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|
Denk | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=logo} | |
| Leader | Stephan van Baarle |
| Chairman | Ejder Köse[1] |
| Leader in theHouse of Representatives | Stephan van Baarle |
| Founders | Tunahan Kuzu Selçuk Öztürk |
| Founded | 9 February 2015 |
| Split from | Labour Party |
| Headquarters | Lodewijk Pincoffsweg 503,Rotterdam |
| Youth wing | Jongerenbeweging Oppositie[2] |
| Think tank | Wetenschappelijk Instituut Statera[3] |
| Membership(2025) |  4,240[4] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-left[10] toleft-wing[11] |
| Colours | Turquoise Orange |
| Senate | 0 / 75 |
| House of Representatives | 3 / 150 |
| Provincial councils | 0 / 570 |
| Website | |
| bewegingdenk | |
Denk (Dutch:[dɛŋk],Turkish:[dæɲc];Dutch for 'think' andTurkish for 'equal' / 'balanced'),[12] legally registered asPolitieke Beweging Denk ("Political Movement Denk"),[13] is a political party in the Netherlands, founded on a minority rights platform.[14]
The party was founded byTunahan Kuzu andSelçuk Öztürk, twoTurkish Dutch members of theHouse of Representatives, after leaving theLabour Party on 13 November 2014. Upon winning three seats at the 2017 election, Denk became the first migrant-founded party to gain seats in theDutch national parliament.[15]
Although the party has been colloquially described as a "Muslim political party", Denk "does not promote Muslim candidates as do most similar political parties in Europe".[16] Denk's current party leader andlijsttrekker in theHouse of Representatives,Stephan van Baarle, is anagnostic.[17] Under his leadership, however, Denk took more conservative positions onLGBT rights and medico-ethical issues.[18]
Denk was founded byTunahan Kuzu andSelçuk Öztürk after leaving theLabour Party on 13 November 2014. Their resignations were prompted by proposals by Deputy Prime Minister and party leaderLodewijk Asscher that a number of TurkishIslamist organisations be monitored for interfering with the integration ofDutch citizens of Muslim origin.[19] This came after an internal party debate sparked by a report incorrectly stating that 90% of youngTurkish Dutch supportedISIS.[20][21] On 9 February 2015, they named their parliamentary group "Denk", and they published a political manifesto for the establishment of a movement focused on a tolerant society through measures such as the introduction of a registry of racists who could not be hired by the government.[22]
The results from the 2017 election ensured that Kuzu and Öztürk would remain in parliament together with new arrivalFarid Azarkan, who was their party leader until stepping down in 2023.[23]
The party advocates for the interests of various minorities within the Netherlands, including those of theTurkish Dutch,[28]Moroccan Dutch,[31]Afro Dutch,[16] andDutch Muslims.[32][better source needed]
The movement drew up a political manifesto in February 2015, from which the political party Denk emerged in November 2016.[33][34][non-primary source needed]
The Denk programme argues for the following five points:
The movement wants to establish a monument in memory of labor, and they want knowledge of migration history as a key target in education. They propose that the term "integration" should be replaced by the word "acceptance". The movement would abolish the term "immigrant".[clarification needed] It notes that people with a non-western background are less likely to find a job or internship and often have negative experiences with law enforcement. The manifesto states that racism in the Netherlands isstructural andinstitutional in nature and therefore wants a so-called "racism registry" to be set up, in which manifestations of racism are registered.[clarification needed][citation needed]
The movement proposes that in education,diversity in the classroom is commensurate with the diversity of the class (including the teacher). The movement has a policy that in every school in the Netherlands, both in primary and secondary education, study of Chinese, Arabic, and Turkish must be introduced as optional subjects. According to the movement, education in these languages will be useful for the country'seconomy andinternational relations. According to the manifesto, imams should not only be appointed to mosques, but also in health care, prisons and thearmed forces.
Denk's view is that theUnited Nations and itsSecurity Council need fundamentalreform and that theEuropean Union should pursue an independentforeign policy. The movement wants to tackle Islamic extremism by tackling its root causes, which, according to the party, consist of hopelessness,social exclusion, and injustice. On theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, the party advocates that Europe strengthen the international position of Palestine and that the Netherlandsrecognize the State of Palestine.
The party carries the program advanced by the International Institute for Scientific Research, based inThe Hague, with the purpose ofdecolonization.[16] Among its policies, Denk seeks to: establish a "racism register" to track and condemn the use ofhate speech against religion; build a Dutch slavery museum; abolish the black characterZwarte Piet ("Black Pete"); and ban the use of the Dutch word "Allochtoon" which it considers as derogatory towards ethnic minorities in the Netherlands.[16]
The party has been described aspro-immigration[35][12][36] and supportingmulticulturalism,[37][38] as well as being identified withidentity politics.[39]
The partyBIJ1 was founded bySylvana Simons when she left Denk in 2016, and the two parties overlap substantially onminority rights issues but are divergent oncultural liberal aspects (wherein Denk is more conservative).
The party mainly attracts support fromethnic minorities in the Netherlands, especially from theTurkish andMoroccan population. Correspondingly the support for Denk is the strongest in cities and towns with a significant migrant population, especially in larger cities such asAmsterdam andRotterdam. In these cities the support for the party is concentrated inmajority-minority districts, such asNieuw-West in Amsterdam orKanaleneiland inUtrecht, gaining between 30 and 40% of the votes in those districts.[40] The majority of voters with a foreign migration background voted for Denk orBIJ1 in 2023.[41]
The two leaders and founders of the party have been criticized for being "closely linked to theAK Party" of Turkish leaderRecep Tayyip Erdoğan, and "do not criticize Erdogan and Turkish government policies". Some critics in the Dutch media have called the party the "long arm of Erdoğan" for its perceived support of the party line of the Turkish government and the rulingAK Party.[12][42][26][43] The party was the sole party in the Netherlands that did not call for the release of a Turkish-Dutch blogger who was arrested for a tweet about Erdoğan.[26] The party has also been heavily criticized for refusing to distance itself from thepurges in Turkey since 2016.[12] However, as Denk's leader, Kuzu distanced himself from comments of Erdoğan in which the Turkish president called Dutch authorities "Nazi remnants and fascists",[44][45] labelling those comments "incorrect" and "very troublesome".[46]
TheDiyanet, a Turkish governmental unit, has allowed Denk to promote itself in Diyanet-controlled Dutch mosques. There are 146 such mosques as of 2018.[43]
The party's program for the2017 general election, in the context of theArmenian genocide, mourns both the Turkish and the Armenian sides, while calling for an "independent international investigation". Denk claims that there is no consensus regarding the scale and cause of the tragedy, and calls for "reason and unification". Within that framework, the party does not use the termgenocide.[34][non-primary source needed] Denk was the sole party which voted against a bill recognizing the Armenian Genocide.[27]
In March 2020, Denk was condemned by fellow members of theHouse of Representatives for releasing videos of MPs of Turkish descent from other parties, in which they are portrayed, for example, as "traitors" to the Turkish-Dutch community.[47]
In the2023 Dutch general election, three MPs from Denk were elected:[48]
| Election | Lead candidate | List | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Tunahan Kuzu | List | 216,147 | 2.1 | 3 / 150 | New | Opposition |
| 2021 | Farid Azarkan | List | 211,053 | 2.0 | 3 / 150 |  0 | Opposition |
| 2023 | Stephan van Baarle | List | 246,765 | 2.4 | 3 / 150 | 0 | Opposition |
| Election | Lead candidate | List | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Ayhan Tonça | List | 60,669 | 1.1 | 0 / 26 | New |
0 / 29 | |
