Lamyae Aharouay: 'Doing business with the far right is no longer an issue' – and that's why she's leaving now
In recent years, normalising the unthinkable has become something of a sport in The Hague. We all watched it unfold – some with a sense of powerlessness, others with a shrug and a muttered "that's just how politics works". But now Lamyae Aharouay has put down her pen for good, and it feels like someone has thrown open a window in a stuffy meeting room. In her farewell column, she does what she has always done best: using her razor-sharp insight to lay bare the heart of the matter. And that heart? It’s darker than we often care to admit.
"Doing business with the far right is no longer an issue." That one sentence from her final piece lingers in the mind. It’s not the conclusion of some abstract academic analysis; it’s the observation of someone who spent years with her finger on the pulse of the Binnenhof. What was once an unwritten rule – a bulwark against parties that undermine the rules of democracy – has been washed away. Not by a sudden landslide, but by steady erosion. And Lamyae Aharouay refuses to accept that as the new normal.
The cost of 'just playing along'
In the corridors of power, you hear people whisper about 'pragmatism'. As if enlisting radical-right forces to secure a majority is just a simpler arithmetic sum. But Aharouay pops that bubble. She shows, with painstaking clarity, that it's not about pragmatism; it's about a choice. A choice to give hate and racism – once kept politely at arm’s length – a permanent seat at the negotiating table. It’s the political version of the Overton window: what was once unspeakable becomes, through repetition and a lack of pushback, 'just another opinion'. The cost isn’t just the credibility of our institutions, but also the safety and sense of belonging felt by entire communities across this country.
Her departure, then, is more than a personnel change. It’s a statement. Someone who so precisely articulated what was going wrong is calling it quits. Not because she couldn’t handle it anymore, but because she refuses to get used to the cold. Throughout her career, she consistently played a role that, in the chaos of daily news cycles, is easy to forget: that of the uncomfortable questioner.
- How can a government that claims to stand for 'normal behaviour' systematically work with parties that undermine the rule of law?
- Why is rhetoric that was considered taboo for decades now being dismissed as simply 'a different opinion'?
- And what does it mean for the future of democracy when a moral compass is replaced by a calculator?
These are the questions Lamyae Aharouay asked. And because the answers were increasingly uncomfortable – or simply non-existent – she chose a different platform. Not to fall silent, but to make her voice heard in another way. It’s a loss for political journalism in The Hague, which has already seen so many sharp voices depart in recent years.
The silence after the blow
What remains once the dust has settled? The reactions to her farewell are telling. While some politicians dismissed her work as 'know-it-all', the recognition from a large part of the public was overwhelming. In the parliamentary corridors, but also out on the streets, people acknowledge she was a seismograph. She felt the tremors before the rest of the country realised the ground was shaking. Her departure forces us to reflect: have we truly lost sight of the line? And if that line still exists, why is no one guarding it anymore?
For anyone who has been following politics in The Hague over the past few years, it’s clear: the departure of Lamyae Aharouay is a turning point. It’s the moment the warnings are no longer scribbled on a note but are written on the wall in big, bold letters. Whether The Hague will take this lesson to heart is the big question. But one thing is certain: she leaves a void that won’t be easily filled. And as the negotiating tables fill up again with the same people who pushed her to the brink, the question hangs in the air: who dares now to say that the emperor has no clothes?