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Richard Wallace had seen it all before, and he wasn't hopeful.
It was, he thought, the same old story: Police kill a Black person, protests erupt, politicians pledge reforms and corporations offer platitudes about supporting needed change. But Wallace, the 38-year-old founder and executive director of Equity and Transformation, a social and economic justice advocacy group in Chicago, came to realize that this time was different.
This time the victim was George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black father of five captured in a sickening citizen video taking his final breaths under a white officer's knee. And this time, the victim would become a global symbol for change much broader than criminal justice reform.

WHYY
By
Aaron MorrisonMarch 27, 2021
In this June 6, 2020, file photo, hundreds of demonstrators gather on the Champs de Mars as the Eiffel Tower is seen in the background during a demonstration in Paris to protest against the recent killing of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
Richard Wallace had seen it all before, and he wasn’t hopeful.
It was, he thought, the same old story: Police kill a Black person, protests erupt, politicians pledge reforms and corporations offer platitudes about supporting needed change. But Wallace, the 38-year-old founder and executive director of Equity and Transformation, a social and economic justice advocacy group in Chicago, came to realize that this time was different.

Floyd spurred broad push for change globally, activists say
AARON MORRISON, Associated Press
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1of17FILE - In this June 6, 2020, file photo, hundreds of demonstrators gather on the Champs de Mars as the Eiffel Tower is seen in the background during a demonstration in Paris to protest against the recent killing of George Floyd. As Minneapolis braces for Monday’s opening statements in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the ex-officer who is charged with murder and manslaughter in George Floyd’s death, so does the world.Francois Mori/APShow MoreShow Less
2of17Richard Wallace, founder and executive director of Equity and Transformation, poses for a portrait in Chicago on Monday, March 22, 2021. As Minneapolis braces for Monday’s opening statements in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the ex-officer who is charged with murder and manslaughter in George Floyd’s death, so does the world.

Parliamentary chairwoman Khadija Arib with Tamara van Ark and Wouter Koolmees. Photo: Bart Maat ANP
Talks on forming a new coalition government will restart on Friday following Thursday’s debacle involving a positive coronavirus test for Kajsa Ollongren and a photograph of her discussion notes.
Ollongren and Annemarie Jorritsma stood down after the faux pas, with Tamara van Ark and Wouter Koolmees taking over the role of finding out what coalition has the best chance of succeeding.
In the meantime, prime minister Mark Rutte has told reporters that neither he or D66 leader Sigrid Kaag had discussed the position of highly popular CDA MP Pieter Omtzigt with the outgoing coalition scouts – whose name was listed next to ‘another function’ in Ollongren’s document.

A Pro-Europe, Anti-Populist Youth Party Scored Surprising Gains in the Dutch Elections
For years, right-wing populists have been a driving force in the Netherlands. But this week a pan-European party called Volt shook things up.
Laurens Dassen, the leader of the Volt party, speaking with journalists the day after parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.Credit...Remko De Waal/EPA, via Shutterstock
March 19, 2021
Lost among the mostly humdrum national elections in the Netherlands this week was the emergence of Volt, an anti-populist, pro-Europe party made up of students and young professionals that snatched three seats in the Dutch Parliament — the first national electoral success in its five years of existence.

The new government has its work cut out, says election winner Mark Rutte
Prime minister Mark Rutte talks to reporters after his victory. Photo: Robin Utrecht ANP
The new cabinet has its work cut out to get the Netherlands through the coronavirus crisis and then to restart the economy, VVD leader Mark Rutte said after his party emerged as the biggest in the general election.
Despite the coronavirus crisis, turnout is expected to be slightly up on 2017, at almost 83%.
The high turnout, and size of the ballot papers – with 37 parties – meant that results were slow to come through. By midnight, just a handful of results had been finalised, with the Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog first to declare.

The center-right party leader’s victory was expected, but added seats for the center-left party caused a stir in otherwise bad turnout for leftist candidates.
A newspaper stand in the Netherlands shows national election results on Thursday, March 18. (Courthouse News photo/Molly Quell)
THE HAGUE (CN) — The party of center-right leader Mark Rutte claimed victory late Wednesday evening, after three days of voting while the Netherlands weathers still-rising cases of Covid-19. 
Rutte’s VVD, short for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, took home 22% of the vote, which equates to 35 seats in the country’s 150-seat parliament. But the biggest surprise of the evening was a surge in support for the center-left D66 party, which jumped five seats, for a total of 24.

Coalition formation process starts with VVD and D66 scouts
March 18, 2021
Kees van der Staaij (SGP) and Sylvana Simons (BIJ1) arrive for talks on the coalition process. Photo: Bart Maat ANP
The leaders of the 17 parties which won seats in Wednesday’s general election met parliamentary chairwoman Khadija Arib on Thursday afternoon and agreed that Annemarie Jorritsma and Kajsa Ollongren should start off the coalition formation talks as joint
verkenners, or scouts.
informateur puts together the details and once that process has been completed, the
formateur – usually the leader of the biggest party – puts the cabinet together.
The entire process can take months and speculation is rife about which parties could join the VVD and D66 and possibly the Christian Democrats. Together, the three parties are just short of a majority.

'Zwarte Piet Is Racism' campaign. Courtesy: Quinsy Gario
Hera Chan: Quinsy, running for parliament gives you sense of being in the belly of the beast. How would you compare the politics of standing as a BIJ1 candidate to your ‘Zwarte Piet Is Racism,’ campaign which had – and I mean to say this positively – a somewhat antagonistic relationship to the institutional structure?
Quinsy Gario: The key distinction is that as an artist, even if you have a socially engaged practice, the artwork has a limit. Standing for election is a whole new level of commitment. It is a different kind of engagement with the public and their trust. It’s not something that will end up in a gallery or a museum. It’s not something that I can be done with and then step away. My name will forever be synonymous with BIJ1, whatever happens. What we made together will always be something that we can share and say: This is us. This is what we did.

'Dutchification': Guide To Election Winners And Losers
By
Antoine MOUTEAU, Danny KEMP
on March 19 2021 6:04 AM
While Dutch PM Mark Rutte's liberal VVD party appears to have won national elections, the vote also brought unprecedented "Dutchification" or fragmentation of parliament.
A record-equalling 17 parties is set to win seats in the lower house, according to projections, with some significant shifts and some new faces entering the mix.
Mark Rutte's VVD party won the legislative elections but there will be a slew of other parties in the new parliament
 POOL / PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW
The big surprise of Wednesday's election was the success of the pro-EU, centre-left D66, which is now in pole position for a key role in Rutte's next cabinet.

'Dutchification': guide to election winners and losers
Issued on:
18/03/2021 - 20:04
Mark Rutte's VVD party won the legislative elections but there will be a slew of other parties in the new parliament PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW POOL/AFP
4 min
The Hague (AFP)
While Dutch PM Mark Rutte's liberal VVD party appears to have won national elections, the vote also brought unprecedented "Dutchification" or fragmentation of parliament.
A record-equalling 17 parties is set to win seats in the lower house, according to projections, with some significant shifts and some new faces entering the mix.
- Route D66 -
The big surprise of Wednesday's election was the success of the pro-EU, centre-left D66, which is now in pole position for a key role in Rutte's next cabinet.

The Netherlands has a reputation in Europe as a liberal state - yet this week’s election will be dominated by Mark Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV), on the centre-right and far-right respectively.
Sylvana Simons, a former TV presenter and leader of the left-wing BIJ1, is trying to change that, standing for parliament on a platform of equality, under which schools and the health and tax systems make no distinction based on gender, race, sexuality or religion.
"I'm proud of our party's election programme,” Simons told Euronews.
“It is written for the people we want to support. Youth care professionals, sex workers, education professionals, young people, black people, parents, trans and non-binary people, people with disabilities, and Muslim women.

March 15, 2021
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Sylvana Simons is campaigning for the Dutch general election on a platform of what she calls radical equality.
Simons, a former television presenter who is arguably the country’s best-known Black woman, leads a small party that wants to put ending racial inequality front and center on the political stage before and after this week’s election.
Voting for the the lower house of parliament’s 150 seats begins Monday and ends Wednesday. The party that wins the most seats will be first in line to form the next ruling coalition, a process likely to take weeks or months. It remains to be seen if Simons’ BIJ1 party — a wordplay that translates as Together — will get enough votes to win a seat.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Sylvana Simons is campaigning for the Dutch general election on a platform of what she calls radical equality.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Sylvana Simons is campaigning for the Dutch general election on a...

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Conspiracy-fuelled riots sizzle on the streets of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the Dutch cabinet has collapsed in a racist child benefit scandal. We are the last country in Europe to start vaccinating and have the second highest wealth inequality in the rich world. Our print media is owned by just two corporations and we are performing worse on climate change than our European neighbours. My adopted home likes to present itself as the prefect of Europe. But in reality, the Netherlands is a mess.
Yet polls say that the shambolic ruling party, the Liberal Party (VVD), is set to gain seats in the national election on 17 March. Its leader, prime minister Mark Rutte will likely lead his fourth consecutive cabinet and his nearest rival, Geert Wilders, who wants to ban the Koran and deport Muslims, is also set to gain seats.

A board for the 2021 elections. Photo: Remko de Waal
Netherlands has an ever-expanding range of political parties in parliament, due to the recent trend of dissidents breaking away after an intra-party row to form their own splinter group. There are also various flavours of Christianity to choose from.
Here’s an alphabetical list of the 13 parties that currently hold seats in parliament, in alphabetical order, and three hopefuls which, the polls suggest, are in with a chance in the March general election.
50PLUS
Seats in parliament: 3
Campaign slogan: No
Founded in 2009 as a pensioners’ rights party – despite being named for the over-50s – 50PLUS has been bedeviled by splits and rivalries, and former leader Henk Krol is now standing for parliament under his own name.  The party wants the retirement age brought back to 65. Manifesto

University of Amsterdam
When it comes to political representation of women, political scientists Liza Mügge and Zahra Runderkamp give the Netherlands a failing grade. They say the current political process hinders both the entry and retention rates of women in politics. However, the upcoming elections offer a ray of hope.
Sigrid Kaag, party leader D’66
PhD candidate Zahra Runderkamp is currently researching the representation of women in politics and the high drop-out rate. Liza Mügge, associate professor of Political Science, is conducting research into ethnic and gender diversity in politics and how citizens identify with politicians, among other fields. Together, they spoke about the political representation of women in the Netherlands and why it is still lagging behind. ‘There is some sort of generally accepted myth of equality.’

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“The Dutch have perfected their facade. They are the definition of ‘facade!’” Sylvana Simons tells me, laughing, on a video call from her home in the Netherlands. “Things look great from the outside. We have told ourselves that we’re tolerant and we’re understanding and we’re progressive, and the rest of the world is so backwards.”
But you don’t have to look far to find plenty of examples to the contrary. Most famously, there’s Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), a Sinterklaas tradition involving blackface; in recent years, anti-Black Pete protesters have experienced violence at the hands of both police and civilians. There’s a Christian youth group lobbying to criminalise sex work. There are the deaths of Mitch Henriquez and Tomy Holten in police custody in 2015 and 2020, respectively. In May, providing a clear example of institutional racism, the Dutch tax authority, the Belastingdienst, was found to have systematically flagged people with a second nationality for extra inspection.

#12DaysofResistance
Sylvana Simons attends a demonstration against racism and discrimination in Amsterdam, Netherlands in March 2019. | SOPA Images/SIPA USA/PA Images.
1 January 2021 (openDemocracy)* — “The Dutch have perfected their facade. They are the definition of ‘facade!’” Sylvana Simons tells me, laughing, on a video call from her home in the Netherlands. “Things look great from the outside. We have told ourselves that we’re tolerant and we’re understanding and we’re progressive, and the rest of the world is so backwards.”
But you don’t have to look far to find plenty of examples to the contrary. Most famously, there’s Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), a Sinterklaas tradition involving blackface; in recent years, anti-Black Pete protesters have experienced violence at the hands of both police and civilians. There’s a Christan youth group lobbying to criminalise sex work.

Lodewijk Asscher and Habtamu de Hoop during the online presentation. Photo: Robin van Lonkhuijsen ANP
The Dutch Labour party (PvdA) published its manifesto for the March 2021 general election on Saturday, saying the coronavirus crisis had ‘laid bare growing inequality’.
The party, led by Lodewijk Asscher, wants to see the own-risk payments in healthcare abolished and backs increasing the minimum wage from around €10 an hour to €14.
The PvdA also wants to see hundreds of thousands of new public sector jobs created, such teaching assistants and playground wardens. It would like to see companies set up profit sharing schemes with their workforces, as well as a mass programme of building new homes.

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Oct. 8, 2020
Yuval Gal’s formative political experience came in 1996, during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister. Gal was then a member of Meretz's youth movement, he recalls, and was assisting homeless people in the rundown Jaffa C neighborhood. There, at age 16, he encountered the grimmest face of poverty in Israel and discovered, to his consternation, how its most severe victims were treated by the state.
“They erected a tent camp and slept on the grass,” he recalls. “People came from [Tel Aviv] City Hall and told them, ‘You don’t have a permit to put up tents on the grass,’ and confiscated everything in one day. The inspectors stole toys from them. The Housing Ministry of course refused to rehabilitate them. I remember being absolutely dumbfounded. I saw the state’s attitude toward people who barely had anything to eat – as if they were its worst enemies.”