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I'm standing in front of a line of riot cops, arms raised to demonstrate my non-violent intentions, chanting peaceful protest, peaceful protest as their batons twitch menacingly two feet from my face. The 2,000 people around me are doing likewise well, apart from those busy staffing the compost toilets, powering the bicycles that make the microphones work, running the communal kitchen and being interviewed live on the BBC. It must be another climate camp.

When my wife looked at me this past Monday with fear in her eyes and exclaimed. What day is Mother's Day? I had a good chuckle. About once a year we each have that moment: stricken with the thought that we've forgotten Mother's Day and will forever live in bad child purgatory.

I went on the Put People First protest with my Dad, the oldest rocker in town, last month. He turned to me at one point, with genuine surprise in his voice, and said: 'There are loads of young people here!' I wasn’t surprised: I'm young and I was there.

Thirteen years ago, I moved to the Netherlands. I had become yet one more manifestation of the shifting populations of our planet and, unbeknownst to me, the tiny rivulet of my life was about to be drawn irresistibly into a torrent of argument that would course violently through the country. A torrent of culture, race, class and intolerant rage that would briefly grab the world's attention.

Members of citizens’ groups for peace that attempt to bridge the Israeli-Palestinian divide talk with Hadani Ditmars about why working together brings its own rewards.