Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Shetty vs Goody

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on January 20, 2007
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Shilpa Shetty 1.jpg

Did Channel 4 and Endemol approach Shilpa Shetty to participate in Celebrity Big Brother to reach a large Asian audience in the UK? Or did they invite the Indian Bollywood star because they expected her to clash with low-life Jade Goody, the unofficial winner of Big Brother 2002, and model Danielle Lloyd?

The answer to the second question is likely to be positive. The more conflicts arise in the Big Brother houses, the higher the viewing figures. Inviting opposite personalities is at the core of the Big Brother concept, it is the essence of the programme, it is the reason for the existence of the reality show. So it must have been a deliberate decision by Channel 4 and Endemol to approach both the highly cultivated and wealthy Shilpa Shetty and the uneducated former Big Brother participant Jade Goody.

Since the main reason for inviting Shetty and Goody must have been the expected (racist) confrontations between the two, leading to high viewing figures (almost 9 million people watched fridays eviction show), Channel 4 and Endemol probably should have informed their sponsors on this beforehand. In other words, they might have mislead their main sponsor, Carphone Warehouse, the company that has now withdrawn its £ 3 million sponsorship of the programme.

It might have been more clever of Channel 4 and Endemol to claim that their intention was to expose the existence in the UK - and no doubt all over multicultural Europe - of a bigoted mindset, to show that racist language and overt prejudice are still alive and kicking in the UK of the 21st century, to prove that prejudice persists across the social spectrum. Whether or not people would have agreed that a Celebrity Big Brother tv show is the right way to expose this, is another matter, but such an explanation - probably closer to the truth than the current claim that (racist) confrontations were not expected - would possibly not have taken a hit to their credibility as has happened now.

Remains the issue of the media abusing its power to make and break a person for the sake of high viewing figures, of which Jade Goody has now become the latest victim. As a consequence of the current international row, we might be watching the end of the Big Brother reality shows.

And did Celebrity Big Brother attract a large Asian audience? Likely so… but is this the way for mainstream media to integrate the growing cultural diversity in the UK?

Migrants responsible for growth of Dutch population

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on January 9, 2007
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The CBS, the Central Statistics Agency in the Netherlands, estimates the Dutch population will number 16.8 million in 2050, compared to 16.4 million today. Migrant communities are fully responsible for this growth. Today, some 19% of the Dutch population is from a migrant community. In 2050, this is expected to be 29% of the population, almost one third of the total population.

The word the CBS is using for migrants is ‘allochtonen’. This word is used for those who are born in a foreign country with at least one parent who is also born in that foreign country - or the children of these people born in the Netherlands. In other words, those having ethnic minority backgrounds but with parents born in the Netherlands (third generation) are not part of these 29%.

The CBS still makes a distinction between ‘westerse allochtonen’ (from a western industrialized country such as EU member states, United States, Australia and Japan) and ‘niet-westerse allochtonen’ (from a non-western industrialized country, such as many African, Asian and Latin-American countries). The word ‘autochtonen’ is used for the indigenous Dutch population, but includes third generation migrants.

Although the largest migrant communities in the Netherlands are from the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Germany, Turkey, Morocco, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, the fastest growing communities in the years ahead are expected to be Chinese, Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian communities, most of the growth coming from the second generation. First generation migrants from western-industrialized countries are also expected to grow, most of them coming from other Europeans union countries.