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.