Coalition: call a halt to racism in Brabant too!

Coalition: call a halt to racism in Brabant too!

About a year ago, our youth party spoke out against the new coalition in the Brabant Provincial Council in an article by Omroep Brabant. We were critical of the cooperation of VVD, CDA and Lokaal Brabant with a racist party like Forum voor Democratie. The recently published racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic Whatsapps from Thierry Baudet only confirm our concerns. The cooperation of VVD, CDA and Lokaal Brabant with this anti-Semitic and racist party in the provincial government is simply no longer tenable.

Baudet's app messages do not lie. He used hurtful terms for black people and described the IQ of non-white people as naturally lowYou might expect that certainly the VVD, the party that always stands up for civil liberties, would speak out strongly about this. Unfortunately, the defence of coalition parties VVD and CDA last week in the Brabants Dagblad was almost word for word the same as it always is. While the national branch of Forum may have racism at play and Thierry Baudet is a ‘creep’, the provincial FvDers have nothing to do with this according to the Brabant coalition parties.

However, the opposite has long since been proven. After the split last month with JA21, five Statesmen chose to stay with Forum for Democracy even though a plethora of racist statements were known to their youth party. These Statesmen did not break with the national party and chose to accept racism. The support of provincial FvDers for their party leader was again evident last weekend, when FvD deputy Erik de Bie gleefully participated in a campaign rally with Baudet at the Chasséveld in Breda. Amid around 200 people, De Bie stood nodding along with Baudet in his speech on coronascepticism and the denial of his racist apps.

By not acting, the coalition parties are in fact making the same choice as the Brabant FvDers. Time and again, they choose to dismiss racism and anti-Semitism as a joke or as a problem that only takes place in Hague politics. It is high time that VVD, CDA and Lokaal Brabant fight racism not only with words, but also with deeds: dissolve the cooperation with the FvD racists and commit to a green, social and above all tolerant course for our beautiful province.

Louana van Nistelrooij - Chairman DWARS Brabant

Rick Timmermans - Board member DWARS Brabant

==========

Part of this opinion piece was used by Omroep Brabant in an article: click here to go to the article.

The Brabants Dagblad also carried part of the opinion piece in this article posted.