Borgerhout, a traditional right leaning district of the city of Antwerp, has been under ‘communist’ rule for a while now. A few years ago, after many years of activism, our marxist party surprisingly won the district elections (and one in another municipality called Zelzate), together with the left leaning Green party. We formed a coalition with them and started working towards a common goal: a progressive, local government in a high poverty and crime ridden district. The victory was such a surprise that we didn’t even had a program ready. We had to write one after our victory.
Now, the district government does not have much power. It is responsible for Public Spaces, Greenery, Youth/Seniors, Sports and Culture. Important sectors like Housing and Healthcare are not their domain, but more on that later. It has to work with the rules set out by the city’s government, which is a right leaning one. However, this did not stop us from reaching for the borders that were set, or even crossing them.
I want to discuss three victories our party has achieved in the meantime.
The first being a low effort, easy to reach information point in which the residents of the very culturally rich district can go to with their questions. Think questions about medical access, questions about food, we even give away free veggies and tell them what they can cook with it. All questions are welcome. There’s even a story about a street cleaner who used to smoke, but thanks to the advice of the information point, which he passed every day, he managed to quit smoking. Even better, he started working out before his shifts on the little outside gym we installed next to it. So far, the information point is servicing many culturally different people from around the district, who managed to become much more informed about the possibilities they had. As I said, healthcare is not the district’s responsibility. Making a healthcare point would not be allowed. What we did, though, is set up a place on a public square for volunteers to visit. ‘Coincidentally’, lots of healthcare volunteers and orgs ‘found’ their way to it and set up shop.
Our second effort is going against the city’s guidelines and budgets. In the energy crisis of the past two years, the city government responded by trying to make public services more expensive in order to compensate for rising energy costs. This means local sport clubs, libraries, swimming pools etc. all got more expensive. In an act of rebellion, the district of Borgerhout increased the subsidies given to local initiatives, which prevented them from having to increase pricing. Borgerhout soon became the most active district in the city, with lots of new, ethnically diverse activities popping up. We also decided to make these activities free, and without registration, as we found out that many people still weren’t able to find out about them. Instead, we went to the public squares, markets, parks and set up there in order to reach out to the public. This was a succes, as the activities brought in even more people.
Third, we wanted to celebrate diversity in our district. We found out that repressing native languages was not effective, and even that allowing people to keep developing their native language helps them to learn Dutch faster and better. So we made a festival around everyone’s native language and invited them to come and exchange stories, languages and education on culture. This attracts thousands of diverse people yearly and it has brought all kinds of cultures together. This is just one festival of the many we organize. BorgerRio, another popular one, manages to attract over 50k people annually.
A bonus mention would be that we went and had talks with local youth about their needs. One need of an outdoor place to hang out while it rains was a big priority of theirs. So we made a few places where we set up bus stop looking sheds where they could hang out. Trouble and noise went down, and people living near these places are happy for the youth, who are happy themselves as well. It was such a simple yet effective thing to do.
This is far from the communist utopia we strive for. But this is a way we managed to make a difference. We went from one action group in Borgerhout to five very active groups. When we walk around the district with our Party’s flag, people legit start cheering. People call us, because they know we are the party that does something for the people. We make a difference. It was a hard decision to start actually governing, but we’re glad we did it. Electoral politics is still not our way to go, we keep focussed on action groups, workers at their workplace and organizing in the street. But electoral politics have also brought us extra funding through parliament as well as local victories and popularity. Our next goal is the District of Antwerp, the biggest one in the city, where we feel like having a good chance. It would be a massive victory, as it is one of the most imporant districts in the country.
Wow, that rules! What is your party called & does it have an online presence, like a program etc available to read?
Also on a silly note, Does the district name Borgerhaut have anything to do/ contain cognates with “burgher” and “haute”? a name something like the High Burgher [District]? Burgher Heights? :P
It’s called Partij Van De Arbeid or just Workers’ Party of Belgium . I tried looking online for English programs but so far I couldn’t find it. We’re really active online in Belgium, so it’s mostly Dutch and French.
Lol, that would be funny. But Borger comes from the Dutch word burger, meaning citizen. Hout means wood, as in Holly’wood’. So it basically translates to Citizenwood.
Speaking of Belgium, there is this clip going around on social media at the moment of a representative in Belgian parliament (French speaking) trying to address the question of the Nordstream bombing and getting yelled at for it by other members of parliament who are trying to shut him up. Do you know any details about that incident? Was that a member of a right wing party (i would assume so since in Europe it’s unfortunately mostly only right wing populists who are going against the anti-Russia narrative at the moment) and does this sort of thing happen often in Belgian politics? Was that a one-off or is there any chance that more and more questions are starting to be asked about this (and hopefully not just by right wing bigots)?
This one?
Because this is our party leader. Right wing parties are asking some questions but so far only our party has solidly questioned the anti-Russia narrative.
Public opinion in real life is surprisingly nuanced, though. People here understand that Russia is not to blame for the high prices, partly thanks to our party making an effort to reach out.
Oh wow, really? Well in that case i am very positively surprised. I have become so jaded and cynical about the state of leftist politics in Europe, and in particular in Germany where i am the most familiar with the political scene, that i fully did not expect to hear this sort of challenge to the Atlanticist narrative coming from the left. That’s great! There are maybe a handful of voices on the left in Germany who would dare to say something like this, but i doubt any of them would be allowed to speak in parliament. So it’s been largely left up to the AfD to play the role of skeptics on this issue, which only further reinforces the notion that anyone who questions the narrative is a crazy conspiracy theorist.
It couldn’t have a better name for the transformation you’re going to bring!