IJzerbedevaart
The IJzerbedevaart is a pilgrimage that is held once a year in the West Flemish city of Diksmuide . The time is always the last Sunday in August. It commemorates the dead of the First World War and is also an important rally for the Flemish Movement .
At times, the originally Catholic-conservative event developed into a meeting of European right-wing extremists. In the 1990s, the right-wing nationalist wing of the IJzerbedevaart organizers broke with the moderate, and the right-wing nationalists associated with Vlaams Belang have been organizing their own meeting since then.
The IJzerbedevaartcomité itself strives for a broader social opening and distances itself from violence and radicalism. The number of participants is falling sharply; While there were around ten thousand participants in the 1990s, a few thousand are now normal. The Belgian De Standaard described the 2009 event as a mixture of pacifist commemoration and Flemish demonstration with singing and speeches, a fair, a hike to historical heritage, rafting and running. Many seniors are present.
history
Origin and Flemish Movement
The IJzerbedevaart, named after the nearby river Yser (Dutch IJzer), first took place in Steenkerke in 1920 . They made a pilgrimage to the grave of the fallen artist Joe English . In the following years they moved to other places, since 1925 the pilgrimages have always taken place in Diksmuide. Many soldiers died there in the war. The organizer was and is still today the IJzerbedevaartcomité . In the period up to 1940 the IJzerbedevaart became the most important expression of the Flemish movement. The IJzertoren was inaugurated in 1930.
During World War II there were no mass pilgrimages, only closed rallies that could be heard over the radio. In 1946 strangers blew up the IJzertoren, suspected among other things Belgian nationalists who wanted to destroy a symbol of Flemish independence. The tower was rebuilt in a new form.
Right-wing extremist participation
Right-wing extremists have been arriving since the 1970s and increasingly the 1980s , including from other European countries. A Spiegel editor wrote in 1982 about the “Nazi International in Diksmuide, Belgium” and reported on xenophobic sayings and symbols as well as from a book table of the NPD : “In Diksmuide, the International of the ostracized, but still just legal rights, meets once a year democratic opposition is too decadent and bombing is too dangerous. ”On the other hand, it is dangerous to speak French there.
In 1994 there was a small question in the Bundestag by MP Ulla Jelpke and the PDS / Linke Liste group entitled "Three-day meeting of European neo-fascist organizations in Diksmuide (Belgium)", which was answered on October 10, 1994. On November 28, 2019, the subheading is in a time items, the journalists Christian Fuchs , Astrid Geisler , Anton Maegerle and Tilman Steffen, about the former neo-Nazi and today Brandenburg AFD chairpersons Andreas Kalbitz , "A young man in the crowd in Diksmuide" . The article is about the participation of the neo-Nazi Andreas Kalbitz at the IJzerbedevaart 1994.
In 1995, on the eve of the IJzerbedevaart, there was a battle between three hundred neo-Nazis (including two hundred foreigners) and the police, with several injured. Right-wing extremist symbols and propaganda materials were confiscated. On the Bedevaart itself, the chairman of the IJzerbedevaartcomité Lionel Vandenberghe distanced himself from the radicals in front of about ten thousand participants. These in turn, almost four thousand people, gathered on the other bank of the Yser, across from the meadow of the IJzerbedevaart.
In 1996, supporters of the Vlaams Blok stormed the podium during the rally, leading to the break of the IJzerbedevaartcomités with the right wing. He had previously protested against the opening of the event to a wider audience with concerts.
On August 28, 2000, the newspaper Die Welt published the article A High Mass for Flemish Nationalism by Andreas Middel, who with the sentence "The annual Ijser pilgrimage in Belgium is supposed to honor the dead of the First World War - and has become a Mecca for right-wing extremists " begins.
Opening after the 1990s
According to a newspaper, when the Vlaams Blok stayed away in 2002, the police counted five thousand participants and the IJzerbedevaartcomité seven to eight thousand. Four hundred of the right-wing radicals on the other bank of the Yser; this meeting has been established since 2003 under the name IJzerwake .
Since 2000 the IJzerbedevaart has been opening up to the Flemings of foreign origin. In 2006, Mohammed El Omari spoke at the event . In 2008 the daily program was expanded: activities at various locations, bike tours, hikes, street theater and vintage aircraft should again attract more people to the IJzerbedevaart. The Eucharist is also celebrated. Several thousand people came; in the past it had been tens of thousands. In addition to the Prime Minister of the Flemish Region , politicians from the Christian Democrats and the two liberal-national parties, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie and Sociaal-liberale Partij, will speak .
The IJzerbedevaartcomité has supported the demand for an independent Flanders as a member of the European Union since 2004 ; previously it only required increased autonomy.
Ideas and symbols
The basic idea of the IJzerbedevaart was the memory of the fate of the Flemish soldiers who were badly treated by their French-speaking officers. Therefore, the memory of the dead of the First World War is strongly linked to the pursuit of Flemish independence. The IJzerbedevaart is thus not only one of the few still existing commemorative events of the First World War: Unusually, a nationalist movement has developed not militarist but pacifist.
At the top of the IJzertoren stands AVV - VVK as an abbreviation for Alles voor Vlaanderen - Vlaanderen voor Kristus . On the west side, Never Again War can be read in four languages. The motto of the IJzerbedevaart was also Nooit meer Oorlog, Zelfbestuur en Godsvrede (No more war, autonomy and God's peace) and later Vrede, Vrijheid en Verdraagzaamheid (Peace, Freedom and Tolerance).
The annual mottos reflect the nationalist-pacifist ambivalence of the meeting, but also the contemporary historical emphasis. Some examples:
- 1920: Homage to Joe English
- 1925: To Flanders' field of death
- 1939: Here is our blood, when is our right?
- 1962: Flanders first
- 1967: Peace among the people, the peoples, the Flemings
- 1975: The Low Countries, our fatherland
- 1984: People, become a state
- 1987: Flanders one, Flanders first
- 2000: Flemish State - at home in the world
- 2002: Shaping the future together
- 2003: A colorful Flanders in a colorful world
- 2009: Flanders is for everyone
In his opening speech in 2008, the chairman of the IJzerbedevaartcomité, Walter Baeten , discussed current military conflicts around the world and, with a view to the Georgian conflict, spoke of the way in which great powers dealt with other peoples' right to self-determination. He condemned the production and distribution of weapons and called for a generous asylum policy in Europe. Belgium should withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan.
Domestically, he went into the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde constituency , which should be divided in order to counter an alleged expansion strategy of the French speakers. The project of a federal Belgium failed, today's Belgium must be thoroughly reformed or dissolved.
See also
Web links
- IJzerbedevaartcomité web site , multilingual
Individual evidence
- ↑ De Standaard: De IJzerbedevaart , last seen on December 30, 2009.
- ^ "Worldwide Teutonic Unity" Der Spiegel March 30, 1981
- ↑ Der Spiegel: De Duitse Kamaraden zijn al bezopen of July 12, 1982, last seen on December 30, 2009.
- ↑ Answer of the Federal Government to the Small Inquiry ... October 10, 1994
- ↑ Andreas Kalbitz: The right-outside support of the AfD Page 2/3: A young man in the crowd in Diksmuide
- ↑ Volkskrant: IJzerbedevaart ontaardt in rellen en verdeeldheid , August 28, 1995, last seen on December 30, 2009.
- ^ A high mass for Flemish nationalism , by Andreas Middel, Die Welt August 28, 2000
- ^ Het Belang van Limburg: IJzerbedevaart zonder Vlaamd Blok , last seen on December 30, 2009.
- ↑ De Morgen: Verruimde IJzerbedevaart in Diksmuide van start , last seen on December 30, 2009.
- ↑ IJzertoren.org , last seen on December 30 of 2009.
- ↑ IJzertoren.org , last seen on December 30 of 2009.
- ↑ 81st IJzerbedevaart: Toespraak van de voorzitter Walter Baeten , last seen on December 30, 2009.