20,000 corona protesters on Dam Square: ‘I feel strange, not safe and excluded’

He is vaccinated, she is not. “But as always in a good marriage, you can disagree,” says Cok de Zwart (68, former publisher). He and his wife Petra Spigt (69, goldsmith) are standing on the corner of Dam Square where the large protest march against the corona measures is about to leave.

The couple is concerned. Minister Hugo de Jonge suggested on Friday that he may make a corona admission ticket mandatory at the end of the month for a visit to, among other things, the museum or a cafe. A vaccination, a negative test or proof of a recent corona infection is then checked at the door. According to De Jonge, the Delta variant requires a vaccination rate of approximately ninety percent to prevent a new peak in hospitals. Now about 85 percent of the over eighteens are vaccinated.

Left out

The vaccination rate must be increased, and that is not without obligation, warned De Jonge. “The pressure is mounting, but I’m already feeling that pressure,” Spigt says. “I am a Friend of the Hermitage museum. They have an annual Friends Day. I used to go there, but now you have to get tested to see if you need to be vaccinated. So I don’t go there anymore.” Spigt feels ‘strange, unsafe and excluded’.

She fears that the Netherlands will turn into a ‘test company’. “Now it is for corona, later for something else.” Her husband is, as he himself says, ‘seriously concerned about the state of Dutch parliamentary democracy’. “A cabinet that fell months ago, that is resigned and therefore, according to parliamentary mores, is actually no longer allowed to take important decisions, is taking, under the guise of the corona crisis, freedom-restricting measures that we have not experienced since the Second World War.”

Hazes and Hare Krishna

Dam Square is packed, from Madame Tussauds to Beursplein. The mood is elated. The sound of drums, hardcore house, the song ‘Live’ by André Hazes and Hare Krishna music mix into a potpourri of sounds. The activists are as diverse as the music they brought with them: supporters of Virus Truth, Forum for Democracy, but also people who don’t care about them and are concerned about what they call ‘medical apartheid’.

People are walking around with signs with texts like ‘Don’t become a QR code’. And: ‘I pass’, which is clearly corona-related. Another is walking with a sign: ‘Stop with pins, pay cash’. People chant ‘love, freedom, no dictatorship’ and ‘join me’. According to the municipality, 20,000 people came to Dam Square, who then went on a seven-kilometer walk through the city. The protest was boisterous and friendly, and went without incident, according to police.

Afraid of reactions

Among the crowd are two young women who would like to tell their story under their name, but don’t dare because they are afraid of the reactions. One of them works in healthcare and does not want any hassle with patients or colleagues. “We are working hard to live a healthy life. We exercise a lot, eat healthy, the chance of getting seriously ill from Covid-19 is really very small for healthy young people. But what happens: If I don’t take that shot, I’ll have to take a test before I can go into a restaurant. While someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, can enter that restaurant with a shot without a test. He is rewarded, I am punished.”

People who are vaccinated can still spread the virus, which is what makes this policy so warped, says a young teacher, who also does not want her name in the newspaper. “In the Netherlands, we are always striving for inclusiveness. Everyone is talking about that. But with measures such as the corona pass you set people against a minority in society.”

Corona admission ticket

Anja Damen (62) and Peter Nieland (74) from Chaam are certainly not prepared to get that shot. Nieland can hardly remember that he attended a demonstration. The last must have been when he protested against East Berlin, but now he feels he has no other choice. “If that corona pass really does come, I will still not be tested. I go to the restaurant and if I can’t buy food there, I’ll go to the next restaurant, maybe it will want my money. I have yet to see those people standing at the door.”