Protests, Politics, and Climate: The Controversy at Amsterdam’s March for Climate and Justice

And then it falls silent. The microphone of Palestinian Sarah, who addressed a Museumplein full of climate demonstrators, has been turned off. She was given the floor by Sahar Shirzad, winner of the PAX Peace Dove in 2023 and one of the invited speakers at the end point of the March for Climate and Justice in Amsterdam this Sunday. Shirzad drew attention to the Palestinian cause and uttered the controversial slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free‘ out. She then gave the microphone to Sarah, who was not invited by the organization.

Her argument about, among other things, the “ecological atrocities that Israel is committing in Palestine by poisoning the country with white phosphorus bombs” appears to be a reason for the organization to turn off the microphone and causes a commotion among the demonstrators on the square. Some chant along, cheer and applaud, others shake their heads and shout booes or walk away.

After Shirzad’s speech, well-known climate activist Greta Thunberg was supposed to address the audience, but this was postponed after the incident for unclear reasons. The twenty-year-old activist, known for her school strikes for the climate as a fifteen-year-old student, participated in the climate march in the Netherlands for the first time. She was not the only new visitor: with 85,000 demonstrators, this was the largest climate march ever in the Netherlands, the police reported. The organization had hoped to mobilize more than 40,000 people, but that goal has been far exceeded.

Photos Olivier Middendorp

Restless audience

When Thunberg finally takes the stage, she is welcomed with loud cheers, but her speech also causes a ruckus. “As a climate movement, we must listen to those who are oppressed and fight for freedom and justice,” she says, before handing the microphone back to Shirzad and Sarah (whose last name was withheld). When a man comes on stage and shouts that he is coming for a climate protest and not for political positions, Thunberg tells him and the restless audience to calm down.

The second incident on Museum Square takes up most of Thunberg’s speaking time: “I think many of you have heard me speak before. You know my message and it is still the same.” The organization has now announced that Shirzad was invited to give a “unifying speech about peace”, but that this did not happen.

Although Shirzad and Sarah could not count on support from the entire audience, the Palestinian cause was already fully present during the march. Palestinian flags flutter between the Shell middle fingers and protest signs with texts such as “Den Bosch aan Zee is not a good idea” and “the climate is full”. Through megaphones, demonstrators shout “Free Palestine” (liberated Palestine) and “cease fire now” (ceasefire now). Watermelon slices have been drawn on a number of protest signs, a symbol for the Palestinian flag (because of the colors).

demonstratorSuzanne Schreve Multiple goals creates mass instead of fragmentation. And mass gives carrying capacity

“It’s all connected,” says a woman holding a protest sign that reads “racism is an environmental issue.” “The fact that Israel pollutes the water in Gaza and Shell pollutes things in Nigeria shows that colonial relations still exist.” The woman does not want her name in the newspaper because she hopes to visit Gaza again and is afraid of not being allowed in.

Lotte Molenaar (27) and her boyfriend Floris van Heijningen (28) walk with their one-year-old son. They have always been involved in the climate movement, they say, but now also want to “guarantee a future for him.” Van Heijningen: “It is almost unfair to him that he will soon live on an unlivable planet.” Just as they find it unfair that this is already the case in many areas. Molenaar: “The consequences are greatest in countries that contribute least to climate change.”

Walking next to them is 26-year-old Eva Varkevisser, who wears a judge’s beanie and hands out flyers from the Stop Ecocide foundation. “I believe that destroying nature should become a criminal offense punishable by a prison sentence.” As an example, she mentions companies that cut down parts of the Amazon or sail across the Arctic with ships and leak oil. “Nature is not ours.”

The famous climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks to the demonstrators on Museumplein. Photo Olivier Middendorp

Dove of Peace

All ages are represented during the march: a striking number of children participate, but also many elderly people. They walk with signs that say “grandparents for the climate”, “grandmother wants her climate back” or “grandmothers for the future”. The owner of the latter is 73-year-old Marianne Passchier, grandmother of four grandchildren, who walks with her wife and a friend – “three grandmothers”.

“I don’t have very long to live anymore, but my grandchildren may have another eighty years,” says Passchier. “Because the climate is changing so severely, it is going to be very difficult to live on Earth and I worry about that.” She had asked her eldest grandchild – they are 9, 11, again 11 and 13 years old – along. “She wanted to, but she canceled anyway because she was stressed about her test week.”

A little further on, Suzanne Schreve (45) walks with a protest sign in her hands with a double message. „Cease fire now” it says, with a dove of peace and flames surrounding it. She made the sign together with her daughter Flora (9), who also participates. It refers to forest fires due to climate change, but also to the war between Israel and Hamas. Schreve thinks it is “powerful” that there are protests for multiple goals at the same time today. “That creates mass instead of fragmentation. And mass gives carrying capacity.”

The group she walks with also includes 11-year-old Titus and his father. Why Titus is participating in the March for Climate and Justice? “I want the climate to be taken care of and there to be no more war.”

Also read
Now that Greta Thunberg has her diploma, she can no longer skip school. But: ‘the battle has only just begun’

2023-11-12 19:24:27
#Palestinian #intervenes #climate #march #stand #political #positions