Off the Beaten Path: From Human Zoos to Neighbourhood Safaris

“It must be remembered that the oppressed and the oppressor are bound together within the same society; they accept the same criteria, they share the same beliefs, they both alike depend on the same reality.” – James Baldwin, Everybody’s Protest Novel

‎“I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.” – Bishop Desmond Tutu

“Wijksafari Slotermeer” (Neighbourhood Safari Slotermeer) – or, if you will, a staged colonial encounter – is a theatre production produced by Zina platform and Female Economy. The show promises its audience a journey through human landscapes, and a “hyper-reality” in which intense encounters are made possible. Eh, most of us in the real world don’t need a hyper-reality to make intense encounters possible.

Aside: Jean Baudrilliard writes that “[H]yper-reality, where simulacra live, tricks consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance.” But whatever.

Anyway, the concept, which is devised by Adelheid Roosen, or as I like to call her “the purveyor of White sympathy,” isn’t at all original. “Wijksafari Slotermeer” is just one of the latest in a long line of asshattish productions that fit into the “I’ve had a close encounter of the fifth kind, so now I know all there is to know about you” category. The concept of a sanitized “border-crossing” as a way “to get to know the Other” exposes the influence of colonialism, White supremacy and capitalism on the White Autochtoon Dutch mindset, and collective subconscious. You can literally buy your way into another person’s life and space.