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.