A comedy of dutch characters in four predictable chapters, plus and an even more predictable solution.
GroenLinks present her candidate list for the elections. In a prominent place, a young woman with a history of environmental activism. Also, with a history of working with islamic institutions. If elected, she would be the first ever member of the dutch parliament that wears a headscarf. She has no previous association with GroenLinks at all. As usual, GroenLinks leaders like to show that they bring new people in politics, never mind that such actions sideline persons that have invested time and energy in the party, or perhaps precisely to sideline persons with power bases in the party from being elected in the parliament.
The internal debate breaks loose, as much as the external attacks. Inside the party many young (or not) green female and from muslim background party members feel passed over. Their criticism goes along the lines of “What is a lady wearing traditional patriarchalist clothing doing in a progressive party as GroenLinks?” “Is this what we want to tell our electors, that we support the islamic patriarchy?” Internal critics eventually decide not to attack her personally, but to sideline her launching a campaign supporting another candidate: man, gay and black, plus having a successful record of being a city councilor. Yet in a very low position in the list. The external attacks are based on the links that our lady had with muslim organizations. Is GroenLinks bringing a wolf with sheep cloths in the sacro sanctum of dutch democracy, the parliament?
GroenLinks suffers a great electoral defeat. Half of our previous voters prefer to vote other parties. Due to her position in the list (number 10) and our elected parlamentaries (8), our lady should not be elected, but votes casted directly for her make her advance in the order of elected parliamentariers, and get in the parliament. The message from our core electors is clear: we are delighted with a clearly young, environmentalist and muslim woman entering the parliament. We want her there!
From day one, our fresh parlamentarian is attacked by her racist and islamophobic new colegas. It is no secret that the dutch parliament has elected a bunch of retrogade white males. Some of these attacks take the form of microagressions, little jokes about her dressing. She shares them in social media, creating a wave of support in the public. Inside her own party, her former attackers are now calling for creating a platform of support for politicians of color. Suddenly we all seem to remember that the history of our elected politicians of color is nothing but harsh. Aggressions from other politicians and lack of support from our own party has been a constant since our first election. But this time we will offer them a security network.
The tale of Kauthar Bouchalili has been told before, just with different names. Tofik Dibi is one, and there are more. Several elements of the tale are well known. One is that our party is very capable of attracting smart and capable young activists from inmigrant background to do parliamentary work. The second is that our party is also incapable of producing a stable and powerful platform to promote smart and capable young activists from inmigrant background... when they have already started to gain power inside our party. Accordingly we place ourselves in an impossible situation: we do not promote our own, we do not support them, yet we bring others and demand them to do politics in an hostile environment, without structural party support.
The solution is evident. We party members need to create and maintain an internal platform inside the platform that our party is. But remember this: everybody did portrait and will portrait people of color as victims of a harsh world. We are victims, worth of pity. And not only GroenLinks, but every other institution in Europe is willing to help us out to be able to weather those ugly attacks. In the blink of an eye we will get a coach and a psicologist. But that is not the problem. It never was. If we are still alive, we are stronger than whatever coach or psychologist can even imagine. The problem is that no institution in Europe is willing to yield any ounce of power to us.
Only we are capable of create it. Without illusions. Nor Kauthar nor any of us needs a white savior in the form of a personal coach, nor a network that catch us when we fall. What we need is to take power. Take it, not receive it. It wasn’t easy, is not going to get easier, and is on us.
Only on us.
This may help and it comes from a dutch...
https://youtu.be/iJDT3q-ibqk