Lecture

15 November 2007

Why Dissent is Impossible in Holland

A Russian anarchist, having moved to the Netherlands in the 1990s, initially saw the country as a haven of freedom. Yet he soon thought otherwise, experiencing as he did that his efforts at non-conformity were channelled in such a way as to take all radicality out of them. This example is illustrative of a wider point: though in some respects tolerant of deviant behavior, the Dutch do not have a word for “dissent,” and have few traditions of sustained opposition to state and society. In his keynote address, James Kennedy uncovers the historical reasons for this and looks in particular at what citizenship has—and has not—meant over the years. The relative absence of dissent in Dutch public life, in particular in respect to immigration and religious expression, is discussed in the context of Kennedy’s understanding of the notion of “active citizenship.” According to Kennedy, from the beginning of the 1960s till the mid-1980s, the Netherlands enjoyed the status of a gidsland—a leading nation, exemplary in terms of how its public life was based upon an activist model of citizenship. Yet, having lost its status, today the country struggles to come to terms with how to define a “good citizen” (the worrying prevalence of the refrain “Can Muslims be good, democratic citizens?” is but one example ) or even how and where to actually carry on the public debate about living together. Regarding the need for a “site” for public debate on these issues and for dissent from the prevailing consensus, can art or science provide society with such space?

In collaboration with

Suggestions from the archive

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BAK at the Sint Maarten Parade 2023

For Sint Maarten Parade 2023, Tools for Action—a non-profit organization that develops artistic interventions for political actions—collaborates with Utrecht-based members of Filipino, Caribbean, and other communities to collectively dream a parade compartment.

Panel Discussion

30 September 2023, 16.30-18.30

To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall

A book launch and panel discussion reflecting on the Jina Uprising, one year after its beginning.

Saturday, 30 September, 2023, 16:30–18:30 hrs at BAK, basis actuele kunst, Utrecht Organized by Jina Collective, a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQIA+ action group that emerged from the Jina Uprising. This event launches a book of translated essays, co-published with BAK, which include some of the first English translations of texts by journalists […]

Public Program

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To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023)/Public Program

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) involves a hybrid off- and online sequence of conversations and screenings around discursive and artistic interventions that reimagine the social implications of watching the war through ways that disrupt, subvert, resist the media’s incessant spectacularization of war.