This week , GL-PvdA – an alliance between GroenLinks and the Labour Party in the Netherlands – presented their new party programme. The central theme? Solidarity. A beautiful word – and precisely for that reason so dangerous. Because as long as solidarity remains just a slogan, nothing will change. Solidarity is not a marketing term, nor a catchy theme for an inspiring speech. It’s something you do or you don’t.
And let’s be honest: the GL-PvdA track record in recent years is, to put it mildly, poor.
Take foreign policy. Solidarity with the oppressed sounds great in a conference hall, but in practice both GroenLinks and the PvdA have repeatedly voted in favour of Dutch arms exports to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Even when Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch presented clear evidence of war crimes, they stuck to fine words and empty calls. Solidarity with Palestinians – but only when it doesn’t cause problems in The Hague.
Or economic and social policy. How much solidarity was there in the coalition agreement where the PvdA – together with the VVD – pushed through the harsh austerity measures of Rutte II? Social assistance was driven further below subsistence level, social tenants were hit with one rent increase after another, and health insurance premiums rose every single year. Workers in the public sector? Four years of zero wage increases. Banks were saved – ordinary people were told to fend for themselves. That’s what neoliberal “solidarity” looks like.
Once again, it all sounds good today: solidarity with young people, with tenants, with people in poverty. But where was that solidarity when GroenLinks voted in the Senate to scrap the dividend tax for multinationals, or when the student grant system was abolished? Where was that solidarity when defence budgets were backed without hesitation while the housing crisis spiralled out of control?
Solidarity does not mean: we want the best for everyone. It means: we stand with those who struggle – even when it comes at a cost. It means saying no to the NATO spending norm, because every euro spent on combat drones is a euro not spent on affordable housing or good public transport. It means not only invoking climate justice, but also speaking out against trade treaties that protect fossil fuel companies (like CETA and the Energy Charter Treaty) – treaties GroenLinks and PvdA supported.
That is why, as DiEM25, we say: solidarity is not a magic word. It is a practice. Every day we choose whom we support and whom we confront. On paper, anyone can claim to be in solidarity. But those who, in practice, reinforce the status quo should not expect people to accept a new .
Voters must not be lulled to sleep by slogans. Real solidarity means choosing to fight – against lobbyists, oligarchs, the arms industry and fossil interests. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s the right thing to do.
And that is the choice we must finally dare to make again. As in the old trade union/left wing saying: “An injury to one is an injury to all, solidarity to all.”
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