I always find it strange to make a topic from an event that will only be effective in 521 days. Anyway, since the media agenda deems the subject relevant for the beginning of summer, I would like to grant myself the right to be master of one of the versions that will circulate on the reasons for my choice.
No, I don’t quit politics
On the other hand, yes, everything leads me to think that I will not go back, within the remaining 521 days, on my decision not to run for the municipal elections of 2024.
If I remain convinced that this decision is a non-subject, it is because an individual trajectory is a trifle with regard to the themes which should compose the front pages of the newspapers. Nothing is further from politics as it should be understood than the fatuity of the oversized egos of some.
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Portrait of the enemy to be killed
A crew
Carrying out a political project with honesty can only be a collective adventure. It is obvious. The individual, alone, can do nothing without the cooperation of his fellows. Carrying out a project together, taking part in a collective adventure, means accepting that you are not alone at the helm. With Didier, Albert, Marie, Yvonne and then Vanessa, I agreed to join a group called communal college. If politics there will have been, during the six years of terms of office, it is because we will have shown ourselves capable of taking collective decisions. This is a rich and precious human experience, I wish everyone.
Photo of NOAA on Unsplash (CCO)
In the process, I joined many other collectives: the board of directors of the cultural center, Heures Claires, Terre d’Herbage, Fagotin, the Berinzenne estate, the Amblève river contract, the regional center of early childhood, the non-profit organization Région de Verviers, the general assembly of the Parc Naturel des Sources and very recently the dynamic ” What binds us »…
It is to these collectives that I owe all the projects of which I could (unfairly) be proud: the digging of agricultural and forest ponds, the municipal council for children, the prospect of heating the new nursing home in La Gleize with local wood chips rather than Russian gas, outdoor schools, energy savings and other sustainable advances in schools, rationalization of light points, paths and paths listed and restored, the 2,000 trees planted, the 7,000 reusable cups, the 3,000 crates for the market gardeners… so many projects that certainly took me time and energy, but which also took a lot of other actors, frequently volunteers and too numerous to name .
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my tongue in cheek
The crew is numerous and working with them is unrivaled. Rarely in my life have I tasted the pleasure of interacting with such a variety of actors: environmentalists, architects, farmers, artists, managers of nurseries, schools and nursing homes, specialists of all kinds and citizens with ease.
A Cape
The course is right: we are going in the right direction: towards better energy performance of buildings, towards more resilient forests and agriculture, towards pupils ever more aware of their environment and towards a form of social justice which, although imperfect, guides many actions, in terms of mobility, housing, employment, food.
But the cape and the crew alone do not make the navigation. Otherwise, the Europeans would have reached America well before 1492. The boat still had to follow. Six years is enough, I think, to begin to know the limits of the boat we boarded. Our boat, the municipality of Stoumont, has gone through storms: bark beetle crisis, Covid crisis, game overdensity, energy crisis. I don’t think we have anything to be ashamed of the way we steered the boat through this torment. But these situational elements, even if they weighed in my decision to disembark, are not the main cause.
I entered politics because I wanted to contribute to a desirable future for the community. I have sometimes experienced with great bitterness the resistance to the elaboration of this desirable future. I have already written here, our great enemy is not above all the greedy shareholders, the intolerant right or the finicky civil servants, our great enemy is the inertia which pushes us to continue to go straight into the wall despite the warning signs.
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I hate to strike
Through meditation, through philosophy, but above all through love and friendship, I learned to live this headlong rush without resignation but with serenity. I cherish these words of Baptiste Morizot: “I don’t plan to save the world. My problem is not to prevent a disaster that is beyond me but to wear something that would make sense in all possible futures. »
Photo of Luca Bravo on Unsplash (CCO)
A double choice
Only, I cannot deny that, representing myself to Stoumont voters for six new years, I would make a double choice, one voluntary, the other forced.
The voluntary choice would be to say “there are still projects to be carried out, I will put the energy it takes to continue to stay the course in the right direction”, this is something of which I am convinced in my heart of hearts .
But the constrained choice that comes with it also says “I endorse this system, I respect its rules and I believe that it can, if we master its workings, get us to the right place, on time and leaving no one behind. aside” and that I don’t believe.
I do not believe
I do not believe that a municipality of 3,000 inhabitants, with the financial resources, the human resources, the constraints and the obligations that weigh on it, is able to face, as it stands, the challenges imposed by the issues of 21st century.
I do not believe that in a world where years of drought follow years of floods, we can be satisfied with the planning permit procedures necessary for the digging of agricultural ponds which take months, even years and require interview seven officials in seven different offices while our house burns down.
At a time when everything cries out to us that the least courtesy we owe our children, even if it means bequeathing them a world in ruins, is to feed them properly, I don’t think we should resign ourselves to giving up putting set up sustainable canteens because it would not be profitable. This is nonsense and I cannot resign myself to it.
I do not believe that after the Covid crises, we can accept the working conditions of nursing staff and the ever more expeditious care given to the elderly on the pretext that the framework does not allow us to hire enough staff, to treat with dignity soothing hands and worn bodies.
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emotional lift
I don’t believe that we can still seriously look each other in the eye and say that the least well-served municipality in Belgium by public transport can be satisfied with the all in the car in 2023, at a time when, as we know, 10,000 people die each year from air pollution in Belgium and when copper, nickel, lithium and cobalt mines do not promise a more glorious tomorrow to those who extract them.
I don’t want to use my energy to explain that “what do you want, it’s like that!”, “these are the rules, you have to respect them, otherwise, it’s chaos!”. I am also not so sure that a world where we could feed our children in short circuits, dig ponds without planning permission, treat our elders with dignity and reopen a station in Stoumont would be synonymous with chaos. At worst, if this is anarchy, I think I’m not far from aspiring to some form of anarchy.
Photo of Aaron Burden on Unsplash (CCO)
Hope and loyalty
Out of respect both for those who elected me and for those who still believe in it and whose work I admire, I will invest myself 100% to the end. This is also the collective. I draw my energy from it and it will be intact until the end. I also have the feeling that acting without any ambition to be re-elected ensures that I am even more aligned with the principles and convictions that drive me.
After that, will I continue the policy? Yes of course. Because everything is political and I do not intend to extract myself from the world we share. We all do politics there, whether we like it or not, and I’d rather do it than suffer it. How ? Never mind. But given my taste for the collective, I can already tell you that I will not stay alone in my corner.
Photo of Omer Serdar Oren on Unsplash (CCO)