Civilised Provocations in the Lion's Den...

Abstract

On 26–27 January 1984, the City Council of Amsterdam organised a grand conference against discrimination and racism, on the occasion of what was widely seen as ‘the first racist murder’ in the Netherlands and ‘race riots’ in the Brixton area of London around the same time. A wide range of well- and lesser-known speakers contributed. One of them was Norbert Elias – for whom this was supposedly his first and last appearance in policy-making circles. In some respects Elias’s observations were ahead of their time.