Transcultural Policies of the Belgian City of Mechelen
Discussion
Hanzi Freinacht:
"An Example of Transculturalism: Mechelen
Mechelen is a Belgian town of some 80,000 inhabitants. In the early 2000s, the city had high unemployment, a large immigrant (mostly Muslim) minority, and high crime rates, with ethnic tensions as a result. This development was turned around with a comprehensive plan to adjust ethnic relations, which arguably serves as a case of Gemeinschaft Politics and Transculturalism. When ISIS exploded across Europe, Belgium had the highest per capita prevalence of people joining the organization — but Mechelen impressively had no recorded instances.
Under the leadership of Mayor Bart Somers, a program was introduced that took the following steps, in sequence:
- Restoring order through increased police presence in key areas, increasing the sense of safety.
A wide public information campaign that set up a sort of “mutual obligations” social contract: Ethnic Flemish Belgians were asked to show tolerance to minorities but have zero tolerance of the discrimination of minorities, while minorities were asked to take steps to make their families conform with law and order.
- Middle-class families of ethnic Belgians were reached out to, one by one, in the hundreds, to get them to accept having their own children in the same schools as immigrant children, tackling each of their concerns with safety and quality of education on a case-by-case basis. This broke up the segregation and re-zoning of school districts that had accumulated, increasing the number of positive interactions between ethnic groups.
- Most controversially, perhaps, the Muslim youths of the municipality were all offered trips to Cordoba in Spain, where the Cordoban Caliphate of the 10th century has been a Muslim center of learning, science, pluralism, and tolerance of Europe in the Middle Ages. This thus tilts the expression of Muslim minority identities — towards pride, and also towards a real historical heritage of progressiveness and cosmopolitanism. Arguably, this was key to creating an alternative local Muslim identity, one that proved resistant to the lure of ISIS propaganda and chauvinism.
Simply stated, a rather advanced version of a “mutual obligations approach” was adopted over a number of years. And indeed, ethnic tensions were reduced, while still honoring the cultures and heritages involved. Mayor Somers was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2016.
This is just one simple example of the potential inherent in the Transcultural stance. It’s not perfect and can certainly be critiqued. Much still needs to be invented by movement leaders, grassroots, and public officials on a case-to-case basis."
(https://metamoderna.org/the-failure-of-multiculturalism-and-its-resolution-transculturalism/)