NETHERLANDS, POLITICS & LIFE AFTER ELECTIONS

When I first visited Netherlands in 2014, I loved it at first sight. People are smiling and positive. Bicycles, infrastructure, green environment, freedoms, democracy, it is like a piece of heaven on Earth. I made plans and studied MBA from 2016 to 2017. Later on, I moved permanently to Netherlands in 2022 after getting a job in ‘’kennismigrant’’ status.

Because people are involved too much in politics in Turkey and even though I support left wing, I try to be apolitical in the Netherlands. I did not know even party names until 22 November 2023 elections. I knew only three politicians, Geert Wilders who is famous to be against Islamic cultures, Mart Rutte the Prime Minister of last decade and Dilan Yesilgoz who I have sympathy because she is a Kurdish originated from Mesopotamia of Turkey same as me.

During November elections, I started to follow news more frequently than before. The reaction in society to migrants and immigrants was reflected on election results and PVV - the party of Geert Wilders - won the election by getting almost 24% of voters. I was thinking, what would be the percentage if non-Dutch voters (ethnically) are excluded from the results. I guess in that case, 32-36% of Dutch voters support PVV. What changed in this lovely, smiling, welcoming society, is needs to be analyzed carefully by experts.

One of my Dutch colleagues asked me this week if I am concerned after election results and because of the plans of PVV, as being a resident in the Netherlands from Turkey and working as a construction manager in the renewables sector. I told him that I did not think so much on this topic and we had a nice conversation. I wanted to write something about these topics with my opinions.

Geert Wilders was representative of right wing for long years and now his status has changed. He will be soon aware of his new title and he will need to embrace whole society without doing a discrimination towards any ethnicity and or religion. I hope, he will stop calling some group of people as ‘’toxic’’ because of their beliefs. I hope, he will stop writing tweets like ‘’ Atatürk - Saudi Arabia: 10-0 👍’’ which he had no idea what happened at that moment at that football match in Saudi Arabia. Politicians should be careful with their speech not to cause any hatred towards any race, country or religion.

Netherlands constitution (article 6) is clear about religion of people. ‘’Everyone shall have the right to profess freely his religion or belief, either individually or in community with others, without prejudice to his responsibility under the law.’’ Noone, even prime minister of Netherlands, has any right to interfere the religion of people. At the end, religion is a belief between a human being and creator (if there is any). It should not be the topic of politics. There are facts about wrong or different behaviors of Islamic cultures which I criticize as someone coming from one of these cultures. It is true that most of Islam religion is result of Arabic culture such as hijab and position of woman in the society. However, my understanding from Abrahamic religions, Jewism, Christianity and Islam defend the same/similar ten commandments and only rituals are different. There is an experiment in internet named ‘’The Holy Quran Experiment’ made by Dutch people, which is a good example of prejudice in the society. I guess, some of this prejudice if caused by politicians. My last comment about religion would be that Europe is lucky to have Martin Luther 500 years ago, and Islamic cultures need someone like him.

Netherlands has one of lowest unemployment rate in Europe with the ratio of 3.5% in 2023. If this is the case, and country needs more workforce, why do people are against immigrants? Do immigrants really cause accommodation problem? Who will do all these works if immigrants are sent to their home country? These are important questions that all society needs to do brainstorming. There are 2%-3% Turkish origin and 2%-3% Morocco origin citizens in Netherlands together with more than 100.000 Ukrainians and other immigrants. If country needs all these immigrants and has enough job for everyone, the adaptation problem should be focused on. For example, I always defend that Germany and Netherlands should cancel second citizenship of Turkish people. These people must feel that their only home country is Netherlands or Germany. And this would be great for Turkey also so that the people who does not know anything about Turkey politics and economy will not vote in Turkey elections anymore. Secondly, if there is still language problem, government should push people to learn Dutch. Thirdly, there can be mandatory culture integration courses by municipalities maybe. If there are illegal work conditions of migrants, more severe penalties should be met towards such employers. As a result, it is better to be a part of solution rather than being a part of the problem.

Society needs to be careful by not letting politicians to plant wrong ideas in their minds. My last words are from Ghandi, our destiny is in our hands but we need to be careful with our thoughts…

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become YOUR WORDS.

Keep your words positive because your words become YOUR BEHAVIOR.

Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes YOUR HABITS.

Keep your habits positive because your habits become YOUR VALUES.

Keep your values positive because your values become YOUR DESTINY.

Serkan Baran OZ

13 January 2024