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Vandaag laten we Alex D. Rosaria aan het woord
Curacao must, in no uncertain terms, send a message that it remains commith to protecting its minorities as the world sees a dangerous rise in polarization along religious lines, and anti-immigrant sentiments. The govemment is not the only responsible, but it must see itself as a driver of policy and rhetoric that shows that diversity and being a minority is not a threat.
The message should be along the line that we are all Curacaons and that we must guarantee the freedom, safety and equality of opportunity to all, irrespective of our differences.
This is however not only a government task. As a community we must make a promise to never allow the fact that we belang to the majority override the protection and rule of law for minority groups in our country. Stereotyping, stigmatizing, bullying are concrete ways individu- als express intolerance.
Daily anyone who is Asian or even of Asian origin is referred to as ‘Chino’ on our island. People speaking Spanish amongst themselves — many of whom were born in this Country, have a Dutch passport but speak the language because they have been brought up by Spanish speaking parents — are considered foreigners who are stealing our jobs.
I could go on, but let me mention this. It was painfiil to see Facebook pages of too many Curacaons explode with discriminatory comments when it was imminent that Miss Universe Haiti was going to become either the winner or the first rumner-up of the world beauty pageant. Why? Do we somehow feel superior by belittling others?
We must remember that intolerance in a society is the sum-total of the intolerance of all its individual members. We have to stop this. And we have to stop being quiet when it happens. We are all part of the solution. If anything, don’t we know all too well how it feels to be discriminated in the Netherlands?
Well, these people are not somehow immune to our xenophobia. As for the Government and Parliament, it is wel] worth the time of the 21 Members of Parliament to de- dicate some time to this issue.
A wall-to-wall motion in the Parliament that makes the case for respecting diversity and building more inclusive societies to achieve this, would be a very good step.
Alex D. Rosaria,
Curacao
Alex, what about sending back makambas in coffins?
Maybe ‘makamba equate with anglo-saxson?
Whatever the case may be; In a time when our government moves like a car that does not fires properly on all cylinders and is silent on the subject it is good to hear someone speakout regarding this matter, even though they are not in government (maybe Semper pushed him to, we don’t know).
Or it may be that the ideologically related party in The Netherlands, D66, brought him to writing the letter. Counsil(wo)men Simone Kukenheim and Kajsa Ollongren of D66 Amsterdam reflecting on what a PVV government would entail (Far-Right, similar to The UK Independence Party (UKIP) and The US Trump administration) argued that if Wilders wins, Amsterdam may secede from The Netherlands and become a republic.
I must say that the remarks particularly of Kajsa Ollongren hit a nerve because on Curaçao also we should, no matter what happens, do it our way!
http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/kukenheim-en-ollongren-wilders-premier-dan-amsterdam-een-republiek~a4458193/
@Alex
You forgot “makamba”!
Dear Alex D. Rosaria,
This i my constructive criticism to you. It seems that you, and your old political party, live in a bubble. Your article contains a powerful message for the betterment of our island, BUT you have to be aware of the reality of our country.
If a politician don’t or doesn’t want to understand the reality of his or hes country, then that person can’t be considered as a politician.
You, better then me, know that alot of families in our country are living in poverty and deprication. Your intellectual way of doing politics will never work on them, because most of them unfortunately lack the education to understand your message. This is a bloody shame, because it leaves a wide gap open for the deplorables like schotte and dos santos to mislead these deprived citizens.
Speak to the people, engage with the people!!
Saludos,