Protests in Amsterdam

This past Tuesday, I did something the Office of International Studies Director at my U.S. University said I should never do when studying abroad: I got involved in a political protest.  The Netherlands recently passed a ban on squatting (a movement that was legalised in the 1970s: it's a protest against inefficient land usage in the Netherlands.  There's a housing shortage, and yet some people own and hold on to property / houses without using them, leaving them vacant for upwards of a year, with no plans for improvement, &c., and without selling or renting out.  So squatters were allowed to reclaim such places after a year of inactivity).  However, the mayors of the Netherlands' four big cities (Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Den Haag) have given public speeches saying they won't uphold the ban, &c.

Nonetheless, the squatters all over the Netherlands have been protesting the ban, and one of my closest friends here came over for hot cocoa, told me about it, and then we set out!

Right in front of the Royal Palace in Dam Square, 2 or 3 tents had been combined and covered in tarps to turn it into a miniature Royal Palace, with a Pirate Flag waving from the top (instead of the Royal crest).  Someone was dressed up as Queen Beatrix, and people were carrying signs and torches (torches / candles...for realz).  There were two loud-speakers attached to a rolling platform, and someone with a mic.  Also, free (vegan) soup.  My friend and I listened without understanding the speeches (something about learning lessons, living rights, and a few other tiny snippets I could catch).  Then...we march!  As we march, the crowd grows larger--my friend and I had been disappointed at first by what we thought was a relatively small (for the Netherlands, compared to Utrecht) gathering in Dam Square.  Then again, it was a Tuesday night, and I wonder if the kind of people who would live in Amsterdam might be the more touristy, commercialised, materialistic type of people who become apathetic or distracted and wouldn't show up for a protest.

And, of course, the music via speakers was carried with us.  Loud punk rock / death metal (obvi not the same thing, but both were present) blared and they rolled they speakers right along with all the marchers, armed with torches and candles, down Kalverstraat, down to Spui Centrum, then up Spuistraat back to Dam Square...where some anti-squatters got into an altercation with our protest movement, and the Police Calvary had to move in.  The police had also stationed gigantic grey-painted box-looking vans all around the place, and some moved along with us.  To me, they looked like a civilian European version of street tanks.  My friend (from Sweden) agreed.  She said, in Sweden they couldn't have those tanks out there because it would be considered provocative.  When the police went in on their horses, I thought, for sure the police are beating the people--and I was thinking of my friends in Chicago at a radical queer conference, when the police began to beat them.  My friend pulled me away, and I heard the loud-speakers wail: '...komt, alstublieft.  ...komt, alstublieft' (basically, withdraw--come away, please).

We asked two people we found there what was happening, and they started to explain that this was a squatting rights protest, and we had to explain that we already knew--but what was happening with the shouting and apparent fighting?  Were the police attacking?  They looked at me strangely for asking that and laughed and said '...No.  The police can't do that.  They can't go in without a reason.  They're breaking up a fight.'  Strange world, no?

We got to talking in general, as all the squatters drew back to a big art squat back on Spuistraat.  I wanted to follow them, but my friend didn't want to be arrested or for us to be in the midst of violence, should it break out again.  The cool people we met started telling us how they were neighbours, how one of them, 6 years ago, had lived in a squat in the countryside with 3 guys.  They were friendly with all the neighbours, had cake and tea with them, but there was one guy who didn't like them.  The squat-guys all had cars, and she didn't, and one night all 3 were away and she was left home alone, and the creepy neighbour saw a light burning in her window, and thought to threaten and scare her away for good.  So there's a knock at the door, she answers it...and there's the neighbour...WITH AN AXE.

I say, 'WHAT.'

She says she closed the door and went upstairs, and in the morning they found the axe in the door.  It took all the squatters 2 hours to get it out.

I say, he sounds dangerous, and both people we're talking to look at me funny again and say, no, he wasn't actually going to hurt her.  I say...he brought an axe to your door and showed it to your face and then jammed it into the front door when you closed it.  They say, it was only a warning!  I say, you must have a funny kind of warning system around here.  I've never heard of a warning like that before.

Strange world, again.

Apparently everything got along fine after that, because all the other neighbours were supportive of the squat and reassured them that there was nothing to fear: all the neighbours would stick up for them if it came to that.  They shouldn't be worried in the future.

Then it came out somehow from the former-squatter that it was a Full Moon that day (true: in restless, communicative Gemini), and I say: '!!!!  And Uranus just went direct!'  And then the two people and I go on about how, oh goodness, how this is the PERFECT night for the protest we're having!  (Uranus is the ruling planet of Aquarius--it's the planet of revolution, transformation, &c.)  SWEET.

It's also revealed that somewhere around 20-30 of the people in the protest are undercover cops.  Our new friends recognise them as neighbours, plus by their shoes.

Also, apparently, people throughout the Netherlands can't understand each other because of the presence of around 230 different dialects (ranging from German, French, and Flemish-influenced), despite the fact that it's a tiny country.  The medieval history of isolation in tiny villages is pronounced the source.



Other things I hope to someday update you about:

• mijn reis naar Stockholm vorig weekend
• Sinterklaas: parties, RAs, gifts, treats, traditions I love, poems
• buying a Dutch Harry Potter book in Dutch
• apartment preparations for Christmas
  

I want a Solstice Shrub.

Love,
Me