Every so often, usually around elections, there is a safeword that parrots everyone. There was a time when you couldn’t say anything or you were ‘demonizing’. Then came the call to ‘name’ everything: the danger of Islam, criminal Moroccans, Dutch Turks who had to die, refugees who come to rape ‘our women’. Communities were stigmatized and criminalized, but it was just ‘naming’.
The right wing was especially fond of it, but there has been a remarkable turnaround recently, because the buzzword of today is ‘polarization’. Suddenly politicians on the right hate ‘polarizing’.
For example, Wopke Hoekstra tweeted very piously that the ‘Haage nitrogen polarization’ does not take us any further and he pleaded for ‘stop staring blindly at one’s own right’. The same Hoekstra wants to build walls around Europe to stop vulnerable refugees. From the CDA that is in favor of the family, unless it concerns a refugee family, then they are against family reunification. Apparently that is not polarizing.
It sounds very noble, don’t stare blindly at your own right, but what he means there is that others shouldn’t do that. Just give in to the CDA and the farmers to move forward. The farmers don’t want nitrogen reduction, progressive parties do, so let’s find each other somewhere in the middle and let the situation fester.
But if one dossier has been free of polarization in recent decades, it is certainly the one about nitrogen. And look where that polder has brought us.
For years understanding has been shown and admitted, with the result that little has changed and politics is still stuck between enforcing changes or finding a load of asbestos on the highway.
That call not to polarize is completely unbelievable after years in which we were told that freedom of expression is sacred and that people should only grow calluses against the abuse of Muslims and Islam.
Besides, how do you want to solve problems if you don’t look at them from different angles? Contradiction is essential, it keeps you sharp and forces you to think about alternatives.
Warning against polarization has become a way to stifle rebuttal and criticism and to bend the debate to your will. It is an ordinary schwalbe and manipulative: before the opponent has even said anything, lie down on the ground groaning. Actually, every polarization caller should receive a red card and be escorted directly from the talk show tables, she will learn that.
Nowadays when they accuse you of being polarizing, they mean they don’t want to hear what you have to say. Polarizing then means criticism. And criticism threatens the status quo. But those who want to push through changes have no other choice.
People seem to forget, but because of polarization, slavery has been abolished, racial segregation has ended, women have gained the right to vote and self-determination, minorities have equal rights, social victories have been achieved and dictators have been toppled all over the world. The FNV fighting for a minimum wage? Polarizing. The women in Iran? Hopelessly polarizing.
In recent weeks I have seen many articles about adaptations in children’s books. Supporters and opponents, nuances, hysteria. But this ostentatious attempt to censor debate – creating taboos to avoid discussing difficult topics is not much different than cutting unwelcome words from texts – it is too quiet.
I would rather argue for more polarization, more polemics. Highlight the differences, show what’s at stake. Because while politicians kill time with debates in front of the stage, the real polarization, which actually increases the differences and inequality, continues: families who have to live below the subsistence level due to a government error. Groningen citizens who have been left to fend for themselves by the government. Allowance parents who are kept on the line. Racism. Ethnic profiling. Increasing poverty. Major polluters, thanks to whom we will no longer have a liveable planet at all.
The problem is not that there is too much polarization, but too little. There should be much more protest. But yes, in the current zeitgeist that is po-la-ri-se-rend.
Hassnae Bouazza replaces Floor Rusman as columnist.
A version of this article also appeared in the March 4, 2023 newspaper