Actor Sieger Sloot has an additional “profession”. He's played Stanley H. in the crime series, among other things, but for the past six months he's also been calling himself a climate activist.
“This is an exciting thing to do. How will people react? Will it get me work? I don't know about the last option, but the risk is worth it to me. Doing nothing is no longer an option. I'm so desperate and so dissatisfied.” With our government's inappropriate climate policy.”
Chained to the plane
He has now been arrested twice while carrying out action with Extinction Rebellion, when he occupied the private airfield at Schiphol and during another action on the A12 motorway. “That was a very big deal to me. I never had any contact with the police, even when I was a teenager.”
He's also noticed: the famous Dutch who are vocal about saying they support climate activism. And he is happy with it.
Slott sums it up over the phone: Internationally known actress Katja Herbers is participating in the demonstrations and recently spoke about it publicly in an interview. Criminal lawyer Benedikt Vik and writer Simon van de Vlugt publicly support the Extinction Rebellion movement online. Singer Merol told a Belgian magazine that she had joined and called on “everyone” to take to the streets.
As singer Abel van Gilswijk recently warned in De Slimste Mens that the “damn climate crisis” is coming and TV presenter (and former forest ranger) Tim Hoogenbusch declared To tweet “a lot” About climate and climate change, whether his followers like it or not.
“I'm not a climate scientist, but I'm concerned,” Hogenbusch says. “Every time we face the facts: extreme cold in the United States, extreme heat here now, and no snow in the Alps. We act as if nothing has happened while we know that the world is going to hell.” “A little bit, but we have to take action much faster,” says Hoogenbusch. He's not an activist, but he describes Extinction Rebellion's existence as “beautiful.”
“Great effect when celebrities speak.”
Spokesman Lucas Winnipes says Extinction Rebellion is not exclusively interested in recruiting well-known figures. “Celebrities don't get VIP treatment with us. We are all affected by the climate crisis. We are a citizens' movement. Dutch celebrities are citizens who are just as worried as others, for example, about the future of their children.”
At the same time, he finds it has a lot of influence when celebrities speak out, because they often have many fans or followers online. Winnips: “I've seen a lot on Twitter that people who read the interview with Katja Herbers are saying: 'I'm in, I like it.'”
“Sometimes in discussions”
Sieger Sloot now also knows the drawbacks. He says he received 400 responses to the tweet earlier in this article, of which 60 to 70 percent were negative. “A lot of people are hoping the cars will keep moving when the next Extinction Rebellion highway blockade comes in. He reported a comment like 'I'll rent a pickup truck and I'll kill you all.'”
So far he's managed to pull it off pretty well. Every now and then he gets into discussions. “But I'm a white, tall, heterosexual man, and I'm less targeted than women or people of color.”
Slott says the way Katja Herbers was treated online went too far. Herbers said candidly in an interview that she struggles with the fact that she believes there should be better climate policy, but she also has to travel to the United States at least twice a year for work.
Sloot describes the reactions that followed as “incredibly terrible.” “That way it will get under your skin.”
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