Rinze Visser has little difficulty analyzing the situation in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Soviet Socialist Union no longer exists, Russian capital is fighting with Westerners, and once again human lives are being sacrificed for the interests and profits of capital.
All foreign troops out of Ukraine, and the Netherlands out of NATO!
Anyway, that’s not what Rinze Visser (83) is about, even though he is the longest-serving councilor in the Netherlands. In 1970 he became a member of the city council of Lemsterland, which has since been merged into the municipality of Fryske Marren. Rinze Visser went along.
Rinze Visser is also one of the last communist representatives of the country. He is the only councilor of the New Communist Party (NCPN). The secessionists of the NCPN, who continued under the name United Communist Party (VCP), still have four councilors in the municipality of Oldambt, in Groningen.
Visser does not falter. In the municipal elections of March 16, he is again the leader of the NCPN and will run for a new four-year term. He now has a problem with one eye, but otherwise he is perfectly healthy. It is almost certain that Rinze Visser will be re-elected.
Rinze Visser lives in Lemmer, in the south of Friesland. He is a Lemster pur sang. He is an icon in the former fishing village, everyone knows Rinze Visser. In his hometown, the NCPN became the largest party in 2018. Most of his voters do not vote for the NCPN, but for Rinze Visser, a socially committed person who is always ready to help his fellow citizens, especially with problems with the government and its agencies. In Lemmer you can always go to Rinze. That was the case in 1970, it is still the case today. They call him or they ring his doorbell and Rinze never says no.
In the late 1950s he joined the CPN. His father was a member of the party and at home they read The truthwhich he diligently searched. ‘At first I was too young to understand, but you have to remember what you understand. That way you will slowly but surely progress.’ He was allowed to go to the ULO when most working-class children in Lemmer went straight to work after primary school. He worked in an office for a year and a half, ‘but I thought: this is not my place.’
Visser sailed on ‘a barge’ at the Zuiderzee Works, spent some time on the North Sea as a ‘fisherman’. Some employers did not like the communist, who never denied his principles. In 1970 Visser came in number two on the list for the municipal elections – the start of a long political career.
He experienced the end of the CPN in 1990, which to his great regret merged with GroenLinks. In 1994, as national party leader for the NCPN, he obtained more than eleven thousand votes in the parliamentary elections – far too few for a seat.
Sometimes he wonders why people would still vote left. ‘We, the communists, have also abandoned the people. We have given up our party. People vote for parties that open their mouths. The communists used to do that.’ Rinze Visser still does that, but his influence is limited.
His political vision is classically communist: under the capitalist system, many of today’s problems will not be solved. “Individualism is the religion of capitalism, and capital is God. The government is the Central Committee of capitalism. It’s a matter of power, money is power.’ Power must come from the people, ‘we must not dwell in godparents (conversations, ed.) of intellectuals. Something has to change from below, then something changes up there too.’
Visser has no enemies, only opponents, he says. He can also cooperate with the VVD if necessary. Only when they say he raises things for his own glory does he get angry.
Romanticism has somewhat disappeared from life and politics, says Visser. Municipalities have grown, communication with citizens has become increasingly digitized, people are almost literally no longer heard. And then Visser has to get to work: he sometimes has to hold back so as not to pull such an arrogant official over the table. They are bullies sometimes.
Don’t ask him when he plans to stop. “The Queen of England is 95 and she has been doing it for 70 years. So skip that question.’
If he has a secret, this is it: “Success is beautiful, but you must also be driven by disappointments.”