"Unless ordinary people-people like you and me, people like my mother and father--unless we educate ourselves and work for peace, it will not happen. Our temptation is always to look to the 'experts' or the 'leaders' in government or the peace movement for the answers. But we are learning again that all of us must, and can, be peacemakers. That is what this movement is all about-ordinary people re-discovering the power to make peace a reality."
So spoke a member of a local chapter of the Dutch Interchurch Peace Council (IKV) in advance of the anti-nuclear demonstration in Amsterdam on November 21 of last year: "We are going to Amsterdam because we believe ordinary people all around the world want an end to nuclear weapons. Perhaps the beginning of that 'end' to the arms race can happen here in the Netherlands."
Indeed, it was 400,000 "ordinary people" who arose early that Saturday morning in villages and cities across the Netherlands. They packed sandwiches and thermoses of coffee and boarded buses, trains, and cars bound for Amsterdam. Four hundred thousand--twice the number expected by demonstration organizers--converged on the city. Rivulets of people streamed into the cobbled side streets. There simply wasn't enough room in the massive city square or along the designated parade route. But the fact that some people could not hear the speakers or reach the designated route didn't seem to matter. They were there, and that is what mattered. They were there standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers, smiling and singing, sharing bread and coffee, remarking to one another again and again, as a refrain: "Isn't this wonderful? Isn't this hopeful? So many people!"
Four hundred thousand people. Families with four generations walking arm in arm, people in wheelchairs, parents pushing baby strollers, soldiers in uniform, representatives from labor unions and political parties. Four hundred thousand individuals. No two of them walked, dressed, talked, or looked exactly alike. A three-piece-suited man held the hand of a woman dressed as if for an evening at the theater. Beside them stood a woman in overalls. A Dutch Air Force member in full uniform gave the peace sign to a young man who wore a tattered World War II Air Force jacket covered with buttons condemning war. An elderly man walked haltingly supported by his cane. Bundled in woolen scarves and sweaters, an infant in the arms of her mother clutched a balloon on which was written: "Away with the bomb." Four hundred thousand individuals who had come to this city to say with one emphatic voice: "No nuclear weapons in Europe. We want to live."
The resounding no to weapons, which rumbled through the narrow streets and across the sparkling canals, was complemented by a corresponding yes to life which issued in festivity on every corner. There were puppet shows, folk dancing, pantomime, street theater, and musical ensembles. Humor was also an important element of that celebrative yes. Atop a bright red truck three people dressed as plump gray mice danced to music and gave speeches on the threat of nuclear war "from a mouse's perspective." The banner draped across the truck announced these three characters as "Muisen Tegen Kruisen" (Mice Against Cruise Missiles).
The wise and ancient bishop, St. Nicholas, whom legend tells us comes each year to the Netherlands by steamboat from Spain, marched triumphantly, replete with golden staff, brocade robe, and an entourage of helpers who carried signs saying, "St. Nicholas supports disarmament." And a man dressed as a waiter from an elegant restaurant in tuxedo and gloves walked through the crowds with a white cloth over one arm and a silver serving tray in the other. On the tray stood a glass containing a most unusual drink, a miniature replica of a neutron bomb. With impeccable class, the waiter approached people asking, "Pardon me, was it you who ordered the neutron bomb? No? Then please, who asked for the neutron bomb? Was it you?"
The demonstration was the culmination of months of hard work by a coalition of peace groups all across the country. One had the sense that November 21 was a kind of national holiday. Every day for months in advance of the demonstration, articles in newspapers and magazines and programs on the television debated the issues of disarmament and the proposed NATO modernization. Everywhere one traveled people were talking about the upcoming event, asking one another at work, at church, in neighborhoods, in classrooms, "Are you going to Amsterdam? Do you have your bus ticket yet?" One almost got the feeling that it was a civic duty: If you are Dutch, you should be in Amsterdam on November 21.
As an American who has attended demonstrations in the United States, I am acquainted with the spirit of anticipation that can accompany planning for such an event. However, that sense of excitement was usually confined to a sub-culture that eagerly awaited the approaching day while the vast majority of Americans went about their business as usual, many unaware that a demonstration was even occuring. Perhaps it is partly attributable to the size of the Netherlands, but I would be genuinely surprised if there was one Dutch person who did not know that there was a demonstration in Amsterdam and furthermore, why it was happening. That is not to say that all Dutch citizens were in accord with the demonstration's goals, but almost everyone, in one way or another, was confronted with the decision of whether to attend. Many who could not attend offered tangible solidarity by purchasing "support tickets," by hanging white flags from their windows, by writing letters to officials, or by staying home to care for children so other members of the family could attend. During the day itself, people at home followed the events in Amsterdam by tuning into live radio and television coverage.
In the section of the northern city of Groningen where I live, people were talking about the demonstration before, during and afterwards. Our section of the city is called Beijum, and the inhabitants number around 3,000. Two months before the demonstration a new chapter of the ecumenical peace council, IKV, was begun in Beijum. Within two months every household in Beijum had received a flier about the demonstration as well as an IKV member at their door asking if they wished to purchase a ticket on the "Beijum Bus" to Amsterdam. The three Saturdays prior to the demonstration, our IKV group sponsored a "parade" through the neighborhoods of Beijum. We mounted a wooden facsimile of a nuclear warhead atop a bright orange van, covered it with paper flowers and a banner which read, "No More Nuclear Weapons in the Netherlands." With guitars, bicycles decorated with streamers, and a great brass horn, we paraded through Beijum singing, talking with people, and selling bus tickets door to door. Families, hearing us approach, gathered at their windows smiling and nodding the way people gratefully welcome Christmas carolers.
Our initial hope had been to fill one or two buses from Beijum. As November 21 approached, we had filled four buses and could have filled more except that we learned there simply were no more buses in all the Netherlands. Every last bus had been rented. Buses from Germany had to be rented at the last minute to accommodate overflow crowds, and 20 extra trains were set on the rails. Two hundred people would be traveling by bus from Beijum, 15,000 in all from the province of Groningen.
By 8:30 a.m. on November 21, all 200 of us from Beijum had assembled awaiting the arrival of buses. The mood of the people was buoyant and friendly. People were introducing themselves with uncharacteristic abandon. The manager of the local grocery store gave us paint to make last-minute banners. The Protestant pastor and the Catholic priest were there. An employee of the city government told me he was going to Amsterdam because he believed the Dutch people were in a unique position to take leadership for peace: "I don't expect superpowers like the U.S. and the USSR to make the initiative for peace. It is in the nature of superpowers to try to outdo each other with military might and propaganda. But small countries such as the Netherlands are in a position to take unilateral steps toward disarmament and to put pressure on the superpowers to talk with one another."
Once we were on the bus, the driver greeted us cheerfully and offered his endorsement for our mission. In the three-hour bus ride we sang, passed food to one another, listened to the live radio coverage of demonstration speakers already in Amsterdam, and talked with one another about what this day could mean. A 50-year-old nurse confided in me that she had never attended a demonstration before: "I have wanted to stay neutral on this issue because, while I may have some fears about U.S.-NATO plans, I have always feared the Soviet Union more."
"Then why have you decided to attend this demonstration?" I asked.
"Because, much as I would like to, as a Christian I cannot remain neutral or uninvolved. This world is a gift from God, and something you receive as a gift you must care for. As Christians we must say no to something that could totally annihilate the gift of this world. I still fear the Russians, but there is something deeper here than which side is better--the Russians or the Americans--and that something deeper is the obligation I have towards the gift of this earth and other human beings. So, I go to Amsterdam."
I met another woman, a 59-year-old grandmother, who this day was also attending her first demonstration. She confessed some apprehension, not being sure what to expect, and she said that she had never been "very political." She responded to my query about why she came with one sentence: "Because I must, it is precisely people like me who must, for the sake of the children."
"Every day our children are exposed to reports of violence," explained a young mother and father. "We decided to bring our children with us to Amsterdam so they could experience for themselves that some people in this world, a lot of people, still believe in peace. We want them to see that there is another way."
I asked some people seated near me if they thought Reagan's disarmament proposal earlier that week would lessen the numbers in Amsterdam as Reagan had probably hoped. "Not at all," replied a teacher at a local university. "We have done too much study of the issues to be taken in by propaganda from the U.S. or the USSR. Of course we would like to hold Reagan and Brezhnev accountable to their lofty talk of being committed to disarmament. But we have a natural skepticism, since in all the years of negotiations not one nuclear weapon has been dismantled."
"Besides," interjected another, "we cannot directly control policy in the United States or the Soviet Union. We can have a direct voice in what our own country decides. We are going to Amsterdam to send an unmistakable message to our government: 'The Dutch people want no more nuclear weapons on Dutch soil; we are opposed to NATO modernization with cruise missiles and Pershing 2s. Were we to stay home and wait for the outcome of the negotiations in Geneva, we would once again be forfeiting the only real power we have.'"
The chaplain of a local hospital told me that, as a Christian, she felt she could not stay home today: "I work in a hospital where we spend hours agonizing about ethical issues such as euthanasia, which affect the life or death of one patient. Should we not be willing to give much more time and energy to saving the lives of millions threatened by nuclear holocaust? We debate the issue of abortion and yet continue to build weapons with the power to abort a whole generation. The issues of negotiating disarmament may be complex, but the underlying mandate of our Lord is very simple, very clear: Choose life. I go to Amsterdam to choose life."
Leaving the bus and joining the swelling crowds streaming toward the demonstration site, I was reminded of those Advent verses from Luke's Gospel that describe how a decree went out through all the land for all to be registered. These people coming from every Dutch village and town were also responding to a decree that a foreign power sought to impose on them. The difference was that, unlike the citizens of Judea who complied, these pilgrims were coming to Amsterdam to register their opposition.
Walking through the streets of Amsterdam, I realized that I had been infected with Hollanditis, the anti-nuclear mood which Pentagon officials consider a malignant disease, but which on a day like November 21 was so unmistakably a contagion of hope. And I thought of those words spoken to me some days earlier: "That is what this movement is all about--ordinary people re-discovering the power to make peace a reality."
Indeed, that is what Hollanditis and November 21 in Amsterdam are about. Two hundred people from Beijum, 15,000 from Groningen, 400,000 in all, daring to believe that it is not too late, that the monstrous machinery of death has not the last word, that where the power for peacemaking resides is not finally at the negotiating table in Geneva with all its protracted talk, but in the simple, unquenchable hope of common people who say yes, once more, to life.
Melanie Morrison was a minister of the United Church of Christ, a contributing editor for Sojourners and studying theology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands when this article appeared.
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