The UG’s multiculturalism problem
Tolerated, but not embraced
Door Yuling Chang
By Yuling Chang
Yuling Chang
Disappointment. That’s what Lara Sasmaz (20), a second-year international relations and international organisation student, felt in the days after the devastating earthquakes that hit her home country Turkey, leaving at least fifty thousand people dead and countless others homeless.
She was disappointed in her friends, most of whom didn’t show up when she was gathering relief goods. And she was disappointed in her faculty and the UG as a whole, because they didn’t reach out to their Turkish and Syrian staff and students. ‘Yes, they did something, but not much’, she says.
Sure, she says, privacy policy prevents the UG from sending out emails based on the recipients’ nationality. But why didn’t her faculty just send a message to everyone, offering their support to those affected, like they did when the war in Ukraine broke out? ‘I felt ignored.’
Emblematic
Pelin Gül, assistant professor of applied social psychology, has a similar story. Last year, her faculty asked everyone from Ukraine and Russia if they needed mental support. But although the earthquake was all over the news, the faculty kept silent. ‘People just weren’t as active.’
They passively accept other cultures, but they don’t like them
And while UG president Jouke de Vries later apologised, saying the university ‘didn’t do enough’ and setting up a taskforce, Turkish staff and students feel the UG’s inadequate response is emblematic of its problematic relationship with multiculturalism.
Hakan Çakmak, a PhD student at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, received a Turkish scholarship two years ago which he could use for a PhD at any university. He chose the UG because it was known as an international university, and had expected a working environment where the different cultures were seen as equal.
But that hasn’t been his experience.
No reaction
‘The UG makes fancy statements about cultural diversity, inclusion and equality, but when it comes to implementing that, it’s another matter. It’s just a PR strategy’, he says.
He saw his view confirmed again after the earthquake. One of his German colleagues emailed the faculty staff to remind everyone to take care of Turkish and Syrian employees and be aware of their needs. But the only reaction Çakmak got was when a few colleagues asked him whether he found the email patronising. ‘And after that, they didn’t even ask how I felt.’
The UG claims it is international, so they have to educate their staff
A few days later, one colleague came up to Hakan to apologise for not reaching out. She explained she didn’t know how to react. ‘In The Netherlands, conversations always have to be positive’, Çakmak notes. ‘They feel if someone asks you about negative things, that person is trying to make you sad.’
He doesn’t see a university that celebrates multiculturalism. ‘That’s when you acknowledge the cultural differences between different groups within the same society, you appreciate these differences and proactively support the needs of others regarding cultural differences’, he explains.
What the UG actually does, he says, is tolerate other cultures. ‘They passively accept other cultures, but they don’t like them.’ That makes him uncomfortable. ‘If you need to tolerate me, that means I’m doing something wrong in your opinion. It’s like you are ignoring me, but I still need your acceptance.’
Different approach
Osman Ünal, a PhD student at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, agrees with Çakmak. ‘If your approach is different from the Dutch approach, people don’t want to accept it. They are like: no, I don’t understand what you’re saying, I don’t want to engage with it.’ His Indian, Chinese, and Italian colleagues have observed the same thing, he says.
He once overheard a Dutch professor say that the internationals needed to learn how to think in a Dutch way. ‘But they don’t want to learn how we think and what other cultures are like.’
It led Ünal to retreat. An open conversation with Dutch people about this topic isn’t an option for him anymore. It’s understandable, he says, that they feel closer to their own culture and are used to thinking a certain way. ‘But the UG claims it is an international university, so that means they have to educate their staff about cultural sensitivity.’
At the University of Arkansas in the USA, where he studied, it was very different: people were open-minded about different cultures. ‘They offered international students an orientation workshop, and they were prepared to handle and learn about different cultures. It was two-way communication.’
Respect
Turkish people have been living in the Netherlands since the 1960s, when they were invited to work here, which makes their lack of understanding even stranger to Saniye Gül Kaya, a PhD at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. And now that the country is once again facing an employee shortage, history could be repeating itself. ‘If you’re welcoming internationals, you should at least have some respect for them’, she says.
Pelin Gül worked in academia in the UK, the USA, and Canada. Compared to universities in those countries, she says, the UG isn’t great at communicating. ‘They have the tools, but they don’t apply them to better the communication with their students and staff.’
If you’re welcoming internationals, you should at least respect them
Some people at the university seem unaware that their colleagues are from different cultural backgrounds, she’s noticed, while others are lonely because they don’t feel understood.
To change that, a top-down approach is needed, according to Gül. ‘Everyone has their own way to see the world, and sometimes they need a trigger to explore the cultural differences. If the UG and its faculties address the issue of cultural sensitivity, by sending out emails reminding people to show concern for their colleagues, for example, or advising them how to talk to people with different backgrounds, that could be the trigger.’
Change
Çakmak, too, stresses how important it is that the UG starts doing more to become truly multicultural. ‘A lot of psychological literature shows that being tolerated is equal to being discriminated against.’
It might be difficult to effect a change, though, since the concept of tolerance isn’t something he only encountered at the UG: it permeates Dutch society, he says. ‘This country tells the majority that they are doing fine with multiculturalism, and that illusion keeps fooling the minorities like me.’
He wishes the UG would at least be honest about this social phenomenon. ‘Then, I would have known what to expect before I moved here.’