{"id":1225,"date":"2019-12-20T10:58:46","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T09:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2022-06-07T22:49:53","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T21:49:53","slug":"place-the-netherlands-met-clubgeluiden-bewustzijn-creeren-en-fondsen-werven-voor-queer-vluchtelingen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/en\/2019\/12\/20\/place-the-netherlands-met-clubgeluiden-bewustzijn-creeren-en-fondsen-werven-voor-queer-vluchtelingen\/","title":{"rendered":"Place: The Netherlands: raising awareness and funds for queer refugees through dance music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having been through the procedure themselves, Axmed Maxamed (queer Somali diasporic activist, organizer and music nerd) and Cj (active member of Open Closet LGBT Netherlands) know how tough, complex and unjust it can be to apply for asylum, even in a self-proclaimed \u201cprogressive\u201d country like The Netherlands. For LGBTQIA+ refugees, the process is even harder. That\u2019s why for years now, Axmed and Cj have been putting their expertise, time and energy in helping out queer refugees and creating safe spaces for minorities. \nTogether with Amsterdam-based DJ Jasm\u00edn, Axmed recently curated a Dutch edition of Place, an electronic music compilation highlighting local producers and raising awareness on important social causes. All proceeds from Place: The Netherlands will go to organizations that are focused on helping queer refugees to get advice, find an extended sense of family and belonging, get legal work, and re-enter society. I sat down with Cj and Axmed in Amsterdam to share their stories, those of LGBTQIA+ refugees, and the story behind Place: The Netherlands and its release party.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Text and photo's by: <\/strong>Dave Coenen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Place<\/strong><\/a> is a musical, country-specific charity compilation series. All proceeds from the releases will go towards local groups working in human rights issues. Combining music with activism, Kompakt and Air Texture present each release in these series.\n\n

Axmed Maxamed<\/strong><\/a> is a queer diasporic Somali activist, organizer and music nerd. Axmed was born in Xamar, Somalia where he also spent his early years until his family had to flee during the civil war. He ended up in the Netherlands via other countries. He spent his formative years in Breda in the south of the Netherlands until he moved to Amsterdam some years ago. In Amsterdam Axmed co-founded Dance with Pride<\/a>, a queer initiative which aims to reunite dance music with its queer roots and raise money for grass roots queer initiatives with their fundraiser parties and sales of the Dance with Pride T-shirt. In addition to this, Axmed is involved in other queer initiatives, with special focus on QTIBPOC (Queer Trans Intersex Black People & People of Colour). Together with Ladan Maandeeq, Axmed started working on 'Queer Somali Pasts and Presents: A Storytelling and Archival Project' which will focus on the lives of Queer Somalis in the diaspora and Somalia itself, both in the present day and the past.\n\n

Open Closet LGBT Netherlands<\/strong><\/a> was co-founded by Teddy Lyon as a response to the difficulties of his personal experience with the local immigration authorities (IND). Having decided that he is here to stay, the South-African born activist wanted to make sure that what happened to him does not happen to others. Open Closet not only ensures that incoming LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers are properly registered, but also provides help with food, support towards the procedures required, counseling and a family where everybody is welcome. They provide a place to come together and cover for traveling costs if needed. By organising meetings regularly, they create a sense of community and belonging for queer asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Open Closet also ensures that asylum seekers are properly informed of their rights and options. Cj is one of the hard-working people at Open Closet, putting his energy into helping queer refugees.\n\n

Jasmin Hoek<\/strong>is a DJ who plays under the name Jasm\u00edn<\/a>. She was born and grew up in the east of The Netherlands, Enschede, and has now made her way to Amsterdam through Antwerp and Utrecht. In Utrecht she still hosts her own radio show on local radio station Stranded FM, as well as on Amsterdam\u2019s Red Light Radio. Since her first club appearance two years ago, she has quickly made her way to the booths of Dutch clubs and festivals. In the past year, she started making a name internationally with gigs in Berlin and New York. Besides DJ\u2019ing she writes about music and club culture for various platforms, using her Gender Studies background as a framework. Last september, Front published an interview with Jasm\u00edn. Read the article here<\/a>.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did you guys link up?
<\/strong>\nAxmed: \u201cWe met each other through Teddy Lyon, the co-founder of Open Closet. I met Teddy at a presentation by Utrecht University students who were conducting research on the experience of queer refugees. There, Teddy told me about Open Closet, and a year later we collaborated on a fundraiser for Open Closet and have stayed in touch since then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cj, tell us a bit more about yourself and your efforts for queer refugees.<\/strong>
\nCj: \u201cI have been affiliated with Open Closet from 2018, the year I came to the Netherlands from Saint Lucia. I started helping Teddy with his initiative, because my main interest is being philanthropic: I\u2019m all about helping others. At Open Closet, I\u2019m responsible for the operations and administration, next to that I\u2019m helping refugees with their procedures. And helping in this case not only means preparing them for the questions they will be getting in their procedure, but also assisting in providing legal, psychological and medical advice. Right now I\u2019m also arranging voluntary work for refugees who are in procedure.\u201d\n\n

Axmed: \u201cYou\u2019re doing so much, and you\u2019ve only been here for a year\u2026\u201d

Cj: \u201cOpen Closet operates solely on donations and fundraising events, without any funding or support from the government, so it\u2019s very good and important Axmed and I linked up for the fundraising compilation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open Closet not only provides legal aid and advice, but also creates a (sense of) community for the people it tries to help. How does the organisation try to establish that?<\/strong>
\nCj: \u201cIn my experience, queer people find it difficult to integrate. Open Closet hosts a lot of events, collaborating with other organisations. The main aim of these events is to get as many people as possible involved in the social process and providing opportunities to socialize. Getting buddies is very important for queer refugees: they need somebody to inform them about the social structures in the Netherlands. And it\u2019s all because the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) is giving us LGBTQIA+ refugees such a hard time. \n\n

Some people just can\u2019t or don\u2019t dare to express themselves properly because of where they grew up, came from, or simply because of their gender expression. These people are criticised or punished when they act, speak or gesture in a certain way. A lot of queer people have to pretend to be someone else in their country of birth. Open Closet tries to tell them that they have a place here in The Netherlands, because the law here basically states that everyone should be treated equally.\u201d\n\n

Axmed: \u201cThe IND expects gestures or behavior they deem typical for or fitting with your gender expression, and if you don\u2019t live up to these images or expectations, they mostly don\u2019t believe you.\u201d

Cj: \u201cTheir asylum support group is corrupt. They sometimes even say \u2018you are not gay enough\u2019 to refugees. There\u2019s this unnecessary need to \u2018prove\u2019 them you are in fact what you claim to be. I don\u2019t know why they\u2019re trying to do that, because when you\u2019re gay, for example, you\u2019re being yourself, and you\u2019re not obliged in any way to live up to an image or label society or an institution has of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"...the IND assumes everyone is lying. So on all the refugees who come there, there\u2019s a burden of proof from the moment they step in.\"<\/em>.”<\/p>Axmed Maxamed<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Axmed, could you elaborate your experiences with the IND?<\/strong>
\nAxmed: \u201cI worked with the IND as an interpreter for quite a while. I believe the starting point for the IND and its employees is to actually reject as many refugees as possible. So their number of rejections is what they\u2019re now judged on. From that starting point, they assume everyone is lying. So on all the refugees who come there, there\u2019s a burden of proof from the moment they step in. That\u2019s why I also stopped working with the IND, because it just didn\u2019t feel right anymore. As an interpreter, you don\u2019t have a say in helping someone, but you have to just sit and watch this frustrating, heartbreaking process. I then proceeded to only work with the lawyers who are on the side of the refugees\u201d\n\nCj: \u201cThey will ask you a question and will ask it ten more times, out of the blue, in the middle of the interview.\u201d\n\nAxmed: \u201cThey\u2019re just testing if you have the mental capacity to understand what is happening. All trauma resulting from fleeing a country and awful living conditions is not taken into account. With sexuality, it\u2019s even more problematic, cause they want to know the exact date of you\u2019re coming out, or your realisation of when you became gay or queer or whatever. If you can\u2019t give them one, they don\u2019t believe you. It\u2019s really terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cj: \u201cWhen do you become<\/em>gay? How are you not gay enough? How can you even prove?\u201d\n\nAxmed: \u201cAnd that\u2019s only my story as someone who worked with them. There\u2019s another dimension to my experience with the IND, because I also came to the Netherlands from Somalia as a kid. I fled from a civil war with my family. Coming to the Netherlands, you always have to show or prove to them that you\u2019ve been through what you claim to have been through.\n\nLike Cj said, in their country of origin LGBTQIA+ people have to hide who they are, and now all of sudden they have to performatively show that they are who they claim to be. Most of the employees at the IND have no understanding of what it is like to live in a country that is not European, Western and\/or mostly white. In addition to that, they also have very little understanding of what it is like to be queer. There is no sensitivity or empathy, they just have this mind set of \u201cthis is how you should be, and if you\u2019re not, then you\u2019re not getting what you want\u201d. \n\nThere\u2019s this example of what they told to a cis (short for cisgender; someone whose gender identity matches their sex at birth, ed.) woman with kids. They told her \u201cyou can not be \u201cfully\u201d lesbian, because you have kids\". All of this is said, while she was forced to have kids, because otherwise she could not survive in the society she grew up in. It\u2019s very narrow minded to think of people like that and to treat them in that way. The European Convention of Human Rights has even told the Dutch IND that they have to change the ways in which they make these decisions, and the Dutch government was obliged to publish their criteria for entering the country as a refugee. It\u2019s incredibly harsh and tough, especially for queer refugees.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about your story, Cj?
<\/strong>\nCj: \u201cMy experience is that I came from Saint Lucia, a tiny island in the Caribbean. The Caribbean are seen as some kind of tourist heaven. But locals are treated differently than visitors. A lot of people don\u2019t see that. My story is very different from the image of the Caribbean tourist heaven: I have been through a lot of persecution and violent abuse. When I went through the procedure at the IND, I had to hand them every piece of information I had - Amnesty reports of human right trusts, US state reports, everything. All because they didn\u2019t have proper knowledge about my motherland and the way people are treated there.\u201d\n\nAxmed: \u201cClearly they have put the burden on you as well.\n\nCj: \u201cIt\u2019s also difficult - especially for African people - to obtain simple doctor reports, police files or other official documents once you\u2019ve stated that you\u2019re LGBTQIA+.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axmed: \u201cWhat makes this situation even shittier, is that these oppressive laws are inherited from colonizers from European countries; the same countries that are now rejecting all these refugees. LGBTQIA+ people are punished by law all around the world, and when they apply for asylum elsewhere, all kinds of laws are keeping them away from getting to a safe space easily. With this system, a lot of countries are destabilized when it comes to human rights. It\u2019s fucked up on so many levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could you tell us more about all the ways you\u2019re raising funds and awareness for queer refugees?<\/strong>
\nAxmed: \u201cBecause of the interviews we do, we aim to put the stories of (queer) refugees and the procedure they have to go through out there, so people need to know and we - documented people with knowledge about the procedure - need to put those stories out there, and we need to stand with LGBTQIA+ refugees, especially people from the queer community. Because, in this community as well, a lot of racism occurs. A story that I hear a lot in meetings with people from the LGBTQIA+ community is that a refugee comes here, thinking the Netherlands is gonna be some kind of open-minded haven, but still they encounter a lot of racism, oppression, islamophobia and\/or even exclusion from LGBTQIA+ community, for example. That\u2019s another problem within the LGBTQIA+ community I encounter: cis white gays who see islamic queer refugees as a problem. \n\nOther than putting these stories out there, we are also hosting a release event for the compilation on the 21st of December in The Hague. At the release party, there will also be a fundraiser for Open Closet LGBT Netherlands, we\u2019ll organise a discourse in which members of Open Closet and other LGBTQIA+ refugee initiatives share their stories and perspectives. Teddy Lyon will exhibit his art and in addition to that, multiple artists featured on the compilation will perform. There will be a screening of a few short films on this topic and people from the community will provide food as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still need more profound thinking from an intersectional perspective, to be able to see how all these problems are related so we can finally take steps.\u201d<\/em><\/p>Axmed Maxamed<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What is your view of the Dutch dance scene and their provision and creation of safe spaces and communities for queer refugees?<\/strong>
\nAxmed: \u201cNowadays, it\u2019s kind of en vogue to do something with refugees or other minorities, especially in club land. A lot of people want to help, but don\u2019t actually take the time or don\u2019t try to make an effort trying to connect with the people they want to help. I think listening and connecting is something you should always do when you\u2019re trying to help a community: to have an actual conversation with them, not just, like, put something up because you think it is the right thing to do. The latter feels performative and can bring more damage to the people you\u2019re trying to help. Minorities are not an object to gain your woke points with, and fundraising is not just some good deed to whitewash, pinkwash or polish your own organisations\u2019 negative past. Even if it doesn\u2019t come from a mean-spirited mindset, these things still happen a lot in dance culture.\n\nIn the Amsterdam club scene, I don\u2019t know anyone actively and consistently battling these issues apart from Dance With Pride. Lots of \u201ccharity\u201d initiatives in Amsterdam right now are based on capitalist mindsets, aimed on making money. I encounter events that claim to be inclusive and diverse queer friendly parties, but in fact predominantly attract cis white gay men. Or initiatives that set rules for having to be inclusive and diverse, which makes me ask myself: what are you actuallydoing to make sure your party is inclusive? Just putting up some posters in the venue is not enough. \n\nEspecially with big events, you need to include people in your organisation that are raising awareness for these topics consistently. Yet the money still keeps flowing in, and sure, organisations do in fact learn stuff and progress, but mostly I feel like the knowledge gained is applied by them performatively, without having a deeper understanding of the topics they claim to care about. It looks good for event organisers in Amsterdam to be inclusive and diverse, sure, but more has to happen. When it actually comes to speaking up or action for communities who are marginalised, most people are just quiet. You can apply the same things to the Black Pete problem or the recent controversy around Nina Kraviz<\/a>. It shows the lack of care from most white people for the position and experience of (queer) people of color. We still need more profound thinking from an intersectional perspective, to be able to see how all these problems are related so we can finally take steps.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n