Moroccan youth Ede: Parents let kids free

Horrible thought Bilal Belhadj it when he came to live on the Langenhorst in the gallery flat in 1998. He did not leave Morocco. They had him, nine years old, the Moroccan Al Hoceima with an excuse lured taxi: his grandfather would come to the Netherlands. Bilal stopped his opposition. His grandfather waved his stick at the farewell and cried: "I'm coming boy!"

The rap talking youth Bilal Belhadj (now 26) stops. His grandfather never came. He betrayed him. His grandfather, who had raised him. The father in the Netherlands, he knew not that it was a man who occasionally longitudinal came. Bilal sat on the betrayal it. He had to. You had to be tough.

That his father said, anyway. A mart merchant. Gradually grew his respect for him, though the band was never so close as his grandfather. On Saturdays he often went to the market.Stand four hours. Hope it does not rain as the stall with bags and belts built on a square in Hilversum and Arnhem.

"My father taught me to earn my own pocket money, he worked hard was his motto.." Look at what you can change yourself, and do not sit complain "He said day in and day out.".

defective Dutch
Adjusting to the Netherlands was difficult. Eternally grateful he miss Willemien, who let him stay after an hour every day and gave him language lessons in her own time. His classmates, also Moroccan, teased him for his poor Dutch. Berber was spoken at home.

He was twelve when CNN exceptions images of boys from his neighborhood who were cheering just after the attacks of September 11. For the quarter started bad times, for him to vomit better. On vmbo he loved, he had a good time. But he also saw how slid district. When the community center around 2006 request was an identification upon entry, and passing on information to the police, the youth lost trust in the church, he said. The community center was beaten in ruins, scratched cars.

Looking back Bilal Belhadj understands him and his friends in those years mainly played tricks: they could not express their frustration. That partly explains the aggression, he thinks."The Moroccan culture is not a culture of talking. Talking is seen as a weakness. We learned not. We did not understand us, not our parents, not by the Dutch, and we could not make it clear."

strict supervision
The violence Bilal did not count. Thanks to his father. Who held very strict monitoring where his whereabouts and when he came home. When friends saw this involvement not. Now he sees that is not in Veldhuizen. "Once a child out the door, the parent does not know what it does. That is the problem."

When Bilal on his 20th took an MBO diploma, was tempted to quit. His circle of friends was an MBO diploma lot. His mentor, who saw what he had in his march, kept urging him to study at Ede Christian University. Lying beside his MBO. They were separate worlds: immigrants populated the MBO, white Protestants HBO.

Bilal took the plunge. He crossed the segregation gap. His friends were in disbelief: a Moroccan from Veldhuizen by studying, and then also at a school in cow letters 'Christian' on the facade, can I? Bilal was the only Moroccan in the beginning. "I felt like a monkey in a zoo. There were students who had never met a Muslim."

imaging
It felt like he needed to straighten the image of all Moroccans alone. That feeling he had dawned on him, always had when he was under natives. "I have always been very aware of my behavior, how I come across, I had to prove that I am bad indeed."

Someone had to be the first: later he saw friends MBO also make the transition to the Christian stronghold next to it. Meanwhile Bilal Veldhuizen exchanged for Lunteren, a village full of Christians, whose children are indeed quite enjoy some frustrations in their carouse chain he laughs. He is, as he knows, the only Moroccan. Perhaps more will follow, even there.

By Editorial Wedding: Niels Mark and Wilfred van de Poll Photo: Koen Verheijden