White innocence: fighting racism in the Netherlands

Who we talk to?

Joris Hanse is a student, for about seven years participating in the work of the Doorbraak (“breakthrough”). The Doorbraak is an activists group, calling themselves “a basic organization against capitalism, patriarchy and racism”. They are fighting “for more equality and freedom on all fronts”. Doorbraak “is a part of a broad tradition of struggle and solidarity from below, which in all its diversity has existed throughout the ages and in all continents.”

What they fight?

They fight for equality and freedom on all fronts. Doorbraak is a part of the “from below” tradition of fighting and solidarity. They work with people for whom the protests are being organized. This in order to find out what these people really do want and need. Among other social problems, the Doorbraak activists fight racism and forced labor, since in the Netherlands people on welfare are often legally forced to do unpaid work.

The Doorbraak is also protesting for the extirpation of the traditional Dutch 5th December character – the Black Pete (typical Dutch sort of Santa). Characteristic signs of a Black Pete are black or brown painted face, short wide trousers and a beret with a feather. In 2013, despite the value of the tradition, the UN stated it has racist features.

  – How long does the Doorbraak exist, and how did it begin? 

– The Doorbraak exists since 2007, and has emerged from two groups. The one was De Fabel van de illegaal, active since the 1990. The name means “the fable of the illegal”. De Fabel helps people without documents, who need assistance with their residence permit and medical-related problems. The group follows the “from below” principle, for one cannot organize things against racism while being an all white group.

Another group was a group of young Turkish people, called “Aksi” (means “opposite”, “contrary”). They are mostly the second or third generation migrants from Turkey. Their parents have come to the Netherlands as workers, and those young people forming “Aksi” came mostly out leftist families. Those families were still very busy with the Turkish agenda. So the “Aksi” youth was willing to do something serious right in the Netherlands, to step out of that Turkish “ghetto”.

The two groups have met each other around the “integration duty”: nobody was happy with the requirements the Netherlands have for the newcomers, that you have to learn all kinds of useless shit and are constantly being controlled by the authorities.
The name “Doorbraak” is first of all about breaking out of your own social comfort zone. Letting people to break through, to reach out for each other and start fighting together against racism, patriarchy, capitalism – for something better.

«If there’s no justice for everybody, then it’s no justice for anybody»

  – For a dummy, how are those things (racism, patriarchy, capitalism) are even connected? 

– You ask me to describe, like, the whole world! Let’s put it that way: when you look at how the capitalism was developing throughout the history, you see that the modern form of capitalism was the reason, but also the result of the Western colonialism. Western nations went overseas, and racism was by design a part of this system. They went to colonize to gain more territory for their markets, to get the economy developed. And if you are to colonize anything, you will have to kill a lot of people, and to do it effectively. In such situation you have to hate them, you have to stop thinking they are humans, too.

Then the patriarchy. It is much older, and it was also often used by capitalism to profit from exploiting women. In this sense you can hardly analyze those forms of oppression apart from each other, they are very much triggered and supported by one another.

Also, if you only take one form of oppression, and concentrate on fighting it, you will face serious problems: if you fight racism, but not the patriarchy, then what? Black men will be able to emancipate, and black women not? That doesn’t make any sense.

There was a slogan about that: if there’s no justice for everybody, then it’s no justice for anybody. If only some people can be free, it means what kind of freedom is it? A very hypocrite freedom, I guess.

  – Or you just did not reach it yet? 

Of course, we do not expect things to change all at once. But you have to take care you are not busy with the rights of one group by oppressing another group.

  – What are the goals and the plans of the Doorbraak? 

– It is important for us to be a part of a social movement that is getting bigger and bigger. We love to see there are more and more people interested in the same things.

That the Black Pete tradition will disappear – I believe, it’s already happening. And I’d love to see more groups coming to do something against racism, ethnic profiling, discrimination on the work floor.

«We’ve got a sort of a communist ideal: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”»

As for the long-run, it’s more about the huge goals, like, no more capitalism, fall of the patriarchy, no racism. But this is more far away of course. Yeah, we think much more about how exactly we are to get to that point.

Our ideal is the world for everybody, kind of communist ideal of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. It’s important for us that people can live in peace with each other, be valued, treated equally, be in harmony with the nature (thus, ecology is important, too). We try to handle according to those ideals within our organization: to support each other, to be solidary, to take care the relations are balanced.

  – Is there any role the parliamentary politics can play in your struggle? Or do you expect nothing from them? Do you ever hope that the politics help you, or is it more them rebuffing your work? 

– Well, I think, for very long it’s been just working counterproductive, from the political side. Take these discussions about the Black Pete. Years long have the politicians said nothing about it, or said that it’s an important tradition that has to be preserved. There was no political party that would say “That’s right, that’s some bullshit”. At the best, some politicians who’ve spoke independently for themselves. So till now we didn’t want or ask anything from the politicians.

Now it changes a bit, but it changes thanks to the pressure from below. That the politicians are now having interest in this discussion, is a result of the people who have nothing to do with politics fighting for years. Because of the social importance of the discussion, the politicians began to see this theme as one of those which help them to gain more support – and in this sense I am very skeptical. Initiative lies certainly not by the political parties, but by the people who fight. And it’s minimal, what the politics does and says.

  – What are the visible results of your work by now? 

– It is very important to say that we are just a small organization, and the work we do is only a small part of the anti-racist movement in the Netherlands. It’s not that it’s only our struggle. If you look at the whole Black Pete thing, you see there are more and more people thinking this tradition is not okay. Couple of years ago, there were 90% of the Dutch who wanted to save this tradition. Now, there are about 65%. For a couple of years, that’s a big change. If it goes like this, over 3 years the half of the people here will go for no more Black Pete. So we see that this big change is made partly by us.

«If you’ve been racist for 400 years, how can you abandon these ideas in only 50 years?»

And if you look at anti-racist actions in general, you see that with this latest wave of anti-racism demonstrations there are serious changes happened, a lot of themes come to discussion. There will be a lot of other things talked over: slavery past of the country, colonialism (and the decolonization in our culture, in our education, in our museums), discrimination on the work floor. Those discussions are also to be done, and thanks to the Black Pete debate, it is happening more and more. This is what we have done.

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