<m2m-nl> Help Irakees verzet in Ter Apel

[Jo van der Spek M2M]

 beste mensen,
hieronder voor de afwisseling een column in het Engels, om internationaal 
aandacht te vragen voor de kampeeractie van papierloze migrantenn bij het 
uitzetcentrum in Ter Apel. Het is alweer de derde actie, na de eerste twee 
succesvolle kampen van Somaliers afgelopen winter. Nu is het weer en de 
politiek veranderd en is er kans op grotere winst: een ommekeer door de 
zelforganisatie en de strijd van de vluchtelingen op straat.

M2M helpt graag mee door ze beltegoed te geven, door hun actie breder bekend 
te maken en door jullie op te roepen ook iets te doen.Je kunt bijvoorbeeld 
een spandoek maken of een vertaling als je daar zin in hebt. Kamperen in Ter 
Apel of bij je eigen vreemdelingenpolutie kan natuurlijk ook.

M2M supports migrants in struggle by providing means to communicate. You can 
help by donating 10 Euro for telephone credit on account 390271918



On the 8th of May the refugees-on-the-street again started a camp outside 
the Collective Center at Ter Apel in the north of the Netherlands These 
migrants are supposed to return voluntarily to their country, because the 
Dutch government believes that they are not in danger there. However the 
government in Iraq refuses to take them back if they are forced. So they 
have nowhere to go to, no right to be here and no way to go there. But they 
act together for a chance to live and live better than before.

Finally it is not the USA that invades The Hague, in order to prevent the 
application of international justice to American citizens- soldiers. No, 
it's Iraqi citizen-migrants occupying common ground in the north of the 
Netherlands in an effort to force a radical change in the application of 
human justice to migrants that are so far denied acces and basic rights.
This act of occupation by a fast growing number of mainly Iraqi 
refugees-on-the-street is well timed and also well suited to create an 
uplifting  experience amidst the general lethargy that still covers Holland 
like  a blanket of mental smog.

Like so many times before in history an external agent, through an 
unexpected and autonomous action, is now intervening in the Dutch  political 
landscape, at a moment that everyday political life is in a highly unstable 
state: no government, a parliament trying to gain legitimacy and a queen 
dying to hand over sovereignty to her son. The direct cause for this current 
limbo lies in  the response to the economic recession and the European 
conditions  forcing even a rich country like Holland to take extreme 
measures of austerity. However, the cornerstone of change, the hinge on 
which the minds and hearts of a significant section of youth and mindful 
adults may move, is the approach towards migrants and world affairs in 
general. Poverty is moving in and migrants are dying on the shores of 
Europe. Soon we will be drifting  together if we don't take drastic action.

We now see the face of globalization reflected in the mirror that Brussels 
and Ter Apel are holding up for us to see. We see Geert Wilders as just 
another make-over of Batman, unmasking himself as just another copy cat of 
Pim Fortuyn, only adding to the pitiful frustration of the merciless masses 
voting for him, proving once again time for messiah is over. One man will 
not make the difference. Ask Obama.

Finally the Joker hits back. After two exercises last winter led by Somali 
brothers and sisters camping in the cold outside the deportation  complex of 
Ter Apel, now the weather is fine and time is ripe for the  real thing. 
These poor asylum seekers, strangled by foreign police  and immigration 
service IND, mentally broken by the thousands in administrative detention, 
suffocated by laws and lawyers, made  dependant on charity and church, are 
finally showing who they really are: human! They can really move! They are 
not victims but actors!

They can be tourists like you and me!

So let us not help the occupiers in Ter Apel. Let us not support them, don't 
give them tents, blankets or telephone credit. Do not bring your redundant 
laptops, I-pads or even worn-out  army boots and leather jackets to their 
field of honour. No, embrace their exemplary autonomous action, join Ali 
Aziz and Hadi Abu Sanad like in the 16th century we embraced the House of 
Orange, invading the Dutch swamps at nearby Heiligerlee. Temperature is 
rising, parliamentary politics is exhausted, corporate business is selling 
out to China's communists and Mexican coke dealers.
We got to save ourselves.
We are  here, we the people, we make the difference, we have no borders to 
cross, we have no cross other than our own indulging in apathy. Let's throw 
it off and start the summer. Leave your squat and camp out. Send your 
children abroad after the exams and restore disorder at home.
Forget your mortgage, bury your debts and love your neighbour.
Let migrants invade this place and help us chase away the ghosts of 
Rawagade, Srebrenica, the Schiphol Fire and most of all the mist of mental 
misery hanging over us.



Jo van der Spek

http://m2m.streamtime.org