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(A statement released afterward by authorities said that the man had “behaved inappropriately” toward a 12-year-old girl in a supermarket United We Stand has switched its focus to gifting hampers to households it and other groups like it have turned their attention making sure their voices are heard And rightly so!” the group wrote on Facebook this month as it shared a poll that showed Wilders’ Freedom Party had increased its lead against Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy “Wilders is the only hope for a better governance of this country.” Sinn Féin surge means new Irish coalition could look very different Voters have delivered a political earthquake that upended decades of 2-party politics Party benefits from a surge in support among voters under 35 Leading parties may struggle to form a majority setting the stage for difficult coalition talks This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Simon Kuper Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox Residents of Oude Pekela © Photographs: Raimond Wouda“In Oude Pekela they know one thing for sure: asylum-seekers are no good,” ran the headline in De Volkskrant The photograph above the piece showed a large who had founded a “citizen guard” to defend little Oude Pekela against dangerous foreigners It sounded like the archetypal story of the populist era Oude (or “Old”) Pekela is a poor village of 8,000 people stuck away in the Dutch north-east the mostly white Pekelders (as the inhabitants are known) were telling the political elite in The Hague that they had had enough of the local asylum centre That’s certainly how the Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders sees it His proposed policies include “zero new asylum-seekers” the closing of all mosques and a ban on sales of the Koran in the first elections in a western country since Donald Trump became US president will probably become the Netherlands’ biggest party is another domino about to fall to nativism the mist rising off the flat meadows is so thick that you cycle around with lights on even in daytime Almost the only pedestrians are the asylum-seekers trudging to and from the cheerless barracks where they live just across the provincial road from the village centre presumably wondering how on earth they ended up here In 2014 the Dutch weekly Elsevier placed Oude Pekela 403rd and last in its ranking of “best municipalities” in the Netherlands It cited the large number of Pekelders on benefits The ranking prompted the Evangelische Omroep (EO), a Dutch broadcaster, to make a documentary billed as “Six Months in the Poorest Village in the Netherlands” The EO focused on a few jobless locals who seemed to spend their days lazing on their sofas smoking who are fed up with other Dutch people stereotyping them as rural savages Ask people from elsewhere in the Netherlands about Oude Pekela and many still spontaneously mention allegations of wide-scale paedophilia perpetrated by people dressed as clowns in the 1980s No crimes were ever discovered, and the police eventually said the stories were mass hysteria The first thing you notice in Oude Pekela is how much richer it looks than poor towns in Britain or France If this is the poorest village in the Netherlands then the Netherlands is in pretty good shape Across the parking lot are the frozen fields of the local football club I visit a jobless single mother named Rianne Kapteijn in her pretty brick house with a garden in a cul-de-sac just off the canal “Me too!” choruses her well-dressed daughter because we can afford everything.” The minimum gross benefit for a single adult in the Netherlands is €266.40 a week more than triple the maximum Jobseeker’s Allowance for a British singleton; Dutch child benefit is higher too On reporting trips to poor towns in northern England I have encountered fierce distrust of the media But everyone I meet in Pekela seems happy to sit down with a journalist often over a cup of the local hemp tea (nothing to do with marijuana they explain) and hold forth in High Dutch it’s partly because it used to be well off People began digging peat out of the ground in this region more than 1,000 years ago Later a local river was reshaped into a canal to transport the peat Ships constructed on the canal sailed to the Baltic and Mediterranean seas Some of the gorgeous mansions that line Pekela’s waterfront were built 200 years ago for ship captains Today you can get a large beautiful house here for less than €200,000 and the size of modern ships outgrew the canal its engineered strawboards were exported around the world Many Pekelder factory- and farmworkers were poorly paid and they rallied behind communist leaders like local boy Fré Meis on the spot where he led a strawboard workers’ strike in 1969 Nearby are Socialist Realist-style statues of workers – one depicting a man in a cap pushing a dog-cart – of the type you might have found in East Germany The centre-left PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid) has been the biggest party in Oude Pekela since 1946 and until the 1980s the Communist party was reliably second Wilders’ PVV finished third here with 14 per cent a local councillor for the far-left Socialistische Partij (SP) insists that Oude Pekela remains one of the Netherlands’ “reddest” villages But the Pekelder strawboard industry died decades ago “There are a lot of people in the shit here,” says Siegers Much of the northern Groningen province suffers from similar neglect but the main effect on the province has been a series of small earthquakes It was largely poverty that prompted Oude Pekela to host an asylum centre – a source of state subsidies and jobs The residential centre opened in spring 2001 Suddenly Africans in long robes were walking through the village For the first time since the Germans invaded in 1940 But the timing was disastrous: months after the centre’s opening the September 11 attacks happened in the US and anti-immigrant populism took off in the Netherlands The Dutch ruling parties had long taken immigration almost for granted; suddenly that consensus crumbled populist Pim Fortuyn emerged as a brand of politician the Netherlands had never seen before He inveighed against elites and multiculturalism Days before the elections in May 2002 he was assassinated by a green activist but his leaderless LPF party got enough votes to enter the Dutch government there was frequent irritation (and the odd fight) between local and refugee youths Boredom is a problem in a village without a cinema or train station A popular view in Oude Pekela held that the asylum-seekers were cosseted by the Dutch state: they always seemed to be getting money from the bank machine on the high street bought brand-name beers in the supermarket notes that most asylum-seekers must have passed through safe but poor eastern European countries on their way here he too would take advantage of the Netherlands’ generous government: “If I go on holiday and I can choose between a two-star and a five-star hotel tensions between Pekelders and asylum-seekers mostly diminished Many new arrivals attended the local school or played in the village’s sports teams after getting permission to live in the Netherlands Pekela’s mayor, Jaap Kuin of the PvdA, says: “It quickly turned out that the culprits were a group of ‘safe-country’ people” – a term used to refer to asylum-seekers from relatively safe regions like the Balkans and north Africa who almost invariably have their asylum applications rejected Pekelders had also complained about asylum-seekers hanging around the local park Kuin says: “It wasn’t accepted that others took over the village and decided what norms and values applied.” In September a regional group called Kameraadschap Noord-Nederland (“Comradeship Northern Netherlands”) appealed on Facebook for a demonstration against Oude Pekela’s asylum centre This was the protest reported by the Volkskrant shaven-headed men seemed to confirm the national stereotype of a savage the majority of demonstrators that day weren’t Pekelders at all but out-of-town supporters of the Kameraadschap – which the Dutch interior minister has described as “an extreme-right group” Mayor Kuin says: “I won’t communicate with them I want nothing to do with the Kameraadschap.” the protesters were playing on genuine discontent During the demonstration a police vehicle keeping watch had to race over to the Jumbo supermarket we can’t keep on like this for much longer.’ Local people who would love to take in a Syrian child Around the same time as the Kameraadschap demo there was a more spontaneous protest by locals fed up with the crime wave These people were what are now known in Dutch political discourse as “boze burgers” – “angry citizens” “That’s the reason I began taking strong measures,” says Kuin “It really was a reflection of the Oude Pekela population.” He asked the COA the government agency responsible for asylum-seekers to remove the troublemakers who had come from so-called safe countries It didn’t want towns across the country picking and choosing who to host So Kuin insisted that the COA let him move 130 of the approximately 330 people in Oude Pekela’s centre (including the small group of troublemakers) to other Dutch asylum centres because the misbehaving group was undermining sympathy for real refugees It’s noteworthy that Kuin was under pressure only from “angry citizens” That’s because there is no organised local PVV the PVV hasn’t yet stood in council elections although it plans to enter the fray next year So far Wilders has preferred to keep personal control of his party rather than turn it into a mass movement That’s why he has chosen to remain the PVV’s only member he controls a Twitter account rather than a party machine Last year’s events in Oude Pekela can read like a standard story of our time: a poor white village tells an out-of-touch elite that (to use the Volkskrant’s phrase) asylum-seekers “are no good” Wilders replaces the communist Fré Meis as the voice of “the people” But this story doesn’t quite fit the facts When a group of Kameraadschap demonstrators in Oude Pekela became national news The awkward fact is – as the Volkskrant’s ombudswoman acknowledged after complaints about the original article – many Pekelders think that helping asylum-seekers is a good thing Kuin’s decision to move the 130 people prompted a counter-demonstration: a protest by angry citizens in support of the asylum centre A couple of dozen locals gathered outside the town hall holding signs that said: “I am ashamed” “Asylum-seekers are welcome” and “Get the culprit Many of the pro-asylum protesters were churchgoers who volunteer at the asylum centre told me the Bible was clear: “You receive a guest bread and bath] so that he can go on again.” He continues: “Our church held an ecumenical service with 200 people to raise money for toys for the asylum centre 15 blackshirts with tattoos and caps got all the attention for their outrage over the centre.” a churchgoer and businessman who lives in the adjoining slightly wealthier village of Nieuwe Pekela says that when he began speaking out for asylum-seekers Langeler once told anti-asylum demonstrators outside the asylum centre: “There’s a 12-year-old boy from Syria inside who walked here alone Do you want to come in and meet him?” To which man!” But Langeler says he can imagine how his opponents felt: “You don’t look inside my house…I have misery too.”  The churches try to do their bit for Pekelders who are struggling though a woman named Ria Grijze admits it is sometimes harder to help them than to help asylum-seekers Maybe they are very embittered and can’t accept something from you Grijze was upset by the anti-asylum demonstrations But her Syrian “buddy” told her: “Don’t get worked up about it In our country and in the asylum centre there are also people who aren’t nice.” Some of Pekela’s asylum-seekers were relieved when the misbehaving “safe-country” youths were moved away the asylum centre has become a central part of their lives One woman I meet had felt useless after her children grew up and left home Volunteering to help asylum-seekers gave her a purpose is grateful that the asylum-seekers “were placed in our path” When a church collected clothes for poor Pekelders and keen to do something other than dwell on their own trauma A number of Muslim asylum-seekers even attend Bible study groups One refugee who came along to church was amazed to see female worshippers wearing short dresses who thinks this kind of cultural immersion can help asylum-seekers integrate in the Netherlands Many Pekelders are quietly accepting of the asylum-seekers a 91-year-old former farmer turned poet and memoirist tells me: “It’s just the development of our time who chairs the village’s entrepreneurs’ society emailed Pekelder shopkeepers to ask whether they had experienced problems with asylum-seekers He showed me the responses of the three who replied: Shopkeeper 1: “Some are nice and some not nice You must treat them as you would want to be treated yourself… One thing is sure they have all experienced something bad: war sometimes ask prices and then leave again… They were often in the park but that didn’t give us trouble Usually it’s Pekelder youth that leave behind lots of rubbish Shopkeeper 3: “I have no troubles either from the asylum centre or from its inhabitants As regards the ‘proletarian shopping’ [theft] by asylum-seekers in the supermarket I don’t think it’s worse than that by some Pekelders.” (The point that some Pekelders cause trouble was made to me by many in the village.)  Yet Zwinderman also knows even well-off locals who are fed up with refugees He tries to describe their feelings: “We work ourselves sick and look at what the state does with our money!”  There are undoubtedly Pekelders who believe refugees should be barred from the Netherlands hoping to give them a voice in this article drew a distinction between undeserving “gelukszoekers” (“seekers of luck happiness”) who ought to be sent back home and “real” asylum-seekers who should be helped worries that immigrant cities like Rotterdam “feel like abroad” She says her hometown in the central Netherlands now has so many “foreigners” that she wouldn’t want to live there She remarks that the Syrian city of Aleppo wasn’t entirely flattened “So you do ask yourself why all these people are here I certainly have an opinion about gold-diggers.”  Kapteijn also volunteers at Pekela’s asylum centre and has taken children from the centre to play at her house She herself had to flee a relationship in South Africa the Wilders admirer who thinks the Netherlands lets in too many people says: “If someone has to flee for political reasons you also want to be able to go somewhere.”  The local distinction between deserving and undeserving asylum-seekers differs from Wilders’ hard line. The Pekelder consensus seems closer to the view of prime minister Mark Rutte, of the centre-right VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie ) party: “Act normally, or get out.”  Most Dutch people seem to have some degree of willingness to take in refugees In a poll carried out by I&O Research and Twente University in 2015 71 per cent of respondents said they would consider an asylum centre in their town “acceptable” 42 per cent said it would be unconditionally acceptable and 29 per cent under certain conditions.)  A trope of populism is that out-of-touch elites ignore the anger of “ordinary people” until it boils over That doesn’t seem to be what has happened in Oude Pekela Kuin spends much of his time trying to find out what local concerns are When Akkerman complains that the council doesn’t listen to Pekelders I remind him that after Kuin became mayor he organised “coffee hours” at which anyone could drop in without an appointment Kuin still offers to meet any Pekelder wanting to talk to him But I have the feeling that it would be more use talking to a wall.” I ask: “Why don’t you try?” to which Akkerman responds: “Why does he need me to tell him what he should do?”  When locals protested against the asylum centre in September the Socialistische Partij – attuned to local feeling – backed Kuin’s decision to relocate the troublemakers Freddie Boon of Pekela’s so-called citizen guard told Dutch TV he supported the move adding: “Some would rather they had all left nobody mentioned any recent incidents with asylum-seekers Akkerman says: “The last few months it’s really quiet.” The citizen guard (I tried several times to contact its founder Röbbecke for an interview Since the asylum centre opened here in 2001 It peaks when there is an incident of violence or misbehaviour and then dissipates whereupon the village gets on with life until the next incident Most Dutch towns with asylum centres seem to cope only 15 per cent of people who lived near one of the centres said they had experienced nuisance or difficulties 49 per cent of people who didn’t live near a centre expected that if they did Things are currently so quiet in Oude Pekela that Kuin says he could do with more asylum-seekers The centre now houses about 200 people but he thinks Pekela could handle 400 – preferably families as there isn’t enough for single youths to do in the village because Turkey did a deal with the EU to stop refugees at its border Last year about 31,200 asylum-seekers and their relatives registered in the Netherlands Now many of the country’s plans for new asylum centres are being scrapped Refugees are an issue in the March elections but probably less than Wilders would have wanted Wilders’ nativist movement is often likened to Brexit and Trump Britain’s Leave movement and the Trump campaign each persuaded about half the electorate whereas Wilders is polling at 20 per cent or under Even if his becomes the largest party as forecast Because of the Netherlands’ system of proportional representation which can only rule effectively if they have more than half the seats in parliament But it’s hard to see who the PVV could go into coalition with Rutte’s VVD – the most rightwing of the mainstream parties – has ruled out a deal Dutch parties usually need to make compromises in order to form coalitions – and Wilders has never shown much interest in compromising It looks more likely that the mainstream parties says he won’t be voting for Wilders in March because he doubts the PVV can get into government Nor is Wilders a thrilling novelty the way Trump and Brexit were The PVV represents the “middle-finger vote” for Pekelders who are fed up with The Hague but he adds that the bigger threat to his own SP party is abstention Wilders claims to speak for excluded Dutch people – in his phrase But the truth is that even in poor Oude Pekela he represents a minority Some Pekelders do think asylum-seekers are “no good” but most hold more positive and nuanced views The new international cliché is that the elite needs to go to places like Oude Pekela to listen to “ordinary people” ABB recently scored a major DC fast charging project for the Dutch company Qbuzz, which introduced 99 all-electric buses in the Netherlands. To support the electrification of just part of the Qbuzz fleet, more than 100 new chargers were installed. Different units are used for overnight charging, depot charging and ultra fast charging at the end of the routes: "ABB has also supplied six HVC-300 Pantograph Down (PD) smart charging solutions for on-route charging as required. These chargers have been installed at locations throughout the regional network around Dordrecht, including Drechtsteden, Alblasserwaard and Vijfheerenlanden. These high-power 300PD bus charger delivers 300kW of charging power and will charge the bus for 3 to 6 minutes, depending on the power the bus needs to finish its route. It is based on Opportunity Charging, a concept for electric bus charging with direct current using a pantograph mounted on the infrastructure. This allows buses to be charged at the end of the line, without impacting the normal operation of the route." The combined power of all those chargers are It might be just the beginning as the Netherlands intends to totally switch to all-electric buses. "To ensure 24-hour availability of the charging infrastructure, ABB solutions benefit from ABB Ability™ connected services, that allow e-mobility charging network operators to perform tasks remotely such as monitoring diagnosis and upgrades, online payments and energy management, while ensuring high levels of safety and availability of the charging service. This minimizes downtime around the clock and keeps running costs low." Frank Muehlon, Head of ABB’s global business for E-Mobility Infrastructure Solutions, said: “We are delighted to have partnered with Qbuzz on these landmark projects. The installation of our high-power and fast chargers will allow efficient and quick overnight charging to help the Netherlands realize its zero-emission vision for its public transport networks, setting a fantastic example to other markets across Europe.” Tim van Twuijver, program manager EV from Qbuzz said: “As an ambitious and innovative player in the Dutch regional mobility market we look to partner with like-minded organizations to realize our ambitions of a sustainable transport future for the Netherlands. ABB was a natural fit for us.” Ionna's EV Charging Network Doubled In Size Last Month Waymo Is Far From Done With The Jaguar I-Pace How The Lucid Gravity Became A Fast-Charging Monster Ford Isn't Slowing Down Mustang Mach-E Production, Despite Tariffs Walmart Opens Up About Its EV Charging Network: Charge Better The 2025 Chevy Silverado EV Work Truck Is America’s New Range King Kia’s Fast Charging Network Just Doubled In Size Photo Donald Trung Quoc Don via Wikimedia CommonsHouse prices fell by an average of €12,000 last year according to new research by the land registry office Kadaster and the CBS statistics agency It was the first annual drop since 2013, and short-lived. House prices have been rising again since last summer Three local authority areas again had an average price of over €1 million – Bloemendaal, Blaricum and Laren but in Pekela, Kerkrade and Heerlen a home would cost on average less than €250,000. In Pekela a semi-detached brick family home of 86 m2 is currently on the market for under €200,000 House prices in the capital fell by an average of €53,000 to €621,000 In The Hague prices fell by an average of €40,000 and in Rotterdam €15,000 The annual figures again emphasis the regional divide Eight of the 10 most expensive places to buy are in Noord-Holland while five of the 10 cheapest are in Groningen and four in Limburg We could not provide the Dutch News service without the generous support of our readers Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day Many thanks to everyone who has donated to DutchNews.nl in recent days We could not provide this service without you Please help us making DutchNews.nl a better read by taking part in a short survey.