On March 19, 2024, the Democracy Under Threat Coalition organized an activity in light of the “Partners for Democracy Day”, a worldwide event by civil society organisations to put democracy at the forefront. This organised by the Global Democracy Coalition, a worldwide cooperation between civil society organisations.
The Dutch contribution to the Partners for Democracy Day took place in Utrecht, at the offices of PAX, with a variety of guests and invitees from Dutch civil society, especially organisations working on democracy and rule of law – both in the Netherlands as with an international focus.
PAX’ director Rolien Sasse opened our session. Sasse importantly noted the urgency of our work on democracy and rule of law – especially in light of ‘super election year’ 2024. After this, discussions especially revolved around the input of special guest Ewoud Kieft. Kieft wrote the book “Vechten voor Democratie”, “Fighting for Democracy”, which has been a bestseller in the Netherlands. Kieft argues for a revalorisation of conflict in our democracies, accepting that we can disagree with one another, but always keep discussing fundamental differences with each other. The lack of proper, value-based, discussion and dialogue with many people in Dutch society has – in Kieft’s opinion – led to a lack of trust in democratic institutions and the rise of anti-democratic populist parties. This premise led to some interesting discussion with the public, moderated by PAX’ Dion van den Berg
Our other special guest Marit Maij (candidate for EU parliament, GL-PvdA)joined the conversation too. Maij strongly advocated for pulling ourselves out of certain ‘bubbles’, both physically but also digitally. The algorithms of social media have created many problems in communication between groups in society. This should be tackled, especially with international co-operation through – for example – the European Union. “Women’s rights are a canary in the coalmine”, Maij added. The normalization of discussing certain women’s rights, such as right to abortion, is very harmful and shows the regressive and conservative aspects in various political movements. This will be an important focus of Marit’s European campaign.
The session was closed by a presentation of the ‘Democratiewijzer’, a tool developed by Meer Democratie to quickly see how various Dutch parties perform on topics of democracy and rule of law in their European election program, but also their past voting behaviour in EU Parliament. Niesco Dubbelboer of Meer Democratie presented the tool, which is expected to launch in the month before the EU elections. Follow https://www.meerdemocratie.nl/ for more!
