“Complexity is a resource”, is a oft-heard saying in the class Transnational Media and Cultures that I am taking. Coming from a diverse, or complex, background myself and in my continuing quest to seek this complexity, it is one message that you need not convince me of. Especially as an academic, but as a moral human being in general, the capacity to take on another perspective, the opposite perspective, the perspective of the other, it is not as much a resource rather than a moral obligation one needs to possess. So this explains my increasing frustrations with the Dutch government on how it is handling its immigration and especially integration policies, where complexity is seen first and foremost as a problem. Homogeneity, not heterogeneity, is supposed to solve all problems. “If only they know our language, they would understand us. They would understand what makes common sense to us, our values. If only they take on our values, everything will be allright.” A big middle finger up to that.

Yet, how do we reconcile the notion that complexity is a resource, versus what is happening now in France? It is exactly the sense that the government is no longer acting in the best interest of all of us, but rather for a select group, that lies at the root of problems, the illegitimacy and moral bankruptcy current democracy, whether in France, Germany or the Netherlands. How else are we supposed to think of policy explicitly designed to operate on the very differences between “equal” citizens, but one group natives and the other migrants?

The basis of a just democracy is not one where everybody takes on the same values nor one where everybody agrees. It is one where there can be increasing disagreement, but where the final decision making is seen and accepted by the public as legitimate. Legitimate, in the sense, that, even though we might disagree on how to solve certain issues, we all understand and agree that we each are acting in the best interest for all of us. Otherwise, it is just that, authoritarian.