White Sunday
In Ranst, the unthinkable has happened: the ‘cordon sanitaire’ – a political agreement to keep far-right parties like Vlaams Belang out of power – has been broken, and Vlaams Belang will now take part in the local government. This marks a significant shift in the political landscape, as far-right influence continues to grow both locally and nationally.
In light thereof, we reflect on Yousra Benfquih’s essay ‘White Sunday’ (witte zondag), originally published after the June 9 elections in De Wereld Morgen (in Dutch). Her concerns about the rise of Vlaams Belang and the broader political shift in Flanders, together with her reflections on power and language, have become even more relevant today.
More than four months ago, on Sunday 9th of June, the federal and regional elections took place in Belgium. Many people were relieved by the election results: ‘Fortunately, it wasn’t the Black Sunday many feared or the polls predicted.’(1)
I, and many others with me, did not share this relief. Far-right Vlaams Belang (a Flemish nationalist and right-wing populist party) turned out to be the second biggest party in Flanders, and in three out of five provinces, it emerged as the largest. With 31 seats in the Flemish Parliament, it holds the biggest fraction. How so, not a Black Sunday?
“For many of us, parties such as N-VA (the New Flemish Alliance), which in recent years have succeeded in normalising racism and Islamophobia, are in the long term more dangerous and harmful to social cohesion.”
Moreover, this exclusive focus on Vlaams Belang is misleading and ill-informed. For many of us, parties such as N-VA (the New Flemish Alliance), which in recent years have succeeded in normalising racism and Islamophobia, are in the long term more dangerous and harmful to social cohesion. While the Israeli regime, called the ‘side of the light’ by Antwerp’s mayor, faces growing criticism for its flagrant violations of human rights law after more than a year of ongoing genocide, several party members are openly Zionist. Together, Vlaams Belang and NV-A have 62 seats out of 124 (and it is only thanks to the Flemish voters in Brussels that they do not have the majority that would be necessary to form a coalition). How so, not a Black Sunday?
In recent years, pretty much all centrist parties have drifted to the right. The president of Vooruit (a Flemish centre-left social-democratic party), who has been and is still making openly racist and Islamophobic comments, received an overwhelming number of personal votes. Instead of causing alarm, this trend is referred to as the ‘Conner-effect’.
For many of us, Sunday 9th of June, was undeniably a Black Sunday. Kifkif, an intercultural association advocating for equality and against racism, rightly warns that parties exploiting antisocial policies and racist sentiments are likely to dominate upcoming governments, spurred on by the extreme right. As journalist and writer Tuly Salumu writes in De Morgen, even without government participation, the far right will heavily influence policymaking. In addition, the European Parliament elections also saw a sharp shift to the right. The fact that many people did not speak of a Black Sunday, is a reminder of the question of who has the power to name. No Black Sunday, for whom exactly?
Still, the term ‘Black Sunday’ doesn’t sit well with me. I remember how many years ago I attended a performance of former Antwerp city poet Seckou Ouologuem, who shared a poem about the discursive pejorative association of blackness.
“Being blacklisted usually means a bad thing, and so does being blackmailed, while an innocent lie is called a white one.”
No one wants to be the black sheep of the family. In Dutch, someone who doesn’t pay their public transport ticket is said to be ‘riding black,’ and money laundering is called ‘white washing.’ Being blacklisted usually means a bad thing, and so does being blackmailed, while an innocent lie is called a white one. And when you’re speaking ill of someone to make them look bad, in Dutch, we say you’re ‘making them black.’
Harmless? Think of a Swiss political anti-immigration campaign in which a white sheep kicks a black sheep off the flag. Think of how the Israeli settler colonists, in a broader agenda of dispossession and extermination, criminalised the herding of the black goat, the most important livestock of the Bedouin community, with the Black Goat Act. A paramilitary unit reduced the herds by 64% in the span of 3 years. Or consider how an Israeli pop singer incited a crowd of dancing soldiers with the words: “Gaza you Black woman! Gaza you bitch!” In short, blackness continues to be negatively framed in both language and imagination.
While their party programs may differ, what the aforementioned far-right and right-wing parties share, both in Flanders and across Europe, is an ethno-nationalist, racist ideology rooted deeply in white supremacy. Perhaps ‘White Sunday’ would therefore be a better fit. Regardless, for refugees and other vulnerable groups (let’s not forget that Vlaams Belang is also homophobic and set on restricting the right to abortion), the coming years are bound to be years of ‘black snow’, as the Dutch saying would have it, if it weren’t for the fact that snow is white. As white as Sunday the 9th of June was.
(1) The term ‘Black Sunday’ was first used in the context of Belgian elections in 1991, where Vlaams Belang (then called ‘Vlaams Blok’) made its first national breakthrough rising from two to 12 seats in the federal parliament and becoming the largest party in the electoral district of Antwerp. This prompted the other parties to cement the ‘cordon sanitaire’ with a resolution in the Flemish parliament.
Yousra Benfquih is a writer, poet and spoken word artist who holds a PhD in human rights law. Yousra is an established name on the Flemish stages ranging from the Bozar to the Roma, Arenberg to Theater aan Zee. Her work has been featured in Kluger Hans, DW B, De Poëziekrant, De Revisor en De Gids, as well as in De Standaard, Knack en De Morgen. Yousra is one of the in-house writers of cultural-critic magazine Rekto:verso and teaches Spoken Word at LUCA School of Arts, Writing for Performance.