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Neighbourhood festivals
In mixed neighbourhoods organizers often use neighbourhood festivals to try and forge unity from diversity. They have become an instrument to stimulate a ‘neighbourhood feeling’ or social cohesion in neighbourhoods where in daily life the various groups of inhabitants live parallel lives, hardly ever reaching out and getting in touch. What seems to contradict this aim, is that these urban neighbourhood parties often emphasize the different origins of the participants. Thus however, they do connect with the multiculturalist credo of unity in diversity.
The annual Oosterparkfestival[9] named after its Amsterdam location, fits this framework. It is financed by MDSO, a foundation for community work that in various ways tries to promote this social cohesion in the neighbourhood. It’s a Liberation Day event (5 May), and emphasizes the combat against racism. At this festival, elements of the multiculti form reappear most strongly in the commercial activities within the festival area. The food stalls organize themselves along ethnic lines, and in various ways they make it clear from which countries their dishes originate. There are Surinam stands, a Turkish kebab stand where the proprietor sports a ‘Turkey’ bandana, and an Ethiopian stand demonstrating a coffee ceremony. But Dutch ‘oliebollen’ (deep-fried lardy cakes) and ‘poffertjes’ (miniature pancakes) also fit the image. These too, are presented in a national / ethnic way. The ‘poffertjes’ stand is decorated with red-white-and-blue streamers. On top of the cart a banner proclaims ‘Hollandsche poffertjes’ and in the middle a large golden amulet bears the Dutch coat of arms.
As at the Dunya festival discussed above, the non-food stalls are organized differently. Somehow, they clearly seem to be about ‘ethnic’ products, in some cases a continent or region seemed to be linked to a stall, but nowhere is a national identity or product origin clearly emphasized. The stalls display the same colourful collection of African jewellery, decorative objects, Surinam cloths, drums and dream catchers as described above for the Dunya festival. Here as well, the binding element seems to be the multculti lifestyle.
The Oosterpark festival is part of a network of nationwide liberation festivals. Yet they particularly emphasize the character of a neighbourhood festival, for example in the way in which the programme is published in the neighbourhood paper. Thus it announces the possibility of a dialogue between the neighbourhood’s youth and elderly people, and an exhibition of drawings and poems by neighbourhood children. It is a small-scale festival and various groups of inhabitants are represented both on stage and in the audience, even though the attending contingent from Surinam is far more numerous than the neighbourhood Turks and Moroccans, while nevertheless the largest group are native white Dutch.
By day a local youth centre is in charge of the programming. There boys and girls imitate their American pop idols and dance to their music, with some candid Dutch ‘gangsta rap’ and music of an ethnic hue thrown in for taste. The evenings offer artists who are more professional. And here too, diversity is the trend; a Caribbean carnival dance band, but also a North-African band whose latin influences announced in the programme brochure escaped my laywoman’s ears.
At the festival it is difficult not to get infected with a positive feeling about the multicultural society, or at least by the festival’s multicultural neighbourhood. There is only one stage for everyone, hence no division across continental tents. We all listen to music, eat tasty food, without getting wrapped up any further in an all too clear multiculti concept. The physical experience of the festival nurtures a feeling of solidarity.