Tovek "Tofik" Dibi (born 19 November 1980 in

Vlissingen Vlissingen (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Vlissingen has been an importan ...

) is a former Dutch politician for

GreenLeft (, ; GL) is a green political party in the Netherlands. It was formed on 1 March 1989 from the merger of four left-wing parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the ...

(''GroenLinks''). He was a Member of Parliament from 30 November 2006 till 19 September 2012. He focused on matters of

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

safety Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood (Maturity (psychological), maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as bei ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

, and

integration Integration may refer to: Biology *Multisensory integration *Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...

Biography

Dibi is of Moroccan descent. He has studied Media and Culture at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

, specializing in cinema. He combined his study with activities in the

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

Turkish Workers' Union in the Netherlands ( (HTIB), ), and in his own neighborhood

Bos en Lommer Bos en Lommer (; English: Wood and Shade) is a neighborhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands. From 1990 to 2010 it was considered a district of the municipality of Amsterdam in the province of North Holland. As of May 1, 2010, it was merged into the new A ...

in Amsterdam. Together with the

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

''International Socialists'', he initiated the national demonstration ''Stop Bush!'' organizing protests when

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

visited the Netherlands in 2005, and the national action committee ''Enough is Enough'', which focused on discrimination against

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s. In September 2006 Dibi unexpectedly came in seventh on the list of GreenLeft for the 2006 general elections and was chosen in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

in November 2006. The GreenLeft screening commission called him "a political talent", to Dibi's own amazement, for he had not considered his candidacy all that seriously. On 13 January 2007 Dibi was arrested and later released while pamphleteering against Dutch politician

Geert Wilders Geert Wilders (born 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician who has led the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) since he founded it in 2006. He is also the party's leader in the House of Representatives. Wilders is best known for his right-wing p ...

with members of the International Socialists. Their posters called Wilders "an extremist" and "harmful to society". In May 2012 he made public his internal candidacy for heading the GroenLinks list for the September 2012 elections. He lost the internal elections to

Jolande Sap Johanna Catharina Maria "Jolande" Sap (born 22 May 1963) is a former Dutch politician and former educator and civil servant. A member of GroenLinks (GL), she replaced Wijnand Duyvendak as a member of the House of Representatives on 3 September ...

, netting 12% of the vote versus Saps 84%. Dibi wasn't re-elected to parliament. After his departure from parliament, he returned to university where he studied until 2014, leaving without a qualification. Dibi publicly disclosed his homosexuality on October 23, 2015, in an interview with the newspaper ''

De Volkskrant ''De Volkskrant'' (; ), stylized as de Volkskrant, is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium- ...

''. On the same day, he released a memoir, ''Djinn.'' The book deals with his struggles with his

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

, which he had kept secret during his time as a member of parliament, his

background, and his political career. ''Djinn'' was translated into English in 2021.

Works

* Dibi, Tofik (2021).
Djinn
'. State University of New York Press. * Dibi, Tofik (2020-09-10).
Het Monster van Wokeness
' (in Dutch). Prometheus, Uitgeverij.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dibi, Tofik 1980 births Living people Dutch Muslims Dutch people of Moroccan descent Dutch relationships and sexuality writers GroenLinks politicians Dutch gay politicians Dutch gay writers LGBTQ members of the Parliament of the Netherlands Dutch MPs 2010–2012 Dutch MPs 2006–2010 People from Vlissingen Gay Muslims