Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Holland,
1 March 2008.
The first series of Images & Voices of Hope (IVofHope)
conversations were held this past week in partnership with the Media
Academie in Hilversum, Erasmus University, and the Brahma Kumaris Spirituele
Akademie. On Tuesday February 26, twelve Masters Class students convened at
the end of a long day of classes for a conversation about "Personal
Mission-Social Impact." Most were from families who had immigrated to
Holland and a majority had undergraduate degrees that were not in
journalism. All but one were being sponsored in the Masters Class by one of
the public broadcast networks. They were working two to three days a week
at the network that sponsored them and spending the rest of the days in
school. At the end of the program, they would be offered a job for one year
at the broadcast network that sponsored them.
Two nights later a group of 25 young people from 18 to
25 years of age gathered at the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Akademie in
Amsterdam. They were interns in radio broadcasting from all parts of the
world: Pakistan, Surinam, India, Bosnia, Morocco, Somalia, Liberia, Angola,
Dubai, Guyana, and Curacao. They talked about what had been the highpoints
of their time of working in radio and of their hopes for their future:
"I would like to be someone
who makes the world more simple - someone who unifies multinational
cultures."
"I would like to help people
move in the same direction. They would have their own opinions, but
the same convictions."
"I would like to do a long
form documentary on Ghana. I would like it to show the life of a
normal farmer in a respectful way."
On Friday afternoon 60 people gathered in a studio at
the Media Academie in Hilversum, the home of the broadcast industry in
Holland. One third of them were masters students from the Media Academie or
from Erasmus University, two thirds were working journalists. From 2 to 5
pm they engaged in dialogues in different configurations and listened to a
panel that included a professor from Erasmus University, a additional chief
editor of a new free daily newspaper, a Moslem author, and a
student-filmmaker from Afghanistan. The conversations were rich and
continued on into the evening during a networking session after the
dialogue.
Three themes stood out:
(1)
Authenticity. One woman talked about seeing two documentaries at a
film festival. One was "Postcards from Viet Nam," a 20 year old film about
the American experience in Viet Nam. The other was created from letters
written home by soldiers in Iraq. She spoke about how the older film
touched her more deeply than the newer one and she wondered aloud about why
that might be. Perhaps it was because the soldiers in Iraq had recently
been taught how to write, so perhaps the letters were more formal or
stylized. The Americans in Viet Nam never expected anyone to read these
letters, except perhaps their girlfriend or their Dad. Others talked about
the self consciousness that seems to arise when people make films for You
Tube or videos in which they are very aware of themselves in the making of
these pieces.
Authenticity has its
importance in a world where the mainstream news seems to be more and more
dominated by a select group of people and organizations.
(2)
Importance. There was an interesting tension around the idea of
importance. On the one hand, it was clear that media - and those who made
the media stories - are an important influence on the society and that they
need to be aware of their social impact. On the other hand, Frank Poorthuis,
the additional chief editor of de Pers worried about those who make
media as being too "self important."
(3)
Multiculturalism. Holland has historically had a homogenous and
unified culture and one known for its "ethical high ground," -- acts of
courage during the holocaust, bold laws in support of personal liberty such
as the legalization of euthanasia. However over the recent past, Holland
has become a favorite destination for immigrants. Now 10% of Holland is
made up of these immigrant populations. This has introduced some new
tensions.
Before I left for Holland, I
was following the news and had read that a member of a small opposition
group of the Dutch parliament named Geert Wilders was calling for all things
Islam to be thrown out of the country. He says he is working on a short
movie (15 min.) in which he portrays the Islam as a fascist religion. While
Wilders has his supporters, but most of (the media in) Holland is
embarrassed by him. He claims that the Dutch government has been putting
pressure on him not to release the film out of fear of his inflaming ethnic
tensions. No Dutch network has been willing to air the film, so he was
planning to release it on the internet.
I was prepared for the subject
of Wilders' film to come up during the dialogue, but it didn't. The panel
on Friday afternoon featured four people, a professor from Erasmus
University, a additional chief editor of a new free daily newspaper, and two
Moslem women. Moderating was Tanja Jadnanansing, of Netherlands
Broadcasting Company.
One of the Moslem women, Esma
Choco, had finished a book a year ago, a kind of social survival guide or
self-help book for Moslems living around the world. It was based on
interviews she had completed with over one hundred Moslems worldwide. The
younger woman, Tahmina Akefi, was from Afghanistan. She was a student and a
filmmaker, but had just finished a project, which had moved her deeply. Two
weeks before, two young Dutch men and six young Afghanis had been killed in
Afghanistan. This young woman, had helped the father of one of the Dutch
victims to make a film to reach out to the parents of the Afghani victims.
He was in the room, but chose to remain anonymous. The Moslem women
conducted themselves with such dignity and took the conversation to such a
deep and thoughtful level, that the subject of Wilders' polarizing film
never came up.
Building from the panel and
from questions about personal mission and social impact, the dialogue
continued at an animated level right up until 5 o'clock. The director of
the Media Academie brought the conversation to a close, telling them to
adjourn to the reception outside, and assuring people that the dialogues
would continue in the months ahead, and inviting.
amsterdam@nl.bkwsu.org
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