What did Minister Blok say and is that correct?

"Probably somewhere deep in our genes is that we want to have a well-organized group to hunt or maintain a village"

Are people really so tribal and self-centered as Blok thinks it is? ? He also said "we are not able to connect with unknown people". Modern research on DNA shows a different aspect of the man. For all who investigate geneticists, they find the mix. Genetically pure peoples do not exist. Modern Europeans are a genetic stew of ice-age hunter-gatherers, Middle Eastern farmers and steppe pastoralists. Even hunter-gatherers are not genetic islands. In Khoisan, in the Kalahari Desert, in southern Africa, 9 to 30% of the DNA comes from pastoral populations. Peoples mingle again and again

Read also our political analysis: Bloc under fire – even after excuses

History also passes people who enter into & # 39; relations & # 39; 39; with each other initially unknown. Look at the Romans who have almost continuously recorded "foreign peoples" in their empire. In the Dutch Republic, with its Flemish and Flemish refugees, the French Huguenots, Protestants, Catholics and Jews. To South American societies, where the descendants of Europeans, Indians and slaves found ways to live together.

Read also how politics reacts to Blok's statements: Minister Blok regrets the statements about the multicultural society

go back further: in the ice age, when there were still Neanderthals in Europe. The genetic and external differences between Neanderthals and modern humans were greater than those between all the two peoples that you can designate on Earth today. Yet, archaeologists find traces of interaction: Neanderthals and people exchanged ideas, and even had sex: a few percent of the DNA of non-Africans came from Neanderthals.

If firmness and tribal thought are part of human nature, openness and curiosity are also. In the absence of other animal species, different groups mix so often and so naturally. Homo sapiens the liaison man.

Lucas Brouwers (Science)

"Cross the street in Warsaw or Prague, there are no people of color at all […] They have no life there Low. "

Migrants are" beaten "in Eastern Europe, said Minister Blok. "These people are not here in a week." It is therefore not expected that agreements can still be concluded within the European Union on the equitable distribution of asylum seekers, in which the European countries of the European Union East also include pro-rated people. In this way, Blok puts an extra emphasis on the discussion on the redistribution of asylum seekers. Since the beginning of the asylum crisis, in 2015, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia vehemently opposed the mandatory "distribution key" agreed by the countries of the EU. EU. The four countries then had to take a European ministerial vote with a majority decision, but they still do not respect their agreements.

Yet Prime Minister Mark Rutte went on to two European summits on migration last month, just "moderately optimistic". on cooperation with Eastern Europe. "In these countries, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the total number of asylum seekers who can enter," said Rutte. "But if we control this primary influx first, then I think Eastern Europeans will also cooperate. According to Rutte, after the summit, "the air has been brightened a bit, but there are still huge problems". Negotiate – this is the line of Rutte, French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel. And as the ultimate means of pressure, there is the threat of reducing EU subsidies for countries that still refuse to help in asylum.

But according to Blok – in the video leak – there is no point in relying on this cooperation. He does not think it's possible for an asylum seeker to be in cities like Warsaw and Prague, where, according to Blok, "they are not people of color."

The cities of Eastern Europe have relatively small but visible migrant communities. African and Asian migrants in these cities report mixed experiences: racist insults and physical aggression, but also satisfaction with their place of residence.

A recent European Eurobarometer survey shows that Eastern Europeans have the least contact with migrants. Migration aversion is also greater in most of these countries than in Western Europe. The parties of the conservative nationalist government in Poland and Hungary deliberately awaken this dislike.

For example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán described migration as a tidal wave that threatens to destroy Hungarian culture. According to an EU survey from April 2018, only 33% of Hungarians would find it "comfortable" to have a friend as a friend, the lowest figure in the EU. In the Netherlands, 95% of respondents found this idea comfortable

Roelant Termote (Budapest) and Tijn Sadée (Brussels)

"Suriname is a bankrupt state that has to do with ethnic division" [19659002] "I think it is a very ambitious statement, it is astonishing and disturbing that a minister from the Netherlands says it about Suriname, we are a developing country and there are certainly some painful points But failed the state "Absolutely not," says Gregory Russia, president of the NPS opposition by telephone

"In terms of politics and finances, we are in fact in crisis ", explains the Surinamese sociologist Derrick Ferrier. "But we still have an independent judiciary and we do not close political opponents – we do not torture it, as it is in Venezuela or now in Nicaragua, where the government even kills children." Compare Surinam with neighboring countries and we are only one of the peaceful countries of Latin America. "

Minister Blok has failed in his eyes to the Surinamese state to the" ethnic division "in Suriname is already completely in the wrong way. In Suriname (population 560,000), since the colonial period, different population groups have coexisted, including Creoles, Hindostans, Javanese, Chinese, Europeans and mixed groups. There are no ethnic and religious tensions. Important religious holidays of different religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Christianity are celebrated as national holidays.

"Blok has probably never been to Suriname, there are no neighborhoods with only one type of population and you can not come here like Creole or Javanese, for example." Guyana knows racial riots and tensions, not us, "says Iwan Brave, former editor of De Ware Tijd who also lived in the Netherlands for a long time.

Surinamese political parties were formed by racest demarcation lines since the late 1940s. "For example, Hindustanis had their own political party, creoles and also Javanese." According to André Misiekaba, president of the ruling party NDP (ethnically mixed party), this classification is mainly due to the Dutch colonists. "The ancestors of Blok brought our ancestors to Suriname from all over the world and applied a policy of divide and rule. The population groups were even geographically separated. The fact that we live respectfully together is mainly due to ourselves and the Netherlands can learn something from it, "says Misiekaba.

According to the leader of the Russian opposition, Blok must become more aware of the history and role of the Netherlands. "The Netherlands exercised their influence and power in Surinam long after the colonial period, such as the Dutch support for the coup d'état in 1980 [van Desi Bouterse, red.] and the domestic war. that is why we are still in misery now.We do not complain and solve our own problems.But you would expect at least the support of a minister of the former colonial power. "

Nina Jurna (Rio de Janeiro)