Contact author

About Markha Valenta

Markha Valenta lives in Amsterdam and works at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her current work concerns the politics of religion and culture in global cities, international relations and secular democracies, with a focus on north America, western Europe, and India. A corresponding concern of the last decade has been the accommodation and discrimination of Muslim minorities in secular democracies since 9/11. She has also worked for the Scientific Council for Government Policy and is a regular participant in Dutch debates on these issues.

Her openDemocracy column is Inter Alia.

Articles by Markha Valenta

The moral sadism of the Dutch State

Markha Valenta 4 December 2012

Desperate to eject some refugees it does not want, the Netherlands is refining the art of radical deprivation. No single step, no single decision, no single action in this process is horrible. Yet the cumulative effect is grotesque.

The pornography of equality

Markha Valenta 23 August 2012

The silence of our politicians on women’s security in public spaces is in striking contrast to their tremendous responsiveness to the sight of brown men insulting white women. The real problem is that in western society women’s equality and women’s pornographization have gone hand-in-hand.

Alternatives to the nationalism of the conspicuously ignorant

Markha Valenta 13 July 2012

The accounts, symbols and feelings that we have about national identity were largely imagined, created and popularized in the nineteenth century. The word ‘nationalism’ itself dates from the early nineteenth century and marked the increasing use of national identity in order to make political claims. So to argue that national identity is pre-political is itself a political statement. 

All stick and no carrot

Markha Valenta 6 March 2012

Why are Europe's fiscal technocrats so afraid of democracy? There is no evidence that good economics requires keeping European peoples out of the equation.

Breivik: killing the left

Markha Valenta 31 August 2011
However nuanced, it is striking how little extant interpretations attend to the fact that Breivik’s most grotesque violence was not directed at Muslims or immigrants as such but at the youth members of the Norwegian Social Democrats.

The future of Islamophobia: the liberal, the Jew, the animal

Markha Valenta 13 May 2011
The ritual slaughter of animals has become the last of many areas of contention that are changing the shape of our public domains. The way in which Islamophobia is becoming a part of our public ‘common sense’ has complex knock-on effects, not least for our Jewish minorities.

Multiculturalism and the politics of bad memories

Markha Valenta 20 March 2011
‘Multiculturalism’ entails society offering a full range of prospects, membership, and respect to all its members – regardless of cultural and religious differences –while also creatively accommodating them in a fashion that is both morally persuasive and practically effective for the majority of society. Has Europe ever tried it?

The Clash of Clichés

Markha Valenta 9 February 2011

Does America want Europe to fail in its accommodation of Muslims? Passing remarks by politicians are often amplified by the international media, but sometimes we should ask why

Saint Nicholas: the hard politics of soft myths

Markha Valenta 20 December 2010
While packed full of humour and touchy subjects, the Dutch celebration of Saint Nicholas is at once an enduring testimony to the country´s racial imagination and one of the most promising sites of its disruption.

Why Geert Wilders is not Liu Xiaobo

Markha Valenta 5 November 2010
Cas Mudde was quite right to point out recently how liberal arguments are being used in the interests of illiberal attacks on Muslims. However, in the Dutch case this reflects anything but a progressive national consensus

Introducing Inter Alia

Markha Valenta 30 September 2010
Markha Valenta opens up a new openDemocracy space - Inter Alia - for the discussion of politics, religion and culture

The success of Islamophobia

Markha Valenta 30 September 2010

Today, we see that the rules of western European racism are shifting. On the one hand, they are becoming less racialist; on the other hand they are seeking to become official. How should we Europeans understand this, and how should we respond? In the first of her Inter Alia columns, Markha Valenta looks at the cross-continental emergence of Islamophobia.

Facing up to Islam in the Netherlands

Markha Valenta
As the Dutch parliament considers banning the burka from all public spaces, a measure that would apply to fifty or so women in total, Markha Valenta explores how a piece of clothing is disturbing the Netherlands' tradition of tolerance.

Once again, the Netherlands surprises. Flying in the face of a centuries-old commitment to freedom of religion, of conscience, and of expression, it is about to prohibit Muslim women from covering their faces in public.

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

Europe from the bottom up

European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

A social Europe must be a political Europe
Bo Stråth

As Europe is provincialized: a reply to Etienne Balibar
Sandro Mezzadra

European debate

More

Democratic Wealth

More

Nuclear non-proliferation

More

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

More

Mali - the plot thickens

More

Remote control war

More

The media in Europe

More

Syndicate content