Contribution of the New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Comrades,

A few months ago, the Dutch government called on the people to purchase an emergency kit. According to the statement published by the Ministry of Justice and Safety, this is necessary because of the increased threat of war, but also the thread of large-scale floods, a pandemic or breakdown of critical infrastructure. Indeed, recent national and international developments increase the risks of natural and technological disasters.The protection of the people from such disasters is therefore a topical matter.Especially since recent incidents point at structural shortcomings. 

There is sufficient reason for us to worry.

Due to the changing climate, droughts have become a recurring phenomenon in the Netherlands. The past years we have regularly experienced water shortages in the summer months, with serious consequences for farming and inland shipping. Wildfires have become more frequent and severe, such as the destructive wildfire near Ede a few days ago, sparked by an army drill. Extreme temperatures cause hundreds of deaths among mainly the elderly and physically weak every year.

At the same time,we are also faced with more extreme rainfall and storms, even with dangerous landspouts or katabatic winds.The increased intensity of rainfall poses a serious challenge, especially as the dry soil cannot properly absorb the water. The catastrophic floods of July 2021, which cost the lives of hundreds of people in Germany and Belgium, caused huge destruction to homes and infrastructure in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is a ticking timebomb when it comes to floodings. The Netherlands is situated at the meeting point of multiple rivers and the ocean. With storms and high tides, 60% of the land area – and the most populated part at that – is at risk of flooding. 26% of the Netherlands is situated below sealevel with only dikes and pumps standing between people’s homes and the ocean.

In the North drilling for natural gas has caused earthquakes and instability issues for buildings, mainly housing, causing them to risk collapse and become unlivable. The people of Groningen have fought long against the Dutch government and the oil company NAM which share the profits of the gas exploitation in Groningen. While the biggest drill location has been paused, there are still many areas across the country where oil and gas is won directly underneath populated areas. In other areas, instability issues are also caused on a huge scale because of subsidence due to lowering groundwater levels.

In the health sector, we are now prepared even less for epidemics, because there are not enough beds, nor enough health workers due to budget cuts, commercialisation, and unmanagable working conditions. The far-right government has even announced that it will scrap the 300 million budget created for ‘pandemic preparation’ after the covid pandemic.

Besides the increases in natural disasters, come the disasters on infrastructure. The extensive rail network in our country has many unguarded or otherwise unsafe crossings, leading to 34 accidents with 12 deaths in 2024 alone. In 2023, a freight and a passenger train derailed after colliding with a crane. Causing the death of the crane worker, and 30 injured. Four private companies where involved in this accident , none of which were found guilty.

Accordingly, there are serious worries regarding safety with modes of transportation, and other infrastructure (even including nuclear power plants), where privatization and commercialization have left people’s safety in the hands of private companies that aim to make profit and regard safety measures as an ‘expense’ that hinders their profits.

All these and many other dangers are further increased and complicated by developments such as the transition to a war economy, the intensifying international tensions and warmongering, the changing climate and the reactionary reorganisations in the political system.

We must be wary however when our governments or the EU speak about so-called ‘natural’ disasters.The government and EU tend to ascribe disasters to natural causes, hiding their responsibility in prevention and preparation.

After every flood, earthquake or accident the government officials declare thatthere is nothing we could have done, and even that we should get used to such disasters occurring more frequently.For example, it is from that point of view that bourgeois institutions have recently shifted their narrative about climate change to so-called ‘climate adaptation’. The aim is to normalise such catastrophes in the consciousness of the people. At an ideological level, this is linked to preparing the people on conditions of war – as is explicitly indicated in recent statements by the government.

In face of these developments, the government calls on the people to purchase an emergency kit. This clearly shows what ‘civil protection’ entail for the governments and EU: everyone should save themselves. In capitalism, the policy for civil protection is based on a cost benefit analysis. For the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state, the protection of the people is an expense. They prefer to spend on the needs of NATO or subsidising companies for the transition to the war economy.

The victim of this policy is the working class and popular strata. It is the health and safety of the working-class people that is at risk due to the consequences of climate change and other disasters.

It is important for the workers movement to understand and challenge the underlying assumptions, that disaster strikes at random, that disasters are purely natural phenomena, that the protection of the people is an expense. Across Europe and the rest of the world we have seen many terrifying events both natural and technological. Floods, train crashes, collapsing buildings and bridges and many more. In many cases they were preventable to varying degrees, but the narrative of bourgeois governments and the EU seek to distract from this.

When technological or infrastructural disaster strikes it is unfortunately no exception if it is soon revealed that it could have been prevented if not for overdue maintenance or due to budget cuts or understaffing. And all too often we will hear promises about better safety mechanisms, warning systems and technological solutions, without addressing the actual causes. The profit motive and hence capitalism is at the root of the issues and we must connect this with the consequences which hurt large sections of the working class.

The 1953 North Sea flood is still alive in the memories of the Dutch people. 1.835 deaths, 70.000 evacuees, 47.300 damaged buildings, and 10.000 buildings utterly destroyed. Who helped? Volunteers came from the whole country to help rescue people, make emergency packages and drop them, do reconnaissance, give people shelter, and after the water subseded, volunteers came to clean the rubble left behind. Thousands of labourers and over 4.000 conscripted soldiers rebuilt the dikes within a year. Amateur radio operators formed a voluntary radio network which was the only way of communication within the strikken areas. And many more voluntary initiatives to help rebuild. The working class people did this themselves. It is also only because of this horrible event that the Delta works were created, massive technologically sophisticated infrastructure that has kept us safe from the sea, although experts are now warning that the increased sea levels cannot forever be kept out this way.

Historical experience thus shows that when disaster strikes, the people can only be saved by the people themselves. The organised labour movement has the potential to defend the safety of the people in face of the increased dangers of our time. The workers, especially in sectors that are related to crucial infrastructure and transportation, have the strength to demand measures to prevent and prepare fornatural and technological disasters.

This struggle requires that people reject the normalization of disasters. Instead, struggle for the protection of the people from disasters should aim at a society that can guarantee the safety of the people. This requires the abolition of capitalist private property, which is the root cause of neglecting the safety of the people. In a socialist society, with power in the hands of the working people, the economy can be centrally planned, based not on profit but on the needs of the people to live in a safe and healthy environment.