September 11, 2016

The eel riots of 1886 ended with 26 people and 1 eel dead

Filed under: Animals,History by Branko Collin @ 8:30 pm

In the wake of the 1886 Eel Riots in Amsterdam, Dutch newspapers filled their columns with reports about the event, but it was French magazine l’Illustration that came out with these drawings by M. de Haenen 10 days later.

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Fait sur place, these illustrations tell the story of the Palingoproer (eel riots), the bloodiest case of Dutch police brutality in the 19th century.

On Sunday 25 July 1886 a great mass of people gathered on the Lindengracht in Amsterdam to watch a cruel spectacle. Fish sellers had tied a rope between numbers 184 and 119 across what was then still a canal and a live eel had been tied to that rope. Men in small boats had to try and pull the eel from the rope—the winner would get the princely sum of 6 guilders, almost a week’s wages. This sport was called palingtrekken (eel pulling) and by that time already outlawed.

Four officers from nearby police station Noordermarkt decided to put a halt to the spectacle. They entered one of the houses to which the rope was tied and used a pocket knife to cut down the rope. Apparently the rope hit one of the spectators who started thwacking the police with his umbrella as soon as they left the building. Fast forward a couple of hours and a full blown riot was going on with police using their sabres and rioters throwing pavers.

Nightfall came and a drizzle helped to cool tempers. The next day, however, rioters stormed the police station which led to the army getting out their guns. As soon as the smoke had cleared (smokeless powder had only been invented two years earlier and was being introduced slowly to European armies), 26 rioters lay dead and observers (reporters, essayists, historians) started to explain what it was that just had happened.

Right-wing rags Algemeen Handelsblad and NRC, and the mayor of Amsterdam, tried to blame the socialists for being the instigators, but the public prosecutor thought that conclusion was preposterous—royalist inhabitants of the nearby Willemsstraat had even thrown red and black flags into the canal that the socialists had quickly brought to the scene of the riots.

Two thousands rioters were given prison sentences, police officers were treated to cigars and in 1913 the eel that involuntarily started it all showed up at an auction where it was sold for 1,75 guilders and was never seen again.

(Images: VKTV.nl / M. de Haenen)

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August 23, 2010

Naked woman and curious cow: election poster of the century

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:26 am

In 2006 this poster was elected best political poster of the Netherlands of the past 90 years. It was used in 1971 by the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), one of the predecessors of GroenLinks, for the lower house elections. The caption reads ‘Disarming PSP’.

The photo was originally taken for sexual reform magazine Sekstant, but designer George Noordanus surmised that it could also help create a storm of protest among Christians whose political parties supported the Vietnam war, but opposed innocent nudity, thereby exposing their hypocrisy.

Although it did just that, the raised profile did not help the PSP as it lost half its seats in the lower house after the elections. Support for the poster was also divided within the party, as some members considered it sexist. Ironically enough, it was the sexist argument that in the end helped seal the deal. As one member put it, “workers like naked chicks.”

Both Ayaan Hirsi Magan (ex VVD, liberal) and Femke Halsema (GroenLinks, ‘green left’), political opposites, see the poster as a symbol of their ideals.

See also this site about election posters in the Netherlands.

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September 4, 2009

Plight of Senegalese fishermen depicted in classic Dutch play

Filed under: Literature,Shows by Branko Collin @ 3:19 pm

A play set published in 1900 about the plight of Dutch fishermen, which was adapted for a modern context in Senegal, is returning to the Netherlands this month with Senegalese song and dance left intact, and with Marisa van Eyle as a Dutch narrator.

Op Hoop van Zegen (The Good Hope) is a play by Herman Heijermans about the eponymous fishing ship, its owner Bos and the brothers Geert and Barend, who know the ship is not seaworthy, but still sign on as sailors. The brothers then die when the ship sinks during its last voyage. The line “de vis wordt duur betaald” (the fish is dearly paid for), with which Kniertje, the mother of Geert and Barend greets the news of the death of her two sons, has become a saying in Dutch.

The Senegalese version, called Dieuna Diaffe in the Wolof language (Expensive Fish) and with Senegalese star Marie Madeleine Diallo as Kniertje / Yaye Cathy, was performed in 2007 and 2008 in the coastal cities of Senegal. It was adapted by sociologist Maaike Cotterink and directors Anna Rottier and Pape Samba Sow.

According to Cotterink in Trouw (Dutch): “These days, Senegalese fishermen are hired to work three months in a row on Korean and Spanish boats. Far from the coast they are put to work under horrendous conditions for 16 hours a day. Each year fishermen die, but they have little choice, as they have to support their families.”

The play will be performed this weekend in Amsterdam as part of the Fringe Festival, and next week in The Hague.

If you are unfamiliar with Heijermans, Archive.org has an English adaption of one of his other plays, The Ghetto.

(Source photo: Theatre Embassy)

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August 15, 2009

Socialist campground De Paasheuvel [HAR 2009]

Filed under: Nature by Branko Collin @ 5:02 pm

The early 20th century was the heyday of Dutch polarisation. Unions, universities, newspapers, magazines and broadcasting corporations were founded, all based on a certain religion or ideology. The three main pillars were Protestantism, Catholicism and Socialism.

One of the remnants of this great societal movement is De Paasheuvel campground (the Easter Hill), on which hacker conference Hacking at Random is held. De Paasheuvel was started in the 1920s as the first communist campground. And although the campground is now a commercial venture that tries not to put too much emphasis on its past, there are still a few clues here and there that tell the visitor of the history of the place where many a left-wing politico received part of their training.

The little castle-like house shown in the photo above is called the Voorpost, and it predates the campground by a decade and a half. It was built as a Summer place of the Rolandes Hagendoorn family in 1906, and bought by the Arbeiders Jeugd Centrale (Workers Youth Center) in 1922.

The Zonnehal (Sun Hall) was built in 1939 in the style of the Amsterdamse School, and is used during HAR as one of the conference halls.

The grounds also hold a tiny wild life garden called Heemtuin de Heimanshof, which was founded by the AJC, and maintained by them for a long time. Although former AJC members still work on the garden, Jonge Socialisten (the youth branch of the socialist and social democratic parties) and other volunteers now help with the heavy lifting.

(These and other photos should appear in higher resolution in our Flickr account after Sunday.)

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