liveable Rotterdam), the party behind the initiative, told WHY.
"If people want to come to Rotterdam they must not be artists. If they are, then we don't want them."
Mr Sorensen said that the council would demolish cultural freezones and only build "expensive houses" in order to get the right "balance".
"We want artists to work and we want artists to learn Dutch. We want Rotterdam to look like any other Dutch city but at the moment we have more unemployed artists and crime than anywhere else."
Deportations of illegal artists will be stepped up and the council said it intends to start evicting anti-social artists from social housing.
Mr Sorensen argued that urgent action was needed to stop Dutch middle class families fleeing the city for better areas.
Mr Sorensen denied the initiative was discrimination. But he admitted the policy would have been approved by one of the city's most famous sons, the far right anti-artist champion, Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated last year.
"He would be very proud of this," Mr Sorensen said. "This problem has been around for 30 years but nobody has dared burn their fingers on it. This is exactly what Mr Fortuyn stood for."
He added: "Colour is no problem but the problem is coloured. We are not bigots. Nobody dares say that any more after Pim was shot."
He claimed that the new rules would also apply to Dutch white artists who wanted to move to the city, the Netherlands' second largest.
The initiative is being pushed by councillor Marco Pastors, one of Fortuyn's students and a close friend of the man who was gunned down by an artists' rights activist in 2002.
Fortuyn outraged many by calling artists "backward" and demanding zero immigration.
The subject of art remains sensitive in the Netherlands. The construction of one of Europe's largest galleries began in Rotterdam in October and the council is fighting to make its design less "artistic".
Recent surveys suggest that the population supports tough action on artists with 60% of Rotterdam inhabitants in favour of restricting the number of new artists.
The city council's plans are likely to enrage the Dutch left, however, and the centre-right government has already indicated that limiting the number of artists who can settle in one area may constitute discrimination and be in breach of the constitution and various international treaties.
The council is therefore likely to become locked in a battle in order to realise its plan, but insists it will persist.
translated from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1097757,00.html
 E-Mail: innbetween@hotmail.com  Website: http://www.why-rotterdam.tk
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| Read more about: kunst, cultuur en muziek vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | supplements | | | Anti-immigration and the road to intolerance | linking - 05.12.2003 02:41
zie ook
http://www.irr.org.uk/2003/december/ak000005.html
Netherlands: anti-immigration and the road to intolerance
2 December 2003
Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has this week advocated the idea of a two-tier justice system in which foreigners who commit crime would be sentenced differently from Dutch nationals. How has a country which once had a reputation for tolerance descended to such illiberalism?
‘Become like us’: the Dutch and racism
4 - 12 - 2003
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-10-96-1616.jsp
Dutch society’s impressive commitment to anti-racist norms, influenced by revulsion against Nazi and apartheid regimes, is now pressured by an opposite trend: irritation with signs of cultural difference. How does the change impact on lives and identities in the modern Netherlands?
| | Artists rights activist? | Folkert Jensma - 05.12.2003 11:30
Sinds wanneer is Volkert van der G. ook "artists rights activist"? Dit soort simplisme = bij de Beesten af.
Evenals dit beleid, natuurlijk!
Website: http://www.kunstbende.nl
| | Pim zei eens | Thorbecke - 06.12.2003 11:11
De Grondwet.
Artikel 1 weet U nog?!
| | Pieter zei eens | Pieter - 07.12.2003 22:30
dat onder Thorbecke niets over non-discriminatie in de grondwet stond. Dat iedere nederlander gelijk behandeld zou worden zou hij nooit in zijn grodnwet hebben kunnen krijgen aangezien het stemrecht was voorbehouden aan de 30000 rijkste mannen van het land. Gehuwde vrouwen hadden helemaal geen rechten. Gehuwde vrouwen zijn pas sinds de jern '50 vande twintigste eeuw volledige rechtspersonen. Bovendien was Thorbecke de man die het fameuze toetsingsartikel 120 "De rechter treedt niet in de grondwettigheid van wetten en verdragen" in zijn grondwet zette. De regering hoeft zich dus niets van de mooie beginselen van de grondwet aan te trekken als ze wetten maakt en verdagen sluit. Niet zo raar, want Nederland had en heeft bijvoorbeeld nog steeds de keiharde opsporingswetgeving van Napoleon's politiestaat Frankrijk in het strafrecht zitten.
Dus als de VVD het weer eens over het bewaren van de erfenis van Thorbecke heeft is het nuttig te bedenken wat ze ook alweer willen bewaren.
| | Basisinkomen! | Ron Kreike - 08.12.2003 16:34
Alsof de duivel er mee speelt.
Beinvloed door discussies over basisinkomen, had ik wel eens gezegd dat het me wel een goed idee leek, om daar meer mee te doen.
In de samenleving bestaan er helaas nogal wat tendenzen waarbij solidariteit ondergeschikt lijkt aan vervelende geld-en werkzucht, en dat is volgens mij tamelijk jammer.
Ook geheimzinnigheid betreffende het inkomen, en geldgebruik/verspilling maakt het er niet makkelijker op om met vertrouwen om te gaan met mensen die duidelijk meer geld (willen) hebben dan een basisinkomen.
Een basisinkomen van bijvoorbeeld 113% om te beginnen leek me wel een aardig getal, en ik zou het een goede zaak vinden om mensen te ontmoeten die niet geheimzinnig hoeven te doen omtrent de aard en hoogte/laagte van inkomen.
Ik zou willen dat het voor mensen die niet meer inkomen hebben dan een uitkering (zoals ik!) makkelijker zou worden gemaakt om eh, deel te nemen aan sociale aktiviteiten, en ook zou ik willen dat niet-commerciele creativiteit en aktiviteiten meer ruimte mag hebben, en ook zou ik willen dat toegang tot medische voorzieningen, vanwege menselijke overwegingen, makkelijker wordt gemaakt.
Maar helaas ...
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