Before the start of the ‘peace march’, the first white-red flag is attached to a lamppost in the parking lot next to the Hoogvliet supermarket in Nieuw-Lekkerland. Some attendees clap to mark the moment.
“Oh look: the Japanese flag,” shouts an elderly passer-by.
It’s a tease. Because the thirty residents who have gathered in the heart of Nieuw-Lekkerland only want to show love. The homemade flags that they will hang every hundred meters this Saturday afternoon, along the long Planetenlaan, are white with a shiny red heart in the middle.
“We have to be nice to each other. That’s what it’s all about,” says Suzie Klapwijk (33). The kindergarten teacher from the village, about thirty kilometers southeast of Rotterdam, took the initiative for this manifestation. She is the concerned mother of a toddler. Klapwijk would like her daughter to “grow up in a village where people still look out for each other.” Just like it was in her youth in the Alblasserwaard. “A close-knit community, where people help their neighbors.”
In a message on the neighborhood app for the “dear Lekkerlanders”, Klapwijk wrote this week that he was shocked “by the division and sometimes aggressive statements” caused by the possible arrival of an asylum seeker center for about 75 to 125 people. The action group ‘Nieuw-Lekkerland says No!’ entered the village on Wednesday evening with dozens of people and an aerial platform. Nowadays a total of more than two hundred red, white and blue flags fly in almost all streets, sometimes with texts such as ‘azc away with it’ on lampposts.
Bus shelters defaced with swastikas
The village has almost 9,000 inhabitants and eight Protestant churches. The town is part of the municipality of Molenlanden where the majority of the seats in the municipal council (16 out of 27) are held by the SGP, ChristenUnie and CDA. On local news sites, residents discuss what the Bible requires. Is it important to show charity or do these times require resistance against Muslims to protect Christianity?
Residents are calling out online a petition politicians in themselves against housing asylum seekers. The pamphlet was signed by more than 9,000 people on Saturday evening. Street furniture was attacked with spray cans this week. Bus shelters were defaced with swastikas. Suzie Klapwijk was even treated aggressively by fellow villagers this week when she tried to remove racist graffiti with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge, she says. This Saturday she said she was moved by the many expressions of support she also received. “My phone almost exploded yesterday from all the apps.”
Anja Noorlander (53) is walking in the peace march. She is one of the few who dares to give her opinion by name. Noorlander lives in a mill in nearby Kinderdijk. She takes support for an asylum seekers’ center for granted. “If I have to flee for whatever reason, I also hope that I will be welcome somewhere else.”
A participant holds heart-shaped stickers that read “LOVE OVER HATE.”
Hedayatullah Amid / NRC
At the corner of Roerdomp and Zomertalingstraat, the parade passes two men who are busy hanging up the Dutch tricolor. A resident of the street complains about the action, or is it perhaps for the birthday princess Beatrix?
The man hanging the flag asks if he is a resident. According to this campaigner, only import people are indifferent about the arrival of foreigners. He doesn’t want to tell us his name. His buddy shows a backpack full of new flags. Purchased with the help of local lenders, he says. Before it gets dark, they have to hang.
Mayor is concerned
Due to his wife’s birthday, the mayor of Molenlanden, Theo Segers, did not attend the peace march. The 65-year-old talks in the office of his home in Giessenburg mayor later in the afternoon to worry about “the unrest and tensions” in his congregation.
Segers believes that receiving asylum seekers is unavoidable. “We want to show solidarity with the whole of the Netherlands and are morally obliged to accommodate people.” A day earlier, D66, VVD and CDA announced in their coalition agreement that the Distribution Act, which came into effect two years ago, will remain “in force for the time being”. This law aims to make asylum reception structurally fairer and more reliable by making all municipalities share the responsibility.
Anti-azc symbols and stickers are visible on a lamppost in Nieuw-Lekkerland.
Hedayatullah Amid / NRC
The mayor says that in practice there are never any problems. In the village of Bleskensgraaf in his municipality there is already an asylum center with 60 people. “That goes without any problems while they are in spaces where I say: ‘that could be more humane’,” says Segers. “But now we see strange groups announcing that they will demonstrate in Nieuw-Lekkerland on February 9: a Defense group, the Orange Front and Patriotism. I find that worrying.”
“The hearts of the people here are focused on care,” he says. According to him, this became apparent during the reception of 400 Ukrainians. This was often done by private individuals. “Some residents went to sleep in a caravan so that they could accommodate Ukrainians in their house,” says Segers. “The Bible says very emphatically that we must take care of our strangers, but I understand the fear of the unknown. People who say: mayor, I don’t know my own street.”
Segers has “hope” that things will “work out well” with the reception of asylum seekers. As long as “good conversations” are had so that concerns can be addressed. “Let us not be hijacked by the loudmouths. If we were to organize a referendum on shelter, my feeling is that the majority would be in favor.”
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