Worldlog 30 May 2017 - Main contents

Hundreds of members of the Party for the Animals attended our 24th Congress on Sunday the 21st of May. This first congress was full of celebrations after the fantastic election result. We are growing strongly: in the first six months, we registered 2,000 new members while all other political parties are mainly losing members. I have thanked our members and voters for their boundless dedication. We owe the five seats in the Lower House to all those people who dared to follow their hearts and who continued to commit to their ideals.

I promised everyone at the congress: we will continue to challenge the establishment with our five respectable Lower House seats, even more than ever. We will not turn into a fossil political party. We will need all of you badly over the next period too, because the municipal elections and European elections are on their way. I am looking forward to fight for our ideals!

During the congress, Marjan Minnesma of Urgenda - a foundation that wants to make the Netherlands more sustainable from the bottom up and from a business perspective - gave an inspiring reading about the urgency of the climate crisis. Marjan showed how the Netherlands can make its energy supply more sustainable within 15 years’ time. According to Marjan we must and we are able to do things differently as regards living, transport, production and generating energy. Marjan’s message was ‘making our country more sustainable within 15 years’ time is not only idealistic but also realistic, don’t let them tell you otherwise!’ Politics must wake up. Marjan gave our party a great compliment: “The Party for the Animals is substantially the most sustainable party. That’s why I was delighted to give a reading at your congress.”

We have a pioneering role in the Netherlands but we also play an exemplary role globally. Our success has helped our sister parties in 17 other countries. People are fighting for our ideals, from Sweden to Taiwan and from Brazil to Australia. We are the Netherlands’ most successful export product in the field of political thoughts. We should cherish this and will fight even harder, together with people from different countries, against the injustice that animals, nature, the environment, and our planet are suffering. For example, we recently gave a reading at the London Queen Mary University for political philosophers and sociologists, where I emphasised how important it is to consider the interests of the weak (such as animals) in a democracy.

We were also successful in the Lower House last week: a majority supported our motion where we ordered the Dutch government to ask the Belgian government to close the Tihange nuclear plant. The nuclear plant in the Walloon Tihange is after all seriously obsolete.

Last week, there was also sad news: Roger Moore, known for his role as James Bond, died. He was a great advocate for animal rights and also fought against the use of animals for amusement. About holding orcas in captivity, he spoke the beautiful words: “How much longer must highly intelligent and self-aware animals suffer before we understand that other species are not on this earth for our amusement?”

That’s all for now. Keep inspiring and boosting your environment to make better choices for our planet!

Kind regards,

Marianne