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.