I amsterdam - Mayor Cohen: Et Alteram Partem

Keeping Tolerance Alive
Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen was selected by the magazine because of his pragmatic response to the November 2nd, 2004 murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Despite the rising tensions between the Dutch and Muslim communities as a reaction to this incident, the magazine found that Mayor Cohen responded quickly with ‘inclusive policies [that] have diffused racial tension and kept tolerance alive’.  Read the interview with Job Cohen in the 10 October edition of ‘Time Magazine’.

November 2^nd, 2004
On November 2^nd, 2004, the eccentrically outspoken Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by Mohammed B., a Dutch youth of Moroccan decent. Van Gogh had recently directed a film revealing bare-chested Muslim women with arguably anti-female scriptures from the Koran painted on their breasts. In the name of Islam, B. stabbed a letter to the chest of the dying body containing inflammatory death threats to other Dutch figures - including Mayor Cohen himself. Shortly thereafter, the incident began to inflate the already swelling tensions between the Dutch and Islamic communities in the country.

Freedom of Speech 
Mayor Cohen reacted to the event by calling for unity rather than isolation. He asked all people of Amsterdam to gather at the Dam Square city center the evening of 2 November. Over 20,000 people attended - including a large large number from the Muslim community who joined the protest on their own initiative. 

Mayor Cohen's speech that night focussed on freedom of speech as a right and responsibility:

‘Theo van Gogh took many liberties with the right to free speech as a writer and as a filmmaker,’ said Cohen . ‘He instigated arguments with many people – including myself. But that is allowed in this country. 

‘At the same time, he was looking to provoke debate with those very people who did not agree with him. His style mimicked that of Voltaire, who himself said: “I completely disagree with everything you have to say - but I will always defend your right to say it.”

‘We are all here in the spirit of protecting this right. Not in silent protest, but in deafening defiance.’

In closing, everyone way asked to bang on pots and pans in the name of free speech.

His mesage had an effect: in toning down the rising discord - of the 106 reprisals that took place across the country shortly after the murder, only one incident in Amsterdam was reported to the police.

 Binding Communities
Mayor Cohen has been lauded for his et alteram partem style of ‘listening to all sides’. He is attributed with a series of actions, policies and plans that have focused on bringing the city’s communities together. These have included initiatives and policies that have been created together with those groups affected thanks to the findings, aims and negotiations that have come from intensive dialogue. One such initiative is 'We Amsterdammers' a year-long campaign created shortly after the November 2nd designed to tackle further isolation and stigmatization. It consists of a series of programmes aimed at creating healthy, solution-based dialogue amongst the city’s various communities.