On the picture Dr. Mimoza Ahmetaj.

February 17th will mark the 10th Anniversary of Kosovo’s independence with Kosovo being the youngest country in Europe and with the youngest population.

Although it is a time for celebration, we should spend few moments to look back at the path we went through, the achievements and the challenges and obstacles we have gone through and think what we aim to achieve in the future.

Ten years ago, on a cold freezing day of February 17, the world woke up with another state on the global map. After many years of struggle, devotion, and dedication from many people, although from different background and different walks of life, they were united in a simple truth: the right for life, liberty, and happiness for generations to come. We have learned that nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.

It took us a long path to get to the destination but finally, the democracy has prevailed, the right to live and breath free, the dream and the will of Kosovo’s people, whenever they’re living, came true. In the freezing day of February in the country covered by the thin layer of snow, the elected people of this nation in coordinated with the most advanced democratic countries throughout the world have gathered together to declare and sign the highest act of the nation-Independence.

Hundreds and thousands of people from all around the world, whose destinies were linked in some sort of way with Kosovo during their lifetime, flooded Kosovo to see the rise of the country, to witness the birth of the state in the beginning of XXI century. It was a privilege to witness that moment of our lives but it was more than an honor to be among those representing the nation and being able to sign on their behalf the Declaration of Independence. The existence of Kosovo was sealed and the bright future of our country was paved. Kosovo was not alone in this path. There were nations from the most advanced global democracies that stood side by side with us in that long run of the statehood the same as they are with us today in a process of the state building.

They were moments of disbelief and distrust that the country will not be able to exist and survive but we managed to show to the world that the will of the people and their commitment, the hard work of our institutions and dedication are the best guarantees that we will stay firm toward fulfilment of our ambitions and the creation of the state who is provider of stability in the region and who has a perspective for the better future. This is the state that belongs to its citizen no matter of their religion or national background.

Over the years, the world has changed, the core democratic values have been challenged, but despite that, Kosovo’s people continue to believe and will never abandon the values which are the core, the essence of liberal democracy and are the ruling model for our country.

And, of course, countries were not built in ten years … Despite a remarkable progress that we have made, Kosovo is still facing the challenges: UN membership, EU and NATO integration, economic development, increase of foreign investment, education, unemployment, membership in other international organisations, regional cooperation, continuation of reforms in different sectors, are ranked highly in our agenda and it is us who should continue and do our at most for a better Kosovo.

There is still a long way ahead of us but together we can make the years ahead the best years our state has ever had if we can rise above cynicism and doubt and continue to remain united for the better future of our generations to come. It is obvious that all the problems could not be solved over the night but it is important to have good faith and remain committed to our duties and objectives and make the dream of Kosovo’s people come true; to be proud of our achievements and successes, to be proud of being Kosovar, as an equal member state of the EU and NATO.

Happy 10th Anniversary Kosovo! Tomorrow is another day!

On the picture Mr. Martin Wyss, Chief of Mission of  International Organisation for Migration. 

By Guido Lanfranchi.

At the entrance of the Carlton Ambassador’s reception room, Mr. Martin Wyss, Chief of Mission of IOM in the Netherlands, personally received his guests one by one, welcoming them to the IOM The Hague New Year’s Reception. In a crowded and lively room, full of diplomats, IOM workers, and representatives of the Dutch government, Mr. Wyss addressed a wide audience, expressing his “profound gratitude to all the people working in Embassies and in the Dutch government, for the work conducted over the past year” with IOM.

Mr. Wyss soon yielded the floor to his colleague Vivianne van der Vorst, Project Coordinator of the Global Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). Ms. van der Vorst summarized to the attendees the salient points of the DTM mechanism, which is “a system to track and monitor displacement and population mobility.” In her presentation, she highlighted the pivotal role that the DTM mechanism can have in “providing critical information to decision-makers,” thus dramatically enhancing the effectiveness of their response to crises and problems.

The DTM, she explained, has been active in 68 countries across the globe. Thanks to the deployment on the field of about 4,000 data collectors and 200 technical experts, over the last year this incredibly complex mechanism has been able to track more than 15 million individuals. This outstanding data-gathering job enables local and global actors to effectively provide for the needs of millions of migrants.

The DTM data at the macro-level can indeed allow humanitarian aid providers to know, for example, how many people are in a certain camp, and which are their main needs. In addition to that, the DTM mechanism can also provide policy-makers with data at the micro-level, concerning, for instance, the migrants’ drivers for leaving their homes and their intentions for the future. The combination of these two layers of information is pivotal for the elaboration of rapid, meaningful, and effective policies: as a salient point of Ms. van der Vorst’s presentation stated: “Better data = Smarter responses.”

After a general introduction of the DTM mechanism, Ms. van der Vorst presented to an attentive audience three relevant cases in which the DTM has been deployed. Firstly, she mentioned the case of Nigeria, whose Northeastern region has been ravaged by internal conflicts over the last five years; in this context, the mechanism provided by the DTM has been incredibly effective in tracking the presence of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the wide Nigerian territory, thus ensuring a provision of adequate responses to the affected people.

Similarly, the DTM has proved very effective in Indonesia, in the aftermath of a recent earthquake that forced many Indonesians out of their homes. Finally, Ms. van der Vorst praised the outstanding job of all the DTM experts and data collectors currently working in Bangladesh in the midst of the Rohingya refugee crisis; these workers, who have been deployed on the field in a matter of few days after the beginning of the crisis, have gathered and are currently gathering an incredible amount of data, that is continuously being published to inform local and global actors’ responses to the crisis.

At the end of the presentation, marked by a warm applause, Mr. Wyss kindly encouraged the attendees to enjoy the food and drinks provided by the Organization. The conversations about the work of IOM continued also during the reception. Ms. van der Vorst talked to several attendees who approached her to congratulate her and to ask several questions.

She discussed, among many issues, about her previous experience as an academic, about her current involvement in the Rohingya crisis, and about the UN-based Cluster Approach for emergency responses.

Similarly, many attendees across the reception room continued to talk about the DTM and the role of IOM in the world, asking questions to the several IOM workers who were attending the event.

This event showed to the attendees the extreme complexity of the migration phenomenon; however, at the same time, it also showed that, with the right tools and the right commitment, “promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all” is possible.

By Anton Lutter.

The new Dutch cabinet has been formed by the VVD, CDA, D’66 and CU political parties under the slogan “Trust in the future”, with Mr. Mark Rutte as third time Netherlands’ Prime Minister. In part I and now part II, we introduced to the readers the new 24 Ministers and State Secretaries.

Both the Minister and State Secretary of Defence are women. The King’s commissioner at Overijssel Province and former Mayor of Hof van Twente, is the second woman as Minister of this important ministry. Mrs. Ank Bijleveld (CDA) is 55, after her study public administration at the University of Twente she was a municipal policy adviser but quickly entered parliament in 1989 at which body she served until 2001 becoming a Mayor. Serving in this position slightly more than 6 six years she was appointed State Secretary of the Interior and Kingdom Relations until 2010 again entering parliament. After almost seven months she returned to her province of birth as King’s Commissioner.

Former Chairman of political party D’66 Mrs. Ingrid van Engelshoven is the new Minister of Education, Culture, and Science. Born in 1966 she studied political science at Radboud University Nijmegen and law at Leiden University. Employed both in the private and public sector she became a Deputy-Mayor for Education of The Hague in 2010 and again in 2014. She resigned in March 2017 after being elected to parliament. She’s known to be an advocate for more women in politics and promotor of empowerment and emancipation, according to her a must because “women’s misery derives from financial dependency”.

The new Minister of Infrastructure, Public Works and Water Management Mrs. Cora van Nieuwenhuizen (VVD) is the sole minister in Rutte III who has served in the European Parliament in Brussels. As a matter of fact, she served in all the electoral bodies at the different geographical levels, with the exception of the water district. First as City Councillor of Oisterwijk 1994-2006, then as a member of the provincial parliament (Provinciale Staten) of Noord-Brabant from 2003 until 2007 including the executive board (Gedeputeerde Staten) 2007-2010, subsequently as a member of parliament 2010-2014 and lastly the EP until her appointment as Minister. Mrs. Van Nieuwenhuizen studied social geography at Utrecht University. Born in 1963 she’s married having four children.

Mr. Wouter Koolmees (D’66) born in 1977 is the new minister of Social Affairs and Employment. Before he was elected to parliament in 2010 he was employed as head of budget policy of the Directorate-General of State Budget at the Ministry of Finance. He studied economics at Utrecht University. State Secretary at said ministry is Mrs. Tamara van Ark (VVD), born in 1974 she will be responsible for the portfolio of unemployment insurances, equality, long-term unemployment, Poverty and Youth Policy. As Mr. Koolmees she was elected to parliament in 2010. Earlier she has been employed both in the private and public sector before appointed as Deputy-Mayor in Nieuwerkerk aan de IJssel and its successor Zuidplas. She has earned her master’s degree in public administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Former The Hague Deputy-Mayor Mr. Bruno Bruins (VVD) is the minister without portfolio of Medical Care at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. 54 years of age he studied law and public administration at the University of Groningen. Before his appointment, he was the chairman of the executive board of UWV and earlier, amongst others, Deputy-Mayor of Traffic 2002-2006, State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science from 2006 until 2007, Interim Mayor of Leidschendam-Voorburg and Managing-Director of the public transport company Connexxion.

By Caroline Klaver – Bouman.

What quite a few diplomats and other expats do not know is that they can also vote in the local elections in the municipality they live in. EU citizens need to meet the same requirements as Dutch nationals, while non-EU citizens only need to have been legally resided in the Netherlands for at least 5 years. More voting details at the end of this article.

The municipality council decides on a lot of matters that have a real impact on the immediate living environment. For example, garbage collection, shopping area and parking, street facilities and local (sport) facilities. So, if you want to have an impact on the environment you live in at the moment, we would encourage you to use your right and vote on March 21.

I live in Wassenaar, as well as quite a few diplomats and expats. I am one of the candidates for the VVD in Wassenaar, the VVD is the political party of the H.E. Prime Minister, Mr. Mark Rutte. However, in Wassenaar we have been in the opposition for the last four years. We would like to create a better understanding of your needs. If we know what Wassenaar lacks for you, we can try to fight your battle, your voice could be heard on a local level.

In order to gather all your wishes and comments we joined forces with Diplomats magazine.

We would like to stay in touch with you through quarterly meetings to ensure we have an open dialogue and can represent you better in the municipality council.

Requirements for voting

The same requirements for casting their vote in the municipal council elections apply to Dutch nationals and EU citizens. A voter needs to meet the following requirements: i) he/she must be 18 years of age or over, ii) he/she may not be debarred from voting, iii) he/she must have been a resident of a Dutch municipality on nomination day, as evidenced by the Base Registry Persons. These requirements apply equally to all non-EU citizens who have legally resided in the Netherlands for at least five years. In other words, possessing Dutch nationality is not a requirement to be entitled to vote in the municipal council elections.

Everyone eligible to vote will receive an invitation to cast their vote sent to their home address no later than fourteen days prior to election day. This invitation includes their poll card. The poll card allows the voter to cast their vote in one of the polling station of their choice within the municipality’s borders.

Polling stations are open from 7.30 a.m. to 9.00 p.m.

By Rattana Lao- Bangkok.

Imagining peace is a noble concept but what does it take to achieve it?

Where does peace begin?

In modern-day Southeast Asia, this can trace back to the 8th of August, 1967 where five foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand joined hands to create the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or what became known as ASEAN.

Diverse in nature and disperse in geography, ASEAN has achieved much within the course of fifty years. The Association has grown in size of its membership and expanded to reach ambitious mandates. In 2015, ASEAN Economic Community was created to promote free movement of people, goods, and ideas.

Economic integration was just the beginning.

Coated with a long and wordy text and signed on 17th November 2011, the Declaration on ASEAN Unity in Cultural Diversity strived toward achieving “people-centered and socially responsible integration” a socio-cultural integration in short.

Inspired by the European Union, creating one market was not enough for ASEAN. The Association is driven to “forging a common identity”. It is hoped that through such effort, peace, mutual understanding, and harmony will be fostered in Southeast Asia.

A common identity for more than 600 million people? A little lofty. Perhaps.

To achieve this aspiration, the Shared History Project in Southeast Asia was launched by UNESCO-Bangkok Office with funding from the Republic of Korea in 2013 to create a new history curricular to be taught and learned across ASEAN by 2018.

The project brought together historians, educators and researchers across the region to search for common grounds of what aspect of history to teach and how to teach it.

It is all for a higher purpose and a better future.

As the late Secretary-General of ASEAN, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, persuasively said: “it is a better history education that will produce and provide a strong foundation for understanding where we have come from and to guide us into the future where we are going, as individuals, as local communities, as nation-states, as a greater sub-regional grouping”.

Ideally speaking, a Shared History should be welcomed with an open arm. A project so inspiring that it aims to mitigate nationalism and bridge differences across the nations.

In an interview with Dr. William Brehm of Waseda University, he offered insight into this new architecture to build peace in ASEAN. There are many challenges to translate a Shared ASEAN.

Firstly, who will write these new memories? How can a consensus be built amongst people with diverse cultural heritage, background, and social memories?

If history is written by the winners – who are the winners in ASEAN?

In ASEAN, disputes, and conflicts amongst nations are not memories of things past, rather they are confounding issues aggravating daily hatred across countries within the region. Border dispute amongst nations is the case in point. As professor Anis H. Bajrektarevic already warned in his luminary policy paper ‘No Asian center…’ any absolute or relative shift in the economic and demographic strength of one subject of international relations will inevitably put additional stress on the existing power equilibriums and constellations that support this balance in the particular theater of implicit or explicit structure.” Therefore, funded by the Thailand Research Fund,

This is not to mention the infamous Preah Vihear dispute that cuts deep wounds between Thailand and Cambodia.

While the wounds are still fresh, how would these stories be told? Whose stories, precisely?

Secondly, how can a Shared ASEAN formed when countries are deeply founded with nationalistic sentiment, where overt nationalism is propagated in and outside of classrooms, where the sense of hatred to “the other” is instilled for students.

The villain of one country is the hero of the other. Myanmar – Thai historical textbooks are the prime examples on this. Thai kings are always the heroes for Thailand, while Myanmar kings are presented often and always as the villains.

Vice versa.

This is what a well-known Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul called “negative identification.”

For centuries, each country in ASEAN, is guilty of inflicting negative identification for others to elevate a sense of pride for themselves. It is easier to teach who is “us” when you know who is “them”.

ASEAN is not alone in striving to form a new memory of themselves. In the case of Africa, Dr. Brehm argued that the Shared History project took as long as 35 years to be successful.

“Dated back to UNESCO’s 1964 General History of Africa project. That project created a set of eight volumes articulating a shared history of Africa. Huge disagreements among the various national historians prolonged the project; it took 35 years before all eight volumes were published.”  

If a country is an imagined community, said Bennedict Anderson in his polemic book the Imagined Community, by schools, common language and mass media, is it possible, Dr. Brehm asked, for the UNESCO and ASEAN enthusiastic idealists to dream of a new common identity for 600 million people who speak more than hundreds of languages and dialects?

Is it possible that a common understanding can be reached and harmony can be fostered through a new kind of textbook, new knowledge, and new understanding to promote something as elusive as a regional identity?

Dr. Brehm is a little skeptical: “So long as education is organized by nation-states, history and historical memory will always promote nationalism and national identity. Everything else will be secondary or retrofitted for the main purpose.”

Difficult but does that mean impossible?

Surely a Shared textbook is useful and much-needed intervention to cement a mutual understanding amongst ASEAN students. For political, historical and educational reasons, however, this project requires careful consideration, time and resources to ensure that a new generation of ASEAN will be peace-loving rather than nationalistic hawkish. Having a multilateral organization like UNESCO to promote history lesson offers a humble step toward regional peace.

Where does peace begin?

It begins with mutual understanding. More importantly, it has to begin now.