why the peasant protest became an international symbol of the far right

Donald Trump expressed his support, as did Marine Le Pen, Trump’s former adviser Michael Flynn and a group of Canadian protesters – all in one weekend. How the Dutch farmers became an international symbol for the struggle against the international elite.

Haro Kraak and Loes ReijmerJuly 27, 202205:00

They came to support the farmers, our farmers. From 5,000 miles away.

A procession of vehicles and pedestrians rolled through the streets of Canada’s capital Ottawa on Saturday afternoon, stopping in front of the Dutch embassy building. Dozens of protesters carried Dutch and Canadian flags upside down and banners with well-known slogans such as ‘No farmers no food’. By the end of the day, 103 parking tickets had been issued, 12 cars towed and one person arrested.

One of the protesters was wearing clogs. ‘I am here to support my family in Holland, who are also farmers,’ said Joyce Rombouts from the village of Arnprior against the newspaper Ottawa Citizen. She previously protested during the Freedom Convoy trucker blockade in the spring. Rombouts had just lost her job at a consultancy because she had not been vaccinated. “We have to fight for our freedom here in Canada and for farmers around the world.”

That same day, Michael Flynn, the former general who was briefly the security adviser to then President Trump, spoke on Dam Square in Amsterdam. in a video to the Dutch protesters. ‘Today’, he said, ‘we are all Dutch farmers.’ Marine Le Pen, leader of Rassemblement National, also expressed her support on Saturday.

A day later it was Trump himself during a speech to conservative youth in the US state of Florida stated that Dutch farmers ‘fight bravely against their government’s climate tyranny’. “They want to take your cattle!” he said menacingly. “And it’s your turn next.”

cross pollination

Remarkable statements of support for Dutch farmers, all in one weekend. There is a cross-pollination going on between apparently unrelated protest movements. That could be seen on Dam Square on Saturday, where a colorful mix of demonstrators protested against the nitrogen measures, vaccines and the media – among others. But it is also a global movement, as the examples above illustrate. How is it possible that a national issue such as the nitrogen crisis and the resistance against it is picked up internationally? And why are the Dutch farmers such an irresistible symbol for the international struggle against the elite?

On July 6, a day after the police aimed at the tractor of 16-year-old farmer’s son Jouke Hospes, Briton Lewis Brackpool lands at Schiphol. In a video to his 24,000 followers on Twitter, he says he’s coming to cover the farmers’ protests for Rebel News, a news channel that “the other side‘ brings. He wants to pay for his trip through crowdfunding. He explains that the Dutch government wants to reduce nitrogen emissions ’40 percent by 2030’.

A bad sign, according to him, because that is also the year of the 2030 Agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF), with which Prime Minister Mark Rutte also has ties (in reality, this is the name for the sustainable goals of the United Nations). It is therefore no surprise, says Brackpool, that the WEF is once again ‘up to no good is‘. This is not a local issue, he said. “This is going to affect a lot of countries. Because the Netherlands is a major exporter of food worldwide. In short, it’s hard not to see that all this was conceived from above.’

Canadian protesters support Dutch farmers in front of the Dutch embassy in Ottawa.Image REUTERS

His short video contains almost the whole story that he and many others keep repeating: the nitrogen crisis in the Netherlands fits right into the ‘globalist’ agenda of the World Economic Forum and is designed to keep the population under control. In reality, the WEF has nothing to do with nitrogen policy in the Netherlands. It is primarily an annual conference in Davos where the rich and (former) politicians come together to talk and network.

‘The Great Reset’

A few days later, on July 8, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, former FvD member, appears with a farmer’s handkerchief tied around her neck. on a Tucker Carlson broadcast on Fox News, one of the most watched news programs in the US. She talks about a ‘made-up nitrogen crisis’. According to her, the farmers stand in the way of the plans of ‘The Great Reset’. There is only one term for Mark Rutte’s policy, she says, ‘and that is communism.’

There is a large, global interconnectedness between far-right politicians, influencers and opinion makers who have a common aversion to mainstream media and do everything they can to stir up a culture war in as many countries as possible. A recurring element in this is the conspiracy theory of a globalist elite that wants to undermine and control the population, including through climate policy.

To combat this conspiracy, these figures seek each other out all over the world and emphasize that this fight must be fought on the world stage. Little is as globalist as the struggle against the globalists. ‘We are connecting’, wrote FvD leader Thierry Baudet on Twitter on Monday. “And we’re going to beat you.”

More vloggers, influencers and journalists from the alternative right and conspiracy corner are coming to the Netherlands. Figures like Katie Daviscourt (100,000 followers) who calls herself The Post Millennial and Keean Bexte (200 thousand followers) of the channel The Counter Signal, who talks about the ‘left-wing government of Mark Rutte’.

Also Michael Yon, who is a correspondent for the podcast War Room of former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, flies to the Netherlands on 3 July. In the podcast he says“This is not about climate change, this is about totalitarian control. A complete takeover.’ Bannon describes the protests as: ‘Their struggle is against Davos, against Brussels, against the EU. It is a universal struggle that will take place everywhere and has already spread to Italy and now extends to the rest of Europe.’

Protest of action group Netherlands in Resistance in Amsterdam.  Image ANP

Protest of action group Netherlands in Resistance in Amsterdam.Image ANP

in weather a new podcast asks Bannon from Yon how can the peasants, who are normally such decent, patriotic, hardworking citizens, revolt against their king? Yon says that King Willem-Alexander, who actually has nothing to do with nitrogen policy, is on the lead of Klaus Schwab, the boss of the WEF. The goal, according to Yon, is to paralyze the global food supply, just like the energy market. ‘The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world. It’s the perfect target.’

The little man who gets peeped

The farmers are the ideal symbol for this international movement. Populism is at its core about the struggle between the elite and an idealized people. Those people would be noble, hardworking and increasingly unheard of. For the radical right, the peasants represent the little man who is being squealed by power and is now finally revolting.

In a fragment about the peasant protests that has been viewed almost three million times on YouTube, a commentator on right-wing Sky News Australia says that “the global elite, especially the left, claim to stand up for the working class, but it’s obvious they don’t.” And: ‘That downright contemptuous attitude towards the middle and working class has now turned into hatred.’

“In the eyes of the populist radical right, governments in liberal democracies are not concerned with the everyday, basic and important needs of ‘the people,'” said Bàrbara Molas, a Canadian researcher and co-author of two books on the radical right, who after the summer will begin at The International Center for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague. “They would be concerned with policies that have been agreed between governments rather than with the wishes of citizens. The radical right tries to portray democracy as undemocratic. Only ‘the people’ would know what true democracy is.

Video message from Michael Flynn at protest in Amsterdam.  Image ANP / Sandra Uittenbogaart

Video message from Michael Flynn at protest in Amsterdam.Image ANP / Sandra Uittenbogaart

Preserving the soil

In that ideal democracy, individual freedom takes precedence over everything else, the right to do what you want comes before the common good.’ See, for example, the opposition to the corona measures by this group, or now against the nitrogen measures.

There is another factor that makes farmers an ideal symbol: they fight to preserve their land. And that ground plays a role within nativism, an important part of the ideology of the radical right. Nativism is the xenophobic variant of nationalism, the belief that a nation is founded on a pure people. This people is historically tied to a certain area and is threatened by outside influences, such as immigrants.

“These farmers have been there for thousands of years,” Steve Bannon said in his podcast. His reporter Yon: ‘The Frisian farmers, the old Vikings, they are the beating heart of that country. To deprive them of their land is an attack on culture.’

This is also the idea that FvD MP Thierry Baudet spreads. There is a deeper, spiritual bond between the farmers and their land, suggested he in early July The Epoch Timesa popular site operated by The New York Times was called a ‘disinformation machine’. ‘They are proud family people who run their own business, live off their land, who feel a strong connection to the history and nature of this country. Therefore they are a direct threat to the post-territorial, post-identity agenda of the globalists.’

The traditional way of life

“The idea is that there is a conspiracy against the people and the traditional way of life,” Molas says. “That gives the radical right an opening to start with the purity of the nation, the nativist idea that Europe’s white population should be protected from governments that promote integration and multiculturalism.”

“They do this because they want to use the farmers’ land to house immigrants,” Eva Vlaardingerbroek told Tucker Carlson, applying the overpopulation theory to this issue. On GBNews, the British version of Fox News, a presenter asked the same Vlaardingerbroek how it is that ‘these incompetent governments’ take land from farmers to build houses ‘for uneducated immigrants who import western countries on an industrial scale’.

The Dutch had an answer to that. “Of course Bill Gates is involved,” she said. This is the guy who wants us to eat his ‘Beyond Burger’, his other fake synthetic meats and of course his bugs. This is the future these people have in mind for us. If you control the food supply, you have control over the people.’

“And you never know how manipulated these insects are and what wonderful vaccines he’s put in those tiny, attractive insects,” said the host, bringing seemingly disparate issues together.

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