OPINION. The faces on the photos of the reclusive N-VA campaign in our faces

"The campaign has been retired, we can now again about the content?" responded minister Jan Jambon, two weeks ago, after the fuss around the N-VA campaign against the UN-migratiepact.

For me, and many other Belgians with a migrant background, this page, however, not so quickly turned. Reason? The dehumanisering of migrants through this type of ‘accessible’ (read: derogatory) communication campaigns - until recently, only the trademark of the parties as Vlaams belang, AfD and the PVV - touches many of us deeply personal.

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I hear critics all think: ‘you'd bandied about with the word dehumanisering’, or ‘with your personal emotional remarks we'll get no progress at all. Politics is ratio.’

A communication specialist told me, however, that a successful political campaign just responds to the emotions of people. There is this campaign already well managed. I veroorloof me to this op-ed to write from emotions.

The fight for human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants is me close to your heart, just as with many other organisations such as 11.11.11, Refugee, or Doctors Without Borders. Daily they put themselves in to protect the rights of people on the flight or on the road to better. I wear them with a warm heart.

But that this campaign is the antithesis of ran counter to my ideal of human rights for migrants, was not what concerned me in the first place irritated. What hurt me was that I like many Belgian citizens with migrational background recognized in the photos used... The campaign was not only about ‘them’, the anonymous ‘migration’ that is ready to move to our country. They also went about "us": people with a migrant background of the first, second or third generation.

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