The Union
'There will be tribunals'
Een beschouwing op hetgeen zich op ITGWO afspeelde
During the last festival edition, two hearings took place on Vlieland. A substantive program about the rule of law. We asked Roel Meijvis to report on this.
It remains strange, dancing at a festival while the world is on fire. Is that allowed? Can that be done? Is that collective energy with which we jump and stomp here with thousands not better spent? These are questions that definitely come to mind at least a few times during such a weekend. Not only when you see the gigantic procession of festival migrants with plastic pop-up tents passing by. Also when artists address a societal injustice while announcing their new single, you suddenly become (painfully) aware of how absurd it is to make an awkward attempt to clap along for social justice with a beer in your hand.
What applies to us as visitors, applies even more to the people organizing a festival. They have to deal with the question of whether it is truly the most meaningful thing to do in this time for an entire year. In the case of Into The Great Wide Open we see this struggle clearly reflected, for example in the ambition to become a circular and climate-positive festival and in the attention to promoting and adhering to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But this human concern and the question of what a cultural festival could contribute in other ways was also expressed this year in a different manner. Under the banner 'Tribunals are coming', two hearings were organized, including a judge (with a gavel) and a portrait of the king. The goal: to motivate the festival audience towards active citizenship. I was there as the clerk, on behalf of you all. Below you can read my report. Please judge for yourself.
Right to protest
It is Saturday morning when the first session takes place. The morning sun filters through the trees in patches, the chirping of the birds mingles with the smell of coffee and pancakes, and on a large banner, the now-famous tribunal threat is displayed. Program maker and discussion leader Kees Foekema warmly welcomes the well-attended audience with the question of whether this carefree late summer festival bubble can be reconciled with what awaits us on the quay on Monday: leaders who disregard our civil rights. Other countries have shown that a democracy can abolish itself, so should we not prepare ourselves, arm ourselves? And how do we do that? How do we actively shape our citizenship? These are the questions for today and tomorrow, with a special focus today on the right to protest.
The presiding judge is Tamar de Waal, a legal philosopher at the Amsterdam Law School and a columnist at De Groene Amsterdammer. As is customary, everyone stands up when she enters the courtroom. ‘The right to protest is a negative right,’ Tamar teaches us. ‘That means it concerns something that the government must not do, namely intervene in a protest. The government must facilitate a protest. Therefore, it is not necessary to get permission for a protest, but a protest must be announced in advance. However, in the Netherlands, too many protests are banned, as the ombudsman recently concluded.’
And that is not the only concern Tamar has regarding the Constitution: ‘Our largest coalition party seems to have become milder, but the program still contains a radical point that is in conflict with the Constitution. After the elections, there was a sound that the PVV had to govern, because they simply won. That is a misconception. We actually have a coalition system to ensure that radical parties cannot come to power just through an electoral victory. Coalitions must safeguard the Constitution. Recognizing the Constitution is not left or right; it is the shared ground from which we start. Only then can politics begin. So, in a way, we are actually acting very conservatively today.’
Online citizenship
One of the two guests with whom this morning's discussion about the right to protest is being held is Nugah Shrestha, the person behind the Instagram account Political Youth. Nugah explains how he felt compelled to ask what his citizenship means as a non-Western migrant of color due to the rise of politicians like Wilders and Trump. Through his account, he aims to motivate young people to think about politics and to speak out.
Especially the latter, according to him, happens too little: 'I think many debates are not held due to discomfort. Especially in this time, it is important to speak out. With my account, I hope to contribute to that. The reach online is enormous. Companies pay millions to influencers and my account has also received a shadowban
for a reason. Of course, the question is whether that reach actually leads to physical change, but you could ask the same about an evening in a debate center.'
It is the question that is central today: what does real change look like? 'I believe in small changes,' says Nugah. 'In having a one-on-one conversation with someone outside your bubble, in your sports team or in your family. I think the problem of the left is that it lacks the confidence to have these conversations. Someone once told me that you shouldn't have hope, but that it is much more important to know where you stand. I miss that on the left.'
‘In the Netherlands, we know a television discussion culture of for and against. We have conversations based on opposites instead of searching for a solution together. We want sensation. Online, it is even worse. We need to think about how we are going to organize the internet as a public space and how we should regulate it. In this, we are currently too dependent on the large tech companies. I think that, for example, a requirement for identification and the ban on anonymous accounts could be a good solution for many hate and fake news problems.’ ‘In the Netherlands, yes,’ Tamar adds, ‘but in other countries, it is very important to be able to express yourself anonymously online.’
Civil disobedience
Ok, Carolina Trujillo is a guest this morning. Carolina is a writer, columnist for NRC Handelsblad, and (animal rights) activist. ‘Who here is against animal suffering?’, she asks almost immediately to the ITGWO audience, to which all hands go up. ‘And who here is actually vegan?’ Only five hands remain. ‘There you have it. You are not living by your values!’ It leads to a lot of discomfort. ‘And vegetarian then? Organic?’, is heard from the audience. ‘It all goes to the same slaughterhouse! We are kept in the dark about the products we buy. Therefore: Don’t look away! Know what you’re paying for!’
Nugah mentions what is currently happening as the kind of discomfort he spoke about earlier. But this incident shows that this discomfort does not just start outside your own bubble. Within the festival bubble and our bubbles at home, there’s plenty to confront each other about. Carolina is punk, someone who knows what she stands for and is not afraid to hit us in the face with our own laziness and hypocrisy. It’s impossible to remain deaf to that. And after these words, it can only be that next year the entire food offering of ITGWO will be vegan.
Right to protest? As far as Carolina is concerned, we need to tackle it much more aggressively. When she is asked where she draws hope from as an activist, she answers by saying she has no hope at all. ‘We are too focused on hope, peacefulness, you name it. We need to dare much more, like the farmers for example. Our protests are too polite, too much within the lines. Even Extinction Rebellion – sweet as pie! If you really find climate a big problem, what are you doing!’
Again there’s a lot of awkward shuffling. ‘So what should we do then?’, is heard. ‘Every protest movement has a radical wing that pushes the boundaries. Martin Luther King had Malcolm X, for example.’ ‘So violence?’ someone calls out. ‘I can’t say that here’, Carolina replies with a sidelong glance at Judge Tamar – only to then mention a number of examples of that. And even our judge on duty has to admit that Rosa Parks did not register her protest in a polite manner. With that, Carolina immediately brought the ‘theory of the radical wing’ into practice: extremes are necessary to push the center to shift.
Initiate the conversation
Finally, the audience is also allowed to think about solutions, but first Tamar is asked whether progressive leftists rely too much on the Constitution. According to Kees, there is a tendency where it is thought: let them try, those radical ideas will get knocked down by the courts. Tamar argues that this is a dangerous misconception: 'If we think that judges will solve it, democracy will be gone. The testing against the Constitution is done by politicians in the First and Second Chambers. The most important thing is that anti-constitutional parties stay as far away from power as possible.'
A solution from the audience suggests engaging in conversations outside the bubble. The extreme right is not the danger itself, but a reaction to ten years of neoliberal policy from the VVD, as Nugah previously stated. 'But how then?', someone else interjects. 'In those conversations, so many untruths come up that it’s almost as if you don’t share the same reality.' 'Equally valuable, not equally real,' Kees calls it. Nugah agrees with Carolina: 'We are too civilized. We need to break bubbles and not always want to be nice and cozy.'
Tamar also talks about the way of conversing with each other. For a good conversation, both online and offline, good information is important, but it’s not only about reasonable arguments. 'We don’t need to meticulously refute every argument. It’s also about a bigger story that we tell, about an energy that we radiate, a positivity. Don’t we all want a nicer life? And don’t happy animals belong to that too?' It is the kind of politics that Kamala Harris is currently practicing in the US and is called 'politics of joy': no endless technocratic debates about the Constitution, no ‘sour left’, but ‘Join the fight to save democracy–and let’s have some fun while we do it.'
The final word is for someone from the audience, who, with the energy Tamar spoke about and inspired by Carolina, calls on everyone to ‘know what the boundaries are and then stretch them’. He concludes with a call to come to the A12 on September 14.
Right to health
The next morning, a large number of festival visitors gathered again in the 'rechtsduinpan' of ITGWO. While yesterday the negative right to protest was central, today a positive right is being discussed, namely the right to health. Article 22 of the Constitution states that the government has an obligation to take measures to promote public health, Tamar explains. But how well do we actually know that Constitution?
Tamar calls for active rule of law citizenship: 'It's important that we become more aware of our rights. Compared to other countries, we Dutch know much less about our own Constitution. But the government has certain social obligations, such as housing for example. Now it is made to seem as if the importance of that is a political agenda item, but it is a duty of the government irrespective of political color. The same applies to the right to health.'
To talk about that right, Bénédicte Ficq and Teun van de Keuken are present today. Bénédicte is a Dutch lawyer and is introduced as 'The terror of Tata Steel'. Teun is a journalist, writer, podcaster, and program maker, and recently published the book Man is a Factory Chicken. Bénédicte adds to Tamar's point by saying that despite the fact that in this case it concerns a less concrete right, the legislation does provide sufficient possibilities: 'Criminal law can be a way to do something against indifferent shitty companies like Tata Steel.'
‘Those who live next to a farmer who uses pesticides on his land can do more than we usually think,’ continues Bénédicte. ‘If I have to breathe in toxic substances every day, then I can appeal against that. I have the right to health. But before that, we must ask ourselves whose public domain it actually is.’
Bénédicte concludes that there are often conflicting interests at play. ‘A company like Schiphol has absolute disregard for our health and only wants to grow, even if it comes at the expense of our livability. At the same time, the government is part of that club. How on earth can that be reconciled? That is the discussion we need to have. The government should not be a shareholder in a polluting company!’
Teun sees a task for us in that as well. According to him, we have begun to see the government too much as something external, instead of our representatives. ‘We experience politics as consumers. Every four years we order a new cabinet, and then we complain that our “iPhone” doesn’t do what we want. We need to actively engage in our citizenship. We are the citizens. The government must do what we want.’
‘Take the carbon footprint. That was conceived by a well-paid campaign agency commissioned by BP to divert the entire discussion around fossil fuels from the responsibility of the industry to the responsibility of the individual citizen. We need a government that stands up against these kinds of big companies that disregard us.’
Conflict of interest
But that is precisely the problem according to Bénédicte: 'The government is in the pocket of the industries. Just look at the tobacco and gambling industries. Tackling this will always be countered by pointing out how much it will cost us. But if we link the discussions about climate and public health to the short term, we will always lose. We need to depoliticize these themes.'
Tamar points out that such matters are never hopeless from the outset. Take, for example, the Urgenda case. 'Law is an argumentative practice and that offers possibilities.' Bénédicte enthusiastically adds: 'It’s about language, about how things are framed and how we look at things differently because of that. Language is the instrument of change. It can be used through the law, but it is equally the instrument of the poet, the writer, and the artist.'
Teun does, however, note the remark that was made yesterday. Is it not a sign of weakness to solve everything through the courts? ‘Where are we in all of this? The left is so weak, we’re all just passively waiting.’ Bénédicte does not completely agree with this: ‘That left-right distinction is dangerous. These problems are too big to be solved from a bubble.’ Teun agrees: ‘What matters is that there are companies that only care about making a profit, but profit is not the only value, and we all need to speak out more about this.’
‘If people truly realize what kind of turning point we are at,’ Bénédicte states, ‘if we truly realize that everything we have always taken for granted will no longer be there soon, such as clean drinking water, if we truly realize that the big companies are destroying everything that is necessary, then everyone will stand up.’
Ethics
A man at the interruption microphone explains that as a citizenship teacher he teaches his students the classical ways of exerting political influence, but also observes that none of his students would quickly write a letter. What ways of exerting influence are there for this new generation? Bénédicte places her hope in 'climate influencers', on TikTok and podcasts. She asks him if Teun is already on TikTok. 'No,' he replies. 'My children find that embarrassing.' 'But you have written a book, you have a social duty!'
In that book, Teun advocates for free school lunches, linked to education about nutrition. 'We stubbornly hold on to our idea of free choice, but unhealthy food is made so incredibly tempting by ingredients and advertising. Children can go to the local supermarket during their break where the frikandel rolls and cans of energy drinks are already waiting for them. That choice should be taken away from them, for example by offering a school lunch. Then everyone has something to eat, everyone eats healthily, and they stay in school. In these ways, we can also think about societal changes. We can sit down on the A12 – Bénédicte and I have also done that – but you can also offer free school lunches.'
Even today, the oh-so-important question of what we can actually do is being discussed. And even today, it proves to be difficult again. Teun: 'Government, get involved. More paternalism!' Tamar: 'The whole culture needs to change.' Bénédicte: 'Everyone needs to take a step in their own behavioral change.' Someone from the audience expresses it as a question of ethics: 'We need to return to an ethics where we do something based on conviction; that we don’t do something for the result but simply because it is good and important.'
That is also the point that Tamar addresses in her closing speech. 'Teun raised the question of where we as citizens are. We have started to behave too much as consumers. We had too much trust in democracy, too much trust in science, in technology, and in market mechanisms. But where is the ethics? What are the principles? Whose is the public domain? What kind of world do we want to live in? Those are the questions. We need to think about this as citizens, inform ourselves, and speak out about it. There is not one solution, one way, we need all ways, all channels, all forms. We all need to engage.'
Final verdict
Just like yesterday, the last word is given to someone from the audience. This time a student, who says he always gets a frikandelbroodje and a can of energy drink during his break. He raises the question of how students like him can be motivated to choose a sandwich with eggplant instead of a donut. What does he think himself? ‘Remove the donuts.’
With the subsequent applause from the ITGWO audience, the session has come to an end, and Kees concludes this morning with the slogan that has inspired so much social change: ‘Be realistic, demand the impossible.’
This has proven to be an unrealistic idea: a strong substantive program about active constitutional citizenship on the early morning of a multi-day festival. The fact that ITGWO organizes this shows the kind of citizenship that has always been discussed. No matter what profession you have, you are also always a citizen of the society in which you practice that profession. Business or commercial interests never exist on their own. You cannot limit yourself to that. And that surprises me the most about the so-called bad guys that have been mentioned here: it is also their democracy that they undermine, also their environment that they ruin, also their world that could be such a much nicer and more enjoyable place – for everyone.
We’ll get them. With fewer donuts, and more of this.
Roel Meijvis
