Mijanou ter Braak

I always feld great admiration when I see people in newspapers that enter official buildings and take action against injustice. At least they do something I always thought. I myself am more someone who would ocupy a house or march on the street, hoping that will change something. Squat a house against the corrupt housing market, boycot a product from a corrupt country, speak to everyone and everywhere about the injustice done in this world. Trying to spread the word. Connecting with as many groups as possible....

Exposing myself in the newspapers or bragging about what I've done never occured to me. You do things because you believe in them, because  the things you do that is what you are. 

But like I said, whenever I saw a picture online or anywhere about an action that exposed people in power I had great admiration. So about two years ago I decided to join one of those groups. Stimulated by an american writer ''activist''. I feld all my activities so far didn't really change a thing, the system in the west was and still is getting more and more fascist, inhumane and anti social everyday, so I thought radical action was the right thing to do!

One of the things that did bother me most at that time and still bothers me most, is the inhumanity with wich people speak about the wars world wide. So my choise was an eassy one, I joined a peace group. A peace group that does the kind of actions you see on the internet and in the newspapers. That might change something I was hoping.

Unfortunatly things didn't go as what I hoped for. First of all all the actions I did with them didn't make it in the news....:-(
It did get me in jail, but not in the news....So nobody knew about our actions....
It did give them a kick I supose, I only feld disapointed...
The american writer ''activist'' writer on the other hand  turned out to be a pretty self-centered agressive man. Obviously selling books and being the most clever guy was more important to him than the things he claimed to stand for. Ego kills a man. Americans are very weak in that way, a little bit of attention and they go up in their ''public figure'' ''Mister celebrity'' cloud. It's the system that makes us weak, and the harder the system, the weaker we get.
Also he turned out to be just like the system he pretended to despise. He hates anarchist but is still using naive anarchist groups today to promote his books. That's like a racist using black people to get to the top.... How can I trust a men like that?

As if that wasn't enough to feel down, the Belgium peace group I was with,decided to start a new group in Brugge. The person they put in charge of that group is the wife of an army colonel.Yes, I can hear you all fall of you chair to. Not an army colonel who quit the army after he found out the army in the west is just being used since the second world war for commercial purpose....no no no...an army colonel who never had an other job beside this one and who is hoping to get a nice job in the Green 'left' party of Belgium after he retires to put a bit of extra money on his 'low' pension.
Cause besides money making and political career seeking I really can't see any other reason for her and him being involved with this new peace group.
How can I trust a 'peace' group like that?

I always thought people like the writer and the leaders of the peace group had big ego's, but now I'm older I think it goes deeper than that. I think it would be pretty honest to just call it commercialised acivism. I saw this in politics, and now I see it, with tears in my eyes, in so called ''activist'' groups. People who join a group like that just to set up a nice career as a writer or pollitician. I can understand some activist become writers or politicians, but if you enter a group like that just to become one of the two you are so damn rotten...

It made me come back to my old self. Activism is something you do because that is what you are. No mather how small your actions may be, as long as there is a fight, there will be future. as long as the word gets spread, there will be a change. A change in the future generations, a change in society.

Down with commercial activism!
Long live sincere activism :-)