Friday 6 January 2017

Diamonds, Jews and Gays

The Diamond neighbourhood in Amsterdam is named after the Jewish workers in the diamond industry who used to make up the population there before the Holocaust. 
It has many special buildings and monuments in the Amsterdam School style of architecture.
Nowadays it is mainly populated by ethnic Moroccans.

All the Jews have left. No recognizable Jews would enter the neighbourhood. If they did, they would be lucky to escape with only spittle on their faces. 
However, it may begin with the Jews, but it never stops there.

The Diamond neighbourhood became notorious some ten years ago because of reports that ethnic Moroccan youths were intimidating, harassing and driving out other inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Their main prey was the LBGT community.

“Streetcornerwork” is a Dutch organization that works with at-risk youth, also in the Diamond neighbourhood. One morning an agitated young man walked into the Streetcornerwork office of a friend of mine. 
He told him the following story.

He was gay, had never had any problems with the youths and was upset with the negative reports about the neighbourhood in the media. He thought it was all very Islamophobic. 
So he decided to do something about it.
He went on local television and told his story: he was gay, enjoyed living in the neighbourhood and had never had any problems with the youths. 

He received a lot of positive and supportive feedback after his much publicized television appearance. It was a resounding answer to Islamophobia.

A few days later when walking to the shops he passed a group of ethnic Moroccan youths who started to hurl insults at him. 
After that, every time the youths saw him, they would insult and threaten him.
Things came to a head when he went to the local snack bar. There was a larger group hanging around outside the snack bar and they started jostling him and calling him homophobic names. 

He was scared and ran away. 

He could not understand what was going on. My friend explained it to him.
For him and people with his norms and values, harassing gays and forcing them out of the neighbourhood was a bad thing. 
He thought he was defending the youths when he spoke on local television.

However, for the youths, harassing gays and forcing them out was a good thing. They were proud of what they were doing. According to them, gays were polluting their neighbourhood. 
They found his appearance on television insulting and a provocation. He had insulted their honour and they would not stop until they had forced him to leave the neighbourhood.

My friend offered to ask the housing corporation to find him a flat in another neighbourhood. He accepted the offer.

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