<nettime> Help Iraqi resistance in Ter Apel (NL)

["Jo van der Spek M2M" <jo@xs4all.nl>]

On the 8th of May 2012 refugees-on-the-street again started a camp  
outside the Collective Center at Ter Apel in the north of the  
Netherlands These migrants are supposed to return voluntarily to their  
country, because the Dutch government believes that they are not in  
danger there. However the government in Iraq refuses to take them back  
if they are forced. So they have nowhere to go to, no right to be here  
and no way to go there. But they act together for a chance to live and  
live better than before.

Finally it is not the USA that invades The Hague, in order to prevent  
the application of international justice to American citizens-  
soldiers. No, it's Iraqi citizen-migrants occupying common ground in  
the north of the Netherlands in an effort to force a radical change in  
the application of human justice to migrants that are so far denied  
acces and basic rights.

This act of occupation by a fast growing number of mainly Iraqi  
refugees-on-the-street is well timed and also well suited to create an  
uplifting  experience amidst the general lethargy that still covers  
Holland like  a blanket of mental smog.

Like so many times before in history an external agent, through an  
unexpected and autonomous action, is now intervening in the Dutch   
political landscape, at a moment that everyday political life is in a  
highly unstable state: no government, a parliament trying to gain  
legitimacy and a queen dying to hand over sovereignty to her son. The  
direct cause for this current limbo lies in  the response to the  
economic recession and the European conditions  forcing even a rich  
country like Holland to take extreme measures of austerity. However,  
the cornerstone of change, the hinge on which the minds and hearts of  
a significant section of youth and mindful adults may move, is the  
approach towards migrants and world affairs in general. Poverty is  
moving in and migrants are dying on the shores of Europe. Soon we will  
be drifting  together if we don't take drastic action.

We now see the face of globalization reflected in the mirror that  
Brussels and Ter Apel are holding up for us to see. We see Geert  
Wilders as just another make-over of Batman, unmasking himself as just  
another copy cat of Pim Fortuyn, only adding to the pitiful  
frustration of the merciless masses voting for him, proving once again  
time for messiah is over. One man will not make the difference. Ask  
Obama.

Finally the Joker hits back. After two exercises last winter led by  
Somali brothers and sisters camping in the cold outside the  
deportation  complex of Ter Apel, now the weather is fine and time is  
ripe for the  real thing. These poor asylum seekers, strangled by  
foreign police  and immigration service IND, mentally broken by the  
thousands in administrative detention, suffocated by laws and lawyers,  
made  dependant on charity and church, are finally showing who they  
really are: human! They can really move! They are not victims but  
actors!

They can be tourists like you and me!

So let us not help the occupiers in Ter Apel. Let us not support them,  
don't give them tents, blankets or telephone credit. Do not bring your  
redundant laptops, I-pads or even worn-out  army boots and leather  
jackets to their field of honour. No, embrace their exemplary  
autonomous action, join Ali Aziz and Hadi Abu Sanad like in the 16th  
century we embraced the House of Orange, invading the Dutch swamps at  
nearby Heiligerlee. Temperature is rising, parliamentary politics is  
exhausted, corporate business is selling out to China's communists and  
Mexican coke dealers.

We got to save ourselves.

We are  here, we the people, we make the difference, we have no  
borders to cross, we have no cross other than our own indulging in  
apathy. Let's throw it off and start the summer. Leave your squat and  
camp out. Send your children abroad after the exams and restore  
disorder at home.
Forget your mortgage, bury your debts and love your neighbour.

Let migrants invade this place and help us chase away the ghosts of  
Rawagade, Srebrenica, the Schiphol Fire and most of all the mist of  
mental misery hanging over us.

Jo van der Spek

http://m2m.streamtime.org


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