FROM GOATS TO PRISON…

Interview in the field of Kelbeek with Raf Knops, an environmental activist who, through the struggle in Haren, naturally became involved with the prison issue and became aware of the absurd way it was being managed politically. Or how the natural and the social meet… 

Kairos: So Rafael, what are you doing here? (walking on the field with the goats). 

Raf: « To feed the goats you have to move them around. I try to imitate nature a little bit, so in their natural state, they walk up to 10 km a day. » 

But in the future « prison village », they will be able to circulate inside the village, right? 

« I’m afraid you don’t know this very well, because there’s not going to be a prison village here. » 

What does that mean? 

« Didn’t you ask around? There’s a ZAD (Zone Á Défendre), we’re occupying the land, and we have no intention of letting anything happen here. » 

That’s good, so nothing is done? 

« Yes, the beginning of an ecological farm is happening. » 

Explains…

« In fact, we were always being pestered with  » yeah, guys, what’s your alternative project ». But I say to myself « first there was nature, and it’s the damn humans who made an alternative project to nature ». They hijack the situation, they say « what is your alternative project to prison ».. No! we want the original project: nature. They don’t understand that nature was there before, so we’re going to satisfy them and we’re going to introduce an ecological farm, so we produce something, we can sell something, and then they’re happy, they leave us alone. » 

Do you think they’ll accept it? 

« They have no choice, we’re here first. » 

And explain a little about how you got here. You were sensitive to the prison? 

« I had a vague idea that what was going on in prisons was not really great, and so I had a vague idea that in the Scandinavian countries they had dug a little bit deeper into the issue than we had and came up with more convincing results: there are a lot less recidivism, it costs a lot less to society. I came first for the ecological fight, but with the discussions around the fire, I started to be interested in the prison policy, I read a little, I spoke with a lot of people and then it is completely stupid by the way what they are doing. But if there should be a prison, certainly not a prison of 1200 inmates because it would leave the door wide open to problems, mutinies… first of all they don’t have enough hacks to do the job that should be done in the prisons, there are free cells in the new prisons that have been built in Flanders… » 

So you have linked the prison issue with the ecological struggle? 

« I am always in the ecological struggle, but what is interesting about this ZAD is that there are three struggles compressed in one place: you have the ecological struggle, you have the struggle for the recuperation of agricultural land and against GMOs and everything that is done in industrial agriculture, and then the struggle against the prisons and prison policies. That’s what’s cool and what also drives the debates, there’s a lot of people with different points of view. » 

There are some who have gone the other way, from the fight against prisons to the fight for the environment? 

« Yes, that’s what’s nice. And the road is not yet finished; for example, there is someone who is mainly against prison and, I’m not caricaturing, but he always drinks Coke, and we see him arrive with his bottle of Coke and we say to him « you didn’t understand the schmilblick well ! Right now, gently, we’re trying to push it in what we think is the right direction, and so yeah it’s nice, there are some who are going the other way. » 

Did those who wanted a prison in the first place, but a « small » one, who were afraid that it would create traffic jams… did they widen the problem a little? 

« There may be a few who find what we’re doing sympathetic, they’ve come a long way, but honestly I realized at some point that I was wasting my time trying to convince the population. I’m inspired by the « critical mass » model: if you can convince 10% of the population, you win every time. 50% of the population are sheep that go in the direction of the leaders. So you have a right-wing government, as long as you leave them in front of the TV with their Coke, it’s fine, they will follow. So I forget about quantity and go for quality. » 

So here in the ZAD, there are not many local people? 

« There are a good ten people, but without them we wouldn’t have lasted the winter. I’m thinking of a woman who is here almost every day, who has two children and a husband, so she has enough to do at home, but she chose to help the ZAD. With these people, you change the world. » 

Otherwise, for you, the fight is won? 

« I was there a month after the first occupation, I’ve been there for 6 months now, I’ve seen things change. The energy there is now, it is hyper positive, hyper constructive, we have fantastic human resources and moreover we realize that all the actors involved in the prison world, everyone is against it, except the private companies who will make money: the magistrature is against it, the police union is against it, the city is against it. When you see that and the determination on the ground, this prison is not going to be built! We stood in front of the bulldozers twice: the first time I was alone and so they passed, the second time they had to turn around, and there were police officers present who didn’t even ask us for our identity, that’s saying something. » 

And the bulldozers, who were they? 

« Building Authority subcontractors to fence the lot. » 

No idea what might be going on in the arena of political power? 

« No, that there is no way to know, we don’t know the logic, the agenda, no, so we try to guess. And on their side it’s the same thing, they don’t know what we intend to do. » 

The idea is to do something on the whole surface here? 

« There’s 19 acres, they want to build on 18 and they royally leave us with one acre where they’re going to put three benches and grass, and they call it a park. » 

And the farm project, is there anything already thought of? 

« There are several people who already want to get involved, and we made a text that we presented to the building authority. And basically it was like that before: the part that is not fenced was an agricultural wasteland, there was a farmer who made corn and there were lots of small vegetable gardens. So we’re not really changing much, we’re continuing what’s been done for the last 150 years. » 

It must have cost them a lot of money for these fences? 

« This is, I don’t know…a 50,000 euro job. The other day we saw two people from Basicsthe charming company which concretes the planet, which came to make location and which ran up against a big barrier… we spoke a little with them. By the way, they told us that they subcontracted: so the building authority hires Basics who subcontract to another company to do their work. So Basics is an intermediary that we could avoid, it would cost twice as much. It’s so screwed up on so many levels that it’s just too easy to argue against it. » 

And if the politicians proposed a « good » idea like a « prison farm » with inmates that we would work to make our tomatoes and stuff like that… 

« Yeah, it really stinks of the American system, because if you continue the logic you’re saying the more criminals the better, because they’re free or almost free workers. » 

Interview by A.P., March 2015