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Conclusion
The multicultural festival is a consumptive location. Thus it offers certain opportunities for the propagation of identity, but it also guides the performance in a certain direction. The consumption that takes place is broad, but also comprises eating and drinking and more durable objects. Consumption of such products is not a by-product, or worse, a non-authentic addition, but is central to the creation of the festival’s meaning. Through this consumption the event is given meaning and does not merely draw attention to an already existing meaning. Appadurai argues in ‘Modernity at large’ that consumption at various lifecycle celebrations merely serves to mark these ‘rites de passage’ (1996, 69), the possibility of consumption at the multicultural festival is not just a necessary by-product – people having to eat and drink anyway; stall rent as a necessary source of income for the festival – nor a festive framework for the performances and activities announced in the programme booklets. The festivals are formed by the possibility of consuming things away from the podiums, even though this is not fully admitted in their presentation. The multiculti festival has developed into a powerful symbol. Many know the recipe of exotic music, cheerful backdrops, exotic smells and steam coming off all kinds of even more exotic snacks, stalls with bits of Asia and Africa, mixed with ‘tie and dye’ T-shirts.
The consumption of music and performances on the podiums is just a small part of the consumption at these lifestyle festivals. In addition one can also consume household articles, interior accessories, clothing, but in particular a certain atmosphere of like-mindedness; a good vibe. These very different forms of consumption in which all senses are involved, make the festivals into a performance of various forms of otherness, but also of a certain ideology: multiculturalism. By consuming Surinamese baras, African music and the atmosphere among the audience, multiculturalism’s image of society is transferred and ethnic identities are shaped.
The multiculti products such as the multiculti festivals have a concrete target group: a segment of the middle class that feels attracted to the multiculti lifestyle and wants to be seduced by exotic products and experiences. In spite of this, to charm the public, multiculti happenings depend on an aura of enclosure and universality. This provides an interesting contradiction between presentation and reality. While the festival is presented as a location for everyone, or as a ‘mirror of the city’ like the Dunya festival, it is also and perhaps primarily a location for a specific target group.
In the relation between consumption and multiculturalism, the keyword is seduction. The multiculti festivals as well as at the multiculturalized ethnic and neighbourhood festivals, present a seductive image of ethnic groups and cultural repertoires, in which they themselves often are actively involved. They stand next to each other, so that visitors can taste the different kinds of music and products. In Campbell’s terms, reality is adapted while leaving space for the visitors’ imaginations. The various identities are presented in a cheerful, non-threatening and colourful way. On the other hand, the experience is not completely boarded up. Walking around the festival site, people can for themselves form new images of the different countries where music, food and objects come from. But they can also buy products from the stalls, and imagine themselves being an Indian beauty or an African drummer.
This seduction is not merely focused on the ‘other’. After all, as the Comaroffs argued (2009), performing one’s own identity for others, intensifies the performer’s experience of that identity. Being seen by the other also enables the performers to see themselves and their ethnic singularity through the other’s eyes. Festivals which originally were not intended to be multiculti and began as ethnic or neighbourhood festivals for instance, adopt symbols and images from multiculturalism and the multiculti festivals. In the first place this seems linked to the commercial activities. The fact that the multiculti festival is a commercial location, contributed to the dominance or hegemony of the repertoire. For other festivals that have certain aspects in common with the multiculti festival, such as the attention paid to a non-Dutch culture, it seems hard to think beyond this repertoire or framework. Since the ethnic and neighbourhood festivals attract an audience which is very similar to that of the multiculti festivals, stallholders respond by providing products selected accordingly.
But several times the organization as well, proved to have been the driving force of multiculturalization. In addition to communication with their own ethnic group, ethnic festivals also aim to communicate with the rest of society. In their efforts to seduce these outsiders and give them a positive impression of the group, they often use the multiculturalist form. There are also ethnic festivals that swap their monocultural focus for a multicultural approach, often in response to the wish of other groups to present themselves at the festival, as can be seen at the Summer Carnival.
In urban neighbourhoods where the composition of the population has changed, the multiculturalist form is extremely suitable to make the neighbourhood festival a driving force of social cohesion. The risk however is that the festival primarily connects with the preferences of the organizers and does not take seriously those of most people living there. For instance the Oosterpark festival does attract Dutch and Surinamese-Dutch neighbourhood people, but far fewer Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch. Under the pretext of something for every ethnic group, the impression is created that everybody is satisfied. But if the neighbourhood Turkish-Dutch prefer Turkish pop music such as Tarkan, one probably does not do them much of a favour by providing them with traditional Turkish folk dances. The ‘multiculti’ public on the other hand, can enjoy the aura of authenticity surrounding that latter genre, whereas it abhors the Tarkan beats which are deemed non-authentic.
The consumption of the festival experience is intertwined with the ideology of multiculturalism. The ideas connected to this ideology reach us through our bodily experiences. At the multicultural festivals the multiculturalist ideology is not transmitted primarily by way of language or verbal communication, but by manipulating bodily experiences. Thus it is much harder to claim that the ideology is incorrect, because this would also brand the experience as incorrect.[10] Besides, this experience seems to arise in the individual, and it is not so easy to experience it as manipulation. Hence consumption and the bodily experiences it creates, are of central importance in multiculturalism. Perhaps this is why years after columnists proclaimed the moral death of multiculturalism, its various representations still surround us.