The image in one of the first photos from the Ukrainian war does not disappear from my retina: in an air raid shelter are two rows of girls, their hands around their knees. One is wearing green socks, a color reminiscent of old Trabants, dappled brown, unfashionable shoes. Would they still be alive? Are their mothers, grandmothers and aunts still there? And their fathers and uncles, do they fight? Do they have any bread? Has their environment already been bombed into a lunar landscape? Would they sing songs to their little sisters and brothers? Maybe they’ll sing a children’s poem by Osip Mandelstameven if that was a Polish Russian, who was murdered by the previous Russian dictator:
‘With me on the moon
Do you have waffles every day,
Princess, come along
At my waffle tables!
There is no bread on the moon,
But waffles every day!’
(Osip Mandelstam. Translation Robbert-Jan Henkes)
It is always the children who are the bobbins of men with a big ego and a longing for times that were never there. It is always people without a voice who are ground up in crazy plans. There, in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Sahel… And yes, although the scale is completely different, it also happens here. Our ego-men did not wage war in the past decades, but they devised benefit schemes, educational reforms, youth care decentralizations, participation laws.
These also lead to an almost impossible to catch up with in the lives of children in closed youth care, among children from the child benefit affair families, the 220,000 children who grow up in poverty, children with incorrect school advice. That disadvantage affects their health and their life expectancy and even that of their children, later on.
Next week you can vote and give your children a voice. In municipalities it is not about war or pandemic (don’t forget, there is still one), but about youth care, education, housing and poverty policy. I looked at the voting guide of a number of municipalities where I sometimes work as a general practitioner. These statements concerned Zwarte Piet, fireworks bans, whether or not to use boas, shop opening on Sundays, a car-free city center, windmills, a ferry.
And here and there there is also a statement about earning extra in the social assistance act and money for youth care (don’t pay more than the municipality receives from the government). My appeal here from a few weeks ago that municipalities should make policy for primary care and public health was not so influential that it led to a position in voting guides. And education has been reduced to a school lunch. There is little other option than to remove all the frills in voting guides and look at what parties in your municipality are actually planning for the future of your children. Vote out all ego men.
My son sent a photo of my granddaughter watching the sunset in their tropical sea. In the midst of infinite sorrow and anxiety, I’ll make do with that glimmer of hope for the time being.
Joost Zaat is a general practitioner