Introduction

As you could read in the catalog ‘Flying kits with CAESUUR’ on www.caesuur.nu, I invited 20 fellow artists for the idea of 'flying kites with CAESUUR'. On October 20 we gave it a try on the beach in Vlissingen.

The alderman of the city of Flushing [ Vlissingen ] for the Elderly Party 50 Plus, Rens Reijnierse, in a personal capacity visited the presentation on the beach on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Since there was hardly any wind, the kite flying did not went very well, so teamCAESUUR improvised a popup exhibition there and then. Reijnierse tweeted “Kites on the beach. Beautiful autumn day in Vlissingen, no wind, so the kites do not fly Project for Palestine succeeded.”

The local alt right-wing populist party POV – Perspective On Vlissingen immediately grinded:

Dear College of B & W, dear colleagues of the Council

Here is a reaction from the fraction of POV Perspective On Vlissingen in response to reports in the PZC of 21 October last. It concerns the article 'Heavenly Vernissage (sic) for Gaza'.

We quote the initiator according to the PZC: 'When flying kites, you think of children playing. This is not the case in Gaza. A kite is seen as a terrorist weapon by the Israeli army. '

Well, the initiators apparently have completely failed to notice that the kites on the beach are clearly and deliberately a symbol for the kites which have been sent daily from Gaza to Israel with burning objects and explosives for months. These terror pilots seriously endanger the lives of both humans and animals and have destroyed many dozen square kilometers of natural and agricultural land. A kite from Gaza IS a terrorist weapon.

The fraction of POV Perspective On Vlissingen wants to inform you that we are strongly opposing and renouncing such anti-Semitic and politically correct 'art projects' on the Vlissingen bathing beach. We do not wish for a definite Vlissingse support for terrorists, no 'playful' or 'artistic' pilots openly decorated with Nazi symbols.

We are of the opinion that the 'art project' has nothing to do with VVMU. This is public support for anti-Semitism and the glorification of terror. Absolutely inappropriate, totally reprehensible and totally unacceptable.

However, it gets worse. Alderman Reijnierse in all his wisdom last Saturday thought to support this so-called 'vernissage' as witnessed by the following expression on Twitter;

'Kites on the beach. Beautiful autumn day in Vlissingen, no wind, so the pilots do not fly. Project for Palestine succeeded '.

After this reprehensible and open support, the social media almost exploded with rage and from that moment on, to this day, the alderman is the risé of the Netherlands. In our view completely justified. The city of Vlissingen has also suffered enormous damage to her image.

The fraction of POV Perspective On Vlissingen finds the support of a member of the board totally inappropriate, totally reprehensible and completely unacceptable. We find it undesirable that the city of Vlissingen under the guise of an 'art project' publicly pollutes our beaches and smudges them by kites with Nazi symbols and other anti-Semitic expressions.

We express the wish that the municipality of Vlissingen immediately distances itself from the event as it took place last Saturday. Next Thursday, the pilots will apparently air on the beach during a second attempt of the 'art project'. We predict an unprecedented hype on both the social media and the national MSM and that will break the image of Vlissingen down to the ground.

We wish Vlissingen a lot of wisdom.

Pim Crane, Ruud Kleefman

A disturbance at the village pump was born. The ‘explosion’ – mind you, this is Zeeland! - on social media consisted of about 50 eloquent reactions such as puke – posted by ‘end of time Christians’ , all-in Israel defenders and other objective folks, very interested in the facts. Of course, the Israel Lobby immediately took the matter to the next level of agitprop. The CIDI [ Center Information and Documen-tation Israel ] and Jonet.nl posted highly suggestive fake messages on their sites - see the following pages - which were immediately taken over by other Israeli propaganda sites such as The Times of Israel and Stand in the White US. Thanks to the labour by troll journalists such as Cnaan Liphshiz.

As a result, an art project – what about the other 17 kites? - was destroyed in quite a professional way.

Of course I expected a little head wind to be generated by this project. The extent in which politicians reacted surprised me in the sense that I did not expect the Israel Lobby is so effective in intimidating and silencing opposition voices. Where were the proponents of the free word, the defenders of the autonomy of art, the so-called left-wing parties like the Green Party, the Socialist Party, the Labour Party? They let themselves be silenced by an alt-right populist two-man party like the POV and a few fundamental Christians. Too cowardly for words.

This PostScript gives a factual picture of this. In broken English, but still . . .

November 2018 | Hans Overvliet P.P.S. We are granted asylum in Belgium and Nijmegen to fly the kites. We will keep you informed.