By Cihan Tekeli:

Defining your identity as being a Westerner, Dutch in my case, and a Muslim might be problematic for some. But reality teaches us that millions of American and European Muslims don’t have a problem with their identities. When you are able to be open and confident about your identity you build trust. This trust enables you to contribute to the future of our pluralistic societies. We cannot allow ourselves to be trapped by segregation and intellectual ghettoization.

We are living in a global world full of challenges. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the west are law-abiding, contributing citizens. It’s a margin that sheds suspicion. At the same time we cannot deny the challenges within our communities. Whether that be cultural or problematic readings of scripture. For we also have to act against the minority complex and the victim mentality in our societies. We are not minorities or victims, we are citizens. As engaged citizens we must refuse to retract into social and psychological ghetto’s. We have to be more engaged in society by speaking out. By showing people, that we are not as different as people might think. It’s not a question of Islam, it’s a question of Muslims. (more…)

By Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo

After spending 30 years in the New York art world and seeing galleries evolve into big white boxes with mostly unapproachable owners and staff, it was refreshing to recently visit Amsterdam’s intimate art spaces and find the owners and directors sitting behind the front desk which, in most cases, was the only desk.

In New York, size matters. The galleries that have the most clout also occupy the most real estate, particularly Gagosian, Paula Cooper, David Zwirner, Matthew Marks, Mary Boone, and Deitch Projects. (more…)

By Robert Pirani

When Henry Hudson sailed from Amsterdam harbor almost exactly 400 years ago (he left April 3rd 1609), he left a country built on water - literally as well as politically. Water is still a foundation for Dutch planning decisions. As I learned on a recent trip sponsored by the Netherlands Water Partnership, they even have a name for this relationship: Living With the Water. With a changing climate and competing waterfront uses posing important challenges on this side of the Atlantic, Living With the Water is a philosophy well worth exploring.

Located on the delta of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers, the medieval Netherlands were filled with peat bogs, tidal marshes, and shallow waters. The locals made a practice of re-naturing this landscape. For the Dutch, this meant enclosing the wetlands with dikes, building ditches and windmills to collect the water and pump it back to the sea, and undergoing seasons of special plantings to pull the salt from the soil. On they went, and today, about 27% of the land and 60% of the population are below sea level. (more…)

By Eboo Patel

President Obama has gone a long way towards showing a different face of America to the Muslim world , and now a Dutch Minister is following in the President’s footsteps by showing a different face of Europe to Muslims in America.

Frans Timmermans, Minister for European Affairs in the Dutch Government, has a very different understanding of the role that Muslims can play on the Continent than the Europeans we hear a lot from, like Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (more…)

By Emma Blijdenstein

I don’t know much about dance or ballet. I think the last time I saw a performance was, well uhm… twenty years ago, in Amsterdam. Yesterday’s performance in the Joyce Theater however, was breathtaking, and made me realize I should see dance more often.

During a riveting two-hour show, The Nederlands Dans Theater II wowed a packed house. The troupe, premiering its show in the US, performed four pieces, all by their in-house choreographers.

I especially enjoyed ‘Sleepless’ by Jiri Kylian. With insect-like fever, dancers popped in and out through slits in a screen, sometimes only showing heads and hands from behind the canvas. The visual effects were sober, clean, and powerful. Very Dutch in fact. (more…)