In Rotterdam, the second city of The Netherlands, people began to gather in front of the town hall at 6pm. The big crowd varied from supporters of the "left liberal" D66 party to revolutonares — ana everyone in between. The main slogan was "Against war and racism, together for socialism", but others carried banners saying "Stop the Dutch Haider" (a clear reference to Pim Fortuyn, indicating the parallels that many on the left drew with the Austrian neofascist). Other slogans included: "Long live the workers' day" (in Dutch and Arabic, "Stop war for oil and money", "Stop the corporate media campaign against immigrants". "Legalise the Kurdish language in murder. lurkey. There were pictures of Che Guevara and Kurdich Workers' Party president Ocalan, a political prisoner in Turkey while Red flags and Kurdish flags floated together on the breeze. On a truck, a Brazilian percussion band played. When well over a thousand people had gathered, they started to march through the city centre streets. Marchers cheered a construction worker, as constacion tote unons dre stepping up strike action on Earlier that day at a meeting in Amersfoort, Lodewijk de Waal, the National chair of the Dutch trade union federation the FNV, said that they had abandoned Reaction of the Dutch We condemn the murder of Pim Fortuyn. An act of this kind can never be a contribution to achieving the society of solidarity and freedom that we are fighting for.
Now more than ever in the coming days and their previous policy of not allowing illegal immigrant workers to the join the unions me dominee wal trade union leaders used to allow inemserves to de influenced too much by anti illegal immigrant politicians.
On this May Day also, a public opinion poll by national TV showed that 65% of the public in The Netherlands said that the PvdA, (the Dutch Labour party), the biggest party in the Dutch government coalition, should stop drifting toward the political centre and should become a clearly socialist party.
The left and the anti-racist movement in particular will be looking for ways to strengthen those sentiments and build on those developments in the new conditions after Fortun's