politics

I had been discussing increasing the impact of Moving Love film project with ImpactMakers producer and director, Vera Born, and during this discussion, I pitched creating a number of workshop sessions based on visionary world-building principles. Making use of these principles, I proposed a quartet of sessions, first focusing on what the community of LGBTQ+ asylumseekers wants and needs, then moving outwards to gathering insight into what the larger Dutch public thinks, before going on to inviting policymakers, lobbyists and lawmakers. The final session, which is yet to happen hopes to gather all these threads together and incorporate them into a reader which the producer (ImpactMakers) wants to make.

The issue of safety for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and for vulnerable groups in the asylum seekers centra is one that’s also highlighted in the news. Sandro Kortekaas of LGBT Asylum Support has also been tireless in highlighting the urgency of attending to the safety of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. In March, LGBT Asylum Support sent a broadly supported petition to the Minister of Asylum and Migration highlighting the egregious fact that ten percent of queer asylum seekers dies by suicide in asylum centra.

From working with the community of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, it’s impossible to not hear stories about the acts of violence and abuse that are regularly directed towards LGBTQ+ and in particularly to those who are openly queer. These are the facts. Vulnerable groups are regularly subject to violence and threats and it can’t continue. There is a reason why LGBTQ+ asylum seekers flee and the circumstances under which they live in the asylum centra is far from the luxurious fabulation that we see fed to those of the population. Yes, the asylum center might have once been a hotel, but is it a place of luxury when two to four people are stuffed inside a room for months on end? Is it luxury when you cannot choose what you eat? Is it luxury when you know that you are not safe because you never know where the violence or abuse will come from?

Listening in on these sessions, I also realised that for a lot of Dutch people, there is a rather vague understanding of what life is like in asylum centers. A point rightly raised by one of the participants to the second sessions, was the lack of knowledge on how to support and also where to find community–particularly if one is in a town that is predominantly right wing. This second workshop which was facilitated by my dear friend, Marielle, built around the question of belonging. What do we need to feel we belong and what are the things that make us feel a sense of belonging. It’s a universal question and a great point from which to launch into imagining and thinking around how we might create this sense of belonging.

There is a lot of support for providing safe asylum centers for LGTBQ+ and vulnerable asylum seekers. From the third session, we learned that there are asylum centers for vulnerable groups in North Westphalia in Germany and that lawmakers from The Netherlands have visited these centers. I believe that there is a will to improve accommodations and to improve safety for vulnerable groups but the law is a slow moving institution and it is rather frustrating as we bear witness to the urgency of a matter that seems to just drag on without any concrete resolution.

Nevertheless, it was hopeful to hear of initiatives and to hear of what people are doing around this matter.

On the 19th of July, the final session will be held in FramerFramed. Do drop by if you have time. As one of the politicians present so rightly said: this isn’t a right wing or left wing issue, this is a human rights issue. We all have the right to live safely. We all have the right to thrive.

Maraming salamat for reading. Blessings and peace and maraming salamat for the support.

Here’s the link to the Moving Love Sessions at FramerFramed: https://framerframed.nl/en/projecten/workshop-series-moving-love-think-tank-sessions/

(Image from Moving Love project)

It’s been quite a busy period as not only is it exam week for the youngest one, it’s also been a week of appointments and events. I visited the municipal hall last week and handed in my application for a new passport along with a new id picture. It’s probably the first time since I’ve had a passport made that my passport picture doesn’t look like I’m running from the law.

A few days before I went to the municipal hall, I had new pictures taken. On my walk to the shop, I found myself ruminating on my previous passport picture and I decided to ask the photographer if it was possible to have one that was somewhat friendlier. As tends to happen, I walked into the shop and blurted out my thoughts to all and sundry including two surprised customers who burst out laughing when I announced that my last passport picture had me looking like I was a fugitive from the law.

It made for a lighthearted moment and I can happily say that for the first time, I have a passport picture that is somewhat friendlier.

At the municipal hall, there was some difficulty registering my fingerprints. I learned that intense treatments like chemotherapy has this effect of where fingerprints become a bit more hazy. It made me wonder if we ever lose our fingerprints.

“It happens with old people too,” the lady behind the counter says to me. “Not that fingerprints are ever erased, it’s just they don’t register anymore. But we also see this in people like you who have undergone chemo.”

And it somehow strikes me that she hasn’t tagged me as an old person but as someone who has undergone intense treatment.

On Saturday, I travel to Rotterdam. I’m headed there to support the project called Project Take Away. Take Away started as a neighbourhood initiative led by friends Marielle and her partner at ook_huis. It’s a lovely initiative which started with refugees and neighbours coming together to share coffee and talk about coffee and different ways of making coffee and as time progressed it evolved into something more. To celebrate their third year, Take Away released a book documenting three years of work. It’s an impressive volume with beautiful images but most importantly it reflects the vibrant life of this group of people who have been working together, caring for this community and for the neighbourhood and growing into this rich and beautiful art collective.

I think of how we forget the power of small movements like these. How practicing care in the community setting is a radical act in a society that’s grown more and more disjointed and disconnected. It’s not the size of the movement that matters, that we are doing a movement with intention is what matters. The intention drives the movement, drives momentum and leads to change.

I think of how these small movements are so vital when it comes to changing perceptions. When it comes to changing how we see each other and when it comes to making space and holding space for one another. I understand the antipathy that exists on one side of society towards asylumseekers, but I also want society to understand that if it were possible to live humanly where they are, people would not be seeking asylum. Living means more than surviving, living means being able to grow and thrive and fulfil your potential as a human being. This is why we can’t turn our backs or close our eyes to the circumstances that cause people to flee the countries of their birth.

It’s callous to say: ‘go back to where you came from’, when we don’t know the full story.

After the meeting at the Take Away space, we traveled to where Marielle was holding a reading/talk around a book she’d collaborated on together with the artist Chen Yun. This book, titled 51 Personae:Tarwewijk was five years in the making. It’s a unique and beautiful work documenting walks around the Rotterdam neighbourhood of Tarwewijk. What I love most about this work is how in the final publication, it contains the text from these walks in Dutch, English and Chinese. Not on separate pages, but these texts exist side by side on the same page or as extensions of each other.

It made me think of how it’s beautifully representative of the multicultural nature of society and how the world is made up of many different people speaking many different languages and there is room for all of us to live side by side.

Copies of this book are available at Available & The Rat.

I feel like I should write a little bit more about Available & The Rat, but I will do so another time. It’s a space that’s definitely worth visiting.

Spring is in the air. Out in the garden, things are growing. Our prunus tree has grown a bit more sturdy and is spreading out its arms. From the small seat by the water, I have a lovely view of back gardens with tulips coming up, a magnolia tree in bloom and a cherry blossom tree.

I have resolved to go and sit out beside the water as much as I can. For now, I’m ending this lengthy post.

Take some time out of your busy schedule to just sit and reflect on how you want to greet this new season. Life brings with it unexpected things, but when you take time to connect to what’s strong in you, you won’t be easily shaken.

Blessings and peace to you who read this and thank you for dropping by.