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Conclusion: Bij1’s antiracism in Dutch politics

In document 1.2 General Outline (pagina 44-48)

44 individual choice, and therefore that systemic factors played no role. In addition to that, the discourse of denial allows Dutch people to refrain from taking responsibility for their involvement in the creation and perpetuation of racism. For example, incidents of overt hatred of certain racial groups are brushed off as individual racist actions and this allows Dutch people to distance themselves from these individuals and more subtle institutional forms of racism. I suggest that a perspective on transgressions as a societal failure challenges the discourse which views racism as unique separate incidents that can be attributed to

individual failure, and it also challenges the lack of responsibility Dutch people feel for their role in the reproduction of the racist status quo. As is the crux of my thesis, I will discuss in the following paragraph how Bij1 also reproduces the status quo in this aspect.

Bij1’s perspective on transgressions as a societal responsibility entailed an emphasis on community service sentencing over prison sentencing, and in this regard, I think Bij1 reproduces the status quo. I use scholar Miranda Boone’s evaluation of the Dutch community service system in relation to a trend in American prison sentencing, emphasized in the documentary ‘13th’, to show how Bij1’s focus on community service sentencing might reproduce the racist status quo. This critique is practical in nature but speaks to a discourse of ‘solving’ racism and denial of its recurrent character. Boone observed that Dutch laws requires labour sentences to guarantee the voluntary character of the sentence’s execution in two ways (Boone, 2010, p. 24). They require the sentenced to have a choice between a labour and non-labour sentence, and they require the sentenced to give explicit consent (Ibid). However, from 2001 onwards the requirements speaking to the voluntary character of community service sentences were abolished (Idem, p. 25). Additionally, community service sentencing laws used to explicitly mention the

‘benefit of the community’, but the 2001 reforms omitted this phrasing, which resulted in attracting for-profit projects to the un(der)paid labourers (Idem, p. 31). I think these are symptoms of what the documentary ‘13th’ movingly names ‘modern slavery’, where American prisoners are increasingly

sentenced to un(der)paid labour tasks (13th, 2016). The documentary tries to warn its viewers of how the racist status quo can alter alongside society’s attitudes as to what seems fair. The prisoners’ transgressions are used to justify their sentence, which makes it harder to criticize this system due to its perceived fairness. In Sara Ahmed’s words, Bij1’s turn to societal responsibility reproduces the racist status quo in how it provides a solution to a problem, which can be seen as merely the problem in a new form (Ahmed, 2012, p. 143).

45 is attempting to do so now17. Using Patricia Hill’s understanding of intersectionality, I have outlined how race, capital, gender and other stratifiers have fundamentally shaped Dutch society and currently shape the Netherlands. Bij1 aims to challenge this stratification and has the unique chance of defining what this challenge through policy looks like in the Netherlands. To study Bij1’s antiracist challenge, I have analysed their policy proposals from a critical race perspective.

The critical race perspective, inspired by Stuart Hall and Gloria Wekker, entails viewing race as the amalgamation of powerful discourses that render certain bodily features relevant. Wherever there is power, there is race - and this means that in a society stratified by power, the status quo is racist. Living in a racist status quo, any action will always also benefit the racist status quo in some way, because race and racism are the result of power relations. A challenge to the status quo requires considering what the status quo currently is, and it requires reproducing the status quo as well. In chapter two, a picture emerged of antiracism as context-dependent and tendentious. Due to its context-dependency, a study of antiracism requires giving attention to particular cases of antiracist effort, something which I find in Bij1’s policy proposals. Due to antiracism’s tendentiousness I chose to study Bij1’s antiracist platform and ask the following research question:

How do political party Bij1’s policy proposals challenge and reproduce the racist status quo in the Netherlands?

As stated in the first chapter, an answer to this question could help show why an antiracist platform is both warranted in the struggle for equality in the Netherlands and something we should keep questioning. To answer this question, I have opted for critical discourse analysis as my method. This meant analysing the discourses within which Bij1 makes their bid for racial equality, in an attempt to challenge the racist status quo myself. I chose to analyse Bij1’s policy proposals for the 2021 Dutch parliamentary elections, because their policy proposals, regardless of implementation, speak to the discourses around (anti)racism in the Netherlands and because policy related concerns are a big influence on Dutch voters (I & O Research, 2012). Bij1 states that they strive for racial equality in every proposal, and since they are the first Dutch political party to do so, they therefore substantially influence what antiracist policy can look like in the Netherlands.

I distinguished five aspects to Bij1’s policy proposals, all of which I discussed in light of how they challenge and reproduce the racist status quo. The first aspect I distinguished relates to the definition of (anti)racism which Bij1 holds. Through the three policy proposals related to this aspect, I discussed Bij1’s appeal to different forms of racism, including institutional and international racism. Bij1 challenges the racist status quo of denial by naming the specific forms of racism, including international racism, which they find relevant to the Netherlands. Bij1’s connection to institutional racism challenges a dominant understanding of racism as the overt hatred of racial groups. Bij1’s invocation of the racial categories

17 It is remarkable that no party has done so before, because of the Dutch disavowal of racism. While it is also remarkable that a party does so no, due to the Dutch denial of racism.

46 connected to these forms of racism reproduces the racist status quo in how these categories rely on our own stereotypes of these groups, but these categories also remain open for new meanings and iterations.

Additionally, Bij1 reproduces the status quo by proposing to relieve Dutch institutions of their responsibility to fight inequality through the instantiation of a Ministry of Equality. The second aspect relates to Bij1’s focus on democracy and how giving those at the bottom of hierarchies challenged the racist status quo in Hall’s definition of race as related to power. If race is related to power hierarchy, then challenging the power distribution in these hierarchies is antiracist. However, Bij1 also reproduces the status quo in this aspect by implicitly accepting the hierarchies even though Wekker points out that the Netherlands has been fundamentally shaped by its racist history. They also reproduce the status quo here by implicitly assuming that those who would gain more power are representative of those without this power.

The third aspect concerned Bij1’s proposed international climate justice and emphasized international stratification of race and capital, and its connection with the climate crisis. Bij1, again, challenges an understanding of racism as the overt hatred of certain racial groups, but more importantly this aspect challenges an understanding of the climate crisis as disconnected from race and capital. The connection between race, capital and the climate crisis played into a culture/nature divide, which Wekker takes to underlie Dutch perceptions of certain racial groups as ‘closer to nature’. Bij1 reproduces the racist status quo by reproducing the nature/culture divide. The fourth aspect relates to Bij1’s push for economic equality and how, similar to the previous aspect, they challenge the status quo by making the connection between race and capital. Specifically, they challenge a dominant discourse which views racial equality as irrelevant to economic equality. Through this aspect Bij1 also reproduces the status quo in their implicit acceptation of who is imagined as a Dutch citizen and their implicit acceptation of international economic inequality. The fifth aspect concerns Bij1’s proposal to change what we view as a transgression and to see transgressions as a societal responsibility. Bij1 challenges a discourse which views instances of racism as unique separate incidents and relieves the Dutch of responsibility by promoting a view of transgressions and racism as a societal failure. However, Bij1 also reproduces the status quo through their push for community service sentencing and its connotations of ‘modern slavery’.

My analysis of the different ways in which Bij1 challenges and reproduces the racist status quo is limited to the specific context within which Bij1 operates. My analysis cannot show a universal blueprint of how to do antiracism and cannot give steps on how not to reproduce the racist status quo, because I do not believe in such a possibility. The nature of my research therefore poses a limitation for the

generalizability of my analysis. Another limitation to my research is the way in which I seriously engage with Bij1’s self-purportedly antiracist platform. I might just be overestimating the connection between certain policy proposals and antiracism because I cannot know how seriously they themselves take this connection to be. Another limitation is the absence of any voices representing Bij1. My analysis might have benefitted from an interview with Bij1’s members.

47 Future research on antiracism could investigate how antiracism outside of Dutch parliament both challenges and reproduces the racist status quo. Critical discourse analysis helps to conceptualize how certain discourses are challenged and reinforced, but as my critique of societal responsibility through community service sentencing already hints at, antiracism also reproduces the racist status quo ‘outside’ of discourse18. The book ‘Antiracism Inc.’ explores some of the ways in which concrete antiracism in America can be incorporated in the racist status quo, but further research could explore the incorporation of antiracism into the racist status quo in the Netherlands outside of Dutch parliament.

In short, my analysis serves to show how political party Bij1’s policy proposals both challenge and reproduce the racist status quo in the Netherlands. Through this analysis I want to emphasize the context-dependency and tendentiousness of antiracism, and in the process expand the limited vocabulary the Dutch have around race and expand the Dutch imaginary of what (anti)racism can mean. Even a political party dedicated to challenging the racist status quo must reproduce the status quo in certain ways. I think that recognizing and understanding this constant tension allows us to challenge the status quo more accurately. Additionally, racism understood as a power relation is always present, and it is up to us to find the moments and situations where an emphasis on the racist aspect of such moments challenges the racist status quo.

18 By ‘outside’ of discourse I mean to say that discourse is inescapable, but there are effects of antiracist action to research that do not require a discourse analysis.

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In document 1.2 General Outline (pagina 44-48)