I remember the youth violence in St. Louis, the city in the American Midwest where I once lived. Hundreds of poor young black men shot each other; it was a revenge exercise that never ended. But how could that be? How could people be so careless about other lives? I fear that the explanation must be sought in the economic; human lives had no value anymore.
In 2021, fourteen stabbing incidents took place in Rotterdam in three weeks. The perpetrators and victims were children, minors. Sometimes thirteen-year-old boys were arrested. The mayor of Rotterdam Aboutaleb emphasized that the violence has not increased since 2019, but I think he’s just trying to save the memory of all those years of mayorship that way. In two corona years, there were not so many months left with street life and meeting places. Despite this, the youngsters managed to injure each other just as often.
In the midst of a war and a pandemic, we will vote for a new city council next week. I’m in the habit of letting you know my vote at every election, because I believe that we opinion writers who sit back, pipe-smoking, and look at the world weekly from the parlor full of cynicism and irony, need to color every once in a while. confess and have to choose something.
In Rotterdam, the right has the strongest answer to crime. VVD and Leefbaar Rotterdam attach great importance to safety, such as the ‘patser approach’ and preventive frisking. But that’s where it ends. In the summary of the VVD election program I looked for other ideas for ‘youth’ and found ‘youth care’, ‘youth nuisance’ and ‘youth crime’. ‘Education’ was about guest lectures by the police at school. Liveable Rotterdam wants to look for knives at parents’ homes if necessary.
On the right, people still pretend that those young people are falling from the sky and the problem can be solved by chasing them away with ‘mosquitos’ (jammers that spread irritating high tones), by pre-emptive frisking and deploying more cameras in rather than looking at the causes of youth violence. As if the neighborhood and education are not part of the municipality. It suddenly seems so thin to me that I don’t want to vote for it anymore.
No, for prevention we have to turn left, to GroenLinks and D66. I got to know GroenLinks alderman Judith Bokhove personally when the umpteenth traffic accident took place in front of our door – this time a young man had been killed. The alderman did not only want to chase the bastards out of their cars, she also wanted to turn the city into one large residential area, with green footpaths, children playing in the street, less fine dust and less noise and at most 30 km per hour in the margins. -traffic. I do want to live in her green city. But is it viable for everyone?
But these parties are also the embodiment of gentrification. Because in the streets just behind our stately mansions, people only want one thing: just park in front of the door and leave at six in the morning for the industrial estate or nursing home for the early shift. Many Surinamese entrepreneurs are now leaving the city, partly because their older customer can no longer park there. A dozen cheerful Pinterest cargo bike lattemachiato entrepreneurs are eager to take his place. That is also GroenLinks.
‘Liveable’ does not mean the same for everyone.
In my electoral despair I turn to the Christian parties. I actually do that more and more. In Rotterdam, the church is the force against gentrification. The church mixes the northern and southern parts of the city, black and white, is fresh conservative and principled. I am confident that they have an eye for both the workers and the hipsters and when you search their election manifesto for ‘youth’ you will find not only nuisance and crime but also ‘youth activity’ and ‘youth credit’ which basically means that poor families receive cash to make their poor children a little less poor. Whether that extra Rotterdam child assistance really works? Who knows. But it is clear that more is needed than police action and criminal law. If anyone has an answer for the youngsters with big knives, it’s them. Even with a Bible. I vote Christian Union.
Rosanne Hertzberger is a microbiologist.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 12 March 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 12, 2022
#Fighting #boys #knives #Bible