The Netherlands is home to one of our founders and has an unparalleled sense of freedom when you first visit from an outsider’s POV. So I thought I should write our very first post back in over 12 months about this fascinating country and what I witness via Youtube going on with farmers over there recently. It’s a step outside our comfort zone.

I knew very little about Holland up until I wrote about it for the first time at 15 years of age, which is now over 30 years ago. The topic was the Green Belt and from that spark of interest, I began to read about its history of reclaiming land projects which are almost unparalleled in the modern age.

At the epi-centre in Amsterdam, there are plans to build 

I am in my late-40s now and up until the COVID Pandemic (which should be rebranded in popular culture to a widespread endemic disease as through thorough research in the country I am from; Ireland & looking at death rates over a 5-year period, our national death toll digits don’t fluctuate enough to elevate this to a Pandemic scale, stable numbers of infected individuals is not a pandemic. Widespread panic among officials helps in a way show our weaknesses as a society, but endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.

I am not trying to play down the significance of such an event, my estranged uncle died of COVID, and I tested positive nearly 12 months ago for it and felt the full force of it then. But all events in this world are linked in a chain, we cannot shut down society, declare pandemics and not expect a cause-effect type of scenario. COVID was also nearly the end of our beloved TECHNOSCENE and my personal involvement in the project. After logging in to our server and seeing 89000+ views on our very last post we decided to regroup and want to communicate with our readers more and not pigeonhole ourselves into being just about the music. The media has a role to play in delivering accurate news and we don’t see it as much as we would like. So going forward our posts might be a little more diverse, like our taste in music.

As a professional DJ in the 90s, I discovered Dutch artists such as Sterac, Orlando Voorn / Basic bastard, Justin Berkovi, Jamez, Dimitri, Stef, Angelo D’Onorio and Roland Klinkenberg, and record labels Spiritual, Touche Records, Sadie, Sim, Moustache and DJAX were light years ahead in terms of a lot of other European Countries. In my late 30s, I fell in love with the city on a 4-day break with my wife, while there we took in all of the sites, and museums we could and decided the next year we would visit for ADE (a yearly pilgrimage to Amsterdam Dance Event ensued up until COVID).

I am lucky to have a number of friends from Amsterdam, and Rotterdam and they’re as close to a truly multicultural society as I have seen.

I have found it really surprising The Netherlands is in this position, I can see both sides of view, how to fix is the ultimate question.

Holland has a strong agrarian and livestock sector, which produces significant agricultural exports, the country is the second largest exporter of agricultural produce in the world after the United States. A mighty fete for such a small country.

Policy proposals from Europe and the WEF by parties such as the Dutch green party, and the social liberal D66 have since emphasized the need for farmers to transition into sustainable farming. The need for communication with regard to these policy proposals was consistently met with opposition by farmers and their representatives I read on Wikipedia. If someone reads this and would like to help us understand why that is the case, please enlighten us in the comments section.

 

Supposedly the 1st of October 2019 was one of the days with the most intense protests.

Thousand of farmers went to The Hague to protest, their tractors causing over a thousand kilometres of traffic jams. 

Which made it the busiest morning rush (hour) in the history of the Netherlands. 

When arriving at the designated location, the Malieveld, the protesters damaged the area, driving through fences and signs and destroying the landscape. Afterwards, farmers offered to assist in repairing the damage. Which is only proper, why it happened in the first place we will never know.

In a speech, sheep farmer Bart Kemp said that politicians lack the intelligence of farmers and claimed that the protests were the biggest ever undertaken by farmers in recorded history. 

Minister Carola Schouten promises in a speech that as long as she is the minister of agriculture to regulate the amount of legally allowed livestock, a measure which parties like Democrats 66 supported to shrink nitrogen emissions. 

When proponents of the nitrogen measures got to tell their side of the story, the farmers turned their backs to the stage and drowned out their arguments with curse words according to Wikipedia. 

The farmers again used unlawful action, stealing a microphone to prevent the proponents from talking, making an intervention of security personnel supposedly necessary.

Following the initial protests on 1 October 2019, the farmers enjoyed broad popular support among the Dutch population, and farmers’ demonstrations were facilitated by local officials, such as the mayor of The Hague. 

This drew some scrutiny, especially, in the aftermath of mass arrests at Extinction Rebellion protests between 7 and 12 October.

Halfway through October, understanding and support for the farmers’ protests had started to decline, but remained significant.

On 13 December, comments made by Farmers Defense Force spokesperson Mark van den Oever, comparing the treatment of farmers to the persecution of Jews during World War II, were widely condemned.

The protests at Eindhoven Airport and threats to block food distribution centres further eroded popular support.

On 10 June 2022, the protests became more prominent after the government designated €24.3 billion to finance agricultural reforms that will likely make many farmers drastically reduce their number of livestock. By 2030 The government’s proposal aims to halve nitrogen oxide and ammonia pollution in the country. 

According to government estimates, this could lead to the closure of about 30 per cent of livestock farms in the Netherlands.

On 29 June, the city of Apeldoorn implemented a state of emergency due to demonstrations and an alleged jailbreak attempt by protestors to free previously arrested activists in custody at the local police station.

On 1 July, the city of Harderwijk also declared a state of emergency. 

On 4 July, farmers began blocking roads with parked vehicles to shut down logistical chains for food distribution, including denying access to supermarkets. 

Riot police were called into Heerenveen and deployed tear gas to break up protests.

On 5 July, a canal bridge in Gaarkeuken, Groningen, was blocked with around 50 tractors until 6 pm, stopping 50 vessels from passing.

The A37 motorway was briefly blockaded by tractors on the same day, resulting in a 2-kilometre traffic jam.

On the evening of 5 July, police fired shots at a 16-year-old youngster driving a tractor after attempting to blockade a highway in Friesland; Thankfully, nobody got hurt, but the youngster was arrested. 

On 22 July, the Dutch Department of Justice announced the start of a criminal investigation into the incident, concerning whether the actions of the officer in question constituted attempted murder. 

Also: in July, some fishermen began blockading ports in solidarity with the farmers.

Our intention with this article is to engage in the conversation as we see it.

The good agendas of Europe reducing greenhouse gases affect the locals in every country.

Transitioning safely to a more egalitarian society, shortening the work week to a 4-day work week, rewilding the globes decimated Forests

If farmers and fishers can shut down the food supply, all parties involved, elected governments and EU officials, put at risk the starvation of many. That’s why we feel the need to write about this.

Farmers’ visits to the private residences of politicians revived the public debate about the limits of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to protest. There was general consensus that the action was not punishable, but it was considered intimidating and agreed on that debate should not be conducted in the private sphere of politicians and other involved parties. According to article 285b of the Criminal Code, “infringing someone’s privacy” is punishable, although in practice it turned out to be difficult to legally distinguish the private sphere from the public space. Yet not everything is allowed; for example, a man carrying a torch and using menacing language outside the residence of Minister Sigrid Kaag in January 2022 was sentenced to six months in prison for threats of violence, incitement, and disruption of the democratic process.

 

If you enjoyed this post. this below article underneath text is a worthwhile read;