Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: News and politics

  • Rewriting History

    I see that the Trump virus that causes the rewriting of history has apparently reached the Netherlands.

    The Guardian reports today that displays commemorating African American servicemen in the visitors’ centre at a Dutch War Cemetery have been removed.

    At least the local community and others are up in arms about it. The provincial government of Limburg will be formally asking the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which runs the cemetery and the US Ambassador to put the commemoration panels back on display.

    “Lest we forget” – well, unless you are a member of a group in Trump’s crosshairs of course – then you will be marginalised and swept aside at the earliest opportunity…

    Addendum 12 December 2025: It’s now been reported in the Dutch newspaper the Gelderlander that it was the then Secretary of the AMBC himself who caused the displays removal out of fear following the publication of Trump’s “Anti-Woke decree”.

    On March 19 of this year, he emailed the staff of ABMC about Trump’s decree, which put an end to the ‘discriminatory equality ideology’. Although the ABMC was not mentioned, the then Secretary Charles Djou emphasized that the committee had to comply with Trump’s anti-woke policies to avoid negative publicity.

    He wanted to make sure that the databases on fallen African Americans and Native Americans did not violate the decree. And he asked the head of the visitor service, to check whether there are “panels” in the visitor centres in the overseas cemeteries that could cause problems for the committee.

    A day later, the head of education and public information, responds saying that certain texts have been removed from the ABMC site and that the database is not accessible to the public. He also suggests the removal of the panels from the Visitor Centre.

    The Deputy Secretary at the time, Robert Dallesandro agrees, saying in an email: “That panel has to go. Frankly, it never should have been there in the first place.”

    I note that Charles Djou has since departed from the ABMC, and Dallesandro has taken over as acting Secretary. He clearly sees no problem with rewriting history.

  • Swinging to the Right?

    The dust has now settled following the Dutch election. While the result won’t be officially given until next week (after the postal votes from Dutch ex-pats have been counted), it seems almost certain that the D66 party, led by Rob Jetten has got the most votes.

    It was a close-run thing, with the PVV of Geert Wilders matching the 26 parliamentary seats garnered by D66.

    For a governing majority in the Dutch parliament, Jetten needs more than 75 seats, so, as usual in Dutch politics, he needs to form a coalition with other parties. And there’s the rub. He has said that his ideal would be to form a coalition with the Groen-Links/PvDA, VVD and CDA parties. That would make a Centrist coalition, with the GL/PvDA on the left wing and the VVD on the right, However, the fly in the ointment is the leader of the VVD, Dilan Yeşilgöz. She has made it clear that she won’t work with the GL/PvDA party. Her party has been moving increasingly rightwards, and the gulf between it and the socialist GL/PvDA is now seemingly too great.

    Personally (because I am a life-long socialist, just like my parents were), I would be happy with Jetten’s preferred coalition, because it would seek to serve the broadest spectrum of the population. He himself has said that he wants to serve all of us.

    Yeşilgöz on the other hand will want to supplant GL/PvDA with a hardline Rightist party, such as JA21, which would push the coalition to the Right.

    If that happens, then I fear that Dutch politics will remain in the quagmire of blaming all the country’s ills on immigrants, and fail to address the real issues and problems as happened with the last government. Ironic really, since Yeşilgöz herself is an immigrant.

  • On The Eve Of Elections

    We have a general election tomorrow to choose who will lead us in the next government in the Netherlands.

    I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the outcome; after all the good people of the USA voted in Donald Trump for a second term and similarly in Argentina they have just voted for Javier Milei in the Midterms, thus doubling the number of seats he has. It seems that rational thought is a diminishing resource in humanity.

    Here, people say that they are losing their trust in politicians, yet the last time around they put Geert Wilders in front. On the other hand, I can quite understand the loss in trust – it’s just been revealed that two government members of Wilders’ PVV party have been behind some truly slimy AI-generated ads attacking Frans Timmermans, leader of the GroenLinks/PvDA party. Of course, they lied in parliament about it, so I can totally understand the loss of trust in some politicians.

    Martin and I will be casting our votes tomorrow in an attempt to restore balance towards a society that believes in equal opportunities for all and one that does not demonise migrants.

  • Who Is My Neighbour?

    Here in the predominantly rural region of the Netherlands known as the Achterhoek, the traditional concept of Noaberschap (neighbourliness) is still very strong and much-touted by many.

    It does rather beg the question of “who is my neighbour?”, though.

    We are starting to see demonstrations against immigrants and asylum seekers in many places throughout the Netherlands. This has arisen because the main asylum seekers reception centre (azielzoekerscentrum or AZC) in Ter Apel is often in the news because of overcrowding and local authorities are seeking to build new AZCs.

    With a general election just a few weeks away, the PVV of Geert Wilders and other right-wing parties are focusing on the issue of immigration, engendering fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of voters.

    The result has been demonstrators demanding that their local authority scrap any plans for future AZCs. There have been threats made to local councillors. Violence is in the air.

    Just in the last few weeks there have been demonstrations in Aalten and Eibergen – two places not very far away from us.

    In Eibergen, a local figure and conspiracy-theorist, Ton Koenderink, called for solidarity with the demonstrators from all Achterhoekers:

    Wij bunt Achterhoekers, en as-ie een Achterhoeker bunt, dan kum-ie op veur Achterhoekers!

    Which is Achterhoek’s dialect for:

    We are Achterhoekers, and if you are an Achterhoeker, then stand up for Achterhoekers!

    I’m not a Christian, but I think I would remind Mr. Koenderink of the answer that Jesus gave to the question: “Who is my neighbour?” with his parable of the Good Samaritan. A good neighbour is someone who shows mercy towards his fellow human beings, rather than hatred or passing on the other side of the road.

  • A Critique of Pure Stupidity

    Are they playing four-dimensional chess? Well no, the simpler explanation, and the one that fits, is that the entire top of the US Administration is staffed by stupid, incompetent and vengeful people. I wonder how the USA (and the rest of us) will ever recover from this?

    A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0 | Donald Trump | The Guardian

  • Meanwhile…

    My last post concerned the rise of the extreme right in the UK. It turns out that the UK is not the only place where the extreme right is feeling emboldened. As I was writing it, anti-immigration protesters were gathering in the Hague, and things turned ugly.

    The rioters were shouting slogans such as “We are the Netherlands”- er, no, you are not. You are right-wing thugs.

    The problem is that the political discourse is becoming increasingly right-wing populist. A motion put forward in the Second Chamber last week by the oxymoronically titled Forum for Democracy to ban AntiFa as a terrorist organisation was enthusiastically adopted by all the usual suspects: the PVV, BBB, Ja21, and they were joined by the SGP and the VVD. The latter was originally a centrist party, but has moved rapidly to the right over the past few years.

    The motion was passed (just) with a majority of 1 vote.

    This resulted in an article in the Volkskrant with the headline “Dangerous Bravado Say The Experts“.

    Fortunately a member of the CDA party has now raised sensible questions with the Justice Minister concerning the hurdles to this motion actually becoming law.

    We have a general election coming up next month. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

  • A Dangerous Moment For Britain

    Despite living for more than half of my life in The Netherlands, I still follow events in the UK closely. And recent events, such as the sudden proliferation of St. George’s flags and the far right march in London have proved both unsettling and depressing to me.

    Chris Grey, as usual, provides an excellent analysis of what seems to be happening in the UK – I urge you to read it.

  • On The Right Side Of History

    Like my father before me, I’ve been a Labour supporter all my life, but now I fear that the UK Labour Party has lost its way. These are not terrorists, but people protesting against the genocide in Gaza.

  • Roll Up! Roll Up!…

    I would like to think that Marina Hyde’s withering contempt would actually count for something, but to a person with no apparent morals whatsoever, it clearly won’t..

    Hurry, hurry, hurry! It’s Trump’s great Ukraine giveaway. Bargains galore, if your name is Vladimir Putin

  • Jaw-Dropping Indeed

    God help us, or should that be God help the US?

  • The Nobel Peace Prize 2025

    I nominate Francesca Albanese for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. She deserves it. To award it to Trump would be an utter travesty.

  • Is This Satire – or Reality?

    Should Trump be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – Matt Green has the answer…

  • The Lesson of 1933…

    Professor Marci Shore explained in a video Opinion Piece for the New York Times why she was leaving the US to teach in the Canadian University of Toronto:

    The lesson of 1933 is – you get out sooner rather than later

    What might have seemed hyperbole at the time of the video’s making seems to be becoming more grounded in the reality of events in the US. She expands on her views in this interview in today’s Guardian. Required reading, I would suggest…

  • Microsoft’s ICC Blockade

    Techzine reports that Microsoft has blocked the email account of the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor.

    This is an extremely worrying development and shows up the risks of European governments relying on Microsoft’s infrastructure services. Trump’s baleful influence comes in many forms.

    Carole Cadwalladr’s prediction of a digital coup would seem to be spot on.

    Addendum: John Naughton’s article on the whole affair is worth reading – he may well be the canary in the coalmine of what is to come.

  • Drawing A Red Line

    Yesterday, 100,000 people gathered together in The Hague to protest against the Dutch Government’s refusal to “draw a red line” in its relations with Israel.

    The furthest that Premier Schoof has dared to go up until now was to say that he found Israel’s activities in Gaza “zorgelijk” (worrying). Clearly that has not bothered Netanyahu one tiny little bit.

    Whether yesterday’s demonstration will have any effect on Schoof remains to be seen.

  • A Force For Good

    The death of Pope Francis is a loss to the world. He was a radically different Pope to the authoritarian Pope Benedict and brought compassion to the papacy.

    He was not afraid to speak truth to political power and clearly viewed Trump as a force for evil, decrying Trump’s deportations of migrants. He wrote, in an open letter to American bishops, that he had “followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” adding that any policy built on force “begins badly and will end badly.”

    So now the process of choosing his successor begins. As an atheist, I obviously have no skin in this game, but I would hope that his successor will carry the torch of Pope Francis’s moral authority forward and not be a Pope that returns to the attitudes of Benedict.

  • A Digital Coup

    Carole Cadwalladr has a warning for us all…

    Addendum 21 April 2025: And in this piece for the Observer newspaper, Carole gives the backstory to that TED talk. It’s worth reading, but depressing in that, once again, it shows that AI is being driven by Careless People*.

    *From the Great Gatsby:

    They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

  • Looking At Women Looking At War

    Looking At Women Looking At War

    That’s the title of the book written by the novelist, poet and human rights activist Victoria Amelina. It has the subtitle: A War and Justice Diary.

    Reading it is a sobering experience. She documented the war waged by Putin’s Russia on Ukraine, photographing the ruins of civilian buildings and recording testimonies of survivors and those who eye witnessed Russian war crimes.

    She became the chronicler of women such as Evhenia Zakrevska, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, and Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes. The Center for Civil Liberties was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

    Victoria Amelina was only 37 when she died in the evening of the 1st of July 2023 from injuries sustained in a Russian missile attack.

    The book was incomplete at the time of her death, but has been published by her editors to include her notes and field reports. The Foreword is by Margaret Atwood and contains this judgement on the war:

    In this war, Russia is fighting for greed – more territory, more material resources – but Ukraine is fighting for its life; not only its life as a country, but the lives of the citizens of that country, for there is little doubt about what the outcome of a Russian win would be for Ukrainians.

    The massacres, the wholesale pillaging, the rapes, the summary executions, the starvation, the child stealing, and the purges do not need to be imagined, for they have happened before. Russians claim to be the “brothers” of Ukrainians, but Ukrainians reject the kinship. Who needs a “brother” who is a homicidal psychopath and is trying to kill you?

    Looking at the events, this is totally understandable but it could have been so different without Putin whipping up the psychosis. As Alexei Navalny (who identified as half Russian and half Ukrainian) said when asked whether he identified more as Russian or Ukrainian, “It was like being asked who you loved more, your mother or your father.”.

    Read the book, it is a powerful document.

  • The White House Jerry Springer Show

    It seems as though the Jerry Springer Show found a new home in the Oval Office of the White House yesterday. Truly shocking and disgusting scenes of Trump and Vance berating Zelensky. Trump is increasingly behaving like a mafia boss, rather than a President, with Vance as his lieutenant.

    It’s increasingly clear that Trump and Putin are chums, and that Europe is out in the cold as far as they are concerned. The office of the Leader of the Free World is empty.

    As David Smith writes in the Guardian: Diplomacy Dies On Live TV.

    And the analysis by Andrew Roth of how these events have been orchestrated to set up Zelensky as the fall guy is worth reading as well.

  • It’s A Good Life…

    I’m beginning to feel as though I’m trapped in a version of Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life” with Trump cast in the role of Anthony Fremont – the three-year old child with godlike powers who is destroying everyone around him.

    The difference being that Anthony is a child who knows no better, whereas Trump is a sullen, resentful old man who is fully aware of the deliberate chaos he is sowing.

    The Observer asked a question in its recent editorial on Alexei Navalny:

    When Trump calls Putin a “genius” who exhibits great “common sense”, does he understand – does he care – that he is dealing with a ruthless killer?

    The answer, clearly, is that Trump couldn’t give a damn about other people, he cares only about himself.