Proposition 53K2984

Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'accord de coopération du 12 juin 2013 visant à créer un Centre interfédéral pour l'égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme et les discriminations.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

June 4, 2013

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

foreign national equal treatment racism

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR

Voted to reject

LDD VB

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Discussion ¶

Oct. 17, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to my written report.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, today we are asked to approve the cooperation agreement establishing an inter-federal centre for equal opportunities and combating discrimination and racism. The division of the current center into an inter-federal and a federal center is necessary because otherwise our country is no longer in line with the directives of the European Union. European regulations require us to have such a center.

We will support the adjustment of the structure of the current Centre for Equal Opportunities and for Combating Racism, just as we did in the Senate and at the Flemish level.

Colleagues, let there be no doubt, equality of opportunities and combating racism are essential concepts in our society. This is not at issue here. For our party, integration and community are key concepts. This institution can therefore mean an added value, but then that institution must also be used properly. The way the center is being filled today is rather a brake on integration or a successful buffer against racism.

How is it possible to get so far that an institution like this is engaged in a radio spot about the ritual slaughter of a sheep? Colleagues, I call it searching for nails in low water, while the real problems of racism in our society continue to exist.

Also, the management of the current center is opposed to the obligation of courses of Dutch language to newcomers, while that is exactly one of the conditions for integration. Without knowledge of the local language, one cannot find a job and without work one stays on the side.

The management of the center has absolutely not contributed to integration, but it is precisely hindering it. Moreover, she is not at all a advocate of certain values that we generally endorse, such as the neutrality of the civil servants, the separation of Church and State and the equality of man and woman.

The management itself repeatedly says that racism does not decrease and that the multicultural society has failed. Studies by Professor Mark Elchardus, among others, show that the problems with immigrant youth have only increased and continue to increase, and that among those young people the racism itself grows.

Colleagues, we are not alone with this opinion; also colleague Somers was ⁇ critical about the completion of the current center and I quote: “The center is being degraded to a political weapon in the hands of one against the other. As a result, the center loses its legitimacy and its impact power in society.”

Today, the new structure is a fact. Let us continue to work to indicate a meaningful and efficient fulfillment.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, Vlaams Belang has submitted a bill several times in the past to support the so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and Fight Against Racism. The most recent proposal was submitted on 18 October 2011 by Mr De Man.

In any case, in the context of this bill, the party-political intentions of this so-called independent body, the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism, must be recalled. The center was established immediately after the notorious Black Sunday. The Flemish Bloc then found and the Flemish Belang now thinks it is not possible for an undemocratically composed body, which is not elected by the people, to determine a country’s migration policy. We do not think it is possible for a political party to be combated, including by a civic party by a body that does not have the slightest control and which should not be held accountable to anyone. We do not find it normal that the bankruptcy of the integration and migration policy is not determined by the Parliament or the politics, but by Jozef De Witte, the director of the so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism. The Flemish Interest considers it not possible that that so-called center has the powers of a political parliament.

The list of phrases of that so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism – which colleague Luykx has already mentioned – has grown ⁇ long over the years. Mr. Minister, I would like to tell you a few things. You will still remember the complaint against the store chain Hema.

You may also remember that the so-called center opposed the stricter conditions for family reunification, however approved by Parliament. Why the center should oppose something that has been approved in Parliament, for me it is a question.

Following the main cloth ban for municipal councillors in Boom, the chairman, Mr. De Witte, proposed that in Boom the democracy was abolished. Democracy is abolished! Literally: “You can just as well move to North Korea.” These are the words of the so independent, so neutral Centre for Equal Opportunities and Anti-Racism.

You will undoubtedly also remember the affair related to the sliding gate company Feryn. Feryn responded to the request of some of his clients to only get indigenous mechanics over the floor. The center engaged in a case and Feryn was convicted.

At the end of 2011, the CGKR itself was charged with racism, Mrs. the Minister. A teaching teacher from the so-called center would have denigrated Jews and homosexuals in a course for police officers.

The next fact is the Antwerp locket tax. According to the CGKR, it may have been discriminatory. The White found it necessary to write an open letter to Mayor De Wever.

Last year, the same center – the series is getting longer – filed a complaint against so-called racist Facebook groups like Pret with Mohammed and ‘t Is Always Something with Islam.

The youngest capriool really hits everything. I ⁇ cannot remember you. The good guys and girls of GAIA also have a complaint about their pants. The Centre for Equality of Opportunities and Combating Racism will bow over a GAIA radio show telling the untoxicated ritual slaughter of sheep from the perspective of a sheep.

Can you tell me, Mrs. Minister, where the poor sheep with their complaints could go from now on?

Ladies and gentlemen colleagues, Mrs. the Minister, a number of politicians, also from outside the Flemish Interest, had and still have their concerns about the design and purpose of the original Centre for Equal Opportunities and for the Fight against Racism. Bart De Wever, colleague Luykx, initially considered that the CGKR could best be abolished – I quote him literally: “... because of its total meaninglessness and a permanent threat to the right to free expression”. Now you will vote for the splitting of the same Center into a federal and a so-called inter-federal center. It becomes a kind of Flemish-Waals consultation body with a tricolor jacket.

It is your colleague, N-VA’er Gantman, who is still advocating the removal of the Center. One would actually be inclined to jump straight and shout, “Will the real N-VA rise now?” I still do not know, colleague Luykx, whether you are for or against. You are a little for and a little against.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Minister, Belgium and ⁇ Flanders do not need a politically correct thought police. The integration of immigrants came and comes through this Center, and also through the two new centers, no step closer. You have only managed to criminalize a Flemish independence party, the Flemish Bloc, with this Center.

Our political position is very clear. We do not support the establishment of such an inter-federal center. There is also a lot of material criticism possible. It should be noted that the draft law shows a lot of substantive deficiencies.

During my presentation, I would like to list some of them because the substantial deficiencies in any case support our political criticism and our criticism basically.

First, we read in your own explanation that the division of the current center into an inter-federal center and a federal center is necessary because otherwise Belgium would no longer be in order with the directives of the European Union. Mr Luykx also referred to this.

However, the above is only half the truth and half the truth is not the truth. The extensive powers under the so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and for the Combating of Racism – soon the old centre – actually go far beyond what the 1969 UN Convention imposes on us.

To the fetishists of EU legislation, I would also tell you that the powers of the two new centers will also go far beyond what Directive 2000/43 of 29 June 2000 imposes on us.

Article 13 of this Directive requires Member States to designate an authority to promote equal treatment of all persons. It involves three aspects: first, assisting people who are discriminated; second, investigating discrimination in an independent manner; third, formulating recommendations.

In particular, there is no obligation at any time to confer on that body or those bodies the powers to act in court, as the current centre can do and the two new centres will soon be able to do.

For us, the above is a substantial defect.

Second, as regards the inter-federal centre itself, the Flemish Community could have established its own Flemish discrimination centre for those Flemish powers.

Mr. Luykx, after another round of muscle balls rolling in the Flemish Parliament, therefore, a Belgian compromise was swept out of the hat: interfederalization of powers, an interfederal center.

If one had wanted to follow the letter of the European directives, then one could have merely taken up the assignment of those powers or part of them to, for example, the DVZ or to another institution. In other words, it was not necessary to establish an interfederal center.

Third, Mrs. Minister, I find it very strange that the Inter-Federal Centre must be representative for a criterion for which it is not competent, that it must be paritary for another criterion for which it is also not competent, for example discrimination on the basis of language, while there is absolutely no representation or parity for the many criteria for which it is competent.

There is, therefore, another contradiction that I do not understand properly and which, in any case, points to a substantial contradiction that you may be able to explain to me, but I fear the worst.

Fourth, Mrs. Minister, you say that the appointments for the Inter-Federal Center are made by parliaments, which would be a guarantee for the independence of the Inter-Federal Center. Ladies and gentlemen, do not let me laugh.

Since the soap of political nominations, we know what it means.

With this inter-federal center, you are on the right line. You are again creating a state within the State. You re-create an organ over which there is not the slightest control, with special powers and without democratic control.

Therefore, we will not approve this bill and try to combat it in all possible ways.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, members of the government, colleagues, our group expressly supports the interfederalization of this center, even if it is to begin with only for practical reasons.

It is clear that it will involve a single-location function for the population. Many countrymen, and sometimes we, do not know who is responsible for what kind of discrimination. Is it the federal or community government or another government?

Through this interfederalization, therefore, there is a single lock for the population. The complainant or complainant does not have to make a distinction between who is competent for which matter.

It is also good that there are no three or four centers for equal opportunities and anti-discrimination, because I can imagine that those centers will set their own priorities and thus again create a cacophony.

I think it is good for the clarity of the debate and the matter to have a unique inter-federal center.

In addition, this single center can also extract lessons from the various experiences abroad much more efficiently, in order to be able to conduct a coherent policy.

Finally, it is good that we have a unique inter-federal centre, even if it is only because it obviously costs the least of community money. In that regard, the inter-federal center will be cheaper than four centers next to each other.

Colleagues, the attitude of colleague Luykx in this dossier surprises me somewhat. Mr. Luykx, do not blame me, but I have the impression that you are blowing warm and cold. You say twice in this speech that the problems of racism continue to exist. Well, I can only state that you are actually advocating to eliminate firefighters because there are more fires in the country, or to reduce medicine because the flu is on the doorstep. This is ⁇ strange.

What does the N-VA really want? Is the N-VA on the standpoint of Mr. Gantman, who actually wants to abolish it? I have clearly understood that you are opposed to this. Again, I feel like you’re measuring with two sizes and two weights or you’re blowing hot and cold at the same time. The fire department should not be abolished if more fires arise, the medicine should not be decomposed if the flu is at the door.

In addition, you say that the problems of racism continue to exist. Does that mean that you believe that the Minister of Citizenship of the Flemish government does not do its job well? It would perfectly be possible for you to say that, because we hear various signals from the N-VA. I refer to the statements of Mr. Gantman and to what you say. I think it is important to ask that question and also to get clarity about your position.

Mr Tuybens, we do not want to eliminate the fire department at all, but we would like to see the fire department extinguish the fire. Firefighters are now running around with the wrong objectives. We do not deny at all that racism is a problem today, quite the opposite. We also want to tackle this problem efficiently. That approach consists not only in setting up a structure, but also in giving it the proper fulfillment. This does not happen today.

Mr. Luykx, if the fire department is asked to extinguish, the fire department will extinguish the fire. It is only so that there are policymakers in our country, including the Minister of Citizenship of the Flemish government, who apparently fails with his colleagues to reduce the problems of racism, as you say. After all, you say very clearly, up to twice, that the problems of racism continue to exist. The citizenship minister can play an important role in this. So I ask that you speak the same language and not blow hot and cold at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, it is of course good ton in this Parliament to always shoot at the Flemish government, even if the own party is part of it. I think we all agree that when we talk about integration, it will take a long time to follow a certain line to address the integration policy differently. It also takes a long time. That path was taken by the government in 2003, with the People’s Union, or with the N-VA, but ⁇ also with the Greens. Think of Mieke Vogels and the mandatory citizenship route. I note that this is now also introduced on the French-speaking side, although not mandatory but voluntary. This is a project of long breath. Therefore, it is not the case that a single Flemish government that will be solved in four or five years. I think we all agree on this. Therefore, it is not enough to say that, because a single minister is competent and he would not do his job properly, the whole integration discourse has failed.

I take record of that.

That is a first point. So I mean, Mr. Tuybens, that you should be intellectually honest. The problem of discrimination in our society is a problem that we must continue to address. We need to find the right instrument. A number of instruments have been invented by the Flemish government, including by Minister of Equal Opportunities Pascal Smet. This is something of a long breath. That is a first point.

Second, if we talk about the Centre for Equal Opportunities, then the question is whether this is the right way to address the problem. We have some European restrictions, but the point is – and I think that colleague Luykx has explained this very well – that we want firefighters to blow the fire and not play for pyroman. That is often the problem at the moment.

So we are really looking forward to who will be the new director of the Inter-Federal Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism. The mandate of the current director expires. We are looking forward to the new one. We will also participate in this through the Flemish government. The new director will be elected by mutual consultation. Here they say that the failure of integration, the domain for which Mr. Bourgeois is competent, is his fault, is ⁇ short by the curve.

Mr. Luykx had been delighted if he had said in his speech that it was a common responsibility, rather than as usual to say that everything is the fault of the majority parties in the hemisphere. It is important to work with everyone here, I agree with that.

In any case, the debate here is primarily about racism, while it should clearly also be about the discrimination of persons on the basis of their disability, their sexual orientation, gender or age. The Centre has already more than sufficiently indicated that it can bring added value in this regard.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I hope that one aspect of the returned Mr. Gantman can still stand up, namely that the local level could play a greater role in this. Cities and municipalities can play an important role in this. Sorry, but the N-VA blows warm and cold again in this regard. While Mr. Gantman asks that Antwerp be authorized to do so, in some other cities, not to mention the second largest city in Eastern Flanders, the N-VA mayor says exactly the opposite. In short, N-VA, make sure you speak with one voice.

Anti-racism has become an institution in our Western countries. This is well-legitimate, you will tell me, given that our borders are wide opened and that many immigrants cross them every year, often permanently, to escape poverty, to escape the disturbances that we voluntarily create in their country to defend economic or strategic interests, interests often unrecognizable, as has been the case in recent times for Iraqis, Tunisians, Afghans or even Syrians, or to escape the derivatives of neocolonialism such as the Ivory, Malians or even our Congolese friends.

We must not hide it, some also come here to take advantage of our system and our social protection. There are beneficiaries everywhere, including within the Belgian population. You should not cover your face.

Racism is primarily a lack of respect for a person who has the only disadvantage of having a different level of melanine, a different culture, different customs and customs. If racism is and must be condemned, it will never be eradicated.

At the time when Belgium had not yet hosted such a large number of indigenous populations, racism already existed, between villages, between people from the north or south of the country or from one city to another. In short, the distrust of what appears to us to be foreign is part of the human and natural character, which one may possibly disappear by education but which one will never be able to destroy definitively.

Today, accusing someone of racism has become a common currency. If an employer does not want to hire a foreigner because he does not have the level of French or Dutch sufficient, the latter will only have to go to the door of the Professional Institute of Anti-Racism to scream the scandal. Any slightly suspicious word, even without any racism, can be condemned and condemned.

We have had the experience of this kind of institution in France with SOS Racism. As Jean Baudrillard said, SOS Whales has a mission to save whales. Wouldn’t SOS Racism have a mission to save racism? My friends, the humorist Dieudonné and Kemi Séba, the talented panafricanist, have been able to bring to light this scam of anti-racism, this trade of pleurishment institutionalized and set up by our countries not to eradicate racism, but rather to maintain it.

I ask the citizens to do their own research on this subject to realize it. You cannot force people to love others. It is ridiculous! As Kemi Séba says, it is by self-determination that respect is imposed and not by living as a victim. Therefore, it is necessary for foreigners from Belgium to enter into a logic of self-determination, anti-victimization and virility to impose respect. It is not by asking the latter that this one comes to you. It is by having an exemplary behavior, without a doubt, that one avoids being caught on it.

Furthermore, some people who have worked for this kind of shameful associations confess very clearly that anti-white racism is not taken into account. He does not exist!

So we fall into a scheme where the white, he, has no right to complain about an act of racism. He can do it, but he will not have the support of these institutions. This is totally paradoxical.

There is, however, one truth that I want to say to all those parties that say they are close to immigrants: it is that you are instrumentalizing the suffering behind racism for political purposes, and this is an imposture. On the one hand, you hold a speech advocating the integration and assimilation of foreigners in Belgium, and on the other hand, you play on the exaltation of differences.

Foreigners in Belgium, therefore, will never feel Belgian, since you offer them, not to taste our culture, at least for what is left of it, but to live theirs at our house. And so, you make sure to park these people in ghettos where they only find each other and you do nothing for there to be exchanges between these communities and the Belgian tribe. So you make each other coexist, you make different cultures coexist, which, without explanation, seem incompatible.

You create the fear of the other, because – it is well known – one is always afraid of what one does not know. You make sure that the Belgian is afraid of the African we meet in Matongé, that our media assimilates to a member of a gang or a dealer. You make the Belgian afraid of the Arab, whether you present as a terrorist or a hand-cutter. It is simply vicious! And the population has the right to know what dangerous game you are playing in our country. This is true racism.

As the French sociologist Alain Soral says, the work of institutional anti-racism aims only to prevent the integration and assimilation of immigrants in France by systematically putting immigrants against the French. The aim is to create racism between French immigrants and French descendants.

I will give you a very simple example. The Sino-Vietnamese community in France has never allowed these institutions to take over their fate. It is a structured community that has the same colonial passive with France as countries of the Maghreb. However, this community is not a victim of racism, as by chance! There is no anti-Semitism in France. Why would there then be anti-Arab racism in our country, when it is not in the culture of Islam to weep and demand reparations? We must see behind this anti-Arab racism the work of professional anti-racists from parties such as the Socialist Party, the CDH and Ecolo. As the head of the group said, we can talk about recovery. SOS Racisme in France is one of those satellite organizations of the Socialist Party tasked with bringing back into the line of the political line of the PS the movements of protest, criticism or radicalism that can arise among the youth, especially among the youth from immigration.

Not only do these parties mock immigrant youths who join their ranks, but they also create the racism they face on a daily basis. It is time for these young people to wake up.

Currently, our Centre for Equal Opportunities, headed by my dear friend, the Socialist Édouard Delruelle, is but a liar and manipulative venture that aims to diabolize right-wing ideas, however good they may be, to highlight the bobo, pro-immigration left, whose representatives live in beautiful and large houses while rejoicing for the misery in which they let the unhappy sheep that fall into their pursuit past.

Such a Center is also useful to defile those who have the courage to rise up against the lies you spread and who have a discourse of truth.

It is so convenient to use this Center, for example, to prosecute me for racism and anti-Semitism when I say that Israel practices a Nazi policy towards the Palestinians while that is just the strict truth, sorry!

The worst thing is that a simple complaint from this center, without the slightest prosecution, without the slightest conviction, is worthy of condemnation. Just look at the articles that appear on me: no journalist is reluctant to evoke this stupid complaint without even referring to the democratic principle of the presumption of innocence.

In short, if the institution we are talking about today must lead to the same aberrations and, ultimately, be a factory of racism, an institution that will persist racism to continue to offer a job to those who will be part of its board, as the PS keeps citizens in poverty to keep its electoral potential, I don’t want it!

We are for a strong Belgium, no matter the color of the skin of those who feel proud to be Belgians. We are for self-determination, regardless of the country.

A last example before we finish. You are stealing the Congo. Therefore, many Congolese are trying their luck at home. When they arrive, you pick them up again to infantilize them and kill them into thieves. and laugh! I have unmasked you. Know that if the Congo were liberated from Western domination, if you did not occupy this country to remove enormous wealth from it, including the diamonds that end up in Antwerp from the unknown community, no Congolese would want to stay here, so much their country of origin is rich and has enormous potential.

I have to remind you, the Congolese have rights, a culture. They must be sovereigns and masters of their destiny. We also have a Belgian culture, national languages, customs and customs and those who live on our soil must respect them, as we must respect other cultures and other ways of life. There is no reason why we can’t denounce community drifts when they are contrary to our values, even, and even worse, if it’s to be taxed as racist later.

In the face of this deceit, I therefore oppose this proposal that wants to make foreigners from Belgium vulgar worthless worshippers, confined to their faults and their misfortunes, instead of emancipating themselves from them, to the image of the Socialist Party that wants to make assistants and not entrepreneurs, independent people, people who rise up and out of their immobilism.

I will limit myself to a vote statement.

I will vote against this bill. I am not concerned with whether the center in question will be inter-federal or federal. It is not about that. I am in principle talking about ideological objections. I am talking about the principle that we live here in a democracy and that democracy must be able to live with free expression.

I may be the last of the liberals in Parliament, but free speech is one of the foundations of liberalism.

In this country, we do not need a thought police. The experience of the last twenty years has taught us that in this country we do not need a politically correct thought police. We have seen what has happened in the past time.

Freedom of expression is for me absolute. A democracy must be able to tolerate them. For me, the only barrier to free expression is calling for violence. However, the prohibition of calling for violence has been in our legislation for years and decades. Therefore, for this brake, we do not need a new thought police.

A great German philosopher once said: “Thoughts are free.” This statement is one of the foundations of liberal thought. Therefore, I will not approve the present new bill today.