Thread by @fgeerdink

'trouble makers without future perspective', dutch so-called quality newspaper puts on its front page today, about young people from mainly north-african countries asking for asylum in the netherlands. it's pure hate speech, and anti-journalism. @volkskrant, you are disgusting.

https://twitter.com/JohanFretz/status/1563441120540905472

dutch asylum authorities call these people 'veiligelanders', meaning 'coming from a safe country', like tunesia or morocco, countries considered safe and giving small chance to get accepted as asylum seeker. nobody even considers looking at them differently, not even journalists.

'holding power to account' is what #journalism should do. copying the authorities' perspective is the opposite of that, especially when these authorities have created this crisis in which asylum seekers don't have a roof over their heads in ons of the richests countries on earth.

i made a thread in dutch yesterday in which i offered a different perspective on these young 'veiligelanders': there is no way for them - and for young people from other african countries or the middle-east - to come to europe than to ask for asylum. all other options are closed.

why do we compare them with other asylum seekers? because dutch (and schengen) authorities have consciously robbed brown and black people from coming to europe in another capacity. why not compare them to, for example, other youth? youth with a european passport, for example?

young people with a european passport, especially white young people, can travel trouble free around the world. 'tussenjaar' it's called in dutch: take a year off before you (continue to) study or start a career to travel, develop yourself, have odd jobs abroad, have fun.

but when young people from mena or african countries want to leave their lands, they have to cross and ocean or a desert first, cross europe's lethal borders, and if they succeed, they can't work the odd job legally, rent a room, develop themselves, the only option is ask asylum.

they hardly have a chance to get accepted as refugee and they know it, but what can they do? so they go from country to country, apply for asylum often to secure a bed and food for some time. or, like now, a place on the grass in a reception center.

these young peolle arent safe at all in europe. the authorities have willingly and consciously created this situation. especially in the netherlands, with its colonial and slavery past, such policies have historical and deeply racist roots.

the deeply rotten dutch #ind (immigration & naturalisation service) and right wing racist dutch government now call these people 'veiligelanders', say they are problematic. journalists' task is to question this narrative. @volkskrant: 'trouble makers without future perspective'.

it is effing sickening. you know what doesn't have future perspective? racism, fascism, inequality. this deeply rotten system will eventually fall. why? humans are herd animals, we need to care for one another. we better start building a better society that does humanity justice.

#journalism has a role to play. repeating authorities' racist perspectives, building stories around the dominant perpective in a society in which the overton window is rapidly shifting to the right, places you on the wrong side of history. journalism can have #blood on its hands.