Mient peace activist Jan Faber remained a reformed child

Peace activist Mient Jan Faber, who died today at the age of 81, was the epitome of a conservative Christian who later turned left. He was such an engaging speaker that those in the Reform milieu could still clearly hear the Reform youth he was before.

In the early 1980s, he was a leading figure in the Church’s peace movement. He was the great man behind the peace demonstrations on the Museumplein in Amsterdam in 1981 and on the Malieveld in The Hague in 1983.

It was a time of immense and sometimes violent fear of nuclear weapons. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States were high. At least a third of the population believed that a devastating nuclear war would break out within ten years.

Many viewed US President Reagan as a culprit, seen by the left as a vigilant happy cowboy. Faber acted as leader of the resistance against nuclear weapons. The now almost forgotten peace activist was seen on television almost every day.

cruise missile

The main protests were against a NATO decision in 1979. NATO decided to deploy 572 medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to the Soviet Union’s deployment of SS-20s. German Chancellor Schmidt, in particular, felt that an answer had to be found for Russian nuclear missiles with a range of up to 5,000 kilometers.

Of the US 572 medium-range missiles, 48 ​​are expected to be deployed in Woensdrecht. Due to resistance from the left-wing opposition and part of the CDA, the cabinet was unable to reach a decision on a placement for years. And that was complicated by the enormous resistance to nuclear weapons that Faber managed to mobilize.

reformer boy

Few knew at the time that Faber was considering entering the Royal Military Academy when he graduated from high school. If he had insisted, Holland might never have heard of him.

He grew up in a reformist family of six children in Coevorden. They went to church twice on Sundays and in the meantime sang psalms at home with the house organ. Mient Jan learned early on in public speaking and debating at the Reform Men’s Association.

He considered becoming a professional soldier because he strongly believed in “God, Holland and Orange”, but continued his mathematics education at the later reformed VU University in Amsterdam. Some of the reform-minded world elites became progressive almost overnight in the 1960s with great compassion for the developing world and the weakest in society. Faber enthusiastically agreed.

IKV

Involved in development cooperation through the Reformed Church Amstelveen. After obtaining his doctorate as a mathematician, he also got a job there. He also started working part-time for the Interreligious Peace Council (IKV). He saw it as “an occasional work”, but remained an extra for decades.

Church life was much more prosperous then than it is today, so the IKV was able to mobilize a large number of people. The IKV penetrated the entire country and was often the first action group in rural municipalities. In 1975, most Reformed and Catholic priests attended the IKV’s annual “peace week”.

“Nuclear Weapons Out of the World”

Faber was still unhappy. He thought it was too mundane. So he came up with a plan to do it in a completely different way. The IKV must focus on a concrete political goal. This led to the campaign with the slogan “Help nuclear weapons out of the world, starting with the Netherlands”.

The idea was that a Dutch attempt at nuclear disarmament could help to reduce mistrust between East and West and thus break the ‘weapons spiral’.

Faber tried to back political parties for the action, urging supporters to form a “core”, working society “from the bottom up”.

“A great call to peace”

The campaign for a nuclear-free Netherlands was widely acclaimed – many municipalities declared themselves ‘nuclear-free’ – but Faber felt that insufficient progress was being made. He was angry that his arguments failed to convince the major political parties. For this reason, he decided that the peace movement should “show its strength” by holding a major demonstration against the NATO decision.

This party managed to convince the PvdA to join, despite accepting NATO’s double decision in forming the second Van Agt cabinet. The scale of the show exceeded all expectations. He did not achieve much politically, however. That is why Faber organized another such show two years later.

More people joined us, but in the end the peace movement lost the war on cruise missiles. In 1985 the cabinet decided to place him. Nuclear weapons never reached Woensdrecht, however, because President Reagan – a criminal in the eyes of Faber and his supporters – soon agreed with Soviet President Gorbachev to destroy all medium-range missiles.

holy book

Faber meanwhile focused on contacts with dissidents in Eastern Europe. He then preferred military intervention against brutal dictators. That is why he supported the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. This caused him to break away from the IKV.

He always continued with reforms: that same year 2003 he told the newspaper Trouw: “After dinner I read a part of the Bible with my wife. Now we are at the prophet Isaiah, ie 56 suras filled with God. It teaches me a lot about the reality in the Middle East. I get my inspiration from this reality.”