Aikido - the organizational context

Chapter 26

In 2012 the NAF voted that any candidate from
the Netherlands would need the explicit permission from the NAF to stand as
candidate for the board of the IAF.

In itself this would not seem a disconcerting
decision. However, in 2014 it became clear that this decision had a background
which the members probably did not foresee.
In this year the chairman of the NAF, also
member of the DC of the IAF, went to the chairman of the IAF, and stated that
if I would stand as candidate for a position in the IAF I would be expelled as
member of the IAF.

The underlying decision by the NAF was
consequently placed on the agenda of the DC of the IAF in September 2014. It
was dismissed by the DC as having no relevance for the IAF. The statutes of the
IAF allow any member federation to present any natural person as candidate for
a position, and it could not be such that a single member could limit the
rights of any other member federation to appoint a candidate of their choice. A
letter clearly stating this was sent by the chairman of the IAF to the NAF. It
was never presented to the members of the NAF.

At the time I believed this would be the end of
it, but in August 2016 Mr Vriesman circulated the following mail to some of the
members of the IAF (quote in bold):

As a collegae member
federation of the NAF , I inform you that the NAF being a democratic platform
towards the IAF had an binding election for all the members of the NAF, to
decide which members of the NAF are allowed to be elected or re-elected as DC member
of the IAF.

The result of this
election is that only one member is allowed to be (re) elected….. having the
support of the NAF and so..will be the only one nominated by the NAF.

The elected person
is the current chairman of the NAF.

Best Regards

Wilko Vriesman

Chairman
NAF

This mail leads to a number of inevitable conclusions:
1. the chairman of the NAF brought himself in a
position where he disregarded a letter from the IAF stating that the NAF
decision could not apply to IAF members.
2. this demonstrated both a conflict of
interest, as well as willfully misleading of IAF members.

This was stated in a letter from the chairman of
the IAF to the chairman of the NAF.

After some research it also became clear that
this letter had been signed as chairman of the NAF but had not been discussed
with the members of the NAF in any way. This email must be taken as selfserving
abuse of his position as chairman of the NAF to further his personal interests.

When I received this information, I filed a
complaint with Dutch Aikikai. As I wrote in the previous post, since Mr
Vriesman is chairman of the NAF, it seemed senseless to object with the
virtually non-existent NAF. As it was further clear that AN had statutory
articles forcing the members of the Aikikai section to adhere to the
regulations and decisions of the IAF, it seemed reasonable to file the
complaint with the organization which statutes were available and made such
strong statements.

The (lack of) response was disconcerting. In
first instance the chairman of AN did not reply at all. After repeated
checking, he replied he had received the complaint and that it would be
discussed at the next board meeting. He did not mention when this would take
place.

Only after the IAF elections had taken place, did
I contact the chairman of AN about the status of my complaint. He informed me
that the board of AN had discussed the complaint, had decided nothing irregular
had taken place in the elections of a candidate and that they had dropped the
matter.

To my mind this demonstrates lack of respect for
a member who has a complaint, and bad management of a complaint:
– it would have been only decent to inform me of
the outcome of the process, but that was apparently not deemed necessary.
– it also shows bad management that the person
against who the complaint is raised, can simply state that nothing is wrong,
and this is the end of the research into complaint that included accusations of
infringement on the freedom of association, abuse of power and intimidation.
– it shows lack of management skills that the
reply did not address any of the actual complaints made, but focused on
something explicitly mentioned as not being part of the complaint.

When I raised these issues, a repetition of
positions took place. As a consequence I contacted the chairman of the NSF
(Dutch Sport Council) who replied that in such a case the general assembly of
the organization should be contacted as the ruling body.

I therefore sent my complaint again, only to
receive the same reply, now drafted by a lawyer:
– in fact it’s not a matter for AN, it’s a
matter of the NAF
– the election of a candidate in the NAF took
place democratically
– you lost the election in the IAF, so what do
you complain about

In the meantime I had however also contacted the
members of Dutch Aikikai individually, since I had little confidence in the
functioning of the board of the NAF and AN. This led to further disappointment:
– one member replied that he understood the
complaint but considered it an Aikikai matter and did not want to be involved
– one member replied he did not want to get
involved
– one member sent a confirmation of receiving
the complaint, and I heard nothing since

I was not surprised by such developments at all.
When I met Mr Vriesman in December 2016 he told me ‘the ranks were closing
against me’. That may all well be, but since we are served by these
representatives and believe we can trust them, also when situations get
complicated, I see no other option than to allow everybody to know how they are
represented.

Chapter 25

Dutch Aikikai has a complicated history, as described earlier. When the BBN was split up into Karate, Taekwondo, Judo and a Federation for Eastern Martial Arts (FOG), the NCAF was founded. This federation became member of the FOG (national level) and the IAF (international level).

But as time passed and political interventions changed the landscape, the NCAF changed its name and became the NAF. A new umbrella organization was formed and this is called AN.

The question now is: what is the relationship between the NAF, AN and the IAF.

To start off with, my hypothesis is that the remaining construction has lost its validity, and is exposed by recent incidents.

When the concept of an umbrella organization was being developed, there was a need to resolve two issues:

– the government would only accept an umbrella organization if it would be host to all forms of Aikido.

– Hombu would only accept an organization that does Aikikai Aikido.

– the IAF has a condition for new members that they must have Hombu recognition.

To resolve this conflict of interest, the following construction was established:

– AN is open to all Aikido in the Netherlands.

– the NAF continues as the organization for all Aikikai Aikido in the Netherlands.

– the NAF becomes institutional member of AN, which implies that Aikikai members of AN are also members of the NAF or vice versa.

However, over the course of time several developments took place:

– as AN became more successful the activities the NAF used to do, where transferred to AN. As a consequence the NAF does very little, other than represent the Aikikai groups in the IAF.

– AN established statutes which describe obligations for the Aikikai members: these statutes clearly state that the Aikikai member of AN must adhere to the regulations of the IAF.

– the NAF reduced its online presence to a single page that predates the formation of AN. It is clear that the NAF web-site is non-existant (www.n-a-f.nl)

– as a consequence there is no information on the NAF available on-line: no contact information, no activities, no statutes.

– on the web-site of the IAF the information on the NAF links to AN, not the NAF, and it links to the gmail account of its chairman, not an NAF account. This further demonstrates that the NAF is in fact no longer a truely functioning organization (http://www.aikido-international.org/membership-advice/hotspot#52.2114235/17.1144519/4/hotspot/2)

– the NAF has no direct income from members. Funding of activities goes through AN. To my knowledge there is no separate approved budget or financial report presented to the members of the NAF.

There is however a strong concentration of power surrounding the chairman of the NAF. For he is also the technical director of the DAF, the general secretary of AN and now the general secretary of the IAF.

So, for all practical purposes the NAF does nothing else than represent the Aikikai members of AN in the IAF. It has no other activities and exists only to circumvent the fact that the actual functioning organization is AN, which is not only Aikikai, does not have Hombu recognition and therefore could not become member of the IAF.