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Buy Nothing Day 1997
Action-report from The Netherlands




Report of the actions during Buy Nothing Day (November 29, 1997)

Production: Marta Resink en Dick Verheul

Omslag, Werkplaats voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling

(Omslag, Workshop for Sustainable Development)

Contents
  1. General impression about International Buy Nothing Day
  2. a brief discribtion of local actions in The Netherlands, to give you an impression of what has happened overhere
  3. some results of our media-campaign
  4. a short report about our efforts to 'export' Buy Nothing Day to other European countries and something about (inter)national 'networking'
  5. koopniets.nl

[menu]1. NIET-WINKELDAG 1997: GENERAL IMPRESSION: POSITIVE REACTIONS

All activists who did street-actions on Buy Nothing Day were very enthousiastic about the course of their actions and about the mainly positive reactions from the shoppers. It's striking that many people had already heard something about the phenomenon 'Buy Nothing Day' beforehand. This is probably mainly due to the announcements on the Dutch National Radio.

All actions had a lot of media-covering, both beforehand, during the actions and afterwards. Not only from local journalists, but also from the national media.

Many shoppers who responded to the BND-actions took the oppertunity to expresse their displeasure about the introduction of Shopping-Sundays in The Netherlands. It was the third time BND was celebrated in The Netherlands.

This year's International Buy Nothing Day was much larger then in the years before. In The Netherlands their were actions in at least thirteen towns and cities (last year ten). The actions were implemented by (groups of) people from different backgrounds: students, youngsters, members of the Dutch wing of Friends of the Earth (FOE) and JMA (=Young Environment Activists), members of political parties and progressive churches, peace- and Third World-organisations, some local shops and many not-organised individuals.

Buy Nothing Day is an international day of action with a strong symbolic character. In an increasing number of 'rich' countries all kinds of cheerfull and critical acitons were held to draw the shoppers' attention to the consequences of our consumption-society. Buy Nothing Day origines from Canada, were in 1992 the Day started as a stricty personal action of Ted Dave. Many people responded to the idea. Since than Buy Nothing Day has become a yearly event.

Year by year the International Buy Nothing Day is extending: this year there were actions in fourteen countries (last year seven). Besides Australia, Canada, Great-Britain, New-Zealand, Sweden and the United States, where BND has become a tradition already, 1997's Buy Nothing Day was also celebrated in Belgium, Germany, France, Northern-Ireland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia.

Omslag, Werkplaats voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling ('Breaking Point', workshop for Sustainable Development) introduced Buy Nothing Day ('Niet-Winkeldag') in The Netherlands in 1995. Below you'll find a report of actvities in The Netherlands on November 29th 1997, based upon interviews with local activists.

[menu]2. ACTION REPORTS FROM THE NETHERLANDS

AMSTERDAM - A group of ten young activists (members of JMA) all wearing green butterfly-ties, aired a big balloon at the Dam-square. The long green ribbon, attatched to it was cut into pieces. Each passer-by who promised to behave as a critical consumer, received a small green ribbon to put on his or her coat.
Protestsinger Jos Linnebank performed his specially composed song 'Enough is enough' and other music.

A 'flock of sheep' (members of European Youth Forest Action wearing sheep-masks), infected by the 'more-and-more' virus, walked through Amsterdams' most famous shopping-street: de Kalverstraat.
There were sandwich-boards and leaflets explaining the action. The activists got lots of support and positive reactions. And also lots of media: national and local tv, radio and newspapers. RTL5-tv's evening news bradcasted an extensive item on national tv. The international bookshop Het Fort van Sjakoo was closed all day.

ARNHEM - About ten activists of different ages were present during the whole day in the inter-city. The 'Innercity-choir' was singing about critical consumerism, leaflest were spread, soap-box speeches were held, and people pushing overloaded supermarket-wagons (filled with package) were noticed all over the streets. The were big signs and boards with different slogans. Positive reactions all over. Even a suspicies shopkeeper (asking how long these actions in front of his shop would last) wished the activists succees after having read the leaflet. Members of FOE distributed anti-advertisement stickers. A guided tour along nature in the inner-city completed the day. Members of JMA taped the actions on video.

CAPELLE AAN DE IJSSEL - Four FOE-members were present in the shopping centre. Two of them performed a sketch (based upon a well-known piece of cabaret), while others started conversations with the public. Passers-by received a package filled with 'happiness', containing a small plant-seed, and a small leaflet explaining the purpose of BND. Remarkebely, some people offered money for the 'happiness', which was of course out of the questin, because Happiness is not for sale.

EINDHOVEN - Contrary to other Dutch cities, BND in Eindhoven was held on Sundag 30th, because of Shopping Sunday there. In front of a shopping centre members of GreenLeft had installed a livingroom-scene, where shoppers were invited to sit down and take a rest.
Boxes with happiness and leaflets were spreat and there was a real fortune-teller.

GOUDA - The shoppers in Gouda couldn't avoid the hugh boards that were placed in the middle of the Marketsquare, announcing Buy Nothing Day. Especially the big illustration of a fat man with a sigar and his pointing finger saying 'CONSUME!' drew everyone's atttention. Further on the square: a livingroom-scene, people spreading leaflets and big boards giving background-information. Hundreds of 'Christmas Gift Exemption Vouchers' were distributed. Members of the Gouda LETS-scheme gave information.

GRONINGEN - Members of FOE organized a guided tour for some aliens from Mars. Two of them were dressed up as Martians: green baldheads, dressed up in black-and-silver cloths. The guide explained the beheviour of the shoppers to the aliens: how they like to exchange pieces of paper for all kinds of stuff. The aliens didn't seem to understand that at all and only produced bleeping and whistling noices. Though they were very curious to see what all these people were carrying in their shopping-bags. And as Martians don't know how to behave on Earth they were rather imprudent...
Furthermore the local Third-world shop was closed all day.

HILVERSUM - A group of four (later spontaniously extended to five with an enthousiastic passer-by) were spreading leaflets in the city-centre. They had a table and a chair, above which there was a big banner saying 'ENOUGH'. With chalk the word KONSUMINDER ('consume less') was written on the pavement. Many people asked for an explanation. One of the activists noticed that more men than women responded positively to the action.

LEEUWARDEN - A giant 'Present between Money and Mind' was placed in the middle of the central square, an immens BND-poster stood next to it. Inside the present, people could be informed about an environmentally-sound lifestyle, genetic manipulation and related subjects. At the square, member of Vegan-organisations, FOE and the local Agenda-21 platform held street-questionnairs. Hundreds of children received a 'box with happiness' from the city's mascot 'Minne the Lion'. (Three people were busy whole day producing these boxes!). The regional tv-station held street-interviews, which showed that many people had understood what it was all about.

LEIDEN - Eight activists, dressed up as animals (a frogg, a rat, monkeys, beatles and hedgehogs) walked through the main street, spreading leaflets. Also the very real looking livingroom-scene caught a lot of attention. Many people took a seat and drank a cup of tea or a cup of pumpkinsoup. Some of them were realy perplexed that it was all for free and that they could even take a small box of happiness. Inside the box was a leaflet with addresses of ethical shops in town, and some incense. Members of LETS-Leiden gave information about their system of 'Getting rich without money'.

MAASTRICHT - The first Maastricht Buy Nothing Day was a stunning success. It was the first action of the brand new FOE-group, they permormed their action together with members of JMA.
Four very unhappy-looking consumers, their bodies fully covered with advertisements and commercials, dragging very heavy shopping-bags, and tied to each-others with a rope, were moving through the streets. Around them some well-tempered 'liberated consumers' carriyng sandwichboards and signs, were spreading leaflets and talking with the shopping-audiance. This rather confrontating action gained a lot of sympathy. The regional tv-station, interviewing passers-by, could only registrar positive responds.
A Belgium team of video-students taped the actions as a part of their final examination (a video about the influence of commercials).

NIJMEGEN - Six (young) activists of JMA installed themselves in the shopping-centre. At first they were sent away, however after some discussions they were tolerated in a small corner, which appeared to be a very crowded one, were many people were passing by. Seated in their 'lazy chairs' the No-Shoppers enjoyed their rest, meanwhile playing a game of Triviant. Hundreds of people stopped to have a look and to ask for the meaning of this. They received a 'box of happiness' and the fortune-teller could see that 'everyting you really need will come to you by itself'.

The livingroom-scene at some other place in the city looked very real. Five activists, from the local recycle-shop and from the Environment-centre, invited the passers-by to join them for a cup of coffee. The boards saying: 'Do you really need everything that you buy?', Is your old stuff really finished?' and 'Beautifull old is not ugly', gained a lot of agreements.

The local Greens had placed a stall, were people could exchange their redundant old Santa-gifts for 'new' ones, so that they could save themselves from buying something new (saving raw materials, energy and money!). Early in the morming already people came to bring bags full of stuff, which later on found new owners. There were much more things being brought than taken. Especially elder people liked this action. This activity had been announced in the local papers beforehand.

Furthermore recycleshop Basta had put a symbolic heap of waste in front of their door, where people had to walk over. And bookshop Assata was closed whole day.

UTRECHT - Eight members of Dwars (GreenLeft-youth) and five FOE- ers did the third Utrecht BND-action: they put a lot of houshold-stuff (couches, and even an old computer and a vacuumcleaner) close to the entrance of the biggest shopping-mall. It took half of the street.. They placed signes and were spreading leaflets explaining the meaning of Buy Nothing Day, the (mis-)use of raw materials. There were discussions about development-policy and the need to limit economic growth. Inside the shopping-mall there was an FOE-exhibition about raw materials.
Activists were spreading Gift Exemption Vouchers (which were very popular) and 'boxes with happiness'.
The activists felt rather overwhelmed by the extensive attention both from the shoppers and from the many journalists (many from national newspapers).

WAGENINGEN - Not less then three music-groups were performing songs about (anti-)consumerism, environment and other related items in the mainstreett: The 1st May-choir, Alkmaars Street-orchestra and action-choir Walking Fire. They were singing for several hours and they attracked a lot of audiance. Especially the song 'We want more' was a big success (because it has a simple text and an easy melody?..)

[menu]3. SOME RESULTS OF OUR MEDIA-CAMPAIGN

On November 29th - Buy Nothing Day in Holland - the 12 o'clock Dutch National Radionews announced: 'To day is International Buy Nothing Day!', followed by very well background information. An hour later they even gave more detailed information about the actions in The Netherlands and in other countries. They noticed that BND is extending year-by-year.

We couldn't have dreamed that this could happen: the National Radio announcing Buy Nothing Day, and - thus - in fact calling up for action.
We were the more surprised, because they didn't even check this with us beforehand, which means that Buy Nothing Day has become serious important national news.

This year - again - Buy Nothing Day could rejoice in extensive attention from the media. From June on, we sent out press-releases in Dutch and English to many quarterly magazines. This resulted in many pre-publications and announcements in very different magazines.

In October and November we released several press-releases. From November the number of reactions increased day by day. There were many requests from local newspapers and regional radio-station, asking us what would happen in their regions. Those journalists we refered as much as possible to local organisors. That is why we haven't the slightest idea about what has all been written and broadcasted beforehand.

Members of Omslag gave interviews about the background and the international context of Buy Nothing Day to the following media:

We had interviews with some freelance-journalists, writing articles for national magazins and newspapers.
The two most important Dutch news-agencies (ANP and GPD) transfered the Buy Nothing Day news to the Dutch media several times.
Very remarkable was an interview in the magazin Distrifood, THE magazin for the Dutch supermarkt- and foodshop owners.

On November 28th, Dick Verheul of Omslag was a quest in the popular national tv-programm Peter Jan Rens Late Night (RTL-4). The BND-promotion-spot (produced by The Media Foundation) was broadcasted with Dutch sub-titles!
Marta Resink gave an interview on the Dutch Worldradio-Broadcast.

As a result of the 'official' announcements (Friday on tv and Saturday on the national radio) the people in the streets took the Buy Nothing Day-actions far more serious!! About half of the shoppers had already heard something about Buy Nothing Day through the media. This was confirmed by the local activists.
Some people told that they could remember having seen 'something' about Buy Nothing Day on BBC-tv.

On November 29th, the 19:00 o'clock RTL-5 national TV-news broadcasted an extensive report from the BND-actions in Amsterdam, including street-interviews with shoppers, who expressed very positively about the action.

Members of Omslag also gave some interviews to national Belgium newspapers (De Morgen, De Standaard and Het Belang van Limburg) and two live-interviews on Belgium national Radio (BRTN1).

Right now (sunday-evening) we can hardly wait to see what the Monday-morning newspapers will write about Buy Nothing Day..

[menu]4. EUROPEAN BROADENING AND (INTER)NATIONAL NETWORKING

More then ever before, we used e-mail and Internet-facilities to communicate with groups and individuals in and outside the Netherlands, in the rest of Europe, and worldwide. Maybe that is why groups in other countries responded to the international press-releases and action appeals to broaden Buy Nothing Day througout Europe. It gave great results (see the survey of worldwide activities, available on our web-site).

We made (new) contacts in Belgium, Germany, France, Norway, Poland and Slovenia, which resulted into BND-activities.
Reactions from English-speaking countries we refered as much as possible to the British organisation Enough! and to The Media Foundation in Canada.

E-mail was also the main-communication channel with our colleque organisors in Australia, Canada, Great-Britain and New-Zealand.

[menu]5. koopniets.nl

In the beginning of November we came to an intensive co-operation with Boyd Noorda of Socia Media in The Hague. Boyd took the initiative to put up a special web-site about - first only the Dutch, but later on also the International - Buy Nothing Day.
Relevant information about the International Buy Nothing Day in Dutch, as well as in English and in German, can now be found at: koopniets.nl [you are already there now, Ed.]
From this web-site, links can be made to the Buy Nothing Day-web sites of groups in other countries.

From now on Omslag will keep the web-site information about Buy Nothing Day up-to-date. We will keep adding new and interesting background information, so everybody can be well informed at any time of day.
Because: Each Day Can Be Your Private Buy Nothing Day!

Omslag - Werkplaats voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling -

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