Christmas Message

We were sixteen and idealists. The world had to be made a better one and because the mindless masses and the detestable bourgeois didn't do it, it was up to us. We joined the Action Group for Peace and Development. Together with, amongst others, a vicar, a high ranking civil servant, the unavoidable feminist and a number of trade unionists.

We decided to use a heavy weapon: we'd go on a hunger strike during Christmas, a great time for revelling. That would shock the world. That would make the world a lot better. It could even be the beginning of the end of international, oil dominated capitalism. We were the vanguard that was to lead the battle from a tent in the town square. Strategically situated in the centre, close to a public urinal and a few pubs. The world would be castigated from Christmas Eve until five o'clock on Boxing Day. After that we were to have our Christmas dinner.

During the icy night the world hit back. While we were trying to keep warm in our sleeping bags, me secretly eating chocolates, an endless procession of noisily drunk townspeople passed by, often shouting curses that had little to do with the idea of Christmas. During the day the square was the desolate umbilicus of the Bible Belt. Quarter of an hour after we left, the reporter of the local rag came round, someone told us later.

Photo: archive Kees Klok