Successful Civil Disobedience
Netherlands - by Eric Hesen 14-01-2008
It is not typically Dutch. Gandhi and Martin Luther King scored major
successes with civil disobedience. And yet, the Netherlands is one of the
countries where this form of action regularly yields results, because civil
disobedience fits well in the Dutch culture of tolerance and
consultation.
There are numerous examples from the recent past.
The Netherlands has a real tradition of civil disobedience.
The most recent example involves a priest from Tilburg who continued to ring
his church bells, ignoring a series of council bans. Each morning, the bells
rang out across the southern town despite the huge fines imposed on the
priest.
Docile
Professor Cees Maris says this
is quite a common form of open resistance, even though the Dutch are generally a
rather docile people.
"Scientific reports show that we accept the rules of
the constitutional state. Also, when Dutch people do break the rules, it is
usually in a disciplined fashion. Many cyclists run red lights, but in such a
way that they do not pose a danger to others".And yet civil disobedience
can be hugely successful. The squatters' movement had considerable success in
the Netherlands. From the 1970s on, houses were taken over by squatters across
the Netherlands. At first illegally, but eventually legally.
Cees Maris says the squatters' actions could very well constitute the most
successful acts of civil disobedience in Dutch history.
"Squatters commit fundamental violations of property
rights, but the objective is an appeal to justice. Squatters argue that we all
have the right to housing and speculators use scarce housing for their personal
profit and thus abuse this fundamental social right. At one point the government
introduced a law pertaining to unoccupied dwellings, which made it possible to
revoke a person's ownership rights. So the actions were a
success".
Traffic
Another example is the
fight against traffic fines. For years, there have been massive protests against
fines imposed for relatively minor speeding offences. In recent years, several
groups have been formed of which the members refuse to pay these fines. And with
success, because a number of politicians have begun to wonder out loud whether
it wouldn't be better to scrap these fines.
Professor Maris
says the main reason for the success of civil disobedience campaigns is often
the same: the typically Dutch culture of tolerance.
"There seems to be a tacit consensus between the
government and its citizens no longer to enforce certain rules. A case in point
is the handling of soft drugs. People used to use the drugs secretly because
they did want to get caught. At the same time a discussion sprang up on
regulating drug use. At some point, the message got through to the government
and soft drug use was more or less tolerated".
