After years of silent suffering and discontent, the mass-uprising against the power of landlords and the political policy that feeds the housing crisis has started during the previous year. But also in the new year, there are plenty of reasons to keep protesting, the financialization and precarization of the housing market will continue if it’s up to the new Rutte IV cabinet.
In 2021 mass protests against the housing crisis finally happened in Dutch cities all over the country. With the support of Het Actiefonds, there were large demonstrations organized in Amsterdam, Rotterdam & Den Haag, all with a big turnup, fighting spirit, and message of solidarity. But also in the new year, there are plenty of possibilities and reasons to keep protesting. In the plans of the new cabinet, there is no apparent radical change of policy that will solve the underlying problem, the financialization of the housing market. The slogan, ‘Housing for people, not profit’ hasn’t fully broken through in The Hague, since they keep pressing that the measures they want to imply cannot have too much of a negative effect on the profit margins of investors. Plenty of reasons to keep fighting for your right to proper housing and shake up local politicians before the coming municipal elections. An overview:
Woonrevolte Amersfoort got the ball rolling in the new year and organized the first housing protest, which we already have behind us. Hundreds of people showed up on the Eemplein in Amersfoort to demand a radically different housing policy. The demonstration asked attention to the nationwide problems but also showed solidarity with the local neighborhood of Jericho, which is marked for demolition and will be replaced with more expensive housing.
The next upcoming housing action is planned in student city Delft. Next to the fact that student housing has become increasingly expensive and scarce, the organization is focusing on the nationwide problems by copying the demands from the earlier published and broadly supported housing manifest. They are still looking for volunteers and donations, so are you available on the 6th of February, sign up!
Another student city, Leiden, is organizing its own radical housing demonstration and can count on the support of Het Actiefonds. The organization also signed the housing manifest but came up with 13 of their own additional demands that demand a radically just and equal housing policy in their city.
Het Actiefonds will keep supporting the housing movement in 2022 and calls out everyone to keep protesting and demanding a radically different housing policy! We’ll see you at the upcoming actions!
On a pedestal on one of the most important roads of Mexico City, a lonesome purple figure stands with her fist raised in the air. It has been there since last September, and has been dubbed the antimonument ‘Glory to the women who struggle’. The figure has come to symbolize the ongoing struggle for womxn liberation in Mexico, defiantly placed on top of the pedestal where a statue of Columbus used to oversee the capital.
The women’s liberation movement in Mexico is one of the most emblematic social justice movements of the country, despite ongoing attempts of local and federal officials to delegitimize the protests and to bar the issue from the public agenda. Feminicide is a big issue in the country: womxn are killed and are disappearing at an alarming rate, while the authorities stick their head in the sand.
The women’s rights movement will not let this issue be forgotten. Countless mothers are roaming the streets, looking for their disappeared daughters and sons everyday. This is why the movement has constructed a ‘garden of memory’ around the antimonument that showcases the lives of the womxn that struggled for equality in Mexico’s history, sometimes murdered in the process. They have also replaced the wooden with a steel replica, in order to signal that the struggle against feminicide will not simply wither away if you neglect it long enough. On the contrary, it will remain a central issue for Mexico’s present and future.
The Colectivo Socio-Ambiental Juvenil de Cajamarca (COSAJUCA) set out to defend the wildlife and agriculture of the region. They are organizing an awareness-raising festival to inform the local youth about AngloGold Ashanti’s en Green SuperFood’s plans. Their goal is to mobilize the youth to protest against the avocado farming in the region.
The avocado farms are paving the way for decades of gold mining.
The Amazon forest is under a constant threat of deforestation, mining, and oil extraction. Another constant is the ongoing fight by indigenous nations against this exploitation. Earlier this year we wrote about the Sápara nation that successfully fought the unrightful expropriation of their ancestral lands in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but new challenges arise. In this article, we give an overview of two new initiatives, with the support of Het Actiefonds, in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Yet again the Sápara nation has to fight against pollution and oil extraction on their ancestral grounds. The national government of Ecuador and the Chinese oil company Andes Petroleum recently signed a contract that enables the extraction of oil on 2 pieces of land that are part of the territory of the Sápara. The federation of the Sápara nation in Ecuador and Peru takes action to protect their land, which is considered intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. There will be a communal meeting within the 23 communities that make up the Sápara nation to reach a consensus about the actions against exploitation. As a result, there will be several protests marches, and sit-ins in the province of Pastaza and the city of Quito, with a broad community of indigenous nations involved. The goal of these actions will be the dissolution of the contract between the government and the Chinese oil company.
Next to the actions of the Sápara nation, the Sinangoe nation has a similar goal. Together with the FMIAE they start a campaign to claim the right to self-determination and an end to human rights violations that all indigenous nations in the Amazon forest have to endure. They advocate the introduction and execution of the constitutional right to free and informed consultation prior to plans of exploitation on their ancestral grounds, and the right to have a final executive say in these plans. Until the new legislation around prior consultation has been finalized, they want a complete stop to any new licenses for mining, oil extraction, or hydroelectric projects. To accomplish this goal, the Sinangoe nation, with the support of FMIAE, will organize several protests, gatherings, and sit-ins.
Het Actiefonds supports the actions of the Sápara and Sinangoe nations and will continue to do so until all indigenous nations have complete self-determination, protection, and autonomy over their territory. Indigenous nations are the most important link in the chain when it comes to the preservation of the Amazon forest and are therefore of global importance.
At the end of August 2021, the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology issued a ministerial regulation on the Prevention and Handling of Sexual Violence at Higher Education institutions. The Socialist Youth Organization (Organisasi Kaum Muda Sosialis-OKMS) considered that the Ministry’s Regulation, called regulation No. 30/2021, is progressive enough to prevent sexual violence on campus.
However, at the same time, the long-awaited Sexual Violence Eradication bill (the PKS Bill), which aims to protect women’s rights, has been on and off the table at the Parliament since 2012. Moreover, the PKS Bill was watered down before it was ratified. Under pressure from from religious conservative groups, the legislation removed any mention of ‘sexual consent’ from a bill supposed to eradicate sexual violence, because it might provide tacit approval of consensual extramarital sex. A
The Minitry’s Regulation No. 30/2021 risks following the same path as the PKS bill. Although various online campaigns and statements have supported the Ministry’s Regulation, a solid mass mobilisation in support of it is still lacking. The Socialist Youth Organization wants to connect the struggle to defend The Ministry’s Regulation No. 30/2021 with the PKS Bill with strategic poster campaigns and national demonstrations to bolster support for the the ratification of the PKS Bill.
Anarchists set up an ecological community based on mutual aid, permaculture and sustainable living on the outskirts of Davao. With a handful of people and the financial support of Het Actiefonds, the Feral Crust Land project aims to provide an educational space for ecological land management and sustainability.
To become independent from the centralized market economy and the state, the Feral Crust Land Project aims to fight injustice and oppression brought by colonisation. The members of the project are inspired by the struggle of their ancestors against colonialism and the ‘free’ market.
The participants of the project believe that so-called progress and democracy relied on hierarchy, accumulation of wealth, and the plundering of natural resources that will ultimately lead to the collapse of the living world.
This project hopes to inspire the formation of sustainable communities rooted in a specific landscape, from which a regenerative future and resilient culture might emerge and flourish.
Image by Bur Liz.
“Together we are working on our future”. The slogan of Shell’s latest greenwash campaign flaunts itself on every bus shelter and train station in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Shell is leaving the country to escape the verdict of the Urgenda climate case, and the fossil fuel company is irreparably disturbing marine life on the coast of South Africa in the hope of locating new drilling sites.
Searching for new drilling sites in 2022 while presenting yourself as a sustainable company is already hypocritical, but the way Shell goes about it is downright evil. The shocks that the Amazon Warrior, Shell’s exploration ship, is shooting into the South African coast are so gigantic that they threaten to permanently disrupt marine life. Yet, according to Shell, there is nothing to worry about: the company has obtained all the right permits, and marine life can really take a hit or two… or a million.
You don’t have to be a marine biologist or physicist to understand that Shell’s seismic shocks will be disastrous for marine life in South Africa. The coast is known as a transit location for many species, including whales: famously social animals that communicate and move through echolocation. Many studies have already shown that seismic shocks have a profound effect on the survival of these species. Some whale species fall silent, while others try to scream above the bangs. Mating rituals are disrupted by the constant blasting of the Amazone Warrior, and finding the way to the next resting place also proves to be a lot more difficult.
The way Shell operates is downright evil
Whales are by no means the only animals that can’t stand the seismic shocks. Fish and squid eggs from several species do not survive the bangs, putting pressure on the entire marine ecosystem. Some of these fish have long been endangered species, but Shell is blatantly flouting animal protection.
As if that weren’t enough, many fish species avoid the coast to stay away from the noise. David Russel, a Namibian-based fisheries consultant who has been following Shell’s operations for years, noted as early as 2012 how seismic shocks were driving fish away from the Namibian coast, causing serious economic damage to Namibia’s tuna fishery. Shell had not involved the fishermen in the decision-making process, just as the South African fishery did not learn of Shell’s plans until early November.
At the beginning of this month, a coalition of human rights and climate organizations therefore filed an emergency lawsuit against Shell in South Africa. However, the judge decided that the risk of permanent damage to the ecosystem was ‘at best speculative’, and that it would be especially harmful for Shell to suddenly have to cease its activities. A new hearing will take place on December 17, but given that the same judge will rule on the case, it looks like Shell will be able to continue undisturbed.
According to Shell, nothing is wrong: it has obtained all the right permits, and marine life should be able to withstand a bump or a million
In response to these unannounced shocks, Ocean Collective, in collaboration with Greenpeace, decided to give the Shell headquarters in The Hague a taste of their own medicine. With the help of Het Actiefonds, Ocean Collective blasted shock waves through the Shell headquarters in The Hague every ten seconds.
In addition, The Action Fund also supported the #MoveShell action of Shell Must Fall. This Dutch collective disrupted Shell’s last shareholders meeting in the Netherlands with a demonstration. Shell is in fact moving to Britain to avoid the Urgenda verdict, in order to continue destroying the planet without burden. But as Shell Must Fall’s banner puts it: “You can’t run and you can’t hide from climate justice”.
The Arabic Education Institute (AEI) organizes an urban exhibition in downtown Hebron, in order to let Palestinian women express the violence of the colonial Israeli occupation.
Since the 1970s, the Palestinian town of al-Khalil, known as Hebron, has become the blatant example of Israel’s colonization policy. A group of extremist Jews moved into the center of the city where they have since refused to leave. There are about 500 to 1000 settlers in the center, where about 40,000 Palestinians live. In addition, other Israeli settlements soon sprang up around the city, effectively sealing it off from the rest of the Jordan Bank.
What happened next, was the all too familiar cycle of dispossession. Under the pretext of protecting a few hundred civilians, the Israeli army sent thousands of soldiers to Hebron and divided the city into segregated zones. For Palestinians, this meant many checkpoints, random searches, detentions and arrests that continue to this day. To make matters worse, Israeli authorities responded to a series of attacks by Palestinians in 2015 with house evictions accompanied by construction projects, allowing more settlers to move to Hebron and slowly take over the city.
What happened next, was the all too familiar cycle of dispossession.
Since then, Hebron has been a symbol of the apartheid regime in the West Bank. Your ethnic background determines where, when and how much you can move around the city. There is no rule of law: as of 2015, the city has been declared a closed military zone. As a result, the army operates with impunity.
AEI, an NGO that accompanies Muslim and Christian pilgrims in al-Khalil, wants to draw attention to the colonial violence that Palestinian women have to endure under the occupation. With support from Het Actiefonds, the organization collects stories from women that they display on posters near checkpoints downtown. They take pictures of these stories and post them on social media, hoping that people around the world can read about what the women of al-Khalil are going through and thus put pressure on the Israeli government.
These women attest of the gender based violence committed under the name of security.
These women attest of the gender based violence committed under the name of security. Consider the humiliation they must endure at checkpoints, where they are scolded or forced to remove their clothes. In addition, about ten percent of Palestinian women give birth at checkpoints. Also, many pregnancies suffer from the inhalation of tear gas, which is regularly fired by the Israeli army.
With this project, AEI wants to give these women a chance to tell their own story, which is not obvious in this socially conservative zone of the West Bank. In this way, they hope to raise awareness among both residents of al-Khalil and the international community about the colonial and sexist violence of the Israeli occupation.
Image: ISM Palestine on Flickr.com
The acceptance and emancipation of everybody who considers themselves part of the LGBTQIA+ community has been declining in several countries in recent years, with frontrunners of this journey back in time the Eastern European countries Poland and Hungary. Poland, for example, has imposed LGBT-free zones in 2020, along with a new law that makes abortion virtually impossible. As a result, both countries have seen an increase in homophobic and gender identity-related violence. Time to fight back!
Make Poland Queer Again is an international action group that was created to fight back against this growing culture of homophobia and violence towards the LGBTQIA+ community in Eastern Europe. The group claims that a new, more radical protest culture is necessary with international, transborder solidarity, direct action, and civil disobedience, as we know for example within climate activism. Their goal is to break away from the well-known, peaceful protest march and create new, creative forms of direct action to destabilize the status quo and create a network of safe spaces for the queer community.
Their plan consists of creating a strong, internationally organized network of activists that together plan and execute direct actions. Part of this will be the solidarity bus from Berlin to several Polish pride marches, to mobilize activists at an international level and together take part in creating disruptive actions during the Polish prides. Next to that, they want to create workshops and toolkits around executing direct action to empower local communities and give them the tools to mobilize, organize and join the international movement.
Het Actiefonds is strongly against the repressive and fascist developments in Poland and therefore supports the group Make Poland Queer Again.
For months already there has been a dire humanitarian crisis on the border between Poland and Belarus. Thousands of migrants try to reach the EU via Poland in the hope of a better life. They are trapped in an improvised camp where men, women and children try to keep warm with campfires. Meanwhile, temperatures drop below freezing and there is hardly any food; the living conditions are inhumane.
Revenge of Lukashenko
The border is heavily guarded by about 15,000 military personnel. Poland and the European Union accuse Lukashenko of sending the migrants to Poland’s border areas in retaliation for Western sanctions against his bloodthirsty regime. A few months ago, Het Actiefonds spoke with an anonymous activist about life in a dictatorship.
Stop illegal pushbacks
A collective in the Czech Republic is taking action against the illegal pushbacks that continue to take place. Countless migrants are mistreated and forcibly sent back to other countries. With a confrontational performance, these Czech activists want to put political pressure on the Polish and Belarusian embassies. In the performance they play militias and a group of refugees; the ‘refugees’ try to come to the embassy to apply for asylum, but they are attacked by the ‘militias’.
Confrontational street theater
The scene will be repeated several times. The performance will take place in the public space between the two embassies and will therefore attract a lot of attention. The performance is recorded and also distributed via social media. The collective uses the subsidy of Het Actiefonds to buy fake blood, make-up, uniforms and (fake) batons. The aim of the group is to draw attention to the subject in Czech media discourse.
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