Protest in Het Mierennest
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Fig. 1. Visitors of the community center brought a banner to a city council meeting to demonstrate against shutting down Het Mierennest. The banner reads: “L.W.O. and the rest, we don’t want to leave Het Mierennest!” – Mark Lamers – Leidsch Dagblad 05-07-2000
In the year 1982, right after the renovation of Het Mierennest, the city of Leiden had to make a lot of budget cuts, which also affected the community centers. Het Mierennest had to suffer the consequences. More and more staff had to be laid off in this period, and so the number of activities had to be cut back. In the introduction of the 1982 edition of the local newspaper Morspraat, it is mentioned that ‘dark clouds are hanging over the community center’.
Bart Brouwer wrote a story about these budget cuts, entitled Haalt Het Mierennest 1986? (Will Het Mierennest make it to 1986?). Board member Ron Horenweg told the following about the budget cuts:
“The municipality is trying to turn Het Mierennest into a monument. A year from now we can say to our children: do you see that pretty building over there? That used to be our community center”
It is a pessimistic view on a building that is beautiful, but without activities. Eventually in 1982, the city fortunately allowed Het Mierennest to stay operational.
But about 17 years later, around the year 2000, the future of the Mierennest was in real danger. In the meantime, the building of the community center had fallen under the management of the Leidsche Welzijnsorganisatie (LWO, Leiden Wellbeing Organization). The LWO was planning on renting out Het Mierennest to Stichting Thuis- en Daklozen (a homeless organization), that would arrange activities for the homeless there. This sudden decision was made after the city had decided on cutting the LWO’s budget with about 650,000 guilders.
The announcement of the community center’s closure came as a great surprise to many of its loyal members. Especially among the elderly, the news came as a shock: they had been visiting the center for years, and it was a place of comfort in their own neighborhood. Many of those people had lived their entire lives in the Transvaal neighborhood and had grown up with the community center. For some of them, participating in activities held at Het Mierennest was their only opportunity for social connection. Not long after the announcement, an action committee was called to life, which made pamphlets to raise awareness for the impending closure of the community center.
Most of the clubs who made use of the community center were allowed to stay a little longer. But in the end, the LWO still wanted the community center to have one main tenant instead of many small clubs. The clubs whose relocation was postponed were happy with the temporary solution, but they were dissatisfied with the process of the meetings:
“In principle, we accept the propositions of the LWO, but deep down we still want to stay in Het Mierennest,” said one of the board members of the baton twirling club The Golden Green Stars in the Leidsch Dagblad; they had been housed in Het Mierennest for 25 years.
Today, the façade of Het Mierennest is still recognizable as the community center it once was, but on the inside, it has changed a lot. The building is currently divided into studios for young people.