Olympic Games protest on the Dam

I'm not 100 percent sure what to call yesterday's protest timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics. The predominant theme was "Free Tibet" but there were a lot of advocates of other causes there too, notably from Myanmar.



I kept hunting for an answer to the question "why hold this protest today" (obvious answers being, in order to embarrass Beijing and cash in on the publicity to promote their various causes) but no one seemed willing or able to express that.

(Uyghurs)

I had quite an interesting discussion with a young Tibetan who had come a long, long way from a monastery through torture by Chinese police and a dangerous escape through the Himalayas to freedom in Nepal. He eventually ended up living in Amsterdam _ which might as well be the planet Mars from his perspective.

This was the kind of conversation that was at about 1/1000th of the depth it could have been ... hearing the bare facts of such a tale is like knowing an onion by its husk. My mother died while I was young.

Moments such as his expulsion from the monastery and the pain of leaving home on a treacherous walk with danger behind and total unknown ahead. Ay.

And in the midst of those thoughts I was also thinking how bittersweet it is that his life will always be circumscribed by those experiences. There is no possible future in which _ for instance _ he becomes a stock broker or a concert pianist.

Nor will I be a Tibetan monk. It's all one.



The most interesting comments about reasons TO protest came from a German woman I spoke to. She told me:

"I feel really unhappy that our leaders are now in China because I think human rights are more important than economic interests."

But weren't the Olympics begun in order to give us a respite from political disagreements?

"Everything is politics. When the Olympics started in Greece, the games were held among free countries. If we do not concentrate on human rights, treatment of people and freedom, then we lose the ideals of the Olympics."

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Protest against Geert Wilders and Racism on the Dam

(her sign reads: "I'm afraid of the future, but I'm too big to scream.")

Today, around 2,000 people showed up on the Dam square to protest Geert Wilders and his anti-Quran film.

(a view of the crowd)

Well, in point of fact it was an anti-Racism demonstration, and since Wilders says he's not racist, maybe he shouldn't even be part of the discussion here.

However, he was certainly topic number one, and the main reason people turned out for the demo, as far as I could see.

("not wanted")


(sign: "Stop the Witch-hunt against Muslims. No room for Racism!)

Remembering the "Stop the Islamization of Europe" demo last month, I reckon this one was a little less than 100 times bigger (20 protesters versus 2,000, 30 press versus 100 press? just guessing).

Anyhow, here are some pictures and film clips.
The overview:


(in the scrum)

More pics and clips after the 'more'







Signs! (something in Frisian I can't read!) "Racism is not an opinion, but a crime" / "PVV + Wilders = Fascism"

("standing together against the right wing populist witch-hunt."

(blueface)







This is kind of a funny project _ people from "mediamatic" doing an art project where they try to flood YouTube with fake videos / apologies for Geert Wilders.



That's also freedom of speech, no?

I had a little trouble getting these guys to talk...nice people though.
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Naked PETA protest against Spanish bullfighting _ in Amsterdam?

A trio of protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stripped down to their underwear on Amsterdam's central square on Tuesday to protest bullfighting in Spain and Portugal.

Protester Lauren Bowey said PETA plans similar protests in capital cities around Europe in the coming year, because tourists attending bullfights help keep them in operation.

"The arenas are a quarter full, but it's appealing to tourists," she said. The protest drew several hundred gawkers in the course of a half hour.

Asked whether she wasn't cold with just a sign board covering her breasts, Bowey told one tourist "it's nothing compared to what the bulls go through."

Funny how almost everything a topless woman says starts to make sense...







It was quite a nice day in Amsterdam today, though perhaps still a bit too nippy to want to stand naked on a public square.

A few photos of 'faces from the crowd.'






*The End*



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Stop the Islamization of Europe! And Clowns.

The "Stop the Islamization of Europe" movement got a permit to hold a demonstration on the Dam on Saturday, and journalists outnumbered the demonstrators by a factor of about 5-1.



You see, international media smell a "Danish Cartoon" controversy in the making if right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders' film about the Quran is as explosive as he hopes _ and the Dutch government fears _ it is.

Of course, intrepid pudgy American reporters were on the scene.

On one side of the Dam, the "Stop Islamization"-ists attracted quite a crowd of reporters and police. Here's me trying to understand their point of view:



(looking across police lines)

On the other side, behind a row of horse-mounted police officers, were the people protesting the protesters. This young man's message was clear:

("All Racists Out Of The Country")

Got that straight? Now, the third party in the mix was a bunch of clowns.



To try to give an idea of the layout, I climbed a light post. Unfortunately the clowns had changed location, but I think this still gives a fair overview. I label the participants "Fascists, Leftists and Clowns," just as a kind of shorthand:


More pictures, including hot clown action, after the "More"


This guy was convinced Geert Wilders should go to jail for hate speech. He had kind of a Malcolm X vibe.

Some other objects of interest:

Here's a young woman (I think it was a woman!) wearing a burka. The number of women who actually wear burkas normally in the Netherlands has been estimated at less than 100, so you would be tempted to say, either her presence was an incredible coincidence, or she may have intentionally put it on today to make a point. I remark without further judgment that she was wearing jeans underneath.

Nice photo, no?

Here are some undercover cops. See how seamlessly they blend in?



Here is Ehsan Jami. He said he just happened to be walking by...

He also had a subtle security guard (far left), who looked capable of kicking some fairly major ass if the need arose.

I'd post a clip of Jami talking, but he was speaking Dutch. Also noteworthy: I believe the woman who was interviewing him is Metje Blaak, head of the prostitute's labor union. I have no idea what she was doing with a cameraman and microphone, but I'm curious to find out. She asked Jami a sneaky "one last question" _ namely, whether he had a girlfriend or not. Jami gave a roundabout 'no.'

There were a few heated discussions, but no fights. Except among clowns...


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Dutch Student Protests

(photo: Indymedia.nl)

Dutch high school students have been "on strike" for two days now, protesting against extra school hours. They organize via instant messaging (chat) programs and mobile phones.

(Indymedia.nl)

Your reporter was on the scene (a little too late to see the action, unfortunately).

I keep thinking of the line from "Natural Born Killers" where Robert Downey Jr.'s character says,
"When the (bleep) hit the fan at Grenada, I saw it all go down at Grenada,"

Well, I saw the Dutch student riots of '07 and I lived to tell the tale.



Earlier, some people were throwing bottles at the cops and horses (why does throwing bottles at horses seems worse to me than throwing them at cops?! Maybe it's because the cops chose to be there, while the horses didn't, and don't understand what's going on.).

These young ladies, aged 14, 15, and 14 from left to right, didn't strike me as big trouble makers.



Run away! The "MA" is the riot police, btw.

NOS has a hilarious clip where some other girls are captured on film throwing eggs in The Hague. The reporter asks one why she's there and she says "to protest against the Education Ministry." The reporter points out that the building they're targeting is actually Parliament, and she says, "oh right. Bye!" and runs away giggling.

Lots of people are bad-mouthing the students, saying

they're a bunch of spoiled brats, etc.

I can see that. But I'm kind of glad to see the kids out demonstrating. Like: the Dutch cradle-to-grave nanny state hasn't sucked all the life spirit out of them yet.

I don't know about any of you out there, but I think an 8-hour school day is plenty. As I remember it (everybody tells me I'm wrong about this), I never learned a thing in school until I was 16 or so and actually started trying to learn. Until then, school was basically like prison.

That being said, whenever I was out of school, I was up to no good _ so I guess you can make the argument that confining students all day is better for the rest of society. MORE

Sison, Dati and a pretty hectic day

Today was the kind of day where it's so busy things start falling through the cracks.

First there was another protest in front of the courthouse where Philippine communist leader/academic Jose Maria Sison is being held.

(Si-son Vrij! means Free Sison! The man with the megaphone is Luis Jalandoni, and the woman in white is Sison's wife Julie. She has bruises on her wrists where she says the Dutch police grabbed her during the raids; she's not being allowed to see her husband).

Then the French Justice Minister Rachida Dati popped over to check out a Dutch asylum for the criminally insane _ because maybe they want to adopt the Dutch system for recidivist sex criminals. This is a big story in France that no one else cares much about. She spoke French likety-splitly at this press conference.

(sorry for the red eyes, Ms. Dati. I'm still not much of a photographer).

Then there was a ruling in the Sison case, that he can be held for another two weeks.

I'm very, very curious to see the evidence against Sison, and now I have to wonder why the judge is keeping him in solitary confinement. The public prosecutors aren't saying anything about their evidence. That's normal, but the track record of the government isn't great in proving criminal organizations, much less "chain of command" cases.

But basically, we will know nothing for the next two weeks at least.

The news coming from the lawyer is very one sided: he says there was "no evidence" against Sison, but it says something that the judges thought it was enough to hold him anyway.

Having met the man, I will be very surprised if he said anything out loud that could get him into trouble. Various members of the NDF here told stories of how the Dutch police burst into their houses, breaking down the doors. One guy said his kids were like "sheesh, all they had to do was knock."


(I thought it would be cute to see the demonstration from the eyes of the people holding the banners).

Meanwhile, Ms. Dati came through to check out the Dutch system of holding criminals who commit crimes like rape or pedophilia in mental hospitals until they are considered cured _ even if the cure lasts longer then their prison sentence.

It's ironic that the French would consider adopting this system, since it's been one of the number one most criticized policies in the Netherlands in the past five years: prisoners keep escaping supervision while on furlough and committing crimes (rape, murder, you name it).

But that's politics.
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Sison Arrest Protest + Jalandoni

Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the National Democratic Front, despised by the Philippine government.

The protest against the arrest of former (current?) Philippine communist rebel leader Jose Maria Sison today on the Dam was a little surreal.

At the heart of the Dutch capital city, you have a small group of leftists who feel a great injustice has been done by the government of the Netherlands.

On the other side of the world, in the Philippines, the government is celebrating Sison´s arrest, and the rebels there are, well, up in arms.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam rolls on, and you have tourists wandering around the scene, completely oblivious to it all.



Even a scrawny Darth Vader had to turn around to see what was going on.




I've stumbled across a few protests in my day and wondered what the heck they were all about. I certainly can't claim to be an expert on the 39 year (that's "thirty-nine") communist rebellion in the Philippines. It predates me.

I can tell you that whatever else Sison (who I met in 2005) and Jalandoni may be, they are both intellectuals.

This energetic young speaker,

Chico Taguba, of "Rice and Rights," represents the next generation of activists.

"As long as there is oppression, there will always be resistance," he said.

N´est pas?
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