Whether I wanted to give voting advice. To write that as social ecologists we should form a front with the Greens and Social Democrats. That was the question I got from someone. I had to think carefully about what I wanted to do with this. I generally think that too many left-wing people have too many expectations of electoralism. Taking part in elections is not something you do lightly and I have already been thinking that for a long time. In specific circumstances and with a well-balanced campaign and electoral program I will welcome it. The key to this lies in the municipality, the local political arena. Of course that does not mean that I just want to give up on other political arenas. I abhor a toxic atmosphere in parliaments for example, and I think that a lot needs to be done to avoid that kind of atmosphere in parliaments.
I have quite a few critical reservations about the Provo movement of the sixties, which in my opinion alienated workers too much and had too many illusions about the qualities of rebellious youth. But what the Provos did understand was that abuse of power in electoral objectives and the results thereof is best avoided. And so the Amsterdam Provos proposed a rotation principle. Elected members of the Amsterdam city council of Provo had to return their seat to the movement after a year, after which another member of Provo could take that seat for a year to represent the interests of the rebellious Provos. Provo did not exist for long and in the mid-sixties only won one seat in Amsterdam. But the successor of Provo called Kabouter had four in the city council of Amsterdam not much later.
As for voting advice: I can imagine that a voting boycott during elections can have its advantages. In a fraudulent, unfair election campaign for example. However, I can also imagine that a voting boycott sometimes does not help at all, or can have an unintended perverse effect.
