Farmers face calls from veterans to raise flags correctly on May 4

Flag flying upside down in Lekkerkerk in 2022. Photo: cakefoto via Depositphotos

Relatives of the fallen soldiers called the Dutch peasant group rude after some of them refused to raise their flags in the right direction on May 4, the day the Dutch commemorate their war dead. criticized.

Since 2019, the inverted tricolor flag with a blue band at the top has become a symbol of farmers’ opposition to the government’s forced buyout plan to reduce nitrogen pollution.

Hundreds of upside-down flags flutter along highways, hang over tractors or hang high during mass protests in The Hague and in the state capital.

But relatives of veterans have called for the flag to be oriented in the right direction or removed on Thursday. This is because the flag is flown at full flag before it is traditionally flown at half-staff for Liberation Day on May 5th.

“My son came home with a flag on his coffin,” says Griese Grunebeek from Winschoten. told RTL Nieuws“When I see an inverted flag, it affects me.” Groenebeek’s son, Henry Hoving, died in July 2016 at the age of 29 while training in Mali.

Her appeal was backed by Caroline van der Plas, leader of the Farmers’ Party BBB, who won the most votes in last month’s state elections after vowing to oppose plans for forced farm purchases.

“This hurts people badly” she said to Hart van Nederland“I like to do my job by asking people to hang flags in the right direction, or at least take them down if they think it’s gone too far.”

But the Farmers Defense Force, one of the largest prominent farmers’ lobby groups, said it was their “constitutional right” to hang the flag in the wrong direction. Seita van Keimpema said, “We want to show that farmers are in a state of emergency.

“Peasants are in trouble, so they hang their flags upside down. You cannot ask them to turn around for even one day. I mean

‘overworked’

FDF Chair Mark van den Oever said the idea was unrealistic for practical reasons. “It’s too much work,” he said.

“Some of our farmers have 300 flags, others have 5,000. To turn them around in one day is too much effort.

But van der Plath believes farmers are resourceful and hard-working enough to find solutions.

“We know it will take a long time to raise the flag differently, but we know that farmers can act very efficiently and get things sorted out very quickly,” she said. .

“I am sure there are groups of farmers, and perhaps even civilians, who understand this call and act on it.”