Racism & Extremism Monitor
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Monitoring Racism & Extremism was set up to follow and periodically to report on various forms of racial discrimination, anti-Semitism and extremism, and on the response to these phenomena.
The benefit of periodic monitoring reports
The periodic monitoring reports serve several goals:
To identify and analyse manifestations and incidents of racial discrimination, racism and extremism.
To document recent policy developments for preventing and combating racial discrimination.
To enable politicians, administrators and representatives of social organisations to reflect on the problems and to come up with solutions.
To contribute to the store of knowledge and insight concerning such areas as long-term developments. This applies not only to developments in the past but also to those in the future.
To contribute to the prompt detection of relevant, new developments.
To help answer the countless practical questions related to this subject that are being asked within the Netherlands and abroad.
This research project was developed in the mid-nineties by Leiden University at the request of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. Since the fourth report, issued in 2001, the monitoring project has been carried out jointly by the Anne Frank Stichting and Leiden University.
Name change
At first the name of the project was Monitoring Racism and the Extreme Right. In December 2005 the name of the project was changed to Monitoring Racism & Extremism. This name change was prompted by the desire to include other forms of extremism in the research insofar as these forms are related to the multi-ethnic society and inter-ethnic relations.
Working definition
This broadly conceived monitoring project employs a broad working definition of racism that includes anti-Semitism, intolerance, xenophobia and Islamophobia. The concept of racial discrimination is also broadly interpreted. It includes discrimination on the grounds of nationalism as well as religious discrimination, insofar as there is evidence of an ethnic component. An example of this may be controversies having to do with the wearing of headscarves.
