Politicking with straight talk
Sometimes, I think Dutch politicians, especially those who have had the providence of patronage to become ministers are such touchy people who assume airs and have delusions of grandeur.
They are so quick to take offence, go to court and make so much about they possibly questionable honour, integrity and definite lack of charisma.
The Prime Minister for example has been to court at least four times for situations where he has been parodied as a porn star or a person snatching a feeder from a baby – we cannot explore satire, talk less ridicule without some cellophane skinned lion heart boo-hooing back to mummy.
These people really need to be brought back down to earth, they are no demigods of any particular status, nor are they any more special than the man in the street, the opportunity to serve the people is becoming the opportunity to play feudal lord over others – it is patently un-Dutch and nowhere near the egalitarian society we are supposed to espouse.
So, one of the so many stuck-up ministers comes to the rescue of an even more stuck-up minister – my blog favourite Mrs. Verdonk or Lady Oddjob as she is known as on my blog.
She happened to find herself in a situation where she was accused of taking political advantage of the murder of the film producer Theo van Gogh – well, they all did and anyone who says they did not is a bare-faced liar.
Then someone else suggested the deportation of failed asylum seekers as akin to Nazi war crimes – now, I would be hurt if anyone said my actions could be compared to the Nazis.
However, this is how it pans out, Mrs Verdonk is demanding an apology for the politicking allegation but none for the Nazi smear.
Let s look at that again, the politicking allegation can from an alderman, an elected council official, but the Nazi jibe came from a member of parliament.
The Member of Parliament is absolved because of her status for the alderman is supposedly infra dignitatem – the cheek of it all.
It goes without saying that the alderman – Ahmed Aboutaleb is probably one of the best integrated Muslims in the Netherlands; well educated with sharp and commonsense opinions – that obviously cannot be the reason why he is under fire.
What is annoying is the fact that the Dutch are known to be straight talkers, but it appears some people only allow straight talking if they can talk down to people but we all should hands behind our backs, heads bowed step backwards mouthing ‘Yes ma’am.
Web logs by Akin Akintayo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands License.