"We are all migrants", says Rutte in Schilderswijk

On Wednesday evening, in the Schilderswijk Library in The Hague, two hundred residents and VVD Prime Minister Mark Rutte meet and spend an hour and a half talking to each other. that other people get a rented house, money for their studies, an internship or a job. That they are themselves "on a zero shift" because they live in the Schilderswijk and "two zero if we have different antecedents". "What are you doing for us?" Or "Why is the government not doing anything about it?"

Rutte repeats that he can do "little". That's not the "ready answer". And that they must "persevere", pursue their dreams. "Then it will always happen that you come across a kind of dick that you do not want to give to an internship because you call me Mo or Fatima."

Rutte remains cheerful, sometimes tries a joke: "What a beautiful question from VVD I feel the liberal electorate here." The room remains serious and focused. And soon people are angry. A man said loudly that the East Indians of Schilderswijk felt "excluded" because the meeting at the library fell on their "Festival of Lights". "They would also have wanted to be there.How can this happen? Integration failed and then I wonder: with me or with the prime minister?"

First, Rutte also jokes about this subject. "Yes, it is the disadvantage of a district rich in cultures, that there is always a party in one or the other culture." Right after, he has a solution. He will invite the East Indians of Schilderswijk aside "for an hour." Then I hope that it will be limited to this group, otherwise it will be complicated. "

Cappuccino and Coffee Filter

All day, Rutte, without a tie and the buttons on the top of his shirt open, is on a working visit, and in the morning he is at the Heilige Boontjes cafe in Rotterdam, with employees mostly former prisoners or people who have had difficulties in their lives in a different way, where he learns how to make cappuccino himself and get a bag of filter coffee. "This corresponds to my number four Albert Heijn. 19659002] In the afternoon, he visits the "sailors of the city" who try to preserve the safety of neighborhoods in Rotterdam.

In the Schilderswijk, the first question comes from a boy from one year or thirteen, Bilal, he wants to know why people "with and without a migrant not just mixed up in schools. Could this still organize the prime minister? "Difficult," says Rutte, explaining how the free choice of school is operated and asserting that the government can not force schools to children. "You have schools with many children from immigration and few children whose parents live in the Netherlands for a few hundred years. But in the end we are of course all Migrants. "

Banished from District

Peggy Bouman (46) and Maaike van der Linden (40) rank fourth. They live above the library. Bouman's son, Lorenzo, was educated by Rutte in high school. He teaches social science every Thursday at a school in Schilderswijk. Now that her son is an adult, Peggy Bouman is cut short. She must leave the house, she thinks, and Rutte wants to know why there is no living space for Lorenzo in the neighborhood. "He is exiled to Mariahoeve."

Rutte does not seem to know what to do with it. "It's not the job of the government to build a house for your son – he has to do it himself?"

Peggy Bouman says, "There are so many empty houses here." Rutte starts on the waiting lists. They are always there. "When I registered with the housing company in The Hague, it took me seven years to get something." "Then I'll keep it at home," says Peggy Bouman. "Much nicer," says Rutte.

Most of the speakers speak for a long time. Rutte uses this time to eat cheese cubes, standing in a bowl next to him. One of his employees had asked him in advance.

The evening is over at nine fifteen. Rutte receives a brief applause. After that, almost everyone wants to take a picture with him. Rutte takes the time. Then call: "Goodbye everyone."

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