Amsterdam: tolerance and inclusion

ABSTRACT Reading testimonies and diaries of people of ethnic minorities in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th century one cannot but admire Amsterdam for its policies of inclusion, which, actually inspired John Locke when he wrote A Letter Concerning Toleration. And yet, the traumas of the Jews in the Second World War and the Surinamese in the 1970s suggest that this model of inclusion and toleration was unstable and fragile. Indeed, in recent years many Amsterdamers have acknowledged that the city betrayed not only its ethnic minorities but also its own values. The shift in policies of tolerance which characterizes contemporary Amsterdam is interpreted here as a modification of the ethos of tolerance, from tolerance and inclusion based on indifference to tolerance and inclusion based on curiosity. This ethos includes seeing the other as part of one’s own ‘self’, and the ‘self’ as plural, or, as several Amsterdamers told me, ‘hybrid’.