Roel van Duijn

Roeland Gerrit Hugo (Roel) van Duijn (The Hague, 20 january 1943) is a Dutch politician, political activist and writer. He was a founder of Provo and the Kabouterbeweging. He was alderman for the Political Party Radicals and currently is wardcouncillor for the GreenLeft.

Biography
Van Duijn was born into a anthroposophical family in the Hague. He attended a Montessori Grammar School. Subsequently, he attended the Montessori Lyceum where he attended the Gymnasium, specializing in letters and graduated in 1963. In the Hague he had been active in the peace movement, organizing sitdown demonstrations against the nuclear bomb. He had also been editor for De Vrije Socialist, an anarchist magazine.

After graduation he moved to Amsterdam to study political science and history, he later turned to law. In 1965 he was one of the founders of the anarchist counter-culture Provo movement. In 1969 he was elected into the Amsterdam municipal council for the movement. In 1969 he founded the Green counter-culture Kaboutermovement and was involved in the Orange Free State. On April 17, 1970 he was shortly abducted by rightwing radical Joop Baank, but he did not inform the police authorities afterwards.

In 1973 he became a member of the progressive political party Political Party Radicals. In 1974 he became Amsterdam alderman for the party in 1974. He refused an official car, but instead took an official bike. In February 15 1975 a bomb was placed in the subway station Vensterpolder which was under construction by a group of rightwing radicals including Baank. The authorities assumed leftwing squatters to have placed the bomb and Van Duijn was the only member of the local government who refused to sign a statement blaming them. His period as alderman ended prematurely in January 1976. During his period as alderman he took several initiatives, for the use of sustainable energy, a municipal cable network and the municipal television channel (SALTO).

In 1977 he became an organic farmer and started a cheese farm in Veele (municipality of Vlagtwedde) and had two sons. In 1981 he returned to Amsterdam and in 1983 he sold the farm. In 1984 he was candidate for the European Parliament for the Green Progressive Accord, a combined list of PPR, Communist Party Netherlands and the Pacifist Socialist Party. He did not get a seat but joined the parliamentary party as a policy advisor.

He soon became disenchanted with the European Parliament and the PPR. He left the party to join the The Greens, a deep green political party. In 1989 he was their national top candidate, but failed to get a seat. In 1996 he became local councillor (for the second time) for The Greens. In 1999 he became a provincial councillor in North Holland. In 2001 he joined the GreenLeft, a larger green party, which had formed out of the PPR. He had long pled for the merger of The Greens and the GreenLeft. In 2006 he became wardcouncillor for the GreenLeft in Amsterdam Oud Zuid.

Externe link

 * Official site

Roel van Duijn Roel van Duijn