”RARA, WHO’S LEGAL ORDER IS IT?”/”WHERE IS THE DUTCH REBELLION?”/
Last Thursday in ‘Andere Tijden’ [TV documentary ‘Other Times]: Roemersma [former Rara = Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action] vs. Duyvendak [former activist]. Roemersma from Venezuela, and Duyvendak here in The Netherlands. And then this question pops up: What do you think about the fact that Korthals Altes [at the time Minister of Justice] called the arsons of Rara terrorism? Roemersma , surprised, could not conclude any different than to say this was and is nonsense, and that nowadays you can be labeled a terrorist much faster than in earlier times. Then Duyvendak: Of course it was terrorism, and he distanced himself from the slogan ‘Your legal order is not ours!’ So he considers ‘the legal order’ to be his and calls Roemersma a terrorist.
Now, who’s legal order is it, I have asked myself once again. I will leave the matter of terrorism for what is for now, because these days we are all terrorists or at least extremists, or otherwise criminal, repeat offender, or just scum. So be it. What’s in a name. But the legal order, how does it turn out for people? And I do not mean the privileged and the ones that sucked themselves up in this society, such as Wijnand Duyvendak.
For instance, take the ‘immigration’ policy. Less reimbursement for lawyers that appeal against detention: the result being that less often appeals are filed. Reversing the burden of proof: nice plan of the new government Brown 1 [First ‘brown’ government (2010-2012) consisting of a coalition of the 3 most right wing parties: Liberal party (vvd), Christian party (cda) and extreme right wing Freedom Party of Geert Wilders (pvv) 2010-2012]: now you have to proof why and along which route you have fled and otherwise: return straight back to misery. But ah, in fact it always worked like that: the IND does not have to prove the things they did or did not do, the ‘alien’ always has to prove all kinds of things. The pronouncement of undesirability: you no longer have to be criminal. To be found without papers in this racist and nationalist swamp for a second time is enough.
Expansion of the powers of the immigration police: a plan coming from Albayrak (previous state secretary of immigration) just like the above. The executioners can soon do everything: house searches, cavity searches, read out mobile phones, and this has nothing to do with investigating criminals such as the members of parliament of the pvv. No, this concerns undocumented people. You exist, therefore you are punishable. The legal order, is it there on behalf of these people? I do not think so. How can former activist Wijnand Duyvendak be so insolent as to renounce the thought ‘Your legal order is not ours’? Well, I would rather be a terrorist than a power corrupted wanna be politician!
Obviously, we the white privileged Dutch with a passport are not bothered by all this injustice so we could state that this legal order is indeed ours, it just is not ‘theirs’. This means that this legal order is full of xenophobia. I have not even begun to mention the many acts of violence against undocumented people, on the street, in police stations and in detention centers. I have not yet mentioned the acts of despair, the hungerstrikes and suicides,the swallowing of razor blades. I have not yet mentioned the violence during deportations, the use of cuffs on hands and feet and the use of ‘bite masks’, the intimidation, the Frontex charter flights.
There. Now I díd mention them. Still your legal order, Duyvendak?
I prefer Roemersma, who refuses to distance himself from the Rara fires that after four times led to Makro’s withdrawal from South Africa’s apartheid. Roemersma: “Successful? The apartheid regime was not gone”: He was right, of course. Only one small cog wheel had been taken away. But one is better than none.
The documentary closed by stating that violence works. But is setting fire to a company that makes money from apartheid actually violence? I do not think so. And the same goes for all those capitalist exploiters that are being supported and recognized for their contribution to ‘our economy’ by our Western democracies. A business premises burning down is not violence, it is the beginning of justice. Now you may call me a terrorist, Duyvendak, because I express this opinion.
Rara [rara in Dutch also means: “guess what”], who’s legal order is it? Not mine, although it is being forced upon me. This legal order, it is there for those who posses money and power, it is there for lobbyists and politicians, for bosses and goody-goody slaves (fees are allowed and bribes as well). This legal order is rendering people chanceless and once they have become chanceless real good, this legal order calls them useless and criminal and strikes them with punishment and measures.
Duyvendak does not want to hear about it, and Roemersma has stepped aside in Venezuela. The first I resent, the second I do not. No matter what: time for a new generation to stand up and continue to carry Rara’s torch!
Joke Kaviaar, November 20, 2010 (translation January 27, 2013)
(Between [ … ] are explanations not found in the original text)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
WHERE IS THE DUTCH REBELLION?
http://13-september.nl/
Last week African refugees massively stormed the Spanish enclave Melilla in Morocco, occupied territory in fact, just like the whole of the US has been snatched away by fortune seeking Europeans.
I remember the images of bleeding people climbing the barbed wire fences from the previous time. It is a bad sign that people keep trying it, over and over again and at the risk of their lives. But why not? Their lives were worthless anyway, just as the lives of all those people that try to reach the European continent in sinking sloops.
In the same week, on Saturday June 21, the death of a 41 year old Tunisian in a deportation prison in Vincennes, near Paris, led to protests of the imprisoned undocumented people. A solidarity demo followed, prisoners set fire to the center and many escaped.
Europe was ablaze, it seemed for a moment. That would be more than justified, because only last week the European parliament unanimously agreed on a plan to bar migrants coming from outside of our high erected walls. It is called: The Returns Directive. All it still needs is a formal approval.
No longer the European nations pass each other the ball of the ‘refugee problem’. No, ‘we’ join hands: ‘they’ are not coming in and ‘they’ will leave as soon as possible, or ‘they’ will be locked up as long as possible.
Viva Europe!
Resistance is required. But in The Netherlands of the Schiphol Fire all we do is hiss at the Proud of Orange tour of the Nationalists, led by Führer Verdonk. The tragedy of that is, that in the meantime Verdonks successor seems to be able to go ahead undisturbed.
This has got to stop! It is time for – as the French say – a considerable incentive for resistance. Because, how can it be that Albayraks neo-fascist changes of policy are so little being noticed?
How can it be that the only thing Dutch politics care about is the fact that Dutch detention centers are being pimped up as much a possible by bragging architects and artists. How cozy it all is. So humane and friendly. And so we intimately polder [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
It all neatly fits in the European apartheid politics and we do that in our very own way, with healing words and soothing prayer. We all contribute to the dam that has to stop the flood of all those ‘aliens’. Ecclesiastical organizations sweet talk people into not protesting both inside and outside the walls of the centers, and organize their own project for ‘voluntary return’. It is all the will of God, you see. The government speaks of ‘intensive guidance’ and makes sure not to mention the word coercion, speaks of ‘freedom restricting locations’ and certainly not of prisons.
The new policy devised by Albayrak pretends that prolonging the asylum procedure with a few days, will be to the benefit of ‘the alien’, while the true goal is to justify and to veil the restriction of appeals, because: “Experience shows that the longer aliens can postpone their departure, the more difficult expulsion becomes.”
In the meantime the security forces of jailer Albayrak are taking “adequate” action against protesting prisoners in the Bijlmer prison. It must be very safe there now. Even her whining guards have nothing to fear. It must be okay when a government official uses the word ‘adequate’. Albayrak learned that from Verdonk [Verdonk used the word “adequate” to describe the actions of guards during the Schiphol fire in which eleven imprisoned migrants died]. The next uprising in another prison in this countries capital city is impending already, but questions are not asked anywhere.
Will the Dutch rebellion be stimulated by precisely those people that already have no way to go, that can simply and unobserved be forced back into their cells by the states thugs? Or will finally the free Dutch people go out into the street because they realize that in a country of increasing repression they themselves might be next? Identity control. Pre-emptive body searches. Raids. Or will the people only rebel when ‘orange loses’ [refers to the color of the Dutch soccer team]?
Where is the Dutch rebellion? Who is coming along to storm and empty the offices of the IND, to pour gasoline over the archives and computers in order to obliterate them by fire? Who will be helping to make the modern Gestapo stop filing the undesirables. Who is coming along to break down the walls of deportation camps and prisons, with demolition hammers and bulldozers? Who is coming along to distribute wire cutters that can be used to liberate people from fences and barbed wire?
Where is the Dutch rebellion? It’s about time!
Joke Kaviaar, Juni 25, 2008 (translation January 27, 2013)