Marc's Messages 3.0

Week of (pseudo)democracy

In the middle of the Dutch Week of Democracy democracy was at an all time low. In Utrecht, the city where I live, the fourth city of the Netherlands, a referendum was held to choose a new mayor. Only 9.3% of those entitled to vote participated in the election, and 16% of those who voted intentionally devalued their voting form. As the outcome of a referendum is only binding with a 30% participation, it was a clear disaster. How come? Are people not interested in democracy?

They surely are, and it's not a bad idea to elect a mayor out of or by the population. But the city council decided to do a preselection first and came up with two mainstream, not very outspoken candidates from the same political party (Social Democrats) who both live in another city. The population decided to boycot the referendum as being a form of pseudo-democracy. They reason: "Either the city council appoints a mayor (which is indirect democracy, but still defendable), or the population chooses, but then the race should be really open to anyone who wants to run for mayor." I fully support this view. For the first time in 22 years I did not vote while I had the right to vote, because it was such a farce. Now, on the day after, politicians in The Hague are stating that the Utrecht referendum shows that the population isn't interested in choosing a mayor. They didn't get the message. Now who is devaluing democracy here?

On the picture in the middle our current mayor, sided by the two candidates. The guy on the right, Aleid Wolfsen, got most votes and will probably still be appointed by the city council as our new mayor. I don't think he's a bad candidate in terms of capabilities, but the way things have been handled sucks. Yes, it might be time to rethink democracy.

Foolishness to the Greeks

Next weekend a Connect team will travel to Greece and Macedonia, the area where the Gospel message first hit European soil about 2,000 years ago. I will join the Athens part of the trip, others will move on to Thessaloniki and Skopje. While preparing for this trip today, something interesting happened. When I called the Greek branch of Europcar to ask whether one could drive a rental car into Macedonia, the lady on the phone said: "Sure, you can take it all over Greece, so also into Macedonia."

To make sure we understood each other, I clarified: "I mean the country of Macedonia, not the province." She replied: "What do you mean? I don't know any country with the name Macedonia." I said: "Well, it's just north of Greece." She replied: "If you mean the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, that's not Macedonia. You can't take our cars there, they have to stay within the borders of Greece." Isn't it interesting... even before I touch Balkan soil, I'm already involved in some sort of ethnic strife. Just the idea that a Greek car would drive into evil Macedonia FYROM. A related issue is of course that Macedonia/FYROM developed into a thriving European "car theft hub", so it's not that safe for Greek cars either. Anyway, if you want to know the full background of this naming conflict, see this entry in Wikipedia - apparently it still is a hot issue! Blame Tito!

The good thing though is that the 2,000 year old Gospel is still HOT as well, and can powerfully bridge ethnic tensions. In Christ there is neither Greek nor Macedonian. The prayer movement is growing in the Balkans. Over the past few weeks I heard some heart-warming stories of different Balkan nationalities joining in united prayer. Christians in both Greece and Macedonia are currently involved a 10-day fast, and both nations will join the Global Day of Prayer on Pentecost Sunday. It's great to be part of that Kingdom that unites, and that probably still is foolishness to the Greeks.

Pim Fortuyn remembered

Yesterday it was five years ago that Pim Fortuyn was murdered, so there's a lot of analysis and reflection going on in the media. I still remember the crisis atmosphere of those days, the intense emotion among the population. Dutch World Radio wondered how Fortuyn himself would look back on this period, and decided to travel to Italy, where he had his second home, to interview him. If you can handle Dutch, make sure you check this out, as it's very well done. And shocklog GeenStijl has a movie clip of the funeral of the LPF headquarters in The Hague two days ago.

Here I am to worship

On YouTube I found this clip of musician Kees Kraayenoord doing a duet with our fresh Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Family and Youth Affairs André Rouvoet. He's probably the first politician to be caught in an 'intimate act' like this, and in my unlimited imagination I can see him lead the whole Dutch Parliament in worship: "Here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God." Cool.

A new government

Yes, it's final now - we have a new government, with a first-time national role for the small evangelical party Christian Union, that more or less swapped seats with the outspokenly anti-Christian liberal party D66. Although I'm a political relativist, and cautious with so-called 'Christian politics', I have no doubt that God somehow is in the game.

When seaching my mailbox I bumped into an e-mail that I sent to Christian Union leader André Rouvoet in november 2002, saying: "André, God's hand is on your life. This is not meant to pimp you up, but be prepared that God will bring you even more to the front." It's not the kind of stuff I normally write to politicians. This was before he was elected 'politician of the year', and at that time it was quite unthinkable that the Christian Union would ever be in a position for government. So we better give this 'Daniel' some prayer back-up, he'll have a challenging time ahead (see reports here and here in today's newspaper).

Satirical website GeenStijl commented on the wheelchair pic: "Minister André Rouvoet before Jesus healed him." (In reality he was playing sports with disabled people.) The red-green-blue artwork on the right comes from Volkskrant cartoonist Gorilla. Social Democrat Wouter quotes the new government's motto: "Let's work together!" Christian Democrat Jan Peter says: "Let's live together!" And André finishes with "Hallelujah!"