A message from the Ministry of Justice and Security slipped into my mailbox, which is not a special event, because the mailbox is filled with all kinds of messages every day. The special thing is in the first sentence of this announcement. And in the sentences that follow.
The message starts like this: ‘In response to the horrific events in Ukraine, the cabinet is preparing for large numbers of people who, fleeing brutal violence, have had to leave their homes and their homes and are now looking for a safe haven.’ The second sentence refers to ‘the safety, rest and care’ that these people need and which must be provided without delay.
That seems to be a perfectly normal sentence in these times, when horrific events are indeed taking place in Ukraine with ruthless violence against large numbers of people, and where people are indeed forced to leave their homes and hearths, and where the generous reception of all these people is a duty.
Nevertheless, it is unique that the department of the ministry that is charged with admitting and expelling aliens on Dutch territory expresses itself in this way. I looked it up: No official communiqués in recent history have mentioned refugees who need our ‘safety, rest and care’. When it comes to asylum reception, the ‘ruthless violence’ and the ‘horrific events’ that people have fled from are never talked about. Usually the messages are of a worrying tone, they are about the inconvenience of ‘increased influx’ and about ‘austere reception locations’ and about ‘commitment backlogs’ in housing refugees.
The term ‘security’ is usually reserved in ministerial statements for our own protection. Against wandering terrorists or drug dealers, or against crazed threateners who distribute addresses of politicians and journalists in the hope that this will encourage a feeble-minded person to stand in front of someone’s door with a torch.
Also important and urgent, but what I want to say: a pigeon has settled on the Ministry of Migration.
That was noticed before. The new state secretary for asylum Eric van der Burg, who comes from the VVD wing in which the liberals reside, said earlier that he no longer wanted to call the asylum policy ‘strict’. He opposes the word ‘lucky seeker’, because aren’t we all fortune seekers? And he is against the word ‘refugee flow’ because it conjures up fearful images.
It is once again something different from the sounds that came up from behind the same counter during the previous crisis involving displaced persons. That happened last summer, when Afghans who were no longer sure of their lives because they had worked for the Dutch tried to come here. That was also a horrible event, but looking back in ministerial communication yields considerably less compassion for people who have to leave home and hearth for ruthless violence. However, a wonderful apology message can be found in which Van der Burg’s predecessor writes that she ‘should not have mentioned the term brain drain in the context of’ an interview about fleeing Afghans.
The pigeon has landed. Now the policy. Because the messages from his ministry still talk about the periodic ‘asylum influx’. And although the state secretary said earlier that everyone from Ukraine is welcome here, further on in this newspaper is the story of Ahmed from Kyiv who does not yet know whether he can stay. Perhaps the Secretary of State can take a look at that.