‘Trump drags us a war that nobody asked for’

The cardboard signs are still quickly made. “Hands of Iran“, It says.”No War in Iran.“On the grass of the Koekamp, ​​the park opposite The Hague CS where demonstrations are held more often, a group of demonstrators is still painting:”Stop the US War Machine. “

The demonstration this Sunday was directed against the NATO summit, which starts on Tuesday in The Hague. By this afternoon consistently called “the Trump standard”, the increase in defense expenditure to 3.5 percent of GDP, and another 1.5 percent to infrastructure. On Saturday, the organizing groups, including the new Peace Movement, Youth Organization Rood and the Political Party Bij1, already spoke extensively about what the alternative to NATO should be at their disappointment and justice.

But now, due to the attack on Sunday morning by the US, there is “even more urgency” to talk about disarmament, says Stevie Nolten, Utrecht councilor on behalf of BIJ1. On Saturday she had asked rhetorically “what our peace and safety are worth when others die”. On Sunday she says: “Trump drags us a war that nobody has asked for. Not here, not even in Iran.”

‘Women. Life. Freedom ‘

Various Iranian organizations and Iranians have joined the demonstration. It stands between Palestinian flags, the red flags of Dutch and Belgian Communists, the rainbow colors of Pacifists and LGBTIQ people, a single yellow umbrella from the Coronatijd, and young people with face covering and an anarchist flag, Behrouz Fadai. He tried to reach his family in Iran in the morning, but “the communication is very difficult.” “We hope that this war can stop very quickly, nobody knows which way it is going.”

When an Iranian of the Feminist Jina collectively climbs the stage, it sounds “Women. Life. Freedom”. That was the slogan that was called in 2023 in major demonstrations in Iran after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini after being arrested by the vice police. The speaker, anonymous for fear because of the threat of the Iranian regime, says that the Israeli and American attacks “brings to Iranians, while so often fought in isolation against repression of their regime.” She is talking about “a deadly proxy war that is being fought at the expense of ordinary Iranians.”

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“I feel fear,” says Kayleigh Hofstede of the revolutionary socialist party, a spin -off from the SP. “First of all for the population of Iran. It feels like the arms race between countries is really working. And then we as a country invite that man, Donald Trump. Isn’t that bizarre?”

It’s switching. A day earlier, in a co-workplace near Hollands Spoor station, it was not about Iran, occasionally about Ukraine, but especially about Gaza when it came to war-many of the young attendees wore a keffiyeh loosely around the shoulders. Peter Mertens of the Belgian Marxist PvdA, one of the main speakers, referred to the major demonstrations against Dutch cabinet policy: “I am not in the Netherlands of Mark Rutte, I am in the Netherlands of the 150,000 of the red line.”

Hindrance

At the challenge, most people present find that NATO budgets should go to other things than weapons. During a panel with young politicians about the Netherlands and NATO, Bastiaan Meijer (group employee SP) says that the organization must reform without the US to purely a safety organization. He says that in the city council of The Hague he felt ‘very lonely’ when he questioned the money that the city is committed to the edge programming surrounding NATO top.

Stevie Nolten from BIJ1 believes that “left and right in the Lower House are unquestionably in propaganda” for NATO, which she calls an “imperalistic power block” and “colonial continuation.”

And Maite van Lith, the 23-year-old chairman of Rood, believes that the army should return to the core: “Defense, so defense.” He is talking about a “sloping plane” when money is shifted from, for example, education or climate policy to Defense: “With that we only give power to the arms industry in the long term.”

The stage is supported by, among others, Harry van Bommel, former MP of the SP and now a member of the Party for the Animals. It has risen in the room. He says: “In the 1980s we had not come with a call like ‘Get rid of the army’ or ‘Get rid of NATO’. That was the norm. Now you can question REARM Europe.” That is the plan of the European Commission to handle the budget rules more flexibly so that it becomes easier for Member States to spend more money on Defense.

But a people in their 60s are also standing up in the hall and says impatient to Van Lith: “I was busy with cruise missiles when I was in your age. We have nothing to do with this nuance. We all die.”

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