I’m going to say this until my last breath: nothing exists in a vacuum. Nothing exists isolated from centuries of prior events, histories, political developments, sociocultural contexts, etc etc. So, when I find an NGO that is devoted to “helping” undocumented immigrants in Amsterdam and I read something like this, I raised not one but two eyebrows:
I had to dig around in the Dutch section of the site to find out who is behind this and the only piece of relevant information that I found is that this is an “Ecumenical initiative” (from several Christian organizations) and that the organization taking donations on their behalf is part of a “Pastoral Group”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to immediately dismiss this because there are Church groups associated with it, however, I cannot help but put this in the context of centuries of Christian evangelization the world over. Said evangelization systematically tied to colonial interventions (hello Catholic church in Latin America from 1492 to this day!), cultural imperialism (Evangelical missions around the African continent, just to give one glaring example), etc. So, when I see that the information they provide for undocumented migrants (one of the most vulnerable groups in this country) is only in Dutch, I have to wonder about their intentions. This sounds suspect to me, by virtue of all the prior histories of Christian interventions that demanded learning colonial languages, that demanded conversion to Christianity and strict adherence to alien religious principles. Providing information in Dutch for foreigners who do not even have access to official ways of learning the language is painfully reminiscent of this mode of cultural engagement. A continuation of a certain pattern of behavior of sorts.
And that, never helps the vulnerable or those who might actually depend on understanding whatever little rights they have. That is just another way of imposing the dominant culture under the guise of “help”.
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