Eva De Vor

Could I be braver?

Could I be better and listen to the narratives I don’t want to hear?

That it isn’t about restoring and protecting nature, biodiversity and environment, but an evil plan to expropriate Dutch farmers; a plan to take their land and build a million houses for those who seek refuge in the Netherlands?

Why all of a sudden an old Dutch law is pulled out that enables the state to replace its own civilians from their houses in case of emergencies, such as (the threat of) war. Mayors of Dutch municipalities now have the responsibility to give Ukrainian refugees shelter, healthcare, education, living allowance in their towns on the basis of this law that is partly in effect. This means a far-reaching discretion of the authorities. Some lawyers say the government uses this law improperly. The ability to force civilians to take Ukrainian refugees in their houses and have the legal responsibility to take care of them or even to evacuate from their houses to make space, is not yet approved by the parliament.

Is the Dutch government abusing its power (again)? Should I listen more to these stories I don’t want to know? Try to understand people’s worries better, especially if it’s your own mother? And not make them ridiculous and laugh about it?

The reason why I don’t like to listen, is because these stories distract us from all what matters right now: revitalise our soils, refuse to do any more harm to the oceans, the forests and animals alive, and to prevent the planet will be an unbearable place to live. Stories that don’t tell you to make the world a safer place for all. Stories that don’t tell you to break walls instead of building them. I don’t like such stories.

So, are we going to listen to those that indulge in chaos or to those that want constructive change?

What I miss so much in the discussion around the Dutch farmers’ protest is nuance (the same we lacked in the debate about the pandemic and Covid-vaccinations). It isn’t black or white, as some popular columnists of renown newspapers want us to believe. It isn’t ‘you are either with us or against us’, as you especially see on social media. The real truth why we need a radical change of the (Dutch) industrial agriculture and our food-system remains mostly unspoken, at least I don’t hear much of this reasoning from supporters of the protests. The nuance is totally absent. Especially populists have made an atmosphere around the Dutch farmers’ protests of: you are either with us or against us, fueling the chaos, spreading anti-immigration and anti-climate change propaganda. It’s about so much more.

We live in radical times and lies are easily spread. Here an example that I shared on Instagram last week:

🇳🇱The Dutch farmers have had enough and are courageously fighting back against the Great Reset. They deserve your full support. They certainly have mine. It’s very simple: No farmers, no food. #DutchFarmers #boeren pic.twitter.com/SjY8XVWkNV
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) July 8, 2022

Closer to the (Dutch) truth is: no soil, no food.

Besides, the Netherlands are the second exporter of agricultural products in the world. Isn’t that globalism? The issue national conservatists as Eva Vlaardingerbroek are strongly opposing to. She says it’s all made up, there is no such thing as an excessive emission of nitrogen, such as ammonia, polluting our environment. The Netherlands is a so called pilot country for the (evil) Great Reset Agenda “you’ll own nothing and be happy” by Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, that eventually will result in a communist state. Eva Vlaardingenbroek is just one of many who think this (conspiracy) theory is the one and only truth.

I thought this comment I came across captures the Dutch crisis quite well:

However, it’s a necessity to stay open to the stories we don’t want to hear and to fight them with our knowledge and facts. Living with eyes closed and ears covered is a weak strategy. Staying on track with an open heart and mind isn’t.

If we can’t tell each other anymore what we believe, where are we then? Aren’t we stranded in a poor way of life? Living in our own bubbles can feel safe, but is a potential danger. Wherever you stand on the political spectrum.

I feel for the young ones these days where social media and phones dominate their existence; in times where people compare, exhibit and build personal brands.

I was lucky to be born in the 70’ies. I’ve had many chances, raised by loving and strong parents and never felt the need to compare my life to another. I felt carried by my environment without too many distractions.

Especially in these polarised times, don’t we feel the need to be carried by our circle of friends and family?

Also if that means we have to listen to stories we think are untrue?

Also if that means we have to step out of our comfort-zone filled with our own (narrow) views and believes?

Yes, I think we have to.

Because it’s hard work to be more courageous. It’s hard work to be more free.

Con Amor,

Eva

P.S. If you’d like to support my Dutch articles on Reporters Online, you can do this here.

Thank you!

Photo: Eric Muhr/Unsplash

Zomerkoorts.

Waar is de nuance, de verfijning in de chaos, het voorbij-denken?

De verstarring die de wereld in haar greep lijkt te houden

De impasses en de tegenwerking op thema’s van leven en dood

Omdat zwart-wit de norm lijkt te zijn

Wees niet te ingewikkeld, leg het simpel uit, de grote bek zal het je vertellen

Je hoeft verder niet meer na te denken

Laat staan andere geluiden te ontvangen

Makkelijk hè?

God, wie verlangt er niet naar een onbezonnen zomer?

Geluid uit, de zon op je huid, op een strandstoel, langs het zwembad of in de achtertuin

De tijd laten stilstaan, de harde wereld doen verzachten, zorgeloos, met wijn en gelach

Maar bommen houden niet op met vallen

Slachthuizen zijn niet minder druk

Honger is niet van gisteren

Toch zullen gezichten verzachten,

harde lijnen verdoezelen,

hete discussies worden bedolven

Al is het maar voor even

Voet van het gaspedaal

Herstel is pas mogelijk bij erkenning van ziekte

Onze wereld is ziek

Ze staat stijf van de spanning, op plaatsen rot ze volledig weg

Ze raakt oververhit, slaat om zich heen, hele bossen verdwijnen

Zolang iemand nog denkt dat dat normaal is, komt van genezing niets terecht

De koorts die haar kwelt, kwelt ons allen

We zullen het pas echt weten als het ons treft

De vluchteling, omdat we tegen beter weten in

De voet op het gaspedaal hielden

Dieper, verder, harder, op een dodenrit

Maar eerst zomer, die hete, koortsachtige zomer

Ik zeg het je, ze is aangebroken.

Con Amor,

Eva

God doesn’t make junk ~ Holocaust survivor Edith Eva Eger.

“We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know what will happen, but nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind,” said the mother of Dr. Edith Eva Eger when they were deported to the gates of Auschwitz.

The ballerina of Auschwitz, as Eger was called, was sixteen when she was taken away by the Nazis. In concentration camp Auschwitz she was forced to dance for Josef Mengele, the ‘angel of death’. She did so with her eyes closed. In her mind she wasn’t standing between the cold barracks, but in the Opera House in Budapest, and she was Juliet in the ballet Romeo and Juliet.

When the US Army liberated the camp on 4 May 1945, a soldier saw her hand move when she was left for dead among a number of dead bodies. He quickly called for medical assistance and therefore saved her life. She weighed only 32 kg at the time; her body was broken.

Two years ago I read her memoir The Choice. Sometimes I had to put it aside to catch my breath, only to pick it up again immediately and continue reading. An unforgettable book about the moving life of an extraordinary and powerful woman, who later, as a psychologist, helped veterans and soldiers with PTSD.

Here I would like to share some meaningful quotes from The Choice:

“Anti-Semitism wasn’t a Nazi invention. When I was growing up I developed a feeling of inferiority, and I became convinced that it was safer not to say that I was Jewish.”

“In Auschwitz, in Mauthausen, and during the death march, I survived by drawing on my inner world.”

“I found hope and faith in my inner life, even when surrounded by starvation, torture and death.”

“I did not yet know that nightmares do not adhere to land borders, that guilt and fear are boundless.”

“Maybe moving forward also means going back to the past.”

“We cannot choose to let the darkness disappear, but we can choose to cherish the light.”

“Every moment is a choice. No matter how frustrating, unpleasant, exhausting, painful or oppressive our experience, we can always choose how to respond.”

“You can take everything away from a person except one thing: the last of the human freedoms, which is to be able to choose what attitude to take in all given circumstances, to be able to choose your own path.” ~ Victor Frankl.

“I have nowhere to go to escape my discomfort; I just have to feel it.”

“By running away from the past, from my fear, I could not find freedom.”

“I turned my fear into a prison and locked it by remaining silent.”

“We can choose to be our own prison guards, or we can choose to be free.”

“Running away from the past or fighting against the pain we are experiencing now is equivalent to imprisoning ourselves.”

“Expressing yourself, i.e. self-expression, is the opposite of depression.”

“Mourning rites and rituals can be a hugely important part of grieving. I think that’s why religions and cultures contain distinct mourning rituals. There is a protected space and structure within someone begins to experience the feelings of loss.”

“To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself.”

“No one can make you a victim. Only you can do that.”

“If you can’t go through a door, go through the window.”

“To heal, we must embrace the darkness.”

“To heal means to tend the wound.”

‘Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis: times change and we change with them.”

“If we start believing that it is impossible for us to be loved if we are authentic, then we run the risk of denying our true nature.”

“Your own thoughts are the biggest prison and the key is in your pocket: the willingness to take total responsibility for your life; the willingness to take risks.”

Con Amor,

Eva

Vandaag is het Earth Day 2022!

Hoe lang staan we nog toe dat gezonde dieren in de pluimveehouderij worden ‘geruimd’?

Kip is nog altijd een populair stukje vlees. Jaarlijks worden wereldwijd zo’n 50 miljard vleeskippen geslacht voor voedsel met aan kop China, VS en Brazilië. In 2019 werd er wereldwijd 130 miljard kilogram kippenvlees geproduceerd en de productie van kippenvlees neemt alleen maar verder toe. Daarmee is het het meest gegeten stukje vlees. Er mag dan zo’n diversiteit aan vleesvervangers in de supermarktschappen te vinden zijn, het heeft geen enkel effect op de consumptie van kippenvlees. Hoe komt dat?

Verbinding

Deels door eenvoudige huis- tuin- en keukenpsychologie. Om iets van wat de ander doormaakt volledig te begrijpen, moet je het eigenlijk eerst zelf ervaren hebben. In het geval van ziekte en verlies bijvoorbeeld, maar ook rouw, echtscheiding, en de geboorte van een kind. We moeten nog altijd eerst ergens zelf door geraakt worden alvorens we tot begrip en compassie komen, ja werkelijk doorvoelen van wat er gebeurt en wat mede zorgt voor de nodige verbinding. Pas dan verandert er wat. Ik vraag me af, of dat ook geldt voor het stoppen met het eten van dieren.

Nu ikzelf een aantal kippen en een haan heb rondlopen in de tuin en ze beter heb leren kennen (ieder heeft zo zijn of haar eigen grappige karakter) en ze bijna net zo leuk zijn als de huispoes, grijpen de laatste berichten over de vergassing van honderdduizenden gezonde Nederlandse soortgenootjes me naar de keel. Sterker nog dan voorheen. ’Preventief ruimen’ wordt dat ook wel genoemd. Alsof het over een zooi spullen gaat, waar we heel snel vanaf moeten. En er komt geen einde aan. Van 2020 tot 2021 werden er 2,2 miljoen kippen, kuikens, kalkoenen en eenden in Nederland gedood door nieuwe uitbraken van vogelgriep. En nu op het nieuwe hoogtepunt van de uitbraak, gisteren alleen al 145.000 dieren in een bedrijf in Lunteren, worden het er steeds meer.

Politieke wil

Wat mij nog het meest frustreert is dat de politieke wil ontbreekt om aan de voortdurende kwelling en het gezondheidsgevaar een einde te maken. Het is geen hogere wiskunde: minder kippen houden, minder dicht op elkaar zetten en ze inenten.

‘Dodelijke vogelgriep is verschrikkelijk voor kippen zelf. Daarnaast creëren we ook een groot probleem voor wilde vogels, die toch al in de verdrukking zitten door hun slinkende habitat. En natuurlijk is het een gevaarlijk risico voor de mens. In de afgelopen honderd jaar is het meermaals bewezen dat intensieve veeteelt leidt tot dodelijke pandemieën,’ zegt hoogleraar Virologie Thijs Kuiken in dit lezenswaardige interview in De Correspondent.

Inkrimping

De pluimveehouderij moet drastisch inkrimpen ter voorkoming van nóg meer dierenleed, maar ook om de volksgezondheid te bewaken. Een nieuwe pandemie wordt uitgebroed in de kippenschuren en er gebeurt niets om dat te voorkomen.

Kun jij het stukje kip bannen van je bord? Of liever gezegd, vind je het belangrijk genoeg? Er gewoon mee stoppen, omdat dat kan? Want bij gebrek aan politieke wil, ben jij als consument er ook nog om druk uit te oefenen op de pluimveehouderij, zodat die noodzakelijke inkrimping er gaat komen. En dat gebeurt al door geen kipfilet of kippenboutje meer te kopen. Zo simpel is het. Ik ben er al jaren geleden mee gestopt, omdat door alles wat ik over de pluimveehouderij te weten kwam, dat stukje kippenvlees me acuut misselijk maakte. Zo ook met de kippeneieren.

Gebroken borstbeen

Vergeet vooral ook het gezellig klinkende ‘scharrelei’ niet. Daar is niks leuk scharrelen in de ruimtelijke, vrije buitenlucht bij. Doorgefokte leghennen moeten bovendien zoveel eieren produceren (meer dan 300 stuks per jaar), dat de meeste kippen volgens de organisatie Wakker Dier met een gebroken borstbeen door hun miezerige leventje gaan. Nee, dank je. Mocht je een (hobby)boer met kippen die écht kunnen scharrelen in de buurt hebben, koop ze dan voortaan daar.

“How do you like your eggs in the morning?” vraagt Helen O’Connell liefjes aan Dean Martin. “I like mine with a kiss,” geeft hij haar als mierzoet antwoord in het bekende vijftigerjaren liedje. Zo’n eitje gaat er wel in natuurlijk, heerlijk, maar het komt van een industrie die voor de kip verwoestend is. Helemaal nu met de vogelgriep op een bedroevend nieuw hoogtepunt in Europa.

Voortbestaan

Willen we als mens nog lang op deze aardbol kunnen leven, dan moeten we hoognodig rekening gaan houden met dieren en de wijze waarop de mens dieren houdt. En daar moeten we ook iets voor willen doen, of eigenlijk vooral laten.

Vandaag 22 april is het Earth Day, ofwel de Dag van de Aarde. Wat doe jij vandaag om beter voor haar te zorgen?

Con Amor,

Eva

What health means (to me).

Peace, war, sickness and health, it’s all happening. More than 2000 km away there is ravage and death. Lost humans and homeless animals in stifling fear. It’s surreal to realise that battle field isn’t extremely far from our safe houses. In the meantime I have been to my motherland to be there for — and with — my family. My sister has been diagnosed with breast-cancer on valentine’s day. Her tumors were removed and she will get treatment soon. The hospitals still have lots to catch up due to covid-19, so my sister is waiting for her first treatment to begin. Let’s hope she can start soon.

Another confrontation that life can change all of a sudden. A severe attack of the human body is not that different from an invasion of a country. You trusted it to be safe, but under the skin there was tension, sickness, an underground battle fought between parties. Worlds are turned upside down. The major challenge will be to regain faith in your body, to shake off the fear in fighting your enemies. Those in war are bearing arms, and eliminating “the other”, the sick are using mental bullets as their weapons. And the heaviest bullet will be trust. Trust in the body and mind that is capable of healing, in its incredible strength and flexibility. Despair bends into courage, pain into hope. Remember that rebounds are just temporary.

But you will only know this when you are the one who must get through this. As everything in life, you first need to experience all of it yourself. Only then you will fully understand what it means to live in a sick body or having a sick country as your home.

What do we know about war? Only our parents know what war is when they are old enough. But we, the spoiled generation, we don’t know a damn thing. What does it mean to flee our home and country? To be a refugee? We are not able to even grasp a thing of it. Maybe we will know when sea levels rise, fertile lands turn into deserts, biodiversity is gone and our soils are completely depleted. Maybe one day we will understand as we knock on other gates.

We live in a sick world in sick bodies. More than ever we need health in our lives; for both our bodies and minds. Health means to be a guardian of nature. It means respect, acceptance, knowledge, compassion, trust, love and friendship – with yourself and those around you. But also art, craftmanship, music and dance. It’s all that nourishes life.

Con Amor,

Eva