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Collective. KabouterKrant.

(Amsterdam): Oranje Vrijstaat, 1970 – 1971. Broadside newspapers. Issues 1-12 all published together with Kabouter Boodschap and Kabouterkrant Extra. A complete run of the publications issued by the Kabouters, (Dutch for “Gnomes”), a Dutch anarchist group founded by Roel van Duijn in 1970. The Kabouters were an offshoot of Provo’s environmental White Plans and they proposed “Groene Plannen” (“Green Plans”), which included the proposals to have plants growing in boxes on top of cars and, if possible, to have the automobiles drive on sunken roadways so that pedestrians would only see a procession of moving greenery. They launched a ludic electoral campaign that included many acts of mass absurdism and civil disobedience, non-violent sabotage, and symbolic, Utopian inversion/subversion in the Netherlands. An ideologically heterogeneous, loosely organized anarchist/environmental movement, the Kabouters were unified in their opposition to the Dutch capitalist, social-democratic system and its attendant paradigms, symbols, and rituals. They referred to their counter-institutions and people's meetings as the organs of the Orange Free State, a mythical, mystical, New Left fantasy-nation that had formed, and was meant to flourish, within the rotting body of the corrupt capitalist state. Ironically, though the movement was anti-parliamentarian, their electoral campaigns and their overall history were completely intertwined. In fact, the ebb and flow of Kabouter unity, power, and grassroots energy were reflected by their various showings at the polls. Though the Kabouters' accomplishments included the creation of an impressive array of non-electoral, grassroots, and egalitarian counter-institutions, the movement began with a municipal electoral campaign and ended with a campaign for the national parliament. All issues in very good condition, light crease where once folded in middle. Complete runs of this short-lived, but important countercultural publication are quite scarce.

$700.00

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