I’ve started a new Dutch language blog. I’m mentioning it here mostly so Google will find it and start indexing it. I don’t think it’s going to be of great interest to many people here, even those of you who speak Dutch. You’re all welcome to stop by of course, and Google translate may be enough for you to read and understand most of it.
What’s the reason for this blog?
Since you asked, let me try to explain…
My community garden, called ‘Vlijtigveld’ (meaning busy or diligent field), has a racist and not very smart management. The name really says it all, almost in a comical way. What’s an organic gardener like me doing trying to have a lazy no-dig garden, with mulch to control weeds, in a place where we’re all supposed to be working hard??
Anyway, for 4 years now I’ve been trying to ignore the fact the management doesn’t recognize any gardening technique that’s not heavily reliant on sprays or chemical fertilizers, or any gardener that doesn’t control weeds by killing them with chemical warfare or pulling them out one at a time.
I’ve also been trying to ignore the garden management as they walk around telling any one who’ll listen about how they don’t let in any more Turkish gardeners, or how 60% of the gardeners have to be Dutch or the foreigners will get voting rights. It’s us against them, don’t you know! In this time I’ve been pretending not to notice our perimeter security fence, designed with a weak side, meaning whenever there is a break-in and a garden is vandalized, it will almost certainly belong to a Muslim gardener.
Literally, all our gardens are assigned based on ethnic origin, and the layout of the complex is planned on this basis. Because the management doesn’t want any of us teaming up against them, they avoid assigning friends adjacent gardens, and try to promote friction by assigning nearby gardens to people of conflicting ethnic origins.
Anyway, as we can all imagine, this isn’t working very well. It’s not working because it’s as much comical as anything else. The gardeners are all mostly getting along and becoming friends. The management has mostly lost the respect of everyone, Dutch and foreign. This has recently prompted a great deal of hostility from the management, gardeners are now frequently harassed by the management and often threatened with the loss of their gardens. Our drinking water was recently cut off! You’d think it was war.
So, I really don’t have the time or inclination to try to solve all the problems of our community gardens. I have no desire to join the management and try to ‘fix it’ from within. Other than a little passive aggressiveness, I’ve really been trying to keep my head down.
I want the other gardeners to get together and decide what kind of community gardens they want to have, work for it themselves, possibly with my help. To that end, I decided to start a blog to provide the gardeners, as well as anyone else with an interest in Vlijtigveld more information. As well as information it will have the views of myself, the sole American gardener. I think mostly the blog will have a lot of detailed information about how the rules are constructed, and how Dutch law might provide some help. I’ve exchanged some letters with the garden management, and I intend to publish these. It’s probably not going to make a lot of sense to most readers, but if you’re interested you’re welcome!
Luck was with me when I went searching for a domain name for this new blog. ‘Their’ domain name, vlijtigveld.nl was not in use and available for registration, so this blog is at http://vlijtigveld.nl The management are not really Internet people, so it may be some time before they notice the existence of the blog…
Mixing people up is usually the best way of defusing potential tensions; they get to know each other and realise that the ‘differences’ don’t matter so much after all. You get a few exceptions, when individuals are afraid to change. If you want real tension, you have to segregate people, so the other becomes the ‘unknown’, and can easily be portrayed asa threat.
It’s true at our gardens! Where there’s more integration, there are fewer tensions.
It’s my belief and hope that not many of our gardeners are actually in favor of segregation, but I don’t actually know. Certainly not many people step forward and voice their support for the management in general.
The main problem is we have to have some kind of management, or the city will find some outsiders to do the job, or merge us with another nearby complex. There are no obvious alternatives within our gardeners, and as much as no one is offering their support for the management, not many people are calling for it’s removal either.
Several people have said they want to see me in the management, but this isn’t an option.
Otherwise, I wish I knew what the other gardeners want and what the solution really is…