Union needs compelling folk tale
The best way to do something against rising populism in European Union is to popularize Europe. The EU suffers from unpopularity because it lacks an inspiring story in which everyone can identify. But how do you create such a story?
When the journalist Frans Nypels took me on in 1980 as an apprentice journalist at Haarlems Dagblad, the regional newspaper in the area where I come from, he held out to me a principle that has always been a guiding principle for me in the practice of the reporter’s profession: ‘We’re writing here for Mien with the floral dress.’ She was our archetype of the newspaper reader. Someone with no more education than elementary school. Housewife. Folk Woman. In terms of knowledge level, in general development, a 12-year-old, research had shown.
But Mien was not stupid. She just hadn’t continued her education. She had not had the opportunity to do so. We had to help her. Starting by taking her seriously.
In her name, I stormed the governing institutions; the city council, the county council and parliament, the court, to check power from the press stand on behalf of citizens like Mien. We called the legal authority to account on behalf of our readers. It was our journalistic duty to lift people out of ignorance, to empower them. And empowerment begins with informing but in such a way that people can understand.
Social gaps are created by differences in education and knowledge but most importantly by your place of birth and upbringing and the resulting networks of social contacts. But that backlog of training and knowledge, there is something to be done about that. And that starts with informing ordinary average people.
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