Einde Toespraak.Rekening Retour deel 5-video

Report on Rekening Retour rally of October 23rd
 tekst from http://griekenlandisoveral.wordpress.com

About 500 people joined the Rekening Retour rally on October 23rd against the austerity measures and immigration policies of the new right wing government. The rally took place at Koekamp. It was initially planned for The Plein, but this location was banned at the last moment by the mayor of The Hague.

Just before the start of the main rally, about 80 to 100 people assembled near the Central Station for a critical, anticapitalist march towards the Rekening Retour rally to join the rest of the demonstrators.  This additional supporting march was called for by Greece is Everywhere. With the new location, this march became significantly shortened though, but nonetheless succeeded in showing a significant radical part amongst the demonstrators.

At Koekamp, several speakers took the stage, from organizing groups in Rekening Retour, from local initiatives, as well as for instance a cleaner active in the cleaners-struggle and a brave worker without papers. Some songs were played in between, people networked and the rally was ended with a symbolic returning of the bill (of the crisis).

Among the 500 participants were workers, students, academics, artists, immigrants, unemployed, squatters and different social-political groups (mainly of the left). Notable absents were the large trade unions as well as the parliamentary parties of the left (although there were people from SP Zaanstreek, a speaker from abvakabo fnv, as well as FNV Vecht Voor Je Recht). Although the Rekening Retour platform put considerable effort in bringing these organisations on board, it seems they have other priorities than organizing large-scale protests against the austerity measures of the new government.

The police presence was huge. A dozen or more riot cop vans were spotted, several fast police-buggies, a lot of  'normal' police, a camera van which was allowed to come close to the rally, a water-cannon standing by and a helicopter hovering above us. Already beforehand, many of the sticks for flags and posters were confiscated by the police. It is clear that the government has chosen repression as the means to deal with the people that are struggling for their right to work, to study, to have affordable health insurance and receive social protection.

Besides the horrible weather and train failures, the form of the protest wasn't uplifting either. Rekening Retour had chosen for a manifestation in which everyone stands still at one place and is basically turned into a crowd of spectators instead of participating demonstrators. This was known beforehand and was also part of the reason for Greece is Everywhere to call for an additional supporting march to the rally.

After the rally dozens of protesters wanted to warm up, dry up and have some drinks in The Hague, and the obvious place was the banned location of The Plein. Since we were not allowed to hold a protest there, and the roads to it were blocked, we had to move in small groups, of 2 a 3 people. Somewhere between 40 and 50 protesters eventually ended up in café's on The Plein, heavily guarded by police forces. After the police had largely gone, 25 remaining protesters unrolled three big banners on The Plein, as a symbolic act of resistance to the repressive policies of The Hague's mayor, who had banned a demonstration. For the participating people, this felt like an appropiate optimistic 'final touch' to the protest as it showed that people are not willing to compromise and are willing to defy the undemocratic decision of the mayor of Den Haag to ban the demonstration.

We are glad to see that people from many different backgrounds came together united against the new Dutch government that is supported by the extreme right wing populist Geert Wilders. We hope that the resistance against the austerity measures and government will increase and diversify in the coming months. Greece is Everywhere will continue working hard to try to help build this movement and hope that many people will join our next open meeting on Friday October 29th (details follow soon).