Rotterdam: Theater offers separate seating, no takers
The Zuidplein Theater is reserving places for Muslim women! There was a lot of indignation: on various internet forums hundred of condemning reactions flooded in yesterday, particularly from ethnic Dutch. And those in question? They shrug and have no need for separate seats.
Headscarf, loose long hair, male, female, Dutch, Moroccans. They sat yesterday evening together for the popular Salaheddine, the born-in-Morocco writer and TV maker who made his debut on the stage of the Rotterdam Zuidplein theater.
Also on the balcony, where the first five rows were reserved for women. But the handful of young, hip women who went up to the balcony did so only because the hall beneath was full. There were also several men standing to get a place. Which was possible once the theater workers removed the dozens of signs.
The reserving was made by request of Salaheddine himself. To be safe, but there appeared to be no interest in it. "Moroccans are beginning to look more and more like Dutch," couldn't have been a better first line for his theater show.
The theater however didn't think the request by the stand-up comedian was unjust. "We are a low-threshold, multicultural folk theater which aims at people of a vocational educational level That is a tough group to get to a theater and therefore we adapt ourselves," said a theater spokesperson.
"So we arrange child-care of a prayer area if there's a demand for it. And if we have community art for people from the surrounding neighborhoods, we're asked if women could sit apart. Although that is mostly for an older generation of Muslim women than those who are coming here tonight."
Source: AD (Dutch)
The Zuidplein Theater is reserving places for Muslim women! There was a lot of indignation: on various internet forums hundred of condemning reactions flooded in yesterday, particularly from ethnic Dutch. And those in question? They shrug and have no need for separate seats.
Headscarf, loose long hair, male, female, Dutch, Moroccans. They sat yesterday evening together for the popular Salaheddine, the born-in-Morocco writer and TV maker who made his debut on the stage of the Rotterdam Zuidplein theater.
Also on the balcony, where the first five rows were reserved for women. But the handful of young, hip women who went up to the balcony did so only because the hall beneath was full. There were also several men standing to get a place. Which was possible once the theater workers removed the dozens of signs.
The reserving was made by request of Salaheddine himself. To be safe, but there appeared to be no interest in it. "Moroccans are beginning to look more and more like Dutch," couldn't have been a better first line for his theater show.
The theater however didn't think the request by the stand-up comedian was unjust. "We are a low-threshold, multicultural folk theater which aims at people of a vocational educational level That is a tough group to get to a theater and therefore we adapt ourselves," said a theater spokesperson.
"So we arrange child-care of a prayer area if there's a demand for it. And if we have community art for people from the surrounding neighborhoods, we're asked if women could sit apart. Although that is mostly for an older generation of Muslim women than those who are coming here tonight."
Source: AD (Dutch)
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