Nigeria: Dutch parties demand Nigerian gang police force

Calling the Ambassador

This is a very worrisome development that requires some action and activity from the official representation of Nigeria in the Netherlands; it must be debunked and condemned forthwith.

Whilst there might be cases of criminal conduct by aliens in the Netherlands, the idea that Nigerians can be singularly identified as a group that specifically requires the establishment of a permanent police force [1] to monitor and investigate their activities is outright discrimination and disconcerting.

This populist demand by right-leaning parties as the CDA, VVD & PVV to the Justice Minister to establish a permanent police force with Nigerian-criminal-gang tinted-glasses does not augur well for the improvement of relations between the Netherlands and Nigeria.

Nationality must not matter

Criminals should be treated as criminals and afforded the full scrutiny of the law and justice processes regardless of where they are from; the whole idea of a Nigerian crime squad is a fallacy that portends that Nigerians have more criminality than other nationalities.

It does not seem there is consideration for the fact that other black Africans can feign Nigerian-hood just as Nigerians can seek to deny that they are from Nigeria for all sorts of reasons.

One does wonder what will happen if other nationalities create the perception that they have a criminality quotient higher than a presumed norm. Would these parties also demand a British gang squad, a Polish gang squad or even a Serbian gang squad?

A level investigation field

There probably is a case for establishing and a serious crime squad to deal with particular kinds of crimes, to establish such a squad to target nationalities smacks of populist racist intent and it does not augur well for society.

There are enough laws in the land to deal with criminals, but it is not enough for suspects who have not been through the legal and justice process to be branded undesirable aliens, just on suspicion rather than legally tested evidence of the suspicion leading to conviction; where that would then make them undesirable aliens and hence candidates for deportation.

Leaning to the populist

The names of the parties calling for this atrocious exercise belie a false sense security and tolerance; the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) as the majority party in the ruling coalition does not necessarily exhibit a Christianly approach to justice as it panders backward-looking to Calvinism rhetoric.

The Party for Freedom (PVV), lead by Geert Wilders is hardly about freedom but populist doctrine that aims to fracture society and community.

The People’s Party for Freedom and Democarcy (VVD) used to be the haven for Rita Verdonk (Lady Oddjob), it is supposed to be a liberal leaning party, but they have been anything but liberal in their policies and pronouncements.

Sources

[1] News Dutch MPs demand crackdown on Nigerian gangs - News from The Netherlands – Expatica

Verdonk: Her misplaced pride

A sailor on dry land

A few weeks ago, I was on the tram from my neighbourhood to the Central Station when I saw a big poster set up at the Amsterdam Passenger’s Terminal showing a lady dressed up as a clean looking tar with hands on ship wheel.

The text on the poster was Trots op Netherland, which means “Proud of the Netherlands”, the lady in the poster was Mrs. Rita Verdonk who until last year was the Minister of Immigration and Integration till her actions brought down the government.

Lady Oddjob’s pride

In my blogs about her, I referred to her as Lady Oddjob and this was derived from the time when she decided to throw her hat in the ring to contest the leadership of her party (VVD) then, she persona and firebrand populism drew impressions of the Oddjob character in a James Bond film decapitating people by throwing his hat like a Frisbee.

She did not win that leadership contest but at the general election she polled more votes than the party leader and tried to unseat the leadership by sleight.

Eventually, she became unmanageable within the party hierarchy and she got kicked out of the party, hence this new incarnation of Lady Oddjob as leader of Trots op Netherland.

No leader at all

I have always been of the view that Mrs. Verdonk might be a good minister but she has no leadership or even decent team-working abilities in politics, she held everyone to ransom and in the process destroyed her party’s ability to continue in coalition after the elections because they lost seats.

Trots op Netherland is no new dimension in Dutch politics, it has nothing to do with being proud of the Netherlands, and rather, it would serve as a refuge for nostalgic, bitter, disgruntled and ignorant Dutch citizens who have been left behind by the changing times.

It would be the gathering place for the populist use of flawed statistics, poorly reasoned logic about problems with the Netherlands and a catchment for those who inadvertently seek greater instability for the country they want to be more prosperous.

We have seen the rise and fall of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn and the advent of Geert Wilder’s band of patriots called the Party for Freedom.

Bitter people

It needs the articulate verbiage of Senator Obama to give voice the real issue here which as the truth is best not spoken, he might have been expressing a frustration in not being able to break into the working class communities around America when he said, “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them, and it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”.

Whether it was politically astute for Senator Obama to say that, say it in that way or try to rephrase it in some more digestible language, time will tell, but the is the truth as glaring as you will get it about populist parties and their causes.

The congregation of bitter people who cling to nostalgia, religion, guns, antipathy, anti-immigrant sentiment or some other so-called patriotic or nationalist cause in the name of taking back their country, which in fact, is taking their country back to the Dark Ages of economic stagnation, insularity and protectionism all of which would never yield good dividend in this global village we now inhabit.

Now, we live in a free country with the freedom to assemble for any cause we might be persuaded of, if the “bitter” people need a sort of representation in our political system, they are welcome to proselytise and they would find sympathisers, people who would lurk in the shadows providing substantial but clandestine support – democratic subversion, you might call it.

The proud are represented

I would contend that those who are really proud of the Netherlands have already spoken, they voted for the parties now in power who for all their foibles have more broad-based ideas for taking the Netherlands forward than saying anything that would panic people into running into the last refuge of the scoundrel – blind Patriotism. (Paraphrased from Samuel Johnson)

Verdonk in leadership slam dunk - Update

Goats in, Votes out

After the Dutch elections last week, I am still gob smacked about how the results have turned out. The ruling party (Christian Democratic Appeal - CDA) with its burgher, lack-lustre, dour leader who at times appears in need of a radical charismatic lobotomy after his anti-Harry Potter makeover, lead the team to another electoral victory.

He would now have a fourth bite at the cherry in 4 years, even the Dutch should be getting election weary.

Victory, in the sense that they won more seats in the Second Chamber, but 76 are needed to have a majority government, they got 41 losing 3 seats from the last time and needing 35 to form a majority government.

The opposition Labour Party got 33 losing 9 seats; the Socialist Party increased their share from 9 to 25 and the Liberal Party (VVD), the party of the Minister of dis-Integration and Emigration – Mrs Rita Verdonk, lost 4 seats to end up being the fourth party with 22 seats.

A Dutch coalition of pain

The old coalition of CDA, VVD and D66 would only garner 66 seats; however, it is unlikely that D66 would play having lost half their seats nor would they be seen in cahoots with Verdonk the cause of the fall of the last government.

The salutary lesson of this election is, people want more of the same with a lean to the left, then a bit of tough talk on those immigration and religious issues espoused by Geert Wilders whose locks once looked like a permanent lawyer’s wig. His new party of tough-talking intolerance pulled in 9 seats but he is too much of a firebrand to be called into a coalition – he was once in the Liberal Party – methinks we are in the death throes of liberalism in the Netherlands since the standard bearers of that ideology have lost electoral ground.

There is no doubt that a good few people would like to see Mrs Rita Verdonk sacked and pensioned off into obscurity, but not that easily.

She is back – again!

In 10 minutes, I heard the number 620,555 from her lips just as many times, the number of votes polled by Mrs Verdonk as number 2 in the VVD Party list which by circumstance happens to exceed the leader’s number by 50,000 votes. A precedent, they say.

Early on Tuesday, she said she would not challenge for the leadership of the party, having 4 months ago clearly lost the vote of the VVD party for the leadership, well, this evening she is back in a surreptitious and outrageous power grab for the leadership.

First by saying the people have spoken, she is probably more popular than the leader of her party, however, she would not challenge for the leadership of the party.

Rather, a commission should be set up to review this unique situation, and meanwhile, she is loyal to the party and to the leadership of Matt Rutte.

Rotten politics

If I have ever heard a fork-tongued, double-speak, back-stabbing, political about-face of the most slithering snake of treasonable political Brutus-tricks, Mrs Verdonk personifies the side of politics that would make you puke your toes from the inside – the moniker of Lady Oddjob now really fits.

There are rules for the election of a party leader and that is not decided by a general election, but by party membership, the leader only had 3 months to prepare for the elections, Mrs Verdonk has hugged the headlines for years with her tough stance on immigration and she neither won it within her party nor did she win it for her party.

If the VVD has a liability, it would be her, but like we have with the Weakest Link, the party members may not see through this political travesty of honour and integrity.

For a person who being unelected caused the fall of a government to now want to reap the fruits of democratic ascendancy, shows that she has all ambition and has little to show in political maturity or leadership – it would be not surprise me if like the List Pim Fortuyn, her leadership of the VVD leads the party to political obscurity through in-fighting and rancour – some lessons do have to be learnt the hard way and the Liberal Party looks like a ready and willing student.

Update – 29/11/2006

Having not been able to persuade the party hierarchy to establish an unnecessary commission, to examine the unique situation of the party leader polling less than the next person in the party list; Mrs. Verdonk has now pledged allegiance to the party and thrown her weight behind the party leader respecting the decision of the party to retain Mark Rutte and the leader of the Liberal Party (VVD).

References

The Verdonk Blog Trail

The Lady Oddjob Blog Trail

Are we voting in 8 days time?

A Quite Quiet Dutch Election

In the Netherlands, we are deep into electioneering as the parliament is to be elected on the 22^nd of November 2006.

Unlike the United States where one would have been bombarded with adverts in televisions, billboards, radio and any other communication medium you can think of; I could imagine a time when they would be able to invade your dreams and plan voting thoughts into would make you suddenly break out of sleep in cold sweat reaching for your gun – I have noticed nothing here in the Netherlands.

In fact, we have billboards set up in particular locations where parties and their activists can post their bills, this society could be so egalitarian, and it is scary.

By proportion to a list

Anyway, I received the list of candidates in my mailbox; we have a system of proportional representation, each party has a list of candidates where the person at number 1 is most likely to be elected and the last is least likely, it is a hierarchy but not as we know it.

When the votes are cast, the percentage of the polled votes against the total votes is computed to determine the number of seats gained as a proportion of the total number of seats contested by all parties, the party then fills the seats starting from number one to the fulfilled number.

The party with the most seats gains the right to seek out a coalition of other parties with which to form a government.

I cannot vote in the Netherlands, but I do have the right to vote if as a European citizen from the UK, I decide to chuck in my British passport for a Dutch one, why would I do such a thing?

I already can vote for the local elections and that is fine by me.

Listing all controversy

A number of things are quite interesting about the list; we have the Christian Unie (Christian Union) which is somewhat conservative evangelical that aligns itself with the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij - SGP (Reformed Political Party) an ultra-conservative curmudgeon of repressed religionists.

The SGP made the news earlier in the year and were on the verge of losing government funding for not allowing women to participate in the voting process, they do not believe in female suffrage – yes, we have those types in liberal Netherlands.

The CU however, does have men and women on their list; I would say nothing about hypocrisy in this respect.

Illiberal by personality

Then we have the Liberal Party, the VVD which is in coalition in government with the CDA, the party of the man who used to look like Harry Potter.

I for one cannot find what is liberal about the VVD, being the haven of my most revered Lady Oddjob, the Minister for dis-Integration (sic) and emigration (Immigration), Mrs Rita Verdonk whose antics have caused Dutch politics great disservice without remorse.

She happens to be the reason why we have having early elections having mucked up a number of asylum and citizenship issues that the government had to fall, the circumstances around Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s loss of Dutch citizenship and then the reinstatement of the same brought it all to a head.

Mrs Verdonk has never been elected, only appointed, she contested for the leadership of the VVD and came second, thankfully, but in the process, she has landed herself the number 2 position in the VVD party list which means she would become a member of parliament without fail.

Verdonk the enigma

Her initiatives have included calling for the abolition of the Equal Treatment Commission based on the fact that they ruled that a Muslim woman may decide not to shake hands with men and offer alternative greeting methods – I think that is a sensible assessment of the situation, it is quite different from wearing a veil in a class of children.

I have met devout Muslim women who do not shake hands, I respect that decision, in fact, in one instance, a class mate of mine simply clasped her hands and then extended them to lift my outstretched hand, and observers thought I had been accorded more than anyone had every elicited from her, I was honoured.

Equal because of inequalities

It is not that I have required services from the Equal Treatment Commission or in the case the UK the Equal Opportunities Commission, but those commissions exist because of inequalities in society, discrimination, abuse, bullying and many other things that allow dominant cultures to take undue advantage of minorities.

A democracy can well be the voice of the majority, but it should also protect the civil rights of the minority, we cannot have the tyranny of the majority persecuting and prosecution the minority, it makes for societal chaos where terrorism might be employed to fight tyranny.

Nobody seems to have taken to that kite she has flown, so, we would probably hear no more about it, this is the same woman who at one time suggested that Dutch should be the only language spoken on the streets of the Netherlands.

She has a heart of stone

After much protesting, she had considered sending 2 Iranian homosexuals back to Iran in the light of the fact that homosexuals had recently been hanged in that country – saying she had received assurances that no harm would come to the men.

Or, when her ministry passed on information of asylum seekers to repressive regimes that would have laid wait for deported failed asylum seekers, not to mention the fact that witnesses to a fire in an illegal immigrant detention camp were deported before they could give evidence on the matter, she having given assurances to the investigator that they would be retained till they are not needed anymore.

This is the catalogue of events that makes the Dutch vote her as the most popular politician and an Iron Lady, warped as this might seem, it is difficult for an expatriate like me to convince the everyday Dutch person that Mrs Verdonk is anything but nice.

We should soon expect the bombshell of civilizations, we have been intimated that there would for now be no ban on the burka, if the VVD wins, expect a ban of being a minority.

References

The Verdonk trail

Lady Oddjob throws her hat in

Bag hits table with a thud

It is with incredulity that I announce that my best Dutch minister, Mrs Rita Verdonk of the Immigration and Integration ministry is considering becoming the leader of the VVD (Liberal Party).

The position of leader became vacant earlier this month with a resignation stemming from a slight loss of influence in local government after the elections in early March.

The collective sigh of relief that would have out-blown any American hurricane that accompanied Mrs Verdonk’s decision not to join the race was palpable almost to the extreme.

Now the sharp intake of breath at this new development might as well be the reason for the low atmospheric pressure that allows for the current rainy days.

If I have ever sung the praises of Mrs Verdonk it would be for the ingenuity of the ideas she floats that makes right-thinking people cringe and quake.

The possibility of her becoming party leader is sure, but that of her becoming the Prime Minister of the Netherlands would be a first for a lady, but could also spell disaster.

What other liberty, tolerance, empathy, kindness, accommodation and value of the Dutch would be decapitated at her ascension? I dare not countenance the possibilities.

We need inspired leaders

What we require for the Netherlands is not some right-wing firebrand bordering on a loose cannon that has be rein in her commentary every now and again.

More so, it appears with the gravitas and authority that is lacking from the current Prime Minister one can be tempted with anyone else just to have some sort of leadership.

For now, her policies and politics are divisive enough to lose her support in the general populace and she probably has had the most threats of censure from the parliament about conduct, activity, pronouncements and abuse of power.

However, for the same reason, one can see the Dutch doing the improbable to attain the incredible and resulting in regret.

It is time to watch and pray.

The Verdonk Blog Archive

Dutch Intolerance Incubator brings forth electoral still-born March 2006

Tough as a heart of stone March 2006

Vera Drake fetes Dr Mengele in Rotterdam February 2006

Handbags at dawn February 2006

No harsh tongue for Mrs Verdonk January 2006

Dancing on their warm graves November 2005

A new spitting cell September 2005

Tolerance as a mindset of choice, prejudice and hypocrisy - Part 2 June 2004

About Oddjob

Oddjob - Wikipedia

BBC News | Entertainment | Oddjob's hat bowls them over