The Image Makers section examines how a photo determines our view of reality. This week: a protest in Albergen against the arrival of asylum seekers.
We do it for the kids. Demonstrate for a better climate. Against the war in Ukraine. Before freedom. Against racism and homophobia. Before the arrival of asylum seekers. Against the arrival of asylum seekers. We do it for the kids, at least, often we do. Then we say: we want to leave the world a better place for them.
We also do it with the children. They sit on our shoulders, or they walk with us with a self-painted cardboard protest sign in hand. They like what we think – because we told them so. Sometimes the guiding hand of the parent is too emphatic, such as last summer during a demonstration against the corona emergency law. There was a child with a paper Star of David on his Minecraft shirt, with the text ‘unvaccinated’ on it.
Guiding hand is still putting it mildly here. Consciously being dragged into an evil narrative – if I don’t get vaccinated, I’m basically just as locked out as the Jews just before and during World War II – is more towards it.
I’m not going to argue that handing children an inverted Dutch flag, as in the photo above, is the same as pinning a paper Star of David. That is of a completely different order. In fact, depending on your beliefs, it is comparable to taking young children to a climate demonstration, or having them shout slogans against Putin.
It’s more that this photo raises a question: where does ‘we’re doing it for the kids’ change in using kids to make your own point, because we all know it’s more effective?
Albergen
This image comes from Albergen, the village that was attacked on Tuesday August 16 by the news that three hundred asylum seekers would be housed in hotel ‘t Elshuys. State Secretary Eric van der Burg of Asylum and Migration had no choice but to force municipalities to provide shelter.
Immediately the protests started. A sign was carried around with the words: ‘With 300 asylum seekers of color, rape, robbery and terror soon in Albergen’. Neighborhood children chanted ‘Azc, no, no, no!’ and contributed a cheerful sign, each letter of the sentence in a different color.
RTL News asked child psychologist Tischa Neve for a response. According to her, children are naturally very empathetic. When an asylum seekers center arrives, they will first think of people who have had to flee and therefore need help. “You can talk to children and think about bigger issues, look at all sides together and form an opinion, but that didn’t seem to happen here.”
Photographer Dennis Nengerman was in Albergen all week. On Saturday afternoon, August 21, at the end of a silent journey, he took this photo. On it are a few residents, they listen to Hennie de Haan, spokesperson for the residents of the hotel, who thanks them for their participation.
Reverse Flag
They all carry the blue-white-red flag that first appeared at corona demonstrations, has become part of the farmers’ protest, and now also with asylum protests. The inverted flag, used in shipping in earlier centuries to give a distress signal, has become a symbol of all the resistance to government policy.
Just like the slogan ‘It doesn’t make sense’, by the way, printed on the cotton bag of the woman at the front left. The sender of that text is Michel Reijinga’s organization Nederland in Verzet, which also organized the large demonstrations against the corona measures on Amsterdam’s Museumplein.
Photographer Nengerman had found the tone of the protests “rather racist” at the beginning of the week, but that was not the case this Saturday, he says. He mainly sees despondency on people’s faces. ‘The silent journey was so quiet, it gave me goosebumps.’
Finally, look at the girl in the front right, taken by her parents. It is ready for her, on this hot day. The photo is taken, she rolls up her flag. She wants to play, not be preoccupied with the fears and worries of the adults. Coincidence or not: her T-shirt reads ‘Aloha’, a greeting from Hawaii who can express love, compassion, peace, among other things.