De Fabel van de illegaal 57, March/April 2003
Author: Eric Krebbers
Vote for civilized deportation, vote SP!
Nowadays, a little bit of racism seems to be all right. More and more Left activists vote for, and become members or even candidates of the Socialistische Partij (Socialist Party) in the Netherlands. The views of this formerly Maoist party are indeed more progressive on many issues than those of most other parties, but not when it comes to refugees and immigrants. Just like the parties on the Right, the SP wants to be tough against "certain groups of immigrant youths" and doesn't protest the administrative apartheid of the Linking Act which excludes the undocumented from all governmental services. "Illegals and rejected refugees have to leave the Netherlands", according to the SP action program 2003-2007 called "First road Left".
The most recent election campaign began on January 8, 2003, with a TV debate between party leaders. SP leader Jan Marijnissen tried to beat the ultra Right LPF (List Pim Fortuyn) leader Mat Herben with Right populist anti-immigration arguments. "We have got to force people even more to integrate", Marijnissen said, suggesting that immigrants and refugees are not willing enough to adapt. Although he acknowledged that the Netherlands are not yet full, he warned that it would be if harsh measures weren't taken: "We cannot allow economic refugees into the Netherlands. If we would allow them in, the Netherlands would be flooded in no time." That is why, according to him, deportations are necessary. "Illegals have to be removed, I agree with that. But could we keep it a bit civilized?", he added for the Left voter. Civilized deportations?
The whole apparatus
Some plans in the SP action program are really very good. The SP writes that the undocumented are also entitled to medical aid, and that women refugees and immigrants who are victims of wife battering should get an independent residence permit on humanitarian grounds. The SP also pleads for residence permits for all illegal worker migrants who have paid taxes before the Linking Act was introduced in 1998, and all refugees who were already three years in Dutch refugee camps on April 1, 2001, when the new Foreign Law was introduced. But although very important to all the people in question, it all comes down to cutting off the sharp edges of the repressive immigration policy. Nowhere in its action program the SP criticizes the immigration policy in any fundamental way. They are in favor of sheltering refugees "in their own region" and of keeping immigrants out, of selecting and of course then rejecting certain refugees, of excluding and deporting the undocumented. When one chooses all this and not open borders, one also chooses the whole apparatus which states need to implement an immigration policy, like for instance border controls and deportation jails. And because refugees and immigrants of course try to keep out of the hands of this control apparatus, there will always be victims: when illegally crossing guarded borders, in jails and during deportations. That is unavoidable, how ever "civilized" the SP wants to work.
In vain anti-racists will search the SP action program for action points against racism. It's like racism doesn't exist in the eyes of the SP. The party did, however, fill the program with the nowadays most popular racist prejudices about immigrants. The most important being that immigrants do not enough want to integrate. According to the SP, the "failed integration" is responsible for diminishing "solidarity between immigrants and the Dutch". So the SP argues that the growing anti-immigrant mood is being caused by the immigrants themselves. Or: the victims of racism are themselves responsible. That is why all proposed SP measures are only targeting immigrants. The party wants to demand more of newcomers, "like achieving a higher level of speech and working in unpaid training periods in companies." The SP would like to force immigrants to follow language and integration courses in their countries of origin, in order "to reach the level the Dutch government requires of them".
Another popular prejudice we can find in the SP program is that criminality is worse when the perpetrators are immigrants. In these Right populist times, also the SP no longer looks at criminality as such, but more at the origin of the perpetrators. The party collaborates in the completely hyped debate on "security" and even wants to implement special harsh policies, only against immigrants. "The struggle against specific criminality and problems caused by certain immigrant youths must get more practical and result directed. It could be useful to make profiles of perpetrators" and "to dissect the hard nucleus of recidivists". The categorization in nationalities cannot serve any other purpose than racism. In this way the SP aids the rapid worsening of the immigrant image.
Guest worker and capital
During the debates on integration, Marijnissen regularly showed off saying that the SP "was the first to point out these problems" in the report "Guest work and capital", published in the spring of 1983. Back then, Marijnissen himself had worked on it. Although thoroughly racist, the SP is not distancing itself from this report. According to the report immigrants would curb the workers struggle. Because of their "backward" Islamic culture they would be too slavish towards the bosses. "The difference in development and culture makes it very difficult for the Dutch to work and live together with their foreign colleagues." The negative attitude of many Dutch would therefore be understandable. One cannot call that discrimination, according to the report. ""Discrimination" is probably the only Dutch word which almost every foreigner gets taught. Whether or not they know the meaning of it, remained unclear to us. Anyway, they have heard the word being used so often by all possible, probably well meaning, social workers, that they started to use it, right or wrong, in all situations they encounter."
"The problems" encountered with family reunion were also discussed in the report. But there was no mention of the dilapidated houses immigrant women were forced to live in, nor of the racism and exploitation they encountered. No, the SP was only interested in "the problems" which "they" would cause. The proof was all on the level of neighborhood gossip. The report made extensive mention of ritual slaughter, leakages of washing machines and demolished toilets. "These women really do not want to learn the language", the SP asserted. And because of the "large population density of our country" the party wanted to offer immigrants a choice: "Or they become Dutch nationals after a few years - we think of two years -, or they leave for their homeland after the mentioned time." Marijnissen and his friends were thinking of offering them 75.000 guilders to leave. Of course all the other people at the Left back then strongly criticized the SP because of this racist report.(1)
The sound and the contents
Some Left activists who joined the SP do not mind this racism, but others do. During an election debate in EuroDusnie at January 18, 2003, SP activist and member of parliament Krista van Velzen, for instance, mentioned that she didn't like the way the 1983 report sounded, but that she agreed with its contents. SP candidate Hans van Heijningen recently acknowledged in action magazine Ravage that the SP immigration paragraph caused him the most doubts. He says that he favors open borders himself. But the party is afraid of "an uncontrollable situation", Van Heijningen says. What would he do if the SP were to go govern the country and take responsibility for the immigration policy? To that question he answered that he is "fortunately not in party circles which decide on subjects like that".(2)
Notes
1. In 1983 and in 1994 activists waged many discussions on SP racism. There's a lot of documentation on those in De Fabel library. See also: "The nationalist smell of the SP" (in Dutch), Gerrit de Wit. In: Fabel Archive.
2. "Poverty problem deserves an active approach", Alex van Veen. In: Ravage 1, 10.1.2003.