This is from Jurriaan: The day started late, because I woke up late. The previous evening I had
swallowed Oxasepam, Temazepam and Zyprexa to help me sleep. When I got out of the shower, the rail on which my old red shower curtain hangs fell down and I had to hang it up again, singing "Don't let me down". Chatted to a grey man by the busstop, took the tram to Dam Square, saw an exquisite woman on the tram whom I presumed to be Japanese (with presumably mother, sister and brother) but I was resolute to go to demonstration and not be distracted by anything. As I arrived at the demonstration, it started to rain, but in good Dutch tradition people were organised and within seconds there was a sea of umbrella's on the square, quite a sight. I listened to speeches including from Green Left Party leader Paul Rosemoller, church people and people from immigrant organisation (Morrocco) etc. I asked somebody whether Jan Marijnissen, the leader of the Dutch SP, had already spoken. He had, so he was ahead of me there. The International Socialists were out in force with the slogan "Hands off Iraq", and most leftwing tendencies seemed to be there. There was also a brass band that played. I noticed very few muslims and wondered why. I picked up some leaflets, an excellent one from the SP, one from the Iraq Communists, bought a sticker "Stop war, stop (oil) exploitation - international resistance" from an anarchist girl (although I didn't think the formulation was quite OK for some reason) and bought a paper from the Communist Party. I asked Herman Pieterson of the Dutch FI section with whom I had a chat "why are there not many more people here ?" (the Volkskrant newspaper later claimed 5000 people, that was too high an estimate as far as I could see). He said, the demonstration was not sufficiently advertised. We then proceeded to march around the inner city, which was good exercise for me personally. I walked at the front of the march, together with SP MP's and GreenLeft people including Rosemoller. I noticed Jan Marijnissen MP and we looked at each other a couple times. He was wearing a leather jacket just like me, and black pants just like me, except that he was dressing better than me. I did not know what to say. I was glad that I finally saw him in person exactly how I wanted to meet with him. I had read in a Playboy interview with Jan, that he has back problems and had a hernia, and I thought wow, this is fantastic, that he is prepared to do this ! Later, we did have a chat, because he said "hello" to me. He wanted to know about my life, where I worked, how I thought the SP was doing (I said good, I had a criticism of SP immigration policy - I really meant to say integration policy - but said I did not feel like commenting because I felt I did not know enough about it yet). I mentioned about my father dying, he said his father died when he was 10, but that it did not have the same impact at that age. I said I had been involved in socialist politics before in New Zealand, that I had been a member of the Dutch FI section, but had switched over to the SP. Nothing wrong with Marx, I said, but I had decided that I was a socialist, not a Marxist. He said, we in the SP have reached the same conclusion, this stuff about "Marxist" just causes too much confusion for many people. I said that I thought that the sucesses of the SP had international relevance, maybe I should translate some literature. He said he wanted somebody to translate stuff into German, but I said I don't do that. It started to rain again and he unfolded his umbrella over the both of us. I said I felt honoured, because I really was. I felt proud of all these people. Not long after our conversation, Jan suddenly disappeared from view, I don't know where he went, he must have had urgent business or something. I noticed a couple of kids singing "Bush, Bush, neem eens een kouwe douche !" which in Dutch means "Bush, Bush, take a cold shower for once". I found this amusing and asked the little girls, "why are you singing that ?". They said, "Well if he takes a cold shower, then maybe he will wake up and think again, so as he doesn't start a war against Iraq". So you see these little Dutch girls ain't stupid, they can make a point, they get the message. I ended walking at the front left of the demonstration, all the way back to Dam Square. The marshalling was excellent and everything seemed wellorganised. The police had horsemen leading the march, so we were actually confronted with horses asses which made me think of things, but no matter. I quickly left after the march. I tried to board the tram several times after a short shop at the supermarket, where a woman smiled at me, but either the tram was too full or it did not arrive; eventually I squeezed in and made it home in one piece. What impressed me most about the demonstration was the dedication of the people there. This is not a complete description over everything that happened but I cannot do more just now. The thing that concerned me most was the people who were not there. Back to study now. Regards Jurriaan -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
