We are still just as scandalous as in the VOC era

Letter of the day

There is only one thing that plays into the hands of the extreme right and that is to say that the Netherlands cannot handle the flow of asylum seekers, like Pieter Heerma. Angela Merkel would have understood that better with We will purchase that.

Intensive border controls? The agreements on external borders already offer countries such as the Netherlands plenty of opportunities to keep refugees out. With all the evil consequences at the external borders of the EU as a result, where refugees are packed together in reception camps that are inhumane.

Of course, the left blocks the collection of biometric data from refugees. Fortunately, we do not live on the animal farm that George Orwell sketched with some animals are more equal than others. Heerma names the real problem himself: that we want to determine who gets access to our territory. To our prosperity. We determine in a neo-colonialist way that we want to continue to benefit from agreements, such as the salt contract between France and Tunisia.

People flee to us because they cannot make a living in their own country and that is because we still benefit from what their country has to offer. We are still just as scandalous as in the VOC era.

So spending money on border controls and biometrics, pumping even more money into controlling the migration flow? Well no: pay fairly for what we buy in the EU from the countries where these people come from. And on top of that: investing in those countries, so that they finally get the chance to develop properly, with good health care and education.

Dear Pieter Heerma, you are from the CDA, aren’t you? Right, center or left, whoever believes in God must first and foremost want to share the cake fairly.
Hermine BrinkmanAmsterdam

Annoying

At the recently concluded climate conference in Egypt, it was also calculated that the war in Ukraine has so far caused 100 million tons of extra CO2 emissions. It is as if an industrial country the size of the Netherlands has been added. In this context, apart from the animal and human suffering, it is more than irritating that countries such as China, India, Pakistan, as well as a number of African countries (including South Africa) and some Latin American countries, still refuse to to condemn Russian invasion.
Nico van DykeLelystad

Two sizes

In 1985, Günter Wallraff enrolled Ganz unten about the narrow margin in West Germany between the labor market in the upper world and the less visible slave market, where mortal danger lurks and humanity is hard to find. In many Western countries, now filled with their own moral superiority, breaking the staff over Qatar, a Ganz untenedition 2022 can be written, especially in the Netherlands.

The Emir of Qatar accuses the West of a racist approach. That seems far-fetched to me, but if he were to complain about double standards, then I agree with him. Something with splinters and beams. And about human rights in general: in many Western countries, these have also only received more attention in the last decades of the last century, so it shows a lack of memory if we immediately label countries that are not that far yet as morally reprehensible and backward depict. People also live there (sometimes also with a gas bubble).
Bert TellegenRotterdam

Tunnel focus

In our line of work, my team travels all over the world helping financial institutions invest in very large construction projects. It is always about working conditions. Strangely enough, there is never real unwillingness among African, Arab and Asian companies, but mainly misunderstanding. Who do we actually mean? They’re already doing their best.

Many conversations are needed, and barriers to be broken down, in order for them to understand, based on deliberation, what we actually mean by clean housing, external and internal complaints procedures, and a socially and physically safe working environment – ​​sometimes even what exactly is meant by child labor . We usually also hire a local expert for this, who speaks our ‘language’ and that of the country. And thus bridges the gap. So the core concept is cultural appropriateness of our Western standards.

I therefore find our Western European one-sided focus on Qatar’s weak spots, the rights of migrant workers and LGBTI people, almost childish. As is the primary anger that accompanies it.
Raffael Argiolusenior ESG Consultant Royal HaskoningDHV, Nijmegen

Van Gaal

The most beautiful sentence I read in de Volkskrant this week came from the pen of Willem Vissers in his column of November 23 about Louis van Gaal. ‘Age takes it to the infirmities of old age, but also to the refinement of matured wisdom’ could not have been more beautifully expressed by a philosopher.
Harry van SterkenburgVught

Myth

After reading the article about the persistent myth of the Champions League effect to explain transgressive behavior in the workplace, I walked through the corridors of the UMCG. There is a poster with the inscription ‘Grass does not grow by pulling the blades, but by watering the roots’. Apparently they know how to do it.
Len CoachmanGroningen

authorities

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) wants to do what it has failed to do for years, namely closely monitor energy companies, among others. That brings me directly to the question of whether all those authorities are not toothless tigers. In her column, Danka Stuijver talks about the care authority looking away, the Gaming Authority does nothing against the deluge of advertisements for online gambling. Then we have the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets, which does no more than warn about past results, and I could go on and on. Perhaps it is time to screen all these institutions and look at their returns.
Edwin WijnbergenThe Hague

Predictions

We have to stop whole pages de Volkskrant spend on winter forecasts. And also other seasonal forecasts. The various weather companies want to score and try everything. However, there is only one truth: current weather models can calculate the atmosphere on average about seven to eight days in advance. Shorter in winter, longer in summer. But an entire season is impossible for the time being. Stop it, it’s no use.
Tim de Boeraviation chief meteorologist retired, Wijnjewoude