Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast It could Happen here.
Speaker 2: It's a podcast about the world falling apart and people
Speaker 2: putting it back together. Today we've got a little bit
Speaker 2: of both. I'm joined again by Mick and Rose. This
Speaker 2: time we'll be discussing the treatment of migrants inside the
Speaker 2: European Union, and specifically the treatment of migrants by the
Speaker 2: government of the Netherlands in a place called ter Apple.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks good to be back, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, it's good to have you. I wonder
Speaker 3: if you could begin.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this before you recorded, and I
Speaker 2: think it's very Obviously the migration laws in Europe are
Speaker 2: very different, but so are the situations with regard to
Speaker 2: shelter and just like facilities, with the US being so big,
Speaker 2: we have them dotted all over the place. So you
Speaker 2: were just explaining that this is a place where anyone
Speaker 2: who wants to register for asylum in the Netherlands has
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's almost entirely right. So everyone who arrives
Speaker 5: in the Nods and wants to ask for asylum has
Speaker 5: to go to this village all the way on the
Speaker 5: northeastern border with Germany, and that's where the only registration
Speaker 5: center is for most asylum seekers. I believe only people
Speaker 5: who do family reunification can go somewhere else. But yeah,
Speaker 5: we have like one registration center for the entire country.
Speaker 5: And yeah, yeah, I mean we have a tiny country,
Speaker 5: but it still became a huge bubblenreck because it was
Speaker 5: the only one. So it didn't work out.
Speaker 2: That well apparently, and that's why we're talking about it, right,
Speaker 2: So just so people understand where these people are in
Speaker 2: their asylum journey, Like they've entered the EU, right, and
Speaker 2: then they've traveled to the Netlans, which is a country
Speaker 2: where they want to claim asylum.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. So basically they arrived at their final destination.
Speaker 5: So most people that I met inter Apple had already
Speaker 5: been traveling for weeks, months, sometimes years, depending on how
Speaker 5: much money and luck they had. Usually so yeah, they
Speaker 5: would have either crossed the Mediterranean Sea or gotten into
Speaker 5: Europe through Turkey or Belarus, and then they would have
Speaker 5: crossed many many borders and many many border guards and fences, yep,
Speaker 5: and they would have gotten stuck in places for weeks
Speaker 5: or months before they could move on again. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: people who would actually go to the registration center in
Speaker 5: the Netherlands, that means they wanted to ask for asylum
Speaker 5: there and probably stay there.
Speaker 2: Right, that would be like the country of residents going forward.
Speaker 2: So can you explain I mean, I'm looking at pictures
Speaker 2: of it right now. It's not hard. If you want
Speaker 2: to look up pictures, you can spell it t ER
Speaker 2: A p E L. But can you explain the condition said,
Speaker 2: because looking at it, it's atrocious, like.
Speaker 3: From the pictures I can see, Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean I saw many pictures before I went myself.
Speaker 5: It's basically just a tense camp. So, I mean it's
Speaker 5: a it's a shelter, right, So it's like it used
Speaker 5: to be an army base. It can hold two thousand people.
Speaker 5: It has loads of like small housing units where people live.
Speaker 5: It has like a lot of offices for all the
Speaker 5: registration steps and like the yeah, the immigration service, the police,
Speaker 5: the shelter organization like blah blah, blah, bah blah. But
Speaker 5: so like one and a half year ago, there was
Speaker 5: a lack of shelter in the whole country, but specifically
Speaker 5: also in the Apple And yeah, somehow the authorities decided
Speaker 5: that the solution would be to just leave people on
Speaker 5: the field that was inside of the registration in front
Speaker 5: of the registration center, and so there was just an
Speaker 5: informal camp, like people were sleeping outside for weeks or months,
Speaker 5: not even intents, but they would have like huge kind
Speaker 5: of banners or tarps that would kind of provide some shade.
Speaker 5: So it was like mids was a very dry summer,
Speaker 5: which for us was crazy lucky. The climate activists were
Speaker 5: not happy.
Speaker 3: But we were happy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So yeah, people were just like laying on the
Speaker 5: ground and that was. Yeah. There were some that water
Speaker 5: that were like dixies for toilets that were obviously gross,
Speaker 5: and so yeah, what you would see if you google it,
Speaker 5: you just see people lying on the field and just
Speaker 5: being there for extended periods of time. But when I
Speaker 5: personally went there the first time, it was kind of
Speaker 5: worse than what I expected it to be because I
Speaker 5: think the level of neglect was not visible on photo
Speaker 5: or on video. So people would come to us and
Speaker 5: tell us that they had show us really big wounds
Speaker 5: that were infected, or people would come and tell us like, hey,
Speaker 5: I had a heart attack. A few weeks ago. I
Speaker 5: need this medication or I have diabetes or whatever. So
Speaker 5: there was just this dystopian situation of this enormous facility
Speaker 5: that can hold thousands of people and then a big
Speaker 5: fence around it, and then people with clearly like very
Speaker 5: serious medical conditions just standing in front of the gate
Speaker 5: and the security guards just being like now, maybe like
Speaker 5: a staff member will show up today, maybe not, but
Speaker 5: like we don't care how dangerous situation is or something. Yeah,
Speaker 5: just the fact that there was like no proper place
Speaker 5: to wash, there were no toilets. The food was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I worked in camps across the borders, across European borders,
Speaker 5: and I've seen a lot of like horrible food. But
Speaker 5: like in their Apple, they just decided to rent a Yeah,
Speaker 5: like if you have like a party or something, you
Speaker 5: would just rent this place that will just sell fries.
Speaker 5: So they were just giving fries to people like every
Speaker 5: single day.
Speaker 3: Jesus.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just I mean just three packed food from the
Speaker 5: supermarket would be more healthy then just fries every day
Speaker 5: for a month, right, Yeah, So just a level of
Speaker 5: like yeah, neglect, lack of care. It's just even even
Speaker 5: more than what you can see on the pictures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like a complete like lack of like failure
Speaker 2: of the government to address their basic rights and needs.
Speaker 2: And how long can people expect to spend in that situation? Then,
Speaker 2: like they have to they have to go there, right,
Speaker 2: like if they want the asylum, they have to go there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, like the the irony was that the only
Speaker 5: way to get shelter was to be there and then
Speaker 5: be without shelter for you wouldn't know how long, like right, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean sometimes it was hours, especially for their women
Speaker 5: and children. It was usually they would usually be let
Speaker 5: in in the evening, but yeah, men definitely days sometimes
Speaker 5: if they were not lucky, weeks. And it was just
Speaker 5: also so like unclear, so people would just not get
Speaker 5: any information. They would be there and then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden hear someone shout and all start running towards
Speaker 5: where the shout came from because maybe they would be
Speaker 5: let in or yeah, I don't know, like guards would
Speaker 5: just shout at them in Dutch and then be like
Speaker 5: why don't you understand me? Or like it was all
Speaker 5: just like consciously like it's so unnecessarily chaotic and therefore
Speaker 5: also like people pushing around police getting like intimidating and violent,
Speaker 5: and yeah, just is very chaotic and disrespectful approach to people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's worryingly similar to what we see in open
Speaker 2: air attention. So it's here like they'll do it. People
Speaker 2: are outside there too, they have an excell no shelter
Speaker 2: there too. We volunteers make the food, so it's better
Speaker 2: than that. Yeah, they'll turn up in a bus, like
Speaker 2: I've seen them turn up in a bus and just
Speaker 2: shout run and like, if you understand English, you run.
Speaker 2: If you don't stand English, you see everyone else running,
Speaker 2: so you run. And then they can only take thirty people,
Speaker 2: and now had more than one hundred people come stampeding
Speaker 2: across like just they've got to grab their bags and everything,
Speaker 2: and it's yeah, completely unnecessarily chaotic and cruel. And then
Speaker 2: once it let in, what can they expect from that?
Speaker 2: They're saying in like a barracks or something were they're processed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it was very very chaotic. I think it
Speaker 5: took them like almost a year to actually process everyone,
Speaker 5: because they would just if a municipality would say like,
Speaker 5: oh I have space for one hundred people, they would
Speaker 5: just randomly put one hundred people in the bus and
Speaker 5: drup them there and then a year later it would
Speaker 5: turn out that they were never properly registered or something.
Speaker 5: So but yeah, I think like there was a night
Speaker 5: shelter not so far away from their apple, so that
Speaker 5: was always like late in the evening, there would still
Speaker 5: be a few buses going to that night shelter. That
Speaker 5: was just a big sports hall I think, full of beds,
Speaker 5: bunk beds or yeah, like stretchers and yeah, no privacy, see,
Speaker 5: just like hundreds of people in one room. The lights
Speaker 5: would stay on all night for safety reasons. But of
Speaker 5: course that's also very cruel too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then if people would get registered, they would
Speaker 5: be usually sent to like a temporary or emergency shelter
Speaker 5: because there was such a huge shortage of regular shelters.
Speaker 5: So some people were living in sports halls without much
Speaker 5: privacy for like half year or year or some people
Speaker 5: are still there to be honest.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, that's crazy. It's atrocious. Talking of atrocious. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: we have to break the ad. We'll do that, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're back, help you do it as ad of it.
Speaker 2: And we're talking about tear Apple this, I guess Migrant
Speaker 2: Reception Registration Center in the events. One thing I saw
Speaker 2: when I was sort of doing and reading about this
Speaker 2: recently was babies born to keep mothers or people in
Speaker 2: the Teapal asylum center a seven times more likely to
Speaker 2: die in or around perfect That is shocking. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: is there just no access to medical care of people
Speaker 2: like delivering babies in this asylum center.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the excuse of the government is that
Speaker 5: they didn't have proper care during the pregnancy because they
Speaker 5: were still traveling. Of course that is often the case,
Speaker 5: Like yeah, yeah, but still it's insanely high. Seven times
Speaker 5: more people dying, and especially when this super chaotic situation occurred, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we would have people in the field that we were
Speaker 5: suspecting they were getting like hypothermia or you know, some
Speaker 5: sort of yeah, strong physical reaction to the tough conditions
Speaker 5: they were facing. But they could be dropped in the
Speaker 5: night shelter, picked out again in the morning, being back
Speaker 5: on the field, staying on the field for a few nights,
Speaker 5: again going for one night to a night shelter, being
Speaker 5: transferred to an emergency camp for two days, being transferred
Speaker 5: to another emergency camp for three days. And during this
Speaker 5: time there is no coherence medical care right, and of
Speaker 5: course it would usually be a little bit better for
Speaker 5: women and especially pregnant women, so they would try to
Speaker 5: put them in a more stable place and like not
Speaker 5: move them around that much, but trying is yeah, they
Speaker 5: would not always actually manage to do that. So they've
Speaker 5: definitely also been complaints, yeah, of people and especially like
Speaker 5: pregnant pregnant women still being forced to move to a
Speaker 5: different camp, like really close to the data the baby
Speaker 5: was expected to come, and yeah, that definitely doesn't help. So,
Speaker 5: I mean, the care on the field was absolutely horrendous.
Speaker 5: I think women were usually not exposed to it that
Speaker 5: much because we do. Yeah, there's also this weird sexism
Speaker 5: in migration that men can always suffer more, which is
Speaker 5: not always true, especially if you're not filtering out the
Speaker 5: really thick men either, because I was definitely a lot
Speaker 5: more healthy than a lot of the men walking around there.
Speaker 5: But yeah, at least in the case of like pregnant women,
Speaker 5: I think they would be moved out pretty quickly. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it was chaotic. And then also you have like, of
Speaker 5: course you have a lot of people who speak Arabic
Speaker 5: or Farsi or dig Yeah, but you also have people
Speaker 5: who speak on a link language that is only spoken
Speaker 5: in a province of a country, you know, like it's
Speaker 5: very hard to get proper translation for like all the
Speaker 5: possible languages of people that apply for asylum. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean I definitely think the conditions, especially when there
Speaker 5: were so many people living in really bad emergency shelters
Speaker 5: or even on the streets, did not help babies at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, anyone, I guess no.
Speaker 2: Can you explain then, like this situation arose about about
Speaker 2: a year ago, I think, right, so you were part
Speaker 2: of a group of people that were able to respond
Speaker 2: to help at least, I guess make it a little
Speaker 2: bit less terrible. Can you explain a little bit about
Speaker 2: about the group, about what you're able to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, I mean we just so, I was already
Speaker 5: a part of my grades, which is an organization that
Speaker 5: like I personally worked on the borders, like providing food
Speaker 5: and clothes and stuff like that to people on the move,
Speaker 5: and migrades is more like also more an activist organizations
Speaker 5: or organizing protests or campaigns and stuff like that. So
Speaker 5: we just like went to see what was going on,
Speaker 5: and then we very quickly realized that it was worse
Speaker 5: than it looked, but also that there were so many
Speaker 5: basic things that were not being done by the government
Speaker 5: that we were actually able to do. So yeah, we
Speaker 5: just asked around a lot for hours and hours, like
Speaker 5: what do you need, what's going on? What is missing?
Speaker 5: Like what is your imory issue at this moment, And
Speaker 5: one of the main things people were saying was like
Speaker 5: the food is fucking driving them and saying like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: just the lack of flavor, but also just the lack
Speaker 5: of health and yeah, people would just get like diarrhea
Speaker 5: and stuff. And then it turned out, of course that
Speaker 5: there were already some people around that wanted to do stuff,
Speaker 5: so we just had a big call. And then it
Speaker 5: turned out that there was like this squads where they
Speaker 5: had a big kitchen and they were like, yeah, of
Speaker 5: course you can cook here. And then there was another
Speaker 5: like former squads where they also had a big soup kitchen,
Speaker 5: and then I was like, okay, this is like it
Speaker 5: was a big like media storm. It was a big
Speaker 5: thing for the Netlands that this was happening because we
Speaker 5: have this like, yeah, idea that we are perfectly organized
Speaker 5: and blah blah blah, and that like all the bad
Speaker 5: things happen on the border is still like at the
Speaker 5: like with a very clear role of our politicians, but
Speaker 5: like somehow, yeah, there's not much talk about that. So
Speaker 5: it was like on the front page every single day
Speaker 5: for weeks. So I thought, yeah, like because the people
Speaker 5: that were already trying to do something, they were like,
Speaker 5: how can we get enough money for the groceries and
Speaker 5: how can we get volunteers? And then yeah, I was like,
Speaker 5: we'll manage. If there's one thing I learned from the border,
Speaker 5: it's like, if you start doing something, people will will
Speaker 5: come and join. Yeah, and we first said like, okay,
Speaker 5: let's just cook two times a week, you know, one
Speaker 5: time in the squad and another time in the other squad,
Speaker 5: and then it's like super doable, blah blah blah. And
Speaker 5: then basically we started and it's yeah, there was just
Speaker 5: no way back. So yeah, we said like okay, let's
Speaker 5: send out food twice and then yeah, I just went
Speaker 5: like day and nights being on the field, and quite
Speaker 5: quickly we moved to food distribution every day because there
Speaker 5: were so many people in the area that wanted to cook.
Speaker 5: There was like an Islamic group that were churches. They
Speaker 5: were like, yeah, from all over the country. People were
Speaker 5: coming in action. And yeah, so first we did food
Speaker 5: kind of because people really wanted it, but also kind
Speaker 5: of because we just knew how to do it because
Speaker 5: we had some people who had a big kitchen and
Speaker 5: some experience cooking and in large quantities. And then quickly
Speaker 5: it became like colder and rainy as well, so we
Speaker 5: started to move towards leaving bags and ponchos and yet
Speaker 5: just yeah, big distributions, and then we also started to
Speaker 5: hand out tents, and then we got into a whole
Speaker 5: fight with the municipality and the police because they were
Speaker 5: constantly like confiscating the tents. Yeah, but yeah, we just
Speaker 5: started with what we thought would be feasible to do,
Speaker 5: I guess, and then it kind of escalated really quickly
Speaker 5: to yeah, us being kind of responsible for a lot
Speaker 5: of basic needs of everyone on the field, and also
Speaker 5: us monitoring, like informing journalists because like the government would
Speaker 5: be like, oh, no, there's nobody there on the field
Speaker 5: right now, and then we would just like five minutes,
Speaker 5: I'd be like no one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we also quite quickly like became a big part
Speaker 5: of the whole political debate where like the government was
Speaker 5: saying one thing and we were saying another, and like
Speaker 5: they were all all the time trying to pretend that
Speaker 5: nothing was wrong and everything was fine.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, I think it's it's such a common
Speaker 2: it's sadly a common experience, right. It's being like a
Speaker 2: the government is lying to you, Like you can see
Speaker 2: this with your eyes, so that you're being lied to,
Speaker 2: and be like they're just going to leave these people
Speaker 2: if we don't do something, no one will. Something that
Speaker 2: we've had here. We see it, as you say, every
Speaker 2: border in Europe more or less, right, Like it's just
Speaker 2: a consequence of the way that like neoliberal capitalism has
Speaker 2: decided to deal with migration, which is to make to
Speaker 2: be as cruel as possible and to make it as
Speaker 2: hard as possible for people. I wonder, like you've been
Speaker 2: organizing there, at at least in this place for like
Speaker 2: a year. I think I I want this to be
Speaker 2: instructive for people, because like we've been organizing here too,
Speaker 2: and we've learned a lot. Are there things that you've
Speaker 2: learned that you think other people could take from the
Speaker 2: organizing or or like and make you you also are
Speaker 2: part of organizing in your area. If either of you
Speaker 2: have things that you've learned about, specifically organizing to help migrants,
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear them.
Speaker 5: Oh so many things. I'm probably gonna forget some of
Speaker 5: the things I've learned. Well. I think one thing that
Speaker 5: I've learned, and that I've learned over and over and
Speaker 5: over again, is that if you start doing something, you
Speaker 5: will find people who will join. And I think that's
Speaker 5: one of the scary things when you see a gigantic problem,
Speaker 5: and even if you know a concrete thing that you
Speaker 5: can do about it, it's still, Yeah, there is a
Speaker 5: lot of things that you cannot do as a single
Speaker 5: human being. But I found this true in many countries
Speaker 5: across the world, that if you just start and you
Speaker 5: say that you're doing it, people will actually join. And
Speaker 5: I found that as specially like painful in their apple
Speaker 5: that we were on this field and there had been
Speaker 5: so much media attention and there was nobody there, like
Speaker 5: everyone was speaking about it and no one was doing anything,
Speaker 5: and it was kind of depressing to witness that and
Speaker 5: to feel that nobody It felt like nobody cared, right,
Speaker 5: But as soon as we just started with this small thing,
Speaker 5: like okay, you can donate to groceries, you can come
Speaker 5: help cook, you can come help do the dishes, like
Speaker 5: concrete things that you can do. Yeah, we were like
Speaker 5: I think we got like a thousand people who wanted
Speaker 5: to volunteer with us, which was like way too much.
Speaker 5: We never got back to all of them because it
Speaker 5: was just insane. We did not need thousand people to
Speaker 5: cook food for two hundred people, so like, yeah, but
Speaker 5: we just started, and I think, yeah, I think that
Speaker 5: was really helpful, or I think that can be very
Speaker 5: helpful if you're thinking about doing something like start small,
Speaker 5: but don't be afraid that it will not kind of
Speaker 5: grow because people will join and people will make it
Speaker 5: into something bigger. Also a great lesson that I learned, Well,
Speaker 5: it's very basic and understandable actually, but like try to
Speaker 5: make Yeah, my experience is usually with like a mass distributions,
Speaker 5: so you have hundreds of people, you have food or
Speaker 5: blankets or whatever something that people really need, and it's
Speaker 5: like so important to really plan the distribution well and
Speaker 5: to really inform and discuss with people because that's one
Speaker 5: thing that also happened in their Apple that at some
Speaker 5: point people were just dumping shit on the field and
Speaker 5: they were actually causing fights and causing tensions between people
Speaker 5: because you cannot you can't show with five sleeping bags
Speaker 5: when hundreds of people are in desperate need of a
Speaker 5: sleeping back. You know, like that's kind of inhumane. And
Speaker 5: I get that people have good intentions, and I get
Speaker 5: that it could potentially mean that five people are less cold,
Speaker 5: but like, yeah, some sort of shelter is a basic necessity,
Speaker 5: so you cannot give that to a few and not
Speaker 5: to others. So yeah, I think like, like the first
Speaker 5: time we did the distribution into Apple, I was kind
Speaker 5: of scared because people were spreading like there was a
Speaker 5: lot of rumor about like, oh, it's so violent and
Speaker 5: these people are like blah blah blah, and and of
Speaker 5: course I kind of didn't believe it because I worked
Speaker 5: with migrants for a long time and I know that
Speaker 5: they're human being. You know, they're not so like shockingly
Speaker 5: different than but I've also learned that you need to be.
Speaker 5: They did not learn at all to trust anyone there,
Speaker 5: because like people were lying to them. People were telling
Speaker 5: them they would get shelter in the night, but they
Speaker 5: would not. People would say that they would see a
Speaker 5: doctor and they would not get to see a doctor.
Speaker 5: So like the I think it's really important if you
Speaker 5: want to help people that you take them seriously and
Speaker 5: that you build up some trust. So for example, we
Speaker 5: went the first time, we cooked so much food. We
Speaker 5: were like, it's we cannot make it run out, you know,
Speaker 5: like we want everyone to get as much as say
Speaker 5: once and more. Yeah, even if we have to trash,
Speaker 5: because like these people for once have to get the
Speaker 5: feeling that it's like that we're there for everyone. So
Speaker 5: like if you make if you do a mass distribution,
Speaker 5: you usually make light lines and people have to like
Speaker 5: wait for their turn. But we spend hours just telling
Speaker 5: people like, hey, we're going to give out food. There's
Speaker 5: so much food, you know, don't worry like it's toll
Speaker 5: and then also actually live up to that of course,
Speaker 5: make sure that there is enough food. Yeah, and like
Speaker 5: try to make it like fun. And this is like
Speaker 5: it's kind of awkward because you like I kind of
Speaker 5: feel awkward about putting people in a line and telling
Speaker 5: them to wait and you know like that because you're
Speaker 5: kind of being bossing them around. But yeah, if it
Speaker 5: goes well, once and everyone just feels like hey, here,
Speaker 5: I don't have to fight to get to the front,
Speaker 5: and here I can just chill out and we can
Speaker 5: make a chat with each other and we can just
Speaker 5: you know, smile and like wish each other a good day. Then, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think it's also really important to try to make
Speaker 5: distributions kind of fun or at least as chill as possible,
Speaker 5: and to like try to not make it another survival
Speaker 5: of the fittest moment, because that is exactly what the
Speaker 5: state is pushing people into, and that is what I
Speaker 5: don't want people to get into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very true. Like we've definitely learned
Speaker 2: a lot of those similar things. I can't like put
Speaker 2: enough emphasis on planning before you just show up and
Speaker 2: do a distribution, Like we had so many fucking chaotic
Speaker 2: it's not on. Yeah, people are fighting hungry and they've
Speaker 2: had to fight to get fed for the duration of
Speaker 2: the journey, be that days, weeks, months, or years, and
Speaker 2: like there's no they're doing what like they understand to
Speaker 2: be the necessary thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's it's absolutely not like humane to just
Speaker 5: recreate that mode, you know, Like it's amazing to be
Speaker 5: able to create a nice atmosphere where people can relax
Speaker 5: and feel safe and feel finally treated like equally and
Speaker 5: somehow like fairly again, even if it's just for a
Speaker 5: very simple meal. But it's yeah, I mean you can
Speaker 5: already get moody if someone jumps in front of you
Speaker 5: at the supermarket. You know, I can get moody with that.
Speaker 5: But it's like that, but then like way more extream
Speaker 5: and for actual, yeah, things that you need to survive
Speaker 5: all the time, Like it's yeah, it's hard to imagine,
Speaker 5: I guess if you've never really been in a survival situation.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it can be so much fun. Also, maybe
Speaker 5: that's another good one because I remember people were feeling
Speaker 5: sorry for me a lot when I was working there,
Speaker 5: like oh my god, this must be so hard, And
Speaker 5: I mean it was fucking hard sometimes, like I have
Speaker 5: literally been standing there like pushing away tears and being like, no,
Speaker 5: I'm fine, but I'm not fine at all. But also
Speaker 5: it's fun, like you're just joking around and you're making
Speaker 5: each other happy and you feel like you're part of
Speaker 5: something bigger and you feel I think it's very empowering
Speaker 5: to be like the state is fucking it up and
Speaker 5: we can actually do it better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much.
Speaker 2: So like I think it's very like affirming, right, like
Speaker 2: to be like we don't need like anyone telling us
Speaker 2: what to do, We don't need anyone trying to control us,
Speaker 2: like we can we can take care of these people
Speaker 2: ourselves without creating mechanisms of control. And like I think
Speaker 2: for me that was I like one of the reasons
Speaker 2: I really enjoy doing it is that that like me
Speaker 2: and my friends can care for these people. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know from my perspective, like I've had conversations
Speaker 2: with hundreds of people from all around the world, Like
Speaker 2: we would do things like play music while people waited
Speaker 2: for food. If we had a friend who was able
Speaker 2: to play music, you know, we had enough enough people.
Speaker 2: We'd always recruit people from among the migrants to help
Speaker 2: us with food distribution, which turned out to be great
Speaker 2: because like they taught us different words in different languages
Speaker 2: and like you know, I can say hot source and
Speaker 2: like twenty five languages now, like.
Speaker 4: It was important parts yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, the real to death.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was very and then like I remember
Speaker 2: one night it was like in Septemy, it was so cold,
Speaker 2: one of the cold nights it was in September, and
Speaker 2: it was just about freezing, and like there were very
Speaker 2: few of us back then, and we my friend had
Speaker 2: some guitars and like drums, and we like parked the
Speaker 2: band to block the wind and everyone sat around and
Speaker 2: played the guitar and they played their different songs and
Speaker 2: like we had all these really happy moments. Yeah it's
Speaker 2: not like we said around.
Speaker 3: Crying all the time. Like it's no, not at all
Speaker 3: very empowering, I.
Speaker 5: Think no, I think it's it's important what you just
Speaker 5: said that. Also a lot of work can be done
Speaker 5: by people themselves. So I remember a volunteer being like
Speaker 5: I want to give out the food, whereas these guys
Speaker 5: were giving out the food every day and they had
Speaker 5: this tour routine and they were much faster, and you know,
Speaker 5: like and also it's not about you feeling good about you.
Speaker 3: Know, like yeah, yeah, not that to help you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, like listen to people, like really spend
Speaker 5: a lot of time understanding what people need and what
Speaker 5: they want and because it's really often not what you expect.
Speaker 5: And yeah, make sure that people can also do stuff themselves.
Speaker 5: And also like for example, if we would have tents
Speaker 5: but not for everyone, or blankets but not for everyone,
Speaker 5: instead of making like a very rigid decision of like
Speaker 5: you get it and you don't. It's so useful to
Speaker 5: just talk to people and to just be like, hey, sorry,
Speaker 5: this is a situation or yeah. Like there were a
Speaker 5: lot of fights because families were always allowed to go first,
Speaker 5: but it was not really clearly communicated by the government's
Speaker 5: like can facility and stuff. But when we were just
Speaker 5: discussing with them, like, hey, how can we make the
Speaker 5: distribution more chill, they were like, well, can women and
Speaker 5: children and elderly people just go first? And I was
Speaker 5: like yeah, or you know, I mean, it's not really
Speaker 5: any of my business, like yeah, and then if everyone
Speaker 5: just understands it and it's kind of clear and understandable
Speaker 5: and explained, it's like so much more chill. Whereas if
Speaker 5: you're just shouting at people and assuming that they will
Speaker 5: not understand or assume that they will be selfish, you
Speaker 5: are also forcing people into that role. Yes, and I
Speaker 5: think it's really beautiful if you can snap out of that,
Speaker 5: and you can, yeah, you can just be somewhat equal,
Speaker 5: even though like legally or in a completely different situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: So what you're telling me is that if you talk
Speaker 6: to people and treat them as human beings. That has
Speaker 6: positive results for bad situations.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is a hot take, a very hot take.
Speaker 5: Yeah, breaking news.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't have nearly the amount of like field experience
Speaker 6: that Rose has has. So but another thing that I
Speaker 6: think is really important to highlight is that it's not
Speaker 6: just It's not just the necessities I was part of.
Speaker 6: I did first date at the No Border camp near
Speaker 6: to Apple last summer, and some of the activists there
Speaker 6: that a really admirable job day. I think they did
Speaker 6: not go to their Apple because it was too politically
Speaker 6: hot at the time, so they went to different centers
Speaker 6: where migrants were living, and they handed out toys and
Speaker 6: they hired a bouncy castle for the kids to play off.
Speaker 4: It was really.
Speaker 6: It was really basic in the sense that it didn't
Speaker 6: need like massive fund massive funds or incredible avance of
Speaker 6: organization that you need bureaucracies to handle. It was just
Speaker 6: people thinking of ways like, hey, how can we make
Speaker 6: these people happier or more comfortable or at least forget
Speaker 6: for like a few hours about like the situation therein
Speaker 6: because our media likes to, you know, dive onto every
Speaker 6: time there's a fight in a migrant center, right, But
Speaker 6: it's rarely discussed that if you put a lot of
Speaker 6: people in a stressful situation on top of each other,
Speaker 6: people will there will be tensions and there will be fights,
Speaker 6: which is I think we don't cover that enough, right.
Speaker 5: No, And also nobody really cares because I think it's
Speaker 5: It's one of the most beautiful things for me as well,
Speaker 5: is that the solidarity that people show each other. And like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you don't even see it half the time, but people
Speaker 5: give each other like their waterproof jackets or I remember
Speaker 5: one night it was a horrible night in their apple
Speaker 5: and we didn't expect people to be there, and all
Speaker 5: of a sudden there were hundreds of people and they
Speaker 5: hadn't had food since the morning. And then people in
Speaker 5: the camp they all get microwave meals and they kind
Speaker 5: of hate them, but like they all have kind of
Speaker 5: a stash, so they all like started to eat up
Speaker 5: microwave meals and bring them outside. And they were actually
Speaker 5: way more able to provide food on such a short
Speaker 5: notice than we were. And it was not the best food,
Speaker 5: but like everyone had food and they were even sharing
Speaker 5: it with us, and we were all just like so
Speaker 5: glad to be eating after ten hours in the rain
Speaker 5: and in the cold. And yeah people, Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 5: carrying luggage for someone who has Like it's all the
Speaker 5: time you see people standing up for each other, and
Speaker 5: I think that is honestly an amazing thing. And maybe
Speaker 5: more tough situations bring that out somehow more as well,
Speaker 5: Like it's easy for most people in Western societies to
Speaker 5: be very individualists and live very isolated and yeah, non
Speaker 5: fulfilling lives, but then if you are in this kind
Speaker 5: of situation in some ways, it can also bring out.
Speaker 3: The best in people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, Like we were just talking about
Speaker 2: before we start, I did how like yesterday I was
Speaker 2: out helping down by the border and around the two
Speaker 2: Mauritanian guys who had carried a Chinese man with a
Speaker 2: leg injury for two days and they couldn't even share
Speaker 2: the same language. And like that walk is no that
Speaker 2: hike is no joke. Like I do that with a
Speaker 2: big backpack full of water. That's hard, and I do
Speaker 2: a lot of hiking, but I wasn't carrying another human,
Speaker 2: you know, But it can actually really bring out some
Speaker 2: incredible acts of kindness. And I wonder, guys, we're running
Speaker 2: close at the end of our signed time. If people
Speaker 2: want to help, either they say they're in the Netherlands
Speaker 2: and they want to come and help, or if they
Speaker 2: want to help in a financial way, or maybe they
Speaker 2: can do some remote so to help, maybe they can
Speaker 2: respond to the thousand volunteers by email for you, how
Speaker 2: can they do that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, donations are always welcome. We're currently not working in
Speaker 5: their apple, but it doesn't look good. So usually the
Speaker 5: influx is highest in summer and early autumn. And we
Speaker 5: have like a far right majority in parliament since a
Speaker 5: few months, so we're wouldn't be surprised if we have
Speaker 5: people out on the streets again. Also, I think there's
Speaker 5: a very big chance that the shelters for undocumented people
Speaker 5: might close, so we would have a lot of people
Speaker 5: on the streets then. So we need a lot of
Speaker 5: solidarity networks and a lot of things, like a lot yeah,
Speaker 5: so like, yeah, financial support is always welcome, but I
Speaker 5: think it's also really important that people think about what
Speaker 5: they can do in their lives and that it is
Speaker 5: also something that they can manage inside of their lives.
Speaker 5: So like not everyone can drop everything and yeah, move
Speaker 5: to the other side of the country or whatever. But
Speaker 5: if you can host one person, or if you can
Speaker 5: support someone else who's hosting, like, there are ways, I think.
Speaker 5: I think migrated does not have like all the options
Speaker 5: to volunteer, but like we really hope that there will
Speaker 5: be a lot of networks of solidarity that yeah, we
Speaker 5: just need them across the country, I think, and I
Speaker 5: do think there's like a serious risk of like more
Speaker 5: criminalization of aid workers. We were also criminalized for handing
Speaker 5: out tents. I got a letter that said that I
Speaker 5: risk like three months of imprisonment for handing out tents.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah Jesus.
Speaker 4: But there's democracy moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need that European social democracy model everyone's talking about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we are just doing great.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: And so, like tents were constantly confiscated and stuff, and
Speaker 5: it was intense there because people had to be there
Speaker 5: to get sheltered, which they legally were entitled to. But
Speaker 5: it is a bigger trend, so regular homeless people will
Speaker 5: also see their tents confiscated or smashed without them getting
Speaker 5: an offer to get into a shelter. Right, So I
Speaker 5: think the criminalization in our case was a bit extreme
Speaker 5: because most of the criminalization had to do with at
Speaker 5: least a very vague relationship with like smuggling or people
Speaker 5: crossing borders, whereas like handing out senses like the most humanitarian,
Speaker 5: basic thing that you can possibly do, and somehow they
Speaker 5: still thought it was a good idea to criminalize that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think we need to prepare for the fact that
Speaker 5: our borders and our migration policies are going to get
Speaker 5: more cruel and that the only thing that we can
Speaker 5: do to help is like really strong networks of solidarity
Speaker 5: and resistance, and that we might sometimes risk prison time,
Speaker 5: but that we still probably need to do it because
Speaker 5: the alternative is that we're just letting people be destroyed
Speaker 5: in this system.
Speaker 2: I think that's very very good. Make do you have
Speaker 2: anything bad work and people follow you, find more ways
Speaker 2: to support, ways to show solidary t I think.
Speaker 6: What I plugged last time, like that polish from text campaign.
Speaker 6: Find your local activist group.
Speaker 5: Or started, because we exactly exactly even if you're just
Speaker 5: one person, it's.
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, like through social media you can find a
Speaker 6: lot of people. Find your local squad. They will be
Speaker 6: they will will want to help.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and maybe what you just said, like there's every
Speaker 5: year no border camp somewhere in another Lars, so that's
Speaker 5: a good place to start.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yes, you can find them on Instagram.
Speaker 4: I think I'm not on Instagram. I don't know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's there.
Speaker 4: That that's that. That's definitely an option. Atmosphere is great there.
Speaker 6: I don't I'm not on the socials, so you can't
Speaker 6: find me if you want to.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: And well I'm also like Rose you said, I do
Speaker 6: some stuff with like a first aid collective. So if
Speaker 6: you guys are if you are doing something and you're like, hey,
Speaker 6: we could use some people with.
Speaker 4: Some degree of medical training, reach out to me.
Speaker 6: You have my contacts, because that is the kind of
Speaker 6: thing I will most definitely get.
Speaker 4: Well excited is the wrong word.
Speaker 5: If sh hits the vanitser apple, we could really use
Speaker 5: some first aid as well, then yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, reach out. I will.
Speaker 6: I will gladly come over there with all the medical
Speaker 6: supplies that are scattered around my room.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good illustration there, right to finish up, like,
Speaker 2: everybody has a skill that we can use, Like you
Speaker 2: might not think you do, but you probably do. Like
Speaker 2: someone knitted hats for us you know, if you're a
Speaker 2: person who likes to knit, And we had people who
Speaker 2: didn't think they had much to offer and then came
Speaker 2: and just made sandwiches. And they created a method for
Speaker 2: making sandwiches in bulk that like allowed us to make
Speaker 2: more sandwiches more quickly. Everybody has even if you want
Speaker 2: to be the person who washes the blankets and that's
Speaker 2: a massive task that means somebody's warm at night.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's an insane test. And also like maybe the
Speaker 5: more intimidating tasks, Like I think it could be intimidating
Speaker 5: to be like, oh, we're going to I don't know,
Speaker 5: hundreds of men and everyone says they're scary, but indeed
Speaker 5: there's also so much things happening in the background, like
Speaker 5: collecting blankets, getting clothes, getting groceries. Like there's so so
Speaker 5: many layers to it. And it can also be that
Speaker 5: you collect tend blankets, but like hundreds of people collect
Speaker 5: tend blankets, right, So it's also you're always part of
Speaker 5: something bigger and there's always a there's always I think
Speaker 5: that it's always very good to think that, Like, if
Speaker 5: you're faced with a big problem, it's very hard to
Speaker 5: get to the solution of it. But at the same time,
Speaker 5: it's very easy to do a tiny thing about it.
Speaker 5: And I think it's much more useful to do that
Speaker 5: tiny thing than to be like, oh, I can never
Speaker 5: get to the real solution of this problem, And in
Speaker 5: the end you will kind of get to it by
Speaker 5: doing that with more and more people and actually building
Speaker 5: up collective power and resistance.
Speaker 6: Yeah, about the collecting thing, like, yeah, for example, I
Speaker 6: know my parents still have like old toys from when
Speaker 6: we my brother were younger. If you're in an area
Speaker 6: with a refugee center, you could always just give those
Speaker 6: toys to the people there. If you have old, old
Speaker 6: children's books or something, people can use that to get
Speaker 6: a grasp on the Gibberish that is the Dutch language.
Speaker 6: These little things also matter a lot, and it's something
Speaker 6: very impactful that you can do that doesn't take much
Speaker 6: of your own effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very low threshold, right.
Speaker 2: And it makes a huge difference to make someone feel
Speaker 2: cared for and welcome. That can make all the difference
Speaker 2: in the world. What is Can you just spell out
Speaker 2: the migreat website for us.
Speaker 5: Uh huh m I g R E A T dot org.
Speaker 3: Dot org. Perfect.
Speaker 5: It's like migration is great, migreat mi great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see what you're there. All right, Thank you
Speaker 3: so much, both of you.
Speaker 4: Thanks, thank you for having us.
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