As a child, Edson Olf (37) watched the weekly political question time of the House of Representatives in the living room in South Rotterdam. “Those white men there are doing something important, I felt.”
He now comes to Parliament every week and will soon be able to ask questions himself. At least, if he gets enough votes as party leader of BIJ1.
The party members chose the relatively unknown Olf as successor to Sylvana Simons. He was a director of BIJ1 and a member of a Rotterdam neighborhood council. Olf previously worked at Apple as a repairman and was chairman of the company’s business council, he says. He then became a consultant, mainly for semi-public organizations, and specialized in conflicts. For example, he helped the municipality of The Hague in a conflict with houseboat owners.
The survival of BIJ1 in the Chamber is at stake in the elections in November. Support for the party was partly based on the fame of outgoing MP and party leader Simons. She leaves behind a young, occasionally quarrelsome club, which is polling between zero and one seat.
In his first weeks, voters mainly got to know Olf because of a tweet. On the day Hamas attacked Israel and Israelis were murdered and kidnapped, Olf posted a message in which he wrote about decades of “colonization, expulsion, displacement, murder and apartheid” that are the “cause of this conflict.” The Netherlands and the European Union are partly guilty of this, he continued, “by not guaranteeing international law and allowing injustice to continue.” He wished for “peace, compassion and mercy, and a free Palestine.”
Why this tweet?
“Because BIJ1 believes it is important that during such events we should not focus on what is happening that day. We have been drawing attention to apartheid and the injustice that happens to the Palestinian people for years. It doesn’t come out of the blue that something like this happens. ”
People think about that tweet: do BIJ1 and Olf care about the Israelis who are dying or being kidnapped at that moment?
“I understand that. We care about all human lives. But it is important to look at what has been going on in Palestine for decades. What have these people been dealing with for years?”
Even on the day that so many Israelis die?
“I then choose to provide historical context as to why this happens. I do not choose to say: how terrible, all those human lives. But I can understand why people find that, and the timing, annoying. It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel anything about the suffering of others. I’m actually very sensitive. We as a party are sensitive and consist of so many groups that have experienced injustice.”
Do you think Hamas’ attack can be justified in that context?
“We find all lives that are lost due to violence terrible. It doesn’t matter which side it comes from.”
BIJ1 hopes for a free Palestine, where Israelis and Palestinians live together peacefully, says Olf. This is how he interprets the controversial statement ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’.
Olf came to the Netherlands from Suriname in the early 1990s, when he was six. With his mother, sister and father. “The promised land. That’s how we saw it. My parents wished us a good future with more prospects and therefore chose the Netherlands. Family already lived here and we spoke the language.” His mother was able to get a job at Erasmus MC, his father also already had a job when they flew over.
His relationship with the Netherlands has remained ambivalent. Things are well organized in the Netherlands, he says. But he noticed that he was seen as different when other children imitated his accent. In his teenage years he noticed that the police often drove into his Rotterdam neighborhood and stopped more often at people of color. “Beverwaard, my neighborhood, was seen as unsafe. While I really enjoyed this place.”
His mother said: We people of color have to work two to three times harder in this country. The rules that apply to others do not necessarily apply to you, Edson. You will be judged more severely for mistakes. Olf chose to stand out as little as possible. “I was always careful in how I expressed myself, how I behaved. I tried to stay out of trouble.”
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You are calm, you say. You like the shelter. Why are you giving yourself this position as party leader, in the middle of the spotlight, at a party that faces major challenges?
Laughs. “I registered myself with the message: if the party thinks it is good and needs me, then I want to serve. The party needed a loyal leader who cares about it and has earned his or her stripes in the party. Then I have to get over my tension and my character.”
What if you don’t win a seat?
“Then we will continue with our mission outside parliament. It will have financial consequences, we have to look at that. And then we’ll see in four years.”
In 2016, Sylvana Simons founded BIJ1. She narrowly won a seat in the 2021 parliamentary elections. Her best-known legacy is the discussion about the history of slavery and the apologies from Prime Minister Mark Rutte that followed.
The party is also characterized by disagreement. BIJ1 disappeared from the Amsterdam council this year, where it won three seats in 2022. The last two split council members spoke of a “toxic, structurally unsafe environment”, full of distrust, abuse of power and “lack of transparency and internal democracy”.
Your knowledge about conflicts will serve you well now.
“It is the reason why I registered for the national board about two years ago. I was under the impression that I could learn to argue with BIJ1. So that arguments do not escalate, but result in something good.”
Less came of it than he hoped, Olf says looking back. He was able to analyze the disagreement and sees the conflicts in BIJ1 mainly as an unwillingness to learn and invest in each other. And what he also saw: “People place the suffering inflicted on them above the collective.” He does not recognize what the departing council members from Amsterdam are describing. “I really experience BIJ1 as a warm bath.”
Anti-racism is the most important topic of the election manifesto. Olf wants to ensure that there is healing and recovery after the apology for the past of slavery. The program has no financial section and BIJ1 does not have it calculated by the Central Planning Bureau.
BIJ1 wants a lot for free: childcare, public transport, housing for the homeless. How realistic is that?
“It may not sound realistic, but it is if you dare to think outside the box of the current system.”
But how is that possible? BIJ1 is not really into that question, more into the why question, is the conclusion. The most important thing for Olf is that he will “question the system” in Parliament. Just like Simons did in the debate about the history of slavery. With his questions, Olf wants to hold up a mirror to the Netherlands about the capitalist system, which only works for the happy few. “People will find us annoying, but we will make them think.”
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