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.