The Land of Everyone: Journalist and Filmmaker Geertjan Lassche Advocates for Diversity Across the Netherlands

It is high time to portray diversity in our country, says journalist and filmmaker Geertjan Lassche. He traveled through the Netherlands for the EO and created the program The land of everyone. “In various places in the Netherlands, people do not feel seen.”

Lassche made the documentary in 2017 Moped snaps, about a bunch of friends in the Overijssel countryside. After the release of the documentary, Lassche received comments that the countryside is much more diverse than he showed. In any case, the media shows little about what the perception of the region is like, the filmmaker concluded. “The leading media are located in the Randstad. It doesn’t matter for an RTL or a Talpa, but the NPO is there for everyone. Then you have to offer a place to many more people from the region.”

Lassche struggled with the NPO for five years The land of everyone to be able to make. In the meantime, there were the tractor protests, the rise of the BBB and the political debate about whether there is a divide between urban and rural areas. The EO saw scope: the program focuses a lot on the difference between city and countryside. In the first episode, Lassche follows five people who live in the east of the country.

“I myself speak of a ‘gap’ between city and countryside. Because in my view it is not unbridgeable,” says Lassche. “It’s not about what I think as a maker, but what I try to show with the program. And that is that clichés are almost always true. The magic is in the word ‘almost’. Because there is always a nuance. “

You can also see that in the first episode. The Orthodox Christian carpenter Klaas speaks of a “left-wing gang” and gets his news exclusively from it Reformatorisch Dagblad. But he also believes that you cannot dismiss climate problems as nonsense: “There is something going on.”

Another character who appears in the first episode is the Moroccan-Dutch youth worker Moat. His father once came to the Netherlands as a guest worker. “When the Netherlands plays against Morocco, it feels like I have to choose between my father and mother. Morocco is my father, the Netherlands is my mother and Twente is my football club,” said Moat.

Hendrik Jan Bökkers from the first episode makes rock ‘n roll in dialect. Photo: EO

In the region people are less likely to speak out

Lassche calls the fact that diversity has mainly become a matter of color or multicultural origins a “one-sided way of looking at diversity”. “The Netherlands is a patchwork of traditions, customs and cultures. We must show more genuine interest in others and why they do and say certain things. Reality is more complex than is often depicted in the public debate. In that respect, social media is also poison for dialogue.”

According to the program maker, the reality is that in various areas of our country residents do not feel seen. “In the region, people are less likely to dare to speak out in the public domain than in the Randstad. They often say that Randstad residents have idiosyncrasies, but I think they mainly have more courage. And courage is needed to distinguish yourself,” says Lassche, who lives in the east of the country.

“That feeling of misrecognition, whether justified or not, leads to people at a certain point turning away from the dominant voice and collecting their own news inwardly.”

According to the easterners, it is clear that there are now two MPs from their region, Caroline van der Plas and Pieter Omtzigt. The land of everyone “logically”. “There was no one who stood up for our interests.”

The first episode of The land of everyone can be viewed via NPO Start. The EO says that more episodes are being considered, in which Lassche visits other regions in the country. It is not yet known when these will be on display.

2023-11-19 15:59:06
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