Holland's first virtual museum is devoted to its oldest pain and pride: immigration.

Turkish family in the park near the Euromast, Rotterdam (1970).

Holland has got its first virtual museum: the mobile, interactive Museum for Diversity, devoted to the 500-year-long history of immigration to Holland and the cultural mix it brought along. It even seems strange that, in a country populated by representatives of 190 different ethnicities, no one had thought of such a museum before.

"No other museum like mine exists," confirms Reza Atlaschi (40), the creator of the Museum for Immigration and Diversity (Museum voor immigratie en diversiteit). "I call it Museum Without Walls, which also goes well with its main theme 'immigration, which in effect overcomes any wall," Atlaschi says.

The museum was conceived within the framework of a recent all-national competition 'Inspiration for Integration' organised by De Baak institute (De Baak — Inspiratie voor Integratie).

The virtual museum reached the top five of the 125 projects, which aimed to reduce misunderstanding amongst and towards Holland's various ethnic groups. The jury reserved the first prize for another virtual project – an internet game Rits Je In! (Zip Up!) inviting the player to choose a character from anywhere in the world, "fly" the character to Holland and integrate him or her into Dutch society by passing several rounds of challenges.

At the gala celebrating the competition's several finalists at the Okura Hotel on 23 March, Mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen handed the maker of the game Ricardo Makosi a EUR 10,000 award. As much as this ingenious game idea captivates immediate interest; it's entertainment after all, I was drawn to revisit the Museum for Diversity, and find out what maker Reza Atlaschi’s plans for the future were.  

This virtual museum already contains a vast database of information, which Atlaschi, managed to build up within a couple of months. A full-time consultant at a large IT company during the day, Atlaschi works on his museum on the weekends and in the evenings.  Not only convinced that ignorant chauvinism can be won over by enlightenment, he has access to the new technologies able to make such enlightenment readily available on the screens of laptops and mobile phones.
 
"The museum is based on two pillars. On the one hand, it is the history of immigration to Holland since the 15th century. I started with a simple historical overview with pictures. Eventually, we will be acquiring copies of international treaties and more detailed material," Atlaschi says.

His second pillar is the web's sacred principle of interactivity and immediacy. The virtual museum is also an educational portal. "Within several months, I hope to collect digital contributions from young people across the country. However I am only going to post contributions that approach the topic of immigration from a positive view-point. My intention is not to engage in propaganda or anything of the kind, it is the facts that speak for themselves," Atlaschi says.

Holland has a unique immigration history that began hundreds of years ago and that is for some reason unfashionable to talk about, he continues. "One gets the impression that today's integration problems are a new development, but if you check the historical sources you will see that every single group of newcomers experienced the same opposition. Take, for example, the Germans or the Huguenots. One of Wilhelm von Nassau’s wives, Louise de Coligny, was a Huguenot and the people openly distrusted her. Every new wave of immigrants had to overcome distrust."
 
Indeed, despite the long distrust towards Germans, many of the top corporations working in Holland today, such as Vroom & Dreesman or C&A, are of German origin. And most of us even don’t remember who the Huguenots were.

It all began in the 15th century when Amsterdam opened its gates to foreign political and religious refugees, mainly from the contemporary Belgium. During the Golden 17th century, one third of Amsterdam’s population consisted of guest-workers, mainly from Scandinavia and Germany. Without those people, there may have been no Golden Age. "It's a natural law that once the economy picks up; a new wave of immigrants arrives, and in turn, allows for further economic growth. If we see today’s situation in the framework of this characteristic cycle, our dialogue on integration would sound otherwise."

Reza Atlaschi at the award ceremony in Rotterdam

Atlaschi did not take the competition's outcome to heart, and, based on the museum, he is now creating a fund to help him continue to develop his project. Several Dutch university professors and business leaders have already voiced their desire to take part in the project, including consultancy services in creating a business plan.

"Of course, my idea can be perceived as a political one. But I am going to rely on the cultural heritage and not the Dutch polder model that can hardly be applied if you really want to make change. Modernity catalyzes the learning process – people are trying to do more and faster; they no longer have time to visit museums at the weekend. I offer a flash-museum," Atlaschi says. 

A mobile concept, which marries perfectly with Atlaschi's theme of migration.
 

Visit the museum at www.droommuseum.nl

26 March 2007

Sophia Kornienko is a freelance journalist based in the Netherlands.

[Copyright Expatica 2007]

Subject: Dutch immigration history, immigration to the Netherlands