Sammy Mahdi is a Belgian Christian-Democrat politician, member of CD&V, who currently holds the position of Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration in the federal government led by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. Before joining the federal government, Sammy Mahdi was a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, president of the youth section of CD&V and a parliamentary aide to Joris Poschet.
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Action
- The increased participation of asylum seekers in society during the formal assessment of the asylum request. Our policy intends to increase labor participation (and thus integration into the local community) of asylum seekers.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic we awarded an additional 1 million euros to tackle digital inclusion, as 40% of Belgians are at risk of digital exclusion because they do not have access to a computer or because of a lack of digital skills.
- The evacuation of women’s rights activists and human rights activists in Afghanistan following the abrupt takeover by the Taliban. On the initiative of the Secretary of State, the Belgian federal government evacuated 185 Afghans who actively rooted for women’s rights and human rights in their home country and were threatened by the Taliban.
Relevant discourse
In Mahdi’s recently published book, Van hol naar vol, he holds a plea for an inclusive society based on common values.
“For too long we have been guided by an ideal image of society based on the postmodernist idea that all cultural customs can coexist equally, without being connected to each other or without any interference between them. But to really achieve an inclusive society, we need shared myths, symbols and stories that unite us and that give direction to the project to which we want to commit ourselves together. Its importance has long been minimized and marginalised, but a strong united society requires them.
We as a society have closed our eyes for too long to structural problems in certain communities and to structural racism. Racism must be acknowledged and addressed without forgetting that every community can be discriminatory. We must fight left-wing and right-wing discriminatory and identitarian thinking just as hard, because they are equally divisive. ”
Leadership experience
We must not compromise when it comes to tackling racism and achieving inclusion. But at the same time, we should not participate in symbolic discussions or create problems that are just not there.
During my work I noticed that Generation Z attaches more importance to identity than the previous generations. The rise of the young, extreme right-wing identitarian thinking in Western Europe is remarkable. Also on the left a dangerous form of identitarian thinking is on the rise. For example, the poem The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman, which she wrote on the occasion of the inauguration of Joe Biden, could not be translated into Dutch by a white-skinned writer because “as a white person she would not be able to capture the emotion of the poem“. This resulted in days of controversy and polemic in our society. Witnessing such discussions with my own eyes, or even by participating in some of them in the past, I’ve learned that we should not go along with this as a society.
