Former Finance Minister Nora Achahbar said her decision to resign was not motivated by alleged racist remarks at a cabinet meeting last week.

Acahbar Hart van Nederland told SBS6 that she had read “bizarre and false statements” following her departure. “I didn’t leave because of racism,” she said. “It’s damaging.”

She denied that anonymous allegations that ministers made racist remarks at last Monday’s meeting came from her. “I have no idea what happened. It’s like the old game where you whisper something in someone’s ear and at the end of the circle a completely different word comes out.”

In her resignation letter, the former NSC party minister did not mention racism, but said “polarizing” language and “the tone and content of the debate” around immigration had led to her decision.

She criticized public statements by Jurgen Nobel, the deputy minister for integration, who said that “a large part of Islamic youth does not subscribe to our Dutch norms and values”, and Chris Jansen, the minister of PVV transport.

Jansen recently defended party leader Geert Wilders’ outburst a decade ago in which he led the chorus of “Fewer Moroccans” at a post-election rally.

“Create a divide”

“If they say that a large part of Islamic youth does not subscribe to our values ​​or if people say we have an integration problem, you are driving a wedge between people,” Achahbar said.

“You are blaming a group even if they are Dutch. This only amplifies the differences.

Asked why she had not clarified what had been said in the previous meeting, after two days in which ministers were questioned about which of them had made racist comments, Achahbar said replied: “I didn’t respond sooner because I’ve been on a roller coaster ride for the last few days. I hope it stops now.

Two NSC MPs left their seats on Tuesday following Achahbar’s decision, saying the cabinet had failed to uphold “fundamental standards of decency and courtesy.”

Hertzberger: “sliding scale”

Femke Zeedijk and Rosanne Hertzberger will leave Parliament, allowing the NSC to replace them with other candidates. Folkert Idsinga, who resigned as deputy finance minister last month after claiming he was forced out of the post by Wilders, has already accepted one of the vacant seats.

Zeedijk said the row had left the impression that “someone with his (Acahbar’s) origins is not welcome” in Dutch politics. Achahbar, 42, was born in Morocco and grew up poor in the multi-ethnic Schilderswijk district of The Hague.

Hertzberger said in an interview with the NRC newspaper that the tone of the debate on migration had been worsening “on a sliding scale, for months”.

She said she had argued at a parliamentary group meeting that the party should leave the coalition because of the provocative behavior of Wilders and his PVV colleagues.

Scapegoat language

“I said, ‘I think we can’t continue like this. We are paralyzed in every sense of the word. And they agreed with me that what happened with our young minister was unacceptable, but the MPs still saw opportunities to improve things.”

She also said she was shocked, as a member of the Jewish community, both by the anti-Semitic violence in Amsterdam around the football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv and by the political reaction that resulted.

“Amsterdam was such a horrible experience,” she said. “It is a good thing that we, as a coalition, reacted strongly to this decision, but the reactions of the other three parties (PVV, VVD and BBB) were completely off the scale in their language and manner. whose groups were opposed. The way scapegoating language has been used to talk about other segments of the population. Language matters.