moving away!

This weblog is moved! Continuation is at

http://www.scicha.org/blog

And after a year or so of blogging in the address above, my current blog is:

http://www.inti.gl/Inti_in_Groenlinks/Blog/Blog.html

I'll be reading you... there!

Three developments

Tonight is again meeting of the beginselen commissie, and I have done some of my homework. Previous time we agreed in point out societal trends, or developments, that have changed our societies since 1991. One can imagine that it is relevant to paint a landscape of changes since the last beginselen that groenlinks wrote. So here my three relevant changes:

Environment went politics

When groenlinks was born as a party, the environmental concern was a public concern. The predictions of the club of Rome were rooted in the heads of many people, and the atomic issue was very much alive. Nevertheless there was no party whatsoever that included those issues in their political programs. We did. Now, almost twenty years later, every party has environmental points in their program. We are by far and large not unique. We might consider that our policies are better, and mostly they are. But the elector has to choose among many positions on environment. And ours do not seem to be very distinctive any more.

Politics are opener

If one has a bit of a weakness for old figures, one can imagine that the Gorbachov's glasnost was a success. Indeed, the way that political parties are open today to the scrutiny of the public was unpredictable back at the start of the nineties. That has not made political parties more interesting. I do not believe that more people is politically active (if anything, less), or that more people votes. But today citizens can get to know about the internal processes of political decision making far more than before. This trend is not to be diminished. One common insult to politicians today is to accuse them of back rooms politics, of making deals not communicated to the public opinion. More bloggers are online everyday, and even if only due to statistics, some of them end up commenting on politics. And more politicians become open(er) writing their own musings for the broad public.

Migrants are no longer welcome in the EU

Even if today the European Commission is about to release policies on migration that look very much like groenlinks visie text on migration, the fact is that at against the public eye, the migrant is a problem. That is a change from twenty years ago. And it is a concerning change (besides the bias produced by me being migrant). The fact is that the EU can not work without migrants. But the public does not want them. So politicians have here a very difficult contradiction to deal with. And of course, this development is related (but not caused) to the increased threat of terrorism.

Diversity of irresponsibilities

There is no instance of groenlinks that does not need reform and improvement. That we know for sure. We also know that some attempts at change are more successful than others. So it is reasonable to expect that now and then people force the rules, whatever they might be. And sure, this is what happened few days ago. A undercover dissident In Noord Holland considered that preventing Herman Meijer from being senator was more important than Groenlinks having five senators. And at the same time, the three members of Zuid Holland choose, in my opinion also to prevent senator Herman, to support Jan Laurier.

In different levels, both actions are irresponsible. Of course, those four members of groenlinks have all possible rights to want to prevent another member of groenlinks to become a senate member. But the four persons broke -at least- the internal rules of groenlinks. And besides the rules discussion, I think it is irresponsible to act outside the congress, which in principle is the place in which any action against one or another candidate should have taken place. Actually, I think it is pretty silly to act after the congress. Before, and along, you get quite some chances to influence the voting. But after... when the decision is taken... feels too much like bad losers behaviour.

Now, I have a weakness for the Zuid Holland people. Even if their argument is very weak, it is still an argument given by persons to whom we can still talk. And it did not cost political weight to the party. So I would call them, at least up to today, mild irresponsibles. Mild because even if we can not change their vote, we can discuss it, and they are there, open to evaluation by the party.

I have less of a weakness for the secret Noord Hollander. His, or her, action costs a lot to our party. One seat, 20% of our political capital, is far too much to justify a personal political vendetta, at least in my opinion. And even worse, he or she remains hidden. So it is not even the case as with the Zuid Hollanders. I consider this secret agent quite irresponsible.

But enough for the dissenters. Lets talk a bit about the other side. The side that in my eyes is also quite irresponsible.

In first place I wonder about Harry Borghouts. Was it really needed to tell the public that the null vote was not only null, but also on purpose? Did this not give the secret agent all what he/she wanted?

In second place, I wonder about the people that calls right away for a royament. It seems to me that they did not learn anything from the experience of Sam Pormes vs Herman Meijer. A royament is not something that is called just like that. It can be taken back, it cost time, commissions, discussions, grief... And it has a long tail of consequences. Actually I am convinced that the four votes that we are talking about now are greatly influenced by that flawed attempt to kick Sam Pormes out of the party.

So that is why I consider pretty irresponsible today to start calling for royaments. Because punishment is expensive, and some times it kicks back. So... why should we be talking about punishment so fast?

To close these lines, consider this: No matter what is your opinion on these four votes, they are just another indication that we have a party that has serious internal dissent. To punish the people that make this obvious might be cathartic, but ultimately useless. A party that stays together under the fear of breaking rules is not interesting. And a party with un-public political operators neither. Today both sides of groenlinks accuse the other of being un-open. It would be time to look at our own eyes, that have enough own planks of wood... instead of keep on wailing about the specks of sawdust that are in other's...

Why to disagree with Chavez...

...agreeing with the closure of a TV sender

All around the world the media complains about the last move from Chavez, the president of Venezuela. He decided not to renew the permission to broadcasting of a traditional TV sender, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). The sender, strongly anchored in the venezuelan public, has been extremely critical of the Chavez government. So, is this just another show of the antidemocratic Chavez? well, yes and no.

The start of this problem can be traced to an unsuccessful coup de etat attempted against Chavez a couple of years ago. Chavez was out of power for couple of days, but made an impressive comeback (depending of whom tell the history due to massive protests, or due to the disarray of the putchists themselves). In any case, along the crucial moments of the coup, the private television channels agreed in not showing any news whatsoever. People was left with old movies in the screen. Eventually the senders supported the new government... to their big regret, since Chavez was back in power soon enough.

The relevant question is if this action is enough to close a TV sender few years later. We could argue about many details, of course. But before, just a simple question. Imagine that Fortuin would have managed to become prime minister. Imagine that couple of years later, say in 2003, a sector of the military, associated with Talpa, would have take power for few hours. Imagine further that Talpa fully supported the coup. And, to round up the simulation, imagine that prime minister Fortuin came back from exile in Italy two days later, and his democratic elected government was restored to power. Now. Would it be very undemocratic that the minister in charge of TV licenses would have not renewed the Talpa permission, when possible? Would you have not agreed with such a move?

Chavez is the head of an extremely incompetent and authoritarian government. There are many reasons to disagree with his policies. But hey, he has been repeatedly elected in reasonably democratic elections. Whether we like him or not, his is a valid government. And in this case, his opposer's have been proved extremely undemocratic. Can we seriously blame a government that do not renew the broadcast permission to a clearly putchist TV sender?

But hey, Chavez has some eight years as president, so there are many other cases to consider him as a dangerous politician, certainly an undemocratic. The most clear, at least for me, is their decision to deny official jobs to persons that supported a referendum against the government some years ago. Never you mind that the referendum was eventually won by the government. After this referendum was called by signatures collected in the street, the government allowed those names to be posted in internet (still online few weeks ago, the infamous Tascon list), and check every job application against this list. If your name was there, you would not get the job.

It is a bit depressing to see that so much noise is made of Chavez, most of the time by the wrong reasons.

circular migration indeed

Published: 28 May 2007, the independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2588985.ece

This is the latest snapshot from the killing seas of the southern Mediterranean, the stretch of water at the European Union's southern gate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says "has become like the Wild West, where human life has no value any more and people are left to their fate".
(...)
Up to 10,000 people are believed to have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa. The passage from west Africa to the Canary Islands is no less perilous. In Spain, where shocking images of a dozen dead would-be migrants in their boat were published in newspapers last week, estimates of the total number of dead run as high as 7,000.

Utrecht goes RO

Two nights ago I attended the meeting of the groenlinks utrecht bestuur. We haven't seen each other in a while, so there was a busy agenda, with many interesting issues. Not really meaningful to walk through all of them, but for one exception... It looks like groenlinks utrecht is going Ruimtelijk Ordening!

Indeed, along the meeting several different issues ended in RO. Take for example our starting strategy for the beginselen discussie: in June 19 we are organizing a brainstorm on the groenlinks visie for big (dutch) cities. Indeed we have been thinking on what would be the way to bring the experience of utrecht localos to the national arena of the beginselen discussie, and after a proposal of Tjeerd, our vz, we will focus in what groenlinks think is a nice city. How can we plan it? What situations require immediate attention? is security? or is building of social houses? is it achterstand wijken? or is accessibility? This issues might find a place in a beginselen from groenlinks. After all, we are a urban party...

Then, later, we talk about alive issues in the local politics. And indeed, there is an interesting tension in between the city government (in which we have two aldermen) and our people in the city council. It looks like the city government goes for preserving the city as it is, and our councilors go for the building of new social housing. Surely another issue on Ruimtelijke Ordening.

And then, even later, we were informed that the new werkgroep from our afdeling, Ruimtelijke Ordening werkgroep that is, not only manage to recruit in couple of months a bunch of active members, but also counts with the participation of two of our city councillors! Which more or less guarantees that such a werkgroep will have a definitive influence in our politics.

And, if for the sake of the argument I would talk about the province now... it is important to notice that the person that was bestuur member and now is elected at the province, is Jasper Fastl... our expert in... Ruimtelijke Ordening.

So... are we going urban, or what?

Flexibility, GL cursus and beginselen

Yesterday Bart Snels was the guest of the cursus that the groenlinnks utrecht afdeling organized on our thinking. The organizators of this course, me among others, choose to call Bart not only due to his position as head of the Wetenschapelik Bureau, but also because his own motto for the party is that GL should be an ideenpartij. Who else should we have in a course on ideas of groenlinks?

Of course, Bart made an interesting plea for the flexibilization of the dutch economy. That argument, known to the ones that follow the groenlinks internal discussion, is a nice history to hear. Never you mind that apparently this tale goes against the feeling of the left. The central point of Bart is that a more dynamic economy will include more people in the labour market. And that, beyond doubts, is a goal of the left wing politics not only today, but since two centuries ago.

Critical points to this history are known. Some of mine can be read if scrolling down this blog (to be (liberal) or not to be: that is not the question). My central argument is that the excluded population is already flexible, so is hard to believe that further flexibilization could possibly help. But let's hold the discussion for once. What about segmented flexibilization?

The known example of this segmented flexibilization is a french proposal of around a year ago. The idea was to flexibilize contracts to young people and secure contracts to older workers. Not surprinsingly, this proposal brought demonstrations and chaos in the french debate. Quite unfair to keep young people without labor security, and reasure the old worker in his established position. Now, i wonder if segmented flexibilization is only possible in this way.

Imagine, the opposite case. Imagine that all jobs hold by persons over the 45 years are made flexible, and all jobs offered to persons under the 45 are made fixed. Would that not be precisely the sort of segmentation that has the best of two worlds?

The argument here is that an experienced worker actually does not profit from job security. If he (or she) is fired, with the cv that has accumulated in his working years, the finding of another work will not be too difficult. And precisely the newcomer to the labor market does need security, since to be fired without a builded up cv makes the search for a new job rather difficult. It is possible to imagine that the border should not be an age, but the number of holded jobs. After your third job, you have no rights any more to a fixed contract, would be another formulation of the same idea.

I suppose that this idea has many problems. After all, I am only an amateur economist, and not a professional. But so far it seems to me that this idea would precisely support newcomers, and bring dynamism to experienced workers.

Let's see who react -if anybody- to this post...

Vacatures Kleurrijk Platform

Webmanager

Het Kleurrijk Platform zoekt een gedreven webmanager. Kennis van de inhoudelijke thema's van het KP is gewenst, maar niet vereist. Affiniteit met Open Source Software is een pre. Onze webmanager verwerkt de input van onze leden op de site. Eventueel kan ook de hele site vernieuwd worden, in samenwerking met de werkgroep. Ons doel is om de website up to date te houden met inhoud, nieuws en diverse informatie van zowel de politiek als de maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen. Onze webmanager zit dus in het midden van enkele dynamische discussies. Wij vragen minimaal een dagdeel per week voor deze klus.


Contact manager, Tweede Kamer

Het huidige Kleurrijk Platform houdt onvoldoende contact met de dagelijkse politiek van landelijk groenlinks. In de laatste jaren hebben wij niet de stukken geproduceerd die het meest gewenst waren voor onze politici in Den Haag. Nu zoeken wij een gedreven en capabele persoon om “Den Haag” naar “Utrecht” te brengen. Deze contact manager volgt de agenda van onze fractieleden ten aanzien van onze thema's, en is aanwezig bij onze maandelijkse vergaderingen.


Contact Manager, Maatschappelijke organisaties

Als landelijke werkgroep van groenlinks, probeert het KP een levende communicatie houden tussen maatschappelijke organisaties en onze partij. De contactpersoon helpt deze doelstellingen met het maken van een databestand van Nederlandse organisaties, potentiële bondgenoten of gesprekspartners van groenlinks t.a.v. het multiculturele debat. In de eerste fase van dit project wordt informatie samengesteld van actieve en passieve leden van groenlinks.


Geïnteresseerd? kleurrijk@scicha.org!

Second meeting of the project 2008: Many questions and one answer

Last night was the second round of the project 2008. The three commissions meet, to finally start working. We sit all together for a while, and then apart. And as in any other starting meeting of groenlinks, many questions were posed. This time, very few questions were offered.

Few minutes after the plenary started, the air was already quite cluttered with doubts. Some of them:

1) Is the partijraad going to change this commission?
2) Do we write ourselves the program? or do we make other people write it?
3) What should we ask our members to do?
4) Must we write as well a change of statutes?
5) Are we going to discuss dilemmas? are we looking for a good ideological fight?
6) Are we going to discuss values? are we looking for a nice consensus?
7) Are werkgroepen going to get a role in the process? and if yes... a special role?
8) To whom are we going to report? partijraad? congress? partijbestuur?


As usual, very few of these questions got a clear answer. My guesses, after the discussion, are as follows: no, second, to write, probably not, if you want, ditto, yes, but not special, partijbestuur.

The problem is that some possible and even rational answers are a recipe for bad press. The commission would like to find an equilibrium in between being open, and being totally anarchic. So we do not want to decide what the discussions will be, but we want to signal some issues to discuss. And we know now that these commissions are under the partijbestuur command... not under the partijraad... so the partijraad actually has nothing more to say about us... or so the partijbestuur say (I agree, by the way... but what the partijraad thinks?)

In any case, this vague exchange of opinions finally ended, and one clear answer came. From now up to december 31 2007, 12 in the night, as many texts as possible should be produced and collected. That is the ultimate goal of this commission. If we do it by hook or by crook, it does not really matters. It does not matter if werkgroepen write, or persons. It does not matter if we convince some people to write about some issues, or if unasked texts are produced. The only thing that matters now is: spui babe, spui!

So for once, we might as well agree, and write.

So up to 2008: spuiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiuiui!!!!!

Some for the beginselen

Tonight the beginselen commission meets, and I thought that what I am posting here might be relevant for the beginselen discussion. It is a text that I wrote a while ago for the forum of kritischer groenlinkser, but it was never discussed... so perhaps now...

Enjoy...


To be (liberal) or not to be: that is not the question

Inti Suarez
Bestuurlid GLUtrecht; vz Kleurrijk Platform

Foreword

Too many times have been said that after the German wall fall, we all became liberals. Groenlinks, perhaps too late, perhaps too early, caught up with the trend. Too fast because we have still too many sectors of our society in a position that further liberalism will only reduce their chances to access current levels of well-being. Or too late, as is written in the last De Helling, where we are told that the liberalism that groenlinks party-topers embrace today is as old as the Jacobine movement, back in the times of the French revolution.

Now, we might not have to choose in between the too late or the too early options. As Halsema repeated many times the past two years, the discussion about our supposed liberalism just misses the point. To be liberal today is a sticker so vague that can be used for the VVD or for Groenlinks, not to mention the democrats in the USA. The devil, as usual, is in the details. Lets have it about some details. In what follows I hope to show that groenlinks ideas on economy are far too liberal to be good, and groenlinks ideas on migration are far too conservative to be of relevance.

Nordic ideas

One issue in which the liberals of groenlinks have made headlines (at least in our internal discussions) is in the so-called Scandinavian model of economy. In such a model, basic tenets of the Dutch welfare state are attacked. The proposal calls for flexibility of the ontslagrecht, stronger reintegration investment and better networks of support for the unemployed. If this whole package would be implemented together, it does sound Ok. But is it Ok?

The most important claim that the Wetenschapelijk Bureau has done promoting this model is that it will create a dynamic economy. Dynamic here means that more people is fired faster, so others, traditionally excluded from the labour force, are capable to take the vacated jobs, so far unavailable to them. In the eyes of groenlinks ideologists, the people excluded from the labour market will profit from more flexibility. But how much of this is true?

In first place, let's define the analysis. There are many ways to classify the different components of a society. One could think in gender, or in ethnicity, or in education level. Or in a combination of those factors. Once the classification is decided, the next step is to explore the labour participation of each population segment. Labour exclusion does occur in every society group, but in some more than in others. With this results in mind, one could analyse the results of labour market flexibility in each particular segment.

Let's go step for step, then. Consider ethnic or gender segmentation. Simply comparing level of employment in autochtoon versus allochtoon (the analysis, at least in broad lines can be repeated for women) we learn right away that the allochtoon Netherlander is far less included in the Dutch labour market than the autochtoon segment. One conclusion of this is to say that labour exclusion is a relevant issue in the allochtoon population. So far, so good. In the program of groenlinks so much is acknowledge, since we claim that labour exclusion is a relevant issue, via discrimination, for the allochtoon citizen. Now, would flexibility help?

Now that we know who is excluded from the labour market, let's proceed. Is the allochtoon employee flexible? How would further flexibility of the labour market change their employability? The last report of the arbeisdinspectie1 tells us that allochtonen (and women) are very mobile segments of the labour force. So we discover that in reality, the allochtoon employee is more flexible than the autochtoon employee. Allochtonen change their jobs faster and more frequently than autochtonen. So the question arises: would further flexibility help this sector?

Let's put the argument together: One sector of the Dutch population, in which exclusion of the labour market is a relevant problem, occurs to be also a very flexible and dynamic sector. Dynamism is positively associated with exclusion, then. How more dynamism could possibly help the inclusion of this sector?

The example offered here illustrates a broader trend in groenlinks flavour of liberalism. The idea of dynamic economies as source of employment is theoretically sound, and it has been breached in many countries, principally in France. Now, what this trend has to do with the real excluded from the Dutch labour market? Not much. What the liberalism of groenlinks today misses is the rooting in the real conditions of the excluded labour force. Is the phenomenon due to olded employees that can not be fired? Do we really believe that if a relevant percentage of current employees would be fired then the excluded of the labour market will be -suddenly- included?

An alternative analysis of exclusion in the labour market goes along the lines of intrinsic -microeconomic- causes, instead of structural -macroeconomic- causes. The results of several studies hired by our TKfractie past years verify that, at least in regard to the allochtoon workforce, discrimination is a much more relevant cause of exclusion than lack of economical dynamism. But this line of thinking produces problems, as groenlinks well knows. Of course, what I am referring here is to the well known law Samen, which introduced by the Rosemuller fractie, was not renewed few years ago. Interesting is that such a law seems to go against what liberalism is. In a “laissez faire” state, there is no interest of the government for telling a business owner whom to hire. Perhaps attempts comparable to the law “Samen” fall out of the current liberal trend. In any case, this is not the place to attempt a revival of an old groenlinks idea. What I do intend to do here is to point at limitations of the current liberalism of groenlinks. Our own research, or data easily obtainable from the CBS and the Arbeidsinspectie tell us that exclusion is certainly not solved by more liberalism.


Free flow

Now, lets attempt another dilemma currently discussed in Europe, with have a classical liberal answer, and that has recently discussed by groenlinks. I would like to turn our attention to the migration dilemma that European societies face today.

The free flow of people across countries is a fundamental tenet of liberal ideology, as fundamental as the free flow of goods and capitals. Every classic (or neoclassic) economic theory function if and when markets are open. The interesting question is how good scores groenlinks here? Or Europa, for what it matters? Not very good, actually.

If we go back to the congress of Groenlinks occurred in R'dam, back in 2005, you will remember that a visietext migratie was there discussed and ultimately voted. In that text four dilemmas were presented to the groenlinksers. Migration in Europa today is an issue that sets dilemmas far from trivial. The commission that wrote the proposed visietext presented no full solutions to those problems, but ways to tackle them. Around a months ago, that is two years after the congress, our representants in the European parliament meet their collega's from the European Green Party in Berlin, in an attempt to settle a position on migration from the EGP. If you read what our Kathalijne brought to this meeting, it certainly goes along the lines that groenlinks set back in 2005. The emphasize is in circular migration. Faced with the increasing migration pressure, what Europe can offer as solution is a controlled circular migration scheme.

So far so good. We have a representant of groenlinks lobbying in the European political scene for the standpoints that we agree on. But to place this in the context of my discussion here, the question has to be made. How liberal is circular migration? Is circular migration a step in the direction of a world of open borders? Or at least to a world in which flows of people are as open as possible? Well, actually not. Circular migration schemes, actually, are very non liberal, or at least, very non open. The word circular means that the person that arrives and is welcome in Europe, does not stays but for a well defined amount of time. Actually, any scheme of circular migration requires a enforcing state, able to track foreign workers and able top deport them when their time is due. Surely not a very liberal state of affairs, neither a society to aim at.

Even if we take the ethical considerations apart, circular migrations schemes are known and have failed since long in Europe. What else is the good old idea of gastarbeider? What we know is that the circular part simply doesn't work. Or the guest part does not. A relevant amount of people that arrives to a place to work, stays. A circular migration scheme is bound to fail as a realistic alternative to the immigration pressure that Europe faces today.

So. The intention of the lines above is to clean up the start for the serious discussions that we need inside groenlinks today. My two examples aim to prevent our discussion to be phrased in terms of being, or notbeing, liberal. I hope to have presented two cases, both relevant in today's politics, in which groenlinks is too liberal, or too conservative. You might or might not agree with me about my own preferences. But let's agree that the questions that we have to answer is in the details, and not in the big lines.

Getting older

and seeing the big names dissapear: Dick, Herbert, Heinlein, Asimov... at least Bradbury is still around. But no more Vonnegut.

so it goes

Manifesting over the manifesto: own positions

So far I have tried to grapple with some of the arguments in the table of planeetgroenlinks. Now is due time to throw in the table my own ones. Probably too late, since with so many commentary many of the inhabitants are tired of the discussion. But vooruit!

I want to make three points here. Not surprisingly about the course, imago and culture of the current groenlinks. Each point is easy to resume in one sentence each, so here it is:

1)The course of groenlinks should be more liberal in some aspects, and less in others. To call the current course too liberal (or right wing or any other synonym) is just fool.
2)The image of groenlinks do need to include other groups, without excluding the group already represented.
3)The culture of groenlinks must be more open, if we want to grow as a party, but more openness call as well for more responsibility.

Nothing shocking, so maybe you would stop reading right now. But perhaps the argumentation is shocking? read on!

1) A big deal of the ideological discussion inside groenlinks revolves around the question “are we becoming too liberal?” In my eyes, almost a non-question. To start with, there is no such a thing as a liberal manifesto, which can be used as a measuring device. What does exist is lots of different issues to decide to be more liberal, or not. Same for groenlinks: inside our current pool of ideas we find some that need liberalization, and some that need some dose of “estatification”. Two examples: the mantra that more flexible labour market improve the circumstances of excluded is a classical idea that has received lots of counter-evidence along time. To name only one, in the report of the arbeidsinspectie on labour mobility and discrimination (2004) comes the clear result that allochtonen are far more flexible in their jobs than autochtonen. And still, they remain with higher rates of unemployment. This is not to be solved giving more flexibility.

A different standpoint in which we could use more liberalism is in our migration standpoints. We still talk about controlled migration, or labour migration only if it is in the advantage of the netherlands. But I still remember a debate organized by the wetenschapelijk bureau from the VVD, in which it was argued for a world without borders, as the ultimate liberal goal. I certainly concur, I'll be happy to have the liberalization of our migration standpoints.

So... shall we stop using big and heavily charged words and get down to the real issues?

2) In the same wibe, lots is being discussed about our “elitarianism”. A lot of warm air, in my humble opinion. What matters here is that we must become more diverse. I have nothing against having some very elitarian party members... if we have some very egalitarian members as well. So at the side of a deep analyst of political nuances we must also have some black and white activist, a la greenpeace (or at least a la greenpeace in the seventies). In my eyes the challenge of groenlinks is not to abandon the elite and welcome the people, but keeping the elite and the people in discussion. Actually, if my memory still works, that was pretty much the gramscian version of democratic centralism. Think in something like “democratic multicultural centralism” and consider culture not only as a ethnic thing, but also a socio-economically determined phenomenon.

3) Many people that ask for mayor involvement in the decision process today is simply not capable to keep up, if they would be given the chance. As vz from one workgroup, starter of another and member of yet another, I would love to see the role of workgroups increased inside the structure of the party. I was strongly against the last reform of statuten, in which workgroups were deprived from the possibility of offering not-asked advice. But hey, beware of what you ask for... because you can get it! This is an issue in which we criticasters should be less populists. To give an example, the Kleurrijk Platform sees a change of members that rounds 75% every year. The people that stays around is very scarce. So imagine that such a club would be -all of a sudden- in charge of the multicultural positions of groenlinks. In a word: a nightmare. And not only workgroups, also the regios. It sounds very nice (in the partijraad, for example) to talk in favor of the regios and against the randstad. But should a local activist coordinate international policy (you guess what my answer is here)

So yes, I do think that the kader should take more responsibility in the decision making of our party. Sure thing. But is the kader aware that this would imply far more commitment than the existing one? Less time to hang around and more time reading policy pieces? Far more efficient workgroups meetings? How many members of workgroups would remain as members if the answer “sorry, I did not have time for ...” would not be acceptable?

Rejoinder, then. Why did I not sign the kritiek manifest, and still... why I consider it a very important piece

So yes, I have been bothered by very un-critical meetings -or congresses- of groenlinks. I had had the feeling of being part of an applause machine, now and then. But who's responsibility that is? Isn't it mine as well? It is. I missed, perhaps first of all, a strong auto-criticism in the spirit of the kritiek manifest. In second place I miss a broader call for diversity. My answer to elitarianism is not less of it, is more populism as well. Both are needed. And last of all, but perhaps more important than all, I do not consider useful a full attack of the liberalization of groenlinks. I rather argue for more liberalization in some issues, and less in others. These three reasons, when balanced and measured, make me not sign. But hey! If this manifest would not have been written, with a sustained effort from Leo and Paulus and others... we would not be discussing these issues. I might not agree with their tone, or their emphasizes... but I greatly thanks their input. Without this group of indians we would not be about to sit in powpow... and that is very needed in groenlinks now!

On the manifest: is it a minority opinion? (3)

Well, this third comment closes my comments on the comments on the manifest. (notice that english is not my mother tongue: there got to be better ways to say that). After, I'll be able to write my own opinion on the kritiek manifesto. But now, is this the product of a sour minority inside groenlinks?

Actually, for all what it matters, they might be a minority in groenlinks. Or not. We will never know. What is a fact is that the 250 people that ended up signing the text are bothered and are a bunch. I have seen congresses with more or less the same people in the hall. What I understand as the real good thing that this manifest is, is the (very) strong signal that it gives. To dismiss it as the product of a club, or a minority club, or a minority bothering club, is to be blind.

The last post of Kathalijne is a good example of the point that I want to make here. She refers (rightly so) to the Europa werkgroep as an example of a groenlinks instance in which party members are well involved in the decision making. But hey, the europa werkgroep, with few others, are exceptions. If you make the rounds of the landelijke werkgroepen of groenlinks you will hear very many different things, but you will also hear a undertone of dissatisfaction. In one way or another the life of groenlinks has created a feeling of exclusion in quite some of our members. And accordingly, those members kick back now and then. Many of the bizarre decisions of the partijraad, or the congress, are due to a pure and simple feeling of... revenge. Of impotence against “the powers that be”, which apparently take decisions without involving the achterbaan.

Even Christian Jongeneel, one of the more critical persons regarding the manifesto wrote “Het zou fijn zijn als GroenLinks weer de sfeer terug kon vinden van de Kosovo-discussie”. So yes, there was another sphere that is to be regained. To quote again: “toen er uiterst fundamenteel van mening verschild werd - veel dieper dan nu - maar het integere imago van de partij juist een grote impuls kreeg vanwege de waardigheid waarmee de meesten zich uitten.”

So the point, at least for me, is not that the writers and supporters of the manifesto are a minority. Or a majority for all what matters. Irrelevant. What matters is that somewhere along the line they changed from disagreeing people to upset people. And that is a problem that we all have to solve. So let's not shoot the messenger, but see if we can do something with the message. Even if we don't like the messenger.

And about the message... this GL-ogger goes to bed, so it will be tomorrow...

On the manifest: A debate party might be a divided party. Nou en? (2)

One of the concerns of the persons that criticize going to the media is that the image that groenlinks gives outside is the one of a spliced party. Accordingly it would be better to keep our differences inside the walls of our meeting rooms, and not loose votes showing that we actually disagree.

Well, I think that this is a figment of the imagination. The fact is that we are a spliced party. We do have differences of opinion, now and then strong differences of opinion. Try to hide this differences is not only hypocritical, but impossible. And again, using the same argument that we use to support allochtoon participation, the diversity of opinions is a plus, not a minus. Nothing to hide, but something to be proud of.

The thing here is that people that keep on hanging to their ideas, even after the congress voted against them, are seen as bad losers. But why? Actually that is what we all do, since groenlinks is always defeated in elections, and we keep on trying. Can we really and sincerely blame and consider wrong the people that is not convinced by the course of groenlinks today? Should they shut up for a while?

My answer is: not at all. All the contrary. Because the mere existence of other currents of opinion inside groenlinks guarantee that we reach broader segments of the population. Which is a good thing, not because they vote for us, but because that is the only way to understand more segments of the country. So to every person that tells me that Femke is too elitist, I can say “she might, but there is no problem with it, since there are others that aren't”

Actually, given that I mentioned Femke, I think that many of the upset people inside groenlinks could learn some from her. Her reaction to the manifest is: “we knew. This is a debate party” enough. Simple and wonderful.

We should not be afraid of ideological differences, as much as we are not (very) afraid of ethnic differences. After all, both the Platvoets and Halsemas of this party are working for what they think is a better party. Both are convinced that groenlinks is the place to be. So even if with very different ideas about what groenlinks should do, they are groenlinksers. As it should be. Let's (learn to) agree to disagree.

On the Manifest: the press (1)

The finally published manifest from the group “kritiek in groenlinks” got to the press. And inmediatly got to planeetgroenlinks. There is a lot written, and it is likely that some more is to be written yet. Just reading planeet the last few days, I have been wanting to react to lots of comments. But if I keep reading and thinking, I'll end up writing a whole book, and not a single post. So my strategy today is to address different issues in several short posts. The last one will be about the reason my signature is not to be found in the supporters of the manifesto. But let's go with the first issue, the press.

Several comments so far mention that go to the press is to damage groenlinks. I can imagine that you would not like to see an internal discussion raging in the newspapers... but... are there many other media? do we use them? The answer is that yes, there are other media. And no, we do not use them. One example? The manifest is online since long time ago (scroll down this blog, for example). When did groenlinksers react to it? when it hit the press, not before. So it is no surprise that whoever has something to say about groenlinks, try to get in the press first.

Mark my words, this apply to both sides of the debate. Femke and Co have been investing time in the ongoing “opposition discussions”. This exercise is precisely the sort of thing that the manifest's people criticize as lacking in groenlinks: a political leader asking feedback from the achterbaan. But I have not seen the prominent people of the kritiek group in those discussions.

And besides this pointing-with-the-finger, what is the problem of going to the press? It seems to me that actually what we are is scare of the public debate. Funnily enough, some of the ones that are against press articles, are the same ones that proudly talk about groenlinks as a open debate party. And now? Why not?

So let's close this post here. I do not like the manifest enough to have signed it... but I certainly agree with the idea to get it in the public line. Lets cook some dinner and try to write about the next argument, divisions in groenlinks.

Inbreed in groenlinks

Like in any other organization, in groenlinks there has been complaining about being dominated by an incrowd. The last expression that such a feeling had was the last partijraad, in which the commissions to drive the writing of a new beginsel programa were rejected... since everybody in there were known (I keep on wondering if the partijraad wanted new members to write the beginsel programa, but ok)

Now, in these days I also learned that compared with other dutch political parties, groenlinks has the bigger numbers of smokers. Now, read this article in the independent today:

Found: gene that means some people can't give up cigarettes
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 03 April 2007
(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2414772.ece)

And then, everything becomes clear. An expression of incrowd in certainly inbreed, which makes a population to share too many genes. If so many smokers are in groenlinks, and a gene determines your addiction, groenlinks is dominated by an incrowd. QED.

Perhaps the partijraad might ask for the new commission to be non smokers only. Or am I being too sarcastic?

Back from Brussels

Again in the train, but this time going back home, after the two day visit to the European Parliament. Worth to write a post about, since the Kleurrijk Platform invested some time thinking about the migration standpoints that were discussed, or at least mentioned, in one of the sessions that we had.

But before making those points, let's mention that visiting the european parliament is an interesting experience. Walking to the corridors of the parliamentary buildings brings very strongly the contradictions that tear apart all of us that are, in one way or another, eurofiles. On one side is the excitement of sharing space and time with people that not only doesn't need to be convinced of the values of european collaboration, but with people that is working daily in such a project. And at the other side, seeing the real way in which the parliament discusses, the declarative speeches that in the end do not mean a lot, or the throngs of persons convincing each other of their small changes in the line seventythree form the document ninety-four, remind us sharply that europa remains a bureaucratic monster. Not to mention the circus of moving a whole parliament in between two cities, but also to check the condescending tone that functionaries, or civil servants, actually, use to explain to us, plain citizens, the inner working of the beast. It's true, compromise is the unique way forward in a multinational project. But assuming that the need of compromise is enough to dismiss the concerns of europeans on the creation of a superstate, or the disappearance of national identities (not founded fears, in my opinion, but acutely present) is the same mistake that lead dutch politicians to the failure of the constitution referendum.

But Ok, faced with the two faces, I choose for one of them. It's almost a cliché for a groenlinkser, but anyway, let's say it once again: the experiment europa keeps on being a beacon in a world controlled by the disputes in between the chavez, bushes and ammadineyas of this world. The building of a democratic europa, as Rebecca Harms reminded us in very simple (and perhaps because of that more convincing) words, keeps on being the relevant challenge of our generation.

But OK. Enough campaign. The central issue that we wanted to discuss with Kathalijne and Co is the criticism that we have on the newest forms that migration policy is taken inside the european greens. Kathalijne, the right woman at the right place, has been leading the discussion inside the European Green Party, proposing the study of schemes of circular migration as central issue for the greens. The criticism that arise in the Kleurrijk Platform is on three grounds. IN first place is difficult to imagine that such ideas will succeed in the practice, after having failed in the years fifty. The core idea of circular migration is that people can come to europe, stay for a while, and come back to wherever they come from. But the experience of europe is precisely that people come, and stay. So we still do not hear an answer to the question: why these ideas will work now? What is new components they have? The other two concerns hat we have, in my own opinion, are easier to address. In principle having temporary migrants implies that deportation will show her ugly face again. In second place, temporal migrants might not have access to all the social security that precisely makes europa a special place.

Now, we did not hear clear answers to these concerns, so I suppose that the discussion is still alive. As a matter of fact we were invited to a seminar on migration in which the green fractie will discuss her position to occur the 16 of april. Then we will, again, see how further can we get the greens to argue for a more open europa.

Groenlinks is a sucker for women... and for slow processes

On women

Well, I guess that now and then one is allowed certain level of bitterness in his own blog, so I will not surprise my readers saying that I am (a bit) disappointed with the decision of the last partijraad, regarding my candidature as international secretary. I'll have to wait for that, and Isabelle got her chance. A close call, 25 votes against 22 in the second round. The reasons why I disagree with 25 members of the partijraad is that none of the other two candidates has done any work with the international groenlinks kader, meanwhile I am busy with it since I am groenlinks member (some five years ago), and in second place, we got ourselves a partijbestuur without a single allochtoon, and with a ratio 5 to 2 women. Are these two issues relevant, or I mention them as product of my bitterness at loosing an election? Well, I think that they are at least a bit important. If we intend to give perspectives of growing inside the party to our kader, this was a bad signal from the partijraad. If we value what is the trajectory that kader people do, that was also a bad signal. And if we intend to have a society in which different groups (by gender, ethnicity, culture and so forth) participate, this was also a bad signal. But hey, so is life. Now that I write this post in a train to brussels, where by first time kleurrijk platform members will (formally) talk with our european politicians, I repeat to myself (and whoever is reading out there) that I'll go on doing “my international thing” with the kader. Groenlinks has so much to do, and so few people willing to do it, that in the long run it does not matter who sits in which bestuur, but it matters that we go on with our agendas.

On slow processes

And well, to round up this email complaining about the decisions taken by the partijraad, I''ll write my dissent with their approved motion against the commissions for the project 2008. The partijbestuur presented to the partijraad a list of 30 persons that would lead the process of making a new beginselprogram. The partijraad rejected the commissions, and called for the process to stop, go back and start again. The complains were that too many of the commission nominates (me among others, what a joke) were party insiders. Now the partijraad will decide a profile of the good member that should sit in such a commission, and hopefully in some future we will have the good representative commissions, without too many insiders.

Now, why would I disagree with such a decision? The disclaimer, of course, is that I can not be fully objective here, since I am one of the affected by the decision of the partijraad. But that being said. The partijraad has all the right to object decisions taken by the partijbestuur. That is why they are there, the most important mechanism of check and balance that we have in groenlinks. But check is one thing, and balance is another. Why the partijraad members were not able to propose some more people (or other people) to form the commissions, and keep the process going? They did receive the proposal in due time. Why the partijraad bestuur did not hear the sound of discomfort about the proposed commission that rumbled in the party (it was pretty loud, if you would care to pay attention) and had a counterproposal ready? I can only imagine one reason: the partijraad bestuur thought that rumbles would remain only that: rumbles. And they commit the same underestimation mistake that they already commit in the Pormes case. You can not tell, or show, to a whole collective, that they are not being taken seriously. What the collective does, as aptly put by several groenlinks webloggers, is to show their teeth. And that is what the partijraad did.

This is a problem. Perhaps the beginsel program process will not suffer a lot (“just” few months delay) but the party will go on suffering from this lack of attention to the more and more aggressive “normal” member. If the partij(raad)bestuur do not work hard to pay attention to what normal members put in the table, this party is going to become harder and harder to lead. And in this sort of situation, the looser will not be only the partijtop. It will be the whole party.

From us, from them, from abroad: riots in Utrecht

It seems that this hot week in Ondiep, a small neighborhood of Utrecht, is coming to an end. Along several nights some two hundred persons have been detained by the anti-riot squad of the police. Last night a silent wake, which make the headlines in De volkskrant, mourn the deceased neighbor. Even if in this morning the police fences that walled the neighborhood are still there, few people expect new riots.

There are several issues of interest regarding this week. For me, the most interesting is an almost automatic reaction of the press: the rioters were not from Ondiep, there were from abroad. So were the disturbances described in the media. Even the unique groenlinks blogger that wrote about it, Jasper Fastl, mention that assertion. My question is how do we know, and what does it matters.

In principle it is true that the official numbers of the police, at least in the press, refer to the existence of strangers to the neighborhood. First it was talked about a mayority, then about 1 in 5. All the same, what does it matter? Utrecht is a small city, and five minutes in a bycicle allows me to cross half of it. Is a person that heard about the death of a citizen in the hand of the police, that gets into his bike, and goes to another neigborhood a stranger? I don't think so. He (or she) is just another citizen from utrech, that with his own reasons believe that he should be where the police killed somebody. Why the persons that live hundred meters away from the shooting have more right to be upset that the persons that live one kilometer away? It beats me. The existence of the so called riot-tourists does not tells me that people like to travel to kick and be kicked by the police. It tells me that not only in Ondiep are frustrated people. Utrecht might be the city with higuest standards of life in NL, but not all citizen enjoys them.

Another issue is the mere existence of the riots. We have certainly heard about the riots in Paris, and somehow we were secretly happy that they did not happen here. But we are wrong. The same conditions produce the same results. Poverty, lack of future, empoverishment of a neighborhood. And the idea that police abuse existed. Shake this cocktail and you get riots. In Utrecht, in Paris, or in Venezuela. People is people all across.

The mention to venezuela is not gratuite here. That is the other very important issue shown by the riots of Ondiep. For many analysts the riots of Paris were just another example of failed (cultural) integration of migrants. Not so. Those riots were produced by a failed socio-economical model, which excludes a relevant amount of people from the welfare that Europa today has. In Paris the excluded that live in the banlieus are migrants. In Ondiep are autochtonen. Once again, the skin color does not matter. You can opress people only so far. Go beyong that tiny red line, and you will get them out of hand. Or you will get us out of hand.

Last, but not least. I checked the websites from the coalitie parties in Utrecht gemeenteraad, GL among others. Just look for a search function and type ondiep.

In the groenlinks site I get three articles posted two years ago. One, visionary enough, refer to the concerning events of violence that happened... already few years ago.

In the PvdA site the same. The CDA site does not have a search function (wow) and the christen unie wrote something in 2005 about the selling of alcohol.

And besides Jasper Fastl, were are the groenlinks bloggers from Utrecht blogging about ondiep? Robert de wethouder? Niki, Peter and Pepijn from the gemeenteraadfractie? and Jasper Haenen and Xaviera Ringeling from the leden? In none of these weblogs there is a mention to the riots of ondiep. I know, you write what you want into your weblog, but my friends from groenlinks: I miss your blogs here.

Manifest Platvoet

Tomorrow saturday 10 march, from 14:00 to 16:00 meets in the partijbureau the group that pushed the motie for evaluation of campaign, course and culture of groenlinks. You are certainly welcome!

For this meeting Leo Platvoet wrote a manifest, which will probably be the center of the afternoon. Before pasting it here, for the record: I share very few of the concerns on ideology, but almost all the concerns on culture. I haven't big problems with the more individual-based ideology of Halsema, but I certainly disagree with the way decisions are taken. As candidate for buitenlands secretaris, I must say that Leo did get it right when saying that we can do much more with and about the third world. But well.. without more:


Discussieer en Beslis Mee!
Manifest van bezorgde GroenLinksers over koers, imago en partijcultuur

Wij zijn bezorgd en kritisch over een aantal ontwikkelingen binnen GroenLinks, de partij waar wij voor gekozen hebben om Nederland -en de wereld- socialer, groener en toleranter te maken.
Bij de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 22 november 2006 heeft GroenLinks verloren. Dat was geen incident. Vanaf 1998 is er helaas een voortdurend dalende lijn te zien bij landelijke verkiezingen: van 11 naar 10 naar 8 naar 7 zetels. Dat baart ons zorgen. Dat moet álle GroenLinksers zorgen baren.
Want GroenLinks is in 1989 voortgekomen uit vier linkse partijen, die tot de conclusie kwamen dat een nieuwe politieke formatie nodig was om het Nederlandse politieke landschap voor goed een ander aanzicht te geven. Om hét groene en linkse alternatief te zijn voor al die kiezers die vonden –en vinden- dat de PvdA naar rechts helt, het CDA het rentemeesterschap verkwanselt en D66 geen sociale agenda heeft.
Deze politieke plaatsbepaling van GroenLinks als hét groene en linkse alternatief is aan forse erosie onderhevig. De koers die GroenLinks het laatste jaar is ingeslagen, roept bij velen vragen op. Het imago wordt in toenemende mate als elitair ervaren. En de partijcultuur is steeds minder open en democratisch dan het naar buiten toe schijnt en laat daardoor steeds meer krachten en kwaliteiten in de partij onbenut.

Dit manifest beschouwt koers, imago en partijcultuur nader en doet voorstellen om het tij te keren. Wij begrijpen heel goed dat er ook externe factoren zijn die hun invloed hebben op het politieke klimaat en de positie van GroenLinks daarin. Zoals de nationalistische, xenofobe golf die Nederland sinds 2001 heeft overspoeld. En dat GroenLinks met haar kosmopolitische inslag tegen de stroom in roeit, zonder daar electoraal voor beloond te worden. Dat moge deels zo zijn. Maar dat is geen alibi om niet kritisch naar je zelf te kijken.

In dit manifest leggen wij de nadruk op onze zorgen en kritiek. Wij begrijpen heel goed dat daarmee geen recht wordt gedaan aan het totaal van GroenLinks activiteiten en de mensen die zich daarvoor inzetten, waaronder trouwens ook wijzelf. Het is echter diezelfde bezorgdheid die ons ertoe brengt ons op deze wijze te uiten in de hoop dat er écht iets verandert waardoor iedereen weer tot zijn recht komt en GroenLinks haar élan hervindt.

Wij maken ons zorgen over de koers van de GroenLinks

Met het verschijnen van het manifest Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen heeft de Tweede Kamerfractie gepoogd om nieuwe antwoorden te vinden op ‘hoe verder met de verzorgingstaat’. Terecht werd gesteld dat het onbevredigend is om als GroenLinks steeds de laatste versie van de Nederlandse verzorgingsstaat, waar nu al 25 jaar door rechtse en paarse kabinetten aan is gesleuteld, geschaafd en vertimmerd, als het meest wenselijke model te beschouwen. En dat het tijd is voor een nadruk op de GroenLinks-benadering, namelijk dat mensen emanciperen door te participeren. Tot dusver niets aan de hand. Maar in de verdere analyses en voorstellen die werden gedaan, ontluiken de contouren van een vrij fundamentele koerswijziging.
Kortweg gezegd kwam het er op neer dat te veel nadruk werd gelegd op het individuele, te weinig op gemeenschapszin, te veel op zelfredzaamheid, te weinig op solidariteit. Er werd een tegenstelling gecreëerd tussen jongeren en ouderen en tussen insiders en outsiders op de arbeidsmarkt. De rol en positie van de vakbeweging als bondgenoot in de strijd voor linkse, sociale doeleinden werd bekritiseerd. Het ontbrak aan enige analyse hoe dominant sociaal-economische verhoudingen zijn in de maatschappij. Eenzijdig werd de nadruk gelegd op arbeid als middel tot zelfontplooiing. Flexibilisering van arbeidsvoorwaarden werd bepleit. Evenals een actief beleid om werklozen en bijstandsgerechtigden via participatie en scholing aan het werk te krijgen, op zich geen nieuw punt voor GroenLinks, maar wél nieuw was dat dit verplicht werd gesteld.
In het manifest werden ook belangrijke zaken gemist. Zoals de relatie met de Derde Wereld en kritische analyse van de globalisering, de noodzaak van herverdeling en het ter discussie stellen van de immer voortgaande consumptiemaatschappij.
Het manifest werd –terughoudender- vertaald in het verkiezingsprogramma, waarvan het congres vervolgens nog bij enkele voorstellen de scherpste kantjes er af haalde. Maar de bedoeling van dit manifest bleef recht overeind, zowel in de wijze waarop de top van de partij er mee om ging, als in de beeldvorming van GroenLinks in de media. En dus ook bij de kiezers.

Wij vinden dat zulke fundamentele verschuivingen - door velen uitgelegd als een stap naar het politieke midden - een fundamentele analyse van de sociaal-economische verhoudingen verdienen en een partijbreed debat over hoe GroenLinks daarop reageert. Wij vinden dat de discussie in de volle breedte en diepte moet worden gevoerd. Dat debat moet over méér zaken gaan: de relatie met de Derde Wereld en een kritische analyse van de globalisering; de noodzaak van herverdeling; ons antwoord op de immer voortgaande consumptiemaatschappij en de ruimte die wij willen geven aan de markt.
Het moet gaan over onze houding ten opzichte van de Europese Unie: GroenLinks profileerde zich als het meest pro-grondwet van alle partijen, maar bijna de helft van het electoraat en een aanzienlijk deel van de leden stemde tegen. Reflectie daarop is er nog niet geweest. Tenslotte moet het debat gaan over de plaats die wij in ons politieke optreden geven aan ons oorspronkelijke kernpunt: milieu.

Wij maken ons zorgen over het imago van GroenLinks

Het imago van een politieke partij komt niet uit de lucht vallen. Programma, toonzetting en prioriteiten van prominente woordvoeders, praktische politieke opstelling, keuze waarop de feedback van de eigen standpunten plaatsvindt, verbinding zoeken tussen eigen voorstellen en wat leeft onder de bevolking: dat alles bij elkaar schept een imago. In een verkiezingscampagne kan dat imago hooguit nog worden versterkt.
De campagne die bij de laatste verkiezingen is gevoerd zat goed in elkaar en oogde hip. De campagne paste prima bij het beeld dat de partijtop op wilde roepen. Maar daar zit voor velen ook uitgerekend het probleem. De campagne richtte zich op door het bureau Motivaction doelgroepen, die worden gedefinieerd naar hun levensstijl en waardenpatroon. Hedonisten en kosmopolieten zouden zich aangetrokken voelen door GroenLinks en dus moet de campagne zich op dit mensentype richten. Niet alleen een intellectuele, maar ook een elitaire uitstraling is daarvan het gevolg.
Dit imago sluit goed aan bij het optreden van GroenLinks in de Tweede Kamer. GroenLinks is er terecht trots op dat het kwaliteit levert met de voorstellen die het doet. Maar deze voorstellen hebben een vrij abstract en ambtelijk-parlementair karakter. Goedkeuring van het CPB wordt als hoogste goed beschouwd, terwijl het geen enkele kiezer interesseert, dus geen item in de campagne is en de doorberekeningen een dag na de verkiezingen bij het oud papier belanden. Er wordt veel kostbare energie gestoken in het van bovenaf bedenken hoe het verder moet met Nederland. Om op sociaal-economisch gebied te blijven: uit alle onderzoeken blijkt dat de aanpak van de kabinetten Balkenende door een meerderheid van de Nederlanders wordt afgewezen. Mensen worden moe van de neo-liberale aanpak, de voortgaande introductie van marktwerking, het achterblijven van kwaliteitsimpulsen in de zorg en het onderwijs.
In plaats van met sociale voorstellen voort te borduren op deze kritiek, komt GroenLinks met een ingewikkelde, schematische blauwdruk, die niet herkenbaar is voor de mensen waar het om gaat. En die bovendien niet met andere partijen tot een vruchtbare of spannende discussie leidt, waardoor het, nota bene in verkiezingstijd, langs zijn politieke doel heen schiet.
Deze aanpak leidt er ook toe dat belangrijke ingrediënten van een gewenst politiek imago, zoals warmte en emotie, nauwelijks aanwezig is. Die warmte is zeker voor mensen die zekerheid zoeken belangrijk. Met een zeker dédain wordt hier op neergekeken. Het nieuwe sociaal-economische programma haalt het meest overhoop van alle partijen, en dus is dit het meest linkse programma, zo luidt de redenering. Maar het is natuurlijk zeer de vraag of ‘het meest overhoop halen’ een graadmeter is voor de mate van linksheid. Het draagt wel bij aan een imago dat voor grote groepen mensen, die juist van een linkse partij een reëel en herkenbaar perspectief op een beter leven verwachten, niet aantrekkelijk is.
Dit dédain gaat hand in hand met het neerkijken op populisme. Maar een vorm van populisme hoort in de gereedschapskist van iedere politieke partij te zitten. Het gaat er natuurlijk om welke inhoud achter dat populisme schuil gaat.
Met zo'n houding verover je geen kiezers, maar vervreemd je je van hen. De stembusuitslag leverde het bewijs. GroenLinks groeide in welgestelde witte slaapgemeenten en dito wijken van universiteitssteden, maar verloor in de rest van het land.

Wij maken ons zorgen over de cultuur in GroenLinks

Niet alleen het beleid, maar ook het imago en de koerswijzigingen worden door een zeer klein groepje mensen bedacht en geregisseerd. Er zijn nauwelijks serieuze pogingen om tijdig een goede feedback te verzorgen - dat gebeurt hoogstens achteraf, in debatten waarvan de verslaglegging goeddeels ontbreekt.
Werkgroepen binnen GroenLinks worden bij die besluitvorming zelden betrokken. Met maatschappelijke bewegingen is nauwelijks nog vruchtbaar contact. En zelfs bij lokale en provinciale verkiezingen zet het landelijke campagneteam de toon. Zo wordt deskundigheid in de partij, toch in vele soorten en maten aanwezig, te weinig aangeboord. Dat frustreert, doet mensen afhaken en leidt tot verdere verschraling.
Dit leidt tot een verwijdering tussen met name de Tweede Kamerfractie en grote delen van het actieve kader, tot groeiende onvrede en het ingraven in eigen posities. Daar komt bij dat een zekere arrogantie langzaam maar zeker de partij is ingeslopen. Critici van de nieuwe koers worden weggezet als zeurkousen die in het verleden leven. De exclusiviteit van het eigen gelijk wordt gekoesterd en verdedigd.Van een debatcultuur die leidt tot breed gedragen besluiten is zo steeds minder sprake.

De partijorganisatie, het partijbureau in Utrecht, is mede op initiatief van de Tweede Kamerfractie de laatste jaren geprofessionaliseerd. Op zich een goede zaak. Maar de huidige leidinggevenden kennen het politieke handwerk niet of nauwelijks uit eigen ervaring. De richting van de dienstverlening is als gevolg  daarvan langzaam maar zeker verplaatst. Niet de afdelingen, raadsfracties of werkgroepen staan centraal maar de koers van de Tweede Kamerfractie. Het Wetenschappelijk Bureau leverde met haar bundel ´Vrijheid als ideaal´ de grondstof voor ´Vrijheid eerlijk delen´. Het maandblad ´De Rode Draad`, dat lokale ervaringen bundelde en daarmee beschikbaar maakte voor andere fracties, is opgeheven, zonder dat  het kader daar in is gekend. De beloofde alternatieven zijn er nog steeds niet. De afdeling partijontwikkeling, die lokale afdelingen ondersteunde, is opgeheven. Voor het kader is het niet altijd duidelijk wie waar nu voor verantwoordelijk is. De actiecoördinator, die GroenLinks op transparante en herkenbare wijze moest verbinden met allerlei buitenparlementaire acties, is gefrustreerd opgestapt.
Wel is er een Permanente Campagne gekomen, die wordt gedomineerd door mensen en wensen van de Tweede Kamerfractie. Terwijl in een Permanente Campagne juist de activisten in de partij gemobiliseerd moeten worden
Scholing van (nieuwe) leden in de geschiedenis, de bronnen en het gedachtegoed van GroenLinks vindt niet plaats.

Het partijbestuur is ingekrompen tot 7 leden, die alleen op de winkel passen, en geen politieke agenda ontwikkelt. Er zijn geen partijbestuursleden meer die belast zijn met onderwerpen als sociale zekerheid, volkshuisvesting, vredesbeleid, derde wereld, milieubeleid. Daardoor ontbreekt voor het partijbestuur elke urgentie om op deze belangrijke terreinen het actieve kader te inspireren en verbindingen te zoeken met maatschappelijke bewegingen.
De congressen zijn steeds meer kandidaten-stemapparaten en applausmachines voor de partijleider. En het Forum - ooit dé gelegenheid om over heikele onderwerpen van gedachten te wisselen - vond de laatste –vederlichte- aflevering plaats in 2004, vóór het referendum over de Europese Grondwet.
Het politieke zwaartepunt intussen ligt bij het strategisch beraad, de denktank van de GroenLinks. Dit beraad functioneert niet transparant en legt aan congres noch partijraad verantwoording af . De Tweede-Kamerfractie voert er de boventoon, gesecondeerd door vertegenwoordigers van partijbestuur en Europese- en Eerste-Kamerfracties.
Kortom de partijcultuur in GroenLinks is ver-Den Haag-d, ééndimensionaal, top-down en gesloten.
De sublieme uitdrukking hiervan is de weinig dynamische partijwebsite, die gespeend is van elke interactiviteit. Een partijbrede agenda ontbreekt, evenals de namen van GroenLinks vertegenwoordigers in gemeenteraden en provinciale staten. De startpagina wordt geheel gedomineerd door uitsluitend parlementair nieuws van de Tweede Kamerfractie. Elke scheet die daar wordt gelaten, is op de website ‘breaking news’.

Wij willen dat GroenLinks zich herpakt

Er moet een herbezinning plaats vinden op koers, imago en partijcultuur. Het partijbestuur, dat aanvoelt dat er iets moet gebeuren, heeft aangekondigd een discussie te starten over plaatsbepaling, strategie en partijcultuur, die uitmondt in een amendeerbaar congresstuk dat in 2008 vastgesteld moet worden. Voor de opzet van deze discussie is een tamelijk bureaucratische structuur bedacht, maar daar willen we het verder niet over hebben.
Belangrijker is dat dit een open discussie wordt, waarin de bereidheid bestaat om kritisch te reflecteren. Uit dit Manifest blijkt wat onze zorgen en kritiekpunten zijn en deze zullen op een productieve wijze aan de orde moeten komen.

Wat betreft de koers van GroenLinks: de sociaal-economische visie vormt het hart van de discussie. Daarin komt veel samen. Het abstracte blauwdruk denken kan alleen tot de verbeelding spreken als het vertaald kan worden in aansprekende oplossingen die herkenbaar zijn voor mensen waarvoor GroenLinks opkomt. Niet voor de geëmancipeerde Zelfstandige Zonder Personeel, die het uitstekend zelf redt, maar voor de productiemedewerkster en de call-center telefonist. Het is alleen kansrijk als het een basis biedt voor coalities met maatschappelijke bewegingen en andere linkse partijen. Want een geïsoleerde positie leidt tot verdere verschraling. Zo’n visie heeft uiteraard herkenbare groene en linkse vertrekpunten, zoals een herverdeling van werk binnen en buiten huis, inkomensnivellering, een relativering van het arbeidsethos, humanisering van de arbeid, gezonde arbeidsomstandigheden, democratisering van arbeidsverhoudingen, inkomenszekerheid voor mensen die om welke reden dan ook weinig kans op de arbeidsmarkt hebben. Zo’n visie wekt emotie op omdat het kritiek en woede over grote maatschappelijke onrechtvaardigheid vertaalt in een strijdbare politiek. Kortom: ‘Knokken voor wat kwetsbaar is’.

Maar ook op andere terreinen die richting geven aan de koers van GroenLinks zal de discussie gevoerd moeten worden. Zo zal de EU scherper op haar economische beleid en haar internationale politiek bekritiseerd moeten worden. Milieu is ons unieke profileringspunt, maar ook hier moet de omslag naar meer aansprekende activiteiten gemaakt worden. Op andere linkse thema’s, zoals gezondheidszorg en de Noord-Zuid verhouding is het profiel van GroenLinks langzaam maar zeker vervaagd. Hier zal een inhaalslag moeten worden gemaakt.

Het door velen als elitair ervaren imago van GroenLinks kan alleen veranderen als de inhoud van de politiek, zoals hierboven beschreven, meer herkenbaar en oplossingsgericht is, meer maatschappelijke feedback krijgt, en in vormgeving daar op aansluit.
Het imago zal ook verbeteren als mensen, waarvoor GroenLinks wil opkomen, worden aangesproken op hun maatschappelijke positie, op hun problemen en hun ambities. En wanneer GroenLinks samen mét hen politiek gaat maken, in plaats van alleen vóór hen. Dat dwingt om in benadering, taal, middelen en emoties herkenbaar te zijn. En dat dwingt weer tot toenadering en dialoog.

De partijcultuur zal moeten binden in plaats van uit te sluiten. Afwijkende meningen moeten niet langer worden gebagatelliseerd. Discussies moeten weer plaats vinden op momenten die er toe doen en de opmaat vormen tot besluitvorming. Werkgroepen worden gestimuleerd en gefaciliteerd om kamerfracties en partijbestuur te voeden. Het partijbestuur moet haar positie hernemen als leiding van de partij, stimuleert politieke activiteiten en past haar samenstelling daar op aan. De partijorganisatie zal zich meer dienstbaar moeten opstellen aan het actieve kader in de partij. Banden met maatschappelijke bewegingen worden aangehaald. En op congressen wordt meer tijd ingeruimd voor discussie en een serieuze bespreking van kandidaten voor landelijke functies.


Versie 02 – dd 20 februari 2007 - Leo Platvoet

Being right by the wrong reasons

In planeetgroenlinks there is a brouhaha about the CDA minister Klink, that has censored a poster campaign, given that they advertize organ donors with some -more or less- erotic photos.

Of course, to prevent a institutional campaign due to some erotism involved in it sound pretty conservative, if not stupid. If those are the reasons from Klink makes a lot of sense to be critical of this new manifestation of the new cabinet.

But suppose that Klink is right, even if by the wrong reasons? Perhaps sex does not sell, after all...

Just take a look at here:

---------------
The big turn off
From The Economist

Using sex to sell a product does not work—particularly for women

SEXUAL allure is often hinted as being the prize for buying this or that. Yet advertising wares during commercial breaks in programmes with an erotic theme can be tricky: the minds of viewers tend to be preoccupied with what they have just seen and the advertisement is ignored. New research now suggests that even if the commercial is made sexually enticing, people still fail to remember it.
(...)
To test the (...) hypothesis, the researchers compared the recollections of those who had seen the advertisements that used the promise of sexual allure with those of the people who saw advertisements that did not titillate. They found no significant difference between the two groups. There was, however, a difference between the sexes: men were more likely to remember sexual advertisements (albeit not the brand advertised) whereas women were more likely to remember non-sexual advertisements.
(...)
Earlier work has suggested that sex and violence in television programmes deter people from paying attention to advertisements, but speculated that this may be overcome by using sex in the commercials as well. The new work suggests that this view is mistaken. It would appear that sex does not sell anything other than itself.

Vijf ideeën en vijf presidenten: ten redenen voor groenlinks om (meer) aandacht te geven aan Latijns Amerika

Twintig jaren geleden kon progressieve Nederlander makkelijk over LatijnsAmerika denken. Toen leefden wij met genoeg politieke vluchtelingen, die in Europa woonden na hun vlucht voor het martelen en de armoede van het Zuid-Amerikaanse continent. Veel Latijns-Amerikanen waren betrokken bij veel discussies in de eerste jaren van Groenlinks. De Nicaraguaanse revolutie was nog een belofte, en niet de teleurstelling die het later is geworden. Spaans praten was een politieke stelling, niet de mode die het vandaag de dag is. Een bekende tango (die u zich misschien ook herinnert) stelt dat “twintig jaren niets zijn” Maar het landschap van de Zuid-Amerikaanse discussie is sterke veranderd. Hier zijn niet meer zoveel politieke vluchtelingen, en de latinos die twintig jaren geleden in NL leefde zijn geassimileerd of teruggegaan. Latijns-Amerika kent een democratiseringsgolf. Eerst de ineenstorting van de Balkan, en daarna de Afrikaanse tragedies, werden belangrijkere thema's. Latijns-Amerikaanse migratie werd arbeidsmigratie, en geen politieke migratie meer. Kortom, Latijns-Amerika is nu niet meer zo'n interessant thema in Groenlinks. De tekst die volgt probeert dat idee te veranderen. De tijd is weer rijp om te denken aan het land aan de andere kant van de zee.

Nou, als een Argentijn-Venezolaan die zes jaren gelede aan de kust van Nederland kwam (vanaf de bergen van Zwitserland) hoop ik Groenlinks nog een goede beschrijving te bieden. De politieke en economische veranderingen van Latijns-Amerika gaan ongelooflijk snel. Dus kies ik voor een echte Nederlandse vorm: kort (en krachtig!). Hier stel ik vijf ideeën en vijf presidenten, voor die samen tien goede redenen maken om denken over Latijns-Amerika. Lees verder, en debatteer mee.

Eerst (pragmatisch) idee: Handel

Laat maar beginnen met de vanzelfsprekende. Wij leven in een geglobaliseerde tijd. Dat brengt Latijns-Amerika dichter naar Europa eventueel alleen voor economische redenen. Juist, er zijn veel meer Chinezen dan Zuid-Amerikaanse mensen, of er zijn veel meer “emergent economies” binnen Azië. Maar de groei van Venezuela of Argentinië, zijn groter of vergelijkbaar met de “Aziatische tijgers” van de jaren tachtig. Cultureel en economische gezien, staan wij dichter bij Latijns-Amerika dan bij Azië. Kijk eens naar initiatieven zoals de Mercosur. Enkele Zuid-Amerikaanse landen blijven proberen om economische grenzen te laten verdwijnen, net zoals Europa vijftig jaren geleden begon. Traditioneel gesproken wordt de handelen van Latijns-Amerika gedomineerd door Noord-Amerikaanse bedrijven, maar de politiek is bezig om dit te veranderen. Europa, zoals de Spaanse bedrijven hebben geleerd, heeft een groot potentieel in Latijns-Amerika. De Nederlandse economie heeft ook grote belangen in de regio. Denk aan Shell als een oliebedrijf, en de reserves van de venezolaanse olie of Boliviaans aardgas. Of denk in water-management technologie die ontwikkeld is in NL, en de grote waterwegen zoals de rivieren Amazonas, La Plata of Orinoco.

Nederlandse handelaren hebben altijd een rol gespeeld binnen het caribische gebied. De raffinaderijen op Curaçao verhandelt een grote deel van de venezolaanse olie. Antillianen en Surinamers zijn een levend deel van de Nederlandse bevolking vandaag. Zowel om economische als culturele redenen staat Nederland dichter bij Latijns-Amerika dan Groenlinks denkt.

Tweede idee (ook pragmatisch): Migratie

Migratie is het “hot issue” van de Europese politiek en zal niet verdwijnen in de toekomst. Sommige mensen zullen blijven herhalen dat wij meer migranten nodig hebben, sommige anderen zullen blijven denken dat wij minder migranten binnen moeten laten. Het migratiethema zaait het meeste in de politiek agenda van vandaag. Veel partijen zijn eens met elkaar: wij moeten meer aandacht geven aan het broeikaseffect, of de verzorgingsstaat moet teruggehaald worden. Maar het antwoord op het migratievraagstuk is nog ver van enige politieke consensus. Een feit is dat de emigratie van Latijns-Amerika groeit, en zal blijven groeien. Het verschil met de situatie van twintig jaren geleden, of met de situatie van de Afrikaanse migratie, is dat Europa op dit moment weinig politiek migranten van Latijns-Amerika krijgt. In Latijns-Amerika zijn er weinig tragedies op grote schaal, zoals hongersnoden of burgeroorlogen van Afrika. De Latijns-Amerikaan migrant van vandaag is een arbeidsmigrant. Mensen die zullen werken voor wat ze kunnen, of mensen die al gestudeerd hebben, en de beter betaalde banen van Europa willen. De meeste van de migranten van Latijns-Amerika gaan naar Spanje toe. Maar deze mensen overwegen ook om naar andere landen van Europa te gaan. Dat maakt de situatie van de Latijns-Amerikaanse migrant heel interessant voor Europese landen. Groenlinks zegt dat wij een controleerde migratie beleid willen. Wij streven om migranten aan te trekken die al banen hebben om hier te werken. Het is bekend dat Latijns-Amerikaanse migranten hun connecties met hun land van oorsprong houden, niet alleen per telefoon of e-mail, maar ook met het sturen van geld en de bijhouden van professionele relaties in de R&D sector. Dat voorkomt het risico van “brain (en economische) drain”. Het huidige europese beleid over migratie gaat veel te veel uit van de ervaring van de na-oorlogse jaren: De gastarbeiders zouden nooit terug gaan. Maar de nieuwe golf van Latijns-Amerikaanse migranten is anders, en de huidige realiteit in Latijns-Amerika is anders dan de realiteit in Turkije of Marokko van twintig (of meer) jaren geleden. De golf van de Latijns-Amerikaanse migratie die nu in Europa begint zal de perceptie veranderen die de Europeanen van migratie hebben.


Derde (politieke) reden: Latijn-Amerika groeit zowel in haar macro-economie als met haar armoede.

Economische en migratie groeit dwing Europeanen om Latijn-Aamerika te denken. Wij moeten denken aan economie en aan migratie. Daarom zijn de vorige twee ideeën pragmatische van aard. Er zijn ook nog andere redenen. Redenen die komen van de kern van Groenlinkse ideeën. Als de economie snel groeit in Latijns-Amerika, groeit de armoede ook. Hoe rijker het land wordt, hoe meer arme mensen het land heeft. Deze tegenspraak met een fundamenteel idee van het liberaal economische gedachtengoed zou kunnen ons inspireren om meer te denken aan Latijns-Amerika. Groenlinks zoekt nu de hernieuwing van wat het betekent om links liberaal te zijn. Als Groenlinks iets nieuws om te bieden heeft over liberale economie, is dat een antwoord op de tegenstelling tussen economische groei en armoede groei. En dat is een relevante vraag voor Latijns-Amerika. Is het stuk “Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen” een interessant stuk voor Latijns-Amerika? of is de Latijns-Amerikaanse ervaring met liberale theorieën iets waar wij van kunnen leren over de risico's van liberalisering? Ik ben me wel bewust van de risico's van geïmporteerde modellen van het ene land naar het andere. Maar de discussie over het belang van het “Scandinavische model” in Nederland kan misschien iets leren van het reeds ingevoerde “neoliberal model” in Latijns-Amerika. Daar hebben wij een extern voorbeeld dat het interessanter maak om aan Latijns-Amerika te denken.

Vierde -ideologische- reden: latijnsamerika is rood geworden

De stelling is bijna vanzelfsprekend. Na elke recente verkiezing gebruiken de nieuwe regeringen van Latijns-Amerika de zelfde kleuren van Groenlinks. Meer nog dan de vanzelfsprekende sympathie die deze ontwikkeling voor ons heeft , zijn er diepe ideologische redenen om ook daarover na te denken. In de latere tachtiger en negentiger jaren, volgden de Latijns-Amerikaanse beleidsmakers volgen wat men zou kunnen noemen een matig neoliberaal economisch beleid. Venezuela opende haar olievelden voor de grote internationale bedrijven, Argentinië heeft haar valuta gekoppeld aan de dollar, de “Free Trade Area for the Americas” een initiatief van de VS regering, lijkt goed. Maar deze politieke keuzen waren geen oplossing voor de grote problemen van de Latijns-Amerikaanse regio. De situatie schootterug. De grote bevolkingsgroepen van Latijns-Amerika blijfven arm, ondanks de economische groei. Nobel prijswinnaars zoals Stiglitz reageren tegen de “Washington consensus”. Het politieke leiderschap van de regio smelt snel, door spiralen van corruptie en schandalen. Een nieuwe soort van politici groeit. Niet verwonderlijke, deze nieuwe politici geven vooral aandacht aan arme mensen. Het resultaat is een echte mix, en heel interessant. Latijns-Amerikaanse regeringen zijn niet makkelijk te vergelijken. De taal van de president, en de beleid dat dezelfde president implementeert verschilt. Maar bijna alle nieuwe regeringen delen een ding. Alle huidige regeringen in Latijns-Amerika zijn zelfbenoemde links. Ik geloof dat de diversiteit van meningen over wat links betekent -bijna per se- interessant is voor Groenlinks.


Vijfde en laatste -politiek- reden: Latijns-Amerika is nog groen

Groenlinks is, inderdaad, meer dan rood alleen. Onze prioriteit ligt ook aan het onderhoud van natuur, juist nu, nu de toekomst van het broeikaseffect en verminderde biodiversiteit niet meer alleen de nachtmerrie is van de rare bioloog, maar meer een hard feit. Een globale kijk op de wereldkaart maakt duidelijk dat de meeste van de “biodiversity hotspots” van de wereld in Latijns-Amerika zijn. En ze staan onder druk. Van koralen in de wateren van de Caribische zee voorkomt de dreiging van hotelbouw, tot de druke op de regenwouden in de Amazone door de honger van de bevolking. De regeringen van Latijns-Amerika hebben veel gepraat over biodiversiteit. Gelukkig, zijn het geen gebieden met burgeroorlog, en ook geen kleine eilanden in het midden van de Stille Oceaan. De belangrijkste plekken hebben min of meer stabiele regeringen en makkelijk toegang. Europees en Nederlandse kapitaal geïnvesteerd om duurzam ontwikkeling van de Latijns-Amerikanse continent is niet onvoorspelbaar. Curricula in aanbod van o.a. De Wageningse Universiteit hebben veel experts afgeleverd, met jaren ervaring in de regio. Het is geen toeval dat de woorden “duurzame” en “ontwikkeling” waren gekoppeld bij eerste keer in Rio 1992. Als Groenlinks haar ideeën over natuur waar wil maken, hebben wij veel meer te doen in Latijn-Amerika.

Vijf –democratische- presidenten

Wie is wie in de latijnsamerikaanse politiek? Lees de kranten de laatste maanden en hun Spaans klinkende namen zijn vaker en vaker in de koppen. Evo Morales, of Chavez, zijn globale merken geworden. Maar wie zijn ze? Dragen ze de progressieve fakkel, of zijn ze simpel bananen-republiek caudillos? Volgens mij is de vraag belangrijker dan de gewone behoefte om te weten wat er gebeurt in een land ver weg. De vijf presidenten die ik praat hier over zijn een teken dat de linkse kerk -tenminste in Latijns-Amerika- verre van leeg is. Of, om de Bijbel te citeren, “veel zijn de kamers van de Heer”. Het is belangrijk voor ons, groenlinksers, om te zien hoe andere mensen betekenis hebben gegeven aan onze zelfde ideeën.

Laten we maar beginnen met Chavez, de militair die revolutionair wordt, de demagoog en machtige centralist. Chavez is het typische resultaat van de failure van het traditioneel (en western) democratische model. Afgelopen veertig jaren waren in Venezuela de sociaal-democraten en christen-democraten (de zusjes van de PvdA en de CDA) om en om aan de macht. De laatste jaren waren hun ideeën oud, en hun politici corrupt. Hun geloofwaardigheid ging snel naar beneden en Chavez greep de macht. In Nederland hebben wij Fortuyn gehad (en later de LPF), met een politiek kapitaal gebaseerd in kritiek op het puin van Paars. In Venezuela hebben wij Chavez gekregen, gegroeid op kritiek op dezelfde politieke familie. Zij acht (en sinds laatste november vier meer) jaren aan de macht hebben groot geld geïnvesteerd in de oplossing van armoede. Jammer genoeg is het meeste van de investering niet gecoördineerd en wel corrupt. Chavez' regering toont ook concentratie van macht in de uitvoerende macht van de regering zonder precedent in de venezolaanse geschiedenis. Chavez heeft zelf lijsten gebruikt van zij tegenstemmers om te verzekeren dat mensen die stemmen tegen hem hebben uitgebracht, geen baan krijgen in de publieke sector. De meest recent ideeën van Chavez zijn de privaat televisie kanalen te verbieden en enkele grote industrieën zullen gerenationaliseerd worden. De toenemende internationale profilering van Chavez maakt hem relevant, ook voor Nederland.

Na Chavez kunnen wij de andere kant van de munt bekijken met Lula, de vakbondsleider die liberaal wordt. In Latijns-Amerika is Lula de president met de meeste jaren als politicus. Voordat hij president was, was Lula ongeveer tien keren kandidaat. Binnen de club van de Latijns-Amerikaanse presidenten, als iemand de globale, liberale en economische wereld van vandaag begrijp, dat is Lula. En als iemand geloofwaardigheid verdient voor zijn kom, als iemand altijd hard heeft gewerkt voor de rechten van de armen, dat is Lula. Maar nu is Lula's regering is een moeilijke mix van liberaal beleid en linkse idealen. Lula is misschien een voorbeeld van waar een regering van Groenlinks op zou lijken.

Evo: Hij is de tweede indiaan die vanaf een armoedige geboorte, president is geworden in Latijns-Amerika (de eerst is Toledo, de vorige president van Peru). Evo Morales is een vertegenwoordiger van vierhonderd jaren van onderdrukking van de indiaanse bevolking. Het is te vroeg om te praten over het beleid van Evo, maar vroeg genoeg heeft hij de belofte van nationalisering van het aardgas waar gemaakt. De hele wereld geeft veel aandacht aan deze nationalisering Minder aandacht is gegeven aan het feit dat deze bedrijven geen Europees of Noord-Amerika bedrijven zijn, maar Braziliaanse bedrijven. Details zoude later komen, en Evo is er goed in om de media effectief aan te gebruiken. Maar populist of niet, radicaal of niet, Evo Morales is naar de voren gebracht het feit dat Latijns-Amerika de facto apartheid heeft. Grote sectoren van de samenleving, grote indianse sectoren, hebben geen contacten gehad met het andere deel van de samenleving in de laatste vierhonderd jaren. Dankzij Evo, is nu een erkende situatie.

Kirchner: Na de jaren met duizenden van gemartelde en vermoorde mensen, Kirchner is de eerste president van Latijns-Amerika die de massamoorden van de laatste dictators aangegrepen heeft. Verder is Kirchner de enige levende regent die grote en georganiseerde demonstraties gebruikt als propagandamiddelen voor zijn beleid. Herinner de boycot die Kirchner zelf georganiseerd tegen Shell, of de grote demonstraties tegen de vervuilende projecten van Argentijns buurland Uruguay. Minder mooi zijn de toenemende geruchten over de controle die Kirchner wil hebben over de publieke media.

Bachelet: Na een poging om in Europa te leven als politieke vluchteling, kwam Bachelet terug om haar artsopleiding af te maken, Chili onder Pinochet. Later was zij de eerste vrouw als Minister van Defensie te zijn. Dezelfde generalen dat terug in 1974 hebben haar vader gemarteld en vermoord waren onder haar stuur. In de sterke patriarchale en conservatieve chileense samenleving (waar Pinochet vandaag nog genoeg publieke steun heeft) vertegenwoordigt Bachelet het toenemende belang van vrouwen in een continent dat vandaag nog, tenminste in de ogen van Europa, veel te veel een macho bestuur heeft. Het beleid van Bachelet zal waarschijnlijk een voortrekking zijn van haar voorganger, een pragmatische en gematigde linkse regering.

Samenvatting. Vijf plus vijf is meer dan tien.

In de tekst boven heb ik geprobeerd een wisselend landschap van pragmatisme, ideologie en beleid te presenteren. Ongetwijfeld zijn de ideeën van mijn groenlinkse collega's over Latijns-Amerika zo verschillend als de betekenissen van links verschillende is in Latijns-Amerika. Als het mij gelukt is, zullen wij over deze verschillende meningen debatteren. Latijns-Amerika is inderdaad een groot deel van de wereld. De ideeën en de personen waar ik over heb gepraat, zijn verbonden en gemengd. Net als Europa een divers continent is, Latijns-Amerika is een fascinerende collage van situaties. Pogingen om deze realiteit te reduceren tot tien punten is niet goed mogelijk. Politieke, of geografische, of historische connecties maken de landschap wat ik hier beschreven heb, veel complexer dan hier gezegd is. Maar het doel is om op een debat aan te sturen. Groenlinks is een kosmopolitische partij, met belangen die verder rijken dan de dijken. Ik hoop dat de lezer mijn versimpeling vergeef, en erkent dat vijf plus vijf niet alleen meer dan tien is, maar een realiteit is die het verdient om verder over na te denken.

Inti Suarez als secretaris buitenland? Waarom?

In mijn eerste week als groenlinks lid, bezocht ik het groenlinks Forum. Dat forum ging over emancipatie. Voorgaand aan die dag heeft de partij maanden geïnvesteerd om over emancipatie te discussiëren. Verschillende groenlinkse gremia debatteerden, om meningen uit te wisselen op die Forumdag. Daarna heeft de TK fractie enkele visieteksten geschreven. In onze verkiezingsprogramma's is tot nu toe emancipatie een kernwaarde van groenlinks.

De emancipatiediscussie als een geheel is voor mij een voorbeeld van een goed functionerende partij. Het partijbestuur wijst thema's aan om een visie te ontwikkelen. Het kader van groenlinks is dan betrokken in de discussie. Niet alleen het groenlinks kader, maar ook de georganiseerde burger is uitgenodigd voor onze discussies. Groenlinks visie is dus ontwikkeld, vanuit de brede in de samenleving tot aan de dagelijks politiek praktijk van Femke Halsema in de Tweede Kamer.

Dit is ook de werkwijze die ik zou willen als buitenland secretaris van groenlinks. Groenlinks is een kosmopolitische partij. Wij kijken over de dijken heen, en dromen over een Nederland dat betrokken is bij de hele wereld. Wij hebben een nog lange weg te gaan om dit waar te maken. Ik noem hier twee thema's om verdere stappen te zetten op die weg.

Denk aan de spanningsveld tussen financiële liberalisering en de antiglobalistische beweging. groenlinks is tegen de exploitatie van de derde wereld door multinationals, maar wij begrijpen dat zonder globalisering ook de fair trade beweging te weinig ruimte zou hebben. De tijd van grote demonstraties, zoals in Seattle of Genoa is voorbij. Visie ontwikkelen is wel nodig. De invulling van het begrip anderglobalisme is interessant voor groenlinks om mee bezig te zijn.

Een ander belangrijk thema is migratie. Groenlinks heeft al een migratie visietekst van twee jaar geleden. De dilemma's waar wij toen over spraken, zijn vandaag richtinggevende dilemma's voor de migratie discussie in de EU. Nu is het moment om deze dilemma's te vertalen in concreet beleid. Groenlinks heeft brede expertise en zal die op de internationale podia moeten inzetten.

Wij hebben de afdeling buitenland, wij hebben het SDS, het Noord-Zuid netwerk, de Europa werkgroep... en ook nog het Kleurrijk Platform! En we hebben honderden leden die ook lid zijn van internationale organisaties, van het kleinbedrijf tot de grote NGO. Mijn doel als secretaris buitenland is om onze visies vorm te geven met die brede groep van internationaal-gerichte groenlinks leden . Nederland kan een belangrijke rol spelen in de wereld, en groenlinks heeft de verantwoordelijkheid om die invloed... te beïnvloeden.

De vraag is of ik geschikt ben voor de taak. In mijn resumé (http://www.scicha.org/ms/resume.doc) staat mijn opleiding en werkervaring. Hier geef ik mijn “groenlinks resumé”. Ik ben bestuurslid van groenlinks Utrecht, met als speciale functie werkgroepen coördinator. Ik schrijf een vaste column voor het lokale ledenblad “Linksom”. Ik was kandidaat voor de gemeenteraad, en lid van de campagne commissie. Ik was vertegenwoordiger van de stad Utrecht in de partijraad.

Binnen landelijk groenlinks ben ik sinds anderhalf jaar voorzitter van het Kleurrijk Platform. Vorig jaar heb ik twee workshops georganiseerd tijdens de Heerlen group/European Green Party bijeenkomst “Living in big cities”. Als lid van het Kleurrijk Platform ben ik coauteur van de “groenlinks visietekst migratie”, die op het congres van 2005 is vastgesteld. Ik heb namens groenlinks gesproken op een congres van de Groene-Bundniss 90 in 2004. Ik was lid van de Europa werkgroep, en initiator van De Werkvloer, de werkgroep voor de MKB sektor

Een partijtijger? Misschien. Met mijn jaren van rondstruinen in het groenlinks kader, wil ik nu mijn ervaring inzetten voor het partijbestuur. Ik zie mijzelf als een wereldburger (ik heb drie paspoorten), en misschien zou ik best in nog andere landen kunnen wonen. Maar ik weet zeker waar ik de komende jaren wil zijn. Ik wil een deel van een proces zijn, een groenlinks proces. Het proces om ons kader in contact te brengen met de brede wereld... en andersom!

Migration and groenlinks, 2007

The last meeting of the Kleurrijk Platform was about migration. What follows is my version of the “stand van zaken”

1) groenlinks position
2) EGP (non existing yet) position
3) Groenlinks MEPs position
4) KP position today
4.1) Our agreements with our MEP
4.2) Our disagreements with our MEP
4.3) Our internal disagreements
5) A way forward: questions to answer
6) Activities

1) In 2005 Groenlinks agreed in a visietekst migratie. In that text several dilemmas were presented, and tentative solutions were offered. The two most crucial issues were the tension between brain-drain and brain-gain and the possibility of foreign workers diminishing the labour condition of workers in NL. These two issues are dilemmas because an eventual opening of dutch borders to labour migrants might imply that there is a substantial brain drain in the countries of origin and a substantial impoverishment of labour conditions in NL, if facing a wave of cheap workers from abroad. But we also consider that migrants might produce brain gain, going back to their countries after a period of working abroad, and internal labour markets should be, in any case, open to more competition. The solution that groenlinks described in 2005 was to consider schemes of circular migration, in which people expend a time working abroad, but goes back to their country of origin.

2) The European Green Party (EGP) has agreed since several years ago in create a working group on migration. The problem is that at the european level the greens have no unified position on migration, which keep on growing as an issue of concern inside different countries of the EU. It is expected that this year the work group will finally assemble itself, and produce a debate on the matter. A principles declaration was agreed in the last EGP congress, and meetings of the “work-group to be” are scheduled for before the summer.

3) Our fractie in Brussels is also busy with the migration issue, and Kathalijne has taken the task of producing a discussion paper on migration, which is expected to fuel the discussion of the Green Group (that is the full set of parliamentarians that green parties have in the EP). This position is very needed, since the European commission has several initiatives on the way, in order to produce legislation on migration. So it is very desirable that the greens are able to produce a coherent answer, or position. The discussion paper of Kathalijne tackles the current discussions alive in the European Commission, and present the view points agreed back in 2005 by groenlinks. In broad lines, temporal migration schemes are offered as interesting solutions to the migration debate that rages across europe.

4) We at the Kleurrijk Platform have been acquainting ourselves with the discussion as it is today. We collaborated with the writing of the paper back in 2005, and today agree that 2007 is an important moment to concrete our position at the european level.

4.1) We certainly identify as positive that our people in Brussels are busy with the migration issue. And further we are happy to know that a standpoint discussed here is being broadly presented in the european context. With the actual contents of the position, we agree in that legislation is needed and it is going to happen, so the greens must have a clear position. Our fractie realizes that the legislation that the commission is intending to pass soon affects only the two extremes of the migration question. Legislation is prepared to regulate the movement of top employees in transnational firms, and to regulate the movement of seasonal workers. But a whole vacuum is left for the big group of migrants: people that able to compete in the european labour markets, having an education abroad, are prevented to migrate today to Europe by different sorts of restrictions. It is certain that we greens must develop a set of ideas to tackle this group of migrants, by far and large the most important, if only numerically speaking.

4.2) We as KP are less happy with the attention that Groenlinks and our europeans give to temporal migration schemes. We believe that they are not enough to tackle the migration pressure both from abroad and from inside. Migrants want to come to europe today, and the european labor market needs them. Temporal migration schemes are not enough to tackle this reality. We need more ideas and proposals.

4.3) As KP we don't agree with ourselves in what groenlinks, or our parliamentarians, should do. Some of us believe that temporal migration schemes are seriously flawed, implying very bad ethical and political positions. Some of us would like to see more attention to a policy such as the northamerican green card system, in which quotas of needed migrants are fixed and staying permits are given randomly to potential migrants. Others from us would like to see a “temporary visum plus” scheme, in which whoever that would like to find a job in europe, might try to do so, and if successful in a reasonable amount of months, should be granted a work-and-residence permit. So we have at least two alternative proposals to the current position of groenlinks.

5) The way to move forward, as the attendants to the last Kleurrijk Platform discussion on the matter agree, is to produce more sustained discussion. Migration is far from being a simple issue, and lots of expertise and research (outside the politician's realm) exist. The Kleurrijk Platform will, in the coming future, organize a round of discussions, with politicians and scientists involved in the matter. Faced with such a crucial issue as migration, and a diversity of opinions on it, we should expand the borders of our discussion club. And we will. Soon a dossier migration is to be compiled in our site (kleurrijker.nl) and open discussions will be announced. Questions that have to be sharpenly answered (among others) follow:

-In what differs a temporary migration scheme anno 2007 with the gastarbeider program from the '70s?
-Why green-card systems are not politically acceptable in europe? Should the greens go for them?
-Should a foreigner be able to compete with a dutch for any job?
-Should integration policy be linked to labour migration policy?
-Is brain drain (a collective phenomenon) reason enough to forbid migrants (individual people) to migrate?


6) Regarding our party groenlinks, we intend to organize a full discussion on migration in the summer, hopefully presenting a proposed updating of our current visietekts on migration. For that final discussion, several expert meetings will be organized before.
Regarding the EGP, groenlinks has chosen a trio of new representants to this federation. IN the short coming time, our contact with Bas Eickhout, Jos van Dijk and Lin Tabak will be reinforced, hoping that one of them, or even one of us groenlinksers, could participate in the EGP werkgroep on migration.
Regarding our people in Brussels, we hope to go on talking. We will participate in the conference to be organized in may, and offering our parliamentarians all the support (and criticism) from which we are capable. If we kleurrijkers agree in something unanimously, is that so far is a pleasure to talk with our european fractie, which has shown itself open to hear our ideas and criticisms.

Groen op 1, sure... maar welke groen?

Regerakoord in hand, a new era opens up in dutch politics. From the six pilars used in the spin of the new governmen (innovatie, concurrentie en ondernemen; duurzame leefomgeving; sociale samenhang; veiligheid, stabiliteit en respect) , one is sustainability. So, at last, we are seeing the moment in which green matters for politics.

Of course, lets all be upset for a moment contemplating the fact that Groenlinks is not part of this government. Femke was right, after all. This cabinet is welcomed as leftier and greener than the previous (Het nieuwe kabinet van CDA, PvdA en ChristenUnie wil „werken aan groei, duurzaamheid, respect en solidariteit". NRC), and we are not needed for that. But hey, that belongs to history now. Lets try to see ahead.

Seeing ahead has been the great added value of the political green movement. Since decades ago we have been saying what today Al Gore is acclaimed for. We can claim success. Not in the power politics, since we are not needed, but in what is more important, the thinking politics. It is possible today, in the light of the government agreement, to claim that our goals as transformers of society has been achieved: sustainability is a relevant part of the political agenda.

So, what now? I can imagine three options. We can dismantle Groenlinks, to start with. Since our goal was to get green in the politics, we won and it's over. Enough Green, then, and let's send a half of our members to the SP, another half to the PvdA, and minorities to the Christen Unie, D66 or even VVD. There is, though, another option. We can go on saying that we, being The Green Party, know better than the other politicians when talking about green. We can poke holes in the current program of government, introduce nice points in the regional elections, maybe even invite Arnold to our meetings, and follow what is today the hype. Guarantee for Better Green will be our motto. And yet we have one option left. We can update ourselves, and try the same movement that Femke succeed in doing with our left-wing ideas. Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen followed up by Eerlijk Groen voor Alles (I thought about Groen NU, or Libertair Groen, but they seems too extreme options).

Not surprisingly my option is the last one. Because I feel a serious problem for us today. I feel that we are left behind. Ask yourself what is the added value of Groenlinks, if a cabinet of the PvdA, CDA and CU is greeted as social and green. Was that not our thing? Are we then needed? Let's not answer that question for now, and let's think what Eerlijk Groen voor Alles might possibly mean. Let's think in a couple of issues.

Begin with population and housing growth. That seems to be the main problem that sustainability faces. How to be friendly with the environment if every second we are more people? I still regret that the congress rejected the idea of creating a new green city, but the way the proposal was moved inside groenlinks was not good. Could we not rethink that proposal, now with discussions in the afdelingen that would be affected? Couldn't we tackle a sacred cow (not only in Groenlinks but in Netherlands) and consider the possibility that the Groene Hart might be once urbanized? Or another sacred cow and consider that without horizontal growth we might need vertical growth? And then get groenlinks developing the idea of “a new skyline for NL”, in which environmentally friendly buildings of hundreds of floors are to be though as new living spaces?

Lets go on with nature as such. I know, it doesn't seem to be a lot of nature left in NL. But then again, why not to recover it aggressively? Imagine groenlinks asking for Rotterdam Harbour be moved into the sea (Dubai style) and recovering the whole area as a nature reserve, starting at the sea line and ending at the Biesbosch. That would probably be the bigger european water reserve. Imagine local afdelingen of groenlinks asking that the water in the channels of any city must be drinkable. Imagine the change of farm culture that such a proyect would imply. Or imagine groenlinks asking for the expropriation of the whole Groene Hart in order to re-create an original european forest. Not only goats and sheeps, but wolves, bears and lynxes, not to mention aurochs and deers.

And for once, let's take serious our cosmopolitan imago, and realize that the real battle against global warming is not fought switching off some of our appliances or commuting from oil to wind power... but protecting the oceans from fishery, and the rain forests from wood extraction and human growth. Lets ask NL first, but then Europe, to play a role in the real biodiversity hotspots, all of them situated today in the third world, and threaten with famine, war or simply human growth.

Who knows, maybe my biologist training blurred my political thinking, and maybe all what I write is politically unacceptable. But the question remains. Is Groenlinks happy with our thinking on green? Or does it need a serious (and according to me, extreme) revision?

Five short lessons from a long congress, and a reflexion

1) We are a debate party, if we are reminded of it:
Call for a discussion and everybody will agree, even the bestuur will support you. But call for the discussion anyway: it is not going to happen for itself. Without the (in)famous motie, no regional meetings would have been planned.

2) Debating is done with transparent points:
Joost Lagendijk carried the day, offering candid criticism on the decision about participation in the government. Leo Platvoet did not carry the day, positioning himself as critic member, but leaving the impression that more than what he said was on his mind.

3) Appeasing is stronger than confronting:
Henk Nijhoff was re-elected. His position was clearly the one of an unifier, the man that can peacefully lead a diverse group. Marcel and Patricia showed (a bit of ) more controversial faces to the congress, and they were not elected.

4) Nobody likes to see the steel under the satin glove, but we like to know that it is there:
Femke speech was brilliant, as usual. Everybody smiled when she compared Paulus de Wilt, Leo Platvoet and Joost Lagendijk with Wouter Bos. That was funny. But there was a shared gasp of the congress on her sting: “once but not again” against Joost Lagendijk. Even the persons that complain about Femke's softness were distresed about this harsh core made visible. But again, perhaps that is why she got an standing ovation, and not Leo Platvoet.

5) We are not scandinavians, but we are not going back to the traditional left
The previous congress took away from the election program every proposal that sounded too rightwingish, or that was fundamental to the scandinavian model. But this will not bring us back to where we were before Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen (gelukkig maar! I would say). Every corridor conversation that was started by “we should go back to the party of Rosemuller” was greeted with boringness and disbelieve. No way back.

But we still do not agree on our goals, a reflexion

Last but not least. We agree to discuss in regional meetings about “the course, the imago and the culture” of groenlinks. I do not believe that there is a real discussion now to give about the course. We like the spirit of Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen, and anyway we'll have a discussion on ideology in the coming two years. And what have we to say about campaign, or imago? Should we really discuss if Femke in a car is a good idea? Or if the slogans were good enough, too elitarian or too whatever? Not really.

The real discussion that we still have to give is our goal as party. Are we trying to get a group of electors, and only one, as the post-materialistic hedonistic are? Are we happy with the idea of a niche party? Or should we go from the niche that we already have to a national position? IN that discussion there is much to be said. It might come out of discussing imago and campaign, but ultimately has much more to do with the culture of our party. If we are really in the search of power, we should be more open. More open to groups that we have abandoned, like allochtonen or educators. We have no structural relations with them. A party of the XXI century is still searching on new ways to reach out. Look at Segolene hearing hours of ranting citizens, profiling herself as a woman of the people. Is that what Femke, Tof or Henk should do? Probably not, we are no French. But what then? How do we change this trend of loosing elections with the winning of the spaces that we ultimately represent? How do we remind the poor and the excluded that we have better solution than other parties for them?

For what I can think, in groenlinks is time to set higher goals. We need connections. A political party is no club of (good) civil servants. A political party is the link in between government and citizen. There we have lots to do. The Kleurrijk Platform, my own club, manage to organize a week ago a meeting with wethouders and raadsleden from the whole land. Groenlinks people, that is. But we still do not talk with the organized migrant, the interesting intellectual like Gowricharm or Ramadan, the teacher of a black school, or the progressive imam. If our culture moves into growing those connections, then we will be on the right way.

Bestuur brainstorm: three issues for discussion

The bestuur of groenlinks utrecht will discuss, or rather brainstorm, about coming year ideas. I want to focus on three issues, and here they are:

De rol van werkgroepen
van independent wat-dan-ook tot vrijzinnig bijdrage aan de afdeling.

The coming year strategy for werkgroepen could be considered to be on two sides. On one side building and on the other side requesting.

The building side refers to the actions that the bestuur can offer to a werkgroep, so that the club works better. Here we talk about jaarplanen, notulen, facilities like budgets, and general support that might come from the partijkantoor, or from the extensive network of contacts that the bestiuur has. Nothing new here, but basically more of the same. Support what werkgroepen want to do, or are already busy doing.

The requesting side refers to something rather new. A political party is an organization that produces political statements, and carries strategies to make them true. Now, what is the performance from werkgroepen in this process so far? My goal here is that werkgroepen are not only given the space, but also asked, to collaborate in the opinion forming process of the party. Accordingly with the interest that the different werkgroepen van groenlinks utrecht have, the bestuur can ask their opinion and imput more frequently. We don't do that frequently enough.

Two notes are important here. In first place, it makes no sense to force any werkgroep to do what they want to do. If the milieu werkgroep, for example, has no interest in evaluating the groenstructuurplan, fine. They don't have to. But the bestuur has to guarantee that at some point they are asked to do so. We have to have the culture of using our potential, and not only wait for the potential to express itself. The second important remark is that advice from werkgroepen, inside groenlinks, is not binding. So if the sociaal werkgroep advices the fractie to drop all support to reintegratie projecten, and the fractie does not agree, that is fine as well. What the bestuur has to support is that a good debate exists in the afdeling, giving space to different opinions, and that our politicians profit as much as possible from our experts.

De rol van internet: van informatie geven-de media tot discussie vermogen.

Lets get on my prefered wooden horse :-) the internet. Let's first recognize what is good about our use of internet. Take a look at groenlinksutrecht.nl and, in comparison with the design of other political websites, our site is by far and large the nicer looking. In according with the current imago from Groenlinks, as well. Fresh and good to see. Also regarding contents we are very good. Recently I tried to track the work of fractieleden in the gemeenteraad. Groenlinks is the unique party that has online all written questions, and is very actual in what are the issues that our politicians are busy with. Our site is a very good site to learn what are we doing as party. Can be better, but it is good.

Now, another look uncovers my main criticism. Groenlinksutrecht.nl does not have a single space for discussion online. If you consider the impact that internet today has in politics is definitively not as a media of giving information. Internet from the last years has grow to be a discussion space. Blogs play a very important role in the shaping of opinions, and discussion fora are of uttermost importance in recruiting not only new ideas, but also new people. Take a look at the campaign that brought Segolene to the front: an internet campaign of open fora. Take a look at the recruiting successes from Dean, in the USA. Grass roots movements were engaged in his position as emergent leader by the simple use of internet as a binding factor.

From this trend groenlinks utrecht is totally away. My hope for the coming year is that we give steps in this direction. We have positive experiences in the past. Check the program site, who included voices never active in our ring of meetings and assemblies. Ideas overlook by the programma commisie, such as a list of points per neighborhood, came from this site. And many new members as well.

It is my goal then that groenlinksutrecht.nl evolves in this direction. Detail we can discuss in the more restrictive context of a web-redactie, of a series of expert meetings of internet users. But let's agree in this brainstorm that we can, and should, use internet as another forum of discussion inside our afdeling.


Andere vergadering strategie? Een vergadering voor inhoud, een vergadering voor organisatie.

Last but not least, our meetings. In the last one we were able to evaluate our priorities, since Tjeerd make clear which agenda points are to share information, which ones for organizative purposes, which ones for discussion, and which ones for decision making. Looking at the watch I see that we expend long time in hearing how technical issues are carried. And we expend less time in opinon forming, and far worse, in decision making.

Now, I would not want that this bestuur becomes a discussion organism. One of the most clear successes of the previous bestuur is to have organized a overseeing organism, unable to do this job before. Today groenlinks utrecht counts with the luxury of having a functioning bestuur, which was not the case few years ago. This work has to be preserved.

But it can not go against oher tasks of the bestuur from a political party. What we are facing today (or what we have the luxury of face today, now that the administration works) is the lack of time to discuss standpoints.

My proposal is here relatively simple. Let's have alternating meetings. If we meet around twice a month, we can have one meeting fully allocated to administrative issues, and another meeting fully allocated to decision/discussion issues. Let's meet once a month to lead the organizational aspects of our afdeling, fundamental as they are. Let's give good time to check the finances, the work invested in new members, the organization of the coming big debate. And let's once per month focus fully in the political agenda of the afdeling. Which are the contents of the next ledenberaad? What is the best issue to be discussed in the coming ALV? What goes on with the content of the permamente campaign? Are the werkgroepen agendas updated? And so forth.

Of course, let's keep open the possibility that in one “organizational meeting” there is a conceptual issue that can not wait, and viceversa, the possibility that in a “conceptual meeting” there is an organizatorial issue that is of utmost urgency. The idea here is not to be enslaved by a predefined agenda, but surely to give enough time to each of the tasks that a bestuur has to fulfill. And not only time (because after all I am not proposing that we meet more frequently) but more focus.

MOTIE EVALUATIE VERKIEZINGEN

Het congres van GroenLinks, bijeen op 3 februari 2007 te Utrecht

overwegende

dat GroenLinks bij de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 22 november 2006 wederom heeft verloren;
dat de politieke plaatsbepaling van GroenLinks als hét groene en linkse alternatief aan hevige erosie onderhevig is;
dat er in vele geledingen van GroenLinks bezorgde en kritische geluiden zijn te horen over de koers en het (elitaire) imago van GroenLinks en over de wijze waarop de besluitvorming hierover heeft plaatsgevonden;

voorts overwegende
dat het partijbestuur heeft besloten om een discussie te starten over plaatsbepaling, strategie en partijcultuur, uitmondend in een amendeerbaar congresstuk dat in 2008 vastgesteld moet worden, maar dat hieraan voorafgaand een partijbrede evaluatie van de laatste verkiezingen moet plaatsvinden;
dat het partijbestuur van plan is om in het voorjaar van 2007 een uitgebreide evaluatie van de permanente campagne te houden (inclusief de drie laatste verkiezingen: gemeenteraden, Tweede Kamer er Provinciale Staten), maar dat het voor een vruchtbare evaluatie noodzakelijk is de onderhand gebruikelijke top-down benadering los te laten;

verzoekt het partijbestuur

in het kader van het verzamelen van informatie voor deze evaluatie twaalf provinciale bijeenkomsten te beleggen waarbij de leden van GroenLinks in de gelegenheid worden gesteld om met het partijbestuur vrijelijk te discussiëren over de verkiezingscampagnes en de koers van GroenLinks;
de opstelling van dat evaluatierapport in handen te leggen van een evenwichtig samengestelde, onafhankelijke commissie, die door de partijraad wordt gekozen.

steun? email aan PWilt@raad.amsterdam.nl, or inti@scicha.org

And now, we go public

It is always a pleasure to read groenlinksers that make it to the broad media, so congrats to our planeet inhabitant Harmen Binnema & Co, with the article published today in the NRC "Afhaken bij formatie is historische fout van groenlinks".

Indeed the decisions of the Tweede Kamer fractie have been controversial, and some of the controversy have reached the media. When the election-program was agreed, we got newspapers articles critical of the choices made. Now we are not taking part in the coalition forming discussions, and that produces controversy as well. We remain a party that has lots and lots to debate. All good and well.

Nicer it would be, anyway, that some of this controversy would have been ventilated in the decision-taking instances of the party. Call it congress, call it partijraad, or call it landelijke bestuur. Even in the ALV from our afdelingen. Too bad that critical people such as Harmen has not -yet- produced the internal debate that we need... so much.

The C word comes back with a revenge: on coalition

Planeetgroenlinks' orbit has an interesting horizontal-eight figure right now, which is the figure not only from infinite, but also the one that results when something turns around two poles of attraction: Shall or shall we not go for a coalition?

Most groenlinksers seems to be satisfied by the declarations of Cees Vendrik, when he said that not being relevant winners of the elections, we should not be in the coalition. Many arguments supporting this position have been aired in the past days. One is that being part of a government implies less seats in the next election. Another argument is that being government against strong opposition -the SP- will be political suicide. And yet another is that being in govenrment with the PvdA is also political suicide, since we are after all not that different than the social-democrats. Further, it has been suggested that if we would enter in negotiations, we should enter in a strenght position, not really willing to negotiate much of our election program.

Much of these arguments are easy to reject. Sure, it will be difficult for a moderate left wing party as GL be part of government with SP in the opposition. But is it not as hard as being in the opposition with the SP? GL is a bad opposition party, let's not be too polite about it. On the other side, it is possible that being at the side of the PvdA will blurr our identity, as it has happened in the last four years, with Bos using GL standpoints frequently. But having a minister will make it more likely that GL identity shall get anchored to a good concrete piece of work. consider the reputation of Herman as R'dam wethouder or the first months of Marijke in A'dam.

All in all, in the argumentation of the “coalition refuseniks” runs a common concern. Any likely coalition in which groenlinks coul work today is less than perfect. Or with the PvdA, or against the SP, or with the CDA, etc etc etc. But hold on for a moment. Is it likely that conditions would get better anyway? No way. GL is a party that will remain small for quite a while. Any scenario for a first coalition is going to be hard, so why not try it now?

And to round up the discussion, what about the responsibility of politicians? I mean, if we go to elections, we do have the responsibility of trying hard as we can to influence government, isn't that the point? Can we really afford to refuse an offer to be part of the government? I think we can't. And let's nail down this argument with a paranoid prediction: suppose that SP, GL and eventually even PvdA refuse to form govenrment. Can you imagine a CDA-VVD-PvdV-(and so forth) coalition? Wouldn't that be lovely? And wouldn't we be accomplices of such a disaster, if refusing when we could form other coalition?

internet question: GL meetings online AND alive

A question for the experts out there:

I want the possibility that GL meetings can be visited online. The idea would be to have a computer with camera in the meeting, so that people that want to attend, but is far away, or has to stay home babysitting... could log in and attend the meeting from home. So, I want to simply setup a videoconference system, so that members prevented to show up in the vergaderzaal could follow it (and participate in it) from elsewhere.

That would require some software. I can imagine several possibilities, but probably there are some of you people that do this already (for fun, or for your jobs). Any suggestion how to set it up?

Perhaps needles to say, this idea comes from the situation at the Kleurrijk Platform. We want to involve "multicultis" that are active locally... but it is hard to get somebody from say groningen to come regularly to meetings in Utrecht, or in A'dam. The participation drempel would be lowered if we have a videoconference system. Not to mention travelling costs... both in money and in pollution! I suppose that the idea could be useful for other landelijke werkgroepen... maybe some do it already?

I'll be looking forward to reactions...

The L word

Leadership, leadership! We need another leader. Or we need more leadership. Or we need less leadership? The L word becomes -very fast- a lastig word. Or rather a boring word.

After some initial words of satisfaction, and then after the cold blooded analysis of numbers from David Rietveld, it is clear that Groenlinks has been defeated in the last election. Does that have to mean that the relevant issue is the leadership of Femke? I hope that the antics of Verdonk and Rutte give us the needed soberness to evaluate what happens when we focus on the poppertjes. A sorry state of affairs, that is. The VVD today follows the known dictum: “When in confusion, run in circles and shout” What they are shouting is leaders, leaders! We need a better leader! Or: I'm the leader! I'm the leader!

Are we going to follow suit here?

Yesterday I wrote about coaches and ceos. The intended point is that a political party is nor a football team nor a business. Moreover, Femke (in principle, but only her, also the party top) has deserved our support for the course that she set up. Part of the decided strategy has not been successful, at least not in the elections. So now is time to evaluate what went wrong, and what changes are we willing to do. Then it makes sense to see which team is going to carry those changes, if changes we decide to have.

I am strongly convinced that we need more clarity in our political activism. But let's not allow ourselves to get convinced that clarity boils down to single words. Coaching or Leadership, Coalitions or CEOs are merely headlines of a discussion. What we need to think is in the content of the discussion. Let's help the partijbestuur to organize that sotto voce coming discussion on our ideas in the coming year, let's see who is willing to walk into the partijbestuur from december onwards. As you dutchies say, there is enough work to do in the winkel. Not the time to run in circles screaming for the head of somebody, rather the time to use our own heads.

The C word(s)

Coach, coalition, CEO. All C words. It looks like we wonder a lot about them recently. We groenlinksers, that is.

To start with the Coach -or CEO-. The metaphor of the football team is apt. If the team plays nicely, but win no match, the owners are due to change the coach. So: are we intending to change coach Femke? Should we?

The word CEO comes next. In a business is the CEO the main strategist and coordinator, able not only to give the right vision of future strategy, but also able to coordinate the capabilities of the company. It is true that an amount of disgruntled groenlinksers are around, asking for more left, more action, more clarity, more environment, more... It looks like this group is not happy with the way Femke leads our boat.

Both C words, the coach and the CEO, are no good for Femke's future as groenlinks leader.
But what about the coalition word?

It seems to me that an undercurrent of groenlinksers, far larger than the ones that publicly criticize Femke's leadership, is just waiting. Up to the moment in which finally a coalition will start working. It seems clear that the CDA-PvdA-SP combination has a big chance, at least right now. But what about in some weeks from now? Or in some months? What about the old view of groenlinks as hinge party, capable to play a definitive role in some sort of CDA-VVD-GL alike coalition (very unlikely) or even in a CDA-PvdA-GL alike one... What about that chance?

It could all boil down to nothing. It could be that the current combination gets a fair shoot at government, or a rightwing coalition ends up in power after a long negotiation night. Who knows? What I have heard too frequently lately is that, up to the moment in which the chips will be down in the table, GL is not ready to close the account Halsema.

No nice result for groenlinks... shall we go back to our bases?

Seven seats is a defeat. Whether we like it or not, we have been rebuffed by the electorate of NL. The ones that abandoned the -sinking- ship of the PvdA did not jump in our trendy and wind-powered boat. Neither choose they for our hybrid auto. Our potential electors preferred the delivery bus of Jan Marijnissen, -probably powered by cheap and good old diesel- which indeed delivered many -many!- new seats.

Even the “allochtoon hope” went for the chauvinistic SP. Multiculturality a la groenlinks -if there was any doubt- is dead in allochtoon netherlands. The ethnic voter of NL decided, if Focuz got it right, for the unique guarantee of left wing that they could see, and that was the SP.

So, what can we learn from the SP? For once, I am not the one to propose a left radicalization of Groenlinks. For sure we will have this discussion in the party, when, from January onwards, the bestuur will tackle a beginsel programma. But there I stand on the side of Cees Vendrik, Bart Snels and Femke. I see no progressive option to the libertarian ideas that were sketched in Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen, and implemented in our election program. That is the way to go.

My question, then, is not where. But how. And with whom.

And that is where we have a big fu--ing lot to learn from the SP. Who is going to carry our ideas to a future, winning election? No other than groenlinksers. My answer, then, is the kader. Today in the Volkskrant an SP prominent remarks that the SP counts with as many active members as all other parties together. That is what we have to learn from the SP. Not their ideas, but yes to their activism.

My experience in the past four years as active member of groenlinks is that we have a party seriously focused in our leaders. Werkgroepen that have no relevance to the current work of fractieleden (european, national or local level) survive in the shadows of the irrelevance. If the kader organizes something, is to back up our leadership. But the -libertarian- initiative of a self standing groenlinks member is hard to find. Surely, groenlinksers have all busy agendas and are all involved in many clubs. But do we coordinate that broad spectrum of activism with the politics of our party? Hardly. Does our party uses the immense societal experience of groenlinks members? Seldom. So far, that has not been our style. We have preferred the silent and elegant work of the good expert, or the good activist, able to carry her -or his- agenda in scarce contact with his -or her- party.

Groenlinks does not profit from the expertise of her members.

My way to go, then, is to focus in a party that can really activate her members. A party that recognizes and uses the potentialities of our ledenbestand. Not only to fill seats in a debate with fractieleden, but to discuss, to carry actions, to give flyers. The groenlinksers, the huge amount of groenlinksers that are active in this society, should come our of the closet. And our party should welcome them.

For a reverse of this defeat.

The country looks at hers navel... and we loose: The chauvinism of the SP and the PvV carry the day.

To think in the composition of the next parliament, go back to the referendum on the european constitution. Against the advice of most big parties, the treaty was rejected. At that moment we were faced with a sub-estimated current of opinion. When deciding for a treaty -not even a constitution- that seemed to give more power to Brussels, the majority of the country defied their political leaders and said no. In one way or another, that referendum brought the traditional understanding of NL as an outgoing and globalized country to an end.

The Netherlands is a chauvinist country.

Now, turn to the results of yesterday election. The winners, even if they are not likely to take part in the coming government, are the SP and the PvV. It is not a coincidence that both were opposed to the european treaty. It is neither a coincidence that both are conservative parties, even if at odds in ideology. Think in Groenlinks again, and remember that our election program was -by far and large- the best international minded set of proposals. Consider our far reaching internationalism. It is no surprise that we loose this election.

In an anti globalization climate, Groenlinks is the looser.

So far we have been focus on intelligent renovation. Our imago, trendy and modern, speaks of a sophisticated reform, not of a conservative revolution. The higher newcomer in our list of candidates is an internationalist. But for electing NL, internationalists are not priority. The winning slogans of the elections are “less power for brussels” and “less islam for Holland”. Both ideas are misleading and mistaken, and nevertheless, election winners.

We are told that groenlinks will discuss her ideology from january onwards. But perhaps our ideology is not so much the problem. Perhaps what we should learn, and discuss, and take lessons from, is the country in which we live. This elections will not change my mind about the need of international engagement. But it surely will make me think about the relevance that this particular issue has for The Netherlands today.

If you care for ideologies, this country is polarizing. The big increase in votes is in the far left and in the far right. But the political ideas of a population of 16 million persons do not change in five years. The big parties are loosing ground, since long time ago. The image that Netherlanders have of Netherlands is being slowly but constantly changing. And the winners of this round has one thing in common. Both want back to the past in which this country, their country, was united and powerful. As in other countries of the world, and in other times, the discredit of social and christian democrats opens the space for nationalism.

The country splits in the ideas... and we loose: The PvdA to the SP and the VVD to Wilders.

The past Sunday I assisted a debate in the Kwakoe podium, in Amsterdam, to discuss the groenlinks program with migrants, mostly from surinamese background. For a while I chatted with Cees Vendrik, before the debate started. Cees told me that one of the most clear results of the “Fortuyn revolution” was the irrelevance hat the content has today in the politics. A similar comment comes from Tom de Graaf today in the Volkskrant. He claims that the politics of today pays attention to performance and not any longer to contents.

So it shows the results of the elections.

If anything is clear is that we live in a divided country. Few years ago the election was carried by the populist right, and today is carried by the populist left. Groenlinks, in the center not being populist but surely leftwing, had loosed votes. Against every poll, the party of Wilders has won even more seats than us. So what we are looking at is a big movement against the neo conservative policy of the CDA, which express itself in his own “garantie op links”, the SP, instead of Groenlinks. And a resilient and relevant movement to the right, which votes Wilders instead of voting VVD.

In this environment, Groenlinks is the looser.

It could be that Cees, or De Graaf, are right. In a political environment in which performance stays on top of everything, Groenlinks has no chance. Our standpoints are nuanced, and surely not populist. We do not want to change that, and we will not. But under this analysis, we are doomed to the slow decrease that D66 faces today.

There is, though, a different analysis. It is hard to believe that Jan performs so much better than Femke. But it is possible -or at least discussable- that Jan is more clear than Femke. It is not about standpoints, and it is not about performance. It is about clarity.

Clarity is what the two big winners of this election share. We can argue against the SP and the PvV with hundred arguments, but there is no doubt in the voter what they stand for. Against muslims and against Balkenende. Well to the right and well to the left.

Irt might be that this country is hankering for performance. But it has rewarded ideological simplicity... at each extreme of the spectrum.

werkgroepen at groenlinks utrecht, III: meeting day

Werkgroepen dag

One of the things that I checked in my walking around werkgroepen inside the Utrecht afdeling is that we count with several clubs that are well aware of the existence of other clubs... but do not have much contact with them.

Of course, one might ask why a groenlinkser busy with environment activism should have anything to do with groenlinksers migrant organizations. Actually, most active groenlinksers have a really busy agenda, and groenlinks activism is one among many other activities. So in principle is always a bit difficult to get an active member to do a bit more, outside her -or his- sphere of actions. Nevertheless, one could always imagine that groenlinksers can profit from meeting other groenlinksers.

To give a couple of examples, the Linksom redactie is always on the lookout for activities that can be reported in our ledenblaad. Many times we are too slow to find what is going on, not because nothing is going on, but because we don't know who is doing what... and when. Or there are werkgroepen that consider the possibility of organizing a politiek cafe, but have little contact with the werkgroep politiek cafe.

So it is easy to imagine that werkgroepen could profit from knowing each other. But how? What would be the activity that would be attractive for werkgroep members, would not take a lot of time, and would offer a net gain of experience?

Thinking along this lines, I have a simple proposal. Imagine a saturday/sunday afternoon. After lunch and before dinner, there is a window of couple useful hours. Along this time, werkgroepen are called to the partijkantoor. For welcoming we could hear in -say half an hour- a little talk on current bestuur plans. Then, each werkgroep is asked to give a five minutes presentation of their actions. Considering that the afdeling utrecht has some seven different active clubs, we are 45 minutes later. We have some half an hour left, and that can be used to shoot questions around.

With this setup in mind, we have a two hours session, in which clubs of active members of groenlinks will know what their collegas are busy with. More interesting than that, we would have associated names with faces, perhaps even some telephone numbers and emails would be exchanged. Surely, everybody knows that there is such a thing as a cultuur werkgroep. But would you be able to greet one of her members in the street? Or, would you know whom to contact when hearing about organized Zuilenaren that are busy with air pollution? Yeah, to the fractie... but whom from the milieu werkgroep? Would the milieu werkgroep care to know? This trivial questions, if properly answered, could help in making groenlinks utrecth a better oiled machine... or a well connected ecosystem, if the technological metaphor is unpleasant.

werkgroepen at groenlinks utrecht, II: internet

I am convinced that well functioning werkgroepen of groenlinks must have their own internet site. The afdeling utrecht has done some work about it. So far it is possible to surf the site, and eventually come to descriptions of werkgroepen, mostly updated, with at least the contact data from the werkgroep contact person. The question is if this is enough. And if the asnwer is not, then what should be in a werkgroepen site? It can not be too much, because not all werkgroepen have the time, nor the expertise to keep a full site well updated.

Accordingly, I have here put together a list of site-items that I consider minimal for a werkgroep-site. It is my opinion that the afdeling should offer them as a possibility to the existing werkgroepen, and also offer the (minimal) expertise to keep this information updated. If you read further, there isn't more than what a normal werkgroep already does, or have. The proposal then, is to organize the existing way of working, the existing organization, and the existing products of werkgroepen, in internet. A party should be transparent, and werkgroepen are fundamental in the good life of a party. So, take a look at this list, and react! Should more be asked/offered? Or less?


Minimal internet for werkgroepen

Text

Description of the group
History
notulen (if produced)
Last produced documents
photos

Invitational

agenda of activities
meetings dates
contact data

Linked

internet sites
other organizations
relevant parts of government
contact fractielid
other politicians

Interactive

possibility of being member registered online
discussion pieces with possibility of reaction (?)
blogs (not per se from members)
own forum, or stored discussion list (only for online members?)
standardized email list, possibility of register online (accessible archives)

21 minutes and integration

Out of a comment form Michel Klijmij, I remember that at least in this weblog, I have never written what I understand as “integration”. Obviously my readers know that I don't care that much about integration-as-writing-in-Dutch. And from my previous post it is clear that, at least for me, integration is not emancipation, nor emancipation is integration. So: what is integration?

I must recognize that my idea comes from a meeting that occurred in De Balie, say four years ago. There was then a day organized around migration. Speakers from academia were invited, and eventually their work was published in the Journal of Population Economics, I believe. A scientific meeting for researchers from migration studies happened in the days before, and the event at De Balie was an open discussion with the public about their results. Of course, at some moment the researchers were debating what was to be understood by integration. Different opinions were exchanged, and surely the cultural view was discussed. Surely some scientists defended the view that an integrated foreigner is the person that shares a big deal of the culture of the country in which he lives. Then the scientist expend some time trying to figure out if such a thing as “the culture of a country” can be defined. Not surprisingly, that was a confusing discussion, without agreement. Finally, a Dutch researcher,with a PhD in Belgium and currently carrying research in Paris brought some order, or at least some sense, in the fuzzy discussion about culture: “integration should be measurable, and there are three areas of public policy that we can evaluate and measure. We can count how many people has a job, what are the education levels, and how is the situation in the housing market.” Simply said: how you work, where you live, and what's your education level.

Since then, I keep this criteria in mind at talking about integration. A person is integrated in a society if he or she studied, works and lives in ways that are comparable to the rest of the population of the country. If you want, call it fair participation: you are integrated if you fairly participate in the labour, educational and housing markets.

Ok. That was integration. Now, let's go back to the enquete 21 minutes. The NRC claims the saturday that integration is a concern of autochtonen, not of allochtonen. Would that be true? Indeed, if you compare the attention that integration gets in the autochtoon population, you get 29%, a high percentage indeed. Turks give this category 15% relevance, Marokans 21%. Let's assume that those percentages are indeed statistically different. Now... what about integration regarding work, housing or education? Are those issues relevant for the allochtoon population of NL? There the answer becomes fuzzier. Averaging, allochtonen care for education as much as autochtonen, 20%. Then, about housing, it looks like the black neighbourhoods issue is not really an issue: autochtonen care 6% and allochtonen care 7% about housing. But hey, werkloosheid does matter. Autochtonen think of it as a rather irrelevant problem, with 5% of attention, in the position 15 of a list of 17 issues. But allochtonen are concerned as much as 13%, putting this issue inside the top-ten concerns.

So what is here to be learned for groenlinks, and our priorities around “the allochtoon question”? Well, it is certainly a good choice to make discrimination at the working place the central issue in the campaign directed to young allochtonen, as the choice of our campaign is. Once again, a vague word such as integration does not raises the attention of people. But being out of a job, that matters. As the politicologist Jean Tilly has repeatedly said, the strive for integration should be focused on socio-economic questions, and not any longer on cultural assimilation. The cultural flag, a very right wing (and racist, with copyright to Tofik) flag, is not ours to rally for. Lets stay in track with our left agenda, and keep busy with labour. It is not emancipation, and it is not even the economy (stupid?)... it is your job.

21 minutes

The enquete 21 minutes is out. Does it matter for Groenlinks? Well, let's answer this question in positive. It does matter. Three reasons, among many:

1) From the undecided voter, groenlinks is the party with more chances.
2) The acherban from Groenlinks is the more restricted.
3) Groenlinks is the party that has lost more votes from the allochtoon population.

Lets go in these points:

The undecided, and our restricted interests

The perspective that 21minutes gives will certainly make the strategic council of groenlinks happy. Indeed Groenlinks is the party that retains most former voters. Only the CDA enjoys our 52% of re-incident voters, meaning that 52% of the people that vote groenlinks in the previous elections, will vote groenlinks again. The estrategic inset of groenlinks campaign was to preserve our voters as a first priority, and in the view of 21minutes, the strategy works out. Now, consider the challengers that such strategy produce. From the people that does not know yet what to vote, a huge majority considers GL as their likely choice (41%, followed by 37% of the SP). The question remains: If we have such a big potential in the undecided voter, does it make sense to campaign for the people that votes GL always? My answer would be no, not really. It seems that GL has still to want to get all those votes waiting for us to be obtained. It seems to me that groenlinksers are just too confortable in our position as small party, with a restricted set of interesting issues. Consider the conceptual spread of the groenlinks acterban. There is no other party with an achterban that cares for less issues than us. My thinking here is that we have to dare to be more ambitious, both conceptually and strategically. Reading what dutch people care for, groenlinks certainly cares for much of the same: more solidarity, better social care, better environment. But we should want to become a real alternative to the PvdA.




The bleeding allochtoon voter, and the Kleurrijk Platform

The bleeding, and not the bloody. Once upon a time, or say, in the last national elections, Groenlinks enjoyed a luxurious position with the allochtoon voter. We were indeed the party which allochtonen wanted to vote for. No longer. We are the party that most votes preserve, as I said above... but we are also the party that has lost most votes from the allochtoon population. The allochtoon blood from our party is bleeding away. And that is a serious problem. It seems to me unneeded to argue that a by-product of the fortuin revolution is the hardening of our society in regards of the allochtoon. So I would expect that allochtonen would, if anything, fly over to the ranks of groenlinks. That has not happened. Instead, we have loose them. Why?

Well, several answers are possible. As vz of the Kleurrijk Platform, I recognize that our werkgroep, if anything at all, has diminished its importance inside Groenlinks. In the last four years we have disagreed with the crucial decisions of our party regarding concepts and strategies towards the allochtoon question. We did not, and do not believe that integration can happen through emancipation. We though then that this was an unfortunate political choice. And we disagreed with the choices that this campaign has made. The multicultural issue should not be framed as a tolerance issue. Migrants in this country do not wish to be tolerated, nobody does. The migrants, as the 21minutes enquete shows, strongly care for the core issues of left wing parties: social security and economical inequality. Groenlinks does not need to become a allochtoon populist party to regain her votes, groenlinks needs only to work her own, left wing agenda better.

But of course, it is just too easy to claim that because groenlinks do not agree with the Kleurrijk Platform, groenlinks has lost the allochtoon vote. From my viewpoint, the Kleurrijk Platform in the particular, and the active migrant groenlinkser in the general must be much more assertive inside the party life. Inside groenlinks we are bad politicians. We have allowed our kader to bleed away, and we have failed to convince our partijgenoten of our views. From the viewpoint of the Kleurrijk Platform, improvement in groenlinks starts by improvement of the migrant politician inside Groenlinks.

global ranks

With the new number of Foreign Policy comes the sixth version of their globalization index. This one corresponds to data from 2004. Surprinsingly enough, NL comes lower this year. Well, perhaps is not a surprise, because NL goes on loosing her position in the top ten globalized countries. Two years ago it was number 4, in 2005 number 5 and now we go down to number 6.



But given that politicians have discovered once again global warming with the Stern report, perhaps this graph is more interesting. Look at the position of NL in respect to production of pollution



So...not much to be proud of... will the elections result change this? One can always hope!

Politicians meet global warming at last, or again?

Well, good news for groenlinks, one might say. De Stern report get the attention of bloggers (not only from this planeet) elsewhere. Even my Venezuelan friends are hot on the issue, even if their incomes depend on selling the black gold (or devil's shit, as oil was known around hundred years ago). Even Blair is paying Gore to spin more attention to the dangers of global warming. Groenlinks might claim, again, to be in the avant garde of the political thinking for the future.

Now, one wonders. It is a bit surprising that so many people seems so excited about this report. Similar research is known since long time ago. Take, among many others, a paper published in Nature back in 2001. (De Leo et al, 413: 478-479) Then the authors already researched on the winnings of honouring the commitments of Kyoto. Maybe it was too much of a positive view. Back then everybody carped on the costs of Kyoto, and De Leo and colleagues, researchers associated to the university of Rome, showed that complying with Kyoto will be (or actually would have been) far cheaper than not complying with it. But hey, other issues came in the global agenda. Inflamed oil crashed on the twin towers, so we got more concerned with terrorists than with the means that gave them so much money in the first place.

Ok, five years later we might be back on track. The impact of Gore antics are not to be easily dismissed, at least up to the moment that he decides about his presidential aspirations in 2008. Blair might be on his way out of number 10, but he is another relevant actor in the international limelight, and who knows, he might come out in due time with his own filmpje.

The sarcastic tone is intended. Because, actually, what all this brouhaha shall bring? That is hard to predict. In principle, if one compares elections programs in NL today, it looks like Groenlinks has infiltrated thinkers in any other political party. Sustainability is a mainstream mantra,and even grisly right wingers talk about more money and more attention to the cause of clean air and better environment. But I keep on wondering, how much of this is to become real? Meanwhile my son takes swimming lessons in one of the two public swimming pools of Utrecht, both artificially heated, I look at the grey sky. Are we as collective willing to make the hard decisions that a reduction of pollution imply? I must say that I doubt it. Outside this bar there is a bunch of bicycles parked, from so many other parents waiting for their children. Few meters away, a busy road streams with cars, or diesel buses. Even here, in the small and flat Utrecht, cars are a main transport media. And let's not even begin with the mass consumption of energy, produced in fossil energy-guzzling factories. Our societies today consume far too much, and whether we like it or not, our lifestyle is not sustainable. Probably a election campaign is not the right moment to make headlines with it, but we should know better. The support of our life standards is costing the extinction of whole ecosystems and the poverty of a big part of the world, beyond our neat dams. To take the Stern report seriously would mean to rethink almost every step of our life. Are we able to do it? Are Gore and the Stern report enough to convince us? Or, to put a far more disgusting question: are we able to grooeimee at all, if we are to keep it sustainable?

posters

They say that an image is worth a thousand words. Let's try, for a change:



across the fence



the campaign is getting hot

Murder in amsterdam... is it really about the limits of tolerance?

For all allochtonen that care about politics, the last book of Ian Buruma is a must. And probably for dutchies too!

Buruma, as any other expat, follows the developments in his country. No surprise that he finds them shocking. How comes that the hypertolerant Netherlands has become a country that denies her glories as multicultural paradise, in such an extreme way to get politicians killed? Or ejected, in a political power play, from the country? That question, predating most of the book, is very relevant. Here in NL we might think that the integration and immigration debate is gone from the politics (as election programs have it), but in europe the issue is alive and kicking, so it will be alive, and kicking in NL for quite a while.

My concern is hat actually the book is not so much about “the limits of tolerance”, as its subtitle has it , but rather about the ways in which the world has a direct, and powerful, influence in NL politics. Two of the most poignant analysis of Buruma are about Mohammed B and about Irsi Ali. He spend great prose thinking about these two characters of our ongoing multicultural drama.

And if you think about it, both characters are telling us that the world matters right here and right now. Take Irsi Ali. The very bogus asilum seeker, (as she describes herself, and not for her faking a name) seems to have imported her political concerns into dutch politics. Her war does not seem to be the emancipation of (muslim) women. Buruma vividly describes a chat that keep Ali busy for a little while with muslim women, and her haughty dismissal of them. The war of Ali is rather bigger, about the way islam threatens her own view of the enlightenment. If you don't believe it, just take a look at her current job.

Or think about Mohammed B. Surely he -rather dramatically- illustrate the process of alienation that our underclass of economical and social outsiders can (or is) going through.. But the alienation of Bouyeri is well connected with the broader world. Buruma clearly illustrates the naivety of some thinkers that hope for the solution of the palestina, or iraqui questions, so that the islam question might disappear as well. That is not the case. But, perhaps more relevant for european politics... would Bouyeri has gone that far, without internet videos of beheading in the middle east? Would the anger of the young muslim, living excluded in europe today, drive him to a terrorist cell, if Al Qaida would not be the PR success that it is?

So in my view, Buruma's book belongs better to the row of books that today attack, or praise, globalization. Luckily the writer is smart enough not to have subtitled it “the world is indeed flat” as Friedman did with his. But Buruma is not talking about what we call tolerance... he is talking about the tolerance of our societies to the politics beyond the damns. Quite a exciting issue, and if not convinced, think about the PvdA and her turks. But ok, that might be the issue for another column.

invited article: GroenLinkscongres: forse correcties op de partijkoers

Paulus de Wilt wrote an article that, with his permission, i reproduce here. I think is worth the reading, by far and large...

GroenLinkscongres: forse correcties op de partijkoers

Het was een beetje een vreemde gewaarwording op het congres van GroenLinks in Zwolle. Wie het vaker meegemaakt heeft, herkent de patronen. Gewoonlijk worden er slechts één of twee amendementen aangenomen tegen het preadvies in. (Per slot van rekening wil het congres laten zien wie de baas is.) Daarover ontstaat dan wat gerommel, omdat partijbestuur of programmacommissie het punt toch wel erg belangrijk vond. Dit keer ging het anders. Op een fors aantal – vaak essentiële punten – werd het programma aangepast. Maar niet de programmacommissie was teleurgesteld, maar juist de criticasters van het programma.

Enkele tientallen leden liepen zelfs boos weg bij het congres. In hun ogen was GroenLinks opgehouden een sociale partij te zijn. De lijn van Vrijheid eerlijk delen – de ‘discussienota’ van Femke Halsema en Ineke van Gent over het sociale stelsel – was onvoldoende afgewezen door het congres. Nu bevatte die discussienota 18 voorstellen – de meeste daarvan onomstreden. De kritiek richtte zich op 3 hoofdpunten: de versoepeling van het ontslagrecht, de invoering van CAO-verkiezingen en het verkorten van de WW tot 12 maanden. (Ter verduidelijking van dat laatste: na die 12 maanden krijgen de mensen een participatiebaan aangeboden op minimumloonniveau – dat bovendien 10% stijgt.)
Vreemd genoeg zou een oplettende objectieve toeschouwer denken, dat op al deze punten het programma niet de lijn van Vrijheid volgt, maar veel meer aansluit bij de traditionele standpunten van GroenLinks.
Zo werd de versoepeling van het ontslagrecht al door de programmacommissie ingeslikt: in plaats daarvan nam men op dat ‘de ontslagbescherming van flexwerkers verbeterd moet worden’ en ‘De ontslagprocedures worden kort en eenduidig’. Een aantal congresdeelnemers las dat laatste echter als een verkapte vorm van versoepeling. Amendementen om de zin te schrappen werden door het congres verworpen. Misschien jammer, maar de tekst van de programmacommissie was al een overwinning van de criticasters van de liberale koers.
Wat betreft de CAO-verkiezingen kan men zeker tevreden zijn. Dit punt werd door het congres uit het programma geschrapt. Voor degenen die het debat niet gevolgd hebben: de discussie gaat hierbij om de vraag of niet-vakbondsleden invloed moeten hebben op de CAO-onderhandelingen. Femke en Ineke bestempelden hun voorstel als een CAO-referendum. Geheel ten onrechte, omdat ze juist voorstelden de onderhandelingsdelegatie door alle werknemers te laten kiezen, niet om na afloop het resultaat voor te leggen. Door vele mensen in de vakbeweging werd dit voorstel gezien als een frontale aanval op de bonden. Immers waarom zou iemand nog lid worden van een vakbond als de belangrijkste taak – een CAO afsluiten – niet meer door de bonden zou gebeuren? Het amendement om deze ‘verkiezingen’ te schrappen werd aangenomen. Het optreden van Jup van ‘t Veld bij dit punt heeft hem duidelijk geholpen om een plek op de kandidatenlijst te verwerven (Jup werd uiteindelijk elfde).
Blijft over het punt van de verkorting van de WW-duur. Daarover ontstond een heftige discussie op het congres. Velen wilden een amendement van Amsterdam aannemen dat simpelweg zei: ‘geen verdere verslechtering van de WW’. Net als bijna alle andere amendementen met een gelijksoortige inhoud werd dit echter verworpen met een stemverhouding van ca. 45-55%. Bijna alle andere amendementen? Ja, bijna, want één amendement slipte er door. Een amendement van Den Haag dat de woorden ‘een jaar’ verving door ‘zo lang als de duur van de WW-uitkering’. Een glashelder amendement dat bovendien als toelichting had: ‘De voorstellen kunnen ook prima zonder verkorting van de WW-duur.’ Waarom het congres nou precies de voorkeur aan dit amendement gaf boven andere die hetzelfde beoogden, is voer voor exegeten. Misschien vond men de andere amendementen te defensief geformuleerd of gunde men de eer niet aan Amsterdam (per slot van rekening was er weer veel gemor over de dominantie van ‘Amsterdam’).
Hiermee waren de drie meest omstreden voorstellen uit ‘Vrijheid’ verworpen. Ook op tal van andere punten werd het programma overigens aangescherpt. Zo werd het voorstel om tussen Leiden en Haarlem een nieuwe stad aan te leggen (de ‘Bollenstad’) verworpen. Ook amendementen over bijvoorbeeld milieu en internationale politiek/terrorismebestrijding werden ondanks het verzet van de programmacommissie aangenomen. Waarom dan toch die tevredenheid bij de programmacommissie? Ik kan het niet anders verklaren dan uit een poging de uitslag naar zich toe trekken. De dag na het congres meldden de meeste kranten dat er ‘weinig veranderd’ was door het congres. Zelfs expliciet werd genoemd dat de verkorting van de WW door het congres gesteund werd! Daaruit blijkt dat het partijbestuur/de Tweede Kamerfractie/de programmacommissie (samen te vatten als ‘de partijtop’) er duidelijk in geslaagd zijn een beeld neer te zetten dat niet geheel overeenkomt met de werkelijkheid. De redenering van de partijtop blijkt als volgt te lopen: het amendement van Den Haag verandert wel de tekst, maar niet de inhoud, immers elders in het programmapunt wordt óók de termijn van één jaar genoemd, dus er verandert niets. Er zijn vier argumenten waarom deze redenering niet kan kloppen:
1. Die andere vermelding van de termijn gaat over de participatiebanen, niet over de duur van de WW-uitkering.
2. De toelichting van Den Haag was glashelder en toelichtingen bij voorstellen moeten gebruikt worden als de interpretatie eventueel niet eenduidig zou zijn.
3. Amendement en toelichting van Den Haag waren zeer kort, iedereen heeft de tijd gehad om die te lezen tussen de eerste stemming en de tweede (met kastjes, dus extra lang de tijd om te lezen).
4. Als de interpretatie van de partijtop juist zou zijn, zou er feitelijk niets veranderd zijn. Dat betekent ook dat het amendement slechts een redactionele wijziging zou zijn en dus slechts een categorie 1 amendement. Het amendement was echter categorie 3 – een belangrijke verandering op een hoofdpunt!
De teleurstelling bij de linkse oppositie in GroenLinks heeft er helaas ook aan meegewerkt dat dit heeft kunnen gebeuren. Daardoor kon het beeld ontstaan dat de partijtop gelijk had in haar interpretatie. Men had kennelijk op meer gehoopt. Sterker nog, ik denk dat velen al zolang boos waren op de ontwikkelingen in GroenLinks, dat alleen een volledige overname van de oppositionele amendementen hen nog tevreden had kunnen stellen. Toen dat niet gebeurde haakte men alsnog af.
Het blijkt dus dat voor- en tegenstanders van de liberale koers iets van hun gading uit dit congres kunnen halen. Ook bij de kandidatenlijst bleek dat. Enerzijds waren er voornamelijk kandidaten te kiezen die weinig kritisch staan tegenover de huidige koers, anderzijds moet je vaststellen dat kritische kandidaten beter scoorden. GroenLinks blijkt een complete partij te zijn met linker- en rechtervleugels. De linkervleugel dient wat zelfverzekerder te opereren en vooruitgang in haar richting ook te verkopen als een overwinning. De rechtervleugel dient wat minder arrogant te zijn en de pretentie dat zij de partijlijn bepaalt een beetje te temperen. Anders lopen we het risico onze linkervleugel kwijt te raken. Voorlopige hebben ze elkaar nog nodig.

Paulus de Wilt
Bremen, 8 oktober 2006

Fear of the other

In two crystal clear paragraphs, Joost Lagendijk is quoted today in The New York Times:

“A lot of people, progressive ones — we are not talking about nationalists or the extreme right — are saying, ‘Now we have this religion, it plays a role and it challenges our assumptions about what we learned in the 60’s and 70’s,’ ” said Joost Lagendik, a Dutch member of the European Parliament for the Green Left Party, who is active on Muslim issues.
“So there is this fear,” he said, “that we are being transported back in a time machine where we have to explain to our immigrants that there is equality between men and women, and gays should be treated properly. Now there is the idea we have to do it again.”

So it is finally official. It is not only the right wing, the one that is scared. We too. If the right is scared because the invading muslims are transforming their sacrosanct dutch culture of the fifties, now the progressive left is also scared that the invading muslims are transforming their sacrosanct dutch culture of the sixties.

I reallly regret the quotation. One can always hope that is taken out of context, but probably the New York Times don't do that. It is a real sad message, surprisingly coming from one of our most successful politicians. Joost, rightly so, is respected inside and outside groenlinks by his delicate work at the commission of the European parliament that handle the integration of Turkey to the EU. It is shocking to hear this message from him.

Is it possible that the fear that Joost put out are the reasons that groenlinks has been so long so silent on the right wings attacks on the multicultural society? Is it possible that all this time the verdonks and the fortuins of this world have make us realize that there are, after all, reasons to be afraid?

Personally, I found the declarations of Joost very wrong. Precisely now, when a second and third generation of migrants is struggling to find their place in Europe, precisely now, when being an allochtoon in the netherlands means that you have it harder to get a job, that you are going to get a lower salary, and that is likely that your education is worse, precisely now should be the time in which groenlinks goes hard for integration, and not for assimilation. Today, the problems that the migrant face in europe are real hard core problems: education, labour and housing. To go on hammering about the culture, that sacred cow of the right, is not only discriminant, but useless.

I really hope that Joost was misquoted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/europe/11muslims.html?ref=world

werkgroepen at groenlinks utrecht

Werkgroepen, bestuurvergadering GLU 4/10

What follow are loose thinking on werkgroepen binnen the afdeling utrecht. I am starting in the bestuur of the afdeling utrecht as werkgroep coordinator, so here some brainstorming.


Thinking on werkgroepen, ideas

Werkgroepen of groenlinks utrecht are entities that move information in channels: towards the party and towards the street. Both channels should have two-direction traffic. Further, there are two sub channels: inside the party they work or towards the members, or towards the fractie. That is what I see as connections of the werkgroepen with the rest of the world. Is any connection that I am forgetting?

Then, werkgroepen do two things. Or they discuss, or they act. By discussions I think of inhoudelijke agenda points in normal meetings, or heated discussions on bars. By acts I think in giving flyers in the street, or canvassing in a neighborhood. A third option is a mixed activity such as a politiek cafe. It is an action towards the street, because it is open and might get media attention, AND it is a discussion, because it helps to form opinion.

Tracking the werkgroepen, present, short and mid term future.

In my opinion, the bestuur in her role of supporting and organizational entity must be aware of what werkgroepen are meant to do, what they are doing right now, and what they intend to do. The first is pretty much clear, since each werkgroep has a reasonably updated definition at groenlinksutrecht.nl. The third is also more or less clear, since jaarplanen has been asked and compiled from quite some werkgroepen. The second is more vaguely known.

Accordingly, this is my short term priority. In order to track the present of werkgroepen I am busy attending meetings of them this month. At the end of the year/begin of the coming one, I'll ask for jaarplanen again, even if only for the record. This time I'll ask for a evaluation of their previous jaarplan.

My mid-term priority is to set the werkgroepen work, as far as they themselves desire, in digital format. For the end of october I intend to have compiled the wishes of the werkgroepen in this regard. In middle november the bestuur and the internet redaction will be presented with the wishes of the werkgroepen. In february we will be online, inside groenlinksutrecht.nl, or outside.

Future

The whole point of the issues above is to make werkgroepen known beyond their own group of people, and to be able to evaluate their work. A functioning groenlinks must be able not only to set up goals for its institutions, but also to evaluate the road to those goals. Important to notice, any evaluation should not be imposed from above (from the bestuur, for example). Evaluation is important for the werkgroepen in first place, and for the rest of the party in second.

In this sense I intend to organize a broad werkgroepen day, to be hold around february/march. The form of such event will be more clear with further discussion in the bestuur and with the werkgroepen. A forerunner to this werkgroepen-dag should be the second trekkers overleg of 2006, to be done before the end of this year. I would like to hear suggestions of the bestuur about an optimal datum for this.

On a suggestion of Lot (afdeling vz), I am in conversations with Marjan (former fractie vz) about another werkgroep-type possibility. The fractie might be interested in having a group of people organized around a one time event. It might be write a report or organize a day with vluchtelingen. These groups will be something like ad hoc werkgroepen. Needles to say, for this idea to prosper, an updated ledenbestand has to be accessible.

Bloggers of the planet, unite!

Actually, I should say planeet... even if only this post is aimed at groenlinksers that blog...

As you people probably know, this coming saturday there is a meeting “groenlinks in de versneling”, which is for us “kaderleden” and our participation in the campaign. Probably some of you people will be already there, and probably some others of you will not be able to make it (if only because many weekends for groenlinks looks like unhealthy)

But still... what about try to get together, and have a drink and see if we could collaborate in the campaign... as bloggers?

Surely there are things that bloggers can do in a campaign context... even if only compile a list of interesting blogs and write stukjes in them, engage them in debate with groenlinks ideas and so forth...

I am looking forward at your reactions... and if in private... intiATscicha.org works.

Have lidmaatschaap, go to the congres

Easy to write about the hot moments of the congress, and its results. Actually, lazy as i am, that is what I intend to do. But hey, for the record: That was a hell of a long congress. And unneeded.

GL can do better. There is no way that some 500 persons can reasonably evaluate several hundreds of amendments, and produce a well thought group of 25 candidates for the TK. In a weekend we decided what will be the line of the party in the next four years, and who are the persons that will carry this line to reality... or change it, if they think needed.

I'm not in favour for letting this work to a commission, but neither to four hours of amendment day and some twelve hours of congress. A party like ours needs, desperately, a level of internal discussion that we do not have, yet. Congress should confirm the results of what we have been discussing. And let's be honest: there is lot of disagreement over Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen. But there are no alternatives. In my opinion we are not a party of ideas. We are a party with a TK fractie that has (good) ideas. And with a not-organized internal opposition.

Anyway. Lets mention high and low moments of the congress.

Lame speeches
Kees Vendrik, the snake charmer
Bart Snels and the big blush
Nieuwkomers I: Tofik and Arno
Nieuwkomers II: Mariko and Fara
Not yet the time of the blogosphere for GL
Martijn, bitten by the snake
Henrieke, one blunder and that was it?
And last: a (very badly presented) motie from the Kleurrijk Platform

Lame speeches

Let's start disagreeing with the whole GL blogosphere: The speeches of Femke and Henk were predictable and lame. We clap and clap just because we know those ideas for long time, and they play to our own egos. Cookies from our own dough. No challenge (besides the: we need you for a good campaign) to the party, no (new) challenge to the country. If we admire Blair and Churchil (as speakers) is due to their ability to challenge and win people in a speech. Nothing like that from our leaders.

Kees Vendrik, the snake charmer

Well, without speech Kees did just what big leaders do. If there is something that has received huge amount of criticism inside GL, that is the whole set of ideas that he defended along the two days of congress. Kees against the hall. And still, we love him. His charm won over the congress again and again. There was no amendment that he did really argue against, that went through. That second place in the list is hugely deserved. For me, he could get it only due to his intellect. But in GL, he has it also due to his huge capacity of stay lovely under fire.

Bart Snels and the big blush

To my regret, Bart still has to learn from Kees. He tried to defend the idea of a new city in the Bollenstreek. But hey, wrong choice of words. Bart idea? Perfect. If we already vote for building 400000 houses... why not to build them together in a new and inspiring, ecological and innovative place? But when Bart used the words “let's build a big project” all alarms of groenlinksers rang, and he was booed. Red like a tomato, there was no more arguing left in Bart. Too bad. Too bad for groenlinks, I think. We need more ideas from Bart, but Bart needs more media training. Actually this issue goes further than good ideas and their defenders. In the congress it looked like the programma commissie did not look for the support of the people that lives in the area. Now... Ideas are good, but support from our own members is better...

Nieuwkomers I: Tofik and Arno

The first blunder. The promising kutmarokan choosed Arno Bonte to support him. True to form, Arno started saying that he was going to argue for a person that he meet a day before. Was that the reason that Tofik did not get a higher place? Probably.

Nieuwkomers II: Mariko and Fara

Contrastingly enough, the discomfort on Mariko was fully appeased when Fara Karimi argued for her. Fara is surely not the most popular kamerlid in GL, but she has done lots of work, and has a respectable and respected trajectory in the party. That was the approved seal that Mariko needed, and she got it.


Not yet the time of the blogosphere for GL

In other countries, and in other left wing parties, what bloggers say, goes. Think in Segolene Royal. Not so in Groenlinks. Is it that most groenlinksers do not read blogs... yet? Maybe. In any case, the lists that bloggers almost unanimously supported, failed to become true. Will that change in the future of groenlinks? That is something to be seen. We need more and better blogging. Or so I think.

Martijn, the snake bites back

Here, the uber candidate of the blogosphere. And what happened? Martijn has none of my preference, since he failed to support initiatives of party members that touched his area, in several crucial moments. Martijn is not the person to make GL grow. But never you mind my extreme and biased opinion. Few people had the respectable trajectory of Martijn inside GL, at his age. What happened? Well, a clumsy arguing of amendments surely did not help him. His prettiest blunder was to insult the congress of (cosmopolitan and internationally engaged) GL, asking if we -really- did know the Non Proliferation Treaty. That was far too arrogant, and the snake bite back. No Martijn for the TK.

Henrike, one blunder and that was it?

Henrike, Henrike, what happened? In the few times that I had contact with Henrike, she came across as nice, charming and engaged. Critical too. Perhaps the winning of Mariko put her out, moreover when the Europa werkgroep tried to sold Mariko, Martijn and Henrike as pieces of the same package. Groenlinksers might have thought that one internationalist in the list is enough (probably right thinking). But in my own (biased) opinion, Henrike did not help herself handling so clumsily the Kleuriijk Platform motie. If the congress agree to discuss a motie, and vote about it, the congress agrees that the result of the voting will have consequences. Henrike started arguing against the motie from the Kleurrijk Platform saying that it was out of order. Not for her to say, and quite arrogant too. Was that the moment that put her out of the race? Hard to say, but harder to dismiss.

And last: a (very badly presented) motie from the Kleurrijk Platform

Now, finally I came to the podium and defended a motie that intended to re-arrange the program to give more emphasize to our multicultural standpoints. In my opinion is just too bad that groenlinks does not dare to speak out her ideas on integration on a program. No wonder why allochtonen do not vote for us. But hey, I surely did not do any good to this cause with the way that I presented the motie to the congress. Mangled dutch (I should take seriously the poster that Femke flags in her car), loose oversight of the time and too long sentences. But lets be fair. The partijbestuur, or the congress presidium, were really, really incorrect . The motie, send in due time, and according to all rules of the game, was placed out of the program discussion. But it was about the program! It was the unique attempt of the party bases to change the visie part of the program. We, Kleurrijk Platform, could not do that with amendments (rightly so), because the rules of the game allowed only moties to do that. So we did. But the congress chairman declared the program discussion closed, and brought the program to vote before our motie was discussed. Very wrong. Even the NOS Journal camera caught me booing the presidium from the side (a thing that I would try not to repeat, but I was really piss off).

But hey. Shit happens. Motie or not, amendments or not... we do have a really nice program. And i am also enthusiastic with the candidates. So now... for something completely different!

Campaign!!

Ten reasons to get Xaviera higher

If you are reading this, you don't need convincing about the increasing importance of internet and blogs in politics. Here is a bet: In the list of Groenlinks candidates you will find nobody that has been blogging three years ago. But Xaviera, that is. Awareness (and use!) of new media matters in politics. Well, maybe Martijn has been bloging since long. Then a second bet: Xaviera was building community sites back in '98. Somebody else in our list? That is my first reason to get her higher in the list. A politician should know which channels people use to communicate, and should use them.

Also, if you read blogs, you prefer links than long text. So here my second, third, fourth and fifth reasons to get Xaviera higher:

Think-tank Marte Nostro, started by Xaviera (http://www.martenostro.nl/)

The site van Xaviera (http://www.xa4a.net)

The best columns from Xaviera (http://www.druppeltjes.nl/portfolio/)

The site van de Kleurrijk Platform (http://www.kleurrijker.net)

What? Why would the site of a werkgroep be a reason to support Xaviera? Well, she put it together. And funny enough, she is member of Groenlinks since around six months. So that's my sixth reason: If you start in groenlinks, you start working at the bases. She did.

But that does not mean that Xaviera is totally new in politics. She comes from the PvdA, and from a full PvdA family (aunt in the TK, parents politically active in Aruba). That experience I value as well, so that was the seventh reason.

And eight, Xaviera is no party beast. Before walking into parties, she went through Aruba station (a virtual meeting points for Arubans), through the Palestina Comitte, through the group "ben jij bang van mij?" and through the Mavis Magazine, the one focused in allochtoon vrouwen issues. So she is a candidate with the famous maatschapelijke worteling.

Ninth? Let's quote her. She is really a pain in the ass. Xav keeps on pushing the Kleurrijk Platform getting things done now. I would like to see that in the TK. Just imagine a GL parliamentary hurrying say not Verdonk, but Bos... Wouldn't that be lovely?

And here's the tenth reason. Diversity. But not the skin color diversity. It would be nice to have in the TK (more?) people that is closer to the rest of the world. You might call Xav many things, but not elitarian. She started more studies than fit in this page, she worked in very diverse situations and positions. Now settled as professional ICTer, journalist and student of philosophy, she has not forgotten how it feels to be low and out. We talk, in groenlinks, about solidarity. Among the groenlinksers that I know, Xav is one of the few that knows, in own skin, why solidarity is needed.

So. You know my next line. Vote Xaviera the sunday!

Who is afraid of the pope?

For the ones of us that make evolutionary biology our profession (or our hobby) and politics our hobby (or our profession), around a month ago there were reasons to be concern. The current Pope, it was rumoured, was about to embrace the so called “intelligent design” viewpoint. Never you mind that the title of this movement is in itself an oxymoron. Never you mind that not really intelligent people embrace intelligent design... after all, the Pope might be infallible in the eyes of God, but he does not have to be intelligent. Since long time ago this discussion is not about intelligence, but about power. And whether we like it or not, the Pope does carry some clout. Think in his influence in curricula all over the world, not only in basic schools of the third world, but in basic schools of the dutch bible belt.

But Ok, then and there we had reasons to relax. Despite all the rumours, it looked like Benedictus was not going to break with the tradition of John Paul, and at least the catholic church remained out of the evolution discussion. Actually, then and there, we somehow believe that the academic career of the Pope had some value after all. The argument supported by John Paul were that science and religion must coexist, and not fight. Benedictus, formerly a scholar of renown, end up subscribing this view. After all, a principle of scholar life is that you don't mess up with your fellow researcher from another field, given that, very likely, you do not even understand what he is saying.

Well, good but not for long. As his latest speech on multiculturalism (or shall I be proper and talk about multireligiosity, ecumenism) the Pope went crazy. And if in his previous escape from intelligent design he showed up some academic know how, here he showed academic folly. Because here comes another problem with academici: they believe that because they speak in lingo, or quote from another researcher, nobody will figure out what they are saying. Alas, not true in this case. All too clear his prejudices on Islam showed up, his clear conviction on western and christian supremacy. And even better, in his shallow excuses, he manage not to appease Muslims, and to enrage Jews.

Now, does this matter? Moreover, does this matter in a country with such a antipope tradition as the Netherlands? I believe it does. What I personally find sad of the whole incident is the underlying thinking. A thinking that is sponsored so often in our society, that it's almost self evident. After all, isn't people convinced that europe, western and christian europe that is, is a force of peace? Don't we heartedly support the sending of our troops to fulfil conflict prevention? And don't we do that under the same reasoning, after all, that the crusaders had? Read again the texts of that emperor quoted by Benedictus, Paleologus. He hoped that muslims will hear him with open hearth, but he knew better, sponsoring the sending of troops to liberate Jerusalen from violence, muslim violence, that is.

Have we move a lot further?

Credo

Given that programa discussion inspire a lot of people to plunge into deep conceptual discussions, my chance to ventialte a credo online. Three issues, less than hundred words each. Think about it, enjoy it or have plain fun:

Open societies

The world is open and there is much to gain from it. Universities should invest more in exchange of scientists. High schools should recruit their staff internationally. Basic schools should teach about the wide world outside.
National governments should become leaner. Discuss in Europe what belongs to Europe: national security and migration. Do not forget the interests of the people that elects, but do not make national policies that are better discussed and implemented in international contexts.

Sustainable societies

The mayor threat of our age is our mismanagement of the environment. There is knowledge that has to be supported. Bring environmental scientists in the light of political debate. The existent knowledge is not enough, thought: direct mayor funding to development of alternative ways of transport and energy. Claim back environment in the political stage. And discuss environment where it belongs. It is an international issue, and the worse is not occurring in europe, but abroad. Funds and knowledge matter there, not here. Bring people, send research.

Impoverished societies

Look around in any european city. Outsiders to the labor market exist and keep on being a decisive element of the political debate. Look forward and you will see fault lines along ethnic groups. Look forward and recognize that the problem also appears in between the city and the countryside, in between the educated and the non-educated, in between generations. The core business of the left is the fight against social, economical and political exclusion. Enjoy the shine of our current welfare, and be happy organizing concerts, going to trendy television programs, and collaborating to the elite of alternative media. But forget not, our choice are the poor. What are we doing with them and for them?

provincial economics

Yesterday, the program commission of the Provincie Utrecht. I was invited to an expert meeting on the economics part of the program. The few attendants could then exchange our views on the issue. Nice meeting.

A bit to my surprise after the program written for the city Utrecht in the gemeenteraad elections, it turns out that groenlinksers in the province do want to make a choice for the innovative economy. In Utrecht city, the ones that argue in favor of this view, did meet the resistance of people that want a more social economy, based in the involvement of the outsiders to the labour market. Obviously enough, these people are not the highly educated ones that come to the front of the discussion about the creative economy. But well, the issue “sneaks in” in the provincie program. Fine with me.

In my view, groenlinks had developed a nice tale. Describing the successes of Utrecht as a power source of knowledge, ideas such as innovation platforms, and further collaboration in between hospitals, universities and government are presented. But again, we need more sharp proposals that illustrate this big -and rather general- ideas.

Along these lines, we discussed the use of innovatie vouchers, not only in between the ondernemer and a big research institution, but among ondernemers. Then we move to the “care valley” idea, a utrecht version of sillicon valley, where the big institutions that utrecht has could offer a collaborative package. Big hospitals, a university strong in bio-sciences, and a nice city. All together should make a success history.

Nicely enough, in the meeting was Jasper Fastl, candidate to the provincie, who reminded us that we should still keep in mind the allochtoon ondernemer. That connection could also help us to link the choice for the innovative economy with the outsiders of the labour market. The allochtoon ondernemer sector grows much faster that the autochtoon ondernemer. But it also fails more frequently. So groenlinks could also ask for further understanding and support of this important sector of the economy.

All in all, a nice meeting.

The advisor, the politician and groei mee

What is your first reaction at reading groenlinks election program, groei mee? I tell you mine. It sounds nice. It really does. Isn't it refreshing in the politics of the last five years to read a vision text that is not over the threat of the foreigner, the poor or the rich? (CDA, VVD and SP, respectively). Or to read something different than empty breezy imaginery, like the PvdA from Bos? For me, it is. But why? Why I like this so much?

Well, you are reading this in english (even if it is a blog targeted at groenlinksers) because I am what you might call an international citizen (pompous but still true). I have born in argentina, lived in venezuela, studied in switzerland and finally settled in NL. I carry three passports and care about the politics of more than three countries. It is almost OBVIOUS that I am going to like our program. As the prominent Dadema wrote, this is a real cosmopolite program. Which makes me happy (It would make me happier if the comments from Gijs Termeer and Farah Karimi in our Magazine were inside the program, but this is issue for another column).

Now, how comes that GL goes cosmopolitan? How to explain the emphasize that groenlinks has decided to make in our international profile? Why this political choice? Groenlinks is green, is social, is multiculti... but the program is mainly international. A partial answer is Motivaction.

Motivaction is a research company, busy with mapping “the values that motivate people to act”. They have couple of nice tricks. If you ever visit their site, you will see graphs (http://www.motivaction.nl/105/Segmentatie/Mentality_tm/d:54/Mentality/d:140/Sociale-Milieus/) that are almost self explaining, which divides people in few fancy groups. And surely enough, cosmopolitans is one of those. Groenlinks, since already a while ago, has been using Motivaction research to map our electorate. And again not surprisingly, according to Motivaction guru Lampert, the people that votes groenlinks is dominated by cosmopolitans. Accordingly, advice has been giving already in the local elections from eight months ago, to target this part of the electorate.

So far all well and good. Here we have a party, that indeed has cosmopolitan members, that surely has cosmopolitan ideas, and that uses research that shows that has cosmopolitan electors. So this party has produced a -very nice, if I might repeat it- cosmopolitan election program.

But surely, there is catch. Take a look again at the result of the local elections. Did we win that one? Did we grow? The answer is not clear. The PvdA grew, that we know. We, mostly, remain stable. Still, too many factors are at play to draw a nice relation in between pro-cosmopolitan advice, local campaign, and votes obtained. There are many gemeenten in NL. But there is only one Tweede Kamer.

So in my view, these elections are going to be a dream experiment for the social scientist. Groenlinks so far has been coherent with the advice given. Is groenlinks going to win from the coming elections or not? If we loose, should we get rid of cosmopolitan campaigns? If we win, should we enhance them?

I am looking forward to the answer.

Amartya Sen goes multiculti

Reading Le Monde yesterdat, you will bounce in the first page with an article of Amartya Sen. Going along our times, Sen is not writing on economy, but on multiculturalism.

It might very well be that the tone will make you wish that Dr Sen would remain writing on economy. A bit surprisingly, a big part of the article is used in recognizing the progressive policy of the United Kingdom, starting with the rather bizarre statement that then commonwealth was, per definition, a multicultural entity. No mention of the empire policy here, and the tragedies that colonialism brought upon us all (the israel/palestina conflict not being the minor of many other). But Ok. It might be interesting to know that the policy of Great Britain was more progressive than the policy of Germany or France, at least back at colonial times. The interesting point that Sen makes, actually, is on what he calls two tragic confusions in multicultural theory.

If we are to follow Sen first argument, the multiculturalism is confused between what he calls cultural conservatism and cultural freedom. His example is that being born into a particular community is not related to cultural independence, if a choice at all, it is a passive choice. And the other way around, deciding to live according to a traditional set of values can very well be an expression of active freedom.

The second argument that Sen makes is that religion is but one dimension of the cultural identity of an individual. Even though the membership to a particular credo is well related with cultural attitudes, there are many other affiliations or memberships that are similarly equivalent, professional or political affiliations, to mention two.

Surely we can track here the mainlines of Sen thinking. If we are to read back, the relevant points that Sen rises are about freedom. But hey, the last time I check, multiculturalism was much more important in recognizing the existence of diversity. Reading Taylor's “Multiculturalism : examining the politics of recognition”, multiculturalism has been born as strive to recognize “the other” and acts in consequence. But well. Times change, and we multicultis are in such a disrepute today, that bringing freedom into the discussion is actually desirable. Because surely so, the points of Sen underscore the anti-multiculti movement that we experiment so frequently in today's politics.

So taking a look at the two issues that Sen raises, lets apply the second to groenlinks current dogma. Or perhaps more interestingly, groenlinks current campaigns. It is beyond doubt to me that today in politic netherlands, the world multiculti and islam are very related to each other. Rightly so Sen warns us. An individual is more than his religion. So the question, actually for you to answer is: when we groenlinksers talk about multiculturalism... are we talking about a diversity of allegations that individuals have, like football team, music, place of holidays, choice of school for own children, hobbies, professions... or are we talking about being muslim today in NL?

And taking a look at the first point that Sen raises, we are forced to rephrase, at least, our concept of integration. Because it is said (rightly so, in my opinion) that to be born an immigrant is not as important as the choice of values that one might later in life take. And even more to the extreme, even becoming conservative might be a progressive choice, if we understand that the point is not so much what choice do you make, but to have the possibility of having the choice at all.

It is my opinion that in this second point groenlinks fares better. You could argue that most of multiculti issues raised in groenlinks are actually muslim issues. We could argue about it. But for me is clear that groenlinks, stronger now, has make a choice in favor of independence over cultural stagnation. We do talk about the possibility that has to remain open, for the individual to make his own decisions. Even if i still do not like the word, I am again and again informed that emancipation, in the dictionary of groenlinks, translates as development, as blooming.

So tja... now that Sen has gone multiculti and given that he raised interesting points for groenlinks, actually I would like to know how would he fare Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen, and the economy vision that is there sketched. But that will have to wait for some other column.

Tales from ondernemers and migrants

on national entrepreneurs...

The initiative for groenlinks ondernemers (De Werkvloer) goes on in suspended animation state. We will meet the coming 5 of september, but in previous meetings we have recognized our lack of competence as a groenlinks werkgroep. Yes, we have organized our workshops in the Linkse Lente, yes, we have go on meeting -more or less- monthly, yes, we have wrote our contribution to the program of groenlinks. Nevertheless, it seems to us, we are pretty bad at doing what we want to do most.

In the year that we exist as werkgroep, we aim at linking politicians and entrepreneurs. It sounds nice, but we don't manage. In two or three occasions we managed to have a nice number of attendants to our meetings... but most of the people did not come back. What was (is?) going on? Well, the uncharted waters of politics are not so easy to fare, with experienced entrepreneurs, but alas, novice politicians as skippers. Even though our issues sound interesting and now and then we have hooked into relevant discussions, our meetings go on floundering by sloppy chairmanship, or sloppy follow up work. To identify the right discussion agenda is not so difficult. To get people together to discuss it neither. But to make a success of a meeting, to have an inspiring chair, and to give continuity to the effort... those are tasks that we groenlinksers entrepreneurs were not so good at.

So we are looking for new faces. In our last meeting we discharge ourselves as stuurgroep, and decide to ask help to the partijbestuur. Yesterday I had a nice meeting with our contact person Stefan Falke (another entrepreneur in the landelijke bestuur of groenlinks). In the coming months (likely after the TK campaign) we will be hard at work looking for a much needed chairperson, parallel to the expansion of our existing network. And we will see what comes out of it.

Would you happen to be an ondernemer AND an active groenlinks member. Or even better an active-to-be groenlinks member? Do contact us. A party better rooted in the community of creative ondernemers, of business with a social and green responsibility is very much needed. And a place to start walking in that direction is De Werkvloer.

and on local migrants...

In the groenlinks that I know, a lack of coordinated and well chaired groups is not only a trait of the entrepreneurs. In the Utrecht afdeling the migrants, up to recent times, shines in their absence. Four years ago I started in groenlinks being an active member of the multiculti werkgroep, which in spite of producing broad meetings, politiek cafes and manifestos, failed in keeping a core of involved people. Much worse, our share of the allochtoon vote in the last gemeente election, to put it mildly, was ridiculous. But hey, here the bestuur did come to our rescue. Since few months ago a full time bestuur lid is busy with the project “nieuwe doelgroepen”. In the time since Ed Hoekstra begin working, a stuurgroep has been created, realistic goals have been identified, and a strong relation with the fractie in the gemeenteraad has been established. Results we do not have yet, but the prospects are promising. A manifest distilled from previous documents and our election program is on the making, contact with migrant organization is being renewed, and even a conference with several groenlinks wethouders is being organized. Soon we will have a internet site and interested people will be able to contact us online.

With a rejoinder

The relevant take home message here is a very needed aspect of the groenlinks culture. Evaluation and acceptance of our failures, is what I am talking about. In the werkvloer tale, it took us far too long to realize that we were failing at our goals. The dynamic of a groenlinks werkgroep might be tricky. You read some emails, you see each other monthly, and the whole thing gets a life of its own. It took some three years for the utrecht afdeling to recognize that without bestuur support the migrant discussion inside groenlinks utrecht was hopeless. But once failures are acknowledged, solutions are at reach. It is certainly too early to claim victory in the migrant movement of utrecht, and I don't know if anybody at all will answer our call for new members in the werkvloer. But hey, it feels as if we are moving in the right direction. Recognizing mistakes is the only first step to solve them.

And a PS

interested in migration? here -welookaway.blogspot.com- my thoughts on the last hypocresy of europe

With or about?

The wind of the campaign blows strong in Groenlinks. Coming back from holidays we activelingen are already involved in meetings and discussions. Linkse Lente Lounge, Groenlinks in de versneling, amendementendag, the congress... The campaign is close by, and we might have a go at the government. Lots to do, we have got. But who is we?

In the Kleurrijk Platform we have already have a meeting with the coordinator of the campagnedeel that touches us directly. As announced elsewhere, our themas for this election are Sociaal, Groen and Tolerant. For us at the KP, tolerant it is. But again, who is us?

Well, when the chips fall, it turns out that we are not so many people. Formally the Kleurrijk Platform is the place for coordinate migrants in the party. Take a look at our ledenlist, then. The count is about twenty, from which some ten do come to one meeting or the other, and fewer are able to coordinate activities. No doubt, many more migrants are active in our party. Look at fracties and you will see the allochtoon names, look at staff and the same is true. Groenlinks do offer space for the allochtoon activist. But is our actual situation good enough?

In my evaluation of the status quo, by far and large, it is not good enough. Think in our main event for conceptual discussion, the groenlinks forum. In the last one there was a workshop on multiculturalism. I was there. Now take a very superficial descriptive statistic, skin color. How many of us, the attendants, looked foreigner? Answer: two percent. From the forty persons in the public, there was one obviously black guy. But Ok, we know that skin color is pretty bad at predicting “allochtoon-being” If I include in my count the people that was likely to be inmigrant, I might arrive at a reasonably twenty percent. Not too bad, after all. Twice as much as the landelijke percentage. Isn't that ok?

The problem that we face is that this percentage, again by far and large, is not enough. It is not enough because, at least in the past, the campaign of groenlinks seems to be directed to the white part of the netherlands, not to the migrant. Think in our past tolerance campaign, the one with the nice poster about acceptance. If you ask me today the oneliner of that campaign, here you are: Groenlinks want a Netherland that tolerate diversity. Isn't that ok? Well, no. We, migrants, do not want to be tolerated. As simply as that. If anything, we want to have the same perspectives of future that autochtonen have. It is not about being accepted, it is about being part of.

Coming back to the percentage, then, I believe that the central problem of groenlinks about allochtonen is that word, about. Today groenlinks is the party that has a better set of proposals about allochtonen... but they remain to be about, and not with. Our proposals do not come from the allochtonen inside our party, and are not discussed with them. Or at least, not structurally.

So it is campaign again. And we have a campaign to do. Well, surely I am happy that our main difference with the SP, or the PvdA is our position about allochtonen. We are surely far away from the conservatism of the SP and their underlined allophobic tone, or the assimilationist tone of the PvdA. But I'll be happier the day that the contents of our campaigns on multiculturalism will be developed with the migrants. Now, let's see if we can bring across our message against discrimination. That, still being -about- allochtonen, is still an excellent point.

Now that the headlines hits us every morning, and opinionators from Groenlinks and everywhere else in europe are fast to accuse israel, maybe this article tempers the righteous:


We Europeans must never forget that we created the Middle East conflict

Timothy Garton Ash


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1831149,00.html

for my fellows analysts

Now, it looks like things are going worse in the east. Surely, I had in mind couple of themas to write in such a groenlinks blog as this. You know, the ideal article would be a short thing, with a core message that could be quoted in the years to come.

Well, reading Krugman in the NYT, I think is far better to paste most of his last column. For all of us that like to dream with the role of foreign policy analyst...

extracts of:

March of Folly
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 17, 2006

Since those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it — and since the cast of characters making pronouncements on the crisis in the Middle East is very much the same as it was three or four years ago — it seems like a good idea to travel down memory lane. Here's what they said and when they said it:

"The greatest thing to come out of [invading Iraq] for the world economy ... would be $20 a barrel for oil." Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation (which owns Fox News), February 2003

"The administration's top budget official estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion," saying that "earlier estimates of $100 billion to $200 billion in Iraq war costs by Lawrence B. Lindsey, Mr. Bush's former chief economic adviser, were too high." The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2002

"According to C.B.O.'s estimates, from the time U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, $290 billion has been allocated for activities in Iraq. ... Additional costs over the 2007-2016 period would total an estimated $202 billion under the first [optimistic] scenario, and $406 billion under the second one." Congressional Budget Office, July 13,
2006

"Peacekeeping requirements in Iraq might be much lower than historical experience in the Balkans suggests. There's been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia." Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and now president of the World Bank, Feb. 27,
2003

"West Baghdad is no stranger to bombings and killings, but in the past few days all restraint has vanished in an orgy of 'ethnic cleansing.' Shia gunmen are seeking to drive out the once-dominant Sunni minority and the Sunnis are forming neighborhood posses to retaliate. Mosques are being attacked. Scores of innocent civilians have been killed,
their bodies left lying in the streets." The Times of London, July 14, 2006

"Earlier this week, I traveled to Baghdad to visit the capital of a free and democratic Iraq." President Bush, June 17, 2006

"People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse. ... These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things." Ayad Allawi, Mr. Bush's choice as Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister, November 2005

"My fellow citizens, not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq." President Bush, Dec. 18, 2005

"I think I would answer that by telling you I don't think we're losing." Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, when asked whether we're winning in Iraq, July 14, 2006

"Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits for the region. ...Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced." Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002

"Bush — The world is coming unglued before his eyes. His naïve dreams are a Wilsonian disaster." Newsweek Conventional Wisdom Watch, July 24, 2006 edition

"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril." Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, Dec. 6, 2005

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now." Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, on the campaign against Slobodan Milosevic, April 28, 1999

letters

Very good!

http://www.spunk.nl/upload/ritabrief.swf

Porsche versus Ferrari? Ciampi versus Merkel? think again: il nonno takes revenge

Well, I only saw the last 15 minutes, but it looks like that was all that was to be seen. Or so I hope for the real fans, because i could not have bear 100 minutes like that. And considering that in despite of my genes, I do not like to look at football matchs.

Anyway, you might think that I am stretching the point... but as much as Argentinean-europeans of third generation go back to europe (obviously with Italian passport: Maradona, Caniglia, Baldano, Passarella...) few minutes ago Italy did, beautifully, what Argentina could not.

Grandpa took revenge, then.

I'll have to review my conviction that 22 grown ups running after a ball can not be interesting. 

It's getting hot here

Now, exciting. The first time that since in NL, I follow the fall of a cabinet. It was about time, one might say. And once more, as Femke said, too bad it was by Hirsi, and not by the 26000 others. But Ok, it's over.

Or it is just the beginning. Now come for us the fixing of a programs, in high speed. Yeah. Summer and the kader of groenlinks on holidays, and a very important program to be settled for elections. Hum... It's going to be a hot summer.

The morning after, my street.

Sittiing in De Balie, in a break in the comference Op zoek naar de allochtoon, I am charmed by this statement of Jan Tillie: 
 
The right wing set in the integration agenda the social cultural
question, and the left answered in this frame, instead of giving
emphasize on its traditional socio economical framework.

This opinion is based in research done on election programs. 

And I am more charmed even by the work out of this statement:

The writer of the program keeps on thinking about which politiek bedrijk must be followed, instead of hear what the allochtoon considers a problem. Not many allos are wondering about their identity and their culture. They are wondering about the hardening of their economical situation, among other reasons due to discrimination in the labor market. But this remains unadressed in election programs. 

Wow. I suppose that this should be a real take home message. 

From an article in The Guardian, a known columnist (Madeleine Bunting) leaves to set up a think tank:


"However, other issues are still floundering on the margins of public debate - or worse. Some I plan to devote more attention to in my new capacity: for example, the regeneration of an intellectual grounding for centre-left politics beyond the tired managerialism and bankrupted concept of choice. For several decades the left has failed to mount a challenge to Thatcher's ambition that "the economy is the means, the goal is to remake the soul". Another example is the vexed and embittered debate around the entangled questions of the representations of Islam in the west, the boundaries of freedom of expression and what the sociologist Richard Sennett calls the "pivotal concept" of respect.

But where I feel the wrench from daily journalism most keenly is in a debate that shows all the signs of being strangled at birth. For the first time in a generation, religion is part of the national conversation; people want to talk and read about it. This is in large part due to Islam, which is prompting in a western audience a combination of fear and bewildered fascination (how can women want to wear veils, and have arranged marriages; how can Muslims still believe in angels and a divinely inspired scripture?). But there is another, albeit less pronounced, driver to this debate, which is that the collapse of communism and decline of socialism has left a vacuum of purpose, value and meaning on both the left and the right."

The full article in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1800709,00.html

Now that I change to Mac, I'm trying this widget. Sorry people, I'm just playing around...

Lets talk about running (given that talk when running is kind of hard)

In the ongoing discussion on the welfare state, running as a sport for the masses is more relevant than what you might possible think. After all, the whole point of the welfare state is that your country takes care of your health, no? I wonder then how comes that our doctors and biologists have allowed those masses to believe that pounding your knees with your full weight, for several hundreds times at a stretch and several times a week, could possibly be good for you.

The whole issue gets worse when prominent politicians in this little and flat country in which I live seems to be involved in a full conspiracy to get the masses to run. Pay attention to the recently launched book from Paul Rosemoller, former Groenlinks leader, in which we will read a (likely) very nicely written account on the political advantages of belonging... to the networks of marathon runners. Paul illuminates this face of contemporaneous politics, recounting anecdotes of all these nice and influent people, running and talking and making decision on our sake. And again I wonder... how can you possible think or networking when you are sweating, wasting calories on no end and going across nice landscapes at best, or along the polluted and crowded streets of your neighbourhood at worst?

I actually spend some years of my life thinking that running was good for me. With friends of my climber's club we used to train couple of times a week, circling again and again the campus of our university. The moment of passing by the cafes of our campus had the allure of a manly show of fitness. We run a bit faster, and taking care of our style, even if for those few instants. Some of us were fully convinced that this was the best way to pick up all these girls sipping their colas (not light) and espressos. Alas, the success of the mating strategy, looking backwards, was not very relevant. Probably all those girls were actually being picked by our fellows sitting at their side (sipping their own colas and espressos) and making fun of the sweaty idiots that pass now and then. Nor was the running itself particularly good for ourselves. I used to secretly think that I might loose my belly, which never happened (as that guy walking across the whole USA just discovered). Instead, I got chronic knee complains, and today I can not run more than fifty meters without feeling two sharp knifes exploring both of my meniscus.

Funnily enough, the CBS launched few weeks ago data showing that dutch people is indeed getting thinner, for first time in decades. The statisticians acknowledge the role that the public campaign for more exercise plays here. People do more sport than ever, and accordingly, they are leaner. Right away I imagine all these people comfortably nested in their couches, looking at the news and hearing the speaker of the CBS (my wife, actually) saying that more sport is good for you. Would they run to a gym? Would they simply run, to somewhere back and forth? I felt like paying an add after the press release and shouting in the tellie: don't run, it's bad for you! Stay in your couch and at most, stop eating chips! But probably the runners of this world would not be looking and again, it is hard to imagine that a couch potato would really get out running under the influence of some nicely presented statistical trends.

Walking back to the welfare state, then. Today most (dutch) political parties discover the problem that it is. I am tempted to say that it is a bit delayed discovery anyway. The discussion in academy is around twenty years old, and in Europe is since around five years a political hot potato. Scarcely two years ago dutch people looked at me condescendingly and explained that here in NL there was no problem whatsoever. I should have insisted and make my fame as political trendsetter, but instead, I believe them. Now it looks otherwise, and from Groenlinks to the PvdA, passing by the CDA, everybody has something to say and to propose about this big problem that the welfare state has become (overnight). Perhaps we get some improvements, actually. But I remain a bit suspicious of the way ideas get to be discussed in NL. Running was a big fad in the rest of the world some decades ago. Books like Rosemuller's were printed by the cartload in the seventies. Now the world seems to have become meniscus-aware, and people have discovered bikes. Friends that never dreamed of trusting their life to a two-wheeled contraption mail me frequently about their last item bought, perhaps a super light carbon based pair of biking shoes. Of course a proper dutch would explain me, condescendingly again, that bikes here have a long tradition, and there is nothing to say about it. But I keep on thinking that as much as the welfare state went into the limelight overnight, when all these meniscus shall begin to hurt (and actually become a national health matter), dutchies will rediscover their most popular transportation mean, and consider to use it as a sport.

Does anybody of you know how to buy shares of a dutch bike maker?

Kleurrijk Platform Amsterdam

Kleurrijk Platform Amsterdam

Past tuesday I attended the first meeting of what hopes to become the new multicultural werkgroep in Amsterdam. A group of people, after their work in the gemeenteraad elections, want to give continuity to their efforts for a more colourful politics, and have decided to become a party organization. If things go as they should, Groenlinks Amsterdam counts with a motivated group of people willing to tackle the allochtoon issue.

Hard to imagine a better moment for this development. As we know, the previous local elections were a success of sorts. We did increase wonderfully our participation in local governments. There is no doubt that Groenlinks is a force to be reckon with in the local politics, surely for the coming four years. But if we count votes, the message is less clear. We did not increase significantly our share of the vote. As I have argued in a previous column, is not that we won, but it is that our political enemies have lost. Now, we could endlessly discuss this analysis of the results, but one fact remains above discussion. Eighty percent of the allochtoon electorate voted for the PvdA. Not for us, then. And we being the party that better represent allochtonen, as we ourselves think, the question remains hot: what went wrong? Why these people is voting for others?

Along the few years that I have as an active Groenlinks member, many answers have been offered here in my columns and in the discussions of the landelijk Kleurrijk Platform. We are not clear enough, we tailor the approach evolved from other minorities to the migrant minority (such as talk about integration as emancipation), we do not have politicians able to counter argue the right wings bullies like Ali, or Verdonk. But beyond this reasons, there is a more basic one. As a party we do not have allochtoon members. Or we have far too few.

In this context is that the start of the Kleurrijk Platform Amsterdam is a welcome development. The meeting that I attend invest time and effort in think which groups must be reached in Amsterdam. That is a needed line of thinking. And again, not a lonely one. In Utrecht the partijbestuur has decided to appoint a bestuurlid only focused in the attraction of nieuwe doelgroepen. And both in Rotterdam, Amersfoort and Utrecht we have appointed wethouders directly related to the multiculti portfolio.

So lets hope that in the dynamic entity that Groenlinks is, the thinking about allochtonen, and their inclusion in our kader keeps a priority. And beware; we need not to follow the ethnic model here. Both the wethouder and bestuurlid of Utrecht busy with the allochtoon issue are white nederlanders. Also the discussion leader of the meeting that I attend in Amsterdam. There is certainly nothing wrong with this reality. Taking the allochtoon question seriously, and investing party energy in answering it, do not need per se that black skinned people direct the process. What it needs is that the allochtonen themselves take our party seriously and come and join our debate. Groenlinks has increased her presence in the local governments, and that undermines the idea that the PvdA is the only chance that an allochtoon has to participate in politics. Our homework now is to support the initiatives of Utrecht and Amsterdam.

Five ideas and five presidents: ten reasons why groenlinks should give (more) attention to Latin America

“Twenty years is nothing” (from the lyrics of a known tango)

For a dutch progressive person twenty years ago, it was easy to think about latin america . At that time dutchies coexisted with quite some political exiles, living in Europe after flying from the torture and poverty ridden continent. Many southamericans were politically active in the discussions of the first years of groenlinks. The Nicaragua revolution was still a promise. To learn spanish then was more a political statement than the fashion of our days. Now things look different. In despite of the well known tango lirics that claim that “twenty years is nothing”. Today the Latinamerican discussion landscape is very different. Here are no more (political) exiles, and the ones that lived here then, are mostly back. The south american continent profited from a democratization wave. The political meltdown of The Balkans first, and the African tragedies later, become more urgent issues to think about. Latin american migration became economical, rather than political. In short, Latin America is not so much of an issue for Groenlinks today. Never mind twenty years when already a week is already long time in poolitics. I’m convinced that the time is ripe to think again down to the south and across the ocean.

I recognize, though, that to talk about countries other that the one in which one lives might easily become an exercise in cliche naming. As an argentinian-venezuelan arrived to the shores of NL six years ago (perhaps a short enough time) I hope that still I can offer to the Groenlinks debate a reasonably accurate description of a moving reality. The political and economical dynamics of latinamerica are unbelievable fast. Lets try then to speak briefly. Here I'll present five ideas and five presidents, that together I consider good ten reasons to rethink about Latinamerica. Read on, and hopefully, we will have a debate in hands.

First -pragmatic- idea: markets and cultural affinity

Let's start saying it one time more. We live in global times. And that brings Latinamerica close to europe again, even if only due to economic reasons. True, there are plenty of chinese and asia is an emergent economy. But growth rates of venezuela, or argentina, are higher or comparable. Culturally and economically, we are closer to latinamerica than to asia. The exchange of university researchers is one among many other examples. And look at the initiatives of Mercosur and ALBA. Several latinamerican countries struggle to abate their economical borders, just as Europe some fifty odds years ago. Traditionally the latinamerican markets are dominated by northamerican economics, but politically speaking this trend is being reviewed right now. Europe, as spanish companies learned, has a big role to play there. Dutch economical interests, and knowledge, has a even bigger potentiality to fulfill. Think simply in Shell as an oil exploiting company and the reserves of venezuelan oil and bolivian gas. Or think in water management technologies, and the big waterways that the Amazonas, La Plata and Orinoco rivers are.

On top of that, consider the traditional role that Dutch traders have played in the Caribbean. It is not only that we have dependencies such as The Antillen there, forcing a personal link between caribbeans and dutch population. Curazao refineries process a relevant percentage of venezuelan crude. And antillianen and surinamers are a lively part of the dutch population today. Both by economics and cultural reasons, The Netherlands is close to latinamerica that groenlinks is aware.

Second -also pragmatic- idea, migration

Migration is the one hot issue in european politics likely to remain a hot issue in the years to come. Some people will go on saying that we need migrants, some others will go on saying that we need to reduce their inflow. The fact is that latinamerican migration to europe is growing, and it will remain growing. Differently than twenty years ago, and differently than the migration coming from Africa, we do not have an inflow of refugees from Latinamerica. What we do have is an influx of economical migrants, people that is or willing to work in what they can, or people that has studied and desires to settle for high jobs in europe. Truly, a big majority of latinamerican migrants prefer Spain, due to language reasons. But even if Spain would not be in europe, and the movement inside europe would not be free as it is now, this inflow “spills” to the rest of Europe. Latinamerican migration offer to countries like The Netherlands an interesting situation. Groenlinks strives for the idea of controlled migration, to flows of people that have a job to fulfill here. It is known from latinamerican migrants that they retain structural ties to their countries of origin, both in the form of remittances and in the creation of professional links in R&D sector. That reality diminishes the risk of brain and economical drain. Flows of latinamerican people are a relevant experience in the much needed freshening debate on european migration.

Third -ideological- reason: Latinamerica grows both in macroeconomics and in poverty.

The growth of macroeconomics and the growth of migration are reasons that more or less force europeans to think in Latinamerican. We can't help thinking about economics and about migration, we have to. That is why I think on them as pragmatic reasons to tackle the issue. Now, there are other kind of reasons. Reasons that stem out from the ideology of Groenlinks. Consider then that parallel to the fast growth of the emergent economies
of Latinamerican, the inequality of the region also grows. The more rich some of the countries grow, the more poor population have. This contradiction with the very basic tenets of liberal ideology might inspire us to focus on the challenges of the region. If groenlinks have something new to offer in the ideological arena, is an answer to this conundrum. The ideas expressed as liberal left wing, debated right now in our party, aim to offer an alternative to the conviction that increasing of macroeconomical richness has to end up in increasing of the richness of rich people and increasing in the numbers of the poor. So what happened in Latinamerica? Are they not liberal lefties enough? They do count with extended system of redistribution, but the labor market remain stagnant. Perhaps the changes proposed in the discussion note Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen are a blueprint for latinamerican agenda of socioeconomic change? or does the latinamerican experience tell us that these reforms are doomed to fail? I am aware of the risks of importing economic “models” to other countries... but that is what we are talking when we inspire ourselves in the “scandinavian” model. The Latinamerican experience give us a sobering external comparison, and as well these ideas are exciting enough to debate with our latinamerican ideological allies.

Fourth -ideological- reason: Latinamerica has turned links.

This statement is almost self-evident. In one election after another, the recently elected governments of Latinamerican countries flaunt Groenlinks colors. Beyond the natural sympathy that this development give us, there are deep ideological reasons as well. In the late eighties and the nineties, Latinamerica policy makers followed what can be loosely described as soft-neo-liberal policy. Venezuela opened their oil fields to transnationals, Argentina pegged her currency with the dollar, the Free Trade Area, an initiative driven by northamerica, gained space. But this political choice failed to deliver. The big masses of latinamericans remained poor even when their countries economies boomed. The situation backlashed. Nobel prices as Stiglitz lashed against the “washington consensus”. The political leadership of the region meltdown fast, in spirals of corruption scandals and lack of accountability. A new breed of political leadership did arise, not surprisingly focused in the dispossessed. The result is very mixed and very interesting. Current latinamerican governments do not have a lot on common. Their rhetoric and policies varies. But they do share one thing. They all claim to be leftwingers. If their diversity of views on what being left wing means is not interesting for groenlinks, I don't know what else could be.


Fifth and last -ideological- reason: Latinamerica is still green

Groenlinks is indeed more than red. Our priorities lie in the preserving of nature, faced with a future of global warming and diminishing biodiversity. A simple look to the map makes obvious that the biggest biodiversity hotspots on earth lie in latinamerica. And they are endangered. Corals in the caribbean threatened by big hotels, or deep rain forests in the amazon basin threaten with hungered populations. Differently than other world hotspots, they are in a region with government that has payed frequent lip service to the biodiversity causes. We are not talking of civil war ridden areas here, or islands isolated in the middle of the pacific. It is not hard to imagine european and dutch resources invested in creating real sustainable development on the area. And there is tradition. Uncountable graduates from programs offered a.o. in Wageningen university, have long careers in the area. It is no coincidence that the term “sustainable development” was launched in Rio, back in 1992. Groenlinks has potential to develop in the region, attending to one of our fundamental raisons d' etre.

Five democratic presidents

Lets attempt now a who-is-who of latinamerican politics. A simple look at the press today tells us that this exercise is relevant. Lots of noise have been produced around chavez, or Evo. But who are they? Carriers of the progressive torch, or simple banana republic caudillos re-branded? In my eyes the question goes beyond the academic or politicological interest. The five presidents that I choose to mention illustrate that the linkse kerk knows a huge diversity of strategies and ideologies. Surely in Latinamerica links is far from leeg. Let's see how other people have fill in our common political grounds


Chavez: a former militar and a left winger; demagogue and a powerful centralist. He is a product of the crashing of traditional western democracy. After 40 years of alternating social and christian democrat governments, their credibility spiraled down, and Chavez took power. In NL we got Fortuin and later LPF, who build their political capital criticizing the puin van Pars. In venezuela we got Chavez, grown of criticism to the same political group. His eight years in power show as product huge investments in social issues, mostly uncoordinated and corrupt, but effective all the same. It also show a concentration of power in the executive without precedents in a democratic elected government, and exclusion of opposed voters from the labor market. His growing international figuring makes him relevant.

Lula: Vaaksbonder turned liberal. The president that has more time doing politics in the regio. Before being elected, Lula was candidate many times. If somebody understand the globalized, liberal, economicist contemporaneous world in the LA presidents, that is Lula. And if somebody deserves credibility as a coherent and constant fighter for the rights of the poor and dispossessed, that is Lula. His government shows a difficult mix of liberal policy and left wing goals, such as their “no hunger” program. Lula might be an example of what Groenlinks would do in a cabinet.

Evo: Being the second self-made indigenous person that get's to the government in the region (after the peruvian ...), Evo represent grievances of four hundred years beginning to be addressed. It is too early to evaluate his policies, but soon enough he fulfill his promise of nationalize natural resources. In any case Evo Morales puts in the international scene the fact that many southamerican countries live in a de facto apartheid, where big sector of the population, being indigenous are fully segregated from the rest of society.

Kirchner: After the darker years of thousands of tortured and assassinated, Kirchner is the first president in the region that strongly addressed the massacres done in the militar period. Further, is the only president alive that uses organized masses as policy enforcing tools. Think in the boycott that he organized against Shell, or the people mobilizations against polluting companies in the neighboring country Uruguay.

Bachelet: Being a returned political exile and medical doctor, she was the first woman to be minister of defence and command the same persons that being colleagues of her father (a general loyal to the government of Allende) , tortured and killed him. In the strongly patriarchal and conservative society of chile, (where Pinochet retains even today relevant public support) Bachelet represent the raise of women in a continent that still today in the eyes of europe is considered macho driven. Her policies are expected to be a continuation of her moderated left wing predecessor.

Rejoinder: five plus five is more than ten.

In the previous lines I attempt to explore a landscape of pragmatism, ideology and policy. It should go without saying, I expect that the visions of groenlinksers in the issue varies broadly. With a bit of luck, we might find ourselves soon debating these interesting developments on a big chunk of the world. Before that, I would like to remember that the ideas and personalities here presented are intertwined. As much as europe is a diverse continent, latinamerica is a fascinating collage of situations. Attempts to reduce this reality to scarcely ten points are doom to fail. More lines connect and complicate the vision here presented. But my aim is to offer grounds of debate. Groenlinks is a cosmopolitan party, interested since her origins in the world beyond the dikes. And we have a long tradition of political analysis. I hope that the reader will forgive my simplifications, and recognize that five plus five is not only more than ten, but it is a passionate reality that deserve further thinking. And further acting. Looking forward...

Groenlinks is better off after the Pormes case

Believe it or not, that is what I think. More or less opposed to the main trend of opinion inside our party today. You care to know why? Read on.

Now that the dust is settled, one could try to answer a simple question. What have we learned from the Pormes case? No doubt, this question has already been answered in many other groenlinks blogs, and probably will come back in other instances of party-discussion. Lets start then reviewing what is in the table now.

In first place we have the reactions that medebestuurders have produced. Prominently comes the blog of Selcuk, with his by now famous sentence: “politics was nice, but now it left me with a sour taste”. Then we have the also well-known blog from Bretchje, in which there was talking of a pirric victory. A group of people “won” back Pormes into the party, but the Eerste Kamer Fractie is divided and the party loosed a good chairman. And, more diffuse than these positions, we have the comment heard in corridors and bars, were the partijraad is considered in several lights, none very positive. There is talk of political naiveté, there is talk of lack of expertise, and there is talk of reform, so that no similar mistakes will happen again. Finally we have the media, of course. Mildly, since we are not the VVD or the PvdA, the developments have been also covered, leaving in general the idea that a group of activists, scared on a supposed witch-hunt, lobbied successfully the partijraad for taking Pormes back.

What I personally miss from the whole debate is the thinking on the role that institutions have in a political party. Let's not go into the full debate of whom is right, if the bestuur kicking Pormes out of the party, or the partijraad taking him back. Let's instead remember the steps of the process. Around a year ago Pormes is accused again of having been in a terrorist training camp in Yemen. The bestuur contact him, and he denies it again. Concerned with the media attention that such an accusation might have, the bestuur sets up a research commission. The commission main result is that Pormes did not inform the party enough about his background. The bestuur fires him out of the party. Pormes goes to the geschillen commisie, and this commission gives right to the bestuur. Then Pormes goes to the partijraad, and the partijraad gives him right. Given that the partijraad is the last instance in our party, this is the final result, at least concerning the membership of Pormes to groenlinks. Conversations inside the Eerste Kamer are going on about the way Pormes will go on working there, and we will not talk about it, at least not before they are concluded.

So, why is the party damaged? It seems that the culture of many members in groenlinks have the assumption that commissions must be right. The partijraad should not have contradicted them. But hey, this is not an exact science, this is politics. Experts might be wrong, or might not consider all aspects of a problem. And that is why the partijraad, a groenlinks instance that gathers representatives from the whole country, has the last word. They received the whole report from bestuur, research commission and geschille commissie. They hopefully read them, hear the bestuur, hear Pormes, and decide to give Pormes right. Is that wrong? Should they have automatically raised their hands and give the bestuur right?

In my own view, a party is a delicate balance of opinions, both from experts and from politicians, from activists and strategists. And groenlinks have this balance implemented in the kind of processes described above. We do have checks and balances. And, as the result of the Pormes issue shows, they work. A collective might disagree with decisions taken by a director’s board. And in groenlinks, the evaluation of a collective is more important that the evaluation of a bestuur. Is that wrong?

I am not the only person inside groenlinks concerned with the trend that our leaders have taken in the last years. And I am neither the only one to consider that Herman Meijer was quite a good chairman. Working with Herman was a pleasure. But in many occasions his bestuur did not pay enough attention to the voices of the collective. Think in the position chosen around two years ago on integration: integration as emancipation. A sympathetic slogan in The Netherlands, a country famous by her emancipated policy. But was that a political position relevant for the migrants that live inside NL? We don't know, because this political standpoint was reached without the collaboration of the organized migrants inside groenlinks. Is that a coincidence that migrants voted a couple of months ago by the PvdA? perhaps not. Or think about the “partijbreed” discussion on migration. A nice resulting text, from which I was co-author. But did the bestuur organize the partijbreed discussion? Not at all. There was one debate in Den Haag, organized by the afdeling, and another in Utrecht, organized by the Philosophy werkgroep. Did the visietext reflect, or influence the way groenlinksers think on migration? probably not. Or at least, we cannot know, since groenlinksers were hardly consulted.

So yes, I think that we are better off after the Pormes case. Because hopefully the bestuur in particular, and our leaders in general, should have learned that in a political party you cannot stop hearing your members too long. Is that a lesson that leaves a sour taste in the mouth of a bestuurder? I hope not, at least, not from a groenlinks bestuurder.

Back to normal?

Well now, elections are over. Local elections that is. To me, one thing is clear. In Utrecht, Groenlinks is a stable party, it does have a stable electorate. We have keep the chairs in the city council that we have got six years ago. And that is, in principle, good. But good how?. Which ideas of groenlinks keep us alive? which electorate?

The past six years has seen in NL the equivalent of a frustrated revolution. The rising of the leefbaar parties, a sort of right wing populism, has deflated itself like a pinched balloon. In our city, the party leefbar utrecht change from 14 to 3 sits. If you compare that with the 14 seats of the bigger party (PvdA) and the eight seats of the second (we), you realize that the leefbaar revolt is over. That is good news, because it seems that the inhabitant of utrecht did not find herself in the style or contents of this upcoming right wing. Utrecht remains a resonably left wing city, and Groenlinks now hopes to take part in the government.

So we can congratulate ourselves that life, political life, is back to normal. And not only. It is hard for a party like Groenlinks to be opposition. Our strenght is the good city councellor, a persons that per definition is not a populist politician, but a long term serious worker. But after six years, looks like this low but serious profile gave good results. We will likely get into the government. And there will be chances to implement the program that has been developped in the last months.

One can ask, anyway, if this is the whole history. Actually... Does the disaparition of leefbaar means that people “has returned to their senses”. Is it true then than Utrecht comes back to be a mild left wing city? Shall we go on as before? Well, not really. Another interpretation is also possible.

In principle, we can agree that the leefbar party betrayed its own agenda. Many positions used as electoral flags six years ago, were reversed in office. And, perhaps even more important, the driving figure of Fortuin is long ago gone. So without coherence in the local politicias, and whitout a charismatic figure in the national sphere, the rising right wing populism was condemned to die. Nothing that was done by Groenlinks or other left wing parties has anything to do here. They just defeat themselves.

More important, the question is if the voters of leefbaar did vote yesterday. Have they found another party that might canalize their discontent? I don't think so. The mass of new voters six years ago, of angry people that went to the urns to complain, had nobody to vote for yesterday. But they remain discontent. The question that they posed to the political establishment six years ago is still unanswered.

A vote analyst might try to contradict this line of thinking. After all, more people voted yesterday than six years ago, not less. What is interesting is that many allochtoon voters did went to vote yesterday, much more than six years ago. And polls in this sector of the population claim that they were going to massively vote for what now has become the first party in utrecht, the socialdemocrats. We can say that as much as these people remained at home six years ago, this time they came and vote. And the ones that six years ago believe had an option in the leefbaar parties, remained at home.

In any case, these are good news for Groenlinks in general, and for Groenlinks Utrecht in particular. The group of people that is to become city councillors has a strong allochtoon component. The bestuur is about to launch a project to involve allochtoon people in the local politics. So here we can be the right people at the right moment. We just have to make true the imago that we gave.

The unanswered question is what to do with the discontent. Shall we ignore it, thinking that likely this group of people will not support Groenlinks politics no matter what? That is an option, surely so. But also we can think that being now back into the government (hopefully) it is high time for Groenlinks to explore new areas. We are, after all, an party of alternatives, convinced in the power of grass roots movements and local action (and global thinking). The challengue for Groenlinks in the four years to come is to root our agenda. To root it in the people from Utrecht.

wethouders

The last ALV from Groenlinks Utrecht occurred in the middle of the campaign. Accordingly, no discussions on ideology were expected. That we have left behind, after the program was goedgekeurd months ago. But discussion on strategy was welcome. The ALV gave her support and confidence to a commission that will take care of the forming of a new city government. If the votes are enough to make the government, of course. Interestingly enough, our candidates for being wethouders, the city equivalents of ministers, are not publicly disclosed. A strong argument plays here a role. A wethouder is supposed to be a person with experience enough in the management of a city. Most likely, then, he or she is currently working in public functions. But of course, the very same public function that gave experience enough to be wethouder, would be endangered if known will be that this person is a partisan candidate of groenlinks. So we have decided to keep our list private, to be disclosed only in negotiations with the other parties, once elections are done and it is known which parties have which amount of power.

Now, one might ask if this is not another version of the irritant back-room politics, which every single person is willing to denounce. Actually, my opinion there is kind of split. On one side, I would like to have candidates that have no problem with going public. If a potential wethouder of Groenlinks feels damaged by going public as Groenlinks candidate, then that is a candidate that does not strike me as seriously committed with groenlinks ideas. But on the other side, reality is beyond my wishes. And actually I can imagine that the director of one of the non-partisan institutions that actually runs the city, will be impaired in his, or her, work, if becomes known his, or her, willingness to take on a position that requires the support of a party, and is ideologically tinted. So, when in doubt about the political system of The Netherlands, I shut up. I remain an allochtoon, and better to learn before arguing for some hopeless political standpoint.

Now, perhaps more interesting than the arguments that Groenlinks Utrecht have for keeping our candidates out of the public spotlight, is what are we going to do with the arguments in themselves. Robert Gisbert brought up the point to discussion. We do know that in some of the coming debates, the debater from Groenlinks will be asked about candidates names. What should this person answer, then? Well, strange as it sounds to me, we agree that the answer might be, eventually and after being repeated several times, to release one or two names, such as the name of Robert himself (who has no problem to go public). But my problem, again perhaps due to my still incipient understanding of the subtleties of Dutch politics, is that we are not intending to release to the public our actual real arguments not to mention the candidates. So, our position seems to be as follow: we have arguments to follow strategy A, but those are arguments that do not come very nice across the public. So we are not going to defend our own arguments to do A. Instead, we will do A as long as we can, and if forced to, we would do a (A, but not capital).

What I wonder about is that, if we groenlinksers, and utrechtsers as we are, are convinced by our own arguments... why don't we put them to the public? Are we scared of an unfriendly reception? Well, it seems to me that this is what debates are about, to open up to a potential voter, how do we think. But again, I might be wrong. We will actually see, when elections are done and over.

Bestuurstijl

De geschiedenis van GroenLinks vertelt een fascinerend verhaal over de politiek van de laatste twintig jaar. Het was mogelijk in de tachtiger jaren om de opkomst van het conservatisme te bestrijden met meer van hetzelfde, om door te gaan met de traditionele linkse agenda. De voorlopers van GroenLinks kozen toen voor een andere weg. Twintig jaar van intern debat had de weg vrijgemaakt voor het samengaan van ecologische principes, solidaire ideologieën en een tikje liberale ideeën. Dat mengsel lanceerde ons naar de politiek van een nieuwe eeuw. In korte tijd groeiden we in de tweede kamer en we nemen deel aan het college in verschillende gemeentes. Die keuze in de tachtiger jaren had succes gehad.

Nu staat GroenLinks op een soortgelijke positie. Opnieuw zijn de conservatieven aan de winnende hand. Leefbaar Utrecht speelde een aanzienlijke rol in de Utrechtse politiek en verdreef GroenLinks Utrecht uit het college. Wij hebben toen een defensieve oppositie gevoerd. Zo hadden we een stem tegen cameratoezicht met idealistische tegenargumenten voor privacy. De camera’s in Utrecht zullen een strategie worden om de veiligheid te vergroten, of we het daarmee nu eens zijn of niet. Er zijn ook GroenLinkse initiatieven geclaimd door anderen, zoals de campagne ‘geen groen voor poen’ door de SP. Wat blijft er overeind van onze eigen strijdpunten?

We hebben minimaal twee opties. GroenLinks Utrecht kan natuurlijk doorgaan op de bekende voet. We kunnen onze huidige stijl opnieuw aanbieden, die gebaseerd is op ervaren politici die intensief aan het werk zijn in de raad. Dat is toch ook een risicovolle strategie, omdat Nederland (en daarmee ook Utrecht) de laatste jaren veranderd is. Het is ook een comfortabele strategie omdat we gewoon doorgaan met wat we al kunnen. Er is ook een andere keuze, de keuze voor vernieuwing. Mijn pleidooi is voor een fractielid dat bruggen moet bouwen tussen beleid en burger. Ik pleit dus voor een fractielid dat het werk met de burger als prioriteit heeft. En ik pleit voor een fractielid dat GroenLinks kan presenteren in heldere en eenvoudige lijnen. Onze tijd is moeilijk, omdat mensen ideologieën en politici minder waarderen. Mijn antwoord is a “back to the basics” roep. Terug naar de burger als focus van onze politiek bedrijf. En terug naar helderheid van ideeën. De minder waarderen van politici komt van onze mutatie in hooge ambtenaren dat beleid maken, en praten met haagse taal en diffuse ideeën.

Als ik een rol kan spelen in de toekomstige fractie van GroenLinks, zal het in de lijn liggen van deze ideeën. Afgelopen drie jaar heb ik deelgenomen aan verschillende organen van GroenLinks. In toenemende mate heb ik de mogelijkheden van onze partij weten te waarderen, de creativiteit van onze leden. En in dezelfde tijd was ook ik ooggetuige van de verandering van onze samenleving en politiek. Politiek is persoonlijker en meer chauvinistisch geworden. Ik geloof er sterk in dat onze partij zich hieraan deze veranderingen kan ombuigen naar een betere toekomst. Wij moeten onze potentie waarmaken. En we moeten kristalhelder zijn met onze ideeën. In een maatschappij die opnieuw op een kruispunt staat, zoeken mensen naar een visie. Wij hebben die, we moeten het alleen ook willen aanbieden.

Natuurlijk zijn ideeën makkelijk neer te schrijven. Maar hoe worden zie concrete in een thema? Hoe kan ‘potentie’ concrete input worden? Hieronder geef ik daarop mijn antwoord. Ik bestrijk hiermee niet de hele range van de GroenLinkse politiek. Ik wil hiermee mijn standpunten verduidelijken voor thema’s waarmee ik binnen GroenLinks al bekend ben. Dat is multiculturalisme, economie en Europa. En dat is wat ik in kan brengen bij de volgende GroenLinks fractie.

Ik wil naar de gemeenteraad!

Waarom? Omdat mijn passie is.

Ik weet niet of het mogelijk is, in de kleine ruimte van een posting, om een passie te verklaren. Ik zal het, in ieder geval, proberen. Passie voor politiek, passie voor groenlinks.

Omgever twintig jaar geleden was ik een geschiedenisboek voor kinderen aan het lezen, over het eind van de romeinse rijk. Ik kan me nog herinneren hoe de duistere eeuwen begonnen door het migratie. Het was niet de verdoervenheid van de keizer, het was niet de bouwvallige ideologie. Het was de onvoorspelbare beweging van millioenen personen, vanuit de steppen in China, van Noord Europa. Een schare van personen die niet beteugeld kunnen worden, en ook niet geintegreerd. Het boek was aan het eind, maar ik bleef er nog aan denken. De grootste romeinse rijk, was overwonen per simpele mensen, mensen on the move. Toen was ik een argentijnse migrant in Venezuela. Ik was zelf een van de stof deeltjes, een van de zandkorrels in de massa van migranten, nog een keer on the move. En niet alleen ik. Mijn italiaanse grootouders, in de weg naar Argentijne. Of mijn zoon, jaren later geboren in het Nederland. Migranten. Zullen wij nog een keer chaos en wanorde naar onze wereld brengen? Een vraag dat herhalt zichzelf, nog zonder duidelijk antword. Sinds dit moment, twintig jaren geleden, denk ik dat wij migranten aktief betrokken moeten zijn bij de juist antword geven. Migranten een rol hebben om te spelen in de landen dat ze ontvangen, dat ons ontvangt. De rol om onze rol te veranderen. Migranten waren altijd de andere, de gevaarlijke, de ontwrichtende. Onze eeuw moet een andere rol zien.

Jaren later, namiddag in de cafetaria van mijn universiteit. Ik en een vriend van mijn klimclub beslissen om een nieuwe studie te volgen. Dus verlaat ik natuurkunde in mijn vierde jaar, en uiteindelijk word ik bioloog. Mijn vriend wordt architect. Beide van ons waren overtuigd door wat wij hebben gezien in onze expedities naar het amazone regenwoud, of naar onze ijsbergen. Onze toekomst was in gevaar, in ernstig gevaar. De stad was aan het vreten van de natuur. Het woud werd ontbost. Het ijs was gesmolten. Als bioloog werd ik betrokken bij enkele environmental impact assesments. Van goudmijnen in het regenwoud, van olieraffinaderijen in de gezondheid van de mensen, van ontbossing in dieren communiteiten. Ik heb onderzoek gedaan naar het smelten van de gletsjers in de Anden. Dit werk was belangrijk. Wat blijtf er over, als ons welzijn onze natuur opeet? In deze tijd was ik de leider van een gematigde linksepartij in de universiteit. Dit partij hebben wij opgeheven, en zijn met een groene partij begonnen. Na deze actie, hebben wij geen verkiezing gewonnen. Omdat het in de derde wereld nog een lange mars is tot het moment dat de milieu een politiek onderwerp is. Maar mijn ideeen waren wel behoorlijk vastanlijn. Links en groen.

Meer jaren kwamen, meer jaren waren weg. Ik ben aangekomen in Zwitserland, an te werken voor een promotie in theoretische biologie. Veel dingen vergingen mijn toen slecht, tot aan het punt dat heb ik gescheide ben van mijn vrouw, ik heb mijn titel niet gekregen. Maar in dezelfde tijd nieuwe opportuniteiten werde geopend. In de zwitserse Alpen heb ik Chantal Melser ontmoet, mijn huidige vrouw en de moeder van mijn zoon Ayden. Toen kwamen de jaren van aanpassing, van het loslaten van mijn carrière binnen de wetenschap en de politiek van Venezuela. Ook de jaren als huisvader van mijn zoon, als starter van mijn statistisch advisebureau. Dit waren jaren van grote veranderingen. Niet de minste was het leren van een nieuwe taal. Maar een ding blijft. Zo vroeg als ik een beetje nederlands begrepen hebt, ben ik lid geworden van Groenlinks. Ik dacht altijd dat ik een gelukkig persoon ben. En in dit gevaal is uiteindelijk waar. Groenlinks is een partij die niet alleen geduldig jarenlang mijn engels heeft gehoord. Maar beter dan dat, groenlinks combineert mijn passies, links en groen. En meer, sinds groenlinks een partij is die historisch gezien de rol van de allochtoon in de politiek erkent. Moelijk om gelukkiger te zijn, met een partij die op die wijze mijn passies combineert. Dus lees jij deze brief vandaag. Ik bied aan om te werken voor de stad die mij heeft verwelkomd. Om te werken voor een betere toekomst, met solidariteit. Dit zijn de redenen dat jullie nu mijn sollicitatie als kandidaat voor de gemeenteraad. Om mijn passies, om onze ideen uit te werken voor de stad van Utrecht.

September

The past month has been so crowded with events that this weblog has been abandoned. But no more. Let's lay down some little review of what has happened, and move forward.

I became member of the campaign committee, under the direction of Jasper Fastl, a fast and very welcomed “newcomer” to Utrecht. This is the club that is planning the coming local election, in march. A very interesting club, in which we have seen the process of start with some vague ideas to go on structuring a fully-fledged electoral campaign. So far I have been busy with trying to identify tendencies in the electorate of Utrecht. Fascinating work, indeed. One thing is to live in a city, and a very different thing is to see how that bunch of people has voted in the last twenty years. The big trends come back in the picture. The diminishing power of the big parties, the PvdA and the CDA, the short flash of the D66, the growth of the SP and the VVD, and the steady growth of Groenlinks. Until the Fortuin revolution, that is. Utrecht seems to be a predictor of national trends. Want to take a detailed look at my findings? http://www.scicha.org/GL/doc/GLtrends.ppt

Before the holidays, the Kleurrijk Platform (http://www.kleurrijkplatform.nl/) changed her stuurgroep. I became the chairman, or rather contact person. Since then we have meet couple of times, and decided to go on with our conceptual discussions of integration, a set of meetings that have so far produced some much needed insight in this actual issue. And we organized several workshops in the Linkse Lente, where we could discuss diversity as unifying practice, diversity inside our party, the relation of integration and education and more. What we certainly want for the future is to discuss all these results with the local politicians, active in the cities of the netherlands. There Utrecht plays a role, surely, with the multicultureel manifesto that we wrote in the multiculti werkgroep.

Back to my local roots, then. The program committee (http://programma.groenlinksutrecht.nl), the club in charge of giving us a program for the elections of coming march, decided not to include a multiculti chapter. We in the multicultiwerkgroep Utrecht disagree and are in campaign for its inclusion. The alv from 9 november will be the place for this “battle” to happen. Will we manage? Will we gather the support of the afdeling? exciting question.

And then, De Werkvloer. Back in the Linkse Lente I moderate a public dialogue in between entrepreneurs and politicians. A bit chaotic, but it was still interesting to check that indeed there are plenty of groenlinks politicians working at the interface of green politics and ondernemers. That interaction, that crossing of the borders is what we want to improve in the Werkvloer. (Read the presentation to the dialogue in http://www.scicha.org/GL/doc/WVNijmegen.doc: print it and fold it first...) After all, we started this national workgroup to develop the thinking on the MKB sector inside Groenlinks. One of the issues alive is innovation policy. I have gathered some literature, which you can check up here: http://www.scicha.org/GL/doc/In.doc.

And talking about border crossing I finally got the time to update the site of the Heerlen group (http://www.greenyourope.net). Take a look at it. Some of us will get soon to Antwerp, to discuss our developing agenda of cross border collaboration.

And more about Europe. This coming saturday 8, I'll be discussing about bestuurstijl in a debate for candidates to the gemeenteraad. After, the Europa workgroup organizes a discussion on contrasting visions of Europe. The reader is here to be seen (http://www.scicha.org/GL/doc/EUGL.pdf). High time for this discussion to occur!

So as you see, Groenlinks in september is a very alive party. Lets hope that this weblog can keep up. Stay tuned (or come online again) and you will see.

Tjeerd, Jasper H. and Cerian, in the house of Jasper Fastl (not in the photo). First meeting of the Campagne Commisie

Campagne commissie

Back from holidays, I found myself sited in the house of Jasper Fastl, talking with other four groennlinksers on the future of our campaign for the city council. It seems to be early still in our agenda, so the discussion is not yet ordered. But some patterns begin to appear in the middle of our brainstorm. Perhaps we owe to the weather of this rainy country more than what we would like to accept, and our discussion is just like another day of diffuse rain, in which only slowly one can recompose the blue sky beyond, out from the little pieces of blue that shine now and then in between the clouds. So what will the campaign of groenlinks looks like?

At least for me, one thing is clear. This campaign is going to be uphill. Groenlinks is hardly a traditional opposition party, less of all in Utrecht. Our short life of almost twenty years in politics has seen us frequently in the government of the city, but not for the last time. And our groenlinksers are people qualified to do things, to bring a needed moderation in the hawkish proposals of others. But as an opposition party, in the last six years, it has been hard to get the nuance to the elector. Doomsayers and shouters have hijacked the political debate, as leefbaar utrecht on one side, and sympthetical pragmatists, as the PvdA, a party that has no qualms to reverse their more progressive positions in order to gain a bit of power. So the challenge of groenlinks today is to reinvent herself, or at least to show herself as it really is. In groenlinks the traditions of left wing an ecologism gets together. Groenlinks has provoked fundamental changes in our city, making it more friendly and less gray. So the challenge that our campagne commisie has is to find again the style that get this message across. This time we are not saddled by controversial proposals, neither we have a lot to show from our work in the city council. Will we be able to show ourselves again as the alternative that we really are, in our times of neo-conservatism, insecurity and fear? Has our message, one of greening and solidarity, any relevance in times of bombs and unemployment, of failed integration and international terrorism? I do think so. We will have still to see how do we manage… in the campagne commisie.

Groenlinks' week, monday

The summer is definitively marking its entrance in our latitude, so accordingly people work harder and harder, in the last jump before the long summer holidays. The same for groenlinks, of course. The week that is just ended had every single day a groenlinks meeting.

The tale begins the monday, in which by first time I joined the campaign commission of Groenlinks Utrecht. Our club is responsible of creating and coordinate the campaign for the local elections of March 006. Great expectations indeed. In Utrecht GL is one of the biggest parties, currently the second. A election strategy has the challenge of capitalize our presence and at least maintain an surely increase our share of the votes. A challenge and an extremely interesting task for me. In my past years active in GL, I have been concentrated in the internal party. Now it's time to get out and learn about our voters, their desires, their ideas, and their expectations. And accordingly our meeting started talking about different ways to see our electorate. Is the GL voter a cosmopolitan? Or a postmaterialist? Shall we instead focus in labor segments, thinking that GL voters are frequent in the welfare sector? Or should we base our campaign in neighborhoods that traditionally have voted GL? Can we learn something about the use of free time? Do our voters goes to a concert or to a park?

As you can see, the discussion here involves fundamental convictions of a politician. If you are a populist, your main aim is to please your elector. In the other extreme you should lead your elector. And a whole range of alternatives rage in the middle of these options. Interestingly enough, all options start with a good knowledge of who is your supporter. So discussing how do we classify our electorate reflects our fundamental understanding of our job as politicians. Our discussion is not closed, yet. What we reviewed were different ways to classify people, as for their convictions, or they profession, their living quarters or their conception of free time. And surely I incline myself for a sort of alternative viewpoint. Surely this discussion is interesting, but ultimately it might not matter that much who votes for us. What matters much more greatly is how clearly are we going to get our standing points across. Groenlinks is the party that dares to doubt, we say. It’s difficult to have a clear-cut message. The challenge for our campaign commission, then, is rather illustrate why politicians also have to doubt, instead of knowing who is going to vote for us.

Lenie Scholten, Kees Vendrik, Bas Roufs and Rene Boesten (from left to right) In the starting night of De Werkvloer

Tuesday and wednesday

The tuesday was one of the more successful days that I had had in GL yet. Since couple of years I have been clumsily tried to get involved in the economical thinking of our party, without success. The Kleurrijk Platform and the Utrecht fractie in the gemeenteraad were not interested in the discussion of allochtonous entrepreneurship. The europa workgroup did not have too much interest in discuss european economics neither. And the economical network did not work publicly. But finally, some six months ago Bas Roufs, Rene Boesten and I started a workgroup directed to the medium and small business (see previous post). The tuesday was the starting evening, say the public debut of the workgroup) and some thirty persons heard a panel of politicians and entrepreneurs. Definitively inside our party there is the growing conviction that more attention to economical questions must be given. The first hurdle, then, is passed with success. Thirty persons gathered for a nationl workgroup is a rather big amount. Now comes the real work. We will focus in an array of issues, hoping to produce discussion and position papers. Interested to participate? I am in charge of the innovation agenda and the coming reform of the social security system (in aspects relevant for small entrepreneurs). Rene will organize the discussion on sustainable development and social responsibility of entrepreneurs, and Bas will be busy with the green financing and the jump from freelancer to business owner. Other themas? write us a line! werkvloer@groenlinks.nl


Wednesday finally came, and the redaction of the Linksom meet in the house of Ad Uiterwall, our director. The Linksom is the newspaper of groenlinks utrecht, and, as far as I can tell, it is another successful example of continuity. The number that we discussed will be the fifth since we started as new redaction. Before our newspaper lacked regularity, due to a shortage in human resources. But the meeting of the wednesday proved to me that simply going on with a project brings success. The new redaction started with seven members, and was reduced shortly after to three. Nevertheless we went on, and after the regular publication of four numbers mostly made by us, articles from other members are flowing in. And our redaction also has three new members. Gewoon doen (just do it) is a well known dutch saying. And for what respects to the linksom, that remains true.