Twitter thread by Detgrim
@detgrim
via @threadreaderapp
Oct 17th 2019, 40 tweets, 14 min read Bookmark Save as PDF My Authors Thread about the recent farmer protests in the NL
>Parliament flooded with tractors
>Doors rammed
>Army deployed
>Angry politicians
This has had little to no traction outside the Dutch sphere, so Ive decided to make an English thread detailing the events on the 3 major protests
DAY 1 – OCTOBER 1
This day had been in the books of farmers for a while, but little attention was paid to it by the media. Most normies, including me, didn’t know a large scale protest was coming until a morning traffic record was already broken.
Tractors on all highways.
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DAY 1
People woke up greeted with over 1200km of traffic
The average amount is 6km.
Note they weren’t blocking the highways, they were just on their way to parliament, on their tractors.
Despite initial confusion, I met nobody that day that was particularly mad at the farmers
DAY 1
Not much was told about their motivation in the media.
The farmers gave harsh climate change and environmental protection laws as their primary goal, also complaining about being treated as lower class scum by media elites.
The media ran with the latter.
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DAY 1
The goal was the Malieveld, a field near parliament. The government originally said only a few tractors were allowed on the field, which was later changed to 75.
They had fences and security in place to regulate this.
DAY 1
The deal with local law enforcement was that the farmers would park their tractors away from the city centre and be taken with busses to the field.
Already a compromise, but the deal wasn’t even met. Understandably angry, they decided to not honour their part either.
DAY 1
So some of the farmers found a breach in the back and rammed through two lines of fences to get on the field anyways.
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DAY 1
Others decided to go for a ride on the beach, as that was apparently near the spot they were supposed to gather for the busses.
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DAY 1
A little more than just the 75 ‘allowed’ tractors ended up on the Malieveld.
DAY 1
Several politicians ended up visiting to hold speeches about their opinions. Some of these planned and on a stage, some of them among the farmers
DAY 1
The pretty-much-but-unofficial-immigrants-party leader came around and got bood and heckled until he left.
DAY 1
Not much was agreed upon. Most leftists stuck to their policies. Most centrist and ‘right wing’ parties released statements supporting the farmers, but they were loose words and the strict environmental laws weren’t changed.
A new protest on the 16th was already planned.
DAY 2 – 14 october (~2 weeks later)
Inbetween the first day and 14 october various smaller scale protests happened, but on the 14th the farmers again went out in larger numbers.
This time the goal was occupying the provincial houses, in an attempt to repeal the laws.
DAY 2
Soon after the farmers arrived, the provincial house of Friesland announced they would repeal the controversial nitrogen agreements. That’s 1 province down.
DAY 2
The other provinces didn’t budge as quickly, and it often was a hassle arriving to the provincial houses. Even with all the commotion, nothing really violent was happening.
DAY 2
Several of the less urban provinces quickly budged and repealed the environmental laws. The very diverse and urbanite provinces refused co-operation altogether.
One of the most farmer-rich provinces was keeping out however. Groningen (top right) would not give a response.
DAY 2
The farmers made a quick ultimatum. Let us in the provincial house to discuss this, or we’re going in ourselves.
They went in themselves.
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DAY 2
That didn’t last long. They had police set up in there.
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DAY 2
Groningen kept the nitrogen measures and didn’t discuss anything. In the end half the provinces did repeal the laws, so it could be called a succesful day for the farmers.
DAY 3 – 16 october
Yesterday there was another large scale protest near parliament. This one was announced well in advance and most people knew about it.
Farmers from the islands left before midnight already.
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DAY 3
Once again, once morning came, the entire grid was clogged with tractors. Despite it likely attracting more protestors than the last, the grid handled it better. People were expecting it
DAY 3
In fact, people around the country came to watch the farmers drive by and cheered them on.
DAY 3
Construction workers saluted them with their cranes, commuters honked their horns on their way to work, they have an approval rating above 80%.
Compare this to non-grassroots Extinction Rebellion, which gets broken up by the public if they block a road for half a minute. DAY 3
The state deployed the police and the army to block off major roads leading into the Hague.
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DAY 3
Important parts of the city
Like fast food chains, apparently
DAY 3
One major connection was blocked off, leading to a flooding of the road with tractors.
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DAY 3
The excessive reaction of the police and government was out of place. Nothing really violent had happened aside from various fences being run over.
Here’s a farmer spraying cops and journalists.
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DAY 3
Truckers helped block the roads for the farmers so they could get where they wanted to go.
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DAY 3
The message this day was the same. Repeal the strict laws against farmers, and respect the farmer. A very apolitical message it would seem.
Still, the divide was clear. Left wing politicians like Green Party leader Jesse Klaver were not liked.
DAY 3
Meanwhile the ‘right wing’ politicians were quite popular
DAY 3
Once again the farmers rammed on the Malieveld. It was clear that the people were behind them except left wing urbanites. No real change was made that day, but a lot of sympathy was shown and gained.
Here’s the farmer youth force on patrol
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CONCLUSION
While the protests themselves were quite meaningless in their origin, nitrogen pollution laws, the catalyst here is the big divide between the more urban and more rural parts of the Netherlands.
They are two completely different ways of life, it seems. Even I, who grew up in a decently sized town (10k>) was completely culture shocked once I started interacting with Randstad urbanites. The ways I communicated at home are vastly different to what urbanites are used to. Much more American and ‘proper’. Keep in mind the Netherlands is basically one giant city. I lived 2.5 hours by car from Amsterdam. Americans probably wonder if that isn’t just still Amsterdam. In my town and region it was normal to openly mention race, and a lot of jokes were based on it. In general it was pretty clear what the consensus was on race, homosexuality, and Americanisation. It was assumed you agreed with the rest. In the cities, this is completely the other way around. It’s common to hear native Dutch girls throw English sentences into their conversation, or even converse in mostly English. Their politics are as Americanised as they are.
I can’t communicate with a lot of urban youth. I can only imagine the situation in other European countries. I’ve heard in Germany and Austria the taboos reach even into the countryside, but I wouldn’t be surprised of similar situations in Scandinavia. This feeds into the popularity of the protests.
The nitrogen laws were actually brutally strict once you do look into them, but that’s not why people were cheering farmers on, at all.
“Respect for farmers” is maybe a part of it, but I doubt it’s much of it. I interpret the popularity of the farmers protest as essentially the vast majority of the Netherlands cheering on the ‘rural’ way of life.
An outlook on life that isn’t straight from a California campus. I definitely notice the type of people excited about the protests are the type of people I could talk to without having to watch my words. Wether they’re urban or not.
On the side of the people cheering, this was much more cultural than it was about nitrogen.
Thanks, detgrim. Excellent post. I hope it ends well for the NL, but I suspect that this is just a skirmish in a long and very important war.
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So what videos did I miss? Do they change the overall narrative?
I’ve been looking but haven’t seen a manure spreader in the mix. How can you have a farmer-led political protest without manure spreaders? They’re really effective:
How odd. My browser has never had problems with embedded videos before.
Good on the farmers. Might I suggest a simple answer for the provinces that won’t play ball? Stop delivering to towns and cities in those provinces. Due to panic buying the shelves will be empty by the end of the first day, two days after that the urbanites will be violently protesting in the streets in front of the Parliament.
I suggest an argument along the lines of “Since the government of this province is making it impossible for farmers to do business here, we won’t in the future.” Keep the message simple.
I am told that in at least one of the institutes of higher education in Rotterdam the language of instruction is English.
Impressive, thank you.
Wow!
My survey of one says this has been in the news about a week ago. I don’t watch TV news much or read the paper so I had to ask.
““Respect for farmers” is maybe a part of it, but I doubt it’s much of it. I interpret the popularity of the farmers protest as essentially the vast majority of the Netherlands cheering on the ‘rural’ way of life. ”
OR MAYBE, just maybe, people like to eat.
As an old farm boy, I support the Dutch farmers whole heartedly! In return, I’d ask our Dutch friends to not paint all Americans with a stereotype brush.
I grew up on a farm. One of the most forgotten and/or under-appreciated vocations/ways of life is that found on the family farm. Yes there are corporate farms, but even these are vitally important to feeding us all. What’s that line about biting the hand that feeds you…? Farmers are better caretakers of the land than green eco-terrorists will ever be. Some people get it.
Nobody in Europe has managed to break the rural lobby and this in my view is not likely to be the first
It seems to be pretty much the same in most developed nations, the disconnect between the inner city lefties/greens and everyone else.
If I were advising these farmers I’d provide them with the following:
– Keep it a “GrassRoots” movement. Stick to the Farming issues that brought you together.
– Set one or two messages/themes, no more. Then use that one or two unifying message(s) in easy slogans and signs and have no single central leader/speaker for those grievances.
– Stay in loosely banded groups by region but all on the same message.
– Rotate the speaker/leader duties to the media and for travel between well-spoken farmers within each group.
– Use private (encrypted) instant messaging like iMessage between members until the last moment, then post finalized plans, announcements on open, public social media spaces like FaceBook, Twitter.
– Realize the government/military/police are monitoring everything on you post on open social media. Do NOT allow members to post anything on social media group pages that you wouldn’t want to see repeated on the front Page of major Dutch newspapers.
– Do not allow the government or Left Wing activist groups to single-out any one person/speaker, that keeps them off balance always wondering who will speak next. Rotate group leadership. Diversify the faces.
– Use different routes if possible to your planned rally points in the cities and do not advertise it until the last minute.
– Keep your demands actionable to something politicians can deliver. Do not demand wholesale resignations of party leaders; that simply won’t happen.
– Identify your political opponents if speeches. Freeze, put them on the defensive, them by showing their rhetoric (cfe: Greens’ policies) are infantile and childish demands that accomplish (climate-wise) nothing but economic misery for everyone including consumers.
– Appeal to traditional Dutch culture values wherever you can: Family, hard work, providing valuable food to the cities, and Farmers are the best stewards of the land they control.
– The Left will try to take the moral high ground from you with Globalist ideas, but remember “All politics are local.” That is the parliament politicians have to get elected by the local voters, so keep the issues “local.” Don’t let a politician you elect sell out your local demands to UN demands for Islanders in the Pacific for example. Put them on the spot, demanding they tell you who the represent.
– When the Greens throw-out global SLR under CC: say, “The Dutch have been engineering against sea level rise for 600 years. Another 30-40 centimeters in 100 years or so is nothing that our Dutch ingenuity and engineers can’t handle.”
– Watch out for trouble-makers/subversive moles planted into your groups from the Left. Identify strangers that might seem to be infiltrating your ranks and check their bona fides. Know who they are. The organized professional radicals of the Left love to insert trouble-makers into the opponent’s ranks to cause bad PR. Call them out if you have to. Make sure you know who your leaders-spokespersons are and ensure they are part of the farming group you have long known.
– At organized demonstration sites where tractors come together… clean up any and ALL TRASH and litter. Leave no trace. This demonstrates you are good stewards of the land. Do not let others in your group leave trash behind. Even to the point of having group members designated to use shovels and hand tools to fix tractor tire ruts in the Parks/green spaces you occupy. Then show pictures of how the Greens” and Climate activists leave fields of litter and trash in their wakes.
California? Who gives a twaddle about California? Why keep mentioning it? People need to understand that America is not California and vice versa.
In general it was pretty clear what the consensus was on race, homosexuality, and Americanisation
It’s common to hear native Dutch girls throw English sentences into their conversation, or even converse in mostly English. Their politics are as Americanised as they are.
It sounds like “Americanisation” means left-wing, politically-correct, social-justice politics. That’s not popular in America either. In fact it’s a view held by a minority of Americans, most of whom live in big cities. I understand why Europeans may see it as Americanisation because American media and news networks all hold the same view and that’s where Europeans get their view of America. Follow FOX News or conservative media and you get a vastly different view of American ideals; more traditional, rural, and still more popular than the leftist brainwashing that pollutes most of the mainstream media in America.
I think it is another popular uprising.
In response to too much in-your-face and in-your-wallet government.
They date back to Ancient Egypt. In the mid-1970s, astronomer Barbara Bell outlined that they occurred as a series of poor floods reduced crop production. The governing classes controlled the food and were living well. The public was not living so well. The palace guards were of the people and when push came to shove,
the guards laid down their spears. Dynastic change.
Much the same happened in Eastern Europe when in 1989, the border guards laid down their AK-47s.
Now the “border guards” are the reporters, who while supporting the governing classes, are not senior people.
The media could join the popular uprisings.
The last successful popular uprising took down the Berlin Wall and official Communism.
We should be so lucky.
That is a lot of tractors. What a sight!
.
.
“The peasants are revolting!”
Urban politicians: “They sure are.”
h/t Wizard of Id
Still haven’t seen what NL stands for, New What???
looked at the article and scanned the comments !!!
Netherlands or NederLands…..
Imagine if these were crop-dusters…
Just as with AGW, people are not using the proper terms here. Burning fossil fuels does not lead to carbon emission; you get carbon dioxide.
Cars (specially diesel vehicles) do not emit nitrogen (N2); they emit some form of nitrogenoxide (NOx). Nitrogen is a harmless inert gas, that is the most abundant gas in our atmosphere. Roughly 78% of the air that we breath in is N2. NOx causes a brownish colored sky and can be the nucleus of small particulate matter (fine dust).
“I lived 2.5 hours by car from Amsterdam. Americans probably wonder if that isn’t just still Amsterdam.”
Not even close. I live 2 hours from Seattle, and have to pass through/by many other towns and cities to get there.
EU comunists gets “New Holland” treatment.
“The Netherlands is a tiny country; its presence on the list is to the high value of flowers and live plants (the Netherlands supply two-thirds of the global total) and vegetables (the Netherlands is a leading supplier of tomatoes and chilies).”
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0712/top-agricultural-producing-countries.aspx
What the hell are these nitrogen laws? I thought the Dutch had voted FvD recently, surely they quashed this kind of meddling?